initial commit of ebook 18449HEADmain

11 files changed, 56428 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/18449-8.txt b/18449-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1ef2c38
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18449-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,18734 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Treasure of Heaven, by Marie Corelli
+
+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: The Treasure of Heaven
+       A Romance of Riches
+
+Author: Marie Corelli
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2006 [EBook #18449]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TREASURE OF HEAVEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Illustration: Copyright 1906 By Marie Corelli
+Signature: Marie Corelli
+FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN THIS YEAR BY GABELL, LONDON
+
+
+The Treasure Of Heaven
+
+A Romance Of Riches
+By
+Marie Corelli
+
+AUTHOR OF
+"GOD'S GOOD MAN," "THELMA," "THE SORROWS OF SATAN," "ARDATH,"
+"THE STORY OF A DEAD SELF," "FREE OPINIONS," "TEMPORAL POWER," ETC.
+
+NEW YORK
+DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
+1906
+
+Copyright, 1906, by DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
+Published, August, 1906
+
+To Bertha
+'A faithful friend is better than gold.'
+
+
+Author's Note
+
+By the special request of the Publishers, a portrait of myself, taken in
+the spring of this year, 1906, forms the Frontispiece to the present
+volume. I am somewhat reluctant to see it so placed, because it has
+nothing whatever to do with the story which is told in the following
+pages, beyond being a faithful likeness of the author who is responsible
+for this, and many other previous books which have had the good fortune
+to meet with a friendly reception from the reading public. Moreover, I
+am not quite able to convince myself that my pictured personality can
+have any interest for my readers, as it has always seemed to me that an
+author's real being is more disclosed in his or her work than in any
+portrayed presentment of mere physiognomy.
+
+But--owing to the fact that various gross, and I think I may say
+libellous and fictitious misrepresentations of me have been freely and
+unwarrantably circulated throughout Great Britain, the Colonies, and
+America, by certain "lower" sections of the pictorial press, which, with
+a zeal worthy of a better and kinder cause, have striven by this means
+to alienate my readers from me,--it appears to my Publishers advisable
+that an authentic likeness of myself, as I truly am to-day, should now
+be issued in order to prevent any further misleading of the public by
+fraudulent inventions. The original photograph from which Messrs. Dodd,
+Mead & Co. have reproduced the present photogravure, was taken by Mr. G.
+Gabell of Eccleston Street, London, who, at the time of my submitting
+myself to his camera, was not aware of my identity. I used, for the
+nonce, the name of a lady friend, who arranged that the proofs of the
+portrait should be sent to her at various different addresses,--and it
+was not till this "Romance of Riches" was on the verge of publication
+that I disclosed the real position to the courteous artist himself. That
+I thus elected to be photographed as an unknown rather than a known
+person was in order that no extra pains should be taken on my behalf,
+but that I should be treated just as an ordinary stranger would be
+treated, with no less, but at the same time certainly no more, care.
+
+I may add, in conclusion, for the benefit of those few who may feel any
+further curiosity on the subject, that no portraits resembling me in any
+way are published anywhere, and that invented sketches purporting to
+pass as true likenesses of me, are merely attempts to obtain money from
+the public on false pretences. One picture of me, taken in my own house
+by a friend who is an amateur photographer, was reproduced some time ago
+in the _Strand Magazine_, _The Boudoir_, _Cassell's Magazine_, and _The
+Rapid Review_; but beyond that, and the present one in this volume, no
+photographs of me are on sale in any country, either in shops or on
+postcards. My objection to this sort of "picture popularity" has already
+been publicly stated, and I here repeat and emphasise it. And I venture
+to ask my readers who have so generously encouraged me by their warm and
+constant appreciation of my literary efforts, to try and understand the
+spirit in which the objection is made. It is simply that to myself the
+personal "Self" of me is nothing, and should be, rightly speaking,
+nothing to any one outside the circle of my home and my intimate
+friends; while my work and the keen desire to improve in that work, so
+that by my work alone I may become united in sympathy and love to my
+readers, whoever and wherever they may be, constitutes for me the
+Everything of life.
+
+                                                       MARIE CORELLI
+Stratford-on-Avon
+July, 1906
+
+
+
+
+THE TREASURE OF HEAVEN
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+London,--and a night in June. London, swart and grim, semi-shrouded in a
+warm close mist of mingled human breath and acrid vapour steaming up
+from the clammy crowded streets,--London, with a million twinkling
+lights gleaming sharp upon its native blackness, and looking, to a
+dreamer's eye, like some gigantic Fortress, built line upon line and
+tower upon tower,--with huge ramparts raised about it frowningly as
+though in self-defence against Heaven. Around and above it the deep sky
+swept in a ring of sable blue, wherein thousands of stars were visible,
+encamped after the fashion of a mighty army, with sentinel planets
+taking their turns of duty in the watching of a rebellious world. A
+sulphureous wave of heat half asphyxiated the swarms of people who were
+hurrying to and fro in that restless undetermined way which is such a
+predominating feature of what is called a London "season," and the
+general impression of the weather was, to one and all, conveyed in a
+sense of discomfort and oppression, with a vague struggling expectancy
+of approaching thunder. Few raised their eyes beyond the thick warm haze
+which hung low on the sooty chimney-pots, and trailed sleepily along in
+the arid, dusty parks. Those who by chance looked higher, saw that the
+skies above the city were divinely calm and clear, and that not a cloud
+betokened so much as the shadow of a storm.
+
+The deep bell of Westminster chimed midnight, that hour of picturesque
+ghostly tradition, when simple village maids shudder at the thought of
+traversing a dark lane or passing a churchyard, and when country folks
+of old-fashioned habits and principles are respectably in bed and for
+the most part sleeping. But so far as the fashionable "West End" was
+concerned, it might have been midday. Everybody assuming to be Anybody,
+was in town. The rumble of carriages passing to and fro was
+incessant,--the swift whirr and warning hoot of coming and going motor
+vehicles, the hoarse cries of the newsboys, and the general insect-like
+drone and murmur of feverish human activity were as loud as at any busy
+time of the morning or the afternoon. There had been a Court at
+Buckingham Palace,--and a "special" performance at the Opera,--and on
+account of these two functions, entertainments were going on at almost
+every fashionable house in every fashionable quarter. The public
+restaurants were crammed with luxury-loving men and women,--men and
+women to whom the mere suggestion of a quiet dinner in their own homes
+would have acted as a menace of infinite boredom,--and these gilded and
+refined eating-houses were now beginning to shoot forth their bundles of
+well-dressed, well-fed folk into the many and various conveyances
+waiting to receive them. There was a good deal of needless shouting, and
+much banter between drivers and policemen. Now and again the melancholy
+whine of a beggar's plea struck a discordant note through the
+smooth-toned compliments and farewells of hosts and their departing
+guests. No hint of pause or repose was offered in the ever-changing
+scene of uneasy and impetuous excitation of movement, save where, far up
+in the clear depths of space, the glittering star-battalions of a
+wronged and forgotten God held their steadfast watch and kept their
+hourly chronicle. London with its brilliant "season" seemed the only
+living fact worth recognising; London, with its flaring noisy streets,
+and its hot summer haze interposed like a grey veil between itself and
+the higher vision. Enough for most people it was to see the
+veil,--beyond it the view is always too vast and illimitable for the
+little vanities of ordinary mortal minds.
+
+Amid all the din and turmoil of fashion and folly seeking its own in the
+great English capital at the midnight hour, a certain corner of an
+exclusively fashionable quarter seemed strangely quiet and sequestered,
+and this was the back of one of the row of palace-like dwellings known
+as Carlton House Terrace. Occasionally a silent-wheeled hansom,
+brougham, or flashing motor-car sped swiftly along the Mall, towards
+which the wide stone balcony of the house projected,--or the heavy
+footsteps of a policeman walking on his beat crunched the gravel of the
+path beneath, but the general atmosphere of the place was expressive of
+solitude and even of gloom. The imposing evidences of great wealth,
+written in bold headlines on the massive square architecture of the
+whole block of huge mansions, only intensified the austere sombreness of
+their appearance, and the fringe of sad-looking trees edging the road
+below sent a faint waving shadow in the lamplight against the cold
+walls, as though some shuddering consciousness of happier woodland
+scenes had suddenly moved them to a vain regret. The haze of heat lay
+very thickly here, creeping along with slow stealth like a sluggish
+stream, and a suffocating odour suggestive of some subtle anęsthetic
+weighed the air with a sense of nausea and depression. It was difficult
+to realise that this condition of climate was actually summer in its
+prime--summer with all its glowing abundance of flower and foliage as
+seen in fresh green lanes and country dells,--rather did it seem a dull
+nightmare of what summer might be in a prison among criminals undergoing
+punishment. The house with the wide stone balcony looked particularly
+prison-like, even more so than some of its neighbours, perhaps because
+the greater number of its many windows were shuttered close, and showed
+no sign of life behind their impenetrable blackness. The only strong
+gleam of light radiating from the inner darkness to the outer, streamed
+across the balcony itself, which by means of two glass doors opened
+directly from the room behind it. Here two men sat, or rather half
+reclined in easy-cushioned lounge chairs, their faces turned towards the
+Mall, so that the illumination from the apartment in the background
+created a Rembrandt-like effect in partially concealing the expression
+of the one from the other's observation. Outwardly, and at a first
+causal glance, there was nothing very remarkable about either of them.
+One was old; the other more than middle-aged. Both were in
+evening-dress,--both smoked idly, and apparently not so much for the
+pleasure of smoking as for lack of something better to do, and both
+seemed self-centred and absorbed in thought. They had been conversing
+for some time, but now silence had fallen between them, and neither
+seemed disposed to break the heavy spell. The distant roar of constant
+traffic in the busy thoroughfares of the metropolis sounded in their
+ears like muffled thunder, while every now and again the soft sudden
+echo of dance music, played by a string band in evident attendance at
+some festive function in a house not far away, shivered delicately
+through the mist like a sigh of pleasure. The melancholy tree-tops
+trembled,--a single star struggled above the sultry vapours and shone
+out large and bright as though it were a great signal lamp suddenly lit
+in heaven. The elder of the two men seated on the balcony raised his
+eyes and saw it shining. He moved uneasily,--then lifting himself a
+little in his chair, he spoke as though taking up a dropped thread of
+conversation, with the intention of deliberately continuing it to the
+end. His voice was gentle and mellow, with a touch of that singular
+pathos in its tone which is customary to the Celtic rather than to the
+Saxon vocal cords.
+
+"I have given you my full confidence," he said, "and I have put before
+you the exact sum total of the matter as I see it. You think me
+irrational,--absurd. Good. Then I am content to be irrational and
+absurd. In any case you can scarcely deny that what I have stated is a
+simple fact,--a truth which cannot be denied?"
+
+"It is a truth, certainly," replied his companion, pulling himself
+upright in his chair with a certain vexed vehemence of action and
+flinging away his half-smoked cigar, "but it is one of those unpleasant
+truths which need not be looked at too closely or too often remembered.
+We must all get old--unfortunately,--and we must all die, which in my
+opinion is more unfortunate still. But we need not anticipate such a
+disagreeable business before its time."
+
+"Yet you are always drawing up Last Wills and Testaments," observed the
+other, with a touch of humour in his tone.
+
+"Oh well! That, of course, has to be done. The youngest persons should
+make their wills if they have anything to leave, or else run the risk of
+having all their household goods and other belongings fought for with
+tooth and claw by their 'dearest' relations. Dearest relations are,
+according to my experience, very much like wild cats: give them the
+faintest hope of a legacy, and they scratch and squawl as though it were
+raw meat for which they have been starving. In all my long career as a
+solicitor I never knew one 'dearest relation' who honestly regretted the
+dead."
+
+"There you meet me on the very ground of our previous discussions," said
+the elder man. "It is not the consciousness of old age that troubles me,
+or the inevitable approach of that end which is common to all,--it is
+merely the outlook into the void,--the teasing wonder as to who may step
+into my place when I am gone, and what will be done with the results of
+my life's labour."
+
+He rose as he spoke, and moved towards the balcony's edge, resting one
+hand upon its smooth stone. The change of attitude allowed the light
+from the interior room to play more fully on his features, and showed
+him to be well advanced in age, with a worn, yet strong face and
+deep-set eyes, over which the shelving brows stooped benevolently as
+though to guard the sinking vital fire in the wells of vision below. The
+mouth was concealed by an ashen-grey moustache, while on the forehead
+and at the sides of the temples the hair was perfectly white, though
+still abundant. A certain military precision of manner was attached to
+the whole bearing of the man,--his thin figure was well-built and
+upright, showing no tendency to feebleness,--his shoulders were set
+square, and his head was poised in a manner that might have been called
+uncompromising, if not obstinate. Even the hand that rested on the
+balcony, attenuated and deeply wrinkled as it was, suggested strength in
+its shape and character, and a passing thought of this flitted across
+the mind of his companion who, after a pause, said slowly:--
+
+"I really see no reason why you should brood on such things. What's the
+use? Your health is excellent for your time of life. Your end is not
+imminent. You are voluntarily undergoing a system of self-torture which
+is quite unnecessary. We've known each other for years, yet I hardly
+recognise you in your present humour. I thought you were perfectly
+happy. Surely you ought to be,--you, David Helmsley,--'King' David, as
+you are sometimes called--one of the richest men in the world!"
+
+Helmsley smiled, but with a suspicion of sadness.
+
+"Neither kings nor rich men hold special grants of happiness," he
+answered, quietly: "Your own experience of humanity must have taught you
+that. Personally speaking, I have never been happy since my boyhood.
+This surprises you? I daresay it does. But, my dear Vesey, old friend as
+you are, it sometimes happens that our closest intimates know us least!
+And even the famous firm of Vesey and Symonds, or Symonds and
+Vesey,--for your partner is one with you and you are one with your
+partner,--may, in spite of all their legal wisdom, fail to pierce the
+thick disguises worn by the souls of their clients. The Man in the Iron
+Mask is a familiar figure in the office of his confidential solicitor. I
+repeat, I have never been happy since my boyhood----"
+
+"Your happiness then was a mere matter of youth and animal spirits,"
+interposed Vesey.
+
+"I thought you would say that!"--and again a faint smile illumined
+Helmsley's features. "It is just what every one would say. Yet the young
+are often much more miserable than the old; and while I grant that youth
+may have had something to do with my past joy in life, it was not all.
+No, it certainly was not all. It was simply that I had then what I have
+never had since."
+
+He broke off abruptly. Then stepping back to his chair he resumed his
+former reclining position, leaning his head against the cushions and
+fixing his eyes on the solitary bright star that shone above the mist
+and the trembling trees.
+
+"May I talk out to you?" he inquired suddenly, with a touch of
+whimsicality. "Or are you resolved to preach copybook moralities at me,
+such as 'Be good and you will be happy?'"
+
+Vesey, more ceremoniously known as Sir Francis Vesey, one of the most
+renowned of London's great leading solicitors, looked at him and
+laughed.
+
+"Talk out, my dear fellow, by all means!" he replied. "Especially if it
+will do you any good. But don't ask me to sympathise very deeply with
+the imaginary sorrows of so enormously wealthy a man as you are!"
+
+"I don't expect any sympathy," said Helmsley. "Sympathy is the one thing
+I have never sought, because I know it is not to be obtained, even from
+one's nearest and dearest. Sympathy! Why, no man in the world ever
+really gets it, even from his wife. And no man possessing a spark of
+manliness ever wants it, except--sometimes----"
+
+He hesitated, looking steadily at the star above him,--then went on.
+
+"Except sometimes,--when the power of resistance is weakened--when the
+consciousness is strongly borne in upon us of the unanswerable wisdom of
+Solomon, who wrote--'I hated all my labour which I had taken under the
+sun, because I should leave it to the man that should be after me. And
+who knows whether he shall be a wise man or a fool?'"
+
+Sir Francis Vesey, dimly regretting the half-smoked cigar he had thrown
+away in a moment of impatience, took out a fresh one from his
+pocket-case and lit it.
+
+"Solomon has expressed every disagreeable situation in life with
+remarkable accuracy," he murmured placidly, as he began to puff rings of
+pale smoke into the surrounding yellow haze, "but he was a bit of a
+misanthrope."
+
+"When I was a boy," pursued Helmsley, not heeding his legal friend's
+comment, "I was happy chiefly because I believed. I never doubted any
+stated truth that seemed beautiful enough to be true. I had perfect
+confidence in the goodness of God and the ultimate happiness designed by
+Him for every living creature. Away out in Virginia where I was born,
+before the Southern States were subjected to Yankeedom, it was a
+glorious thing merely to be alive. The clear, pure air, fresh with the
+strong odour of pine and cedar,--the big plantations of cotton and
+corn,--the colours of the autumn woods when the maple trees turned
+scarlet, and the tall sumachs blazed like great fires on the sides of
+the mountains,--the exhilarating climate--the sweetness of the
+south-west wind,--all these influences of nature appealed to my soul and
+kindled a strange restlessness in it which has never been appeased.
+Never!--though I have lived my life almost to its end, and have done all
+those things which most men do who seek to get the utmost satisfaction
+they can out of existence. But I am not satisfied; I have never been
+satisfied."
+
+"And you never will be," declared Sir Francis firmly. "There are some
+people to whom Heaven itself would prove disappointing."
+
+"Well, if Heaven is the kind of place depicted by the clergy, the
+poorest beggar might resent its offered attractions," said Helmsley,
+with a slight, contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. "After a life of
+continuous pain and struggle, the pleasures of singing for ever and ever
+to one's own harp accompaniment are scarcely sufficient compensation."
+
+Vesey laughed cheerfully.
+
+"It's all symbolical," he murmured, puffing away at his cigar, "and
+really very well meant! Positively now, the clergy are capital fellows!
+They do their best,--they keep it up. Give them credit for that at
+least, Helmsley,--they do keep it up!"
+
+Helmsley was silent for a minute or two.
+
+"We are rather wandering from the point," he said at last. "What I know
+of the clergy generally has not taught me to rely upon them for any
+advice in a difficulty, or any help out of trouble. Once--in a moment of
+weakness and irresolution--I asked a celebrated preacher what suggestion
+he could make to a rich man, who, having no heirs, sought a means of
+disposing of his wealth to the best advantage for others after his
+death. His reply----"
+
+"Was the usual thing, of course," interposed Sir Francis blandly. "He
+said, 'Let the rich man leave it all to me, and God will bless him
+abundantly!'"
+
+"Well, yes, it came to that,"--and Helmsley gave a short impatient sigh.
+"He evidently guessed that the rich man implied was myself, for ever
+since I asked him the question, he has kept me regularly supplied with
+books and pamphlets relating to his Church and various missions. I
+daresay he's a very good fellow. But I've no fancy to assist him. He
+works on sectarian lines, and I am of no sect. Though I confess I should
+like to believe in God--- if I could."
+
+Sir Francis, fanning a tiny wreath of cigar smoke away with one hand,
+looked at him curiously, but offered no remark.
+
+"You said I might talk out to you," continued Helmsley--"and it is
+perhaps necessary that I should do so, since you have lately so
+persistently urged upon me the importance of making my will. You are
+perfectly right, of course, and I alone am to blame for the apparently
+stupid hesitation I show in following your advice. But, as I have
+already told you, I have no one in the world who has the least claim
+upon me,--no one to whom I can bequeath, to my own satisfaction, the
+wealth I have earned. I married,--as you know,--and my marriage was
+unhappy. It ended,--and you are aware of all the facts--in the proved
+infidelity of my wife, followed by our separation (effected quietly,
+thanks to you, without the vulgar publicity of the divorce court), and
+then--in her premature death. Notwithstanding all this, I did my best
+for my two sons,--you are a witness to this truth,--and you remember
+that during their lifetime I did make my will,--in their favour. They
+turned out badly; each one ran his own career of folly, vice, and
+riotous dissipation, and both are dead. Thus it happens that here I
+am,--alone at the age of seventy, without any soul to care for me, or
+any creature to whom I can trust my business, or leave my fortune. It
+is not my fault that it is so; it is sheer destiny. How, I ask you, can
+I make any 'Last Will and Testament' under such conditions?"
+
+"If you make no will at all, your property goes to the Crown," said
+Vesey bluntly.
+
+"Naturally. I know that. But one might have a worse heir than the Crown!
+The Crown may be trusted to take proper care of money, and this is more
+than can often be said of one's sons and daughters. I tell you it is all
+as Solomon said--'vanity and vexation of spirit.' The amassing of great
+wealth is not worth the time and trouble involved in the task. One could
+do so much better----"
+
+Here he paused.
+
+"How?" asked Vesey, with a half-smile. "What else is there to be done in
+this world except to get rich in order to live comfortably?"
+
+"I know people who are not rich at all, and who never will be rich, yet
+who live more comfortably than I have ever done," replied
+Helmsley--"that is, if to 'live comfortably' implies to live peacefully,
+happily, and contentedly, taking each day as it comes with gladness as a
+real 'living' time. And by this, I mean 'living,' not with the rush and
+scramble, fret and jar inseparable from money-making, but living just
+for the joy of life. Especially when it is possible to believe that a
+God exists, who designed life, and even death, for the ultimate good of
+every creature. This is what I believed--once--'out in ole Virginny, a
+long time ago!'"
+
+He hummed the last words softly under his breath,--then swept one hand
+across his eyes with a movement of impatience.
+
+"Old men's brains grow addled," he continued. "They become clouded with
+a fog through which only the memories of the past and the days of their
+youth shine clear. Sometimes I talk of Virginia as if I were home-sick
+and wanted to go back to it,--yet I never do. I wouldn't go back to it
+for the world,--not now. I'm not an American, so I can say, without any
+loss of the patriotic sense, that I loathe America. It is a country to
+be used for the making of wealth, but it is not a country to be loved.
+It might have been the most lovable Father-and-Mother-Land on the globe
+if nobler men had lived long enough in it to rescue its people from the
+degrading Dollar-craze. But now, well!--those who make fortunes there
+leave it as soon as they can, shaking its dust off their feet and
+striving to forget that they ever experienced its incalculable greed,
+vice, cunning, and general rascality. There are plenty of decent folk in
+America, of course, just as there are decent folk everywhere, but they
+are in the minority. Even in the Southern States the 'old stock' of men
+is decaying and dying-out, and the taint of commercial vulgarity is
+creeping over the former simplicity of the Virginian homestead. No,--I
+would not go back to the scene of my boyhood, for though I had something
+there once which I have since lost, I am not such a fool as to think I
+should ever find it again."
+
+Here he looked round at his listener with a smile so sudden and sweet as
+to render his sunken features almost youthful.
+
+"I believe I am boring you, Vesey!" he said.
+
+"Not the least in the world,--you never bore me," replied Sir Francis,
+with alacrity. "You are always interesting, even in your most illogical
+humour."
+
+"You consider me illogical?"
+
+"In a way, yes. For instance, you abuse America. Why? Your misguided
+wife was American, certainly, but setting that unfortunate fact aside,
+you made your money in the States. Commercial vulgarity helped you
+along. Therefore be just to commercial vulgarity."
+
+"I hope I am just to it,--I think I am," answered Helmsley slowly; "but
+I never was one with it. I never expected to wring a dollar out of ten
+cents, and never tried. I can at least say that I have made my money
+honestly, and have trampled no man down on the road to fortune. But
+then--I am not a citizen of the 'Great Republic.'"
+
+"You were born in America," said Vesey.
+
+"By accident," replied Helmsley, with a laugh, "and kindly fate favoured
+me by allowing me to see my first daylight in the South rather than in
+the North. But I was never naturalised as an American. My father and
+mother were both English,--they both came from the same little sea-coast
+village in Cornwall. They married very young,--theirs was a romantic
+love-match, and they left England in the hope of bettering their
+fortunes. They settled in Virginia and grew to love it. My father became
+accountant to a large business firm out there, and did fairly well,
+though he never was a rich man in the present-day meaning of the term.
+He had only two children,--myself and my sister, who died at sixteen. I
+was barely twenty when I lost both father and mother and started alone
+to face the world."
+
+"You have faced it very successfully," said Vesey; "and if you would
+only look at things in the right and reasonable way, you have really
+very little to complain of. Your marriage was certainly an unlucky
+one----"
+
+"Do not speak of it!" interrupted Helmsley, hastily. "It is past and
+done with. Wife and children are swept out of my life as though they had
+never been! It is a curious thing, perhaps, but with me a betrayed
+affection does not remain in my memory as affection at all, but only as
+a spurious image of the real virtue, not worth considering or
+regretting. Standing as I do now, on the threshold of the grave, I look
+back,--and in looking back I see none of those who wronged and deceived
+me,--they have disappeared altogether, and their very faces and forms
+are blotted out of my remembrance. So much so, indeed, that I could, if
+I had the chance, begin a new life again and never give a thought to the
+old!"
+
+His eyes flashed a sudden fire under their shelving brows, and his right
+hand clenched itself involuntarily.
+
+"I suppose," he continued, "that a kind of harking back to the memories
+of one's youth is common to all aged persons. With me it has become
+almost morbid, for daily and hourly I see myself as a boy, dreaming away
+the time in the wild garden of our home in Virginia,--watching the
+fireflies light up the darkness of the summer evenings, and listening to
+my sister singing in her soft little voice her favourite melody--'Angels
+ever bright and fair.' As I said to you when we began this talk, I had
+something then which I have never had since. Do you know what it was?"
+
+Sir Francis, here finishing his cigar, threw away its glowing end, and
+shook his head in the negative.
+
+"You will think me as sentimental as I am garrulous," went on Helmsley,
+"when I tell you that it was merely--love!"
+
+Vesey raised himself in his chair and sat upright, opening his eyes in
+astonishment.
+
+"Love!" he echoed. "God bless my soul! I should have thought that you,
+of all men in the world, could have won that easily!"
+
+Helmsley turned towards him with a questioning look.
+
+"Why should I 'of all men in the world' have won it?" he asked.
+"Because I am rich? Rich men are seldom, if ever, loved for
+themselves--only for what they can give to their professing lovers."
+
+His ordinarily soft tone had an accent of bitterness in it, and Sir
+Francis Vesey was silent.
+
+"Had I remained poor,--poor as I was when I first started to make my
+fortune," he went on, "I might possibly have been loved by some woman,
+or some friend, for myself alone. For as a young fellow I was not
+bad-looking, nor had I, so I flatter myself, an unlikable disposition.
+But luck always turned the wheel in my favour, and at thirty-five I was
+a millionaire. Then I 'fell' in love,--and married on the faith of that
+emotion, which is always a mistake. 'Falling in love' is not loving. I
+was in the full flush of my strength and manhood, and was sufficiently
+proud of myself to believe that my wife really cared for me. There I was
+deceived. She cared for my millions. So it chances that the only real
+love I have ever known was the unselfish 'home' affection,--the love of
+my mother and father and sister 'out in ole Virginny,' 'a love so sweet
+it could not last,' as Shelley sings. Though I believe it can and does
+last,--for my soul (or whatever that strange part of me may be which
+thinks beyond the body) is always running back to that love with a full
+sense of certainty that it is still existent."
+
+His voice sank and seemed to fail him for a moment. He looked up at the
+large, bright star shining steadily above him.
+
+"You are silent, Vesey," he said, after a pause, speaking with an effort
+at lightness; "and wisely too, for I know you have nothing to say--that
+is, nothing that could affect the position. And you may well ask, if you
+choose, to what does all this reminiscent old man's prattle tend? Simply
+to this--that you have been urging me for the last six months to make my
+will in order to replace the one which was previously made in favour of
+my sons, and which is now destroyed, owing to their deaths before my
+own,--and I tell you plainly and frankly that I don't know how to make
+it, as there is no one in the world whom I care to name as my heir."
+
+Sir Francis sat gravely ruminating for a moment;--then he said:--
+
+"Why not do as I suggested to you once before--adopt a child? Find some
+promising boy, born of decent, healthy, self-respecting
+parents,--educate him according to your own ideas, and bring him up to
+understand his future responsibilities. How would that suit you?"
+
+"Not at all," replied Helmsley drily. "I _have_ heard of parents willing
+to sell their children, but I should scarcely call them decent or
+self-respecting. I know of one case where a couple of peasants sold
+their son for five pounds in order to get rid of the trouble of rearing
+him. He turned out a famous man,--but though he was, in due course, told
+his history, he never acknowledged the unnatural vendors of his flesh
+and blood as his parents, and quite right too. No,--I have had too much
+experience of life to try such a doubtful business as that of adopting a
+child. The very fact of adoption by so miserably rich a man as myself
+would buy a child's duty and obedience rather than win it. I will have
+no heir at all, unless I can discover one whose love for me is sincerely
+unselfish and far above all considerations of wealth or worldly
+advantage."
+
+"It is rather late in the day, perhaps," said Vesey after a pause,
+speaking hesitatingly, "but--but--you might marry?"
+
+Helmsley laughed loudly and harshly.
+
+"Marry! I! At seventy! My dear Vesey, you are a very old friend, and
+privileged to say what others dare not, or you would offend me. If I had
+ever thought of marrying again I should have done so two or three years
+after my wife's death, when I was in the fifties, and not waited till
+now, when my end, if not actually near, is certainly well in sight.
+Though I daresay there are plenty of women who would marry me--even
+me--at my age,--knowing the extent of my income. But do you think I
+would take one of them, knowing in my heart that it would be a mere
+question of sale and barter? Not I!--I could never consent to sink so
+low in my own estimation of myself. I can honestly say I have never
+wronged any woman. I shall not begin now."
+
+"I don't see why you should take that view of it," murmured Sir Francis
+placidly. "Life is not lived nowadays as it was when you first entered
+upon your career. For one thing, men last longer and don't give up so
+soon. Few consider themselves old at seventy. Why should they? There's a
+learned professor at the Pasteur Institute who declares we ought all to
+live to a hundred and forty. If he's right, you are still quite a young
+man."
+
+Helmsley rose from his chair with a slightly impatient gesture.
+
+"We won't discuss any so-called 'new theories,'" he said. "They are only
+echoes of old fallacies. The professor's statement is merely a modern
+repetition of the ancient belief in the elixir of life. Shall we go in?"
+
+Vesey got up from his lounging position more slowly and stiffly than
+Helmsley had done. Some ten years younger as he was, he was evidently
+less active.
+
+"Well," he said, as he squared his shoulders and drew himself erect, "we
+are no nearer a settlement of what I consider a most urgent and
+important affair than when we began our conversation."
+
+Helmsley shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"When I come back to town, we will go into the question again," he said.
+
+"You are off at the end of the week?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Going abroad?"
+
+"I--I think so."
+
+The answer was given with a slight touch of hesitation.
+
+"Your last 'function' of the season is the dance you are giving
+to-morrow night, I suppose," continued Sir Francis, studying with a
+vague curiosity the spare, slight figure of his companion, who had
+turned from him and, with one foot on the sill of the open French
+window, was just about to enter the room beyond.
+
+"Yes. It is Lucy's birthday."
+
+"Ah! Miss Lucy Sorrel! How old is she?"
+
+"Just twenty-one."
+
+And, as he spoke, Helmsley stepped into the apartment from which the
+window opened out upon the balcony, and waited a moment for Vesey to
+follow.
+
+"She has always been a great favourite of yours," said Vesey, as he
+entered. "Now, why----"
+
+"Why don't I leave her my fortune, you would ask?" interrupted Helmsley,
+with a touch of sarcasm. "Well, first, because she is a woman, and she
+might possibly marry a fool or a wastrel. Secondly, because though I
+have known her ever since she was a child of ten, I have no liking for
+her parents or for any of her family connections. When I first took a
+fancy to her she was playing about on the shore at a little seaside
+place on the Sussex coast,--I thought her a pretty little creature, and
+have made rather a pet of her ever since. But beyond giving her trinkets
+and bon-bons, and offering her such gaieties and amusements as are
+suitable to her age and sex, I have no other intentions concerning her."
+
+Sir Francis took a comprehensive glance round the magnificent
+drawing-room in which he now stood,--a drawing-room more like a royal
+reception-room of the First Empire than a modern apartment in the modern
+house of a merely modern millionaire. Then he chuckled softly to
+himself, and a broad smile spread itself among the furrows of his
+somewhat severely featured countenance.
+
+"Mrs. Sorrel would be sorry if she knew that," he said. "I think--I
+really think, Helmsley, that Mrs. Sorrel believes you are still in the
+matrimonial market!"
+
+Helmsley's deeply sunken eyes flashed out a sudden searchlight of keen
+and quick inquiry, then his brows grew dark with a shadow of scorn.
+
+"Poor Lucy!" he murmured. "She is very unfortunate in her mother, and
+equally so in her father. Matt Sorrel never did anything in his life but
+bet on the Turf and gamble at Monte Carlo, and it's too late for him to
+try his hand at any other sort of business. His daughter is a nice girl
+and a pretty one,--but now that she has grown from a child into a woman
+I shall not be able to do much more for her. She will have to do
+something for herself in finding a good husband."
+
+Sir Francis listened with his head very much on one side. An owl-like
+inscrutability of legal wisdom seemed to have suddenly enveloped him in
+a cloud. Pulling himself out of this misty reverie he said abruptly:--
+
+"Well--good-night! or rather good-morning! It's past one o'clock. Shall
+I see you again before you leave town?"
+
+"Probably. If not, you will hear from me."
+
+"You won't reconsider the advisability of----"
+
+"No, I won't!" And Helmsley smiled. "I'm quite obstinate on that point.
+If I die suddenly, my property goes to the Crown,--if not, why then you
+will in due course receive your instructions."
+
+Vesey studied him with thoughtful attention.
+
+"You're a queer fellow, David!" he said, at last. "But I can't help
+liking you. I only wish you were not quite so--so romantic!"
+
+"Romantic!" Helmsley looked amused. "Romance and I said good-bye to each
+other years ago. I admit that I used to be romantic--but I'm not now."
+
+"You are!" And Sir Francis frowned a legal frown which soon brightened
+into a smile. "A man of your age doesn't want to be loved for himself
+alone unless he's very romantic indeed! And that's what you do
+want!--and that's what I'm afraid you won't get, in your position--not
+as this world goes! Good-night!"
+
+"Good-night!"
+
+They walked out of the drawing-room to the head of the grand staircase,
+and there shook hands and parted, a manservant being in waiting to show
+Sir Francis to the door. But late as the hour was, Helmsley did not
+immediately retire to rest. Long after all his household were in bed and
+sleeping, he sat in the hushed solitude of his library, writing many
+letters. The library was on a line with the drawing-room, and its one
+window, facing the Mall, was thrown open to admit such air as could ooze
+through the stifling heat of the sultry night. Pausing once in the busy
+work of his hand and pen, Helmsley looked up and saw the bright star he
+had watched from the upper balcony, peering in upon him steadily like an
+eye. A weary smile, sadder than scorn, wavered across his features.
+
+"That's Venus," he murmured half aloud. "The Eden star of all very young
+people,--the star of Love!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+On the following evening the cold and frowning aspect of the mansion in
+Carlton House Terrace underwent a sudden transformation. Lights gleamed
+from every window; the strip of garden which extended from the rear of
+the building to the Mall, was covered in by red and white awning, and
+the balcony where the millionaire master of the dwelling had, some few
+hours previously, sat talking with his distinguished legal friend, Sir
+Francis Vesey, was turned into a kind of lady's bower, softly carpeted,
+adorned with palms and hothouse roses, and supplied with cushioned
+chairs for the voluptuous ease of such persons of opposite sexes as
+might find their way to this suggestive "flirtation" corner. The music
+of a renowned orchestra of Hungarian performers flowed out of the open
+doors of the sumptuous ballroom which was one of the many attractions of
+the house, and ran in rhythmic vibrations up the stairs, echoing through
+all the corridors like the sweet calling voices of fabled nymphs and
+sirens, till, floating still higher, it breathed itself out to the
+night,--a night curiously heavy and sombre, with a blackness of sky too
+dense for any glimmer of stars to shine through. The hum of talk, the
+constant ripple of laughter, the rustle of women's silken garments, the
+clatter of plates and glasses in the dining-room, where a costly
+ball-supper awaited its devouring destiny,--the silvery tripping and
+slipping of light dancing feet on a polished floor--all these sounds,
+intermingling with the gliding seductive measure of the various waltzes
+played in quick succession by the band, created a vague impression of
+confusion and restlessness in the brain, and David Helmsley himself, the
+host and entertainer of the assembled guests, watched the brilliant
+scene from the ballroom door with a weary sense of melancholy which he
+knew was unfounded and absurd, yet which he could not resist,--a touch
+of intense and utter loneliness, as though he were a stranger in his own
+home.
+
+"I feel," he mused, "like some very poor old fellow asked in by chance
+for a few minutes, just to see the fun!"
+
+He smiled,--yet was unable to banish his depression. The bare fact of
+the worthlessness of wealth was all at once borne in upon him with
+overpowering weight. This magnificent house which his hard earnings had
+purchased,--this ballroom with its painted panels and sculptured
+friezes, crowded just now with kaleidoscope pictures of men and women
+whirling round and round in a maze of music and movement,--the thousand
+precious and costly things he had gathered about him in his journey
+through life,--must all pass out of his possession in a few brief years,
+and there was not a soul who loved him or whom he loved, to inherit them
+or value them for his sake. A few brief years! And then--darkness. The
+lights gone out,--the music silenced--the dancing done! And the love
+that he had dreamed of when he was a boy--love, strong and great and
+divine enough to outlive death--where was it? A sudden sigh escaped
+him----
+
+"_Dear_ Mr. Helmsley, you look so _very_ tired!" said a woman's purring
+voice at his ear. "_Do_ go and rest in your own room for a few minutes
+before supper! You have been so kind!--Lucy is quite touched and
+overwhelmed by _all_ your goodness to her,--no _lover_ could do more for
+a girl, I'm _sure_! But really you _must_ spare yourself! What _should_
+we do without you!"
+
+"What indeed!" he replied, somewhat drily, as he looked down at the
+speaker, a cumbrous matron attired in an over-frilled and over-flounced
+costume of pale grey, which delicate Quakerish colour rather painfully
+intensified the mottled purplish-red of her face. "But I am not at all
+tired, Mrs. Sorrel, I assure you! Don't trouble yourself about me--I'm
+very well."
+
+"_Are_ you?" And Mrs. Sorrel looked volumes of tenderest insincerity.
+"Ah! But you know we _old_ people _must_ be careful! Young folks can do
+anything and everything--but _we_, at _our_ age, need to be
+_over_-particular!"
+
+"_You_ shouldn't call yourself old, Mrs. Sorrel," said Helmsley, seeing
+that she expected this from him, "you're quite a young woman."
+
+Mrs. Sorrel gave a little deprecatory laugh.
+
+"Oh dear no!" she said, in a tone which meant "Oh dear yes!" "I wasn't
+married at sixteen, you know!"
+
+"No? You surprise me!"
+
+Mrs. Sorrel peered at him from under her fat eyelids with a slightly
+dubious air. She was never quite sure in her own mind as to the way in
+which "old Gold-Dust," as she privately called him, regarded her. An
+aged man, burdened with an excess of wealth, was privileged to have what
+are called "humours," and certainly he sometimes had them. It was
+necessary--or so Mrs. Sorrel thought--to deal with him delicately and
+cautiously--neither with too much levity, nor with an overweighted
+seriousness. One's plan of conduct with a multi-millionaire required to
+be thought out with sedulous care, and entered upon with circumspection.
+And Mrs Sorrel did not attempt even as much as a youthful giggle at
+Helmsley's half-sarcastically implied compliment with its sarcastic
+implication as to the ease with which she supported her years and
+superabundance of flesh tissue. She merely heaved a short sigh.
+
+"I was just one year younger than Lucy is to-day," she said, "and I
+really thought myself quite an _old_ bride! I was a mother at
+twenty-one."
+
+Helmsley found nothing to say in response to this interesting statement,
+particularly as he had often heard it before.
+
+"Who is Lucy dancing with?" he asked irrelevantly, by way of diversion.
+
+"Oh, my _dear_ Mr. Helmsley, who is she _not_ dancing with!" and Mrs.
+Sorrel visibly swelled with maternal pride. "Every young man in the room
+has rushed at her--positively rushed!--and her programme was full five
+minutes after she arrived! Isn't she looking lovely to-night?--a perfect
+sylph! _Do_ tell me you think she is a sylph!"
+
+David's old eyes twinkled.
+
+"I have never seen a sylph, Mrs. Sorrel, so I cannot make the
+comparison," he said; "but Lucy is a very beautiful girl, and I think
+she is looking her best this evening. Her dress becomes her. She ought
+to find a good husband easily."
+
+"She ought,--indeed she ought! But it is very difficult--very, very
+difficult! All the men marry for money nowadays, not for love--ah!--how
+different it was when you and I were young, Mr. Helmsley! Love was
+everything then,--and there was so much romance and poetical sentiment!"
+
+"Romance is a snare, and poetical sentiment a delusion," said Helmsley,
+with sudden harshness. "I proved that in my marriage. I should think you
+had equally proved it in yours!"
+
+Mrs. Sorrel recoiled a little timorously. "Old Gold-Dust" often said
+unpleasant things--truthful, but eminently tactless,--and she felt that
+he was likely to say some of those unpleasant things now. Therefore she
+gave a fluttering gesture of relief and satisfaction as the waltz-music
+just then ceased, and her daughter's figure, tall, slight, and
+marvellously graceful, detached itself from the swaying crowd in the
+ballroom and came towards her.
+
+"Dearest child!" she exclaimed effusively, "are you not _quite_ tired
+out?"
+
+The "dearest child" shrugged her white shoulders and laughed.
+
+"Nothing tires me, mother--you know that!" she answered--then with a
+sudden change from her air of careless indifference to one of coaxing
+softness, she turned to Helmsley.
+
+"_You_ must be tired!" she said. "Why have you been standing so long at
+the ballroom door?"
+
+"I have been watching you, Lucy," he replied gently. "It has been a
+pleasure for me to see you dance. I am too old to dance with you myself,
+otherwise I should grudge all the young men the privilege."
+
+"I will dance with you, if you like," she said, smiling. "There is one
+more set of Lancers before supper. Will you be my partner?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Not even to please you, my child!" and taking her hand he patted it
+kindly. "There is no fool like an old, fool, I know, but I am not quite
+so foolish as that."
+
+"I see nothing at all foolish in it," pouted Lucy. "You are my host, and
+it's my coming-of-age party."
+
+Helmsley laughed.
+
+"So it is! And the festival must not be spoilt by any incongruities. It
+will be quite sufficient honour for me to take you in to supper."
+
+She looked down at the flowers she wore in her bodice, and played with
+their perfumed petals.
+
+"I like you better than any man here," she said suddenly.
+
+A swift shadow crossed his face. Glancing over his shoulder he saw that
+Mrs. Sorrel had moved away. Then the cloud passed from his brow, and the
+thought that for a moment had darkened his mind, yielded to a kinder
+impulse.
+
+"You flatter me, my dear," he said quietly. "But I am such an old friend
+of yours that I can take your compliment in the right spirit without
+having my head turned by it. Indeed, I can hardly believe that it is
+eleven years ago since I saw you playing about on the seashore as a
+child. You seem to have grown up like a magic rose, all at once from a
+tiny bud into a full blossom. Do you remember how I first made your
+acquaintance?"
+
+"As if I should ever forget!" and she raised her lovely, large dark eyes
+to his. "I had been paddling about in the sea, and I had lost my shoes
+and stockings. You found them for me, and you put them on!"
+
+"True!" and he smiled. "You had very wet little feet, all rosy with the
+salt of the sea--and your long hair was blown about in thick curls round
+the brightest, sweetest little face in the world. I thought you were the
+prettiest little girl I had ever seen in my life, and I think just the
+same of you now."
+
+A pale blush flitted over her cheeks, and she dropped him a demure
+curtsy.
+
+"Thank you!" she said. "And if you won't dance the Lancers, which are
+just beginning, will you sit them out with me?"
+
+"Gladly!" and he offered her his arm. "Shall we go up to the
+drawing-room? It is cooler there than here."
+
+She assented, and they slowly mounted the staircase together. Some of
+the evening's guests lounging about in the hall and loitering near the
+ballroom door, watched them go, and exchanged significant glances. One
+tall woman with black eyes and a viperish mouth, who commanded a certain
+exclusive "set" by virtue of being the wife of a dissolute Earl whose
+house was used as a common gambling resort, found out Mrs. Sorrel
+sitting among a group of female gossips in a corner, and laid a
+patronising hand upon her shoulder.
+
+"_Do_ tell me!" she softly breathed. "_Is_ it a case?"
+
+Mrs. Sorrel began to flutter immediately.
+
+"_Dearest_ Lady Larford! What _do_ you mean!"
+
+"Surely you know!" And the wide mouth of her ladyship grew still wider,
+and the black eyes more steely. "Will Lucy get him, do you think?"
+
+Mrs. Sorrel fidgeted uneasily in her chair. Other people were
+listening.
+
+"Really," she mumbled nervously--"really, _dear_ Lady Larford!--you put
+things so _very_ plainly!--I--I cannot say!--you see--he is more like
+her father----"
+
+Lady Larford showed all her white teeth in an expansive grin.
+
+"Oh, that's very safe!" she said. "The 'father' business works very well
+when sufficient cash is put in with it. I know several examples of
+perfect matrimonial bliss between old men and young girls--absolutely
+_perfect_! One is bound to be happy with heaps of money!"
+
+And keeping her teeth still well exposed, Lady Larford glided away, her
+skirts exhaling an odour of civet-cat as she moved. Mrs. Sorrel gazed
+after her helplessly, in a state of worry and confusion, for she
+instinctively felt that her ladyship's pleasure would now be to tell
+everybody whom she knew, that Lucy Sorrel, "the new girl who was
+presented at Court last night," was having a "try" for the Helmsley
+millions; and that if the "try" was not successful, no one living would
+launch more merciless and bitter jests at the failure and defeat of the
+Sorrels than this same titled "leader" of a section of the aristocratic
+gambling set. For there has never been anything born under the sun
+crueller than a twentieth-century woman of fashion to her own
+sex--except perhaps a starving hyęna tearing asunder its living prey.
+
+Meanwhile, David Helmsley and his young companion had reached the
+drawing-room, which they found quite unoccupied. The window-balcony,
+festooned with rose-silk draperies and flowers, and sparkling with tiny
+electric lamps, offered itself as an inviting retreat for a quiet chat,
+and within it they seated themselves, Helmsley rather wearily, and Lucy
+Sorrel with the queenly air and dainty rustle of soft garments habitual
+to the movements of a well-dressed woman.
+
+"I have not thanked you half enough," she began, "for all the delightful
+things you have done for my birthday----"
+
+"Pray spare me!" he interrupted, with a deprecatory gesture--"I would
+rather you said nothing."
+
+"Oh, but I must say something!" she went on. "You are so generous and
+good in yourself that of course you cannot bear to be thanked--I know
+that--but if you will persist in giving so much pleasure to a girl who,
+but for you, would have no pleasure at all in her life, you must expect
+that girl to express her feelings somehow. Now, mustn't you?"
+
+She leaned forward, smiling at him with an arch expression of sweetness
+and confidence. He looked at her attentively, but said nothing.
+
+"When I got your lovely present the first thing this morning," she
+continued, "I could hardly believe my eyes. Such an exquisite
+necklace!--such perfect pearls! Dear Mr. Helmsley, you quite spoil me!
+I'm not worth all the kind thought and trouble you take on my behalf."
+
+Tears started to her eyes, and her lips quivered. Helmsley saw her
+emotion with only a very slight touch of concern. Her tears were merely
+sensitive, he thought, welling up from a young and grateful heart, and
+as the prime cause of that young heart's gratitude he delicately forbore
+to notice them. This chivalrous consideration on his part caused some
+little disappointment to the shedder of the tears, but he could not be
+expected to know that.
+
+"I'm glad you are pleased with my little gift," he said simply, "though
+I'm afraid it is quite a conventional and ordinary one. Pearls and girls
+always go together, in fact as in rhyme. After all, they are the most
+suitable jewels for the young--for they are emblems of everything that
+youth should be--white and pure and innocent."
+
+Her breath came and went quickly.
+
+"Do you think youth is always like that?" she asked.
+
+"Not always,--but surely most often," he answered. "At any rate, I wish
+to believe in the simplicity and goodness of all young things."
+
+She was silent. Helmsley studied her thoughtfully,--even critically. And
+presently he came to the conclusion that as a child she had been much
+prettier than she now was as a woman. Yet her present phase of
+loveliness was of the loveliest type. No fault could be found with the
+perfect oval of her face, her delicate white-rose skin, her small
+seductive mouth, curved in the approved line of the "Cupid's bow," her
+deep, soft, bright eyes, fringed with long-lashes a shade darker than
+the curling waves of her abundant brown hair. But her features in
+childhood had expressed something more than the beauty which had
+developed with the passing of years. A sweet affection, a tender
+earnestness, and an almost heavenly candour had made the attractiveness
+of her earlier age quite irresistible, but now--or so Helmsley
+fancied--that fine and subtle charm had gone. He was half ashamed of
+himself for allowing this thought to enter his mind, and quickly
+dismissing it, he said--
+
+"How did your presentation go off last night? Was it a full Court?"
+
+"I believe so," she replied listlessly, unfurling a painted fan and
+waving it idly to and fro--"I cannot say that I found it very
+interesting. The whole thing bored me dreadfully."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Bored you! Is it possible to be bored at twenty-one?"
+
+"I think every one, young or old, is bored more or less nowadays," she
+said. "Boredom is a kind of microbe in the air. Most society functions
+are deadly dull. And where's the fun of being presented at Court? If a
+woman wears a pretty gown, all the other women try to tread on it and
+tear it off her back if they can. And the Royal people only speak to
+their own special 'set,' and not always the best-looking or
+best-mannered set either."
+
+Helmsley looked amused.
+
+"Well, it's what is called an _entrée_ into the world,"--he replied.
+"For my own part, I have never been 'presented,' and never intend to be.
+I see too much of Royalty privately, in the dens of finance."
+
+"Yes--all the kings and princes wanting to borrow money," she said
+quickly and flippantly. "And you must despise the lot. _You_ are a real
+'King,' bigger than any crowned head, because you can do just as you
+like, and you are not the servant of Governments or peoples. I am sure
+you must be the happiest man in the world!"
+
+She plucked off a rose from a flowering rose-tree near her, and began to
+wrench out its petals with a quick, nervous movement. Helmsley watched
+her with a vague sense of annoyance.
+
+"I am no more happy," he said suddenly, "than that rose you are picking
+to pieces, though it has never done you any harm."
+
+She started, and flushed,--then laughed.
+
+"Oh, the poor little rose!" she exclaimed--"I'm sorry! I've had so many
+roses to-day, that I don't think about them. I suppose it's wrong."
+
+"It's not wrong," he answered quietly; "it's merely the fault of those
+who give you more roses than you know how to appreciate."
+
+She looked at him inquiringly, but could not fathom his expression.
+
+"Still," he went on, "I would not have your life deprived of so much as
+one rose. And there is a very special rose that does not grow in earthly
+gardens, which I should like you to find and wear on your heart,
+Lucy,--I hope I shall see you in the happy possession of it before I
+die,--I mean the rose of love."
+
+She lifted her head, and her eyes shone coldly.
+
+"Dear Mr. Helmsley," she said, "I don't believe in love!"
+
+A flash of amazement, almost of anger, illumined his worn features.
+
+"You don't believe in love!" he echoed. "O child, what _do_ you believe
+in, then?"
+
+The passion of his tone moved her to a surprised smile.
+
+"Well, I believe in being happy while you can," she replied tranquilly.
+"And love isn't happiness. All my girl and men friends who are what they
+call 'in love' seem to be thoroughly miserable. Many of them get
+perfectly ill with jealousy, and they never seem to know whether what
+they call their 'love' will last from one day to another. I shouldn't
+care to live at such a high tension of nerves. My own mother and father
+married 'for love,' so I am always told,--and I'm sure a more
+quarrelsome couple never existed. I believe in friendship more than
+love."
+
+As she spoke, Helmsley looked at her steadily, his face darkening with a
+shadow of weary scorn.
+
+"I see!" he murmured coldly. "You do not care to over-fatigue the
+heart's action by unnecessary emotion. Quite right! If we were all as
+wise as you are at your age, we might live much longer than we do. You
+are very sensible, Lucy!--more sensible than I should have thought
+possible for so young a woman."
+
+She gave him a swift, uneasy glance. She was not quite sure of his mood.
+
+"Friendship," he continued, speaking in a slow, meditative tone, "is a
+good thing,--it may be, as you suggest, safer and sweeter than love. But
+even friendship, to be worthy of its name, must be quite unselfish,--and
+unselfishness, in both love and friendship, is rare."
+
+"Very, very rare!" she sighed.
+
+"You will be thinking of marriage _some_ day, if you are not thinking of
+it now," he went on. "Would a husband's friendship--friendship and no
+more--satisfy you?"
+
+She gazed at him candidly.
+
+"I am sure it would!" she said; "I'm not the least bit sentimental."
+
+He regarded her with a grave and musing steadfastness. A very close
+observer might have seen a line of grim satire near the corners of his
+mouth, and a gleam of irritable impatience in his sunken eyes; but these
+signs of inward feeling were not apparent to the girl, who, more than
+usually satisfied with herself and over-conscious of her own beauty,
+considered that she was saying just the very thing that he would expect
+and like her to say.
+
+"You do not crave for love, then?" he queried. "You do not wish to know
+anything of the 'divine rapture falling out of heaven,'--the rapture
+that has inspired all the artists and poets in the world, and that has
+probably had the largest share in making the world's history?"
+
+She gave a little shrug of amused disdain.
+
+"Raptures never last!" and she laughed. "And artists and poets are
+dreadful people! I've seen a few of them, and don't want to see them any
+more. They are always very untidy, and they have the most absurd ideas
+of their own abilities. You can't have them in society, you know!--you
+simply can't! If I had a house of my own I would never have a poet
+inside it."
+
+The grim lines round Helmsley's mouth hardened, and made him look almost
+cruelly saturnine. Yet he murmured under his breath:--
+
+    "'All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
+      Whatever stirs this mortal frame;
+    Are but the ministers of Love,
+      And feed his sacred flame!'"
+
+"What's that?" she asked quickly.
+
+"Poetry!" he answered, "by a man named Coleridge. He is dead now. He
+used to take opium, and he did not understand business matters. He was
+never rich in anything but thoughts."
+
+She smiled brilliantly.
+
+"How silly!" she said.
+
+"Yes, he was very silly," agreed Helmsley, watching her narrowly from
+under his half-closed eyelids. "But most thinkers are silly, even when
+they don't take opium. They believe in Love."
+
+She coloured. She caught the sarcastic inflection in his tone. But she
+was silent.
+
+"Most men who have lived and worked and suffered," he went on, "come to
+know before they die that without a great and true love in their lives,
+their work is wasted, and their sufferings are in vain. But there are
+exceptions, of course. Some get on very well without love at all, and
+perhaps these are the most fortunate."
+
+"I am sure they are!" she said decisively.
+
+He picked up two or three of the rose-petals her restless fingers had
+scattered, and laying them in his palm looked at the curved, pink,
+shell-like shapes abstractedly.
+
+"Well, they are saved a good deal of trouble," he answered quietly.
+"They spare themselves many a healing heart-ache and many purifying
+tears. But when they grow old, and when they find that, after all, the
+happiest folks in the world are still those who love, or who have loved
+and have been loved, even though the loved ones are perhaps no longer
+here, they may--I do not say they will--possibly regret that they never
+experienced that marvellous sense of absorption into another's life of
+which Mrs. Browning writes in her letters to her husband. Do you know
+what she says?"
+
+"I'm afraid I don't!" and she smothered a slight yawn as she spoke. He
+fixed his eyes intently upon her.
+
+"She tells her lover her feeling in these words: '_There is nothing in
+you that does not draw all out of me._' That is the true emotion of
+love,--the one soul must draw all out of the other, and the best of all
+in each."
+
+"But the Brownings were a very funny couple," and the fair Lucy arched
+her graceful throat and settled more becomingly in its place a straying
+curl of her glossy brown hair. "I know an old gentleman who used to see
+them together when they lived in Florence, and _he_ says they were so
+queer-looking that people used to laugh at them. It's all very well to
+love and to be in love, but if you look odd and people laugh at you,
+what's the good of it?"
+
+Helmsley rose from his seat abruptly.
+
+"True!" he exclaimed. "You're right, Lucy! Little girl, you're quite
+right! What's the good of it! Upon my word, you're a most practical
+woman!--you'll make a capital wife for a business man!" Then as the gay
+music of the band below-stairs suddenly ceased, to give place to the
+noise of chattering voices and murmurs of laughter, he glanced at his
+watch.
+
+"Supper-time!" he said. "Let me take you down. And after supper, will
+you give me ten minutes' chat with you alone in the library!"
+
+She looked up eagerly, with a flush of pink in her cheeks.
+
+"Of course I will! With pleasure!"
+
+"Thank you!" And he drew her white-gloved hand through his arm. "I am
+leaving town next week, and I have something important to say to you
+before I go. You will allow me to say it privately?"
+
+She smiled assent, and leaned on his arm with a light, confiding
+pressure, to which he no more responded than if his muscles had been
+rigid iron. Her heart beat quickly with a sense of gratified vanity and
+exultant expectancy,--but his throbbed slowly and heavily, chilled by
+the double frost of age and solitude.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+To see people eating is understood to be a very interesting and
+"brilliant" spectacle, and however insignificant you may be in the
+social world, you get a reflex of its "brilliancy" when you allow people
+in their turn to see you eating likewise. A well-cooked, well-served
+supper is a "function," in which every man and woman who can move a jaw
+takes part, and though in plain parlance there is nothing uglier than
+the act of putting food into one's mouth, we have persuaded ourselves
+that it is a pretty and pleasant performance enough for us to ask our
+friends to see us do it. Byron's idea that human beings should eat
+privately and apart, was not altogether without ęsthetic justification,
+though according to medical authority such a procedure would be very
+injurious to health. The slow mastication of a meal in the presence of
+cheerful company is said to promote healthy digestion--moreover, custom
+and habit make even the most incongruous things acceptable, therefore
+the display of tables, crowded with food-stuffs and surrounded by
+eating, drinking, chattering and perspiring men and women, does not
+affect us to any sense of the ridiculous or the unseemly. On the
+contrary, when some of us see such tables, we exclaim "How lovely!" or
+"How delightful!" according to our own pet vocabulary, or to our
+knowledge of the humour of our host or hostess,--or perhaps, if we are
+young cynics, tired of life before we have confronted one of its
+problems, we murmur, "Not so bad!" or "Fairly decent!" when we are
+introduced to the costly and appetising delicacies heaped up round
+masses of flowers and silver for our consideration and entertainment. At
+the supper given by David Helmsley for Lucy Sorrel's twenty-first
+birthday, there was, however, no note of dissatisfaction--the _blasé_
+breath of the callow critic emitted no withering blight, and even
+latter-day satirists in their teens, frosted like tender pease-blossom
+before their prime, condescended to approve the lavish generosity,
+combined with the perfect taste, which made the festive scene a glowing
+picture of luxury and elegance. But Helmsley himself, as he led his
+beautiful partner, "the" guest of the evening, to the head of the
+principal table, and took his place beside her, was conscious of no
+personal pleasure, but only of a dreary feeling which seemed lonelier
+than loneliness and more sorrowful than sorrow. The wearied scorn that
+he had lately begun to entertain for himself, his wealth, his business,
+his influence, and all his surroundings, was embittered by a
+disappointment none the less keen because he had dimly foreseen it. The
+child he had petted, the girl he had indulged after the fashion of a
+father who seeks to make the world pleasant to a young life just
+entering it, she, even she, was, or seemed to be, practically as selfish
+as any experienced member of the particular set of schemers and
+intriguers who compose what is sometimes called "society" in the present
+day. He had no wish to judge her harshly, but he was too old and knew
+too much of life to be easily deceived in his estimation of character. A
+very slight hint was sufficient for him. He had seen a great deal of
+Lucy Sorrel as a child--she had always been known as his "little
+favourite"--but since she had attended a fashionable school at Brighton,
+his visits to her home had been less frequent, and he had had very few
+opportunities of becoming acquainted with the gradual development of her
+mental and moral self. During her holidays he had given her as many
+little social pleasures and gaieties as he had considered might be
+acceptable to her taste and age, but on these occasions other persons
+had always been present, and Lucy herself had worn what are called
+"company" manners, which in her case were singularly charming and
+attractive, so much so, indeed, that it would have seemed like heresy to
+question their sincerity. But now--whether it was the slight hint
+dropped by Sir Francis Vesey on the previous night as to Mrs. Sorrel's
+match-making proclivities, or whether it was a scarcely perceptible
+suggestion of something more flippant and assertive than usual in the
+air and bearing of Lucy herself that had awakened his suspicions,--he
+was certainly disposed to doubt, for the first time in all his knowledge
+of her, the candid nature of the girl for whom he had hitherto
+entertained, half-unconsciously, an almost parental affection. He sat by
+her side at supper, seldom speaking, but always closely observant. He
+saw everything; he watched the bright, exulting flash of her eyes as she
+glanced at her various friends, both near her and at a distance, and he
+fancied he detected in their responsive looks a subtle inquiry and
+meaning which he would not allow himself to investigate. And while the
+bubbling talk and laughter eddied round him, he made up his mind to
+combat the lurking distrust that teased his brain, and either to
+disperse it altogether or else confirm it beyond all mere shadowy
+misgiving. Some such thought as this had occurred to him, albeit
+vaguely, when he had, on a sudden unpremeditated impulse, asked Lucy to
+give him a few minutes' private conversation with her after supper, but
+now, what had previously been a mere idea formulated itself into a fixed
+resolve.
+
+"For what, after all, does it matter to me?" he mused. "Why should I
+hesitate to destroy a dream? Why should I care if another rainbow bubble
+of life breaks and disappears? I am too old to have ideals--so most
+people would tell me. And yet--with the grave open and ready to receive
+me,--I still believe that love and truth and purity surely exist in
+women's hearts--if one could only know just where to find the women!"
+
+"Dear King David!" murmured a cooing voice at his ear. "Won't you drink
+my health?"
+
+He started as from a reverie. Lucy Sorrel was bending towards him, her
+face glowing with gratified vanity and self-elation.
+
+"Of course!" he answered, and rising to his feet, he lifted his glass
+full of as yet untasted champagne, at which action on his part the
+murmur of voices suddenly ceased sand all eyes were turned upon him.
+"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, in his soft, tired voice,--"I beg to
+propose the health of Miss Lucy Sorrel! She has lived twenty-one years
+on this interesting old planet of ours, and has found it, so far, not
+altogether without charm. I have had seventy years of it, and strange as
+it may seem to you all, I am able to keep a few of the illusions and
+delusions I had when I was even younger than our charming guest of the
+evening. I still believe in good women! I think I have one sitting at my
+right hand to-night. I take for granted that her nature is as fair as
+her face; and I hope that every recurring anniversary of this day may
+bring her just as much happiness as she deserves. I ask you to drink to
+her health, wealth, and prosperity; and--may she soon find a good
+husband!"
+
+Applause and laughter followed this conventional little speech, and the
+toast was honoured in the usual way, Lucy bowing and smiling her thanks
+to all present. And then there ensued one of those strange
+impressions--one might almost call them telepathic instead of
+atmospheric effects--which, subtly penetrating the air, exerted an
+inexplicable influence on the mind;--the expectancy of some word never
+to be uttered,--the waiting for some incident never to take place.
+People murmured and smiled, and looked and laughed, but there was an
+evident embarrassment among them,--an under-sense of something like
+disappointment. The fortunately commonplace and methodical habits of
+waiters, whose one idea is to keep their patrons busy eating and
+drinking, gradually overcame this insidious restraint, and the supper
+went on gaily till at one o'clock the Hungarian band again began to
+play, and all the young people, eager for their "extras" in the way of
+dances, quickly rose from the various tables and began to crowd out
+towards the ballroom. In the general dispersal, Lucy having left him for
+a partner to whom she had promised the first "extra," Helmsley stopped
+to speak to one or two men well known to him in the business world. He
+was still conversing with these when Mrs. Sorrel, not perceiving him in
+the corner where he stood apart with his friend, trotted past him with
+an agitated step and flushed countenance, and catching her daughter by
+the skirt of her dress as that young lady moved on with the pushing
+throng in front of her, held her back for a second.
+
+"What have you done?" she demanded querulously, in not too soft a tone.
+"Were you careful? Did you manage him properly? What did he say to you?"
+
+Lucy's beautiful face hardened, and her lips met in a thin, decidedly
+bad-tempered line.
+
+"He said nothing to the purpose," she replied coldly. "There was no
+time. But"--and she lowered her voice--"he wants to speak to me alone
+presently. I'm going to him in the library after this dance."
+
+She passed on, and Mrs. Sorrel, heaving a deep sigh, drew out a black
+pocket-fan and fanned herself vigorously. Wreathing her face with social
+smiles, she made her way slowly out of the supper-room, happily unaware
+that Helmsley had been near enough to hear every word that had passed.
+And hearing, he had understood; but he went on talking to his friends
+in the quiet, rather slow way which was habitual to him, and when he
+left them there was nothing about him to indicate that he was in a
+suppressed state of nervous excitement which made him for the moment
+quite forget that he was an old man. Impetuous youth itself never felt a
+keener blaze of vitality in the veins than he did at that moment, but it
+was the withering heat of indignation that warmed him--not the tender
+glow of love. The clarion sweetness of the dance-music, now pealing
+loudly on the air, irritated his nerves,--the lights, the flowers, the
+brilliancy of the whole scene jarred upon his soul,--what was it all but
+sham, he thought!--a show in the mere name of friendship!--an ephemeral
+rose of pleasure with a worm at its core! Impatiently he shook himself
+free of those who sought to detain him and went at once to his
+library,--a sombre, darkly-furnished apartment, large enough to seem
+gloomy by contrast with the gaiety and cheerfulness which were dominant
+throughout the rest of the house that evening. Only two or three shaded
+lamps were lit, and these cast a ghostly flicker on the row of books
+that lined the walls. A few names in raised letters of gold relief upon
+the backs of some of the volumes, asserted themselves, or so he fancied,
+with unaccustomed prominence. "Montaigne," "Seneca," "Rochefoucauld,"
+"Goethe," "Byron," and "The Sonnets of William Shakespeare," stood forth
+from the surrounding darkness as though demanding special notice.
+
+"Voices of the dead!" he murmured half aloud. "I should have learned
+wisdom from you all long ago! What have the great geniuses of the world
+lived for? For what purpose did they use their brains and pens? Simply
+to teach mankind the folly of too much faith! Yet we continue to delude
+ourselves--and the worst of it is that we do it wilfully and knowingly.
+We are perfectly aware that when we trust, we shall be deceived--yet we
+trust on! Even I--old and frail and about to die--cannot rid myself of a
+belief in God, and in the ultimate happiness of each man's destiny. And
+yet, so far as my own experience serves me, I have nothing to go
+upon--absolutely nothing!"
+
+He gave an unconscious gesture--half of scorn, half of despair--and
+paced the room slowly up and down. A life of toil--a life rounding into
+worldly success, but blank of all love and heart's comfort--was this to
+be the only conclusion to his career? Of what use, then, was it to have
+lived at all?
+
+"People talk foolishly of a 'declining birth-rate,'" he went on; "yet
+if, according to the modern scientist, all civilisations are only so
+much output of wasted human energy, doomed to pass into utter oblivion,
+and human beings only live but to die and there an end, of what avail is
+it to be born at all? Surely it is but wanton cruelty to take upon
+ourselves the responsibility of continuing a race whose only
+consummation is rottenness in unremembered graves!"
+
+At that moment the door opened and Lucy Sorrel entered softly, with a
+pretty air of hesitating timidity which became her style of beauty
+excellently well. As he looked up and saw her standing half shyly on the
+threshold, a white, light, radiant figure expressing exquisitely fresh
+youth, grace and--innocence?--yes! surely that wondrous charm which hung
+about her like a delicate atmosphere redolent with the perfume of
+spring, could only be the mystic exhalation of a pure mind adding
+spiritual lustre to the material attraction of a perfect body,--his
+heart misgave him. Already he was full of remorse lest so much as a
+passing thought in his brain might have done her unmerited wrong. He
+advanced to meet her, and his voice was full of kindness as he said:--
+
+"Is your dance quite over, Lucy? Are you sure I am not selfishly
+depriving you of pleasure by asking you to come away from all your young
+friends just to talk to me for a few minutes in this dull room?"
+
+She raised her beautiful eyes confidingly.
+
+"Dear Mr. Helmsley, there can be no greater pleasure for me than to talk
+to you!" she answered sweetly.
+
+His expression changed and hardened. "That's not true," he thought; "and
+_she_ knows it, and _I_ know it." Aloud he said: "Very prettily spoken,
+Lucy! But I am aware of my own tediousness and I won't detain you long.
+Will you sit down?" and he offered her an easy-chair, into which she
+sank with the soft slow grace of a nestling bird. "I only want to say
+just a few words,--such as your father might say to you if he were so
+inclined--about your future."
+
+She gave him a swift glance of keen inquiry.
+
+"My future?" she echoed.
+
+"Yes. Have you thought of it at all yourself?"
+
+She heaved a little sigh, smiled, and shook her head in the negative.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm very silly," she confessed plaintively. "I never think!"
+
+He drew up another armchair and sat down opposite to her.
+
+"Well, try to do so now for five minutes at least," he said, gently. "I
+am going away to-morrow or next day for a considerable time----"
+
+A quick flush flew over her face.
+
+"Going away!" she exclaimed. "But--not far?"
+
+"That depends on my own whim," he replied, watching her attentively. "I
+shall certainly be absent from England for a year, perhaps longer. But,
+Lucy,--you were such a little pet of mine in your childhood that I
+cannot help taking an interest in you now you are grown up. That is, I
+think, quite natural. And I should like to feel that you have some good
+and safe idea of your own happiness in life before I leave you."
+
+She stared,--her face fell.
+
+"I have no ideas at all," she answered after a pause, the corners of her
+red mouth drooping in petulant, spoilt-child fashion, "and if you go
+away I shall have no pleasures either!"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"I'm sorry you take it that way," he said. "But I'm nearing the end of
+my tether, Lucy, and increasing age makes me restless. I want change of
+scene--and change of surroundings. I am thoroughly tired of my present
+condition."
+
+"Tired?" and her eyes expressed whole volumes of amazement. "Not really?
+_You_--tired of your present condition? With all your money?"
+
+"With all my money!" he answered drily, "Money is not the elixir of
+happiness, Lucy, though many people seem to think it is. But I prefer
+not to talk about myself. Let me speak of you. What do you propose to do
+with your life? You will marry, of course?"
+
+"I--I suppose so," she faltered.
+
+"Is there any one you specially favour?--any young fellow who loves you,
+or whom you are inclined to love--and who wants a start in the world? If
+there is, send him to me, and, if he has anything in him, I'll make
+myself answerable for his prosperity."
+
+She looked up with a cold, bright steadfastness.
+
+"There is no one," she said. "Dear Mr. Helmsley, you are very good, but
+I assure you I have never fallen in love in my life. As I told you
+before supper, I don't believe in that kind of nonsense. And I--I want
+nothing. Of course I know my father and mother are poor, and that they
+have kept up a sort of position which ranks them among the 'shabby
+genteel,'--and I suppose if I don't marry quickly I shall have to do
+something for a living----"
+
+She broke off, embarrassed by the keenness of the gaze he fixed upon
+her.
+
+"Many good, many beautiful, many delicate women 'do something,' as you
+put it, for a living," he said slowly. "But the fight is always fierce,
+and the end is sometimes bitter. It is better for a woman that she
+should be safeguarded by a husband's care and tenderness than that she
+should attempt to face the world alone."
+
+A flashing smile dimpled the corners of her mouth.
+
+"Why, yes, I quite agree with you," she retorted playfully. "But if no
+husband come forward, then it cannot be helped!"
+
+He rose, and, pushing away his chair, walked up and down in silence.
+
+She watched him with a sense of growing irritability, and her heart beat
+with uncomfortable quickness. Why did he seem to hesitate so long?
+Presently he stopped in his slow movement to and fro, and stood looking
+down upon her with a fixed intensity which vaguely troubled her.
+
+"It is difficult to advise," he said, "and it is still more difficult to
+control. In your case I have no right to do either. I am an old man, and
+you are a very young woman. You are beginning your life,--I am ending
+mine. Yet, young as you are, you say with apparent sincerity that you do
+not believe in love. Now I, though I have loved and lost, though I have
+loved and have been cruelly deceived in love, still believe that if the
+true, heavenly passion be fully and faithfully experienced, it must
+prove the chief joy, if not the only one, of life. You think otherwise,
+and perhaps you correctly express the opinion of the younger generation
+of men and women. These appear to crowd more emotion and excitement into
+their lives than ever was attained or attainable in the lives of their
+forefathers, but they do not, or so it seems to me, secure for
+themselves as much peace of mind and satisfaction of soul as were the
+inheritance of bygone folk whom we now call 'old-fashioned.' Still, you
+may be right in depreciating the power of love--from your point of view.
+All the same, I should be sorry to see you entering into a loveless
+marriage."
+
+For a moment she was silent, then she suddenly plunged into speech.
+
+"Dear Mr. Helmsley, do you really think all the silly sentiment talked
+and written about love is any good in marriage? We know so much
+nowadays,--and the disillusion of matrimony is so _very_ complete! One
+has only to read the divorce cases in the newspapers to see what
+mistakes people make----"
+
+He winced as though he had been stung.
+
+"Do you read the divorce cases, Lucy?" he asked. "You--a mere girl like
+you?"
+
+She looked surprised at the regret and pain in his tone.
+
+"Why, of course! One _must_ read the papers to keep up with all the
+things that are going on. And the divorce cases have always such
+startling headings,--in such big print!--one is obliged to read
+them--positively obliged!"
+
+She laughed carelessly, and settled herself more cosily in her chair.
+
+"You nearly always find that it is the people who were desperately in
+love with each other before marriage who behave disgracefully and are
+perfectly sick of each other afterwards," she went on. "They wanted
+perpetual poetry and moonlight, and of course they find they can't have
+it. Now, I don't want poetry or moonlight,--I hate both! Poetry makes me
+sleepy, and moonlight gives me neuralgia. I should like a husband who
+would be a _friend_ to me--a real kind friend!--some one who would be
+able to take care of me, and be nice to me always--some one much older
+than myself, who was wise and strong and clever----"
+
+"And rich," said Helmsley quietly. "Don't forget that! Very rich!"
+
+She glanced at him furtively, conscious of a slight nervous qualm. Then,
+rapidly reviewing the situation in her shallow brain, she accepted his
+remark smilingly.
+
+"Oh, well, of course!" she said. "It's not pleasant to live without
+plenty of money."
+
+He turned from her abruptly, and resumed his leisurely walk to and fro,
+much to her inward vexation. He was becoming fidgety, she decided,--old
+people were really very trying! Suddenly, with the air of a man arriving
+at an important decision, he sat down again in the armchair opposite her
+own, and leaning indolently back against the cushion, surveyed her with
+a calm, critical, entirely businesslike manner, much as he would have
+looked at a Jew company-promoter, who sought his aid to float a "bogus"
+scheme.
+
+"It's not pleasant to live without plenty of money, you think," he said,
+repeating her last words slowly. "Well! The pleasantest time of my life
+was when I did not own a penny in the bank, and when I had to be very
+sharp in order to earn enough for my day's dinner. There was a zest, a
+delight, a fine glory in the mere effort to live that brought out the
+strength of every quality I possessed. I learned to know myself, which
+is a farther reaching wisdom than is found in knowing others. I had
+ideals then,--and--old as I am, I have them still."
+
+He paused. She was silent. Her eyes were lowered, and she played idly
+with her painted fan.
+
+"I wonder if it would surprise you," he went on, "to know that I have
+made an ideal of _you_?"
+
+She looked up with a smile.
+
+"Really? Have you? I'm afraid I shall prove a disappointment!"
+
+He did not answer by the obvious compliment which she felt she had a
+right to expect. He kept his gaze fixed steadily on her face, and his
+shaggy eyebrows almost met in the deep hollow which painful thought had
+ploughed along his forehead.
+
+"I have made," he said, "an ideal in my mind of the little child who sat
+on my knee, played with my watch-chain and laughed at me when I called
+her my little sweetheart. She was perfectly candid in her laughter,--she
+knew it was absurd for an old man to have a child as his sweetheart. I
+loved to hear her laugh so,--because she was true to herself, and to her
+right and natural instincts. She was the prettiest and sweetest child I
+ever saw,--full of innocent dreams and harmless gaiety. She began to
+grow up, and I saw less and less of her, till gradually I lost the child
+and found the woman. But I believe in the child's heart still--I think
+that the truth and simplicity of the child's soul are still in the
+womanly nature,--and in that way, Lucy, I yet hold you as an ideal."
+
+Her breath quickened a little.
+
+"You think too kindly of me," she murmured, furling and unfurling her
+fan slowly; "I'm not at all clever."
+
+He gave a slight deprecatory gesture.
+
+"Cleverness is not what I expect or have ever expected of you," he said.
+"You have not as yet had to endure the misrepresentation and wrong which
+frequently make women clever,--the life of solitude and despised dreams
+which moves a woman to put on man's armour and sally forth to fight the
+world and conquer it, or else die in the attempt. How few conquer, and
+how many die, are matters of history. Be glad you are not a clever
+woman, Lucy!--for genius in a woman is the mystic laurel of Apollo
+springing from the soft breast of Daphne. It hurts in the growing, and
+sometimes breaks the heart from which it grows."
+
+She answered nothing. He was talking in a way she did not
+understand,--his allusion to Apollo and Daphne was completely beyond
+her. She smothered a tiny yawn and wondered why he was so tedious.
+Moreover, she was conscious of some slight chagrin, for though she said,
+out of mere social hypocrisy, that she was not clever, she thought
+herself exceptionally so. Why could he not admit her abilities as
+readily as she herself admitted them?
+
+"No, you are not clever," he resumed quietly. "And I am glad you are
+not. You are good and pure and true,--these graces outweigh all
+cleverness."
+
+Her cheeks flushed prettily,--she thought of a girl who had been her
+schoolmate at Brighton, one of the boldest little hussies that ever
+flashed eyes to the light of day, yet who could assume the dainty
+simpering air of maiden--modest perfection at the moment's notice. She
+wished she could do the same, but she had not studied the trick
+carefully enough, and she was afraid to try more of it than just a
+little tremulous smile and a quick downward glance at her fan. Helmsley
+watched her attentively--almost craftily. It did not strain his sense of
+perspicuity over much to see exactly what was going on in her mind. He
+settled himself a little more comfortably in his chair, and pressing the
+tips of his fingers together, looked at her over this pointed rampart
+of polished nails as though she were something altogether curious and
+remarkable.
+
+"The virtues of a woman are her wealth and worth," he said
+sententiously, as though he were quoting a maxim out of a child's
+copybook. "A jewel's price is not so much for its size and weight as for
+its particular lustre. But common commercial people--like myself--even
+if they have the good fortune to find a diamond likely to surpass all
+others in the market, are never content till they have tested it. Every
+Jew bites his coin. And I am something of a Jew. I like to know the
+exact value of what I esteem as precious. And so I test it."
+
+"Yes?" She threw in this interjected query simply because she did not
+know what to say. She thought he was talking very oddly, and wondered
+whether he was quite sane.
+
+"Yes," he echoed; "I test it. And, Lucy, I think so highly of you, and
+esteem you as so very fair a pearl of womanhood, that I am inclined to
+test you just as I would a priceless gem. Do you object?"
+
+She glanced up at him flutteringly, vaguely surprised. The corners of
+his mouth relaxed into the shadow of a smile, and she was reassured.
+
+"Object? Of course not! As if I should object to anything you wish!" she
+said amiably. "But--I don't quite understand----"
+
+"No, possibly not," he interrupted; "I know I have not the art of making
+myself very clear in matters which deeply and personally affect myself.
+I have nerves still, and some remnant of a heart,--these occasionally
+trouble me----"
+
+She leaned forward and put her delicately gloved hand on his.
+
+"Dear King David!" she murmured. "You are always so good!"
+
+He took the little fingers in his own clasp and held them gently.
+
+"I want to ask you a question, Lucy," he said; "and it is a very
+difficult question, because I feel that your answer to it may mean a
+great sorrow for me,--a great disappointment. The question is the 'test'
+I speak of. Shall I put it to you?"
+
+"Please do!" she answered, her heart beginning to beat violently. He
+was coming to the point at last, she thought, and a few words more would
+surely make her the future mistress of the Helmsley millions! "If I can
+answer it I will!"
+
+"Shall I ask you my question, or shall I not?" he went on, gripping her
+hand hard, and half raising himself in his chair as he looked intently
+at her telltale face. "For it means more than you can realise. It is an
+audacious, impudent question, Lucy,--one that no man of my age ought to
+ask any woman,--one that is likely to offend you very much!"
+
+She withdrew her hand from his.
+
+"Offend me?" and her eyes widened with a blank wonder. "What can it be?"
+
+"Ah! What can it be! Think of all the most audacious and impudent things
+a man--an old man--could say to a young woman! Suppose,--it is only
+supposition, remember,--suppose, for instance, I were to ask you to
+marry me?"
+
+A smile, brilliant and exultant, flashed over her features,--she almost
+laughed out her inward joy.
+
+"I should accept you at once!" she said.
+
+With sudden impetuosity he rose, and pushing away his chair, drew
+himself up to his full height, looking down upon her.
+
+"You would!" and his voice was low and tense. "_You!_--you would
+actually marry me?"
+
+She, rising likewise, confronted him in all her fresh and youthful
+beauty, fair and smiling, her bosom heaving and her eyes dilating with
+eagerness.
+
+"I would,--indeed I would!" she averred delightedly. "I would rather
+marry you than any man in the world!"
+
+There was a moment's silence. Then--
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+The simple monosyllabic query completely confused her. It was
+unexpected, and she was at her wit's end how to reply to it. Moreover,
+he kept his eyes so pertinaciously fixed upon her that she felt her
+blood rising to her cheeks and brow in a hot flush of--shame? Oh
+no!--not shame, but merely petulant vexation. The proper way for him to
+behave at this juncture, so she reflected, would be that he should take
+her tenderly in his arms and murmur, after the penny-dreadful style of
+elderly hero, "My darling, my darling! Can you, so young and beautiful,
+really care for an old fogey like me?'" to which she would, of course,
+have replied in the same fashion, and with the most charming
+insincerity--"Dearest! Do not talk of age! You will never be old to my
+fond heart!" But to stand, as he was standing, like a rigid figure of
+bronze, with a hard pale face in which only the eyes seemed living, and
+to merely ask "Why" she would rather marry him than any other man in the
+world, was absurd, to say the least of it, and indeed quite lacking in
+all delicacy of sentiment. She sought about in her mind for some way out
+of the difficulty and could find none. She grew more and more painfully
+crimson, and wished she could cry. A well worked-up passion of tears
+would have come in very usefully just then, but somehow she could not
+turn the passion on. And a horrid sense of incompetency and failure
+began to steal over her--an awful foreboding of defeat. What could she
+do to seize the slippery opportunity and grasp the doubtful prize? How
+could she land the big golden fish which she foolishly fancied she had
+at the end of her line? Never had she felt so helpless or so angry.
+
+"Why?" he repeated--"Why would you marry me? Not for love certainly.
+Even if you believed in love--which you say you do not,--you could not
+at your age love a man at mine. That would be impossible and unnatural.
+I am old enough to be your grandfather. Think again, Lucy! Perhaps you
+spoke hastily--- out of girlish thoughtlessness--or out of kindness and
+a wish to please me,--but do not, in so serious a matter, consider me at
+all. Consider yourself. Consider your own nature and temperament--your
+own life--your own future--your own happiness. Would you, young as you
+are, with all the world before you--would you, if I asked you,
+deliberately and of your own free will, marry me?"
+
+She drew a sharp breath, and hurriedly wondered what was best to do. He
+spoke so strangely!--he looked so oddly! But that might be because he
+was in love with her! Her lips parted,--she faced him straightly,
+lifting her head with a little air of something like defiance.
+
+"I would!--of course I would!" she replied. "Nothing could make me
+happier!"
+
+He gave a kind of gesture with his hands as though he threw aside some
+cherished object.
+
+"So vanishes my last illusion!" he said. "Well! Let it go!"
+
+She gazed at him stupidly. What did he mean? Why did he not now emulate
+the penny-dreadful heroes and say "My darling!" Nothing seemed further
+from his thoughts. His eyes rested upon her with a coldness such as she
+had never seen in them before, and his features hardened.
+
+"I should have known the modern world and modern education better," he
+went on, speaking more to himself than to her. "I have had experience
+enough. I should never have allowed myself to keep even the shred of a
+belief in woman's honesty!"
+
+She started, and flamed into a heat of protest.
+
+"Mr. Helmsley!"
+
+He raised a deprecatory hand.
+
+"Pardon me!" he said wearily--"I am an old man, accustomed to express
+myself bluntly. Even if I vex you, I fear I shall not know how to
+apologise. I had thought----"
+
+He broke off, then with an effort resumed--
+
+"I had thought, Lucy, that you were above all bribery and corruption."
+
+"Bribery?--Corruption?" she stammered, and in a tremor of excitement and
+perturbation her fan dropped from her hands to the floor. He stooped for
+it with the ease and grace of a far younger man, and returned it to her.
+
+"Yes, bribery and corruption," he continued quietly. "The bribery of
+wealth--the corruption of position. These are the sole objects for which
+(if I asked you, which I have not done) you would marry me. For there is
+nothing else I have to offer you. I could not give you the sentiment or
+passion of a husband (if husbands ever have sentiment or passion
+nowadays), because all such feeling is dead in me. I could not be your
+'friend' in marriage--because I should always remember that our
+matrimonial 'friendship' was merely one of cash supply and demand. You
+see I speak very plainly. I am not a polite person--not even a
+Conventional one. I am too old to tell lies. Lying is never a profitable
+business in youth--but in age it is pure waste of time and energy. With
+one foot in the grave it is as well to keep the other from slipping."
+
+He paused. She tried to say something, but could find no suitable words
+with which to answer him. He looked at her steadily, half expecting her
+to speak, and there was both pain and sorrow in the depths of his tired
+eyes.
+
+"I need not prolong this conversation," he said, after a minute's
+silence. "For it must be as embarrassing to you as it is to me. It is
+quite my own fault that I built too many hopes upon you, Lucy! I set you
+up on a pedestal and you have yourself stepped down from it--I have put
+you to the test, and you have failed. I daresay the failure is as much
+the concern of your parents and the way in which they have brought you
+up, as it is of any latent weakness in your own mind and character.
+But,--if, when I suggested such an absurd and unnatural proposition as
+marriage between myself arid you, you had at once, like a true woman,
+gently and firmly repudiated the idea, then----"
+
+"Then--what?" she faltered.
+
+"Why, then I should have made you my sole heiress," he said quietly.
+
+Her eyes opened in blank wonderment and despair. Was it possible! Had
+she been so near her golden El Dorado only to see the shining shores
+receding, and the glittering harbour closed! Oh, it was cruel! Horrible!
+There was a convulsive catch in her throat which she managed to turn
+into the laugh hysterical.
+
+"Really!" she ejaculated, with a poor attempt at flippancy; and, in her
+turn, she asked the question, "Why?"
+
+"Because I should have known you were honest," answered Helmsley, with
+emphasis. "Honest to your womanly instincts, and to the simplest and
+purest part of your nature. I should have proved for myself the fact
+that you refused to sell your beautiful person for gold--that you were
+no slave in the world's auction-mart, but a free, proud, noble-hearted
+English girl who meant to be faithful to all that was highest and best
+in her soul. Ah, Lucy! You are not this little dream-girl of mine! You
+are a very realistic modern woman with whom a man's 'ideal' has nothing
+in common!"
+
+She was silent, half-stifled with rage. He stepped up to her and took
+her hand.
+
+"Good-night, Lucy! Good-bye!"
+
+She wrenched her fingers from his clasp, and a sudden, uncontrollable
+fury possessed her.
+
+"I hate you!" she said between her set teeth. "You are mean! Mean! I
+hate you!"
+
+He stood quite still, gravely irresponsive.
+
+"You have deceived me--cheated me!" she went on, angrily and recklessly.
+"You made me think you wanted to marry me."
+
+The corners of his mouth went up under his ashen-grey moustache in a
+chill smile.
+
+"Pardon me!" he interrupted. "But did I make you think? or did you think
+it of your own accord?"
+
+She plucked at her fan nervously.
+
+"Any girl--I don't care who she is--would accept you if you asked her to
+marry you!" she said hotly. "It would be perfectly idiotic to refuse
+such a rich man, even if he were Methusaleh himself. There's nothing
+wrong or dishonest in taking the chance of having plenty of money, if it
+is offered."
+
+He looked at her, vaguely compassionating her loss of self-control.
+
+"No, there is nothing wrong or dishonest in taking the chance of having
+plenty of money, if such a chance can be had without shame and
+dishonour," he said. "But I, personally, should consider a woman
+hopelessly lost to every sense of self-respect, if at the age of
+twenty-one she consented to marry a man of seventy for the sake of his
+wealth. And I should equally consider the man of seventy a disgrace to
+the name of manhood if he condoned the voluntary sale of such a woman by
+becoming her purchaser."
+
+She lifted her head with a haughty air.
+
+"Then, if you thought these things, you had no right to propose to me!"
+she said passionately.
+
+He was faintly amused.
+
+"I did not propose to you, Lucy," he answered, "and I never intended to
+do so! I merely asked what your answer would be if I did."
+
+"It comes to the same thing!" she muttered.
+
+"Pardon me, not quite! I told you I was putting you to a test. That you
+failed to stand my test is the conclusion of the whole affair. We really
+need say no more about it. The matter is finished."
+
+She bit her lips vexedly, then forced a hard smile.
+
+"It's about time it was finished, I'm sure!" she said carelessly. "I'm
+perfectly tired out!"
+
+"No doubt you are--you must be--I was forgetting how late it is," and
+with ceremonious politeness he opened the door for her to pass. "You
+have had an exhausting evening! Forgive me for any pain or
+vexation--or--or anger I may have caused you--and, good-night, Lucy! God
+bless you!"
+
+He held out his hand. He looked worn and wan, and his face showed
+pitiful marks of fatigue, loneliness, and sorrow, but the girl was too
+much incensed by her own disappointment to forgive him for the
+unexpected trial to which he had submitted her disposition and
+character.
+
+"Good-night!" she said curtly, avoiding his glance. "I suppose
+everybody's gone by this time; mother will be waiting for me."
+
+"Won't you shake hands?" he pleaded gently. "I'm sorry that I expected
+more of you than you could give, Lucy! but I want you to be happy, and I
+think and hope you will be, if you let the best part of you have its
+way. Still, it may happen that I shall never see you again--so let us
+part friends!"
+
+She raised her eyes, hardened now in their expression by intense
+malignity and spite, and fixed them fully upon him.
+
+"I don't want to be friends with you any more!" she said. "You are cruel
+and selfish, and you have treated me abominably! I am sure you will die
+miserably, without a soul to care for you! And I hope--yes, I hope I
+shall never hear of you, never see you any more as long as you live! You
+could never have really had the least bit of affection for me when I was
+a child."
+
+He interrupted her by a quick, stern gesture.
+
+"That child is dead! Do not speak of her!"
+
+Something in his aspect awed her--something of the mute despair and
+solitude of a man who has lost his last hope on earth, shadowed his
+pallid features as with a forecast of approaching dissolution.
+Involuntarily she trembled, and felt cold; her head drooped;--for a
+moment her conscience pricked her, reminding her how she had schemed and
+plotted and planned to become the wife of this sad, frail old man ever
+since she had reached the mature age of sixteen,--for a moment she was
+impelled to make a clean confession of her own egotism, and to ask his
+pardon for having, under the tuition of her mother, made him the
+unconscious pivot of all her worldly ambitions,--then, with a sudden
+impetuous movement, she swept past him without a word, and ran
+downstairs.
+
+There she found half the evening's guests gone, and the other half well
+on the move. Some of these glanced at her inquiringly, with "nods and
+becks and wreathed smiles," but she paid no heed to any of them. Her
+mother came eagerly up to her, anxiety purpling every vein of her
+mottled countenance, but no word did she utter, till, having put on
+their cloaks, the two waited together on the steps of the mansion, with
+flunkeys on either side, for the hired brougham to bowl up in as
+_un_-hired a style as was possible at the price of one guinea for the
+night's outing.
+
+"Where is Mr. Helmsley?" then asked Mrs. Sorrel.
+
+"In his own room, I believe," replied Lucy, frigidly.
+
+"Isn't he coming to see you into the carriage and say good-night?"
+
+"Why should he?" demanded the girl, peremptorily.
+
+Mrs. Sorrel became visibly agitated. She glanced at the impassive
+flunkeys nervously.
+
+"O my dear!" she whimpered softly, "what's the matter? Has anything
+happened?"
+
+At that moment the expected vehicle lumbered up with a very creditable
+clatter of well-assumed importance. The flunkeys relaxed their formal
+attitudes and hastened to assist both mother and daughter into its
+somewhat stuffy recess. Another moment and they were driven off, Lucy
+looking out of the window at the numerous lights which twinkled from
+every story of the stately building they had just left, till the last
+bright point of luminance had vanished. Then the strain on her mind gave
+way--and to Mrs. Sorrel's alarm and amazement, she suddenly burst into a
+stormy passion of tears.
+
+"It's all over!" she sobbed angrily, "all over! I've lost him! I've lost
+everything!"
+
+Mrs. Sorrel gave a kind of weasel cry and clasped her fat hands
+convulsively.
+
+"Oh, you little fool!" she burst out, "what have you done?"
+
+Thus violently adjured, Lucy, with angry gasps of spite and
+disappointment, related in full the maddening, the eccentric, the
+altogether incomprehensible and inexcusable conduct of the famous
+millionaire, "old Gold-dust," towards her beautiful, outraged, and
+injured self. Her mother sat listening in a kind of frozen horror which
+might possibly have become rigid, had it not been for the occasional
+bumping of the hired brougham over ruts and loose stones, which bumping
+shook her superfluous flesh into agitated bosom-waves.
+
+"I ought to have guessed it! I ought to have followed my own instinct!"
+she said, in sepulchral tones. "It came to me like a flash, when I was
+talking to him this evening! I said to myself, 'he is in a moral mood.'
+And he was. Nothing is so hopeless, so dreadful! If I had only thought
+he would carry on that mood with you, I would have warned you! You could
+have held off a little--it would perhaps have been the wiser course."
+
+"I should think it would indeed!" cried Lucy, dabbing her eyes with her
+scented handkerchief; "He would have left me every penny he has in the
+world if I had refused him! He told me so as coolly as possible!"
+
+Mrs. Sorrel sank back with a groan.
+
+"Oh dear, oh dear!" she wailed feebly. "Can nothing be done?"
+
+"Nothing!" And Lucy, now worked up to hysterical pitch, felt as if she
+could break the windows, beat her mother, or do anything else equally
+reckless and irresponsible. "I shall be left to myself now,--he will
+never ask me to his house again, never give me any parties or drives or
+opera-boxes or jewels,--he will never come to see me, and I shall have
+no pleasure at all! I shall sink into a dowdy, frowsy, shabby-genteel
+old maid for the rest of my life! It is _detestable_!" and she uttered a
+suppressed small shriek on the word, "It has been a hateful, abominable
+birthday! Everybody will be laughing at me up their sleeves! Think of
+Lady Larford!"
+
+This suggestion was too dreadful for comment, and Mrs. Sorrel closed her
+eyes, visibly shuddering.
+
+"Who would have thought it possible!" she moaned drearily, "a
+millionaire, with such mad ideas! I _had_ thought him always such a
+sensible man! And he seemed to admire you so much! What will he do with
+all his money?"
+
+The fair Lucy sighed, sobbed, and swallowed her tears into silence. And
+again, like the doubtful refrain of a song in a bad dream, her mother
+moaned and murmured--
+
+"What will he do with all his money!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Two or three days later, Sir Francis Vesey was sitting in his private
+office, a musty den encased within the heart of the city, listening, or
+trying to listen, to the dull clerical monotone of a clerk's dry voice
+detailing the wearisome items of certain legal formulę preliminary to an
+impending case. Sir Francis had yawned capaciously once or twice, and
+had played absently with a large ink-stained paperknife,--signs that his
+mind was wandering somewhat from the point at issue. He was a
+conscientious man, but he was getting old, and the disputations of
+obstinate or foolish clients were becoming troublesome to him. Moreover,
+the case concerning which his clerk was prosing along in the style of a
+chapel demagogue engaged in extemporary prayer, was an extremely
+uninteresting one, and he thought hazily of his lunch. The hour for that
+meal was approaching,--a fact for which he was devoutly thankful. For
+after lunch, he gave himself his own release from work for the rest of
+the day. He left it all to his subordinates, and to his partner Symonds,
+who was some eight or ten years his junior. He glanced at the clock, and
+beat a tattoo with his foot on the floor, conscious of his inward
+impatience with the reiterated "Whereas the said" and "Witnesseth the
+so-and-so," which echoed dully on the otherwise unbroken silence. It was
+a warm, sunshiny morning, but the brightness of the outer air was poorly
+reflected in the stuffy room, which though comfortably and even
+luxuriously furnished, conveyed the usual sense of dismal depression
+common to London precincts of the law. Two or three flies buzzed
+irritably now and then against the smoke-begrimed windowpanes, and the
+clerk's dreary preamble went on and on till Sir Francis closed his eyes
+and wondered whether a small "catnap" would be possible between the
+sections of the seeming interminable document. Suddenly, to his relief,
+there came a sharp tap at the door, and an office boy looked in.
+
+"Mr. Helmsley's man, sir," he announced. "Wants to see you personally."
+
+Sir Francis got up from his chair with alacrity.
+
+"All right! Show him in."
+
+The boy retired, and presently reappearing, ushered in a staid-looking
+personage in black who, saluting Sir Francis respectfully, handed him a
+letter marked "Confidential."
+
+"Nice day, Benson," remarked the lawyer cheerfully, as he took the
+missive. "Is your master quite well?"
+
+"Perfectly well, Sir Francis, thank you," replied Benson. "Leastways he
+was when I saw him off just now."
+
+"Oh! He's gone then?"
+
+"Yes, Sir Francis. He's gone."
+
+Sir Francis broke the seal of the letter,--then bethinking himself of
+"Whereas the said" and "Witnesseth the so-and-so," turned to his worn
+and jaded clerk.
+
+"That will do for the present," he said. "You can go."
+
+With pleasing haste the clerk put together the voluminous folios of blue
+paper from which he had been reading, and quickly made his exit, while
+Sir Francis, still standing, put on his glasses and unfolded the one
+sheet of note-paper on which Helmsley's communication was written.
+Glancing it up and down, he turned it over and over--then addressed
+himself to the attentively waiting Benson.
+
+"So Mr. Helmsley has started on his trip alone?"
+
+"Yes, Sir Francis. Quite alone."
+
+"Did he say where he was going?"
+
+"He booked for Southhampton, sir."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"And," proceeded Benson, "he only took one portmanteau."
+
+"Oh!" again ejaculated the lawyer. And, stroking his bearded chin, he
+thought awhile.
+
+"Are you going to stay at Carlton House Terrace till he comes back?"
+
+"I have a month's holiday, sir. Then I return to my place. The same
+order applies to all the servants, sir."
+
+"I see! Well!"
+
+And then there came a pause.
+
+"I suppose," said Sir Francis, after some minutes' reflection, "I
+suppose you know that during Mr. Helmsley's absence you are to apply to
+me for wages and household expenses--that, in fact, your master has
+placed me in charge of all his affairs?"
+
+"So I have understood, sir," replied Benson, deferentially. "Mr.
+Helmsley called us all into his room last night and told us so."
+
+"Oh, he did, did he? But, of course, as a man of business, he would
+leave nothing incomplete. Now, supposing Mr. Helmsley is away more than
+a month, I will call or send to the house at stated intervals to see how
+things are getting on, and arrange any matters that may need
+arranging"--here he glanced at the letter in his hand--"as your master
+requests. And--if you want anything--or wish to know any news,--you can
+always call here and inquire."
+
+"Thank you, Sir Francis."
+
+"I'm sorry,"--and the lawyer's shrewd yet kindly eyes looked somewhat
+troubled--"I'm very sorry that my old friend hasn't taken you with him,
+Benson."
+
+Benson caught the ring of sympathetic interest in his voice and at once
+responded to it.
+
+"Well, sir, so am I!" he said heartily. "For Mr. Helmsley's over
+seventy, and he isn't as strong as he thinks himself to be by a long
+way. He ought to have some one with him. But he wouldn't hear of my
+going. He can be right down obstinate if he likes, you know, sir, though
+he is one of the best gentlemen to work for that ever lived. But he will
+have his own way, and, bad or good, he takes it."
+
+"Quite true!" murmured Sir Francis meditatively. "Very true!"
+
+A silence fell between them.
+
+"You say he isn't as strong as he thinks himself to be," began Vesey
+again, presently. "Surely he's wonderfully alert and active for his time
+of life?"
+
+"Why, yes, sir, he's active enough, but it's all effort and nerve with
+him now. He makes up his mind like, and determines to be strong, in
+spite of being weak. Only six months ago the doctor told him to be
+careful, as his heart wasn't quite up to the mark."
+
+"Ah!" ejaculated Sir Francis ruefully. "And did the doctor recommend any
+special treatment?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Change of air and complete rest."
+
+The lawyer's countenance cleared.
+
+"Then you may depend upon it that's why he has gone away by himself,
+Benson," he said. "He wants change of air, rest, and different
+surroundings. And as he won't have letters forwarded, and doesn't give
+any future address, I shouldn't wonder if he starts off yachting
+somewhere----"
+
+"Oh, no, sir, I don't think so," interposed Benson, "The yacht's in the
+dry dock, and I know he hasn't given any orders to have her got ready."
+
+"Well, well, if he wants change and rest, he's wise to put a distance
+between himself and his business affairs"--and Sir Francis here looked
+round for his hat and walking-stick. "Take me, for example! Why, I'm a
+different man when I leave this office and go home to lunch! I'm going
+now. I don't think--I really don't think there is any cause for
+uneasiness, Benson. Your master will let us know if there's anything
+wrong with him."
+
+"Oh, yes, sir, he'll be sure to do that. He said he would telegraph for
+me if he wanted me."
+
+"Good! Now, if you get any news of him before I do, or if you are
+anxious that I should attend to any special matter, you'll always find
+me here till one o'clock. You know my private address?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"That's all right. And when I go down to my country place for the
+summer, you can come there whenever your business is urgent. I'll settle
+all expenses with you."
+
+"Thank you, Sir Francis. Good-day!"
+
+"Good-day! A pleasant holiday to you!"
+
+Benson bowed his respectful thanks again, and retired.
+
+Sir Francis Vesey, left alone, took his hat and gazed abstractedly into
+its silk-lined crown before putting it on his head. Then setting it
+aside, he drew Helmsley's letter from his pocket and read it through
+again. It ran as follows:--
+
+    "MY DEAR VESEY,--I had some rather bad news on the night of Miss
+    Lucy Sorrel's birthday party. A certain speculation in which I had
+    an interest has failed, and I have lost on the whole 'gamble.' The
+    matter will not, however, affect my financial position. You have all
+    your instructions in order as given to you when we last met, so I
+    shall leave town with an easy mind. I am likely to be away for some
+    time, and am not yet certain of my destination. Consider me,
+    therefore, for the present as lost. Should I die suddenly, or at
+    sickly leisure, I carry a letter on my person which will be conveyed
+    to you, making you acquainted with the sad (?) event as soon as it
+    occurs. And for all your kindly services in the way of both business
+    and friendship, I owe you a vast debt of thanks, which debt shall be
+    fully and gratefully acknowledged,--_when I make my Will_. I may
+    possibly employ another lawyer than yourself for this purpose. But,
+    for the immediate time, all my affairs are in your hands, as they
+    have been for these twenty years or more. My business goes on as
+    usual, of course; it is a wheel so well accustomed to regular motion
+    that it can very well grind for a while without my personal
+    supervision. And so far as my individual self is concerned, I feel
+    the imperative necessity of rest and freedom. I go to find these,
+    even if I lose myself in the endeavour. So farewell! And as
+    old-fashioned folks used to say--'God be with you!' If there be any
+    meaning in the phrase, it is conveyed to you in all sincerity by
+    your old friend,
+                                                 "DAVID HELMSLEY."
+
+"Cryptic, positively cryptic!" murmured Sir Francis, as he folded up the
+letter and put it by. "There's no clue to anything anywhere. What does
+he mean by a bad speculation?--a loss 'on the whole gamble'? I know--or
+at least I thought I knew--every number on which he had put his money.
+It won't affect his financial position, he says. I should think not! It
+would take a bigger Colossus than that of Rhodes to overshadow Helmsley
+in the market! But he's got some queer notion in his mind,--some scheme
+for finding an heir to his millions,--I'm sure he has! A fit of romance
+has seized him late in life,--he wants to be loved for himself
+alone,--which, of course, at his age, is absurd! No one loves old
+people, except, perhaps (in very rare cases), their children,--if the
+children are not hopelessly given over to self and the hour, which they
+generally are." He sighed, and his brows contracted. He had a
+spendthrift son and a "rapid" daughter, and he knew well enough how
+little he could depend upon them for either affection or respect.
+
+"Old age is regarded as a sort of crime nowadays," he continued,
+apostrophising the dingy walls of his office, as he took his
+walking-stick and prepared to leave the premises--"thanks to the
+donkey-journalism of the period which brays down everything that is not
+like itself--mere froth and scum. And unlike our great classic teachers
+who held that old age was honourable and deserved the highest place in
+the senate, the present generation affects to consider a man well on the
+way to dotage after forty. God bless me!--what fools there are in this
+twentieth century!--what blatant idiots! Imagine national affairs
+carried on in the country by its young men! The Empire would soon became
+a mere football for general kicking! However, there's one thing in this
+Helmsley business that I'm glad of"--and his eyes twinkled--"I believe
+the Sorrels have lost their game! Positively, I think Miss Lucy has
+broken her line, and that the fish has gone _without_ her hook in its
+mouth! Old as he is, David is not too old to outwit a woman! I gave him
+a hint, just the slightest hint in the world,--and I think he's taken
+it. Anyhow, he's gone,--booked for Southampton. And from Southampton a
+man can 'ship himself all aboard of a ship,' like Lord Bateman in the
+ballad, and go anywhere. Anywhere, yes!--but in this case I wonder where
+he will go? Possibly to America--yet no!--I think not!" And Sir Francis,
+descending his office stairs, went out into the broad sunshine which
+flooded the city streets, continuing his inward reverie as he
+walked,--"I think not. From what he said the other night, I fancy not
+even the haunting memory of 'ole Virginny' will draw him back _there_.
+'Consider me as lost,' he says. An odd notion! David Helmsley, one of
+the richest men in the whole of two continents, wishes to lose himself!
+Impossible! He's a marked multi-millionaire,--branded with the golden
+sign of unlimited wealth, and as well known as a London terminus! If he
+were 'lost' to-day, he'd be found to-morrow. As matters stand I daresay
+he'll turn up all fight in a month's time and I need not worry my head
+any more about him!"
+
+With this determination Sir Francis went home to luncheon, and after
+luncheon duly appeared driving in the Park with Lady Vesey, like the
+attentive and obliging husband he ever was, despite the boredom which
+the "Row" and the "Ladies' Mile" invariably inflicted upon him,--yet
+every now and then before him there rose a mental image of his old
+friend "King David,"--grey, sad-eyed, and lonely--flitting past like
+some phantom in a dream, and wandering far away from the crowded vortex
+of London life, where his name was as honey to a swarm of bees, into
+some dim unreachable region of shadow and silence, with the brief
+farewell:
+
+    "Consider me as lost!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Among the many wild and lovely tangles of foliage and flower which
+Nature and her subject man succeed in working out together after
+considerable conflict and argument, one of the most beautiful and
+luxuriant is a Somersetshire lane. Narrow and tortuous, fortified on
+either side with high banks of rough turf, topped by garlands of
+climbing wild-rose, bunches of corn-cockles and tufts of meadow-sweet,
+such a lane in midsummer is one of beauty's ways through the world,--a
+path, which if it lead to no more important goal than a tiny village or
+solitary farm, is, to the dreamer and poet, sufficiently entrancing in
+itself to seem a fairy road to fairyland. Here and there some grand elm
+or beech tree, whose roots have hugged the soil for more than a century,
+spreads out broad protecting branches all a-shimmer with green
+leaves,--between the uneven tufts of grass, the dainty "ragged robin"
+sprays its rose-pink blossoms contrastingly against masses of snowy
+star-wort and wild strawberry,--the hedges lean close together, as
+though accustomed to conceal the shy confidences of young lovers,--and
+from the fields beyond, the glad singing of countless skylarks, soaring
+one after the other into the clear pure air, strikes a wave of repeated
+melody from point to point of the visible sky. All among the delicate or
+deep indentures of the coast, where the ocean creeps softly inland with
+a caressing murmur, or scoops out caverns for itself among the rocks
+with perpetual roar and dash of foam, the glamour of the green
+extends,--the "lane runs down to meet the sea, carrying with it its
+garlands of blossoms, its branches of verdure, and all the odour and
+freshness of the woodlands and meadows, and when at last it drops to a
+conclusion in some little sandy bay or sparkling weir, it leaves an
+impression of melody on the soul like the echo of a sweet song just
+sweetly sung. High up the lanes run;--low down on the shoreline they
+come to an end,--and the wayfarer, pacing along at the summit of their
+devious windings, can hear the plash of the sea below him as he
+walks,--the little tender laughing plash if the winds are calm and the
+day is fair,--the angry thud and boom of the billows if a storm is
+rising. These bye-roads, of which there are so many along the
+Somersetshire coast, are often very lonely,--they are dangerous to
+traffic, as no two ordinary sized vehicles can pass each other
+conveniently within so narrow a compass,--and in summer especially they
+are haunted by gypsies, "pea-pickers," and ill-favoured men and women of
+the "tramp" species, slouching along across country from Bristol to
+Minehead, and so over Countisbury Hill into Devon. One such
+questionable-looking individual there was, who,--in a golden afternoon
+of July, when the sun was beginning to decline towards the west,--paused
+in his slow march through the dust, which even in the greenest of hill
+and woodland ways is bound to accumulate thickly after a fortnight's
+lack of rain,--and with a sigh of fatigue, sat down at the foot of a
+tree to rest. He was an old man, with a thin weary face which was
+rendered more gaunt and haggard-looking by a ragged grey moustache and
+ugly stubble beard of some ten days' growth, and his attire suggested
+that he might possibly be a labourer dismissed from farm work for the
+heinous crime of old age, and therefore "on the tramp" looking out for a
+job. He wore a soft slouched felt hat, very much out of shape and
+weather-stained,--and when he had been seated for a few minutes in a
+kind of apathy of lassitude, he lifted the hat off, passing his hand
+through his abundant rough white hair in a slow tired way, as though by
+this movement he sought to soothe some teasing pain.
+
+"I think," he murmured, addressing himself to a tiny brown bird which
+had alighted on a branch of briar-rose hard by, and was looking at him
+with bold and lively inquisitiveness,--"I think I have managed the whole
+thing very well! I have left no clue anywhere. My portmanteau will tell
+no tales, locked up in the cloak-room at Bristol. If it is ever sold
+with its contents 'to defray expenses,' nothing will be found in it but
+some unmarked clothes. And so far as all those who know me are
+concerned, every trace of me ends at Southampton. Beyond Southampton
+there is a blank, into which David Helmsley, the millionaire, has
+vanished. And David Helmsley, the tramp, sits here in his place!"
+
+The little brown bird preened its wing, and glanced at him sideways
+intelligently, as much as to say: "I quite understand! You have become
+one of us,--a wanderer, taking no thought for the morrow, but letting
+to-morrow take thought for the things of itself. There is a bond of
+sympathy between me, the bird, and you, the man--we are brothers!"
+
+A sudden smile illumined his face. The situation was novel, and to him
+enjoyable. He was greatly fatigued,--he had over-exerted himself during
+the past three or four days, walking much further than he had ever been
+accustomed to, and his limbs ached sorely--nevertheless, with the sense
+of rest and relief from strain, came a certain exhilaration of spirit,
+like the vivacious delight of a boy who has run away from school, and is
+defiantly ready to take all the consequences of his disobedience to the
+rules of discipline and order. For years he had wanted a "new"
+experience of life. No one would give him what he sought. To him the
+"social" round was ever the same dreary, heartless and witless thing, as
+empty under the sway of one king or queen as another, and as utterly
+profitless to peace or happiness as it has always been. The world of
+finance was equally uninteresting so far as he was concerned; he had
+exhausted it, and found it no more than a monotonous grind of gain which
+ended in a loathing of the thing gained. Others might and would consume
+themselves in fevers of avarice, and surfeits of luxury,--but for him
+such temporary pleasures were past. He desired a complete change,--a
+change of surroundings, a change of associations--and for this, what
+could be more excellent or more wholesome than a taste of poverty? In
+his time he had met men who, worn out with the constant fight of the
+body's materialism against the soul's idealism, had turned their backs
+for ever on the world and its glittering shows, and had shut themselves
+up as monks of "enclosed" or "silent" orders,--others he had known, who,
+rushing away from what we call civilisation, had encamped in the
+backwoods of America, or high up among the Rocky Mountains, and had
+lived the lives of primeval savages in their strong craving to assert a
+greater manliness than the streets of cities would allow them to
+enjoy,--and all were moved by the same mainspring of action,--the
+overpowering spiritual demand within themselves which urged them to
+break loose from cowardly conventions and escape from Sham. He could not
+compete with younger men in taking up wild sport and "big game" hunting
+in far lands, in order to give free play to the natural savage
+temperament which lies untamed at the root of every man's individual
+being,--and he had no liking for "monastic" immurements. But he longed
+for liberty,--liberty to go where he liked without his movements being
+watched and commented upon by a degraded "personal" press,--liberty to
+speak as he felt and do as he wished, without being compelled to weigh
+his words, or to consider his actions. Hence--he had decided on his
+present course, though how that course was likely to shape itself in its
+progress he had no very distinct idea. His actual plan was to walk to
+Cornwall, and there find out the native home of his parents, not so much
+for sentiment's sake as for the necessity of having a definite object or
+goal in view. And the reason of his determination to go "on the road,"
+as it were, was simply that he wished to test for himself the actual
+happiness or misery experienced by the very poor as contrasted with the
+supposed joys of the very wealthy. This scheme had been working in his
+brain for the past year or more,--all his business arrangements had been
+made in such a way as to enable him to carry it out satisfactorily to
+himself without taking any one else into his confidence. The only thing
+that might possibly have deterred him from his quixotic undertaking
+would have been the moral triumph of Lucy Sorrel over the temptation he
+had held out to her. Had she been honest to her better womanhood,--had
+she still possessed the "child's heart," with which his remembrance and
+imagination had endowed her, he would have resigned every other thought
+save that of so smoothing the path of life for her that she might tread
+it easily to the end. But now that she had disappointed him, he had, so
+he told himself, done with fine illusions and fair beliefs for ever. And
+he had started on a lonely quest,--a search for something vague and
+intangible, the very nature of which he himself could not tell. Some
+glimmering ghost of a notion lurked in his mind that perhaps, during his
+self-imposed solitary ramblings, he might find some new and unexplored
+channel wherein his vast wealth might flow to good purpose after his
+death, without the trammels of Committee-ism and Red-Tape-ism. But he
+expected and formulated nothing,--he was more or less in a state of
+quiescence, awaiting adventures without either hope or fear. In the
+meantime, here he sat in the shady Somersetshire lane, resting,--the
+multi-millionaire whose very name shook the money-markets of the world,
+but who to all present appearances seemed no more than a tramp, footing
+it wearily along one of the many winding "short cuts" through the
+country between Somerset and Devon, and as unlike the actual self of him
+as known to Lombard Street and the Stock Exchange as a beggar is unlike
+a king.
+
+"After all, it's quite as interesting as 'big game' shooting!" he said,
+the smile still lingering in his eyes. "I am after 'sport,'--in a novel
+fashion! I am on the lookout for new specimens of men and women,--real
+honest ones! I may find them,--I may not,--but the search will surely
+prove at least as instructive and profitable as if one went out to the
+Arctic regions for the purpose of killing innocent polar bears! Change
+and excitement are what every one craves for nowadays--I'm getting as
+much as I want--in my own way!"
+
+He thought over the whole situation, and reviewed with a certain sense
+of interest and amusement his method of action since he left London.
+Benson, his valet, had packed his portmanteau, according to orders, with
+everything that was necessary for a short sea trip, and then had seen
+him off at the station for Southampton,--and to Southampton he had gone.
+Arrived there, he had proceeded to a hotel, where, under an assumed
+name, he had stayed the night. The next day he had left Southampton for
+Salisbury by train, and there staying another night, had left again for
+Bath and Bristol. On the latter journey he had "tipped" the guard
+heavily to keep his first-class compartment reserved to himself. This
+had been done; and the train being an express, stopping at very few
+stations, he had found leisure and opportunity to unpack his portmanteau
+and cut away every mark on his linen and other garments which could give
+the slightest clue to their possessor. When he had removed all possible
+trace of his identity on or in this one piece of luggage, he packed it
+up again, and on reaching Bristol, took it to the station's cloak-room,
+and there deposited it with the stated intention of calling back for it
+at the hour of the next train to London. This done, he stepped forth
+untrammelled, a free man. He had with him five hundred pounds in
+banknotes, and for a day or so was content to remain in Bristol at one
+of the best hotels, under an assumed name as before, while privately
+making such other preparations for his intended long "tramp" as he
+thought necessary. In one of the poorest quarters of the town he
+purchased a few second-hand garments such as might be worn by an
+ordinary day-labourer, saying to the dealer that he wanted to "rig out"
+a man who had just left hospital and who was going in for "field" work.
+The dealer saw nothing either remarkable or suspicious in this seemingly
+benevolent act of a kindly-looking well-dressed old gentleman, and sent
+him the articles he had purchased done up in a neat package and
+addressed to him at his hotel, by the name he had for the time assumed.
+When he left the hotel for good, he did so with nothing more than this
+neat package, which he carried easily in one hand by a loop of string.
+And so he began his journey, walking steadily for two or three
+hours,--then pausing to rest awhile,--and after rest, going on again.
+Once out of Bristol he was glad, and at certain lonely places, when the
+shadows of night fell, he changed all his garments one by one till he
+stood transformed as now he was. The clothes he was compelled to discard
+he got rid of by leaving them in unlikely holes and corners on the
+road,--as for example, at one place he filled the pockets of his good
+broadcloth coat with stones and dropped it into the bottom of an old
+disused well. The curious sense of guilt he felt when he performed this
+innocent act surprised as well as amused him.
+
+"It is exactly as if I had murdered somebody and had sunk a body into
+the well instead of a coat!" he said--"and--perhaps I have! Perhaps I am
+killing my Self,--getting rid of my Self,--which would be a good thing,
+if I could only find Some one or Some thing better than my Self in my
+Self's place!"
+
+When he had finally disposed of every article that could suggest any
+possibility of his ever having been clothed as a gentleman, he unripped
+the lining of his rough "workman's" vest, and made a layer of the
+banknotes he had with him between it and the cloth, stitching it
+securely over and over with coarse needle and thread, being satisfied by
+this arrangement to carry all his immediate cash hidden upon his person,
+while for the daily needs of hunger and thirst he had a few loose
+shillings and coppers in his pocket. He had made up his mind not to
+touch a single one of the banknotes, unless suddenly overtaken by
+accident or illness. When his bit of silver and copper came to an end,
+he meant to beg alms along the road and prove for himself how far it
+was true that human beings were in the main kind and compassionate, and
+ready to assist one another in the battle of life. With these ideas and
+many others in his mind, he started on his "tramp"--and during the first
+two or three days of it suffered acutely. Many years had passed since he
+had been accustomed to long sustained bodily exercise, and he was
+therefore easily fatigued. But by the time he reached the open country
+between the Quantocks and the Brendon Hills, he had got somewhat into
+training, and had begun to feel a greater lightness and ease as well as
+pleasure in walking. He had found it quite easy to live on very simple
+food,--in fact one of the principal charms of the strange "holiday" he
+had planned for his own entertainment was to prove for himself beyond
+all dispute that no very large amount of money is required to sustain a
+man's life and health. New milk and brown bread had kept him going
+bravely every day,--fruit was cheap and so was cheese, and all these
+articles of diet are highly nourishing, so that he had wanted for
+nothing. At night, the weather keeping steadily fine and warm, he had
+slept in the open, choosing some quiet nook in the woodland under a
+tree, or else near a haystack in the fields, and he had benefited
+greatly by thus breathing the pure air during slumber, and getting for
+nothing the "cure" prescribed by certain Artful Dodgers of the medical
+profession who take handfuls of guineas from credulous patients for what
+Mother Nature willingly gives gratis. And he was beginning to understand
+the joys of "loafing,"--so much so indeed that he felt a certain
+sympathy with the lazy varlet who prefers to stroll aimlessly about the
+country begging his bread rather than do a stroke of honest work. The
+freedom of such a life is self-evident,--and freedom is the broadest and
+best way of breathing on earth. To "tramp the road" seems to the
+well-dressed, conventional human being a sorry life; but it may be
+questioned whether, after all, he with his social trammels and household
+cares, is not leading a sorrier one. Never in all his brilliant,
+successful career till now had David Helmsley, that king of modern
+finance, realised so intensely the beauty and peace of being alone with
+Nature,--the joy of feeling the steady pulse of the Spirit of the
+Universe throbbing through one's own veins and arteries,--the quiet yet
+exultant sense of knowing instinctively beyond all formulated theory or
+dogma, that one is a vital part of the immortal Entity, as
+indestructible as Itself. And a great calm was gradually taking
+possession of his soul,--a smoothing of all the waves of his emotional
+and nervous temperament. Under this mystic touch of unseen and
+uncomprehended heavenly tenderness, all sorrows, all disappointments,
+all disillusions sank out of sight as though they had never been. It
+seemed to him that he had put away his former life for ever, and that
+another life had just begun,--and his brain was ready and eager to rid
+itself of old impressions in order to prepare for new. Nothing of much
+moment had occurred to him as yet. A few persons had said "good-day " or
+"good-night" to him in passing,--a farmer had asked him to hold his
+horse for a quarter of an hour, which he had done, and had thereby
+earned threepence,--but he had met with no interesting or exciting
+incidents which could come under the head of "adventures." Nevertheless
+he was gathering fresh experiences,--experiences which all tended to
+show him how the best and brightest part of life is foolishly wasted and
+squandered by the modern world in a mad rush for gain.
+
+"So very little money really suffices for health, contentment, and
+harmless pleasure!" he thought. "The secret of our growing social
+mischief does not lie with the natural order of created things, but
+solely with ourselves. We will not set any reasonable limit to our
+desires. If we would, we might live longer and be far happier!"
+
+He stretched out his limbs easefully, and dropped into a reclining
+posture. The tree he had chosen to rest under was a mighty elm, whose
+broad branches, thick with leaves, formed a deep green canopy through
+which the sunbeams filtered in flecks and darts of gold. A constant
+twittering of birds resounded within this dome of foliage, and a thrush
+whistled melodious phrases from one of the highest boughs. At his feet
+was spread a carpet of long soft moss, interspersed with wild thyme and
+groups of delicate harebells, and the rippling of a tiny stream into a
+hollow cavity of stones made pleasant and soothing music. Charmed with
+the tranquillity and loveliness of his surroundings, he determined to
+stay here for a couple of hours, reading, and perhaps sleeping, before
+resuming his journey. He had in his pocket a shilling edition of Keats's
+poems which he had bought in Bristol by way of a silent companion to his
+thoughts, and he took it out and opened it now, reading and re-reading
+some of the lines most dear and familiar to him, when, as a boy, he had
+elected this poet, so wickedly done to death ere his prime by
+commonplace critics, as one of his chief favourites among the highest
+Singers. And his lips, half-murmuring, followed the verse which tells of
+that
+
+      "untrodden region of the mind,
+    Where branchėd thoughts, new-grown with pleasant pain,
+      Instead of pines, shall murmur in the wind;
+    Far, far around shall these dark clustered trees,
+      Fledge the wild ridgėd mountains steep by steep,
+    And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds and bees,
+      The moss-lain Dryads shall be lulled to sleep;
+    And in the midst of this wide quietness,
+      A rosy sanctuary will I dress
+    With the wreathed trellis of a working brain,
+      With buds and bells and stars without a name,
+    With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,
+      Who, breeding flowers, will never breed the same;
+    And there shall be for thee all soft delight,
+      That shadowy thought can win,
+    A bright torch and a casement ope at night,
+      To let the warm Love in!"
+
+A slight sigh escaped him.
+
+"How perfect is that stanza!" he said. "How I used to believe in all it
+suggested! And how, when I was a young man, my heart was like that
+'casement ope at night, to let the warm Love in!' But Love never
+came,--only a spurious will-o'-the-wisp imitation of Love. I wonder if
+many people in this world are not equally deceived with myself in their
+conceptions of this divine passion? All the poets and romancists may be
+wrong,--and Lucy Sorrel, with her hard materialism encasing her youth
+like a suit of steel armour, may be right. Boys and girls 'love,' so
+they say,--men and women 'love' and marry--and with marriage, the
+wondrous light that led them on and dazzled them, seems, in nine cases
+out of ten, to suddenly expire! Taking myself as an example, I cannot
+say that actual marriage made me happy. It was a great disillusion; a
+keen disappointment. The birth of my sons certainly gave me some
+pleasure as well as latent hope, for as little children they were
+lovable and lovely; but as boys--as men--what bitterness they brought
+me! Were they the heirs of Love? Nay!--surely Love never generated such
+callous hearts! They were the double reflex of their mother's nature,
+grasping all and giving nothing. Is there no such virtue on earth as
+pure unselfish Love?--love that gives itself freely, unasked, without
+hope of advantage or reward--and without any personal motive lurking
+behind its offered tenderness?"
+
+He turned over the pages of the book he held, with a vague idea that
+some consoling answer to his thoughts would flash out in a stray line or
+stanza, like a beacon lighting up the darkness of a troubled sea. But no
+such cheering word met his eyes. Keats is essentially the poet of the
+young, and for the old he has no comfort. Sensuous, passionate, and
+almost cloying in the excessive sweetness of his amorous muse, he offers
+no support to the wearied spirit,--no sense of strength or renewal to
+the fagged brain. He does not grapple with the hard problems of life;
+and his mellifluous murmurings of delicious fantasies have no place in
+the poignant griefs and keen regrets of those who have passed the
+meridian of earthly hopes, and who see the shadows of the long night
+closing in. And David Helmsley realised this all suddenly, with
+something of a pang.
+
+"I am too old for Keats," he said in a half-whisper to the leafy
+branches that bowed their weight of soft green shelteringly over him.
+"Too old! Too old for a poet in whose imaginative work I vised to take
+such deep delight. There is something strange in this, for I cherished a
+belief that fine poetry would fit every time and every age, and that no
+matter how heavy the burden of years might be, I should always be able
+to forget myself and my sorrows in a poet's immortal creations. But I
+have left Keats behind me. He was with me in the sunshine,--he does not
+follow me into the shade."
+
+A cloud of melancholy darkened his worn features, and he slowly closed
+the book. He felt that it was from henceforth a sealed letter. For him
+the half-sad, half-scornful musings of Omar Khayyįm were more fitting,
+such as the lines that run thus:--
+
+    "Fair wheel of heaven, silvered with many a star,
+    Whose sickly arrows strike us from afar,
+    Never a purpose to my soul was dear,
+    But heaven crashed down my little dream to mar.
+
+    Never a bird within my sad heart sings
+    But heaven a flaming stone of thunder flings;
+    O valiant wheel! O most courageous heaven,
+    To leave me lonely with the broken wings!"
+
+tinging pain, as of tears that rose but would not fall, troubled his
+eyes. He passed his hand across them, and leaned back against the sturdy
+trunk of the elm which served him for the moment as a protecting haven
+of rest. The gentle murmur of the bees among the clover, the soft
+subdued twittering of the birds, and the laughing ripple of the little
+stream hard by, all combined to make one sweet monotone of sound which
+lulled his senses to a drowsiness that gradually deepened into slumber.
+He made a pathetic figure enough, lying fast asleep there among the
+wilderness of green,--a frail and apparently very poor old man, adrift
+and homeless, without a friend in the world. The sun sank, and a crimson
+after-glow spread across the horizon from west to east, the rich colours
+flung up from the centre of the golden orb merging by slow degrees into
+that pure pearl-grey which marks the long and lovely summer twilight of
+English skies. The air was very still, not so much as the rumble of a
+distant cart wheel disturbing the silence. Presently, however, the slow
+shuffle of hesitating footsteps sounded through the muffling thickness
+of the dust, and a man made his appearance on the top of the little
+rising where the lane climbed up into a curve of wild-rose hedge and
+honeysuckle which almost hid the actual road from view. He was not a
+prepossessing object in the landscape; short and squat, unkempt and
+dirty, and clad in rough garments which were almost past hanging
+together, he looked about as uncouth and ugly a customer as one might
+expect to meet anywhere on a lonely road at nightfall. He carried a
+large basket on his back, seemingly full of weeds,--the rope which
+supported it was tied across his chest, and he clasped this rope with
+both hands crossed in the middle, after the fashion of a praying monk.
+Smoking a short black pipe, he trudged along, keeping his eyes fixed on
+the ground with steady and almost surly persistence, till arriving at
+the tree where Helmsley lay, he paused, and lifting his head stared long
+and curiously at the sleeping man. Then, unclasping his hands, he
+lowered his basket to the ground and set it down. Stealthily creeping
+close up to Helmsley's side, he examined the prone figure from head to
+foot with quick and eager scrutiny. Spying the little volume of Keats on
+the grass where it had dropped from the slumberer's relaxed hand, he
+took it up gingerly, turning over its pages with grimy thumb and
+finger.
+
+"Portry!" he ejaculated. "Glory be good to me! 'E's a reg'ler noddy
+none-such! An' measly old enuff to know better!"
+
+He threw the book on the grass again with a sniff of contempt. At that
+moment Helmsley stirred, and opening his eyes fixed them full and
+inquiringly on the lowering face above him.
+
+"'Ullo, gaffer! Woke up, 'ave yer?" said the man gruffly. "Off yer lay?"
+
+Helmsley raised himself on one elbow, looking a trifle dazed.
+
+"Off my what?" he murmured. "I didn't quite hear you----?"
+
+"Oh come, stow that!" said the man. "You dunno what I'm talkin' about;
+that's plain as a pike. _You_ aint used to the road! Where d'ye come
+from?"
+
+"I've walked from Bristol," he answered--"And you're quite right,--I'm
+not used to the road."
+
+The man looked at him and his hard face softened. Pushing back his
+tattered cap from his brows he showed his features more openly, and a
+smile, half shrewd, half kindly, made them suddenly pleasant.
+
+"Av coorse you're not!" he declared. "Glory be good to me! I've tramped
+this bit o' road for years, an' never come across such a poor old
+chuckle-headed gammer as you sleepin' under a tree afore! Readin' portry
+an' droppin' to by-by over it! The larst man as iver I saw a' readin'
+portry was what they called a 'Serious Sunday' man, an' 'e's doin' time
+now in Portland."
+
+Helmsley smiled. He was amused;--his "adventures," he thought, were
+beginning. To be called "a poor old chuckle-headed gammer" was a new and
+almost delightful experience.
+
+"Portland's an oncommon friendly place," went on his uninvited
+companion. "Once they gits ye, they likes ye to stop. 'Taint like the
+fash'nable quality what says to their friends: 'Do-ee come an' stay wi'
+me, loveys!' wishin' all the while as they wouldn't. Portland takes ye
+willin', whether ye likes it or not, an' keeps ye so fond that ye can't
+git away nohow. Oncommon 'ospitable Portland be!"
+
+And he broke into a harsh laugh. Then he glanced at Helmsley again with
+a more confiding and favourable eye.
+
+"Ye seems a 'spectable sort," he said. "What's wrong wi' ye? Out o'
+work?"
+
+Helmsley nodded.
+
+"Turned off, eh? Too old?"
+
+"That's about it!" he answered.
+
+"Well, ye do look a bit of a shivery-shake,--a kind o'
+not-long-for-this-world," said the man. "Howsomiver, we'se be all
+'elpless an' 'omeless soon, for the Lord hisself don't stop a man
+growin' old, an' under the new ways o' the world, it's a reg'lar crime
+to run past forty. I'm sixty, an' I gits my livin' my own way, axin'
+nobody for the kind permission. _That's_ my fortin!"
+
+And he pointed to the basket of weedy stuff which he had just set down.
+Helmsley looked at it with some curiosity.
+
+"What's in it?" he asked.
+
+"What's in it? What's _not_ in it!" And the man gave a gesture of
+mingled pride and defiance. "There's all what the doctors makes their
+guineas out of with their purr-escriptions, for they can't purr-escribe
+no more than is in that there basket without they goes to minerals. An'
+minerals is rank poison to ivery 'uman body. But so far as 'erbs an'
+seeds, an' precious stalks an' flowers is savin' grace for man an'
+beast, Matthew Peke's got 'em all in there. An' Matthew Peke wouldn't be
+the man he is, if he didn't know where to find 'em better'n any livin'
+soul iver born! Ah!--an' there aint a toad in a hole hoppin' out between
+Quantocks an' Cornwall as hasn't seen Matthew Peke gatherin' the
+blessin' an' health o' the fields at rise o' sun an' set o' moon,
+spring, summer, autumn, ay, an' even winter, all the year through!"
+
+Helmsley became interested.
+
+"And you are the man!" he said questioningly--"You are Matthew Peke?"
+
+"I am! An' proud so ter be! An' you--'ave yer got a name for the
+arskin'?"
+
+"Why, certainly!" And Helmsley's pale face flushed. "My name is David."
+
+"Chrisen name? Surname?"
+
+"Both."
+
+Matthew Peke shook his head.
+
+"'Twon't fadge!" he declared. "It don't sound right. It's like th' owld
+Bible an' the Book o' Kings where there's nowt but Jews; an' Jews is
+the devil to pay wheriver you finds 'em!"
+
+"I'm not a Jew," said Helmsley, smiling.
+
+"Mebbe not--mebbe not--but yer name's awsome like it. An' if ye put it
+short, like D. David, that's just Damn David an' nothin' plainer. Aint
+it?"
+
+Helmsley laughed.
+
+"Exactly!" he said--"You're right! Damn David suits me down to the
+ground!"
+
+Peke looked at him dubiously, as one who is not quite sure of his man.
+
+"You're a rum old sort!" he said; "an' I tell ye what it is--you're as
+tired as a dog limpin' on three legs as has nipped his fourth in a
+weasel-trap. Wheer are ye goin' on to?"
+
+"I don't know," answered Helmsley--"I'm a stranger to this part of the
+country. But I mean to tramp it to the nearest village. I slept out in
+the open yesterday,--I think I'd like a shelter over me to-night."
+
+"Got any o' the King's pictures about ye?" asked Peke.
+
+Helmsley looked, as he felt, bewildered.
+
+"The King's pictures?" he echoed--"You mean----?"
+
+"This!" and Peke drew out of his tattered trouser pocket a dim and
+blackened sixpence--"'Ere 'e is, as large as life, a bit bald about the
+top o' 'is blessed old 'ead, Glory be good to 'im, but as useful as if
+all 'is 'air was still a blowin' an' a growin'! Aint that the King's
+picture, D. David? Don't it say 'Edwardus VII. D. G. Britt.,' which
+means Edward the Seventh, thanks be to God Britain? Don't it?"
+
+"It _do_!" replied Helmsley emphatically, taking a fantastic pleasure in
+the bad grammar of his reply. "I've got a few more pictures of the same
+kind," and he took out two or three loose shillings and pennies--"Can we
+get a night's lodging about here for that?"
+
+"Av coorse we can! I'll take ye to a place where ye'll be as welcome as
+the flowers in May with Matt Peke interroducin' of ye. Two o' them
+thank-God Britts in silver will set ye up wi' a plate o' wholesome food
+an' a clean bed at the 'Trusty Man.' It's a pub, but Miss Tranter what
+keeps it is an old maid, an' she's that proud o' the only 'Trusty Man'
+she ever 'ad that she calls it an '_O_tel!"
+
+He grinned good-humouredly at what he considered his own witticism
+concerning the little weakness of Miss Tranter, and proceeded to
+shoulder his basket.
+
+"_You_ aint proud, are ye?" he said, as he turned his ferret-brown eyes
+on Helmsley inquisitively.
+
+Helmsley, who had, quite unconsciously to himself, drawn up his spare
+figure in his old habitual way of standing very erect, with that
+composed air of dignity and resolution which those who knew him
+personally in business were well accustomed to, started at the question.
+
+"Proud!" he exclaimed--"I? What have I to be proud of? I'm the most
+miserable old fellow in the world, my friend! You may take my word for
+that! There's not a soul that cares a button whether I live or die! I'm
+seventy years of age--out of work, and utterly wretched and friendless!
+Why the devil should _I_ be proud?"
+
+"Well, if ye never was proud in yer life, ye can be now," said Peke
+condescendingly, "for I tell ye plain an' true that if Matt Peke walks
+with a tramp on this road, every one round the Quantocks knows as how
+that tramp aint altogether a raskill! I've took ye up on trust as
+'twere, likin' yer face for all that it's thin an' mopish,--an' steppin'
+in wi' me to the 'Trusty Man' will mebbe give ye a character. Anyways,
+I'll do my best for ye!"
+
+"Thank you," said Helmsley simply.
+
+Again Peke looked at him, and again seemed troubled. Then, stuffing his
+pipe full of tobacco, he lit it and stuck it sideways between his teeth.
+
+"Now come along!" he said. "You're main old, but ye must put yer best
+foot foremost all the same. We've more'n an hour's trampin' up hill an'
+down dale, an' the dew's beginnin' to fall. Keep goin' slow an'
+steady--I'll give ye a hand."
+
+For a moment Helmsley hesitated. This shaggy, rough, uncouth
+herb-gatherer evidently regarded him as very feeble and helpless, and,
+out of a latent kindliness of nature, wished to protect him and see him
+to some safe shelter for the night. Nevertheless, he hated the position.
+Old as he knew himself to be, he resented being pitied for his age,
+while his mind was yet so vigorous and his heart felt still so warm and
+young. Yet the commonplace fact remained that he was very tired,--very
+worn out, and conscious that only a good rest would enable him to
+continue his journey with comfort. Moreover, his experiences at the
+"Trusty Man" might prove interesting. It was best to take what came in
+his way, even though some episodes should possibly turn out less
+pleasing than instructive. So putting aside all scruples, he started to
+walk beside his ragged comrade of the road, finding, with some secret
+satisfaction, that after a few paces his own step was light and easy
+compared to the heavy shuffling movement with which Peke steadily
+trudged along. Sweet and pungent odours of the field and woodland
+floated from the basket of herbs as it swung slightly to and fro on its
+bearer's shoulders, and amid the slowly darkening shadows of evening, a
+star of sudden silver brilliance sparkled out in the sky.
+
+"Yon's the first twinkler," said Peke, seeing it at once, though his
+gaze was apparently fixed on the ground. "The love-star's allus up early
+o' nights to give the men an' maids a chance!"
+
+"Yes,--Venus is the evening star just now," rejoined Helmsley,
+half-absently.
+
+"Stow Venus! That's a reg'lar fool's name," said Peke surlily. "Where
+did ye git it from? That aint no Venus,--that's just the love-star, an'
+it'll be nowt else in these parts till the world-without-end-amen!"
+
+Helmsley made no answer. He walked on patiently, his limbs trembling a
+little with fatigue and nervous exhaustion. But Peke's words had started
+the old dream of his life again into being,--the latent hope within him,
+which though often half-killed, was not yet dead, flamed up like newly
+kindled vital fire in his mind,--and he moved as in a dream, his eyes
+fixed on the darkening heavens and the brightening star.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+They plodded on together side by side for some time in unbroken silence.
+At last, after a short but stiff climb up a rough piece of road which
+terminated in an eminence commanding a wide and uninterrupted view of
+the surrounding country, they paused. The sea lay far below them, dimly
+covered by the gathering darkness, and the long swish and roll of the
+tide could be heard sweeping to and from the shore like the grave and
+graduated rhythm of organ music.
+
+"We'd best 'ave a bit of a jabber to keep us goin'," said Peke,
+then--"Jabberin' do pass time, as the wimin can prove t' ye; an' arter
+such a jumblegut lane as this, it'll seem less lonesome. We're off the
+main road to towns an' sich like--this is a bye, an' 'ere it stops.
+We'll 'ave to git over yon stile an' cross the fields--'taint an easy
+nor clean way, but it's the best goin'. We'll see the lights o' the
+'Trusty Man' just over the brow o' the next hill."
+
+Helmsley drew a long breath, and sat down on a stone by the roadside.
+Peke surveyed him critically.
+
+"Poor old gaffer! Knocked all to pieces, aint ye! Not used to the road?
+Glory be good to me! I should think ye wornt! Short in yer wind an' weak
+on yer pins! I'd as soon see my old grandad trampin' it as you. Look
+'ere! Will ye take a dram out o' this 'ere bottle?"
+
+He held up the bottle he spoke of,--it was black, and untemptingly
+dirty. Yet there was such a good-natured expression in the man's eyes,
+and so much honest solicitude written on his rough bearded face, that
+Helmsley felt it would be almost like insulting him to refuse his
+invitation.
+
+"Tell me what's in it first!" he said, smiling.
+
+"'Taint whisky," said Peke. "And 'taint brandy neither. _Nor_ rum. _Nor_
+gin. Nor none o' them vile stuffs which brewers makes as arterwards goes
+to Parl'ment on the profits of 'avin' poisoned their consti_too_ants.
+'Tis nowt but just yerb wine."
+
+"Yerb wine? Wine made of herbs?"
+
+"That's it! 'Erbs or yerbs--I aint pertikler which--I sez both.
+This,"--and he shook the bottle he held vigorously--"is genuine yerb
+wine--an' made as I makes it, what do the Wise One say of it? 'E
+sez:--'It doth strengthen the heart of a man mightily, and refresheth
+the brain; drunk fasting, it braceth up the sinews and maketh the old
+feel young; it is of rare virtue to expel all evil humours, and if
+princes should drink of it oft it would be but an ill service to the
+world, as they might never die!'"
+
+Peke recited these words slowly and laboriously; it was evident that he
+had learned them by heart, and that the effort of remembering them
+correctly was more or less painful to him.
+
+Helmsley laughed, and stretched out his hand.
+
+"Give it over here!" he said. "It's evidently just the stuff for me. How
+much shall I take at one go?"
+
+Peke uncorked the precious fluid with care, smelt it, and nodded
+appreciatively.
+
+"Swill it all if ye like," he remarked graciously. "'Twont hurt ye, an'
+there's more where that came from. It's cheap enuff, too--nature don't
+keep it back from no man. On'y there aint a many got sense enuff to
+thank the Lord when it's offered."
+
+As he thus talked, Helmsley took the bottle from him and tasted its
+contents. The "yerb wine" was delicious. More grateful to his palate
+than Chambertin or Clos Vougeot, it warmed and invigorated him, and he
+took a long draught, Matthew Peke watching him drink it with great
+satisfaction.
+
+"Let the yerbs run through yer veins for two or three minits, an' ye'll
+step across yon fields as light as a bird 'oppin' to its nest," he
+declared. "Talk o' tonics,--there's more tonic in a handful o' green
+stuff growin' as the Lord makes it to grow, than all the
+purr-escriptions what's sent out o' them big 'ouses in 'Arley Street,
+London, where the doctors sits from ten to two like spiders waitin' for
+flies, an' gatherin' in the guineas for lookin' at fools' tongues. Glory
+be good to me! If all the world were as sick as it's silly, there'd be
+nowt wantin' to 't but a grave an' a shovel!"
+
+Helmsley smiled, and taking another pull at the black bottle, declared
+himself much better and ready to go on. He was certainly refreshed, and
+the weary aching of his limbs which had made every step of the road
+painful and difficult to him, was gradually passing off.
+
+"You are very good to me," he said, as he returned the remainder of the
+"yerb wine" to its owner. "I wonder why?"
+
+Peke took a draught of his mixture before replying. Then corking the
+bottle, he thrust it in his pocket.
+
+"Ye wonders why?" And he uttered a sound between a grunt and a
+chuckle--"Ye may do that! I wonders myself!"
+
+And, giving his basket a hitch, he resumed his slow trudging movement
+onward.
+
+"You see," pursued Helmsley, keeping up the pace beside him, and
+beginning to take pleasure in the conversation--"I may be anything or
+anybody----"
+
+"Ye may that," agreed Peke, his eyes fixed as usual on the ground. "Ye
+may be a jail-bird or a missioner,--they'se much of a muchity, an' goes
+on the road lookin' quite simple like, an' the simpler they seems the
+deeper they is. White 'airs an' feeble legs 'elps 'em along
+considerable,--nowt's better stock-in-trade than tremblin' shins. Or ye
+might be a War-office neglect,--ye looks a bit set that way."
+
+"What's a War-office neglect?" asked Helmsley, laughing.
+
+"One o' them totterin' old chaps as was in the Light Brigade," answered
+Peke. "There's no end to 'em. They'se all over every road in the
+country. All of 'em fought wi' Lord Cardigan, an' all o' 'em's driven to
+starve by an ungrateful Gov'ment. They won't be all dead an' gone till a
+hundred years 'as rolled away, an' even then I shouldn't wonder if one
+or two was still left on the tramp a-pipin' his little 'arf-a-league
+onard tale o' woe to the first softy as forgits the date o' the battle."
+Here he gave an inquisitive side-glance at his companion. "But you aint
+quite o' the Balaclava make an' colour. Yer shoulders is millingterry,
+but yer 'ead is business. Ye might be a gentleman if 'twornt for yer
+clothes."
+
+Helmsley heard this definition of himself without flinching.
+
+"I might be a thief," he said--"or an escaped convict. You've been kind
+to me without knowing whether I am one or the other, or both. And I want
+to know why?"
+
+Peke stopped in his walk. They had come to the stile over which the way
+lay across the fields, and he rested himself and his basket for a moment
+against it.
+
+"Why?" he repeated,--then suddenly raising one hand, he whispered,
+"Listen! Listen to the sea!"
+
+The evening had now almost closed in, and all around them the country
+lay dark and solitary, broken here and there by tall groups of trees
+which at night looked like sable plumes, standing stiff and motionless
+in the stirless summer air. Thousands of stars flashed out across this
+blackness, throbbing in their orbits with a quick pulsation as of uneasy
+hearts beating with nameless and ungratified longing. And through the
+tense silence came floating a long, sweet, passionate cry,--a shivering
+moan of pain that touched the edge of joy,--a song without words, of
+pleading and of prayer, as of a lover, who, debarred from the possession
+of the beloved, murmurs his mingled despair and hope to the
+unsubstantial dream of his own tortured soul. The sea was calling to the
+earth,--calling to her in phrases of eloquent and urgent
+music,--caressing her pebbly shores with winding arms of foam, and
+showering kisses of wild spray against her rocky bosom. "If I could come
+to thee! If thou couldst come to me!" was the burden of the waves,--the
+ceaseless craving of the finite for the infinite, which is, and ever
+shall be, the great chorale of life. The shuddering sorrow of that low
+rhythmic boom of the waters rising and falling fathoms deep under cliffs
+which the darkness veiled from view, awoke echoes from the higher hills
+around, and David Helmsley, lifting his eyes to the countless
+planet-worlds sprinkled thick as flowers in the patch of sky immediately
+above him, suddenly realised with a pang how near he was to death,--how
+very near to that final drop into the unknown where the soul of man is
+destined to find All or Nothing! He trembled,--not with fear,--but with
+a kind of anger at himself for having wasted so much of his life. What
+had he done, with all his toil and pains? He had gathered a multitude of
+riches. Well, and then? Then,--why then, and now, he had found riches
+but vain getting. Life and Death were still, as they have always been,
+the two supreme Facts of the universe. Life, as ever, asserted itself
+with an insistence demanding something far more enduring than the mere
+possession of gold, and the power which gold brings. And Death presented
+its unwelcome aspect in the same perpetual way as the Last Recorder who,
+at the end of the day, closes up accounts with a sum-total paid exactly
+in proportion to the work done. No more, and no less. And with Helmsley
+these accounts were reaching a figure against which his whole nature
+fiercely rebelled,--the figure of Nought, showing no value in his life's
+efforts or its results. And the sound of the sea to-night in his ears
+was more full of reproach than peace.
+
+"When the water moans like that," said Peke softly, under his breath,
+"it seems to me as if all the tongues of drowned sailors 'ad got into it
+an' was beggin' of us not to forget 'em lyin' cold among the shells an'
+weed. An' not only the tongues o' them seems a-speakin' an' a-cryin',
+but all the stray bones o' them seems to rattle in the rattle o' the
+foam. It goes through ye sharp, like a knife cuttin' a sour apple; an'
+it's made me wonder many a time why we was all put 'ere to git drowned
+or smashed or choked off or beat down somehows just when we don't expect
+it. Howsomiver, the Wise One sez it's all right!"
+
+"And who is the Wise One?" asked Helmsley, trying to rouse himself from
+the heavy thoughts engendered in his mind by the wail of the sea.
+
+"The Wise One was a man what wrote a book a 'underd years ago about
+'erbs," said Peke. "'_The Way o' Long Life_,' it's called, an' my father
+an' grandfather and great-grandfather afore 'em 'ad the book, an' I've
+got it still, though I shows it to nobody, for nobody but me wouldn't
+unnerstand it. My father taught me my letters from it, an' I could spell
+it out when I was a kid--I've growed up on it, an' it's all I ever
+reads. It's 'ere"--and he touched his ragged vest. "I trusts it to keep
+me goin' 'ale an' 'arty till I'm ninety,--an' that's drawin' it mild,
+for my father lived till a 'underd, an' then on'y went through slippin'
+on a wet stone an' breakin' a bone in 'is back; an' my grandfather saw
+'is larst Christmas at a 'underd an' ten, an' was up to kissin' a wench
+under the mistletoe, 'e was sich a chirpin' old gamecock. 'E didn't look
+no older'n you do now, an' you're a chicken compared to 'im. You've wore
+badly like, not knowin' the use o' yerbs."
+
+"That's it!" said Helmsley, now following his companion over the stile
+and into the dark dewy fields beyond--"I need the advice of the Wise
+One! Has he any remedy for old age, I wonder?"
+
+"Ay, now there ye treads on my fav'rite corn!" and Peke shook his head
+with a curious air of petulance. "That's what I'm a-lookin' for day an'
+night, for the Wise One 'as got a bit in 'is book which 'e's cropped
+out o' another Wise One's savin's,--a chap called Para-Cel-Sus"--and
+Peke pronounced this name in three distinct and well-divided syllables.
+"An this is what it is: 'Take the leaves of the Daura, which prevent
+those who use it from dying for a hundred and twenty years. In the same
+way the flower of the _secta croa_ brings a hundred years to those who
+use it, whether they be of lesser or of longer age.' I've been on the
+'unt for the 'Daura' iver since I was twenty, an' I've arskt ivery
+'yerber I've ivir met for the 'Secta Croa,' an' all I've 'ad sed to me
+is 'Go 'long wi' ye for a loony jackass! There aint no sich thing.' But
+jackass or no, I'm of a mind to think there _is_ such things as both the
+'Daura' an' the 'Secta Croa,' if I on'y knew the English of 'em. An'
+s'posin' I ivir found 'em----"
+
+"You would become that most envied creature of the present age,--a
+millionaire," said Helmsley; "you could command your own terms for the
+wonderful leaves,--you would cease to tramp the road or to gather herbs,
+and you would live in luxury like a king!"
+
+"Not I!"--and Peke gave a grunt of contempt. "Kings aint my notion of
+'appiness nor 'onesty neither. They does things often for which some o'
+the poor 'ud be put in quod, an' no mercy showed 'em, an' yet 'cos
+they're kings they gits off. An' I aint great on millionaires neither.
+They'se mis'able ricketty coves, all gone to pot in their in'ards
+through grubbin' money an' eatin' of it like, till ivery other kind o'
+food chokes 'em. There's a chymist in London what pays me five shillings
+an ounce for a little green yerb I knows on, cos' it's the on'y med'cine
+as keeps a millionaire customer of 'is a-goin'. I finds the yerb, an'
+the chymist gits the credit. I gits five shillin', an' the chymist gits
+a guinea. _That's_ all right! _I_ don't mind! I on'y gathers,--the
+chymist, 'e's got to infuse the yerb, distil an' bottle it. I'm paid my
+price, an 'e's paid 'is. All's fair in love an' war!"
+
+He trudged on, his footsteps now rendered almost noiseless by the thick
+grass on which he trod. The heavy dew sparkled on every blade, and here
+and there the pale green twinkle of a glow-worm shone like a jewel
+dropped from a lady's gown. Helmsley walked beside his companion at an
+even pace,--the "yerb wine" had undoubtedly put strength in him and he
+was almost unconscious of his former excessive fatigue. He was
+interested in Peke's "jabber," and wondered, somewhat enviously, why
+such a man as this, rough, ragged, and uneducated, should seem to
+possess a contentment such as he had never known.
+
+"Millionaires is gin'rally fools," continued Peke; "they buys all they
+wants, an' then they aint got nothin' more to live for. They gits into
+motor-cars an' scours the country, but they never sees it. They never
+'ears the birds singin', an' they misses all the flowers. They never
+smells the vi'lets nor the mayblossom--they on'y gits their own petrol
+stench wi' the flavour o' the dust mixed in. Larst May I was a-walkin'
+in the lanes o' Devon, an' down the 'ill comes a motor-car tearin' an'
+scorchin' for all it was worth, an' bang went somethin' at the bottom o'
+the thing, an' it stops suddint. Out jumps a French chauffy, parlyvooin'
+to hisself, an' out jumps the man what owns it an' takes off his
+goggles. 'This is Devonshire, my man?' sez 'e to me. 'It is,' I sez to
+'im. An' then the cuckoo started callin' away over the trees. 'What's
+that?' sez 'e lookin' startled like. 'That's the cuckoo,' sez I. An' he
+takes off 'is 'at an' rubs 'is 'ead, which was a' fast goin' bald.
+'Dear, dear me!' sez 'e--'I 'aven't 'eard the cuckoo since I was a boy!'
+An' he rubs 'is 'ead again, an' laughs to hisself--'Not since I was a
+boy!' 'e sez. 'An' that's the cuckoo, is it? Dear, dear me!' 'You
+'aven't bin much in the country p'r'aps?' sez I. 'I'm always in the
+country,' 'e sez--'I motor everywhere, but I've missed the cuckoo
+somehow!' An' then the chauffy puts the machine right, an' he jumps in
+an' gives me a shillin'. 'Thank-ye, my man!' sez 'e--'I'm glad you told
+me 'twas a _real_ cuckoo!' Hor--er--hor--er--hor--er!" And Peke gave
+vent to a laugh peculiarly his own. "Mebbe 'e thought I'd got a Swiss
+clock with a sham cuckoo workin' it in my basket! 'I'm glad,' sez 'e,
+'you told me 'twas a _real_ cuckoo!' Hor--er--hor--er--hor--er!"
+
+The odd chuckling sounds of merriment which were slowly jerked forth as
+it were from Peke's husky windpipe, were droll enough in themselves to
+be somewhat infectious, and Helmsley laughed as he had not done for many
+days.
+
+"Ay, there's a mighty sight of tringum-trangums an' nonsense i' the
+world," went on Peke, still occasionally giving vent to a suppressed
+"Hor--er--hor"--"an' any amount o' Tom Conys what don't know a real
+cuckoo from a sham un'. Glory be good to me! Think o' the numskulls as
+goes in for pendlecitis! There's a fine name for ye! Pendlecitis!
+Hor--er--hor! All the fash'nables 'as got it, an' all the doctors 'as
+their knives sharpened an' ready to cut off the remains o' the tail we
+'ad when we was all 'appy apes together! Hor--er--hor! An' the bit o'
+tail 's curled up in our in'ards now where it ain't got no business to
+be. Which shows as 'ow Natur' don't know 'ow to do it, seein' as if we
+'adn't wanted a tail, she'd a' took it sheer off an' not left any
+behind. But the doctors thinks they knows a darn sight better'n Natur',
+an' they'll soon be givin' lessons in the makin' o' man to the Lord
+A'mighty hisself! Hor--er--hor! Pendlecitis! That's a precious monkey's
+tail, that there! In my grandfather's day we didn't 'ear 'bout no
+monkey's tails,--'twas just a chill an' inflammation o' the in'ards, an'
+a few yerbs made into a tea an' drunk 'ot fastin', cured it in
+twenty-four hours. But they've so many new-fangled notions nowadays,
+they've forgot all the old 'uns. There's the cancer illness,--people
+goes off all over the country now from cancer as never used to in my
+father's day, an' why? 'Cos they'se gittin' too wise for Nature's own
+cure. Nobody thinks o' tryin' agrimony,--water agrimony--some calls it
+water hemp an' bastard agrimony--'tis a thing that flowers in this month
+an' the next,--a brown-yellow blossom on a purple stalk, an' ye find it
+in cold places, in ponds an' ditches an' by runnin' waters. Make a drink
+of it, an' it'll mend any cancer, if 'taint too far gone. An' a cancer
+that's outside an' not in, 'ull clean away beautiful wi' the 'elp o' red
+clover. Even the juice o' nettles, which is common enough, drunk three
+times a day will kill any germ o' cancer, while it'll set up the blood
+as fresh an' bright as iver. But who's a-goin' to try common stuff like
+nettles an' clover an' water hemp, when there's doctors sittin' waitin'
+wi' knives an' wantin' money for cuttin' up their patients an' 'urryin'
+'em into kingdom-come afore their time! Glory be good to me! What wi'
+doctors an' 'omes an' nusses, an' all the fuss as a sick man makes about
+hisself in these days, I'd rather be as I am, Matt Peke, a-wanderin' by
+hill an' dale, an' lyin' down peaceful to die under a tree when my times
+comes, than take any part wi' the pulin' cowards as is afraid o' cold
+an' fever an' wet feet an' the like, just as if they was poor little
+shiverin' mice instead o' men. Take 'em all round, the wimin's the
+bravest at bearin' pain,--they'll smile while they'se burnin' so as it
+sha'n't ill-convenience anybody. Wonderful sufferers, is wimin!"
+
+"Yet they are selfish enough sometimes," said Helmsley, quickly.
+
+"Selfish? Wheer was ye born, D. David?" queried Peke--"An' what wimin
+'ave ye know'd? Town or country?"
+
+Helmsley was silent.
+
+"Arsk no questions an' ye'll be told no lies!" commented Peke, with a
+chuckle. "I sees! Ye've bin a gay old chunk in yer time, mebbe! An' it's
+the wimin as goes in for gay old chunks as ye've made all yer larnin of.
+But they ain't wimin--not as the country knows 'em. Country wimin works
+all day an' as often as not dandles a babby all night,--they've not got
+a minnit but what they aint a-troublin' an' a-worryin' 'bout 'usband or
+childer, an' their faces is all writ over wi' the curse o' the garden of
+Eden. Selfish? They aint got the time! Up at cock-crow, scrubbin' the
+floors, washin' the babies, feedin' the fowls or the pigs, peelin' the
+taters, makin' the pot boil, an' tryin' to make out 'ow twelve shillin's
+an' sixpence a week can be made to buy a pound's worth o' food, trapsin'
+to market, an' wonderin' whether the larst born in the cradle aint
+somehow got into the fire while mother's away,--'opin' an' prayin' for
+the Lord's sake as 'usband don't come 'ome blind drunk,--where's the
+room for any selfishness in sich a life as that?--the life lived by
+'undreds o' wimin all over this 'ere blessed free country? Get 'long wi'
+ye, D. David! Old as y' are, ye 'ad a mother in yer time,--an' I'll take
+my Gospel oath there was a bit o' good in 'er!"
+
+Helmsley stopped abruptly in his walk.
+
+"You are right, man!" he said, "And I am wrong! You know women better
+than I do, and--you give me a lesson! One is never too old to
+learn,"--and he smiled a rather pained smile. "But--I have had a bad
+experience!"
+
+"Well, if y'ave 'ad it ivir so bad, yer 'xperience aint every one's,"
+retorted Peke. "If one fly gits into the soup, that don't argify that
+the hull pot 's full of 'em. An' there's more good wimin than
+bad--takin' 'em all round an' includin' 'op pickers, gypsies an' the
+like. Even Miss Tranter aint wantin' in feelin', though she's a bit sour
+like, owin' to 'avin missed a 'usband an' all the savin' worrity
+wear-an-tear a 'usband brings, but she aint arf bad. Yon's the lamp of
+'er 'Trusty Man' now."
+
+A gleam of light, not much larger than the glitter of one of the
+glow-worms in the grass, was just then visible at the end of the long
+field they were traversing.
+
+"That's an old cart-road down there wheer it stands," continued Peke.
+"As bad a road as ivir was made, but it runs straight into Devonshire,
+an' it's a good place for a pub. For many a year 'twornt used, bein' so
+rough an' ready, but now there's such a crowd o' motors tearin, over
+Countisbury 'Ill, the carts takes it, keepin' more to theirselves like,
+an' savin' smashin'. Miss Tranter she knew what she was a-doin' of when
+she got a licence an' opened 'er bizniss. 'Twas a ramshackle old
+farm-'ouse, goin' all to pieces when she bought it an' put up 'er sign
+o' the 'Trusty Man,' an' silly wenches round 'ere do say as 'ow it's
+'aunted, owin' to the man as 'ad it afore Miss Tranter, bein' found dead
+in 'is bed with 'is 'ands a-clutchin' a pack o' cards. An' the ace o'
+spades--that's death--was turned uppermost. So they goes chatterin' an'
+chitterin' as 'ow the old chap 'ad been playin' cards wi' the devil, an'
+got a bad end. But Miss Tranter, she don't listen to maids'
+gabble,--she's doin' well, devil or no devil--an' if any one was to talk
+to 'er 'bout ghosteses an' sich-like, she'd wallop 'em out of 'er bar
+with a broom! Ay, that she would! She's a powerful strong woman Miss
+Tranter, an' many's the larker what's felt 'er 'and on 'is collar
+a-chuckin' 'im out o' the 'Trusty Man' neck an' crop for sayin'
+somethin' what aint ezackly agreeable to 'er feelin's. She don't stand
+no nonsense, an' though she's lib'ral with 'er pennorths an' pints she
+don't wait till a man's full boozed 'fore lockin' up the tap-room. 'Git
+to bed, yer hulkin' fools!' sez she, 'or ye may change my '_O_tel for
+the Sheriff's.' An' they all knuckles down afore 'er as if they was
+childer gettin' spanked by their mother. Ah, she'd 'a made a grand wife
+for a man! 'E wouldn't 'ave 'ad no chance to make a pig of hisself if
+she'd been anywheres round!"
+
+"Perhaps she won't take me in!" suggested Helmsley.
+
+"She will, an' that sartinly!" said Peke. "She'll not refuse bed an'
+board to any friend o' mine."
+
+"Friend!" Helmsley echoed the word wonderingly.
+
+"Ay, friend! Any one's a friend what trusts to ye on the road, aint 'e?
+Leastways that's 'ow I take it."
+
+"As I said before, you are very kind to me," murmured Helmsley; "and I
+have already asked you--Why?"
+
+"There aint no rhyme nor reason in it," answered Peke. "You 'elps a man
+along if ye sees 'e wants 'elpin', sure-_ly_,--that's nat'ral. 'Tis on'y
+them as is born bad as don't 'elp nothin' nor nobody. Ye're old an'
+fagged out, an' yer face speaks a bit o' trouble--that's enuff for me.
+Hi' y' are!--hi' y' are, old 'Trusty Man!'"
+
+And striding across a dry ditch which formed a kind of entrenchment
+between the field and the road, Peke guided his companion round a dark
+corner and brought him in front of a long low building, heavily
+timbered, with queer little lop-sided gable windows set in the slanting,
+red-tiled roof. A sign-board swung over the door and a small lamp fixed
+beneath it showed that it bore the crudely painted portrait of a
+gentleman in an apron, spreading out both hands palms upwards as one who
+has nothing to conceal,--the ideal likeness of the "Trusty Man" himself.
+The door itself stood open, and the sound of male voices evinced the
+presence of customers within. Peke entered without ceremony, beckoning
+Helmsley to follow him, and made straight for the bar, where a tall
+woman with remarkably square shoulders stood severely upright, knitting.
+
+"'Evenin', Miss Tranter!" said Peke, pulling off his tattered cap. "Any
+room for poor lodgers?"
+
+Miss Tranter glanced at him, and then at his companion.
+
+"That depends on the lodgers," she answered curtly.
+
+"That's right! That's quite right, Miss!" said Peke with propitiatory
+deference. "You 'se allus right whatsoever ye does an' sez! But yer
+knows _me_,--yer knows Matt Peke, don't yer?"
+
+Miss Tranter smiled sourly, and her knitting needles glittered like
+crossed knives as she finished a particular row of stitches on which she
+was engaged before condescending to reply. Then she said:--
+
+"Yes, I know _you_ right enough, but I don't know your company. I'm not
+taking up strangers."
+
+"Lord love ye! This aint a stranger!" exclaimed Peke. "This 'ere's old
+David, a friend o' mine as is out o' work through gittin' more years on
+'is back than the British Gov'ment allows, an' 'e's trampin' it to see
+'is relations afore 'e gits put to bed wi' a shovel. 'E's as 'armless as
+they makes 'em, an' I've told 'im as 'ow ye' don't take in nowt but
+'spectable folk. Doant 'ee turn out an old gaffer like 'e be, fagged an'
+footsore, to sleep in open--doant 'ee now, there's a good soul!"
+
+Miss Tranter went on knitting rapidly. Presently she turned her piercing
+gimlet grey eyes on Helmsley.
+
+"Where do you come from, man?" she demanded.
+
+Helmsley lifted his hat with the gentle courtesy habitual to him.
+
+"From Bristol, ma'am."
+
+"Tramping it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To Cornwall."
+
+"That's a long way and a hard road," commented Miss Tranter; "You'll
+never get there!"
+
+Helmsley gave a slight deprecatory gesture, but said nothing.
+
+Miss Tranter eyed him more keenly.
+
+"Are you hungry?"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Not very!"
+
+"That means you're half-starved without knowing it," she said
+decisively. "Go in yonder," and she pointed with one of her knitting
+needles to the room beyond the bar whence the hum of male voices
+proceeded. "I'll send you some hot soup with plenty of stewed meat and
+bread in it. An old man like you wants more than the road food. Take him
+in, Peke!"
+
+"Didn't I tell ye!" ejaculated Peke, triumphantly looking round at
+Helmsley. "She's one that's got 'er 'art in the right place! I say, Miss
+Tranter, beggin' yer parding, my friend aint a sponger, ye know! 'E can
+pay ye a shillin' or two for yer trouble!"
+
+Miss Tranter nodded her head carelessly.
+
+"The food's threepence and the bed fourpence," she said. "Breakfast in
+the morning, threepence,--and twopence for the washing towel. That makes
+a shilling all told. Ale and liquors extra."
+
+With that she turned her back on them, and Peke, pulling Helmsley by the
+arm, took him into the common room of the inn, where there were several
+men seated round a long oak table with "gate-legs" which must have been
+turned by the handicraftsmen of the time of Henry the Seventh. Here
+Peke set down his basket of herbs in a corner, and addressed the company
+generally.
+
+"'Evenin', mates! All well an' 'arty?"
+
+Three or four of the party gave gruff response. The others sat smoking
+silently. One end of the table was unoccupied, and to this Peke drew a
+couple of rush-bottomed chairs with sturdy oak backs, and bade Helmsley
+sit down beside him.
+
+"It be powerful warm to-night!" he said, taking off his cap, and showing
+a disordered head of rough dark hair, sprinkled with grey. "Powerful
+warm it be trampin' the road, from sunrise to sunset, when the dust lies
+thick and 'eavy, an' all the country's dry for a drop o' rain."
+
+"Wal, _you_ aint got no cause to grumble at it," said a fat-faced man in
+very dirty corduroys. "It's _your_ chice, an' _your_ livin'! _You_ likes
+the road, an' _you_ makes your grub on it! 'Taint no use _you_ findin'
+fault with the gettin' o' _your_ victuals!"
+
+"Who's findin' fault, Mister Dubble?" asked Peke soothingly. "I on'y
+said 'twas powerful warm."
+
+"An' no one but a sawny 'xpects it to be powerful cold in July," growled
+Dubble--"though some there is an' some there be what cries fur snow in
+August, but I aint one on 'em."
+
+"No, 'e aint one on 'em," commented a burly farmer, blowing away the
+foam from the brim of a tankard of ale which was set on the table in
+front of him. "'E alluz takes just what cooms along easy loike, do
+Mizter Dubble!"
+
+There followed a silence. It was instinctively felt that the discussion
+was hardly important enough to be continued. Moreover, every man in the
+room was conscious of a stranger's presence, and each one cast a furtive
+glance at Helmsley, who, imitating Peke's example, had taken off his
+hat, and now sat quietly under the flickering light of the oil lamp
+which was suspended from the middle of the ceiling. He himself was
+intensely interested in the turn his wanderings had taken. There was a
+certain excitement in his present position,--he was experiencing the
+"new sensation" he had longed for,--and he realised it with the fullest
+sense of enjoyment. To be one of the richest men in the world, and yet
+to seem so miserably poor and helpless as to be regarded with suspicion
+by such a class of fellows as those among whom he was now seated, was
+decidedly a novel way of acquiring an additional relish for the varying
+chances and changes of life.
+
+"Brought yer father along wi' ye, Matt?" suddenly asked a wizened little
+man of about sixty, with a questioning grin on his hard weather-beaten
+features.
+
+"I aint up to 'awkin' dead bodies out o' their graves yet, Bill Bush,"
+answered Peke. "Unless my old dad's corpsy's turned to yerbs, which is
+more'n likely, I aint got 'im. This 'ere's a friend o' mine,--Mister
+David--e's out o' work through the Lord's speshul dispensation an' rule
+o' natur--gettin' old!"
+
+A laugh went round, but a more favourable impression towards Peke's
+companion was at once created by this introduction.
+
+"Sorry for ye!" said the individual called Bill Bush, nodding
+encouragingly to Helmsley. "I'm a bit that way myself."
+
+He winked, and again the company laughed. Bill was known as one of the
+most daring and desperate poachers in all the countryside, but as yet he
+had never been caught in the act, and he was one of Miss Tranter's
+"respectable" customers. But, truth to tell, Miss Tranter had some very
+odd ideas of her own. One was that rabbits were vermin, and that it was
+of no consequence how or by whom they were killed. Another was that
+"wild game" belonged to everybody, poor and rich. Vainly was it
+explained to her that rich landowners spent no end of money on breeding
+and preserving pheasants, grouse, and the like,--she would hear none of
+it.
+
+"Stuff and nonsense," she said sharply. "The birds breed by themselves
+quite fast enough if let alone,--and the Lord intended them so to do for
+every one's use and eating, not for a few mean and selfish money-grubs
+who'd shoot and sell their own babies if they could get game prices for
+them!"
+
+And she had a certain sympathy with Bill Bush and his nefarious
+proceedings. As long as he succeeded in evading the police, so long
+would he be welcome at the "Trusty Man," but if once he were to be
+clapped into jail the door of his favourite "public" would be closed to
+him. Not that Miss Tranter was a woman who "went back," as the saying
+is, on her friends, but she had to think of her licence, and could not
+afford to run counter to those authorities who had the power to take it
+away from her.
+
+"I'm a-shrivellin' away for want o' suthin' to do," proceeded Bill. "My
+legs aint no show at all to what they once was."
+
+And he looked down at those members complacently. They were encased in
+brown velveteens much the worse for wear, and in shape resembled a
+couple of sticks with a crook at the knees.
+
+"I lost my sitiwation as gamekeeper to 'is Royal 'Ighness the Dook o'
+Duncy through bein' too 'onest," he went on with another wink. "'Orful
+pertikler, the Dook was,--nobuddy was 'llowed to be 'onest wheer '_e_
+was but 'imself! Lord love ye! It don't do to be straight an' square in
+this world!"
+
+Helmsley listened to this bantering talk, saying nothing. He was pale,
+and sat very still, thus giving the impression of being too tired to
+notice what was going on around him. Peke took up the conversation.
+
+"Stow yer gab, Bill!" he said. "When _you_ gits straight an' square,
+it'll be a round 'ole ye'll 'ave to drop into, mark my wurrd! An' no
+Dook o' Duncy 'ull pull ye out! This 'ere old friend o' mine don't
+unnerstand ye wi' yer fustian an' yer galligaskins. 'E's kinder
+eddicated--got a bit o' larnin' as I 'aves myself."
+
+"Eddicated!" echoed Bill. "Eddication's a fine thing, aint it, if it
+brings an old gaffer like 'im to trampin' the road! Seems to me the more
+people's eddicated the less they's able to make a livin'."
+
+"That's true! that's _dorned_ true!" said the man named Dubble, bringing
+his great fist down on the table with a force that made the tankards
+jump. "My darter, she's larned to play the pianner, an' I'm _dorned_ if
+she kin do anythin' else! Just a gillflurt she is, an' as sassy as a
+magpie. That's what eddication 'as made of 'er an' be _dorned_ to 't!"
+
+"'Scuse me," and Bill Bush now addressed himself immediately to
+Helmsley, "_ef_ I may be so bold as to arsk you wheer ye comes from,
+meanin' no 'arm, an' what's yer purfession?"
+
+Helmsley looked up with a friendly smile.
+
+"I've no profession now," he answered at once. "But in my time--before I
+got too old--I did a good deal of office work."
+
+"Office work! In a 'ouse of business, ye means? Readin', 'ritin',
+'rithmetic, an' mebbe sweepin' the floor at odd times an' runnin'
+errands?"
+
+"That's it!" answered Helmsley, still smiling.
+
+"An' they won't 'ave ye no more?"
+
+"I am too old," he answered quietly.
+
+Here Dubble turned slowly round and surveyed him.
+
+"How old be ye?"
+
+"Seventy."
+
+Silence ensued. The men glanced at one another. It was plain that the
+"one touch of nature which makes the whole world kin" was moving them
+all to kindly and compassionate feeling for the age and frail appearance
+of their new companion. What are called "rough" and "coarse" types of
+humanity are seldom without a sense of reverence and even affection for
+old persons. It is only among ultra-selfish and callous communities
+where over-luxurious living has blunted all the finer emotions, that age
+is considered a crime, or what by some individuals is declared worse
+than a crime, a "bore."
+
+At that moment a short girl, with a very red face and round beady eyes,
+came into the room carrying on a tray two quaint old pewter tureens full
+of steaming soup, which emitted very savoury and appetising odours.
+Setting these down before Matt Peke and Helmsley, with two goodly slices
+of bread beside them, she held out her podgy hand.
+
+"Threepence each, please!"
+
+They paid her, Peke adding a halfpenny to his threepence for the girl
+herself, and Helmsley, who judged it safest to imitate Peke's behaviour,
+doing the same. She giggled.
+
+"'Ope you aint deprivin' yourselves!" she said pertly.
+
+"No, my dear, we aint!" retorted Peke. "We can afford to treat ye like
+the gentlemen doos! Buy yerself a ribbin to tie up yer bonnie brown
+'air!"
+
+She giggled again, and waited to see them begin their meal, then, with a
+comprehensive roll of her round eyes upon all the company assembled, she
+retired. The soup she had brought was certainly excellent,--strong,
+invigorating, and tasty enough to have done credit to a rich man's
+table, and Peke nodded over it with mingled surprise and appreciation.
+
+"Miss Tranter knows what's good, she do!" he remarked to Helmsley in a
+low tone. "She's cooked this up speshul! This 'ere broth aint flavoured
+for _me_,--it's for _you_! Glory be good to me if she aint taken a fancy
+ter yer!--shouldn't wonder if ye 'ad the best in the 'ouse!"
+
+Helmsley shook his head demurringly, but said nothing. He knew that in
+the particular position in which he had placed himself, silence was
+safer than speech.
+
+Meanwhile, the short beady-eyed handmaiden returned to her mistress in
+the kitchen, and found that lady gazing abstractedly into the fire.
+
+"They've got their soup," she announced, "an' they're eatin' of it up!"
+
+"Is the old man taking it?" asked Miss Tranter.
+
+"Yes'm. An' 'e seems to want it 'orful bad, 'orful bad 'e do, on'y 'e
+swallers it slower an' more soft like than Matt Peke swallers."
+
+Miss Tranter ceased to stare at the fire, and stared at her domestic
+instead.
+
+"Prue," she said solemnly, "that old man is a gentleman!"
+
+Prue's round eyes opened a little more roundly.
+
+"Lor', Mis' Tranter!"
+
+"He's a gentleman," repeated the hostess of the "Trusty Man" with
+emphasis and decision; "and he's fallen on bad times. He may have to beg
+his bread along the road or earn a shilling here and there as best he
+can, but nothing"--and here Miss Tranter shook her forefinger defiantly
+in the air--"nothing will alter the fact that he's a gentleman!"
+
+Prue squeezed her fat red hands together, breathed hard, and not knowing
+exactly what else to do, grinned. Her mistress looked at her severely.
+
+"You grin like a Cheshire cat," she remarked. "I wish you wouldn't."
+
+Prue at once pursed in her wide mouth to a more serious double line.
+
+"How much did they give you?" pursued Miss Tranter.
+
+"'Apenny each," answered Prue.
+
+"How much have you made for yourself to-day all round!"
+
+"Sevenpence three fardin's," confessed Prue, with an appealing look.
+
+"You know I don't allow you to take tips from my customers," went on
+Miss Tranter. "You must put those three farthings in my poor-box."
+
+"Yes'm!" sighed Prue meekly.
+
+"And then you may keep the sevenpence."
+
+"Oh thank y' 'm! Thank y', Mis' Tranter!" And Prue hugged herself
+ecstatically. "You'se 'orful good to me, you is, Mis' Tranter!"
+
+Miss Tranter stood a moment, an upright inflexible figure, surveying
+her.
+
+"Do you say your prayers every night and morning as I told you to do?"
+
+Prue became abnormally solemn.
+
+"Yes, I allus do, Mis' Tranter, wish I may die right 'ere if I don't!"
+
+"What did I teach you to say to God for the poor travellers who stop at
+the 'Trusty Man'?"
+
+"'That it may please Thee to succour, help and comfort all that are in
+danger, necessity and tribulation, we beseech Thee to hear us Good
+Lord!'" gabbled Prue, shutting her eyes and opening them again with
+great rapidity.
+
+"That's right!" And Miss Tranter bent her head graciously. "I'm glad you
+remember it so well! Be sure you say it to-night. And now you may go,
+Prue."
+
+Prue went accordingly, and Miss Tranter, resuming her knitting, returned
+to the bar, and took up her watchful position opposite the clock, there
+to remain patiently till closing time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+The minutes wore on, and though some of the company at the "Trusty Man"
+went away in due course, others came in to replace them, so that even
+when it was nearing ten o'clock the common room was still fairly full.
+Matt Peke was evidently hail-fellow-well-met with many of the loafers of
+the district, and his desultory talk, with its quaint leaning towards a
+kind of rustic philosophy intermingled with an assumption of profound
+scientific wisdom, appeared to exercise considerable fascination over
+those who had the patience and inclination to listen to it. Helmsley
+accepted a pipe of tobacco offered to him by the surly-looking Dubble
+and smoked peacefully, leaning back in his chair and half closing his
+eyes with a drowsy air, though in truth his senses had never been more
+alert, or his interest more keenly awakened. He gathered from the
+general conversation that Bill Bush was an accustomed night lodger at
+the "Trusty Man," that Dubble had a cottage not far distant, with a
+scolding wife and an uppish daughter, and that it was because she knew
+of his home discomforts that Miss Tranter allowed him to pass many of
+his evenings at her inn, smoking and sipping a mild ale, which without
+fuddling his brains, assisted him in part to forget for a time his
+domestic worries. And he also found out that the sturdy farmer sedately
+sucking his pipe in a corner, and now and then throwing in an unexpected
+and random comment on whatever happened to be the topic of conversation,
+was known as "Feathery" Joltram, though why "Feathery" did not seem very
+clear, unless the term was, as it appeared to be, an adaptation of
+"father" or "feyther" Joltram. Matt Peke explained that old "Feathery"
+was a highly respected character in the "Quantocks," and not only rented
+a large farm, but thoroughly understood the farming business. Moreover,
+that he had succeeded in making himself somewhat of a terror to certain
+timorous time-servers, on account of his heterodox and obstinate
+principles. For example, he had sent his children to school because
+Government compelled him to do so, but when their schooldays were over,
+he had informed them that the sooner they forgot all they had ever
+learned during that period and took to "clean an' 'olesome livin'," the
+better he should be pleased.
+
+"For it's all rort an' rubbish," he declared, in his broad, soft
+dialect. "I dozn't keer a tinker's baad 'apenny whether tha knaw 'ow to
+'rite tha mizchief or to read it, or whether king o' England is eatin'
+'umble pie to the U-nited States top man, or noa,--I keerz nawt aboot
+it, noben way or t'other. My boys 'as got to laarn draawin' crops out o'
+fields,--an' my gels must put 'and to milkin' and skimmin' cream an'
+makin' foinest butter as iver went to market. An' time comin' to wed,
+the boys 'ull take strong dairy wives, an' the gels 'ull pick men as can
+thraw through men's wurrk, or they'ze nay gels nor boys o' mine. Tarlk
+o' Great Britain! Heart alive! Wheer would th' owd country be if 'twere
+left to pulin' booky clerks what thinks they're gemmen, an' what weds
+niminy-piminy shop gels, an' breeds nowt but ricketty babes fit for
+workus' burial! Noa, by the Lord! No school larnin' for me nor mine,
+thank-ee! Why, the marster of the Board School 'ere doant know more
+practical business o' life than a suckin' calf! With a bit o' garden
+ground to 'is cot, e' doant reckon 'ow io till it, an' that's the
+rakelness o' book larnin'. Noa, noa! Th' owd way o' wurrk's the best
+way,--brain, 'ands, feet an' good ztrong body all zet on't, an' no
+meanderin' aff it! Take my wurrd the Lord A'mighty doant 'elp corn to
+grow if there's a whinin' zany ahint the plough!"
+
+With these distinctly "out-of-date" notions, "Feathery" Joltram had also
+set himself doggedly against church-going and church people generally.
+Few dared mention a clergyman in his presence, for his open and
+successful warfare with the minister of his own parish had been going on
+for years and had become well-nigh traditional. Looking at him, however,
+as he sat in his favourite corner of the "Trusty Man's" common room, no
+one would have given him credit for any particular individuality. His
+round red face expressed nothing,--his dull fish-like eyes betrayed no
+intelligence,--he appeared to be nothing more than a particularly large,
+heavy man, wedged in his chair rather than seated in it, and absorbed in
+smoking a long pipe after the fashion of an infant sucking a
+feeding-bottle, with infinite relish that almost suggested gluttony.
+
+The hum of voices grew louder as the hour grew later, and one or two
+rather noisy disputations brought Miss Tranter to the door. A look of
+hers was sufficient to silence all contention, and having bent the
+warning flash of her eyes impressively upon her customers, she retired
+as promptly and silently as she had appeared. Helmsley was just thinking
+that he would slip away and get to bed, when, a firm tread sounded in
+the outer passage, and a tall man, black-haired, black-eyed, and of
+herculean build, suddenly looked in upon the tavern company with a
+familiar nod and smile.
+
+"Hullo, my hearties!" he exclaimed. "Is all tankards drained, or is a
+drop to spare?"
+
+A shout of welcome greeted him:--"Tom!" "Tom o' the Gleam!" "Come in,
+Tom!" "Drinks all round!"--and there followed a general hustle and
+scraping of chairs on the floor,--every one seemed eager to make room
+for the newcomer. Helmsley, startled in a manner by his appearance,
+looked at him with involuntary and undisguised admiration. Such a
+picturesque figure of a man he had seldom or never seen, yet the fellow
+was clad in the roughest, raggedest homespun, the only striking and
+curious note of colour about him being a knitted crimson waistcoat,
+which instead of being buttoned was tied together with two or three tags
+of green ribbon. He stood for a moment watching the men pushing up
+against one another in order to give him a seat at the table, and a
+smile, half-amused, half-ironical, lighted up his sun-browned, handsome
+face.
+
+"Don't put yourselves out, mates!" he said carelessly. "Mind Feathery's
+toes!--if you tread on his corns there'll be the devil to pay! Hullo,
+Matt Peke! How are you?"
+
+Matt rose and shook hands.
+
+"All the better for seein' ye again, Tom," he answered, "Wheer d'ye hail
+from this very present minit?"
+
+"From the caves of Cornwall!" laughed the man. "From picking up drift on
+the shore and tracking seals to their lair in the hollows of the rocks!"
+He laughed again, and his great eyes flashed wildly. "All sport, Matt! I
+live like a gentleman born, keeping or killing at my pleasure!"
+
+Here "Feathery" Joltram looked up and dumbly pointed with the stem of
+his pipe to a chair left vacant near the middle of the table. Tom o' the
+Gleam, by which name he seemed to be known to every one present, sat
+down, and in response to the calls of the company, a wiry pot-boy in
+shirt-sleeves made his appearance with several fresh tankards of ale, it
+now being past the hour for the attendance of that coy handmaiden of the
+"Trusty Man," Miss Prue.
+
+"Any fresh tales to tell, Tom?" inquired Matt Peke then--"Any more
+harum-scarum pranks o' yours on the road?"
+
+Tom drank off a mug of ale before replying, and took a comprehensive
+glance around the room.
+
+"You have a stranger here," he said suddenly, in his deep, thrilling
+voice, "One who is not of our breed,--one who is unfamiliar with our
+ways. Friend or foe?"
+
+"Friend!" declared Peke emphatically, while Bill Bush and one or two of
+the men exchanged significant looks and nudged each other. "Now, Tom,
+none of yer gypsy tantrums! I knows all yer Romany gibberish, an' I
+ain't takin' any. Ye've got a good 'art enough, so don't work yer dander
+up with this 'ere old chap what's a-trampin' it to try and find out all
+that's left o's fam'ly an' friends 'fore turnin' up 'is toes to the
+daisies. 'Is name is David, an' 'e's been kickt out o' office work
+through bein' too old. That's _'is_ ticket!"
+
+Tom o' the Gleam listened to this explanation in silence, playing
+absently with the green tags of ribbon at his waistcoat. Then slowly
+lifting his eyes he fixed them full on Helmsley, who, despite himself,
+felt an instant's confusion at the searching intensity of the man's bold
+bright gaze.
+
+"Old and poor!" he ejaculated. "That's a bad lookout in this world!
+Aren't you tired of living!"
+
+"Nearly," answered Helmsley quietly--"but not quite."
+
+Their looks met, and Tom's dark features relaxed into a smile.
+
+"You're fairly patient!" he said, "for it's hard enough to be poor, but
+it's harder still to be old. If I thought I should live to be as old as
+you are, I'd drown myself in the sea! There's no use in life without
+body's strength and heart's love."
+
+"Ah, tha be graat on the love business, Tom!" chuckled "Feathery"
+Joltram, lifting his massive body with a shake out of the depths of his
+comfortable chair. "Zeems to me tha's zummat like the burd what cozies a
+new mate ivery zummer!"
+
+Tom o' the Gleam laughed, his strong even white teeth shining like a
+row of pearls between his black moustaches and short-cropped beard.
+
+"You're a steady-going man, Feathery," he said, "and I'm a wastrel. But
+I'm ne'er as fickle as you think. I've but one love in the world that's
+left me--my kiddie."
+
+"Ay, an' 'ow's the kiddie?" asked Matt Peke--"Thrivin' as iver?"
+
+"Fine! As strong a little chap as you'll see between Quantocks and
+Land's End. He'll be four come Martinmas."
+
+"Zo agein' quick as that!" commented Joltram with a broad grin. "For
+zure 'e be a man grow'd! Tha'll be puttin' the breechez on 'im an'
+zendin' 'im to the school----"
+
+"Never!" interrupted Tom defiantly. "They'll never catch my kiddie if I
+know it! I want him for myself,--others shall have no part in him. He
+shall grow up wild like a flower of the fields--wild as his mother
+was--wild as the wild roses growing over her grave----"
+
+He broke off suddenly with an impatient gesture.
+
+"Psha! Why do you drag me over the old rough ground talking of Kiddie!"
+he exclaimed, almost angrily. "The child's all right. He's safe in camp
+with the women."
+
+"Anywheres nigh?" asked Bill Bush.
+
+Tom o' the Gleam made no answer, but the fierce look in his eyes showed
+that he was not disposed to be communicative on this point. Just then
+the sound of voices raised in some dispute on the threshold of the
+"Trusty Man," caused all the customers in the common room to pause in
+their talking and drinking, and to glance expressively at one another.
+Miss Tranter's emphatic accents rang out sharply on the silence.
+
+"It wants ten minutes to ten, and I never close till half-past ten," she
+said decisively. "The law does not compel me to do so till eleven, and I
+resent private interference."
+
+"I am aware that you resent any advice offered for your good," was the
+reply, delivered in harsh masculine tones. "You are a singularly
+obstinate woman. But I have my duty to perform, and as minister of this
+parish I shall perform it."
+
+"Mind your own business first!" said Miss Tranter, with evident
+vehemence.
+
+"My business is my duty, and my duty is my business,"--and here the male
+voice grew more rasping and raucous. "I have as much right to use this
+tavern as any one of the misled men who spend their hard earnings here
+and neglect their homes and families for the sake of drink. And as you
+do not close till half-past ten, it is not too late for me to enter."
+
+During this little altercation, the party round the table in the common
+room sat listening intently. Then Dubble, rousing himself from a
+pleasant ale-warm lethargy, broke the spell.
+
+"Dorned if it aint old Arbroath!" he said.
+
+"Ay, ay, 'tis old Arbroath zartin zure!" responded "Feathery" Joltram
+placidly. "Let 'un coom in! Let 'un coom in!"
+
+Tom o' the Gleam gave vent to a loud laugh, and throwing himself back in
+his chair, crossed his long legs and administered a ferocious twirl to
+his moustache, humming carelessly under his breath:--
+
+    "'And they called the parson to marry them,
+      But devil a bit would he--
+    For they were but a pair of dandy prats
+      As couldn't pay devil's fee!'"
+
+Helmsley's curiosity was excited. There was a marked stir of expectation
+among the guests of the "Trusty Man"; they all appeared to be waiting
+for something about to happen of exceptional interest. He glanced
+inquiringly at Peke, who returned the glance by one of warning.
+
+"Best sit quiet a while longer," he said. "They won't break up till
+closin' hour, an' m'appen there'll be a bit o' fun."
+
+"Ay, sit quiet!" said Tom o' the Gleam, catching these words, and
+turning towards Helmsley with a smile--"There's more than enough time
+for tramping. Come! Show me if you can smoke _that_!" "That" was a
+choice Havana cigar which he took out of the pocket of his crimson wool
+waistcoat. "You've smoked one before now, I'll warrant!"
+
+Helmsley met his flashing eyes without wavering.
+
+"I will not say I have not," he answered quietly, accepting and lighting
+the fragrant weed, "but it was long ago!"
+
+"Ay, away in the Long, long ago!" said Tom, still regarding him fixedly,
+but kindly--"where we have all buried such a number of beautiful
+things,--loves and hopes and beliefs, and dreams and fortunes!--all, all
+tucked away under the graveyard grass of the Long Ago!"
+
+Here Miss Tranter's voice was heard again outside, saying acidly:--
+
+"It's clear out and lock up at half-past ten, business or no business,
+duty or no duty. Please remember that!"
+
+"'Ware, mates!" exclaimed Tom,--"Here comes our reverend!"
+
+The door was pushed open as he spoke, and a short, dark man in clerical
+costume walked in with a would-be imposing air of dignity.
+
+"Good-evening, my friends!" he said, without lifting his hat.
+
+There was no response.
+
+He smiled sourly, and surveyed the assembled company with a curious air
+of mingled authority and contempt. He looked more like a petty officer
+of dragoons than a minister of the Christian religion,--one of those
+exacting small military martinets accustomed to brow-beating and
+bullying every subordinate without reason or justice.
+
+"So you're there, are you, Bush!" he continued, with a frowning glance
+levied in the direction of the always suspected but never proved
+poacher,--"I wonder you're not in jail by this time!"
+
+Bill Bush took up his pewter tankard, and affected to drain it to the
+last dregs, but made no reply.
+
+"Is that Mr. Dubble!" pursued the clergyman, shading his eyes with one
+hand from the flickering light of the lamp, and feigning to be doubtful
+of the actual personality of the individual he questioned. "Surely not!
+I should be very much surprised and very sorry to see Mr. Dubble here at
+such a late hour!"
+
+"Would ye now!" said Dubble. "Wal, I'm allus glad to give ye both a
+sorrer an' a surprise together, Mr. Arbroath--darned if I aint!"
+
+"You must be keeping your good wife and daughter up waiting for you,"
+proceeded Arbroath, his iron-grey eyebrows drawing together in an ugly
+line over the bridge of his nose. "Late hours are a mistake, Dubble!"
+
+"So they be, so they be, Mr. Arbroath!" agreed Dubble. "Ef I was oop
+till midnight naggin' away at my good wife an' darter as they nags away
+at me, I'd say my keepin' o' late 'ours was a dorned whoppin' mistake
+an' no doubt o't. But seein' as 'taint arf-past ten yet, an' I aint
+naggin' nobody nor interferin' with my neighbours nohow, I reckon I'm on
+the right side o' the night so fur."
+
+A murmur of approving laughter from all the men about him ratified this
+speech. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath gave a gesture of disdain, and bent
+his lowering looks on Tom o' the Gleam.
+
+"Aren't you wanted by the police?" he suggested sarcastically.
+
+The handsome gypsy glanced him over indifferently.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder!" he retorted. "Perhaps the police want me as much
+as the devil wants _you_!"
+
+Arbroath flushed a dark red, and his lips tightened over his teeth
+vindictively.
+
+"There's a zummat for tha thinkin' on, Pazon Arbroath!" said "Feathery"
+Joltram, suddenly rising from his chair and showing himself in all his
+great height and burly build. "Zummat for a zermon on owd Nick, when
+tha're wantin' to scare the zhoolboys o' Zundays!"
+
+Mr. Arbroath's countenance changed from red to pale.
+
+"I was not aware of your presence, Mr. Joltram," he said stiffly.
+
+"Noa, noa, Pazon, m'appen not, but tha's aweer on it now. Nowt o' me's
+zo zmall as can thraw to heaven through tha straight and narrer way. I'd
+'ave to squeeze for 't!"
+
+He laughed,--a big, slow laugh, husky with good living and good humour.
+Arbroath shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I prefer not to speak to you at all, Mr. Joltram," he said. "When
+people are bound to disagree, as we have disagreed for years, it is best
+to avoid conversation."
+
+"Zed like the Church all over, Pazon!" chuckled the imperturbable
+Joltram. "Zeems as if I 'erd the 'Glory be'! But if tha don't want any
+talk, why does tha coom in 'ere wheer we'se all a-drinkin' steady and
+talkin' 'arty, an' no quarrellin' nor backbitin' of our neighbours? Tha
+wants us to go 'ome,--why doezn't tha go 'ome thysen? Tha's a wife a
+zettin' oop there, an' m'appen she's waitin' with as fine a zermon as
+iver was preached from a temperance cart in a wasterne field!"
+
+He laughed again; Arbroath turned his back upon him in disgust, and
+strode up to the shadowed corner where Helmsley sat watching the little
+scene.
+
+"Now, my man, who are _you_?" demanded the clergyman imperiously. "Where
+do you come from?"
+
+Matt Peke would have spoken, but Helmsley silenced him by a look and
+rose to his feet, standing humbly with bent head before his arrogant
+interlocutor. There were the elements of comedy in the situation, and he
+was inclined to play his part thoroughly.
+
+"From Bristol," he replied.
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"Getting rest, food, and a night's lodging."
+
+"Why do you leave out drink in the list?" sneered Arbroath. "For, of
+course, it's your special craving! Where are you going?"
+
+"To Cornwall."
+
+"Tramping it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Begging, I suppose?"
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"Disgraceful!" And the reverend gentleman snorted offence like a walrus
+rising from deep waters. "Why don't you work?"
+
+"I'm too old."
+
+"Too old! Too lazy you mean! How old are you?"
+
+"Seventy."
+
+Mr. Arbroath paused, slightly disconcerted. He had entered the "Trusty
+Man" in the hope of discovering some or even all of its customers in a
+state of drunkenness. To his disappointment he had found them perfectly
+sober. He had pounced on the stray man whom he saw was a stranger, in
+the expectation of proving him, at least, to be intoxicated. Here again
+he was mistaken. Helmsley's simple straight answers left him no opening
+for attack.
+
+"You'd better make for the nearest workhouse," he said, at last. "Tramps
+are not encouraged on these roads."
+
+"Evidently not!" And Helmsley raised his calm eyes and fixed them on the
+clergyman's lowering countenance with a faintly satiric smile.
+
+"You're not too old to be impudent, I see!" retorted Arbroath, with an
+unpleasant contortion of his features. "I warn you not to come cadging
+about anywhere in this neighbourhood, for if you do I shall give you in
+charge. I have four parishes under my control, and I make it a rule to
+hand all beggars over to the police."
+
+"That's not very good Christianity, is it?" asked Helmsley quietly.
+
+Matt Peke chuckled. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath started indignantly, and
+stared so hard that his rat-brown eyes visibly projected from his head.
+
+"Not very good Christianity!" he echoed. "What--what do you mean? How
+dare you speak to me about Christianity!"
+
+"Ay, 'tis a bit aff!" drawled "Feathery" Joltram, thrusting his great
+hands deep into his capacious trouser-pockets. "'Tis a bit aff to taalk
+to Christian parzon 'bout Christianity, zeein' 'tis the one thing i'
+this warld 'e knaws nawt on!"
+
+Arbroath grew livid, but his inward rage held him speechless.
+
+"That's true!" cried Tom o' the Gleam excitedly--"That's as true as
+there's a God in heaven! I've read all about the Man that was born a
+carpenter in Galilee, and so far as I can understand it, He never had a
+rough word for the worst creatures that crawled, and the worse they
+were, and the more despised and down-trodden, the gentler He was with
+them. That's not the way of the men that call themselves His ministers!"
+
+"I 'eerd once," said Mr. Dubble, rising slowly and laying down his pipe,
+"of a little chap what was makin' a posy for 'is mother's birthday, an'
+passin' the garden o' the rector o' the parish, 'e spied a bunch o' pink
+chestnut bloom 'angin' careless over the 'edge, ready to blow to bits
+wi' the next puff o' wind. The little raskill pulled it down an' put it
+wi' the rest o' the flowers 'e'd got for 'is mother, but the good an'
+lovin' rector seed 'im at it, an' 'ad 'im nabbed as a common thief an'
+sent to prison. 'E wornt but a ten-year-old lad, an' that prison spoilt
+'im for life. 'E wor a fust-class Lord's man as did that for a babby
+boy, an' the hull neighbourhood's powerful obleeged to 'im. So don't
+ye,"--and here he turned his stolid gaze on Helmsley,--"don't ye, for
+all that ye're old, an' poor, an' 'elpless, go cadgin' round this 'ere
+reverend gemmen's property, cos 'e's got a real pityin' Christian 'art
+o's own, an' ye'd be sent to bed wi' the turnkey." Here he paused with a
+comprehensive smile round at the company,--then taking up his hat, he
+put it on. "There's one too many 'ere for pleasantness, an' I'm goin'.
+Good-den, Tom! Good-den, all!"
+
+And out he strode, whistling as he went. With his departure every one
+began to move,--the more quickly as the clock in the bar had struck ten
+a minute or two since. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath stood irresolute for a
+moment, wishing his chief enemy, "Feathery" Joltram, would go. But
+Joltram remained where he was, standing erect, and surveying the scene
+like a heavily caparisoned charger scenting battle.
+
+"Tha's heerd Mizter Dubble's tale afore now, Pazon, hazn't tha?" he
+inquired. "M'appen tha knaw'd the little chap as Christ's man zent to
+prizon thysen?"
+
+Arbroath lifted his head haughtily.
+
+"A theft is a theft," he said, "whether it is committed by a young
+person or an old one, and whether it is for a penny or a hundred pounds
+makes no difference. Thieves of all classes and all ages should be
+punished as such. Those are my opinions."
+
+"They were nowt o' the Lord's opinions," said Joltram, "for He told the
+thief as 'ung beside Him, 'This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise,'
+but He didn't say nowt o' the man as got the thief punished!"
+
+"You twist the Bible to suit your own ends, Mr. Joltram," retorted
+Arbroath contemptuously. "It is the common habit of atheists and
+blasphemers generally."
+
+"Then, by the Lord!" exclaimed the irrepressible "Feathery," "All th'
+atheists an' blasphemers must be a-gathered in the fold o' the Church,
+for if the pazons doan't twist the Bible to suit their own ends, I'm
+blest if I knaw whaat else they does for a decent livin'!"
+
+Just then a puff of fine odour from the Havana cigar which Helmsley was
+enjoying floated under the nostrils of Mr. Arbroath, and added a fresh
+touch of irritation to his temper. He turned at once upon the offending
+smoker.
+
+"So! You pretend to be poor!" he snarled, "And yet you can smoke a cigar
+that must have cost a shilling!"
+
+"It was given to me," replied Helmsley gently.
+
+"Given to you! Bah! Who would give an old tramp a cigar like that?"
+
+"I would!" And Tom o' the Gleam sprang lightly up from his chair, his
+black eyes sparkling with mingled defiance and laughter--"And I did!
+Here!--will you take another?" And he drew out and opened a handsome
+case full of the cigars in question.
+
+"Thank you!" and Arbroath's pallid lips trembled with rage. "I decline
+to share in stolen plunder!"
+
+"Ha--ha--ha! Ha--ha!" laughed Tom hilariously. "Stolen plunder! That's
+good! D'ye think I'd steal when I can buy! Reverend sir, Tom o' the
+Gleam is particular as to what he smokes, and he hasn't travelled all
+over the world for nothing:
+
+    'Qu'en dictes-vous? Faut-il ą ce musier,
+    _Il n'est trésor que de vivre ą son aise_!'"
+
+Helmsley listened in wonderment. Here was a vagrant of the highroads and
+woods, quoting the refrain of Villon's _Contreditz de Franc-Gontier_,
+and pronouncing the French language with as soft and pure an accent as
+ever came out of Provence. Meanwhile, Mr. Arbroath, paying no attention
+whatever to Tom's outburst, looked at his watch.
+
+"It is now a quarter-past ten," he announced dictatorially; "I should
+advise you all to be going."
+
+"By the law we needn't go till eleven, though Miss Tranter _does_ halve
+it," said Bill Bush sulkily--"and perhaps we won't!"
+
+Mr. Arbroath fixed him with a stern glance.
+
+"Do you know that I am here in the cause of Temperance?" he said.
+
+"Oh, are ye? Then why don't ye call on Squire Evans, as is the brewer
+wi' the big 'ouse yonder?" queried Bill defiantly. "'E's the man to go
+to! Arsk 'im to shut up 'is brewery an' sell no more ale wi' pizon in't
+to the poor! That'll do more for Temp'rance than the early closin' o'
+the 'Trusty Man.'"
+
+"Ye're right enough," said Matt Peke, who had refrained from taking any
+part in the conversation, save by now and then whispering a side comment
+to Helmsley. "There's stuff put i' the beer what the brewers brew, as is
+enough to knock the strongest man silly. I'm just fair tired o' hearin'
+o' Temp'rance this an' Temp'rance that, while 'arf the men as goes to
+Parl'ment takes their livin' out o' the brewin' o' beer an' spiritus
+liquors. An' they bribes their poor silly voters wi' their drink till
+they'se like a flock o' sheep runnin' into wotever field o' politics
+their shepherds drives 'em. The best way to make the temp'rance cause
+pop'lar is to stop big brewin'. Let every ale'ouse 'ave its own
+pertikler brew, an' m'appen we'll git some o' the old-fashioned malt
+an' 'ops agin. That'll be good for the small trader, an' the big brewin'
+companies can take to somethin' 'onester than the pizonin' bizness."
+
+"You are a would-be wise man, and you talk too much, Matthew Peke!"
+observed the Reverend Mr. Arbroath, smiling darkly, and still glancing
+askew at his watch. "I know you of old!"
+
+"Ye knows me an' I knows you," responded Peke placidly. "Yer can't
+interfere wi' me nohow, an' I dessay it riles ye a bit, for ye loves
+interferin' with ivery sort o' folk, as all the parsons do. I b'longs to
+no parish, an' aint under you no more than Tom o' the Gleam be, an' we
+both thanks the Lord for't! An' I'm earnin' a livin' my own way an'
+bein' a benefit to the sick an' sorry, which aint so far from proper
+Christianity. Lor', Parson Arbroath! I wonder ye aint more 'uman like,
+seein' as yer fav'rite gel in the village was arskin' me t'other day if
+I 'adn't any yerb for to make a love-charm. 'Love-charm!' sez I--'what
+does ye want that for, my gel?' An' she up an' she sez--'I'd like to
+make Parson Arbroath eat it!' Hor--er--hor--er--hor--er! 'I'd like to
+make Parson Arbroath eat it!' sez she. An' she's a foine strappin'
+wench, too!--'Ullo, Parson! Goin'?"
+
+The door slammed furiously,--Arbroath had suddenly lost his dignity and
+temper together. Peke's raillery proved too much for him, and amid the
+loud guffaws of "Feathery" Joltram, Bill Bush and the rest, he beat a
+hasty retreat, and they heard his heavy footsteps go hurriedly across
+the passage of the "Trusty Man," and pass out into the road beyond.
+Roars of laughter accompanied his departure, and Peke looked round with
+a smile of triumph.
+
+"It's just like a witch-spell!" he declared. "There's nowt to do but
+whisper, 'Parson's fav'rite!'--an' Parson hisself melts away like a mist
+o' the mornin' or a weasel runnin' into its 'ole! Hor--er, hor--er,
+hor--er!"
+
+And again the laughter pealed out long and loud, "Feathery" Joltram
+bending himself double with merriment, and slapping the sides of his
+huge legs in ecstasy. Miss Tranter hearing the continuous uproar, looked
+in warningly, but there was a glimmering smile on her face.
+
+"We'se goin', Miss Tranter!" announced Bill Bush, his wizened face all
+one broad grin. "We aint the sort to keep you up, never fear! Your worst
+customer's just cleared out!"
+
+"So I see!" replied Miss Tranter calmly,--then, nodding towards
+Helmsley, she said--"Your room's ready."
+
+Helmsley took the hint. He rose from his chair, and held out his hand to
+Peke.
+
+"Good-night!" he said. "You've been very kind to me, and I shan't forget
+it!"
+
+The herb-gatherer looked for a moment at the thin, refined white hand
+extended to him before grasping it in his own horny palm. Then--
+
+"Good-night, old chap!" he responded heartily. "Ef I don't see ye i' the
+mornin' I'll leave ye a bottle o' yerb wine to take along wi' ye
+trampin', for the more ye drinks o't the soberer ye'll be an' the better
+ye'll like it. But ye should give up the idee o' footin' it to Cornwall;
+ye'll never git there without a liftin'."
+
+"I'll have a good try, anyway," rejoined Helmsley. "Good-night!"
+
+He turned towards Tom o' the Gleam.
+
+"Good-night!"
+
+"Good-night!" And Tom's dark eyes glowed upon him with a sombre
+intentness. "You know the old proverb which says, 'It's a long lane
+which has never a turning'?"
+
+Helmsley nodded with a faint smile.
+
+"Your turning's near at hand," said Tom. "Take my word for it!"
+
+"Will it be a pleasant turning?" asked Helmsley, still smiling.
+
+"Pleasant? Ay, and peaceful!" And Tom's mellow voice sank into a softer
+tone. "Peaceful as the strong love of a pure woman, and as sweet with
+contentment as is the summer when the harvest is full! Good-night!"
+
+Helmsley looked at him thoughtfully; there was something poetic and
+fascinating about the man.
+
+"I should like to meet you again," he said impulsively.
+
+"Would you?" Tom o' the Gleam smiled. "So you will, as sure as God's in
+heaven! But how or when, who can tell!" His handsome face clouded
+suddenly,--some dark shadow of pain or perplexity contracted his
+brows,--then he seemed to throw the feeling, whatever it was, aside, and
+his features cleared. "You are bound to meet me," he continued. "I am as
+much a part of this country as the woods and hills,--the Quantocks and
+Brendons know me as well as Exmoor and the Valley of Rocks. But you are
+safe from me and mine! Not one of our tribe will harm you,--you can
+pursue your way in peace--and if any one of us can give you help at any
+time, we will."
+
+"You speak of a community?"
+
+"I speak of a Republic!" answered Tom proudly. "There are thousands of
+men and women in these islands whom no king governs and no law
+controls,--free as the air and independent as the birds! They ask
+nothing at any man's hands--they take and they keep!"
+
+"Like the millionaires!" suggested Bill Bush, with a grin.
+
+"Right you are, Bill!--like the millionaires! None take more than they
+do, and none keep their takings closer!"
+
+"And very miserable they must surely be sometimes, on both their takings
+and their keepings," said Helmsley.
+
+"No doubt of it! There'd be no justice in the mind of God if
+millionaires weren't miserable," declared Tom o' the Gleam. "They've
+more money than they ought to have,--it's only fair they should have
+less happiness. Compensation's a natural law that there's no getting
+away from,--that's why a gypsy's merrier than a king!"
+
+Helmsley smiled assent, and with another friendly good-night all round,
+left the room. Miss Tranter awaited him, candle in hand, and preceding
+him up a short flight of ancient and crooked oaken stairs, showed him a
+small attic room with one narrow bed in it, scrupulously neat and clean.
+
+"You'll be all right here," she said. "There's no lock to your door, but
+you're out of the truck of house work, and no one will come nigh you."
+
+"Thank you, madam,"--and Helmsley bent his head gently, almost
+humbly,--"You are very good to me. I am most grateful!"
+
+"Nonsense!" said Miss Tranter, affecting snappishness. "You pay for a
+bed, and here it is. The lodgers here generally share one room between
+them, but you are an old man and need rest. It's better you should get
+your sleep without any chance of disturbance. Good-night!"
+
+"Good-night!"
+
+She set down the candle by his bedside with a "Mind you put it out!"
+final warning, and descended the stairs to see the rest of her customers
+cleared off the premises, with the exception of Bill Bush, Matt Peke,
+and Tom o' the Gleam, who were her frequent night lodgers. She found
+Tom o' the Gleam standing up and delivering a kind of extemporary
+oration, while his rough cap, under the pilotage of Bill Bush, was being
+passed round the table in the fashion of a collecting plate.
+
+"The smallest contribution thankfully received!" he laughed, as he
+looked and saw her. "Miss Tranter, we're doing a mission! We're
+Salvationists! Now's your chance! Give us a sixpence!"
+
+"What for?" And setting her arms akimbo, the hostess of the "Trusty Man"
+surveyed all her lingering guests with a severe face. "What games are
+you up to now? It's time to clear!"
+
+"So it is, and all the good little boys are going to bed," said Tom.
+"Don't be cross, Mammy! We want to close our subscription list--that's
+all! We've raised a few pennies for the old grandfather upstairs. He'll
+never get to Cornwall, poor chap! He's as white as paper. Office work
+doesn't fit a man of his age for tramping the road. We've collected two
+shillings for him among us,--you give sixpence, and there's half-a-crown
+all told. God bless the total!"
+
+He seized his cap as it was handed back to him, and shook it, to show
+that it was lined with jingling halfpence, and his eyes sparkled like
+those of a child enjoying a bit of mischief.
+
+"Come, Miss Tranter! Help the Gospel mission!"
+
+Her features relaxed into a smile, and feeling in her apron pocket, she
+produced the requested coin.
+
+"There you are!" she said.--"And now you've got it, how are you going to
+give him the money?"
+
+"Never you mind!" and Tom swept all the coins together, and screwed them
+up in a piece of newspaper. "We'll surprise the old man as the angels
+surprise the children!"
+
+Miss Tranter said nothing more, but withdrawing to the passage, stood
+and watched her customers go out of the door of the "Trusty Man," one by
+one. Each great hulking fellow doffed his cap to her and bade her a
+respectful "Good-night" as he passed, "Feathery" Joltram pausing a
+moment to utter an "aside" in her ear.
+
+"'A fixed oop owd Arbroath for zartin zure!"--and here, with a sly wink,
+he gave a forcible nudge to her arm,--"An owd larrupin' fox 'e be!--an'
+Matt Peke giv' 'im the finish wi's fav'rite! Ha--ha--ha! 'A can't abide
+a wurrd o' that long-legged wench! Ha--ha--ha! An' look y'ere, Miss
+Tranter! I'd 'a given a shillin' in Tom's 'at when it went round, but
+I'm thinkin' as zummat in the face o' the owd gaffer up in bed ain't zet
+on beggin', an' m'appen a charity'd 'urt 'is feelin's like the
+poor-'ouse do. But if 'e's wantin' to 'arn a mossel o' victual, I'll
+find 'im a lightsome job on the farm if he'll reckon to walk oop to me
+afore noon to-morrer. Tell 'im' that from farmer Joltram, an' good-night
+t'ye!"
+
+He strode out, and before eleven had struck, the old-fashioned iron bar
+clamped down across the portal, and the inn was closed. Then Miss
+Tranter turned into the bar, and before shutting it up paused, and
+surveyed her three lodgers critically.
+
+"So you pretend to be all miserably poor, and yet you actually collect
+what you call a 'fund' for the old tramp upstairs who's a perfect
+stranger to you!" she said--"Rascals that you are!"
+
+Bill Bush looked sheepish.
+
+"Only halfpence, Miss," he explained. "Poor we be as church mice, an' ye
+knows that, doesn't ye? But we aint gone broken yet, an' Tom 'e started
+the idee o' doin' a good turn for th' old gaffer, for say what ye like
+'e do look a bit feeble for trampin' it."
+
+Miss Tranter sniffed the atmosphere of the bar with a very good
+assumption of lofty indifference.
+
+"_You_ started the idea, did you?" she went on, looking at Tom o' the
+Gleam. "You're a nice sort of ruffian to start any idea at all, aren't
+you? I thought you always took, and never gave!"
+
+He smiled, leaning his handsome head back against the white-washed wall
+of the little entry where he stood, but said nothing. Matt Peke then
+took up the parable.
+
+"Th' old man be mortal weak an' faint for sure," he said. "I come upon
+'im lyin' under a tree wi' a mossel book aside 'im, an' I takes an'
+looks at the book, an' 'twas all portry an' simpleton stuff like, an' 'e
+looked old enough to be my dad, an' tired enough to be fast goin' where
+my dad's gone, so I just took 'im along wi' me, an' giv' 'im my name an'
+purfession, an' 'e did the same, a-tellin' me as 'ow 'is name was D.
+David, an' 'ow 'e 'd lost 'is office work through bein' too old an'
+shaky. 'E's all right,--an office man aint much good on the road, weak
+on 'is pins an' failin' in 'is sight. M'appen the 'arf-crown we've got
+'im 'ull 'elp 'im to a ride part o' the way 'e's goin'."
+
+"Well, don't you men bother about him any more," said Miss Tranter
+decisively. "You get off early in the morning, as usual. _I'll_ look
+after him!"
+
+"Will ye now?" and Peke's rugged features visibly brightened--"That's
+just like ye, Miss! Aint it, Tom? Aint it, Bill?"
+
+Both individuals appealed to agreed that it was "Miss Tranter all over."
+
+"Now off to bed with you!" proceeded that lady peremptorily. "And leave
+your collected 'fund' with me--I'll give it to him."
+
+But Tom o' the Gleam would not hear of this.
+
+"No, Miss Tranter!--with every respect for you, no!" he said gaily.
+"It's not every night we can play angels! I play angel to my kiddie
+sometimes, putting a fairing in his little hammock where he sleeps like
+a bird among the trees all night, but I've never had the chance to do it
+to an old grandad before! Let me have my way!"
+
+And so it chanced that at about half-past eleven, Helmsley, having lain
+down with a deep sense of relief and repose on his clean comfortable
+little bed, was startled out of his first doze by hearing stealthy steps
+approaching his door. His heart began to beat quickly,--a certain vague
+misgiving troubled him,--after all, he thought, had he not been very
+rash to trust himself to the shelter of this strange and lonely inn
+among the wild moors and hills, among unknown men, who, at any rate by
+their rough and uncouth appearance, might be members of a gang of
+thieves? The steps came nearer, and a hand fumbled gently with the door
+handle. In that tense moment of strained listening he was glad to
+remember that when undressing, he had carefully placed his vest, lined
+with the banknotes he carried, under the sheet on which he lay, so that
+in the event of any one coming to search his clothes, nothing would be
+found but a few loose coins in his coat pocket. The fumbling at his door
+continued, and presently it slowly opened, letting in a pale stream of
+moonlight from a lattice window outside. He just saw the massive figure
+of Tom o' the Gleam standing on the threshold, clad in shirt and
+trousers only, and behind him there seemed to be the shadowy outline of
+Matt Peke's broad shoulders and Bill Bush's bullet head. Uncertain what
+to expect, he determined to show no sign of consciousness, and half
+closing his eyes, he breathed heavily and regularly, feigning to be in a
+sound slumber. But a cold chill ran through his veins as Tom o' the
+Gleam slowly and cautiously approached the bed, holding something in his
+right hand, while Matt Peke and Bill Bush tiptoed gently after him
+half-way into the room.
+
+"Poor old gaffer!" he heard Tom whisper--"Looks all ready laid out and
+waiting for the winding!"
+
+And the hand that held the something stole gently and ever gentlier
+towards the pillow. By a supreme effort Helmsley kept quite still. How
+he controlled his nerves he never knew, for to see through his almost
+shut eyelids the dark herculean form of the gypsy bending over him with
+the two other men behind, moved him to a horrible fear. Were they going
+to murder him? If so, what for? To them he was but an old
+tramp,--unless--unless somebody had tracked him from London!--unless
+somebody knew who he really was, and had pointed him out as likely to
+have money about him. These thoughts ran like lightning through his
+brain, making his blood burn and his pulses, tingle almost to the verge
+of a start and cry, when the creeping hand he dreaded quietly laid
+something on his pillow and withdrew itself with delicate precaution.
+
+"He'll be pleased when he wakes," said Tom o' the Gleam, in the mildest
+of whispers, retreating softly from the bedside--"Won't he?"
+
+"Ay, that he will!" responded Peke, under his breath;, "aint 'e sleepin'
+sound?"
+
+"Sound as a babe!"
+
+Slowly and noiselessly they stepped backward,--slowly and noiselessly
+they closed the door, and the faint echo of their stealthy footsteps
+creeping away along the outer passage to another part of the house, was
+hushed at last into silence. After a long pause of intense stillness,
+some clock below stairs struck midnight with a mellow clang, and
+Helmsley opening his eyes, lay waiting till the excited beating of his
+heart subsided, and his quickened breath grew calm. Blaming himself for
+his nervous terrors, he presently rose from his bed, and struck a match
+from the box which Miss Tranter had thoughtfully left beside him, and
+lit his candle. Something had been placed on his pillow, and curiosity
+moved him to examine it. He looked,--but saw nothing save a mere screw
+of soiled newspaper. He took it up wonderingly. It was heavy,--and
+opening it he found it full of pennies, halfpennies, and one odd
+sixpence. A scrap of writing accompanied this collection, roughly
+pencilled thus:--"To help you along the road. From friends at the Trusty
+Man. Good luck!"
+
+For a moment he stood inert, fingering the humble coins,--for a moment
+he could hardly realise that these rough men of doubtful character and
+calling, with whom he had passed one evening, were actually humane
+enough to feel pity for his age, and sympathy for his seeming loneliness
+and poverty, and that they had sufficient heart and generosity to
+deprive themselves of money in order to help one whom they judged to be
+in greater need;--then the pure intention and honest kindness of the
+little "surprise" gift came upon him all at once, and he was not ashamed
+to feel his eyes full of tears.
+
+"God forgive me!" he murmured--"God forgive me that I ever judged the
+poor by the rich!"
+
+With an almost reverential tenderness, he folded the paper and coins
+together, and put the little packet carefully away, determining never to
+part with it.
+
+"For its value outweighs every banknote I ever handled!" he said--"And I
+am prouder of it than of all my millions!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+The light of the next day's sun, beaming with all the heat and
+effulgence of full morning, bathed moor and upland in a wide shower of
+gold, when Miss Tranter, standing on the threshold of her dwelling, and
+shading her eyes with one hand from the dazzling radiance of the skies,
+watched a man's tall figure disappear down the rough and precipitous
+road which led from the higher hills to the seashore. All her night's
+lodgers had left her save one--and he was still soundly sleeping. Bill
+Bush had risen as early as five and stolen away,--Matt Peke had broken
+his fast with a cup of hot milk and a hunch of dry bread, and
+shouldering his basket, had started for Crowcombe, where he had several
+customers for his herbal wares.
+
+"Take care o' the old gaffer I brought along wi' me," had been his
+parting recommendation to the hostess of the "Trusty Man." "Tell 'im
+I've left a bottle o' yerb wine in the bar for 'im. M'appen ye might
+find an odd job or two about th' 'ouse an' garden for 'im, just for
+lettin' 'im rest a while."
+
+Miss Tranter had nodded curtly in response to this suggestion, but had
+promised nothing.
+
+The last to depart from the inn was Tom o' the Gleam. Tom had risen in
+what he called his "dark mood." He had eaten no breakfast, and he
+scarcely spoke at all as he took up his stout ash stick and prepared to
+fare forth upon his way. Miss Tranter was not inquisitive, but she had
+rather a liking for Tom, and his melancholy surliness was not lost upon
+her.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" she asked sharply. "You're like a bear
+with a sore head this morning!"
+
+He looked at her with sombre eyes in which the flame of strongly
+restrained passions feverishly smouldered.
+
+"I don't know what's the matter with me," he answered slowly. "Last
+night I was happy. This morning I am wretched!"
+
+"For no cause?"
+
+"For no cause that I know of,"--and he heaved a sudden sigh. "It is the
+dark spirit--the warning of an evil hour!"
+
+"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Tranter.
+
+He was silent. His mouth compressed itself into a petulant line, like
+that of a chidden child ready to cry.
+
+"I shall be all right when I have kissed the kiddie," he said.
+
+Miss Tranter sniffed and tossed her head.
+
+"You're just a fool over that kiddie," she declared with emphasis,--"You
+make too much of him."
+
+"How can I make too much of my all?" he asked.
+
+Her face softened.
+
+"Well, it's a pity you look at it in that way," she said. "You shouldn't
+set your heart on anything in this world."
+
+"Why not?" he demanded. "Is God a friend that He should grudge us love?"
+
+Her lips trembled a little, but she made no reply.
+
+"What am I to set my heart on?" he continued--"If not on anything in
+this world, what have I got in the next?"
+
+A faint tinge of colour warmed Miss Tranter's sallow cheeks.
+
+"Your wife's in the next," she answered, quietly.
+
+His face changed--his eyes lightened.
+
+"My wife!" he echoed. "Good woman that you are, you know she was never
+my wife! No parson ever mocked us wild birds with his blessing! She was
+my love--my love!--so much more than wife! By Heaven! If prayer and
+fasting would bring me to the world where _she_ is, I'd fast and pray
+till I turned this body of mine to dust and ashes! But my kiddie is all
+I have that's left of her; and shall I not love him, nay, worship him
+for _her_ sake?"
+
+Miss Tranter tried to look severe, but could not,--the strong vehemence
+of the man shook her self-possession.
+
+"Love him, yes!--but don't worship him," she said. "It's a mistake, Tom!
+He's only a child, after all, and he might be taken from you."
+
+"Don't say that!" and Tom suddenly gripped her by the arm. "For God's
+sake don't say that! Don't send me away this morning with those words
+buzzing in my ears!"
+
+Great tears flashed into his eyes,--his face paled and contracted as
+with acutest agony.
+
+"I'm sorry, Tom," faltered Miss Tranter, herself quite overcome by his
+fierce emotion--"I didn't mean----"
+
+"Yes--yes!--that's right! Say you didn't mean it!" muttered Tom, with a
+pained smile--"You didn't----?"
+
+"I didn't mean it!" declared Miss Tranter earnestly. "Upon my word I
+didn't, Tom!"
+
+He loosened his hold of her arm.
+
+"Thank you! God bless you!" and a shudder ran through his massive frame.
+"But it's all one with the dark hour!--all one with the wicked tongue of
+a dream that whispers to me of a coming storm!"
+
+He pulled his rough cap over his brows, and strode forward a step or
+two. Then he suddenly wheeled round again, and doffed the cap to Miss
+Tranter.
+
+"It's unlucky to turn back," he said, "yet I'm doing it,
+because--because--I wouldn't have you think me sullen or ill-tempered
+with _you_! Nor ungrateful. You're a good woman, for all that you're a
+bit rough sometimes. If you want to know where we are, we've camped down
+by Cleeve, and we're on the way to Dunster. I take the short cuts that
+no one else dare venture by--over the cliffs and through the cave-holes
+of the sea. When the old man comes down, tell him I'll have a care of
+him if he passes my way. I like his face! I think he's something more
+than he seems."
+
+"So do I!" agreed Miss Tranter. "I'd almost swear that he's a gentleman,
+fallen on hard times."
+
+"A gentleman!" Tom o' the Gleam laughed disdainfully--"What's that? Only
+a robber grown richer than his neighbours! Better be a plain Man any day
+than your up-to-date 'gentleman'!"
+
+With another laugh he swung away, and Miss Tranter remained, as already
+stated, at the door of the inn for many minutes, watching his easy
+stride over the rough stones and clods of the "by-road" winding down to
+the sea. His figure, though so powerfully built, was singularly graceful
+in movement, and commanded the landscape much as that of some chieftain
+of old might have commanded it in that far back period of time when
+mountain thieves and marauders were the progenitors of all the British
+kings and their attendant nobility.
+
+"I wish I knew that man's real history!" she mused, as he at last
+disappeared from her sight. "The folks about here, such as Mr. Joltram,
+for instance, say he was never born to the gypsy life,--he speaks too
+well, and knows too much. Yet he's wild enough--and--yes!--I'm afraid
+he's bad enough--sometimes--to be anything!"
+
+Her meditations were here interrupted by a touch on her arm, and
+turning, she beheld her round-eyed handmaiden Prue.
+
+"The old man you sez is a gentleman is down, Mis' Tranter!"
+
+Miss Tranter at once stepped indoors and confronted Helmsley, who,
+amazed to find it nearly ten o'clock, now proffered humble excuses to
+his hostess for his late rising. She waived these aside with a
+good-humoured nod and smile.
+
+"That's all right!" she said. "I wanted you to have a good long rest,
+and I'm glad you got it. Were you disturbed at all?"
+
+"Only by kindness," answered Helmsley in a rather tremulous voice. "Some
+one came into my room while I was asleep--and--and--I found a 'surprise
+packet' on my pillow----"
+
+"Yes, I know all about it," interrupted Miss Tranter, with a touch of
+embarrassment--"Tom o' the Gleam did that. He's just gone. He's a rough
+chap, but he's got a heart. He thinks you're not strong enough to tramp
+it to Cornwall. And all those great babies of men put their heads
+together last night after you'd gone upstairs, and clubbed up enough
+among them to give you a ride part of the way----"
+
+"They're very good!" murmured Helmsley. "Why should they trouble about
+an old fellow like me?"
+
+"Oh well!" said Miss Tranter cheerfully, "it's just because you _are_ an
+old fellow, I suppose! You see you might walk to a station to-day, and
+take the train as far as Minehead before starting on the road again.
+Anyhow you've time to think it over. If you'll step into the room
+yonder, I'll send Prue with your breakfast."
+
+She turned her back upon him, and with a shrill call of "Prue! Prue!"
+affected to be too busy to continue the conversation. Helmsley,
+therefore, went as she bade him into the common room, which at this hour
+was quite empty. A neat white cloth was spread at one end of the table,
+and on this was set a brown loaf, a pat of butter, a jug of new milk, a
+basin of sugar, and a brightly polished china cup and saucer. The window
+was open, and the inflow of the pure fresh morning air had done much to
+disperse the odours of stale tobacco and beer that subtly clung to the
+walls as reminders of the drink and smoke of the previous evening.
+
+Just outside, a tangle of climbing roses hung like a delicate pink
+curtain between Helmsley's eyes and the sunshine, while the busy humming
+of bees in and out the fragrant hearts of the flowers, made a musical
+monotony of soothing sound. He sat down and surveyed the simple scene
+with a quiet sense of pleasure. He contrasted it in his memory with the
+weary sameness of the breakfasts served to him in his own palatial
+London residence, when the velvet-footed butler creeping obsequiously
+round the table, uttered his perpetual "Tea or coffee, sir? 'Am or
+tongue? Fish or heggs?" in soft sepulchral tones, as though these
+comestibles had something to do with poison rather than nourishment.
+With disgust at the luxury which engendered such domestic appurtenances,
+he thought of the two tall footmen, whose chief duty towards the serving
+of breakfast appeared to be the taking of covers off dishes and the
+putting them on again, as if six-footed able-bodied manhood were not
+equipped for more muscular work than that!
+
+"We do great wrong," he said to himself--"We who are richer than what
+are called the rich, do infinite wrong to our kind by tolerating so much
+needless waste and useless extravagance. We merely generate mischief for
+ourselves and others. The poor are happier, and far kindlier to each
+other than the moneyed classes, simply because they cannot demand so
+much self-indulgence. The lazy habits of wealthy men and women who
+insist on getting an unnecessary number of paid persons to do for them
+what they could very well do for themselves, are chiefly to blame for
+all our tiresome and ostentatious social conditions. Servants must, of
+course, be had in every well-ordered household--but too many of them
+constitute a veritable hive of discord and worry. Why have huge houses
+at all? Why have enormous domestic retinues? A small house is always
+cosiest, and often prettiest, and the fewer servants, the less trouble.
+Here again comes in the crucial question--Why do we spend all our best
+years of youth, life, and sentiment in making money, when, so far as the
+sweetest and highest things are concerned, money can give so little!"
+
+At that moment, Prue entered with a brightly shining old brown "lustre"
+teapot, and a couple of boiled eggs.
+
+"Mis' Tranter sez you're to eat the eggs cos' they'se new-laid an'
+incloodid in the bill," she announced glibly--"An' 'opes you've got all
+ye want."
+
+Helmsley looked at her kindly.
+
+"You're a smart little girl!" he said. "Beginning to earn your own
+living already, eh?"
+
+"Lor', that aint much!" retorted Prue, putting a knife by the brown
+loaf, and setting the breakfast things even more straightly on the table
+than they originally were. "I lives on nothin' scarcely, though I'm
+turned fifteen an' likes a bit o' fresh pork now an' agen. But I've got
+a brother as is on'y ten, an' when 'e aint at school 'e's earnin' a bit
+by gatherin' mussels on the beach, an' 'e do collect a goodish bit too,
+though 'taint reg'lar biziness, an' 'e gets hisself into such a pickle
+o' salt water as never was. But he brings mother a shillin' or two."
+
+"And who is your mother?" asked Helmsley, drawing up his chair to the
+table and sitting down.
+
+"Misses Clodder, up at Blue-bell Cottage, two miles from 'ere across the
+moor," replied Prue. "She goes out a-charing, but it's 'ard for 'er to
+be doin' chars now--she's gettin' old an' fat--orful fat she be gettin'.
+Dunno what we'll do if she goes on fattenin'."
+
+It was difficult not to laugh at this statement, Prue's eyes were so
+round, her cheeks were so red, and she breathed so spasmodically as she
+spoke. David Helmsley bit his lips to hide a broad smile, and poured out
+his tea.
+
+"Have you no father?"
+
+"No, never 'ad," declared Prue, quite jubilantly. "'E droonk 'isself to
+death an' tumbled over a cliff near 'ere one dark night an' was
+drowned!" This, with the most thrilling emphasis.
+
+"That's very sad! But you can't say you never had a father," persisted
+Helmsley. "You had him before he was drowned?"
+
+"No, I 'adn't," said Prue. "'E never comed 'ome at all. When 'e seed me
+'e didn't know me, 'e was that blind droonk. When my little brother was
+born 'e was 'owlin' wild down Watchet way, an' screechin' to all the
+folks as 'ow the baby wasn't his'n!"
+
+This was a doubtful subject,--a "delicate and burning question," as
+reviewers for the press say when they want to praise some personal
+friend's indecent novel and pass it into decent households,--and
+Helmsley let it drop. He devoted himself to the consideration of his
+breakfast, which was excellent, and found that he had an appetite to
+enjoy it thoroughly.
+
+Prue watched him for a minute or two in silence.
+
+"Ye likes yer food?" she demanded, presently.
+
+"Very much!"
+
+"Thought yer did! I'll tell Mis' Tranter."
+
+With that she retired, and shutting the door behind her left Helmsley to
+himself.
+
+Many and conflicting were the thoughts that chased one another through
+his brain during the quiet half-hour he gave to his morning meal,--a
+whole fund of new suggestions and ideas were being generated in him by
+the various episodes in which he was taking an active yet seemingly
+passive part. He had voluntarily entered into his present circumstances,
+and so far, he had nothing to complain of. He had met with friendliness
+and sympathy from persons who, judged by the world's conventions, were
+of no social account whatever, and he had seen for himself men in a
+condition of extreme poverty, who were nevertheless apparently contented
+with their lot. Of course, as a well-known millionaire, his secretaries
+had always had to deal with endless cases of real or assumed distress,
+more often the latter,--and shoals of begging letters from people
+representing themselves as starving and friendless, formed a large part
+of the daily correspondence with which his house and office were
+besieged,--but he had never come into personal contact with these
+shameless sort of correspondents, shrewdly judging them to be
+undeserving simply by the very fact that they wrote begging letters. He
+knew that no really honest or plucky-spirited man or woman would waste
+so much as a stamp in asking money from a stranger, even if such a
+stranger were twenty times a millionaire. He had given huge sums away to
+charitable institutions anonymously; and he remembered with a thrill of
+pain the "Christian kindness" of some good "Church" people, who, when
+the news accidentally slipped out that he was the donor of a
+particularly munificent gift to a certain hospital, remarked that "no
+doubt Mr. Helmsley had given it anonymously _at first_, in order that it
+might be made public more effectively _afterwards,_ by way of a personal
+_advertisement_!" Such spiteful comment often repeated, had effectually
+checked the outflow of his naturally warm and generous spirit,
+nevertheless he was always ready to relieve any pressing cases of want
+which were proved genuine, and many a wretched family in the East End of
+London had cause to bless him for his timely and ungrudging aid. But
+this present kind of life,--the life of the tramp, the poacher, the
+gypsy, who is content to be "on the road" rather than submit to the
+trammels of custom and ordinance, was new to him and full of charm. He
+took a peculiar pleasure in reflecting as to what he could do to make
+these men, with whom he had casually foregathered, happier? Did it lie
+in his power to give them any greater satisfaction than that which they
+already possessed? He doubted whether a present of money to Matt Peke,
+for instance, would not offend that rustic philosopher, more than it
+would gratify him;--while, as for Tom o' the Gleam, that handsome
+ruffian was more likely to rob a man of gold than accept it as a gift
+from him. Then involuntarily, his thoughts reverted to the "kiddie." He
+recalled the look in Tom's wild eyes, and the almost womanish tremble of
+tenderness in his rough voice, when he had spoken of this little child
+of his on whom he openly admitted he had set all his love.
+
+"I should like," mused Helmsley, "to see that kiddie! Not that I believe
+in the apparent promise of a child's life,--for my own sons taught me
+the folly of indulging in any hopes on that score--and Lucy Sorrel has
+completed the painful lesson. Who would have ever thought that she,--the
+little angel creature who seemed too lovely and innocent for this world
+at ten,--could at twenty have become the extremely commonplace and
+practical woman she is,--practical enough to wish to marry an old man
+for his money! But that talk among the men last night about the 'kiddie'
+touched me somehow,--I fancy it must be a sturdy little lad, with a
+bright face and a will of its own. I might possibly do something for the
+child if,--if its father would let me! And that's very doubtful!
+Besides, should I not be interfering with the wiser and healthier
+dispensations of nature? The 'kiddie' is no doubt perfectly happy in its
+wild state of life,--free to roam the woods and fields, with every
+chance of building up a strong and vigorous constitution in the simple
+open-air existence to which it has been born and bred. All the riches in
+the world could not make health or freedom for it,--and thus again I
+confront myself with my own weary problem--Why have I toiled all my
+life to make money, merely to find money so useless and comfortless at
+the end?"
+
+With a sigh he rose from the table. His simple breakfast was finished,
+and he went to the window to look at the roses that pushed their pretty
+pink faces up to the sun through a lattice-work of green leaves. There
+was a small yard outside, roughly paved with cobbles, but clean, and
+bordered here and there with bright clusters of flowers, and in one
+particularly sunny corner where the warmth from the skies had made the
+cobbles quite hot, a tiny white kitten rolled on its back, making the
+most absurd efforts to catch its own tail between its forepaws,--and a
+promising brood of fowls were clucking contentedly round some scattered
+grain lately flung out from the window of the "Trusty Man's" wash-house
+for their delectation. There was nothing in the scene at all of a
+character to excite envy in the most morbid and dissatisfied mind;--it
+was full of the tamest domesticity, and yet--it was a picture such as
+some thoughtful Dutch artist would have liked to paint as a suggestion
+of rural simplicity and peace.
+
+"But if one only knew the ins and outs of the life here, it might not
+prove so inviting," he thought. "I daresay all the little towns and
+villages in this neighbourhood are full of petty discords, jealousies,
+envyings and spites,--even Prue's mother, Mrs. Clodder, may have, and
+probably has, a neighbour whom she hates, and wishes to get the better
+of, in some way or other, for there is really no such thing as actual
+peace anywhere except--in the grave! And who knows whether we shall even
+find it there! Nothing dies which does not immediately begin to live--in
+another fashion. And every community, whether of insects, birds, wild
+animals, or men and women, is bound to fight for existence,--therefore
+those who cry: 'Peace, peace!' only clamour for a vain thing. The very
+stones and rocks and mountains maintain a perpetual war with destroying
+elements,--they appear immutable things to our short lives, but they
+change in their turn even as we do--they die to live again in other
+forms, even as we do. And what is it all for? What is the sum and
+substance of so much striving--if merest Nothingness is the end?"
+
+He was disturbed from his reverie by the entrance of Miss Tranter. He
+turned round and smiled at her.
+
+"Well!" she said--"Enjoyed your breakfast?"
+
+"Very much indeed, thanks to your kindness!" he replied. "I hardly
+thought I had such a good appetite left to me. I feel quite strong and
+hearty this morning."
+
+"You look twice the man you were last night, certainly,"--and she eyed
+him thoughtfully--"Would you like a job here?"
+
+A flush rose to his brows. He hesitated before replying.
+
+"You'd rather not!" snapped out Miss Tranter--"I can see 'No' in your
+face. Well, please yourself!"
+
+He looked at her. Her lips were compressed in a thin line, and she wore
+a decidedly vexed expression.
+
+"Ah, you think I don't want to work!" he said--"There you're wrong! But
+I haven't many years of life in me,--there's not much time left to do
+what I have to do,--and I must get on."
+
+"Get on, where?"
+
+"To Cornwall."
+
+"Whereabouts in Cornwall?"
+
+"Down by Penzance way."
+
+"You want to start off on the tramp again at once?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"All right, you must do as you like, I suppose,"--and Miss Tranter
+sniffed whole volumes of meaning in one sniff--"But Farmer Joltram told
+me to say that if you wanted a light job up on his place,--that's about
+a mile from here,--- he wouldn't mind giving you a chance. You'd get
+good victuals there, for he feeds his men well. And I don't mind
+trusting you with a bit of gardening--you could make a shilling a day
+easy--so don't say you can't get work. That's the usual whine--but if
+you say it----"
+
+"I shall be a liar!" said Helmsley, his sunken eyes lighting up with a
+twinkle of merriment--"And don't you fear, Miss Tranter,--I _won't_ say
+it! I'm grateful to Mr. Joltram--but I've only one object left to me in
+life, and that is--to get on, and find the person I'm looking for--if I
+can!"
+
+"Oh, you're looking for a person, are you?" queried Miss Tranter, more
+amicably--"Some long-lost relative?"
+
+"No,--not a relative, only--a friend."
+
+"I see!" Miss Tranter smoothed down her neatly fitting plain cotton gown
+with both hands reflectively--"And you'll be all right if you find this
+friend?"
+
+"I shall never want anything any more," he answered, with an
+unconsciously pathetic tremor in his voice--"My dearest wish will be
+granted, and I shall be quite content to die!"
+
+"Well, content or no content, you've got to do it," commented Miss
+Tranter--"And so have I--and so have all of us. Which I think is a pity.
+I shouldn't mind living for ever and ever in this world. It's a very
+comfortable world, though some folks say it isn't. That's mostly liver
+with them though. People who don't over-eat or over-drink themselves,
+and who get plenty of fresh air, are generally fairly pleased with the
+world as they find it. I suppose the friend you're looking for will be
+glad to see you?"
+
+"The friend I'm looking for will certainly be glad to see me," said
+Helmsley, gently--"Glad to see me--glad to help me--glad above all
+things to love me! If this were not so, I should not trouble to search
+for my friend at all."
+
+Miss Tranter fixed her eyes full upon him while he thus spoke. They were
+sharp eyes, and just now they were visibly inquisitive.
+
+"You've not been very long used to tramping," she observed.
+
+"No."
+
+"I expect you've seen better days?"
+
+"Some few, perhaps,"--and he smiled gravely--"But it comes harder to a
+man who has once known comfort to find himself comfortless in his old
+age."
+
+"That's very true! Well!"--and Miss Tranter gave a short sigh--"I'm
+sorry you won't stay on here a bit to pick up your strength--but a
+wilful man must have his way! I hope you'll find your friend!"
+
+"I hope I shall!" said Helmsley earnestly. "And believe me I'm most
+grateful to you----"
+
+"Tut!" and Miss Tranter tossed her head. "What do you want to be
+grateful to me for! You've had food and lodging, and you've paid me for
+it. I've offered you work and you won't take it. That's the long and
+short of it between us."
+
+And thereupon she marched out of the room, her head very high, her
+shoulders very square, and her back very straight. Helmsley watched her
+dignified exit with a curious sense of half-amused contrition.
+
+"What odd creatures some women are!" he thought. "Here's this
+sharp-tongued, warm-hearted hostess of a roadside inn quite angry
+because, apparently, an old tramp won't stay and do incompetent work for
+her! She knows that I should make a mere boggle of her garden,--she is
+equally aware that I could be no use in any way on 'Feathery' Joltram's
+farm--and yet she is thoroughly annoyed and disappointed because I won't
+try to do what she is perfectly confident I can't do, in order that I
+shall rest well and be fed well for one or two days! Really the kindness
+of the poor to one another outvalues all the gifts of the rich to the
+charities they help to support. It is so much more than ordinary
+'charity,' for it goes hand in hand with a touch of personal feeling.
+And that is what few rich men ever get,--except when their pretended
+'friends' think they can make something for themselves out of their
+assumed 'friendship'!"
+
+He put on his hat, and plucked one of the roses clambering in at the
+window to take with him as a remembrance of the "Trusty Man,"--a place
+which he felt would henceforward be a kind of landmark for the rest of
+his life to save him from drowning in utter cynicism, because within its
+walls he had found unselfish compassion for his age and loneliness, and
+disinterested sympathy for his seeming need. Then he went to say
+good-bye to Miss Tranter. She was, as usual, in the bar, standing very
+erect. She had taken up her knitting, and her needles clicked and
+glittered busily.
+
+"Matt Peke left a bottle of his herb wine for you," she said. "There it
+is."
+
+She indicated by a jerk of her head a flat oblong quart flask, neatly
+corked and tied with string, which lay on the counter. It was of a
+conveniently portable shape, and Helmsley slipped it into one of his
+coat pockets with ease.
+
+"Shall you be seeing Peke soon again, Miss Tranter?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know. Maybe so, and maybe not. He's gone on to Crowcombe. I
+daresay he'll come back this way before the end of the month. He's a
+pretty regular customer."
+
+"Then, will you thank him for me, and say that I shall never forget his
+kindness?"
+
+"Never forget is a long time," said Miss Tranter. "Most folks forget
+their friends directly their backs are turned."
+
+"That's true," said Helmsley, gently; "but I shall not. Good-bye!"
+
+"Good-bye!" Miss Tranter paused in her knitting. "Which road are you
+going from here?"
+
+Helmsley thought a moment.
+
+"Perhaps," he said at last, "one of the main roads would be best. I'd
+rather not risk any chance of losing my way."
+
+Miss Tranter stepped out of the bar and came to the open doorway of the
+inn.
+
+"Take that path across the moor," and she pointed with one of her bright
+knitting needles to a narrow beaten track between the tufted grass,
+whitened here and there by clusters of tall daisies, "and follow it as
+straight as you can. It will bring you out on the highroad to Williton
+and Watchett. It's a goodish bit of tramping on a hot day like this, but
+if you keep to it steady you'll be sure to get a lift or so in waggons
+going along to Dunster. And there are plenty of publics about where I
+daresay you'd get a night's sixpenny shelter, though whether any of them
+are as comfortable as the 'Trusty Man,' is open to question."
+
+"I should doubt it very much," said Helmsley, his rare kind smile
+lighting up his whole face. "The 'Trusty Man' thoroughly deserves trust;
+and, if I may say so, its kind hostess commands respect."
+
+He raised his cap with the deferential easy grace which was habitual to
+him, and Miss Tranter's pale cheeks reddened suddenly and violently.
+
+"Oh, I'm only a rough sort!" she said hastily. "But the men like me
+because I don't give them away. I hold that the poor must get a bit of
+attention as well as the rich."
+
+"The poor deserve it more," rejoined Helmsley. "The rich get far too
+much of everything in these days,--they are too much pampered and too
+much flattered. Yet, with it all, I daresay they are often miserable."
+
+"It must be pretty hard to be miserable on twenty or thirty thousand a
+year!" said Miss Tranter.
+
+"You think so? Now, I should say it was very easy. For when one has
+everything, one wants nothing."
+
+"Well, isn't it all right to want nothing?" she queried, looking at him
+inquisitively.
+
+"All right? No!--rather all wrong! For want stimulates the mind and body
+to work, and work generates health and energy,--and energy is the pulse
+of life. Without that pulse, one is a mere husk of a man--as I am!" He
+doffed his cap again. "Thank you for all your friendliness. Good-bye!"
+
+"Good-bye! Perhaps I shall see you again some time this way?"
+
+"Perhaps--but----"
+
+"With your friend?" she suggested.
+
+"Ay--if I find my friend--then possibly I may return. Meanwhile, all
+good be with you!"
+
+He turned away, and began to ascend the path indicated across the moor.
+Once he looked back and waved his hand. Miss Tranter, in response, waved
+her piece of knitting. Then she went on clicking her needles rapidly
+through a perfect labyrinth of stitches, her eyes fixed all the while on
+the tall, thin, frail figure which, with the assistance of a stout
+stick, moved slowly along between the nodding daisies.
+
+"He's what they call a mystery," she said to herself. "He's as true-born
+a gentleman as ever lived--with a gentleman's ways, a gentleman's voice,
+and a gentleman's hands, and yet he's 'on the road' like a tramp! Well!
+there's many ups and downs in life, certainly, and those that's rich
+to-day may be poor to-morrow. It's a queer world--and God who made it
+only knows what it was made for!"
+
+With that, having seen the last of Helmsley's retreating figure, she
+went indoors, and relieved her feelings by putting Prue through her
+domestic paces in a fashion that considerably flurried that small damsel
+and caused her to wonder, "what 'ad come over Miss Tranter suddint, she
+was that beside 'erself with work and temper!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+It was pleasant walking across the moor. The July sun was powerful, but
+to ageing men the warmth and vital influences of the orb of day are
+welcome, precious, and salutary. An English summer is seldom or never
+too warm for those who are conscious that but few such summers are left
+to them, and David Helmsley was moved by a devout sense of gratitude
+that on this fair and tranquil morning he was yet able to enjoy the
+lovely and loving beneficence of all beautiful and natural things. The
+scent of the wild thyme growing in prolific patches at his feet,--the
+more pungent odour of the tall daisies which were of a hardy,
+free-flowering kind,--the "strong sea-daisies that feast on the
+sun,"--and the indescribable salty perfume that swept upwards on the
+faint wind from the unseen ocean, just now hidden by projecting shelves
+of broken ground fringed with trees,--all combined together to refresh
+the air and to make the mere act of breathing a delight. After about
+twenty minutes' walking Helmsley's step grew easier and more
+springy,--almost he felt young,--almost he pictured himself living for
+another ten years in health and active mental power. The lassitude and
+_ennui_ inseparable from a life spent for the most part in the business
+centres of London, had rolled away like a noxious mist from his mind,
+and he was well-nigh ready to "begin life again," as he told himself,
+with a smile at his own folly.
+
+"No wonder that the old-world philosophers and scientists sought for the
+_elixir vitę_!" he thought. "No wonder they felt that the usual tenure
+is too short for all that a man might accomplish, did he live well and
+wisely enough to do justice to all the powers with which nature has
+endowed him. I am myself inclined to think that the 'Tree of Life'
+exists,--perhaps its leaves are the 'leaves of the Daura,' for which
+that excellent fellow Matt Peke is looking. Or it may be the 'Secta
+Croa'!"
+
+He smiled,--and having arrived at the end of the path which he had
+followed from the door of the "Trusty Man," he saw before him a
+descending bank, which sloped into the highroad, a wide track white
+with thick dust stretching straight away for about a mile and then
+dipping round a broad curve of land, overarched with trees. He sat down
+for a few minutes on the warm grass, giving himself up to the idle
+pleasure of watching the birds skimming through the clear blue sky,--the
+bees bouncing in and out of the buttercups,--the varicoloured
+butterflies floating like blown flower-petals on the breeze,--and he
+heard a distant bell striking the half-hour after eleven. He had noted
+the time when leaving the "Trusty Man," otherwise he would not have
+known it so exactly, having left his watch locked up at home in his
+private desk with other personal trinkets which would have been
+superfluous and troublesome to him on his self-imposed journey. When the
+echo of the bell's one stroke had died away it left a great stillness in
+the air. The heat was increasing as the day veered towards noon, and he
+decided that it would be as well to get on further down the road and
+under the shadow of the trees, which were not so very far off, and which
+looked invitingly cool in their spreading dark soft greenness. So,
+rising from his brief rest, he started again "on the tramp," and soon
+felt the full glare of the sun, and the hot sensation of the dust about
+his feet; but he went on steadily, determining to make light of all the
+inconveniences and difficulties, to which he was entirely unaccustomed,
+but to which he had voluntarily exposed himself. For a considerable time
+he met no living creature; the highroad seemed to be as much his own as
+though it were part of a private park or landed estate belonging to him
+only; and it was not till he had nearly accomplished the distance which
+lay between him and the shelter of the trees, that he met a horse and
+cart slowly jogging along towards the direction from whence he had come.
+The man who drove the vehicle was half-asleep, stupefied, no doubt, by
+the effect of the hot sun following on a possible "glass" at a
+public-house, but Helmsley called to him just for company's sake.
+
+"Hi! Am I going right for Watchett?"
+
+The man opened his drowsing eyes and yawned expansively.
+
+"Watchett? Ay! Williton comes fust."
+
+"Is it far?"
+
+"Nowt's far to your kind!" said the man, flicking his whip. "An' ye'll
+meet a bobby or so on the road!"
+
+On he went, and Helmsley without further parley resumed his tramp.
+Presently, reaching the clump of trees he had seen in the distance, he
+moved into their refreshing shade. They were broad-branched elms,
+luxuriantly full of foliage, and the avenue they formed extended for
+about a quarter of a mile. Cool dells and dingles of mossy green sloped
+down on one side of the road, breaking into what are sometimes called
+"coombs" running precipitously towards the sea-coast, and slackening his
+pace a little he paused, looking through a tangle of shrubs and bracken
+at the pale suggestion of a glimmer of blue which he realised was the
+shining of the sunlit ocean. While he thus stood, he fancied he heard a
+little plaintive whine as of an animal in pain. He listened attentively.
+The sound was repeated, and, descending the shelving bank a few steps he
+sought to discover the whereabouts of this piteous cry for help. All at
+once he spied two bright sparkling eyes and a small silvery grey head
+perking up at him through the leaves,--the head of a tiny Yorkshire
+"toy" terrier. It looked at him with eloquent anxiety, and as he
+approached it, it made an effort to move, but fell back again with a
+faint moan. Gently he picked it up,--it was a rare and beautiful little
+creature, but one of its silky forepaws had evidently been caught in
+some trap, for it was badly mangled and bleeding. Round its neck was a
+small golden collar, something like a lady's bracelet, bearing the
+inscription: "I am Charlie. Take care of me!" There was no owner's name
+or address, and the entreaty "Take care of me!" had certainly not been
+complied with, or so valuable a pet would not have been left wounded on
+the highroad. While Helmsley was examining it, it ceased whining, and
+gently licked his hand. Seeing a trickling stream of water making its
+way through the moss and ferns close by, he bathed the little dog's
+wounded paw carefully and tied it up with a strip of material torn from
+his own coat sleeve.
+
+"So you want to be taken care of, do you, Charlie!" he said, patting the
+tiny head. "That's what a good many of us want, when we feel hurt and
+broken by the hard ways of the world!" Charlie blinked a dark eye,
+cocked a small soft ear, and ventured on another caress of the kind
+human hand with his warm little tongue. "Well, I won't leave you to
+starve in the woods, or trust you to the tender mercies of the
+police,--you shall come along with me! And if I see any advertisement
+of your loss I'll perhaps take you back to your owner. But in the
+meantime we'll stay together."
+
+Charlie evidently agreed to this proposition, for when Helmsley tucked
+him cosily under his arm, he settled down comfortably as though well
+accustomed to the position. He was certainly nothing of a weight to
+carry, and his new owner was conscious of a certain pleasure in feeling
+the warm, silky little body nestling against his breast. He was not
+quite alone any more,--this little creature was a companion,--a
+something to talk to, to caress and to protect. He ascended the bank,
+and regaining the highroad resumed his vagrant way. Noon was now at the
+full, and the sun's heat seemed to create a silence that was both
+oppressive and stifling. He walked slowly, and began to feel that
+perhaps after all he had miscalculated his staying powers, and that the
+burden of old age would, in the end, take vengeance upon him for running
+risks of fatigue and exhaustion which, in his case, were wholly
+unnecessary.
+
+"Yet if I were really poor," he argued with himself, "if I were in very
+truth a tramp, I should have to do exactly what I am doing now. If one
+man can stand 'life on the road,' so can another."
+
+And he would not allow his mind to dwell on the fact that a temperament
+which has become accustomed to every kind of comfort and luxury is
+seldom fitted to endure privation. On he jogged steadily, and by and by
+began to be entertained by his own thoughts as pleasantly as a poet or
+romancist is entertained by the fancies which come and go in the brain
+with all the vividness of dramatic reality. Yet always he found himself
+harking back to what he sometimes called the "incurability" of life.
+Over and over again he asked himself the old eternal question: Why so
+much Product to end in Waste? Why are thousands of millions of worlds,
+swarming with life-organisms, created to revolve in space, if there is
+no other fate for them but final destruction?
+
+"There _must_ be an Afterwards!" he said. "Otherwise Creation would not
+only be a senseless joke, but a wicked one! Nay, it would almost be a
+crime. To cause creatures to be born into existence without their own
+consent, merely to destroy them utterly in a few years and make the fact
+of their having lived purposeless, would be worse than the dreams of
+madmen. For what is the use of bringing human creatures into the world
+to suffer pain, sickness, and sorrow, if mere life-torture is all we can
+give them, and death is the only end?"
+
+Here his meditations were broken in upon by the sound of a horse's hoofs
+trotting briskly behind him, and pausing, he saw a neat little cart and
+pony coming along, driven by a buxom-looking woman with a brown sun-hat
+tied on in the old-fashioned manner under her chin.
+
+"Would ye like a lift?" she asked. "It's mighty warm walkin'."
+
+Helmsley raised his eyes to the sun-bonnet, and smiled at the cheerful
+freckled face beneath its brim.
+
+"You're very kind----" he began.
+
+"Jump in!" said the woman. "I'm taking cream and cheeses into Watchett,
+but it's a light load, an' Jim an' me can do with ye that far. This is
+Jim."
+
+She flicked the pony's ears with her whip by way of introducing the
+animal, and Helmsley clambered up into the cart beside her.
+
+"That's a nice little dog you've got," she remarked, as Charlie perked
+his small black nose out from under his protector's arm to sniff the
+subtle atmosphere of what was going to happen next. "He's a real
+beauty!"
+
+"Yes," replied Helmsley, without volunteering any information as to how
+he had found the tiny creature, whom he now had no inclination to part
+with. "He got his paw caught in a trap, so I'm obliged to carry him."
+
+"Poor little soul! There's a-many traps all about 'ere, lots o' the land
+bein' private property. Go on, Jim!" And she shook the reins on her
+pony's neck, thereby causing that intelligent animal to start off at a
+pleasantly regular pace. "I allus sez that if the rich ladies and
+gentlemen as eats up every bit o' land in Great Britain could put traps
+in the air to catch the noses of everything but themselves as dares to
+breathe it, they'd do it, singin' glory all the time. For they goes to
+church reg'lar."
+
+"Ah, it's a wise thing to be seen _looking_ good in public!" said
+Helmsley.
+
+The woman laughed.
+
+"That's right! You can do a lot o' humbuggin' if you're friends with the
+parson, what more often than not humbugs everybody hisself. I'm no
+church-goer, but I turn out the best cheese an' butter in these parts,
+an' I never tells no lies nor cheats any one of a penny, so I aint
+worryin' about my soul, seein' it's straight with my neighbours."
+
+"Are there many rich people living about here?" inquired Helmsley.
+
+"Not enough to do the place real good. The owners of the big houses are
+here to-day and gone to-morrow, and they don't trouble much over their
+tenantry. Still we rub on fairly well. None of us can ever put by for a
+rainy day,--and some folk as is as hard-working as ever they can be, are
+bound to come on the parish when they can't work no more--no doubt o'
+that. You're a stranger to these parts?"
+
+"Yes, I've tramped from Bristol."
+
+The woman opened her eyes widely.
+
+"That's a long way! You must be fairly strong for your age. Where are ye
+wantin' to get to?"
+
+"Cornwall."
+
+"My word! You've got a goodish bit to go. All Devon lies before you."
+
+"I know that. But I shall rest here and there, and perhaps get a lift or
+two if I meet any more such kind-hearted folk as yourself."
+
+She looked at him sharply.
+
+"That's what we may call a bit o' soft soap," she said, "and I'd advise
+ye to keep that kind o' thing to yourself, old man! It don't go down
+with Meg Ross, I can tell ye!"
+
+"Are you Meg Ross?" he asked, amused at her manner.
+
+"That's me! I'm known all over the countryside for the sharpest tongue
+as ever wagged in a woman's head. So you'd better look out!"
+
+"I'm not afraid of you!" he said smiling.
+
+"Well, you might be if you knew me!" and she whipped up her pony
+smartly. "Howsomever, you're old enough to be past hurtin' or bein'
+hurt."
+
+"That's true!" he responded gently.
+
+She was silent after this, and not till Watchett was reached did she
+again begin conversation. Rattling quickly through the little
+watering-place, which at this hour seemed altogether deserted or asleep,
+she pulled up at an inn in the middle of the principal street.
+
+"I've got an order to deliver here," she said. "What are _you_ going to
+do with yourself?"
+
+"Nothing in particular," he answered, with a smile. "I shall just take
+my little dog to a chemist's and get its paw dressed, and then I shall
+walk on."
+
+"Don't you want any dinner?"
+
+"Not yet. I had a good breakfast, I daresay I'll have a glass of milk
+presently."
+
+"Well, if you come back here in half an hour I can drive you on a little
+further. How would you like that?"
+
+"Very much! But I'm afraid of troubling you----"
+
+"Oh, you won't do that!" said Meg with a defiant air. "No man, young or
+old, has ever troubled _me_! I'm not married, thank the Lord!"
+
+And jumping from the cart, she began to pull out sundry cans, jars, and
+boxes, while Helmsley standing by with the small Charlie under his arm,
+wished he could help her, but felt sure she would resent assistance even
+if he offered it. Glancing at him, she gave him a kindly nod.
+
+"Off you go with your little dog! You'll find me ready here in half an
+hour."
+
+With that she turned from him into the open doorway of the inn, and
+Helmsley made his way slowly along the silent, sun-baked little street
+till he found a small chemist's shop, where he took his lately found
+canine companion to have its wounded paw examined and attended to. No
+bones were broken, and the chemist, a lean, pale, kindly man, assured
+him that in a few days the little animal would be quite well.
+
+"It's a pretty creature," he said. "And valuable too."
+
+"Yes. I found it on the highroad," said Helmsley; "and of course if I
+see any advertisement out for it, I'll return it to its owner. But if no
+one claims it I'll keep it."
+
+"Perhaps it fell out of a motor-car," said the chemist. "It looks as if
+it might have belonged to some fine lady who was too wrapped up in
+herself to take proper care of it. There are many of that kind who come
+this way touring through Somerset and Devon."
+
+"I daresay you're right," and Helmsley gently stroked the tiny dog's
+soft silky coat. "Rich women will pay any amount of money for such toy
+creatures out of mere caprice, and will then lose them out of sheer
+laziness, forgetting that they are living beings, with feelings and
+sentiments of trust and affection greater sometimes than our own.
+However, this little chap will be safe with me till he is rightfully
+claimed, if ever that happens. I don't want to steal him; I only want to
+take care of him."
+
+"I should never part with him if I were you," said the chemist. "Those
+who were careless enough to lose him deserve their loss."
+
+Helmsley agreed, and left the shop. Finding a confectioner's near by, he
+bought a few biscuits for his new pet, an attention which that small
+animal highly appreciated. "Charlie" was hungry, and cracked and munched
+the biscuits with exceeding relish, his absurd little nose becoming
+quite moist with excitement and appetite. Returning presently to the inn
+where he had left Meg Ross, Helmsley found that lady quite ready to
+start.
+
+"Oh, here you are, are you?" she said, smiling pleasantly, "Well, I'm
+just on the move. Jump in!"
+
+Helmsley hesitated a moment, standing beside the pony-cart.
+
+"May I pay for my ride?" he said.
+
+"Pay?" Meg stuck her stout arms akimbo, and glanced him all over. "Well,
+I never! How much 'ave ye got?"
+
+"Two or three shillings," he answered.
+
+Meg laughed, showing a very sound row of even white teeth.
+
+"All right! You can keep 'em!" she said. "Mebbe you want 'em. _I_ don't!
+Now don't stand haverin' there,--get in the cart quick, or Jim'll be
+runnin' away."
+
+Jim showed no sign of this desperate intention, but, on the contrary,
+stood very patiently waiting till his passengers were safely seated,
+when he trotted off at a great pace, with such a clatter of hoofs and
+rattle of wheels as rendered conversation impossible. But Helmsley was
+very content to sit in silence, holding the little dog "Charlie" warmly
+against his breast, and watching the beauties of the scenery expand
+before him like a fairy panorama, ever broadening into fresh glimpses of
+loveliness. It was a very quiet coastline which the windings of the road
+now followed,--a fair and placid sea shining at wide intervals between a
+lavish flow of equally fair and placid fields. The drive seemed all too
+short, when at the corner of a lane embowered in trees, Meg Ross pulled
+up short.
+
+"The best of friends must part!" she said. "I'm right sorry I can't take
+ye any further. But down 'ere's a farm where I put up for the afternoon
+an' 'elps 'em through with their butter-makin', for there's a lot o'
+skeery gals in the fam'ly as thinks more o' doin' their 'air than
+churnin', an' doin' the 'air don't bring no money in, though mebbe it
+might catch a 'usband as wasn't worth 'avin'. An' Jim gets his food 'ere
+too. Howsomever, I'm real put about that I can't drive ye a bit towards
+Cleeve Abbey, for that's rare an' fine at this time o' year,--but mebbe
+ye're wantin' to push on quickly?"
+
+"Yes, I must push on," rejoined Helmsley, as he got out of the cart;
+then, standing in the road, he raised his cap to her. "And I'm very
+grateful to you for helping me along so far, at the hottest time of the
+day too. It's most kind of you!"
+
+"Oh, I don't want any thanks!" said Meg, smiling. "I'm rather sweet on
+old men, seein' old age aint their fault even if trampin' the road is.
+You'd best keep on the straight line now, till you come to Blue Anchor.
+That's a nice little village, and you'll find an inn there where you can
+get a night's lodging cheap. I wouldn't advise you to stay much round
+Cleeve after sundown, for there's a big camp of gypsies about there, an'
+they're a rough lot, pertikly a man they calls Tom o' the Gleam."
+
+Helmsley smiled.
+
+"I know Tom o' the Gleam," he said. "He's a friend of mine."
+
+Meg Ross opened her round, bright brown eyes.
+
+"Is he? Dear life, if I'd known that, I mightn't 'ave been so ready to
+give you a ride with me!" she said, and laughed. "Not that I'm afraid of
+Tom, though he's a queer customer. I've given a good many glasses of new
+milk to his 'kiddie,' as he calls that little lad of his, so I expect
+I'm fairly in his favour."
+
+"I've never seen his 'kiddie,'" said Helmsley. "What is the boy like?"
+
+"A real fine little chap!" said Meg, with heartiness and feeling. "I'm
+not a crank on children, seein' most o' them's muckers an' trouble from
+mornin' to night, but if it 'ad pleased the Lord as I should wed, I
+shouldn't 'a wished for a better specimen of a babe than Tom's kiddie.
+Pity the mother died!"
+
+"When the child was born?" queried Helmsley gently.
+
+"No--oh no!"--and Meg's eyes grew thoughtful. "She got through her
+trouble all right, but 'twas about a year or eighteen months arterwards
+that she took to pinin' like, an' droopin' down just like the poppies
+droops in the corn when the sun's too fierce upon 'em. She used to sit
+by the roadside o' Sundays, with a little red handkerchief tied across
+her shoulders, and all her dark 'air tumblin' about 'er face, an' she
+used to look up with her great big black eyes an' smile at the finicky
+fine church misses as come mincin' an' smirkin' along, an' say: 'Tell
+your fortune, lady?' She was the prettiest creature I ever saw--not a
+good lass--no!--nobody could say she was a good lass, for she went to
+Tom without church or priest, but she loved him an' was faithful. An'
+she just worshipped her baby." Here Meg paused a moment. "Tom was a real
+danger to the country when she died," she presently went on. "He used to
+run about the woods like a madman, calling her to come back to 'im, an'
+threatenin' to murder any one who came nigh 'im;--then, by and by, he
+took to the kiddie, an' he's steadier now."
+
+There was something in the narration of this little history that touched
+Helmsley too deeply for comment, and he was silent.
+
+"Well!"--and Meg gave her pony's reins a shake--"I must be off! Sorry to
+leave ye standin' in the middle o' the road like, but it can't be
+helped. Mind you keep the little dog safe!--and take a woman's
+advice--don't walk too far or too fast in one day. Good luck t' ye!"
+
+Another shake of the reins, and "Jim" turned briskly down the lane. Once
+Meg looked back and waved her hand,--then the green trees closed in upon
+her disappearing vehicle, and Helmsley was again alone, save for
+"Charlie," who, instinctively aware that some friend had left them,
+licked his master's hand confidentially, as much as to say "I am still
+with you." The air was cooler now, and Helmsley walked on with
+comparative ease and pleasure. His thoughts were very busy. He was
+drawing comparisons between the conduct of the poor and the rich to one
+another, greatly to the disadvantage of the latter class.
+
+"If a wealthy man has a carriage," he soliloquised, "how seldom will he
+offer it or think of offering its use to any one of his acquaintances
+who may be less fortunate! How rarely will he even say a kind word to
+any man who is 'down'! Do I not know this myself! I remember well on one
+occasion when I wished to send my carriage for the use of a poor fellow
+who had once been employed in my office, but who had been compelled to
+give up work, owing to illness, my secretary advised me not to show him
+this mark of sympathy and attention. 'He will only take it as his
+right,' I was assured,--'these sort of men are always ungrateful.' And I
+listened to my secretary's advice--more fool I! For it should have been
+nothing to me whether the man was ungrateful or not; the thing was to do
+the good, and let the result be what it might. Now this poor Meg Ross
+has no carriage, but such vehicle as she possesses she shares with one
+whom she imagines to be in need. No other motive has moved her save
+womanly pity for lonely age and infirmity. She has taught me a lesson by
+simply offering a kindness without caring how it might be received or
+rewarded. Is not that a lovely trait in human nature?--one which I have
+never as yet discovered in what is called 'swagger society'! When I was
+in the hey-dey of my career, and money was pouring in from all my
+business 'deals' like water from a never-ending main, I had a young
+Scotsman for a secretary, as close-fisted a fellow as ever was, who
+managed to lose me the chance of doing a great many kind actions. More
+than that, whenever I was likely to have any real friends whom I could
+confidently trust, and who wanted nothing from me but affection and
+sincerity, he succeeded in shaking off the hold they had upon me. Of
+course I know now why he did this,--it was in order that he himself
+might have his grip of me more securely, but at that time I was
+unsuspicious, and believed the best of every one. Yes! I honestly
+thought people were honest,--I trusted their good faith, with the result
+that I found out the utter falsity of their pretensions. And here I
+am,--old and nearing the end of my tether--more friendless than when I
+first began to make my fortune, with the certain knowledge that not a
+soul has ever cared or cares for me except for what can be got out of me
+in the way of hard cash! I have met with more real kindness from the
+rough fellows at the 'Trusty Man,' and from the 'Trusty Man's' hostess,
+Miss Tranter, and now from this good woman Meg Ross, than has ever been
+offered to me by those who know I am rich, and who have 'used' me
+accordingly."
+
+Here, coming to a place where two cross-roads met, he paused, looking
+about him. The afternoon was declining, and the loveliness of the
+landscape was intensified by a mellow softness in the sunshine, which
+deepened the rich green of the trees and wakened an opaline iridescence
+in the sea. A sign-post on one hand bore the direction "To Cleeve
+Abbey," and the road thus indicated wound upward somewhat steeply,
+disappearing amid luxuriant verdure which everywhere crowned the higher
+summits of the hills. While he yet stood, looking at the exquisitely
+shaded masses of foliage which, like festal garlands, adorned and
+over-hung this ascent, the discordant "hoot" of a motor-horn sounded on
+the stillness, and sheer down the winding way came at a tearing pace the
+motor vehicle itself. It was a large, luxurious car, and pounded along
+with tremendous speed, swerving at the bottom of the declivity with so
+sharp a curve as to threaten an instant overturn, but, escaping this
+imminent peril by almost a hairsbreadth, it dashed onward straight ahead
+in a cloud of dust that for two or three minutes entirely blurred and
+darkened the air. Half-blinded and choked by the rush of its furious
+passage past him, Helmsley could only just barely discern that the car
+was occupied by two men, the one driving, the other sitting beside the
+driver,--and shading his eyes from the sun, he strove to track its way
+as it flew down the road, but in less than a minute it was out of sight.
+
+"There's not much 'speed limit' in that concern!" he said, half-aloud,
+still gazing after it. "I call such driving recklessly wicked! If I
+could have seen the number of that car, I'd have given information to
+the police. But numbers on motors are no use when such a pace is kept
+up, and the thick dust of a dry summer is whirled up by the wheels. It's
+fortunate the road is clear. Yes, Charlie!"--this, as he saw his canine
+foundling's head perk out from under his arm, with a little black nose
+all a-quiver with anxiety,--"it's just as well for you that you've got a
+wounded paw and can't run too far for the present! If you had been in
+the way of that car just now, your little life would have been ended!"
+
+Charlie pricked his pretty ears, and listened, or appeared to listen,
+but had evidently no forebodings about himself or his future. He was
+quite at home, and, after the fashion of dogs, who are often so much
+wiser than men, argued that being safe and comfortable now, there was no
+reason why he should not be safe and comfortable always. And Helmsley
+presently bent himself to steady walking, and got on well, only pausing
+to get some tea and bread and butter at a cottage by the roadside, where
+a placard on the gate intimated that such refreshments were to be had
+within. Nevertheless, he was a slow pedestrian, and what with lingering
+here and there for brief rests by the way, the sun had sunk fully an
+hour before he managed to reach Blue Anchor, the village of which Meg
+Ross had told him. It was a pretty, peaceful place, set among wide
+stretches of beach, extending for miles along the margin of the waters,
+and the mellow summer twilight showed little white wreaths of foam
+crawling lazily up on the sand in glittering curves that gleamed like
+snow for a moment and then melted softly away into the deepening
+darkness. He stopped at the first ale-house, a low-roofed, cottage-like
+structure embowered in clambering flowers. It had a side entrance which
+led into a big, rambling stableyard, and happening to glance that way he
+perceived a vehicle standing there, which he at once recognised as the
+large luxurious motor-car that had dashed past him at such a tearing
+pace near Cleeve. The inn door was open, and the bar faced the road,
+exhibiting a brave show of glittering brass taps, pewter tankards,
+polished glasses and many-coloured bottles, all these things being
+presided over by a buxom matron, who was not only an agreeable person to
+look at in herself, but who was assisted by two pretty daughters. These
+young women, wearing spotless white cuffs and aprons, dispensed the beer
+to the customers, now and then relieving the monotony of this occupation
+by carrying trays of bread and cheese and meat sandwiches round the wide
+room of which the bar was a part, evidently bent on making the general
+company stay as long as possible, if fascinating manners and smiling
+eyes could work any detaining influence. Helmsley asked for a glass of
+ale and a plate of bread and cheese, and on being supplied with these
+refreshments, sat down at a small table in a corner well removed from
+the light, where he could see without being seen. He did not intend to
+inquire for a night's lodging yet. He wished first to ascertain for
+himself the kind of people who frequented the place. The fear of
+discovery always haunted him, and the sight of that costly motor-car
+standing in the stableyard had caused him to feel a certain misgiving
+lest any one of marked wealth or position should turn out to be its
+owner. In such a case, the world being proverbially small, and rich men
+being in the minority, it was just possible that he, David Helmsley,
+even clad as he was in workman's clothes and partially disguised in
+features by the growth of a beard, might be recognised. With this idea,
+he kept himself well back in the shadow, listening attentively to the
+scraps of desultory talk among the dozen or so of men in the room, while
+carefully maintaining an air of such utter fatigue as to appear
+indifferent to all that passed around him. Nobody noticed him, for which
+he was thankful. And presently, when he became accustomed to the various
+contending voices, which in their changing tones of gruff or gentle,
+quick or slow, made a confused din upon his ears, he found out that the
+general conversation was chiefly centred on one subject, that of the
+very motor-car whose occupants he desired to shun.
+
+"Serve 'em right!" growled one man. "Serve 'em right to 'ave broke down!
+'Ope the darned thing's broke altogether!"
+
+"You shouldn't say that,--'taint Christian," expostulated his neighbour
+at the same table. "Them cars cost a heap o' money, from eight 'undred
+to two thousand pounds, I've 'eerd tell."
+
+"Who cares!" retorted the other. "Them as can pay a fortin on a car to
+swish 'emselves about in, should be made to keep on payin' till they're
+cleaned out o' money for good an' all. The road's a reg'lar hell since
+them engines started along cuttin' everything to pieces. There aint a
+man, woman, nor child what's safe from the moneyed murderers."
+
+"Oh come, I say!" ejaculated a big, burly young fellow in corduroys.
+"Moneyed murderers is going a bit too strong!"
+
+"No 'taint!" said the first man who had spoken. "That's what the
+motor-car folks are--no more nor less. Only t' other day in Taunton, a
+woman as was the life an' soul of 'er 'usband an' childern, was knocked
+down by a car as big as a railway truck. It just swept 'er off the curb
+like a bundle o' rags. She picked 'erself up again an' walked 'ome,
+tremblin' a little, an' not knowin' rightly what 'ad chanced to 'er, an'
+in less than an hour she was dead. An' what did they say at the inquest?
+Just 'death from shock'--an' no more. For them as owned the murderin'
+car was proprietors o' a big brewery, and the coroner hisself 'ad shares
+in it. That's 'ow justice is done nowadays!"
+
+"Yes, we's an obligin' lot, we poor folks," observed a little man in the
+rough garb of a cattle-driver, drawing his pipe from his mouth as he
+spoke. "We lets the rich ride over us on rubber tyres an' never sez a
+word on our own parts, but trusts to the law for doin' the same to a
+millionaire as 'twould to a beggar,--but, Lord!--don't we see every day
+as 'ow the millionaire gets off easy while the beggar goes to prison?
+There used to be justice in old England, but the time for that's gone
+past."
+
+"There's as much justice in England as you'll ever get anywheres else!"
+interrupted the hostess at the bar, nodding cheerfully at the men, and
+smiling,--"And as for the motor-cars, they bring custom to my house, and
+I don't grumble at anything which does me and mine a good turn. If it
+hadn't been for a break-down in that big motor standing outside in the
+stableyard, I shouldn't have had two gentlemen staying in my best rooms
+to-night. I never find fault with money!"
+
+She laughed and nodded again in the pleasantest manner. A slow smile
+went round among the men,--it was impossible not to smile in response to
+the gay good-humour expressed on such a beaming countenance.
+
+"One of them's a lord, too," she added. "Quite a young fellow, just come
+into his title, I suppose." And referring to her day-book, she ran her
+plump finger down the various entries. "I've got his name
+here--Wrotham,--Lord Reginald Wrotham."
+
+"Wrotham? That aint a name known in these parts," said the man in
+corduroys. "Wheer does 'e come from?"
+
+"I don't know," she replied. "And I don't very much care. It's enough
+for me that he's here and spending money!"
+
+"Where's his chauffy?" inquired a lad, lounging near the bar.
+
+"He hasn't got one. He drives his car himself. He's got a friend with
+him--a Mr. James Brookfield."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Helmsley drew further back into the corner
+where he sat, and restrained the little dog Charlie from perking its
+inquisitive head out too far, lest its beauty should attract
+undesirable attention. His nervous misgivings concerning the owner of
+the motor-car had not been entirely without foundation, for both
+Reginald Wrotham and James Brookfield were well known to him. Wrotham's
+career had been a sufficiently disgraceful one ever since he had entered
+his teens,--he was a modern degenerate of the worst type, and though his
+coming-of-age and the assumption of his family title had caused certain
+time-servers to enrol themselves among his flatterers and friends, there
+were very few decent houses where so soiled a member of the aristocracy
+as he was could find even a semblance of toleration. James Brookfield
+was a proprietor of newspapers as well as a "something in the City," and
+if Helmsley had been asked to qualify that "something" by a name, he
+would have found a term by no means complimentary to the individual in
+question. Wrotham and Brookfield were always seen together,--they were
+brothers in every sort of social iniquity and licentiousness, and an
+attempt on Brookfield's part to borrow some thousands of pounds for his
+"lordly" patron from Helmsley, had resulted in the latter giving the
+would-be borrower's go-between such a strong piece of his mind as he was
+not likely to forget. And now Helmsley was naturally annoyed to find
+that these two abandoned rascals were staying at the very inn where he,
+in his character of a penniless wayfarer, had hoped to pass a peaceful
+night; however, he resolved to avoid all danger and embarrassment by
+leaving the place directly he had finished his supper, and going in
+search of some more suitable lodgment. Meanwhile, the hum of
+conversation grew louder around him, and opinion ran high on the subject
+of "the right of the road."
+
+"The roads are made for the people, sure-_ly_!" said one of a group of
+men standing near the largest table in the room--"And the people 'as the
+right to 'xpect safety to life an' limb when they uses 'em."
+
+"Well, the motors can put forward the same claim," retorted another.
+"Motor folks are people too, an' they can say, if they likes, that if
+roads is made for people, they're made for _them_ as well as t' others,
+and they expects to be safe on 'em with their motors at whatever pace
+they travels."
+
+"Go 'long!" exclaimed the cattle-driver, who had before taken part in
+the discussion--"Aint we got to take cows an' sheep an' 'osses by the
+road? An' if a car comes along at the rate o' forty or fifty miles an
+hour, what's to be done wi' the animals? An' if they're not to be on the
+road, which way is they to be took?"
+
+"Them motors ought to have roads o' their own like the railways," said a
+quiet-looking grey-haired man, who was the carrier of the district.
+"When the steam-engine was invented it wasn't allowed to go tearin'
+along the public highway. They 'ad to make roads for it, an' lay tracks,
+and they should do the same for motors which is gettin' just as fast an'
+as dangerous as steam-engines."
+
+"Yes, an' with makin' new roads an' layin' tracks, spoil the country for
+good an' all!" said the man in corduroys--"An' alter it so that there
+aint a bit o' peace or comfort left in the land! Level the hills an' cut
+down the trees--pull up the hedges an' scare away all the singin' birds,
+till the hull place looks like a football field!--all to please a few
+selfish rich men who'd be better dead than livin'! A fine thing for
+England that would be!"
+
+At that moment, there was the noise of an opening door, and the hostess,
+with an expressive glance at her customers, held up her finger
+warningly.
+
+"Hush, please!" she said. "The gentlemen are coming out."
+
+A sudden pause ensued. The men looked round upon one another, half
+sheepishly, half sullenly, and their growling voices subsided into a
+murmur. The hostess settled the bow at her collar more becomingly, and
+her two pretty daughters feigned to be deeply occupied with some drawn
+thread work. David Helmsley, noting everything that was going on from
+his coign of vantage, recognised at once the dissipated,
+effeminate-looking young man, who, stepping out of a private room which
+opened on a corridor apparently leading to the inner part of the house,
+sauntered lazily up to the bar and, resting his arm upon its oaken
+counter, smiled condescendingly, not to say insolently, upon the women
+who stood behind it. There was no mistaking him,--it was the same
+Reginald Wrotham whose scandals in society had broken his worthy
+father's heart, and who now, succeeding to a hitherto unblemished title,
+was doing his best to load it with dishonour. He was followed by his
+friend Brookfield,--a heavily-built, lurching sort of man, with a nose
+reddened by strong drink, and small lascivious eyes which glittered
+dully in his head like the eyes of poisonous tropical beetle. The hush
+among the "lower" class of company at the inn deepened into the usual
+stupid awe which at times so curiously affects untutored rustics who are
+made conscious of the presence of a "lord." Said a friend of the present
+writer's to a waiter in a country hotel where one of these "lords" was
+staying for a few days: "I want a letter to catch to-night's post, but
+I'm afraid the mail has gone from the hotel. Could you send some one to
+the post-office with it?" "Oh yes, sir!" replied the waiter
+grandiloquently. "The servant of the Lord will take it!" Pitiful beyond
+most piteous things is the grovelling tendency of that section of human
+nature which has not yet been educated sufficiently to lift itself up
+above temporary trappings and ornaments; pitiful it is to see men,
+gifted in intellect, or distinguished for bravery, flinch and cringe
+before one of their own flesh and blood, who, having neither cleverness
+nor courage, but only a Title, presumes upon that foolish appendage so
+far as to consider himself superior to both valour and ability. As well
+might a stuffed boar's head assume a superiority to other comestibles
+because decorated by the cook with a paper frill and bow of ribbon! The
+atmosphere which Lord Reginald Wrotham brought with him into the
+common-room of the bar was redolent of tobacco-smoke and whisky, yet,
+judging from the various propitiatory, timid, anxious, or servile looks
+cast upon him by all and sundry, it might have been fragrant and sacred
+incense wafted from the altars of the goddess Fortune to her waiting
+votaries. Helmsley's spirit rose up in contempt against the effete dandy
+as he watched him leaning carelessly against the counter, twirling his
+thin sandy moustache, and talking to his hostess merely for the sake of
+offensively ogling her two daughters.
+
+"Charming old place you have here!--charming!" drawled his lordship.
+"Perfect dream! Love to pass all my days in such a delightful spot! 'Pon
+my life! Awful luck for us, the motor breaking down, or we never should
+have stopped at such a jolly place, don't-cher-know. Should we,
+Brookfield?"
+
+Brookfield, gently scratching a pimple on his fat, clean-shaven face,
+smiled knowingly.
+
+"_Couldn't_ have stopped!" he declared. "We were doing a record run. But
+we should have missed a great deal,--a great deal!" And he emitted a
+soft chuckle. "Not only the place,--but----!"
+
+He waved his hand explanatorily, with a slight bow, which implied an
+unspoken compliment to the looks of the mistress of the inn and her
+family. One of the young women blushed and peeped slyly up at him. He
+returned the glance with interest.
+
+"May I ask," pursued Lord Wrotham, with an amicable leer, "the names of
+your two daughters, Madam? They've been awfully kind to us
+broken-down-travellers--should just like to know the difference between
+them. Like two roses on one stalk, don't-cher-know! Can't tell which is
+which!"
+
+The mother of the girls hesitated a moment. She was not quite sure that
+she liked the "tone" of his lordship's speech. Finally she replied
+somewhat stiffly:--
+
+"My eldest daughter is named Elizabeth, my lord, and her sister is
+Grace."
+
+"Elizabeth and Grace! Charming!" murmured Wrotham, leaning a little more
+confidentially over the counter--"Now which--which is Grace?"
+
+At that moment a tall, shadowy form darkened the open doorway of the
+inn, and a man entered, carrying in his arms a small oblong bundle
+covered with a piece of rough horse-cloth. Placing his burden down on a
+vacant bench, he pushed his cap from his brows and stared wildly about
+him. Every one looked at him,--some with recognition, others in
+alarm,--and Helmsley, compelled as he was to keep himself out of the
+general notice in his corner, almost started to his feet with an
+involuntary cry of amazement. For it was Tom o' the Gleam.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Tom o' the Gleam,--Tom, with his clothes torn and covered with
+dust,--Tom, changed suddenly to a haggard and terrible unlikeness of
+himself, his face drawn and withered, its healthy bronze colour whitened
+to a sickly livid hue,--Tom, with such an expression of dazed and stupid
+horror in his eyes as to give the impression that he was heavily in
+drink, and dangerous.
+
+"Well, mates!" he said thickly--"A fine night and a clear moon!"
+
+No one answered him. He staggered up to the bar. The hostess looked at
+him severely.
+
+"Now, Tom, what's the matter?" she said.
+
+He straightened himself, and, throwing back his shoulders as though
+parrying a blow, forced a smile.
+
+"Nothing! A touch of the sun!" A strong shudder ran through his limbs,
+and his teeth chattered,--then suddenly leaning forward on the counter,
+he whispered: "I'm not drunk, mother!--for God's sake don't think
+it!--I'm ill. Don't you see I'm ill?--I'll be all right in a
+minute,--give me a drop of brandy!"
+
+She fixed her candid gaze full upon him. She had known him well for
+years, and not only did she know him, but, rough character as he was,
+she liked and respected him. Looking him squarely in the face she saw at
+once that he was speaking the truth. He was not drunk. He was ill,--very
+ill. The strained anguish on his features proved it.
+
+"Hadn't you better come inside the bar and sit down?" she suggested, in
+a low tone.
+
+"No, thanks--I'd rather not. I'll stand just here."
+
+She gave him the brandy he had asked for. He sipped it slowly, and,
+pushing his cap further off his brows, turned his dark eyes, full of
+smouldering fire, upon Lord Wrotham and his friend, both of whom had
+succeeded in getting up a little conversation with the hostess's younger
+daughter, the girl named Grace. Her sister, Elizabeth, put down her
+needlework, and watched Tom with sudden solicitude. An instinctive
+dislike of Lord Wrotham and his companion caused her to avoid looking
+their way, though she heard every word they were saying,--and her
+interest became centred on the handsome gypsy, whose pallid features and
+terrible expression filled her with a vague alarm.
+
+"It would be awfully jolly of you if you'd come for a spin in my motor,"
+said his lordship, twirling his sandy moustache and conveying a would-be
+amorous twinkle into his small brown-green eyes for the benefit of the
+girl he was ogling. "Beastly bore having a break-down, but it's nothing
+serious--half a day's work will put it all right, and if you and your
+sister would like a turn before we go on from here, I shall be charmed.
+We can't do the record business now--not this time,--so it doesn't
+matter how long we linger in this delightful spot."
+
+"Especially in such delightful company!" added his friend, Brookfield.
+"I'm going to take a photograph of this house to-morrow, and
+perhaps"--here he smiled complacently--"perhaps Miss Grace and Miss
+Elizabeth will consent to come into the picture?"
+
+"Ya-as--ya-as!--oh do!" drawled Wrotham. "Of course they will! _You_
+will, I'm sure, Miss Grace! This gentleman, Mr. Brookfield, has got
+nearly all the pictorials under his thumb, and he'll put your portrait
+in them as 'The Beauty of Somerset,' won't you, Brookfield?"
+
+Brookfield laughed, a pleased laugh of conscious power.
+
+"Of course I will," he said. "You have only to express the wish and the
+thing is done!"
+
+Wrotham twirled his moustache again.
+
+"Awful fun having a friend on the press, don't-cher-know!" he went on.
+"I get all my lady acquaintances into the papers,--makes 'em famous in a
+day! The women I like are made to look beautiful, and those I don't like
+are turned into frights--positive old horrors, give you my life! Easily
+done, you know!--touch up a negative whichever way you fancy, and there
+you are!"
+
+The girl Grace lifted her eyes,--very pretty sparkling eyes they
+were,--and regarded him with a mutinous air of contempt.
+
+"It must be 'awfully' amusing!" she said sarcastically.
+
+"It is!--give you my life!" And his lordship played with a charm in the
+shape of an enamelled pig which dangled at his watch-chain. "It pleases
+all parties except those whom I want to rub up the wrong way. I've made
+many a woman's hair curl, I can tell you! You'll be my 'Somersetshire
+beauty,' won't you, Miss Grace?"
+
+"I think not!" she replied, with a cool glance. "My hair curls quite
+enough already. I never use tongs!"
+
+Brookfield burst into a laugh, and the laugh was echoed murmurously by
+the other men in the room. Wrotham flushed and bit his lip.
+
+"That's a one--er for me," he said lazily. "Pretty kitten as you are,
+Miss Grace, you can scratch! That's always the worst of women,--they've
+got such infernally sharp tongues----"
+
+"Grace!" interrupted her mother, at this juncture--"You are wanted in
+the kitchen."
+
+Grace took the maternal hint and retired at once. At that instant Tom o'
+the Gleam stirred slightly from his hitherto rigid attitude. He had only
+taken half his glass of brandy, but that small amount had brought back a
+tinge of colour to his face and deepened the sparkle of fire in his
+eyes.
+
+"Good roads for motoring about here!" he said.
+
+Lord Wrotham looked up,--then measuring the great height, muscular
+build, and commanding appearance of the speaker, nodded affably.
+
+"First-rate!" he replied. "We had a splendid run from Cleeve Abbey."
+
+"Magnificent!" echoed Brookfield. "Not half a second's stop all the way.
+We should have been far beyond Minehead by this time, if it hadn't been
+for the break-down. We were racing from London to the Land's End,--but
+we took a wrong turning just before we came to Cleeve----"
+
+"Oh! Took a wrong turning, did you?" And Tom leaned a little forward as
+though to hear more accurately. His face had grown deadly pale again,
+and he breathed quickly.
+
+"Yes. We found ourselves quite close to Cleeve Abbey, but we didn't stop
+to see old ruins this time, you bet! We just tore down the first lane we
+saw running back into the highroad,--a pretty steep bit of ground
+too--and, by Jove!--didn't we whizz round the corner at the bottom! That
+was a near shave, I can tell you!"
+
+"Ay, ay!" said Tom slowly, listening with an air of profound interest.
+"You've got a smart chauffeur, no doubt!"
+
+"No chauffeur at all!" declared Brookfield, emphatically. "His lordship
+drives his car himself."
+
+There followed an odd silence. All the customers in the room, drinking
+and eating as many of them were, seemed to be under a dumb spell. Tom o'
+the Gleam's presence was at all times more or less of a terror to the
+timorous, and that he, who as a rule avoided strangers, should on his
+own initiative enter into conversation with the two motorists, was of
+itself a circumstance that awakened considerable wonder and interest.
+David Helmsley, sitting apart in the shadow, could not take his eyes off
+the gypsy's face and figure,--a kind of fascination impelled him to
+watch with strained attention the dark shape, moulded with such
+herculean symmetry, which seemed to command and subdue the very air that
+gave it force and sustenance.
+
+"His lordship drives his car himself!" echoed Tom, and a curious smile
+parted his lips, showing an almost sinister gleam of white teeth between
+his full black moustache and beard,--then, bringing his sombre glance to
+bear slowly down on Wrotham's insignificant form, he continued,--"Are
+you his lordship?"
+
+Wrotham nodded with a careless condescension, and, lighting a cigar,
+began to smoke it.
+
+"And you drive your car yourself!" proceeded Tom,--"you must have good
+nerve and a keen eye!"
+
+"Oh well!" And Wrotham laughed airily--"Pretty much so!--but I won't
+boast!"
+
+"How many miles an hour?" went on Tom, pursuing his inquiries with an
+almost morbid eagerness.
+
+"Forty or fifty, I suppose--sometimes more. I always run at the highest
+speed. Of course that kind of thing knocks the motor to pieces rather
+soon, but one can always buy another."
+
+"True!" said Tom. "Very true! One can always buy another!" He paused,
+and seemed to collect his thoughts with an effort,--then noticing the
+half-glass of brandy he had left on the counter, he took it up and drank
+it all off at a gulp. "Have you ever had any accidents on the road?"
+
+"Accidents?" Lord Wrotham put up an eyeglass. "Accidents? What do you
+mean?"
+
+"Why, what should I mean except what I say!" And Tom gave a sudden loud
+laugh,--a laugh which made the hostess at the bar start nervously, while
+many of the men seated round the various tables exchanged uneasy
+glances. "Accidents are accidents all the world over! Haven't you ever
+been thrown out, upset, shaken in body, broken in bone, or otherwise
+involved in mischief?"
+
+Lord Wrotham smiled, and let his eyeglass fall with a click against his
+top waistcoat button.
+
+"Never!" he said, taking his cigar from his mouth, looking at it, and
+then replacing it with a relish--"I'm too fond of my own life to run any
+risk of losing it. Other people's lives don't matter so much, but mine
+is precious! Eh, Brookfield?"
+
+Brookfield chuckled himself purple in the face over this pleasantry, and
+declared that his lordship's wit grew sharper with every day of his
+existence. Meanwhile Tom o' the Gleam moved a step or two nearer to
+Wrotham.
+
+"You're a lucky lord!" he said, and again he laughed discordantly. "Very
+lucky! But you don't mean to tell me that while you're pounding along at
+full speed, you've never upset anything in your way?--never knocked down
+an old man or woman,--never run over a dog,--or a child?"
+
+"Oh, well, if you mean that kind of thing!" murmured Wrotham, puffing
+placidly at his cigar--"Of course! That's quite common! We're always
+running over something or other, aren't we, Brookie?"
+
+"Always!" declared that gentleman pleasantly. "Really it's half the
+fun!"
+
+"Positively it is, don't-cher-know!" and his lordship played again with
+his enamelled pig--"But it's not our fault. If things will get into our
+way, we can't wait till they get out. We're bound to ride over them. Do
+you remember that old hen, Brookie?"
+
+Brookfield spluttered into a laugh, and nodded in the affirmative.
+
+"There it was skipping over the road in front of us in as great a hurry
+as ever hen was," went on Wrotham. "Going back to its family of eggs per
+express waddle! Whiz! Pst--and all its eggs and waddles were over! By
+Jove, how we screamed! Ha--ha--ha!--he--he--he!"
+
+Lord Wrotham's laugh resembled that laugh peculiar to "society"
+folk,--the laugh civil-sniggering, which is just a tone between the
+sheep's bleat and the peewit's cry. But no one laughed in response, and
+no one spoke. Some heavy spell was in the air like a cloud shadowing a
+landscape, and an imaginative onlooker would have been inclined to think
+that this imperceptible mystic darkness had come in with Tom o' the
+Gleam and was centralising itself round him alone. Brookfield, seeing
+that his lordly patron was inclined to talk, and that he was evidently
+anxious to narrate various "car" incidents, similar to the hen episode,
+took up the conversation and led it on.
+
+"It is really quite absurd," he said, "for any one of common sense to
+argue that a motorist can, could, or should pull up every moment for the
+sake of a few stray animals, or even people, when they don't seem to
+know or care where they are going. Now think of that child to-day! What
+an absolute little idiot! Gathering wild thyme and holding it out to the
+car going full speed! No wonder we knocked it over!"
+
+The hostess of the inn looked up quickly.
+
+"I hope it was not hurt?" she said.
+
+"Oh dear no!" answered Lord Wrotham lightly. "It just fell back and
+turned a somersault in the grass,--evidently enjoying itself. It had a
+narrow escape though!"
+
+Tom o' the Gleam stared fixedly at him. Once or twice he essayed to
+speak, but no sound came from his twitching lips. Presently, with an
+effort, he found his voice.
+
+"Did you--did you stop the car and go back to see--to see if--if it was
+all right?" he asked, in curiously harsh, monotonous accents.
+
+"Stop the car? Go back? By Jove, I should think not indeed! I'd lost too
+much time already through taking a wrong turning. The child was all
+right enough."
+
+"Are you sure?" muttered Tom thickly. "Are you--quite--sure?"
+
+"Sure?" And Wrotham again had recourse to his eyeglass, which he stuck
+in one eye, while he fixed his interlocutor with a supercilious glance.
+"Of course I'm sure! What the devil d' ye take me for? It was a mere
+beggar's brat anyhow--there are too many of such little wretches running
+loose about the roads--regular nuisances--a few might be run over with
+advantage--Hullo! What now? What's the matter? Keep your distance,
+please!" For Tom suddenly threw up his clenched fists with an
+inarticulate cry of rage, and now leaped towards Wrotham in the attitude
+of a wild beast springing on its prey. "Hands off! Hands off, I say!
+Damn you, leave me alone! Brookfield! Here! Some one get a hold of this
+fellow! He's mad!"
+
+But before Brookfield or any other man could move to his assistance, Tom
+had pounced upon him with all the fury of a famished tiger.
+
+"God curse you!" he panted, between the gasps of his labouring
+breath--"God burn you for ever in Hell!"
+
+Down on the ground he hurled him, clutching him round the neck, and
+choking every attempt at a cry. Then falling himself in all his huge
+height, breadth, and weight, upon Wrotham's prone body he crushed it
+under and held it beneath him, while, with appalling swiftness and
+vehemence, he plunged a drawn claspknife deep in his victim's throat,
+hacking the flesh from left to right, from right to left with reckless
+ferocity, till the blood spurted about him in horrid crimson jets, and
+gushed in a dark pool on the floor.
+
+Piercing screams from the women, groans and cries from the men, filled
+the air, and the lately peaceful scene was changed to one of maddening
+confusion. Brookfield rushed wildly through the open door of the inn
+into the village street, yelling: "Help! Help! Murder! Help!" and in
+less than five minutes the place was filled with an excited crowd.
+"Tom!" "Tom o' the Gleam!" ran in frightened whispers from mouth to
+mouth. David Helmsley, giddy with the sudden shock of terror, rose
+shuddering from his place with a vague idea of instant flight in his
+mind, but remained standing inert, half paralysed by sheer panic, while
+several men surrounded Tom, and dragged him forcibly up from the ground
+where he lay, still grasping his murdered man. As they wrenched the
+gypsy's grappling arms away, Wrotham fell back on the floor, stone dead.
+Life had been thrust out of him with the first blow dealt him by Tom's
+claspknife, which had been aimed at his throat as a butcher aims at the
+throat of a swine. His bleeding corpse presented a frightful spectacle,
+the head being nearly severed from the body.
+
+Brookfield, shaking all over, turned his back upon the awful sight, and
+kept on running to and fro and up and down the street, clamouring like a
+madman for the police. Two sturdy constables presently came, their
+appearance restoring something like order. To them Tom o' the Gleam
+advanced, extending his blood-stained hands.
+
+"I am ready!" he said, in a quiet voice. "I am the murderer!"
+
+They looked at him. Then, by way of precaution, one of them clasped a
+pair of manacles on his wrists. The other, turning his eyes to the
+corpse on the floor, recoiled in horror.
+
+"Throw something over it!" he commanded.
+
+He was obeyed, and the dreadful remains of what had once been human,
+were quickly shrouded from view.
+
+"How did this happen?" was the next question put by the officer of the
+law who had already spoken, opening his notebook.
+
+A chorus of eager tongues answered him, Brookfield's excited explanation
+echoing above them all. His dear friend, his great, noble, good friend
+had been brutally murdered! His friend was Lord Wrotham, of Wrotham
+Hall, Blankshire! A break-down had occurred within half a mile of Blue
+Anchor, and Lord Wrotham had taken rooms at the present inn for the
+night. His lordship had condescended to enter into a friendly
+conversation with the ruffian now under arrest, who, without the
+slightest cause or provocation whatsoever, had suddenly attacked and
+overthrown his lordship, and plunged a knife into his lordship's throat!
+He himself was James Brookfield, proprietor of the _Daily Post-Bag_, the
+_Pictorial Pie_, and the _Illustrated Invoice_, and he should make this
+outrageous, this awful crime a warning to motorists throughout the
+world----!"
+
+"That will do, thank you," said the officer briefly--then he gave a
+sharp glance around him--"Where's the landlady?"
+
+She had fled in terror from the scene, and some one went in search of
+her, returning with the poor woman and her two daughters, all of them
+deathly pale and shivering with dread.
+
+"Don't be frightened, mother!" said one of the constables kindly--"No
+harm will come to you. Just tell us what you saw of this affair--that's
+all."
+
+Whereat the poor hostess, her narrative interrupted by tears, explained
+that Tom o' the Gleam was a frequent customer of hers, and that she had
+never thought badly of him.
+
+"He was a bit excited to-night, but he wasn't drunk," she said. "He told
+me he was ill, and asked for a glass of brandy. He looked as if he were
+in great pain, and I gave him the brandy at once and asked him to step
+inside the bar. But he wouldn't do that,--he just stood talking with the
+gentlemen about motoring, and then something was said about a child
+being knocked over by the motor,--and all of a sudden----"
+
+Here her voice broke, and she sank on a seat half swooning, while
+Elizabeth, her eldest girl, finished the story in low, trembling tones.
+Tom o' the Gleam meanwhile stood rigidly upright and silent. To him the
+chief officer of the law finally turned.
+
+"Will you come with us quietly?" he asked, "or do you mean to give us
+trouble?"
+
+Tom lifted his dark eyes.
+
+"I shall give no man any more trouble," he answered. "I shall go nowhere
+save where I am taken. You need fear nothing from me now. But I must
+speak."
+
+The officer frowned warningly.
+
+"You'd better not!" he said.
+
+"I must!" repeated Tom. "You think,--all of you,--that I had no
+cause--no provocation--to kill the man who lies there"--and he turned a
+fierce glance upon the covered corpse, from which a dark stream of blood
+was trickling slowly along the floor--"I swear before God that I _had_
+cause!--and that my cause was just! I _had_ provocation!--the bitterest
+and worst! That man was a murderer as surely as I am. Look yonder!" And
+lifting his manacled hands he extended them towards the bench where lay
+the bundle covered with horse-cloth, which he had carried in his arms
+and set down when he had first entered the inn. "Look, I say!--and then
+tell me I had no cause!"
+
+With an uneasy glance one of the officers went up to the spot indicated,
+and hurriedly, yet fearfully, lifted the horse-cloth and looked under
+it. Then uttering an exclamation of horror and pity, he drew away the
+covering altogether, and disclosed to view the dead body of a child,--a
+little curly-headed lad,--lying as if it were asleep, a smile on its
+pretty mouth, and a bunch of wild thyme clasped in the clenched fingers
+of its small right hand.
+
+"My God! It's Kiddie!"
+
+The exclamation was uttered almost simultaneously by every one in the
+room, and the girl Elizabeth sprang forward.
+
+"Oh, not Kiddie!" she cried--"Oh, surely not Kiddie! Oh, the poor little
+darling!--the pretty little man!"
+
+And she fell on her knees beside the tiny corpse and gave way to a wild
+fit of weeping.
+
+There was an awful silence, broken only by her sobbing. Men turned away
+and covered their eyes--Brookfield edged himself stealthily through the
+little crowd and sneaked out into the open air--and the officers of the
+law stood inactive. Helmsley felt the room whirling about him in a
+sickening blackness, and sat down to steady himself, the stinging tears
+rising involuntarily in his throat and almost choking him.
+
+"Oh, Kiddie!" wailed Elizabeth again, looking up in plaintive
+appeal--"Oh, mother, mother, see! Grace come here! Kiddie's dead! The
+poor innocent little child!" They came at her call, and knelt with her,
+crying bitterly, and smoothing back with tender hands the thickly
+tangled dark curls of the smiling dead thing, with the fragrance of wild
+thyme clinging about it, as though it were a broken flower torn from the
+woods where it had blossomed. Tom o' the Gleam watched them, and his
+broad chest heaved with a sudden gasping sigh.
+
+"You all know now," he said slowly, staring with strained piteous eyes
+at the little lifeless body--"you understand,--the motor killed my
+Kiddie! He was playing on the road--I was close by among the trees--I
+saw the cursed car coming full speed downhill--I rushed to take the boy,
+but was too late--he cried once--and then--silence! All the laughter
+gone out of him--all the life and love----" He paused with a
+shudder.--"I carried him all the way, and followed the car," he went
+on--"I would have followed it to the world's end! I ran by a short cut
+down near the sea,--and then--I saw the thing break down. I thanked God
+for that! I tracked the murderers here,--I meant to kill the man who
+killed my child!--and I have done it!" He paused again. Then he held out
+his hands and looked at the constable.
+
+"May I--before I go--take him in my arms--and kiss him?" he asked.
+
+The chief officer nodded. He could not speak, but he unfastened Tom's
+manacles and threw them on the floor. Then Tom himself moved feebly and
+unsteadily to where the women knelt beside his dead child. They rose as
+he approached, but did not turn away.
+
+"You have hearts, you women!" he said faintly. "You know what it is to
+love a child! And Kiddie,--Kiddie was such a happy little fellow!--so
+strong and hearty!--so full of life! And now--now he's stiff and cold!
+Only this morning he was jumping and laughing in my arms----" He broke
+off, trembling violently, then with an effort he raised his head and
+turned his eyes with a wild stare upon all around him. "We are only poor
+folk!" he went on, in a firmer voice. "Only gypsies, tinkers,
+road-menders, labourers, and the like! We cannot fight against the rich
+who ride us down! There's no law for us, because we can't pay for it. We
+can't fee the counsel or dine the judge! The rich can pay. They can
+trample us down under their devilish motor-cars, and obliging juries
+will declare our wrongs and injuries and deaths to be mere 'accident' or
+'misadventure'! But if _they_ can kill, by God!--so can _we_! And if the
+law lets them off for murdering our children, we must take the law into
+our own hands and murder _them_ in turn--ay! even if we swing for it!"
+
+No one spoke. The women still sobbed convulsively, but otherwise there
+was a great silence. Tom o' the Gleam stretched forth his hands with an
+eloquent gesture of passion.
+
+"Look at him lying there!" he cried--"Only a child--a little child! So
+pretty and playful!--all his joy was in the birds and flowers! The
+robins knew him and would perch on his shoulder,--he would call to the
+cuckoo,--he would race the swallow,--he would lie in the grass and sing
+with the skylark and talk to the daisies. He was happy with the simplest
+things--and when we put him to bed in his little hammock under the
+trees, he would smile up at the stars and say: 'Mother's up there!
+Good-night, mother!' Oh, the lonely trees, and the empty hammock! Oh, my
+lad!--my little pretty lad! Murdered! Murdered! Gone from me for ever!
+For ever! God! God!"
+
+Reeling heavily forward, he sank in a crouching heap beside the child's
+dead body and snatched it into his embrace, kissing the little cold lips
+and cheeks and eyelids again and again, and pressing it with frantic
+fervour against his breast.
+
+"The dark hour!" he muttered--"the dark hour! To-day when I came away
+over the moors I felt it creeping upon me! Last night it whispered to
+me, and I felt its cold breath hissing against my ears! When I climbed
+down the rocks to the seashore, I heard it wailing in the waves!--and
+through the hollows of the rocks it shrieked an unknown horror at me!
+Who was it that said to-day--'He is only a child after all, and he might
+be taken from you'? I remember!--it was Miss Tranter who spoke--and she
+was sorry afterwards--ah, yes!--she was sorry!--but it was the spirit of
+the hour that moved her to the utterance of a warning--she could not
+help herself,--and I--I should have been more careful!--I should not
+have left my little one for a moment,--but I never thought any harm
+could come to him--no, never to _him_! I was always sure God was too
+good for that!"
+
+Moaning drearily, he rocked the dead boy to and fro.
+
+"Kiddie--my Kiddie!" he murmured--"Little one with my love's
+eyes!--heart's darling with my love's face! Don't go to sleep,
+Kiddie!--not just yet!--wake up and kiss me once!--only once again,
+Kiddie!"
+
+"Oh, Tom!" sobbed Elizabeth,--"Oh, poor, poor Tom!"
+
+At the sound of her voice he raised his head and looked up at her. There
+was a strange expression on his face,--a fixed and terrible stare in his
+eyes. Suddenly he broke into a wild laugh.
+
+"Ha-ha!" he cried. "Poor Tom! Tom o' the Gleam! That's me!--the me that
+was not always me! Not always me--no!--not always Tom o' the Gleam! It
+was a bold life I led in the woods long ago!--a life full of sunshine
+and laughter--a life for a man with man's blood in his veins! Away out
+in the land that once was old Provence, we jested and sang the hours
+away,--the women with their guitars and mandolines--the men with their
+wild dances and tambourines,--and love was the keynote of the
+music--love!--always love! Love in the sunshine!--love under the
+moonbeams!--bright eyes in which to drown one's soul,--red lips on which
+to crush one's heart!--Ah, God!--such days when we were young!
+
+    'Ah! Craignons de perdre un seul jour,
+    De la belle saison de l'amour!'"
+
+He sang these lines in a rich baritone, clear and thrilling with
+passion, and the men grouped about him, not understanding what he sang,
+glanced at one another with an uneasy sense of fear. All at once he
+struggled to his feet without assistance, and stood upright, still
+clasping the body of his child in his arms.
+
+"Come, come!" he said thickly--"It's time we were off, Kiddie! We must
+get across the moor and into camp. It's time for all lambs to be in the
+fold;--time to go to bed, my little lad! Good-night, mates! Good-night!
+I know you all,--and you all know me--you like fair play! Fair play all
+round, eh? Not one law for the rich and another for the poor! Even
+justice, boys! Justice! Justice!"
+
+Here his voice broke in a great and awful cry,--blood sprang from his
+lips--his face grew darkly purple,--and like a huge tree snapped asunder
+by a storm, he reeled heavily to the ground. One of the constables
+caught him as he fell.
+
+"Hold up, Tom!" he said tremulously, the thick tears standing in his
+eyes. "Don't give way! Be a man! Hold up! Steady! Here, let me take the
+poor Kiddie!"
+
+For a ghastly pallor was stealing over Tom's features, and his lips were
+widely parted in a gasping struggle for breath.
+
+"No--no!--don't take my boy!" he muttered feebly. "Let me--keep
+him--with me! God is good--good after all!--we shall not--be parted!"
+
+A strong convulsion shook his sinewy frame from head to foot, and he
+writhed in desperate agony. The officer put an arm under his head, and
+made an expressive sign to the awed witnesses of the scene. Helmsley,
+startled at this, came hurriedly forward, trembling and scarcely able to
+speak in the extremity of his fear and pity.
+
+"What--what is it?" he stammered. "Not--not----?"
+
+"Death! That's what it is!" said the officer, gently. "His heart's
+broken!"
+
+One rough fellow here pushed his way to the side of the fallen man,--it
+was the cattle-driver who had taken part in the previous conversation
+among the customers at the inn before the occurrence of the tragedy. He
+knelt down, sobbing like a child.
+
+"Tom!" he faltered, "Tom, old chap! Hearten up a bit! Don't leave us!
+There's not one of us us'll think ill of ye!--no, not if the law was to
+shut ye up for life! You was allus good to us poor folk--an' poor folk
+aint as forgittin' o' kindness as rich. Stay an' help us along,
+Tom!--you was allus brave an' strong an' hearty--an' there's many of us
+wantin' comfort an' cheer, eh Tom?"
+
+Tom's splendid dark eyes opened, and a smile, very wan and wistful,
+gleamed across his lips.
+
+"Is that you, Jim?" he muttered feebly. "It's all dark and cold!--I
+can't see!--there'll be a frost to-night, and the lambs must be watched
+a bit--I'm afraid I can't help you, Jim--not to-night! Wanting comfort,
+did you say? Ay!--plenty wanting that, but I'm past giving it, my boy!
+I'm done."
+
+He drew a struggling breath with pain and difficulty.
+
+"You see, Jim, I've killed a man!" he went on,
+gaspingly--"And--and--I've no money--we all share and share alike in
+camp--it won't be worth any one's while to find excuses for me. They'd
+shut me up in prison if I lived--but now--God's my judge! And He's
+merciful--He's giving me my liberty!"
+
+His eyelids fell wearily, and a shadow, dark at first, and then
+lightening into an ivory pallor, began to cover his features like a fine
+mask, at sight of which the girls, Elizabeth and Grace, with their
+mother, knelt down and hid their faces. Every one in the room knelt too,
+and there was a profound stillness. Tom's breathing grew heavier and
+more laboured,--once they made an attempt to lift the weight of his
+child's dead body from his breast, but his hands were clenched upon it
+convulsively and they could not loosen his hold. All at once Elizabeth
+lifted her head and prayed aloud--
+
+"O God, have mercy on our poor friend Tom, and help him through the
+Valley of the Shadow! Grant him Thy forgiveness for all his sins, and
+let him find----" here she broke down and sobbed pitifully,--then
+between her tears she finished her petition--"Let him find his little
+child with Thee!"
+
+A low and solemn "Amen" was the response to her prayer from all present,
+and suddenly Tom opened his eyes with a surprised bright look.
+
+"Is Kiddie all right?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, Tom!" It was Elizabeth who answered, bending over him--"Kiddie's
+all right! He's fast asleep in your arms."
+
+"So he is!" And the brilliancy in Tom's eyes grew still more radiant,
+while with one hand he caressed the thick dark curls that clustered on
+the head of his dead boy--"Poor little chap! Tired out, and so am I!
+It's very cold surely!"
+
+"Yes, Tom, it is. Very cold!"
+
+"I thought so! I--I must keep the child warm. They'll be worried in camp
+over all this--Kiddie never stays out so late. He's such a little
+fellow--only four!--and he goes to bed early always. And when--when he's
+asleep--why then--then--the day's over for me,--and night begins--night
+begins!"
+
+The smile lingered on his lips, and settled there at last in coldest
+gravity,--the fine mask of death covered his features with an
+impenetrable waxen stillness--all was over! Tom o' the Gleam had gone
+with his slain child, and the victim he had sacrificed to his revenge,
+into the presence of that Supreme Recorder who chronicles all deeds both
+good and evil, and who, in the character of Divine Justice, may,
+perchance, find that the sheer brutal selfishness of the modern social
+world is more utterly to be condemned, and more criminal even than
+murder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Sick at heart, and utterly overcome by the sudden and awful tragedy to
+which he had been an enforced silent witness, David Helmsley had now but
+one idea, and that was at once to leave the scene of horror which, like
+a ghastly nightmare, scarred his vision and dizzied his brain. Stumbling
+feebly along, and seeming to those who by chance noticed him, no more
+than a poor old tramp terrified out of his wits by the grief and
+confusion which prevailed, he made his way gradually through the crowd
+now pressing closely round the dead, and went forth into the village
+street. He held the little dog Charlie nestled under his coat, where he
+had kept it hidden all the evening,--the tiny creature was shivering
+violently with that strange consciousness of the atmosphere of death
+which is instinctive to so many animals,--and a vague wish to soothe its
+fears helped him for the moment to forget his own feelings. He would not
+trust himself to look again at Tom o' the Gleam, stretched lifeless on
+the ground with his slaughtered child clasped in his arms; he could not
+speak to any one of the terrified people. He heard the constables giving
+hurried orders for the removal of the bodies, and he saw two more police
+officers arrive and go into the stableyard of the inn, there to take the
+number of the motor-car and write down the full deposition of that
+potentate of the pictorial press, James Brookfield. And he knew, without
+any explanation, that the whole affair would probably be served up the
+next day in the cheaper newspapers as a "sensational" crime, so worded
+as to lay all the blame on Tom o' the Gleam, and to exonerate the act,
+and deplore the violent death of the "lordly" brute who, out of his
+selfish and wicked recklessness, had snatched away the life of an only
+child from its father without care or compunction. But it was the
+fearful swiftness of the catastrophe that affected Helmsley most,--that,
+and what seemed to him, the needless cruelty of fate. Only last night he
+had seen Tom o' the Gleam for the first time--only last night he had
+admired the physical symmetry and grace of the man,--his handsome head,
+his rich voice, and the curious refinement, suggestive of some past
+culture and education, which gave such a charm to his manner,--only last
+night he had experienced that little proof of human sympathy and
+kindliness which had shown itself in the gift of the few coins which Tom
+had collected and placed on his pillow,--only last night he had been
+touched by the herculean fellow's tenderness for his little
+"Kiddie,"--and now,--within the space of twenty-four hours, both father
+and child had gone out of life at a rush as fierce and relentless as the
+speed of the motor-car which had crushed a world of happiness under its
+merciless wheels. Was it right--was it just that such things should be?
+Could one believe in the goodness of God, in such a world of wanton
+wickedness? Moving along in a blind haze of bewilderment, Helmsley's
+thoughts were all disordered and his mind in a whirl,--what
+consciousness he had left to him was centred in an effort to get
+away--away!--far away from the scene of murder and death,--away from the
+scent and trail of blood which seemed to infect and poison the very air!
+
+It was a calm and lovely night. The moon rode high, and there was a soft
+wind blowing in from the sea. Out over the waste of heaving water, where
+the moonbeams turned the small rippling waves to the resemblance of
+netted links of silver or steel, the horizon stretched sharply clear and
+definite, like a line drawn under the finished chapter of vision. There
+was a gentle murmur of the inflowing tide among the loose stones and
+pebbles fringing the beach,--but to Helmsley's ears it sounded like the
+miserable moaning of a broken heart,--the wail of a sorrowful spirit in
+torture. He went on and on, with no very distinct idea of where he was
+going,--he simply continued to walk automatically like one in a dream.
+He did not know the time, but guessed it must be somewhere about
+midnight. The road was quite deserted, and its loneliness was to him, in
+his present over-wrought condition, appalling. Desolation seemed to
+involve the whole earth in gloom,--the trees stood out in the white
+shine of the moon like dark shrouded ghosts waving their cerements to
+and fro,--the fields and hills on either side of him were bare and
+solitary, and the gleam of the ocean was cold and cheerless as a "Dead
+Man's Pool." Slowly he plodded along, with a thousand disjointed
+fragments of thought and memory teasing his brain, all part and parcel
+of his recent experiences,--he seemed to have lived through a whole
+history of strange events since the herb-gatherer, Matt Peke, had
+befriended him on the road,--and the most curious impression of all was
+that he had somehow lost his own identity for ever. It was impossible
+and ridiculous to think of himself as David Helmsley, the
+millionaire,--there was, there could be no such person! David
+Helmsley,--the real David Helmsley,--was very old, very tired, very
+poor,--there was nothing left for him in this world save death. He had
+no children, no friends,--no one who cared for him or who wanted to know
+what had become of him. He was absolutely alone,--and in the hush of the
+summer night he fancied that the very moon looked down upon him with a
+chill stare as though wondering why he burdened the earth with his
+presence when it was surely time for him to die!
+
+It was not till he found that he was leaving the shore line, and that
+one or two gas lamps twinkled faintly ahead of him, that he realized he
+was entering the outskirts of a small town. Pausing a moment, he looked
+about him. A high-walled castle, majestically enthroned on a steep
+wooded height, was the first object that met his view,--every line of
+its frowning battlements and turrets was seen clearly against the sky as
+though etched out on a dark background with a pencil of light. A
+sign-post at the corner of a winding road gave the direction "To Dunster
+Castle." Reading this by the glimmer of the moon, Helmsley stood
+irresolute for a minute or so, and then resumed his tramp, proceeding
+through the streets of what he knew must be Dunster itself. He had no
+intention of stopping in the town,--an inward nervousness pushed him on,
+on, in spite of fatigue, and Dunster was not far enough away from Blue
+Anchor to satisfy him. The scene of Tom o' the Gleam's revenge and death
+surrounded him with a horrible environment,--an atmosphere from which he
+sought to free himself by sheer distance, and he resolved to walk till
+morning rather than remain anywhere near the place which was now
+associated in his mind with one of the darkest episodes of human guilt
+and suffering that he had ever known. Passing by the old inn known as
+"The Luttrell Arms," now fast closed for the night, a policeman on his
+beat stopped in his marching to and fro, and spoke to him.
+
+"Hillo! Which way do you come from?"
+
+"From Watchett."
+
+"Oh! We've just had news of a murder up at Blue Anchor. Have you heard
+anything of it?"
+
+"Yes." And Helmsley looked his questioner squarely in the face. "It's a
+terrible business! But the murderer's caught!"
+
+"Caught is he? Who's got him?"
+
+"Death!" And Helmsley, lifting his cap, stood bareheaded in the
+moonlight. "He'll never escape again!"
+
+The constable looked amazed and a little awed.
+
+"Death? Why, I heard it was that wild gypsy, Tom o' the Gleam----"
+
+"So it was,"--said Helmsley, gently,--"and Tom o' the Gleam is dead!"
+
+"No! Don't say that!" ejaculated the constable with real concern.
+"There's a lot of good in Tom! I shouldn't like to think he's gone!"
+
+"You'll find it's true," said Helmsley. "And perhaps, when you get all
+the details, you'll think it for the best. Good-night!"
+
+"Are you staying in Dunster?" queried the officer with a keen glance.
+
+"No. I'm moving on." And Helmsley smiled wearily as he again
+said--"Good-night!"
+
+He walked steadily, though slowly, through the sleeping town, and passed
+out of it. Ascending a winding bit of road he found himself once more in
+the open country, and presently came to a field where part of the fence
+had been broken through by the cattle. Just behind the damaged palings
+there was a covered shed, open in front, with a few bundles of straw
+packed within it. This place suggested itself as a fairly comfortable
+shelter for an hour's rest, and becoming conscious of the intense aching
+of his limbs, he took possession of it, setting the small "Charlie" down
+to gambol on the grass at pleasure. He was far more tired than he knew,
+and remembering the "yerb wine" which Matt Peke had provided him with,
+he took a long draught of it, grateful for its reviving warmth and tonic
+power. Then, half-dreamily, he watched the little dog whom he had
+rescued and befriended, and presently found himself vaguely entertained
+by the graceful antics of the tiny creature which, despite its wounded
+paw, capered limpingly after its own shadow flung by the moonlight on
+the greensward, and attempted in its own playful way to attract the
+attention of its new master and wile him away from his mood of utter
+misery. Involuntarily he thought of the frenzied cry of Shakespeare's
+"Lear" over the dead body of Cordelia:--
+
+    "What! Shall a dog, a horse, a rat, have life
+    And thou no breath at all!"
+
+What curious caprice of destiny was it that saved the life of a dog, yet
+robbed a father of his child? Who could explain it? Why should a happy
+innocent little lad like Tom o' the Gleam's "Kiddie" have been hurled
+out of existence in a moment as it were by the mad speed of a motor's
+wheels,--and a fragile "toy" terrier, the mere whim of dog-breeders and
+plaything for fanciful women, be plucked from starvation and death as
+though the great forces of creation deemed it more worth cherishing than
+a human being! For the murder of Lord Wrotham, Helmsley found
+excuse,--for the death of Tom there was ample natural cause,--but for
+the wanton killing of a little child no reason could justly be assigned.
+Propping his elbows on his knees, and resting his aching head on his
+hands, he thought and thought,--till Thought became almost as a fire in
+his brain. What was the use of life? he asked himself. What definite
+plan or object could there possibly be in the perpetuation of the human
+race?
+
+    "To pace the same dull round
+      On each recurring day,
+    For seventy years or more
+      Till strength and hope decay,--
+    To trust,--and be deceived,--
+      And standing,--fear to fall!
+    To find no resting-place--
+      _Can this be all?_"
+
+Beginning with hope and eagerness, and having confidence in the good
+faith of his fellow-men, had he not himself fought a hard fight in the
+world, setting before him a certain goal,--a goal which he had won and
+passed,--to what purpose? In youth he had been very poor,--and poverty
+had served him as a spur to ambition. In middle life he had become one
+of the richest men in the world. He had done all that rich and ambitious
+men set themselves out to do. He might have said with the Preacher:
+
+"Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them,--I withheld not my
+heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced in all my labour, and this was
+my portion of all my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my
+hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do, and
+behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit
+under the sun."
+
+He had loved,--or rather, he had imagined he loved,--he had married, and
+his wife had dishonoured him. Sons had been born to him, who, with their
+mother's treacherous blood in their veins, had brought him to shame by
+their conduct,--and now all the kith and kin he had sought to surround
+himself with were dead, and he was alone--as alone as he had ever been
+at the very commencement of his career. Had his long life of toil led
+him only to this? With a sense of dull disappointment, his mind reverted
+to the plan he had half entertained of benefiting Tom o' the Gleam in
+some way and making him happy by prospering the fortunes of the child he
+loved so well,--though he was fully aware that perhaps he could not have
+done much in that direction, as it was more than likely that Tom would
+have resented the slightest hint of a rich man's patronage. Death,
+however, in its fiercest shape, had now put an abrupt end to any such
+benevolent scheme, whether or not it might have been feasible,--and,
+absorbed in a kind of lethargic reverie, he again and again asked
+himself what use he was in the world?--what could he do with the brief
+remaining portion of his life?--and how he could dispose, to his own
+satisfaction, of the vast wealth which, like a huge golden mill-stone,
+hung round his neck, dragging him down to the grave? Such poor people as
+he had met with during his tramp seemed fairly contented with their lot;
+he, at any rate, had heard no complaints of poverty from them. On the
+contrary, they had shown an independence of thought and freedom of life
+which was wholly incompatible with the mere desire of money. He could
+put a five-pound note in an envelope and post it anonymously to Matt
+Peke at the "Trusty Man" as a slight return for his kindness, but he was
+quite sure that though Matt might be pleased enough with the money he
+would equally be puzzled, and not entirely satisfied in his mind as to
+whether he was doing right to accept and use it. It would probably be
+put in a savings bank for a "rainy day."
+
+"It is the hardest thing in the world to do good with money!" he mused,
+sorrowfully. "Of course if I were to say this to the unthinking
+majority, they would gape upon me and exclaim--'Hard to do good! Why,
+there's nothing so easy! There are thousands of poor,--there are the
+hospitals--the churches!' True,--but the thousands of _real_ poor are
+not so easily found! There are thousands, ay, millions of 'sham' poor.
+But the _real_ poor, who never ask for anything,--who would not know how
+to write a begging letter, and who would shrink from writing it even if
+they did know--who starve patiently, suffer uncomplainingly, and die
+resignedly--these are as difficult to meet with as diamonds in a coal
+mine. As for hospitals, do I not know how many of them pander to the
+barbarous inhumanity of vivisection!--and have I not experienced to the
+utmost dregs of bitterness, the melting of cash through the hands of
+secretaries and under-secretaries, and general Committee-ism, and Red
+Tape-ism, while every hundred thousand pounds bestowed on these
+necessary institutions turns out in the end to be a mere drop in the sea
+of incessant demand, though the donors may possibly purchase a
+knighthood, a baronetcy, or even a peerage, in return for their gifts!
+And the churches!--my God!--as Madame Roland said of Liberty, what
+crimes are committed in Thy Name!"
+
+He looked up at the sky through the square opening of the shed, and saw
+the moon, now changed in appearance and surrounded by a curious luminous
+halo like the nimbus with which painters encircle the head of a saint.
+It was a delicate aureole of prismatic radiance, and seemed to have
+swept suddenly round the silver planet in companionship with a light
+mist from the sea,--a mist which was now creeping slowly upwards and
+covering the land with a glistening wetness as of dew. A few fleecy
+clouds, pale grey and white, were floating aloft in the western half of
+the heavens, evoked by some magic touch of the wind.
+
+"It will soon be morning,"--thought Helmsley--"The sun will rise in its
+same old glorious way--with as measured and monotonous a circuit as it
+has made from the beginning. The Garden of Eden, the Deluge, the
+building of the Pyramids, the rise and fall of Rome, the conquests of
+Alexander, the death of Socrates, the murder of Cęsar, the crucifixion
+of Christ,--the sun has shone on all these things of beauty, triumph or
+horror with the same even radiance, always the generator of life and
+fruitfulness, itself indifferent as to what becomes of the atoms
+germinated under its prolific heat and vitality. The sun takes no heed
+whether a man dies or lives--neither does God!"
+
+Yet with this idea came a sudden revulsion. Surely in the history of
+human events, there was ample proof that God, or the invisible Power we
+call by that name, did care? Crime was, and is, always followed by
+punishment, sooner or later. Who ordained,--who ordains that this shall
+be? Who is it that distinguishes between Right and Wrong, and adjusts
+the balance accordingly? Not Man,--for Man in a barbarous state is often
+incapable of understanding moral law, till he is trained to it by the
+evolution of his being and the ever-progressive working of the unseen
+spiritual forces. And the first process of his evolution is the
+awakening of conscience, and the struggle to rise from his mere Self to
+a higher ideal of life,--from material needs to intellectual
+development. Why is he thus invariably moved towards this higher ideal?
+If the instinct were a mistaken one, foredoomed to disappointment, it
+would not be allowed to exist. Nature does not endow us with any sense
+of which we do not stand in need, or any attribute which is useless to
+us in the shaping and unfolding of our destinies. True it is that we see
+many a man and woman who appear to have no souls, but we dare not infer
+from these exceptions that the soul does not exist. Soulless beings
+simply have no need of spirituality, just as the night-owl has no need
+of the sun,--they are bodies merely, and as bodies perish. As the angel
+said to the prophet Esdras:--"The Most High hath made this world for
+many, but the world to come for few. I will tell thee a similitude,
+Esdras; As when thou askest the earth, it shall say unto thee that it
+giveth much mould whereof earthern vessels are made, but little dust
+that gold cometh of, even so is the course of this present world!"
+
+Weary of arguing with himself, Helmsley tried to reflect back on certain
+incidents of his youth, which now in his age came out like prominent
+pictures in the gallery of his brain. He remembered the pure and simple
+piety which distinguished his mother, who lived her life out as sweetly
+as a flower blooms,--thanking God every morning and night for His
+goodness to her, even at times when she was most sorrowful,--he thought
+of his little sister, dead in the springtime of her girlhood, who never
+had a doubt of the unfailing goodness and beneficence of her Creator,
+and who, when dying, smiled radiantly, and whispered with her last
+breath, "I wish you would not cry for me, Davie dear!--the next world is
+so beautiful!" Was this "next world" in her imagination, or was it a
+fact? Materialists would, of course, say it was imagination. But, in the
+light of present-day science and discovery, who can pin one's faith on
+Materialism?
+
+"I have missed the talisman that would have made all the darkness of
+life clear to me," he said at last, half aloud; "and missing it, I have
+missed everything of real value. Pain, loss, old age, and death would
+have been nothing to me, if I had only won that magic glory of the
+world--Love!"
+
+His eyes again wandered to the sky, and he noticed that the
+grey-and-white clouds in the west were rising still higher in fleecy
+pyramids, and were spreading with a wool-like thickness gradually over
+the whole heavens. The wind, too, had grown stronger, and its sighing
+sound had changed to a more strenuous moaning. The little dog, Charlie,
+tired of its master's gloomy absorption, jumped on his knee, and
+intimated by eloquent looks and wagging tail a readiness to be again
+nestled into some cosy corner. The shed was warm and comfortable, and
+after some brief consideration, he decided to try and sleep for an hour
+or so before again starting on his way. With this object in view, he
+arranged the packages of straw which filled one side of the shed into
+the form of an extemporary couch, which proved comfortable enough when
+he lay down with Charlie curled up beside him. He could not help
+thinking of the previous night, when he had seen the tall figure of Tom
+o' the Gleam approaching his bedside at the "Trusty Man," with the
+little "surprise" gift he had so stealthily laid upon his pillow,--and
+it was difficult to realise or to believe that the warm, impulsive heart
+had ceased to beat, and that all that splendid manhood was now but
+lifeless clay. He tried not to see the horribly haunting vision of the
+murdered Wrotham, with that terrible gash in his throat, and the blood
+pouring from it,--he strove to forget the pitiful picture of the little
+dead "Kiddie" in the arms of its maddened and broken-hearted father--but
+the impression was too recent and too ghastly for forgetfulness.
+
+"And yet with it all," he mused, "Tom o' the Gleam had what I have never
+possessed--love! And perhaps it is better to die--even in the awful way
+he died--in the very strength and frenzy of love--rather than live
+loveless!"
+
+Here Charlie heaved a small sigh, and nestled a soft silky head close
+against his breast. "I love you!" the little creature seemed to say--"I
+am only a dog--but I want to comfort you if I can!" And he
+murmured--"Poor Charlie! Poor wee Charlie!" and, patting the flossy coat
+of his foundling, was conscious of a certain consolation in the mere
+companionship of an animal that trusted to him for protection.
+
+Presently he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. His brain was somewhat
+confused, and scraps of old songs and verses he had known in boyhood,
+were jumbled together without cause or sequence, varying in their turn
+with the events of his business, his financial "deals" and the general
+results of his life's work. He remembered quite suddenly and for no
+particular reason, a battle he had engaged in with certain directors of
+a company who had attempted to "better" him in a particularly important
+international trade transaction, and he recalled his own sweeping
+victory over them with a curious sense of disgust. What did it
+matter--now?--whether he had so many extra millions, or so many more
+degrees of power? Certain lines of Tennyson's seemed to contain greater
+truths than all the money-markets of the world could supply:--
+
+    "O let the solid earth
+      Not fail beneath my feet,
+    Before my life has found
+      What some have found so sweet--
+    Then let come what come may,
+      What matter if I go mad,
+    I shall have had my day!
+
+    "Let the sweet heavens endure
+      Not close and darken above me,
+    Before I am quite, quite sure
+      That there is one to love me;
+    Then let come what come may
+      To a life that has been so sad,
+    I shall have had my day!"
+
+He murmured this last verse over and over again till it made mere
+monotony in his mind, and till at last exhausted nature had its way and
+lulled his senses into a profound slumber. Strange to say, as soon as he
+was fast asleep, Charlie woke up. Perking his little ears sharply, he
+sat briskly erect on his tiny haunches, his forepaws well placed on his
+master's breast, his bright eyes watchfully fixed on the opening of the
+shed, and his whole attitude expressing that he considered himself "on
+guard." It was evident that had the least human footfall broken the
+stillness, he would have made the air ring with as much noise as he was
+capable of. He had a vibrating bark of his own, worthy of a much larger
+animal, and he appeared to be anxiously waiting for an opportunity to
+show off this special accomplishment. No such chance, however, offered
+itself; the minutes and hours went by in undisturbed order. Now and then
+a rabbit scampered across the field, or an owl flew through the trees
+with a plaintive cry,--otherwise, so far as the immediate surroundings
+of the visible land were concerned, everything was perfectly calm. But
+up in the sky there were signs of gathering trouble. The clouds had
+formed into woollier masses,--their grey had changed to black, their
+white to grey, and the moon, half hidden, appeared to be hurrying
+downward to the west in a flying scud of etheric foam. Some disturbance
+was brewing in the higher altitudes of air, and a low snarling murmur
+from the sea responded to what was, perchance, the outward gust of a
+fire-tempest in the sun. The small Charlie was, no doubt, quite ignorant
+of meteorological portents, nevertheless he kept himself wide awake,
+sniffing at empty space in a highly suspicious manner, his tiny black
+nose moist with aggressive excitement, and his whole miniature being
+prepared to make "much ado about nothing" on the smallest provocation.
+
+The morning broke sullenly, in a dull haze, though here and there pale
+patches of blue, and flushes of rose-pink, showed how fair the day would
+willingly have made itself, had only the elements been propitious.
+Helmsley slept well on through the gradual unfolding of the dawn, and it
+was fully seven o'clock when he awoke with a start, scarcely knowing
+where he was. Charlie hailed his return to consciousness with marked
+enthusiasm, and dropping the sentry "Who goes there?" attitude,
+gambolled about him delightedly. Presently remembering his environment
+and the events which were a part of it, he quickly aroused himself, and
+carefully packing up all the bundles of straw in the shed, exactly as he
+had found them, he again went forth upon what he was disposed to
+consider now a penitential pilgrimage.
+
+"In old times," he said to himself, as he bathed his face and hands in a
+little running stream by the roadside--"kings, when they found
+themselves miserable and did not know why they were so, went to the
+church for consolation, and were told by the priests that they had
+sinned--and that it was their sins that made them wretched. And a
+journey taken with fasting was prescribed--much in the way that our
+fashionable physicians prescribe change of air, a limited diet and
+plenty of exercise to the luxurious feeders of our social hive. And the
+weary potentates took off their crowns and their royal robes, and
+trudged along as they were told--became tramps for the nonce, like me.
+But I need no priest to command what I myself ordain!"
+
+He resumed his onward way ploddingly and determinedly, though he was
+beginning to be conscious of an increasing weariness and lassitude which
+seemed to threaten him with a break-down ere long. But he would not
+think of this.
+
+"Other men have no doubt felt just as weak," he thought. "There are many
+on the road as old as I am and even older. I ought to be able to do of
+my own choice what others do from necessity. And if the worst comes to
+the worst, and I am compelled to give up my project, I can always get
+back to London in a few hours!"
+
+He was soon at Minehead, and found that quaint little watering-place
+fully astir; for so far as it could have a "season," that season was now
+on. A considerable number of tourists were about, and coaches and brakes
+were getting ready in the streets for those who were inclined to
+undertake the twenty miles drive from Minehead to Lynton. Seeing a
+baker's shop open he went in and asked the cheery-looking woman behind
+the counter if she would make him a cup of coffee, and let him have a
+saucer of milk for his little dog. She consented willingly, and showed
+him a little inner room, where she spread a clean white cloth on the
+table and asked him to sit down. He looked at her in some surprise.
+
+"I'm only 'on the road,'" he said--"Don't put yourself out too much for
+me."
+
+She smiled.
+
+"You'll pay for what you've ordered, I suppose?"
+
+"Certainly!"
+
+"Then you'll get just what everybody gets for their money,"--and her
+smile broadened kindly--"We don't make any difference between poor and
+rich."
+
+She retired, and he dropped into a chair, wearily. "We don't make any
+difference between poor and rich!" said this simple woman. How very
+simple she was! No difference between poor and rich! Where would
+"society" be if this axiom were followed! He almost laughed to think of
+it. A girl came in and brought his coffee with a plate of fresh
+bread-and-butter, a dish of Devonshire cream, a pot of jam, and a small
+round basket full of rosy apples,--also a saucer of milk which she set
+down on the floor for Charlie, patting him kindly as she did so, with
+many admiring comments on his beauty.
+
+"You've brought me quite a breakfast!" said Helmsley. "How much?"
+
+"Sixpence, please."
+
+"Only sixpence?"
+
+"That's all. It's a shilling with ham and eggs."
+
+Helmsley paid the humble coin demanded, and wondered where the "starving
+poor" came in, at any rate in Somersetshire. Any beggar on the road,
+making sixpence a day, might consider himself well fed with such a meal.
+Just as he drew up his chair to the table, a sudden gust of wind swept
+round the house, shaking the whole building, and apparently hurling the
+weight of its fury on the roof, for it sounded as if a whole stack of
+chimney-pots had fallen.
+
+"It's a squall,"--said the girl--"Father said there was a storm coming.
+It often blows pretty hard up this way."
+
+She went out, and left Helmsley to himself. He ate his meal, and fed
+Charlie with as much bread and milk as that canine epicure could
+consume,--and then sat for a while, listening to the curious hissing of
+the wind, which was like a suppressed angry whisper in his ears.
+
+"It will be rough weather,"--he thought--"Now shall I stay in Minehead,
+or go on?"
+
+Somehow, his experience of vagabondage had bred in him a certain
+restlessness, and he did not care to linger in any one place. An
+inexplicable force urged him on. He was conscious that he entertained a
+most foolish, most forlorn secret hope,--that of finding some yet
+unknown consolation,--of receiving some yet unobtained heavenly
+benediction. And he repeated again the lines:--
+
+    "Let the sweet heavens endure,
+      Not close and darken above me,
+    Before I am quite, quite sure
+      That there is one to love me!"
+
+Surely a Divine Providence there was who could read his heart's desire,
+and who could see how sincerely in earnest he was to find some channel
+wherein the current of his accumulated wealth might flow after his own
+death, to fruitfulness and blessing for those who truly deserved it.
+
+"Is it so much to ask of destiny--just one honest heart?" he inwardly
+demanded--"Is it so large a return to want from the world in which I
+have toiled so long--just one unselfish love? People would tell me I am
+too old to expect such a thing,--but I am not seeking the love of a
+lover,--that I know is impossible. But Love,--that most god-like of all
+emotions, has many phases, and a merely sexual attraction is the least
+and worst part of the divine passion. There is a higher form,--one far
+more lasting and perfect, in which Self has very little part,--and
+though I cannot give it a name, I am certain of its existence!"
+
+Another gust of wind, more furious than the last, whistled overhead and
+through the crannies of the door. He rose, and tucking Charlie warmly
+under his coat as before, he went out, pausing on his way to thank the
+mistress of the little bakery for the excellent meal he had enjoyed.
+
+"Well, you won't hurt on it," she said, smilingly; "it's plain, but it's
+wholesome. That's all we claim for it. Are you going on far?"
+
+"Yes, I'm bound for a pretty long tramp,"--he replied. "I'm walking to
+find friends in Cornwall."
+
+She opened her eyes in unfeigned wonder and compassion.
+
+"Deary me!" she ejaculated--"You've a stiff road before you. And to-day
+I'm afraid you'll be in for a storm."
+
+He glanced out through the shop-window.
+
+"It's not raining,"--he said.
+
+"Not yet,--but it's blowing hard,"--she replied--"And it's like to blow
+harder."
+
+"Never mind, I must risk it!" And he lifted his cap; "Good-day!"
+
+"Good-day! A safe journey to you!"
+
+"Thank you!"
+
+And, gratefully acknowledging the kindly woman's parting nod and smile,
+he stepped out of the shop into the street. There he found the wind had
+risen indeed. Showers of blinding dust were circling in the air,
+blotting out the view,--the sky was covered with masses of murky cloud
+drifting against each other in threatening confusion--and there was a
+dashing sound of the sea on the beach which seemed to be steadily
+increasing in volume and intensity. He paused for a moment under the
+shelter of an arched doorway, to place Charlie more comfortably under
+his arm and button his coat more securely, the while he watched the
+people in the principal thoroughfare struggling with the capricious
+attacks of the blast, which tore their hats off and sent them spinning
+across the road, and played mischievous havoc with women's skirts,
+blowing them up to the knees, and making a great exhibition of feet, few
+of which were worth looking at from any point of beauty or fitness. And
+then, all at once, amid the whirling of the gale, he heard a hoarse
+stentorian shouting--"Awful Murder! Local Crime! Murder of a Nobleman!
+Murder at Blue Anchor! Latest details!" and he started precipitately
+forward, walking hurriedly along with as much nervous horror as though
+he had been guiltily concerned in the deed with which the town was
+ringing. Two or three boys ran past him, with printed placards in their
+hands, which they waved in front of them, and on which in thick black
+letters could be seen:--"Murder of Lord Wrotham! Death of the Murderer!
+Appalling Tragedy at Blue Anchor!" And, for a few seconds, amid the
+confusion caused by the wind, and the wild clamour of the news-vendors,
+he felt as if every one were reeling pell-mell around him like persons
+on a ship at sea,--men with hats blown off,--women and children running
+aslant against the gale with hair streaming,--all eager to purchase the
+first papers which contained the account of a tragedy, enacted, as it
+were, at their very doors. Outside a little glass and china shop at the
+top of a rather hilly street a group of workingmen were standing, with
+the papers they had just bought in their hands, and Helmsley, as he
+trudged by, with stooping figure and bent head set against the wind,
+lingered near them a moment to hear them discuss the news.
+
+"Ah, poor Tom!" exclaimed one--"Gone at last! I mind me well how he used
+to say he'd die a bad death!"
+
+"What's a bad death?" queried another, gruffly--"And what's the truth
+about this here business anyhow? Newspapers is allus full o' lies.
+There's a lot about a lord that's killed, but precious little about
+Tom!"
+
+"That's so!" said an old farmer, who with spectacles on was leaning his
+back against the wall of the shop near which they stood, to shelter
+himself a little from the force of the gale, while he read the paper he
+held--"See here,--this lord was driving his motor along by Cleeve, and
+ran over Tom's child,--why, that's the poor Kiddie we used to see Tom
+carrying for miles on his shoulder----"
+
+"Ah, the poor lamb!" And a commiserating groan ran through the little
+group of attentive listeners.
+
+"And then,"--continued the farmer--"from what I can make out of this
+paper, Tom picked up his baby quite dead. Then he started to run all the
+way after the fellow whose motor car had killed it. That's nat'ral
+enough!"
+
+"Of course it is!" "I'd a' done it myself!" "Damn them motors!" muttered
+the chorus, fiercely.
+
+"If so be the motor 'ad gone on, Tom couldn't never 'ave caught up with
+it, even if he'd run till he dropped," went on the farmer--"but as luck
+would 'ave it, the thing broke down nigh to Blue Anchor, and Tom got his
+chance. Which he took. And--he killed this Lord Wrotham, whoever he
+is,--stuck him in the throat with a knife as though he were a pig!"
+
+There was a moment's horrified silence.
+
+"So he wor!" said one man, emphatically--"A right-down reg'lar
+road-hog!"
+
+"Then,"--proceeded the farmer, carefully studying the paper again--"Tom,
+'avin' done all his best an' worst in this world, gives himself up to
+the police, but just 'afore goin' off, asks if he may kiss his dead
+baby,----"
+
+A long pause here ensued. Tears stood in many of the men's eyes.
+
+"And," continued the farmer, with a husky and trembling voice--"he takes
+the child in his arms, an' all sudden like falls down dead. God rest
+him!"
+
+Another pause.
+
+"And what does the paper say about it all?" enquired one of the group.
+
+"It says--wait a minute!--it says--'Society will be plunged into
+mourning for Lord Wrotham, who was one of the most promising of our
+younger peers, and whose sporting tendencies made him a great favourite
+in Court circles.'"
+
+"That's a bit o' bunkum paid for by the fam'ly!" said a great hulking
+drayman who had joined the little knot of bystanders, flicking his whip
+as he spoke,--"Sassiety plunged into mourning for the death of a
+precious raskill, is it? I 'xpect it's often got to mourn that way! Rort
+an' rubbish! Tell ye what!--Tom o' the Gleam was worth a dozen o' your
+motorin' lords!--an' the hull countryside through Quantocks, ay, an'
+even across Exmoor, 'ull 'ave tears for 'im an' 'is pretty little Kiddie
+what didn't do no 'arm to anybody more'n a lamb skippin' in the fields.
+Tom worn't known in their blessed 'Court circles,'--but, by the
+Lord!--he'd got a grip o' the people's heart about here, an' the people
+don't forget their friends in a hurry! Who the devil cares for Lord
+Wrotham!"
+
+"Who indeed!" murmured the chorus.
+
+"An' who'll say a bad word for Tom o' the Gleam?"
+
+"Nobody!" "He wor a rare fine chap!" "We'll all miss him!" eagerly
+answered the chorus.
+
+With a curious gesture, half of grief, half of defiance, the drayman
+tore a scrap of black lining from his coat, and tied it to his whip.
+
+"Tom was pretty well known to be a terror to some folk,--specially liars
+an' raskills,"--he said--"An' I aint excusin' murder. But all the same
+I'm in mourning for Tom an' 'is little Kiddie, an' I don't care who
+knows it!"
+
+He went off, and the group dispersed, partly driven asunder by the
+increasing fury of the wind, which was now sweeping through the streets
+in strong, steady gusts, hurling everything before it. But Helmsley set
+his face to the storm and toiled on. He must get out of Minehead. This
+he felt to be imperative. He could not stay in a town which now for many
+days would talk of nothing else but the tragic death of Tom o' the
+Gleam. His nerves were shaken, and he felt himself to be mentally, as
+well as physically, distressed by the strange chance which had
+associated him against his will with such a grim drama of passion and
+revenge. He remembered seeing the fateful motor swing down that
+precipitous road near Cleeve,--he recalled its narrow escape from a
+complete upset at the end of the declivity when it had swerved round the
+corner and rushed on,--how little he had dreamed that a child's life had
+just been torn away by its reckless wheels!--and that child the
+all-in-the-world to Tom o' the Gleam! Tom must have tracked the motor by
+following some side-lane or short cut known only to himself, otherwise
+Helmsley thought he would hardly have escaped seeing him. But, in any
+case, the slow and trudging movements of an old man must have lagged
+far, far behind those of the strong, fleet-footed gypsy to whom the
+wildest hills and dales, cliffs and sea caves were all familiar ground.
+Like a voice from the grave, the reply Tom had given to Matt Peke at the
+"Trusty Man," when Matt asked him where he had come from, rang back upon
+his ears--"From the caves of Cornwall! From picking up drift on the
+shore and tracking seals to their lair in the hollows of the rocks! All
+sport, Matt! I live like a gentleman born, keeping or killing at my
+pleasure!"
+
+Shuddering at this recollection, Helmsley pressed on in the teeth of the
+blast, and a sudden shower of rain scudded by, stinging him in the face
+with the sharpness of needlepoints. The gale was so high, and the blown
+dust so thick on all sides, that he could scarcely see where he was
+going, but his chief effort was to get out of Minehead and away from all
+contact with human beings--for the time. In this he succeeded very soon.
+Once well beyond the town, he did not pause to make a choice of roads.
+He only sought to avoid the coast line, rightly judging that way to lie
+most open and exposed to the storm,--moreover the wind swooped in so
+fiercely from the sea, and the rising waves made such a terrific
+roaring, that, for the mere sake of greater quietness, he turned aside
+and followed a path which appeared to lead invitingly into some deep
+hollow of the hills. There seemed a slight chance of the weather
+clearing at noon, for though the wind was so high, the clouds were
+whitening under passing gleams of sunlight, and the scud of rain had
+passed. As he walked further and further he found himself entering a
+deep green valley--a cleft between high hills,--and though he had no
+idea which way it led him, he was pleased to have reached a
+comparatively sheltered spot where the force of the hurricane was not so
+fiercely felt, and where the angry argument of the sea was deadened by
+distance. There was a lovely perfume everywhere,--the dash of rain on
+the herbs and field flowers had brought out their scent, and the
+freshness of the stormy atmosphere was bracing and exhilarating. He put
+Charlie down on the grass, and was amused to see how obediently the tiny
+creature trotted after him, close at his heels, in the manner of a
+well-trained, well-taught lady's favourite. There was no danger of
+wheeled or motor traffic in this peaceful little glen, which appeared to
+be used solely by pedestrians. He rather wondered now and then whither
+it led, but was not very greatly concerned on the subject. What pleased
+him most was that he did not see a single human being anywhere or a sign
+of human habitation.
+
+Presently the path began to ascend, and he followed it upward. The climb
+became gradually steep and wearisome, and the track grew smaller, almost
+vanishing altogether among masses of loose stones, which had rolled down
+from the summits of the hills, and he had again to carry Charlie, who
+very strenuously objected to the contact of sharp flints against his
+dainty little feet. The boisterous wind now met him full-faced,--but,
+struggling against it, he finally reached a wide plateau, commanding a
+view of the surrounding country and the sea. Not a house was in
+sight;--all around him extended a chain of hills, like a fortress set
+against invading ocean,--and straight away before his eyes ocean itself
+rose and fell in a chaos of billowy blackness. What a sight it was!
+Here, from this point, he could take some measure and form some idea of
+the storm, which so far from abating as he had imagined it might, when
+passing through the protected seclusion of the valley he had just left,
+was evidently gathering itself together for a still fiercer onslaught.
+
+Breathless with his climbing exertions he stood watching the huge walls
+of water, built up almost solidly as it seemed, by one force and dashed
+down again by another,--it was as though great mountains lifted
+themselves over each other to peer at the sky and were driven back again
+to shapelessness and destruction. The spectacle was all the more grand
+and impressive to him, because where he now was he could not hear the
+full clamour of the rolling and retreating billows. The thunder of the
+surf was diminished to a sullen moan, which came along with the wind and
+clung to it like a concordant note in music, forming one sustained chord
+of wrath and desolation. Darkening steadily over the sea and densely
+over-spreading the whole sky, there were flying clouds of singular
+shape,--clouds tossed up into the momentary similitude of Titanesque
+human figures with threatening arms outstretched,--anon, to the filmly
+outlines of fabulous birds swooping downwards with jagged wings and
+ravenous beaks,--or twisting into columns and pyramids of vapour as
+though the showers of foam flung up by the waves had been caught in
+mid-air and suddenly frozen. Several sea-gulls were flying inland; two
+or three soared right over Helmsley's head with a plaintive cry. He
+turned to watch their graceful flight, and saw another phalanx of clouds
+coming up behind to meet and cope with those already hurrying in with
+the wind from the sea. The darkness of the sky was deepening every
+minute, and he began to feel a little uneasy. He realised that he had
+lost his way, and he looked on all sides for some glimpse of a main
+road, but could see none, and the path he had followed evidently
+terminated at the summit where he stood. To return to the valley he had
+left seemed futile, as it was only a way back to Minehead, which place
+he wished to avoid. There was a small sheep track winding down on the
+other side of the hill, and he thought it possible that this might lead
+to a farm-road, which again might take him out on some more direct
+highway. He therefore started to follow it. He could scarcely walk
+against the wind; it blew with such increasing fury. Charlie shivered
+away from its fierce breath and snuggled his tiny body more warmly under
+his protector's arm, withdrawing himself entirely from view. And now
+with a sudden hissing whirl, down came the rain. The two opposing forces
+of cloud met with a sudden rush, and emptied their pent-up torrents on
+the earth, while a low muttering noise, not of the wind, betokened
+thunder. The prolonged heat of the last month had been very great all
+over the country, and a suppressed volcano was smouldering in the heart
+of the heavens, ready to shoot forth fire. The roaring of the sea grew
+more distinct as Helmsley descended from the height and came nearer to
+the coast line,--and the mingled scream of the angry surf on the shore
+and the sword-like sweep of the rain, rang in his ears deafeningly, with
+a kind of monotonous horror. His head began to swim, and his eyes were
+half blinded by the sharp showers that whipped his face with blown drops
+as hard and cold as hail. On he went, however, more like a struggling
+dreamer in a dream, than with actual consciousness,--and darker and
+wilder grew the storm. A forked flash of lightning, running suddenly
+like melted lava down the sky, flung half a second's lurid blue glare
+athwart the deepening blackness,--and in less than two minutes it was
+followed by the first decisive peal of thunder rolling in deep
+reverberations from sea to land, from land to sea again. The war of the
+elements had begun in earnest. Amid their increasing giant wrath,
+Helmsley stumbled almost unseeingly along,--keeping his head down and
+leaning more heavily than was his usual wont upon the stout ash stick
+which was part of the workman's outfit he had purchased for himself in
+Bristol, and which now served him as his best support. In the gathering
+gloom, with his stooping thin figure, he looked more like a faded leaf
+fluttering in the gale than a man, and he was beginning now to realise
+with keen disappointment that his strength was not equal to the strain
+he had been putting upon it. The weight of his seventy years was
+pressing him down,--and a sudden thrill of nervous terror ran through
+him lest his whim for wandering should cost him his life.
+
+"And if I were to die of exhaustion out here on the hills, what would be
+said of me?" he thought--"They would find my body--perhaps--after some
+days;--they would discover the money I carry in my vest lining, and a
+letter to Vesey which would declare my actual identity. Then I should be
+called a fool or a madman--most probably the latter. No one would
+know,--no one would guess--except Vesey--the real object with which I
+started on this wild goose chase after the impossible. It is a foolish
+quest! Perhaps after all I had better give it up, and return to the old
+wearisome life of luxury,--the old ways!--and die in my bed in the usual
+'respectable' style of the rich, with expensive doctors, nurses and
+medicines set in order round me, and all arrangements getting ready for
+a 'first-class funeral'!"
+
+He laughed drearily. Another flash of lightning, followed almost
+instantaneously by a terrific crash of thunder, brought him to a pause.
+He was now at the bottom of the hill which he had ascended from the
+other side, and perceived a distinct and well-trodden path which
+appeared to lead in a circuitous direction towards the sea. Here there
+seemed some chance of getting out of the labyrinth of hills into which
+he had incautiously wandered, and, summoning up his scattered forces, he
+pressed on. The path proved to be an interminable winding way,--first
+up--then down,--now showing glimpses of the raging ocean, now dipping
+over bare and desolate lengths of land,--and presently it turned
+abruptly into a deep thicket of trees. Drenched with rain and tired of
+fighting against the boisterous wind which almost tore his breath away,
+he entered this dark wood with a vague sense of relief,--it offered some
+sort of shelter, and if the trees attracted the lightning and he were
+struck dead beneath them, what did it matter after all! One way of dying
+was as good (or as bad) as another!
+
+The over-arching boughs dripping with wet, closed over him and drew him,
+as it were, into their dense shadows,--the wind shrieked after him like
+a scolding fury, but its raging tone grew softer as he penetrated more
+deeply into the sable-green depths of heavily foliaged solitude. His
+weary feet trod gratefully on a thick carpet of pine needles and masses
+of the last year's fallen leaves,--and a strong sweet scent of mingled
+elderflower and sweetbriar was tossed to him on every gust of rain. Here
+the storm turned itself to music and revelled in a glorious symphony of
+sound.
+
+"Oh ye Winds of God, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for
+ever!
+
+"Oh ye Lightnings and Clouds, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify
+Him for ever!"
+
+In full chords of passionate praise the hurricane swept its grand anthem
+through the rustling, swaying trees, as though these were the strings of
+a giant harp on which some great Archangel played,--and the dash and
+roar of the sea came with it, rolling in the track of another mighty
+peal of thunder. Helmsley stopped and listened, seized by an
+overpowering enchantment and awe.
+
+"This--this is Life!" he said, half aloud--"Our miserable human
+vanities--our petty schemes--our poor ambitions--what are they? Motes in
+a sunbeam!--gone as soon as realised! But Life,--the deep,
+self-contained divine Life of Nature--this is the only life that lives
+for ever, the Immortality of which we are a part!"
+
+A fierce gust of wind here snapped asunder a great branch from a tree,
+and flung it straight across his path. Had he been a few inches nearer,
+it would have probably struck him down with it. Charlie peeped out from
+under his arm with a pitiful little whimper, and Helmsley's heart smote
+him.
+
+"Poor wee Charlie!" he said, fondling the tiny head; "I know what you
+would say to me! You would say that if I want to risk my own life, I
+needn't risk yours! Is that it? Well!--I'll try to get you out of this
+if I can! I wish I I could see some sign of a house anywhere! I'd make
+for it and ask for shelter."
+
+He trudged patiently onwards,--but he was beginning to feel unsteady in
+his limbs,--and every now and then he had to stop, overcome by a
+sickening sensation of giddiness. The tempest had now fully developed
+into a heavy thunderstorm, and the lightning quivered and gleamed
+through the trees incessantly, followed by huge claps of thunder which
+clashed down without a second's warning, afterwards rolling away in long
+thudding detonations echoing for miles and miles. It was difficult to
+walk at all in such a storm,--the youngest and strongest pedestrian
+might have given way under the combined onslaught of rain, wind, and the
+pattering shower of leaves which were literally torn, fresh and green,
+from their parent boughs and cast forth to whirl confusedly amid the
+troubled spaces of the air. And if the young and strong would have found
+it hard to brave such an uproar of the elements, how much harder was it
+for an old man, who, deeming himself stronger than he actually was, and
+buoyed up by sheer nerve and mental obstinacy, had, of his own choice,
+brought himself into this needless plight and danger. For now, in utter
+weariness of body and spirit, Helmsley began to reproach himself
+bitterly for his rashness. A mere caprice of the imagination,--a fancy
+that, perhaps, among the poor and lowly he might find a love or a
+friendship he had never met with among the rich and powerful, was all
+that had led him forth on this strange journey of which the end could
+but be disappointment and failure;--and at the present moment he felt so
+thoroughly conscious of his own folly, that he almost resolved on
+abandoning his enterprise as soon as he found himself once more on the
+main road.
+
+"I will take the first vehicle that comes by,"--he said, "and make for
+the nearest railway station. And I'll end my days with a character for
+being 'hard as nails!'--that's the only way in which one can win the
+respectful consideration of one's fellows as a thoroughly 'sane and
+sensible' man!"
+
+Just then, the path he was following started sharply up a steep
+acclivity, and there was no other choice left to him but still to
+continue in it, as the trees were closing in blindly intricate tangles
+about him, and the brushwood was becoming so thick that he could not
+have possibly forced a passage through it. His footing grew more
+difficult, for now, instead of soft pine-needles and leaves to tread
+upon, there were only loose stones, and the rain was blowing in downward
+squalls that almost by their very fury threw him backward on the ground.
+Up, still up, he went, however, panting painfully as he climbed,--his
+breath was short and uneasy--and all his body ached and shivered as with
+strong ague. At last,--dizzy and half fainting,--he arrived at the top
+of the tedious and troublesome ascent, and uttered an involuntary cry at
+the scene of beauty and grandeur stretched in front of him. How far he
+had walked he had no idea,--nor did he know how many hours he had taken
+in walking,--but he had somehow found his way to the summit of a rocky
+wooded height, from which he could survey the whole troubled expanse of
+wild sky and wilder sea,--while just below him the hills were split
+asunder into a huge cleft, or "coombe," running straight down to the
+very lip of ocean, with rampant foliage hanging about it on either side
+in lavish garlands of green, and big boulders piled up about it, from
+whose smooth surfaces the rain swept off in sleety sheets, leaving them
+shining like polished silver. What a wild Paradise was here
+disclosed!--what a matchless picture, called into shape and colour with
+all the forceful ease and perfection of Nature's handiwork! No glimpse
+of human habitation was anywhere visible; man seemed to have found no
+dwelling here; there was nothing--nothing, but Earth the Beautiful, and
+her Lover the Sea! Over these twain the lightnings leaped, and the
+thunder played in the sanctuary of heaven,--this hour of storm was all
+their own, and humanity was no more counted in their passionate
+intermingling of life than the insects on a leaf, or the grains of sand
+on the shore. For a moment or two Helmsley's eyes, straining and dim,
+gazed out on the marvellously bewitching landscape thus suddenly
+unrolled before him,--then all at once a sharp pain running through his
+heart caused him to flinch and tremble. It was a keen stab of anguish,
+as though a knife had been plunged into his body.
+
+"My God!" he muttered--"What--what is this?"
+
+Walking feebly to a great stone hard by, he sat down upon it, breathing
+with difficulty. The rain beat full upon him, but he did not heed it; he
+sought to recover from the shock of that horrible pain,--to overcome the
+creeping sick sensation of numbness which seemed to be slowly freezing
+him to death. With a violent effort he tried to shake the illness
+off;--he looked up at the sky--and was met by a blinding flash which
+tore the clouds asunder and revealed a white blaze of palpitating fire
+in the centre of the blackness--and at this he made some inarticulate
+sound, putting both his hands before his face to hide the angry mass of
+flame. In so doing he let the little Charlie escape, who, finding
+himself out of his warm shelter and on the wet grass, stood amazed, and
+shivering pitifully under the torrents of rain. But Helmsley was not
+conscious of his canine friend's distress. Another pang, cruel and
+prolonged, convulsed him,--a blood-red mist swam before his eyes, and he
+lost all hold on sense and memory. With a dull groan he fell forward,
+slipping from the stone on which he had been seated, in a helpless heap
+on the ground,--involuntarily he threw up his arms as a drowning man
+might do among great waves overwhelming him,--and so went
+down--down!--into silence and unconsciousness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+The storm raged till sunset; and then exhausted by its own stress of
+fury, began to roll away in angry sobs across the sea. The wind sank
+suddenly; the rain as suddenly ceased. A wonderful flush of burning
+orange light cut the sky asunder, spreading gradually upward and paling
+into fairest rose. The sullen clouds caught brightness at their summits,
+and took upon themselves the semblance of Alpine heights touched by the
+mystic glory of the dawn, and a clear silver radiance flashed across the
+ocean for a second and then vanished, as though a flaming torch had just
+flared up to show the troublous heaving of the waters, and had then been
+instantly quenched. As the evening came on the weather steadily
+cleared;--and presently a pure, calm, dark-blue expanse of ether
+stretched balmily across the whole width of the waves, with the evening
+star--the Star of Love--glimmering faintly aloft like a delicate jewel
+hanging on the very heart of the air. Far away down in the depths of the
+"coombe," a church bell rang softly for some holy service,--and when
+David Helmsley awoke at last from his death-like swoon he found himself
+no longer alone. A woman knelt beside him, supporting him in her
+arms,--and when he looked up at her wonderingly, he saw two eyes bent
+upon him with such watchful tenderness that in his weak, half-conscious
+state he fancied he must be wandering somewhere through heaven if the
+stars were so near. He tried to speak--to move,--but was checked by a
+gentle pressure of the protecting arms about him.
+
+"Better now, dearie?" murmured a low anxious voice. "That's right! Don't
+try to get up just yet--take time! Let the strength come back to you
+first!"
+
+Who was it--who could it be, that spoke to him with such affectionate
+solicitude? He gazed and gazed and marvelled,--but it was too dark to
+see the features of his rescuer. As consciousness grew more vivid, he
+realised that he was leaning against her bosom like a helpless
+child,--that the wet grass was all about him,--and that he was
+cold,--very cold, with a coldness as of some enclosing grave. Sense and
+memory returned to him slowly with sharp stabs of physical pain, and
+presently he found utterance.
+
+"You are very kind!" he muttered, feebly--"I begin to recollect now--I
+had walked a long way--and I was caught in the storm--I felt ill,--very
+ill!--I suppose I must have fallen down here----"
+
+"That's it!" said the woman, gently--"Don't try to think about it!
+You'll be better presently."
+
+He closed his eyes wearily,--then opened them again, struck by a sudden
+self-reproach and anxiety.
+
+"The little dog?" he asked, trembling--"The little dog I had with
+me----?"
+
+He saw, or thought he saw, a smile on the face in the darkness.
+
+"The little dog's all right,--don't you worry about him!" said the
+woman--"He knows how to take care of himself and you too! It was just
+him that brought me along here where I found you. Bless the little soul!
+He made noise enough for six of his size!"
+
+Helmsley gave a faint sigh of pleasure.
+
+"Poor little Charlie! Where is he?"
+
+"Oh, he's close by! He was almost drowned with the rain, like a poor
+mouse in a pail of water, but he went on barking all the same! I dried
+him as well as I could in my apron, and then wrapped him up in my
+cloak,--he's sitting right in it just now watching me."
+
+"If--if I die,--please take care of him!" murmured Helmsley.
+
+"Nonsense, dearie! I'm not going to let you die out here on the
+hills,--don't think it!" said the woman, cheerily,--"I want to get you
+up, and take you home with me. The storm's well overpast,--if you could
+manage to move----"
+
+He raised himself a little, and tried to see her more closer.
+
+"Do you live far from here?" he asked.
+
+"Only just on the upper edge of the 'coombe'--not in the village,"--she
+answered--"It's quite a short way, but a bit steep going. If you lean on
+me, I won't let you slip,--I'm as strong as a man, and as men go
+nowadays, stronger than most!"
+
+He struggled to rise, and she assisted him. By dint of sheer mental
+force and determination he got himself on his feet, but his limbs shook
+violently, and his head swam.
+
+"I'm afraid"--he faltered--"I'm afraid I am very ill. I shall only be a
+trouble to you----"
+
+"Don't talk of trouble? Wait till I fetch the doggie!" And, turning from
+him a moment, she ran to pick up Charlie, who, as she had said, was
+snugly ensconced in the folds of her cloak, which she had put for him
+under the shelter of a projecting boulder,--"Could you carry him, do you
+think?"
+
+He nodded assent, and put the little animal under his coat as before,
+touched almost to weak tears to feel it trying to lick his hand.
+Meanwhile his unknown and scarcely visible protectress put an arm round
+him, holding him up as carefully as though he were a tottering infant.
+
+"Don't hurry--just take an easy step at a time,"--she said--"The moon
+rises a bit late, and we'll have to see our way as best we can with the
+stars." And she gave a glance upward. "That's a bright one just over the
+coombe,--the girls about here call it 'Light o' Love.'"
+
+Moving stiffly, and with great pain, Helmsley was nevertheless impelled,
+despite his suffering, to look, as she was looking, towards the heavens.
+There he saw the same star that had peered at him through the window of
+his study at Carlton House Terrace,--the same that had sparkled out in
+the sky the night that he and Matt Peke had trudged the road together,
+and which Matt had described as "the love-star, an' it'll be nowt else
+in these parts till the world-without-end-amen!" And she whose eyes were
+upturned to its silvery glory,--who was she? His sight was very dim, and
+in the deepening shadows he could only discern a figure of medium
+womanly height,--an uncovered head with the hair loosely knotted in a
+thick coil at the nape of the neck,--and the outline of a face which
+might be fair or plain,--he could not tell. He was conscious of the warm
+strength of the arm that supported him, for when he slipped once or
+twice, he was caught up tenderly, without hurt or haste, and held even
+more securely than before. Gradually, and by halting degrees, he made
+the descent of the hill, and, as his guide helped him carefully over a
+few loose stones in the path, he saw through a dark clump of foliage the
+glimmer of twinkling lights, and heard the rush of water. He paused,
+vaguely bewildered.
+
+"Nearly home now!" said his guide, encouragingly; "Just a few steps more
+and we'll be there. My cottage is the last and the highest in the
+coombe. The other houses are all down closer to the sea."
+
+Still he stood inert.
+
+"The sea!" he echoed, faintly--"Where is it?"
+
+With her disengaged hand she pointed outwards.
+
+"Yonder! By and by, when the moon comes over the hill, it will be
+shining like a silver field with big daisies blowing and growing all
+over it. That's the way it often looks after a storm. The tops of the
+waves are just like great white flowers."
+
+He glanced at her as she said this, and caught a closer glimpse of her
+face. Some faint mystical light in the sky illumined the outlines of her
+features, and showed him a calm and noble profile, such as may be found
+in early Greek sculpture, and which silently expresses the lines:
+
+    "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
+    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know!"
+
+He moved on with a quicker step, touched by a keen sense of expectation.
+Ill as he knew himself to be, he was eager to reach this woman's
+dwelling and to see her more closely. A soft laugh of pleasure broke
+from her lips as he tried to accelerate his pace.
+
+"Oh, we're getting quite strong and bold now, aren't we!" she exclaimed,
+gaily--"But take care not to go too fast! There's a rough bit of bog and
+boulder coming."
+
+This was true. They had arrived at the upper edge of a bank overlooking
+a hill stream which was pouring noisily down in a flood made turgid by
+the rain, and the "rough bit of bog and boulder" was a sort of natural
+bridge across the torrent, formed by heaps of earth and rock, out of
+which masses of wet fern and plumy meadow-sweet sprang in tall tufts and
+garlands, which though beautiful to the eyes in day-time, were apt to
+entangle the feet in walking, especially when there was only the
+uncertain glimmer of the stars by which to grope one's way. Helmsley's
+age and over-wrought condition made his movements nervous and faltering
+at this point, and nothing could exceed the firm care and delicate
+solicitude with which his guide helped him over this last difficulty of
+the road. She was indeed strong, as she had said,--she seemed capable
+of lifting him bodily, if need were--yet she was not a woman of large or
+robust frame. On the contrary, she appeared slightly built, and carried
+herself with that careless grace which betokens perfect form. Once
+safely across the bridge and on the other side of the coombe, she
+pointed to a tiny lattice window with a light behind it which gleamed
+out through the surrounding foliage like a glow-worm in the darkness.
+
+"Here we are at home," she said,--"Just along this path--it's quite
+easy!--now under this tree--it's a big chestnut,--you'll love it!--now
+here's the garden gate--wait till I lift the latch--that's right!--the
+garden's quite small you see,--it goes straight up to the cottage--and
+here's the door! Come in!"
+
+As in a dream, Helmsley was dimly conscious of the swishing rustle of
+wet leaves, and the fragrance of mignonette and roses mingling with the
+salty scent of the sea,--then he found himself in a small, low,
+oak-raftered kitchen, with a wide old-fashioned hearth and ingle-nook,
+warm with the glow of a sparkling fire. A quaintly carved comfortably
+cushioned armchair was set in the corner, and to this his guide
+conducted him, and gently made him sit down.
+
+"Now give me the doggie!" she said, taking that little personage from
+his arms--"He'll be glad of his supper and a warm bed, poor little soul!
+And so will you!"
+
+With a kindly caress she set Charlie down in front of the hearth, and
+proceeded to shut the cottage door, which had been left open as they
+entered,--and locking it, dropped an iron bar across it for the night.
+Then she threw off her cloak, and hung it up on a nail in the wall, and
+bending over a lamp which was burning low on the table, turned up its
+wick a little higher. Helmsley watched her in a kind of stupefied
+wonderment. As the lamplight flashed up on her features, he saw that she
+was not a girl, but a woman who seemed to have thought and suffered. Her
+face was pale, and the lines of her mouth were serious, though very
+sweet. He could hardly judge whether she had beauty or not, because he
+saw her at a disadvantage. He was too ill to appreciate details, and he
+could only gaze at her in the dim and troubled weariness of an old and
+helpless man, who for the time being was dependent on any kindly aid
+that might be offered to him. Once or twice the vague idea crossed his
+mind that he would tell her who he was, and assure her that he had
+plenty of money about him to reward her for her care and pains,--but he
+could not bring himself to the point of this confession. The surprise
+and sweetness of being received thus unquestioningly under the shelter
+of her roof as merely the poor way-worn tramp he seemed to be, were too
+great for him to relinquish. She, meanwhile, having trimmed the lamp,
+hurried into a neighboring room, and came in again with a bundle of
+woollen garments, and a thick flannel dressing gown on her arm.
+
+"This was my father's," she said, as she brought it to him--"It's soft
+and cosy. Get off your wet clothes and slip into it, while I go and make
+your bed ready."
+
+She spread the dressing gown before the fire to warm it, and was about
+to turn away again, when Helmsley laid a detaining hand on her arm.
+
+"Wait--wait!" he said--"Do you know what you are doing?"
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Well, now that _is_ a question! Do I seem crazy?"
+
+"Almost you do--to me!" And stirred into a sudden flicker of animation,
+he held her fast as he spoke--"Do you live alone here?"
+
+"Yes,--quite alone."
+
+"Then don't you see how foolish you are? You are taking into your house
+a mere tramp,--a beggar who is more likely to die than live! Do you
+realise how dangerous this is for you? I may be an escaped convict,--a
+thief--even a murderer! You cannot tell!"
+
+She smiled and nodded at him as a nurse might nod and smile at a
+fanciful or querulous patient.
+
+"I can't tell, certainly, and don't want to know!" she replied--"I go by
+what I see."
+
+"And what do you see?"
+
+She patted his thin cold hand kindly.
+
+"I see a very old man--older than my own dear father was when he
+died--and I know he is too old and feeble to be out at night in the wet
+and stormy weather. I know that he is ill and weak, and suffering from
+exhaustion, and that he must rest and be well nourished for a few days
+till he gets strong again. And I am going to take care of him,"--here
+she gave a consoling little pressure to the hand she held. "I am
+indeed! And he must do as he is told, and take off his wet clothes and
+get ready for bed!"
+
+Something in Helmsley's throat tightened like the contraction of a
+rising sob.
+
+"You will risk all this trouble,"--he faltered--"for a
+stranger--who--who--cannot repay you--?----"
+
+"Now, now! You mustn't hurt me!" she said, with a touch of reproach in
+her soft tones--"I don't want to be repaid in any way. You know WHO it
+was that said 'I was a stranger and ye took me in'? Well, He would wish
+me to take care of you."
+
+She spoke quite simply, without any affectation of religious sentiment.
+Helmsley looked at her steadily.
+
+"Is that why you shelter me?"
+
+She smiled very sweetly, and he saw that her eyes were beautiful.
+
+"That is one reason, certainly!"--she answered; "But there is
+another,--quite a selfish one! I loved my father, and when he died, I
+lost everything I cared for in the world. You remind me of him--just a
+little. Now will you do as I ask you, and take off your wet things?"
+
+He let go her hand gently.
+
+"I will,"--he said, unsteadily--for there were tears in his eyes--"I
+will do anything you wish. Only tell me your name!"
+
+"My name? My name is Mary,--Mary Deane."
+
+"Mary Deane!" he repeated softly--and yet again--"Mary Deane! A pretty
+name! Shall I tell you mine!"
+
+"Not unless you like,"--she replied, quickly--"It doesn't matter!"
+
+"Oh, you'd better know it!" he said--"I'm only old David--a man 'on the
+road' tramping it to Cornwall."
+
+"That's a long way!" she murmured compassionately, as she took his
+weather-beaten hat and shook the wet from it--"And why do you want to
+tramp so far, you poor old David?"
+
+"I'm looking for a friend,"--he answered--"And maybe it's no use
+trying,--but I should like to find that friend before I die."
+
+"And so you will, I'm sure!" she declared, smiling at him, but with
+something of an anxious expression in her eyes, for Helmsley's face was
+very pinched and pallid, and every now and then he shivered violently as
+with an ague fit--"But you must pick up your strength first. Then
+you'll get on better and quicker. Now I'm going to leave you while you
+change. You'll find plenty of warm things with the dressing gown."
+
+She went out as before into the next room, and Helmsley managed, though
+with considerable difficulty, to divest himself of his drenched clothes
+and get on the comfortable woollen garments she had put ready for him.
+When he took off his coat and vest, he spread them in front of the fire
+to dry instead of the dressing-gown which he now wore, and as soon as
+she returned he specially pointed out the vest to her.
+
+"I should like you to put that away somewhere in your own safe
+keeping,"--he said. "It has a few letters and--and papers in it which I
+value,--and I don't want any stranger to see them. Will you take care of
+it for me?"
+
+"Of course I will! Nobody shall touch it, be sure! Not a soul ever comes
+nigh me unless I ask for company!--so you can be quite easy in your
+mind. Now I'm going to give you a cup of hot soup, and then you'll go to
+bed, won't you?--and, please God, you'll be better in the morning!"
+
+He nodded feebly, and forced a smile. He had sunk back in the armchair
+and his eyes were fixed on the warm-hearth, where the tiny dog, Charlie,
+whom he had rescued, and who in turn had rescued him, was curled up and
+snoozing peacefully. Now that the long physical and nervous strain of
+his journey and of his ghastly experience at Blue Anchor was past, he
+felt almost too weak to lift a hand, and the sudden change from the
+fierce buffetings of the storm to the homely tranquillity of this little
+cottage into which he had been welcomed just as though he had every
+right to be there, affected him with a strange sensation which he could
+not analyse. And once he murmured half unconsciously:
+
+"Mary! Mary Deane!"
+
+"Yes,--that's me!" she responded cheerfully, coming to his side at
+once--"I'm here!"
+
+He lifted his head and looked at her.
+
+"Yes, I know you are here,--Mary!" he said, his voice trembling a little
+as he uttered her name--"And I thank God for sending you to me in time!
+But how--how was it that you found me?"
+
+"I was watching the storm,"--she replied--"I love wild weather!--I love
+to hear the wind among the trees and the pouring of the rain! I was
+standing at my door listening to the waves thudding into the hollow of
+the coombe, and all at once I heard the sharp barking of a dog on the
+hill just above here--and sometimes the bark changed to a pitiful little
+howl, as if the animal were in pain. So I put on my cloak and crossed
+the coombe up the bank--it's only a few minutes' scramble, though to you
+it seemed ever such a long way to-night,--and there I saw you lying on
+the grass with the little doggie running round and round you, and making
+all the noise he could to bring help. Wise little beastie!" And she
+stooped to pat the tiny object of her praise, who sighed comfortably and
+stretched his dainty paws out a little more luxuriously--"If it hadn't
+been for him you might have died!"
+
+He said nothing, but watched her in a kind of morbid fascination as she
+went to the fire and removed a saucepan which she had set there some
+minutes previously. Taking a large old-fashioned Delft bowl from a
+cupboard at one side of the fire-place, she filled it with steaming soup
+which smelt deliciously savoury and appetising, and brought it to him
+with some daintily cut morsels of bread. He was too ill to feel much
+hunger, but to please her, he managed to sip it by slow degrees, talking
+to her between-whiles.
+
+"You say you live alone here,"--he murmured--"But are you always alone?"
+
+"Always,--ever since father died."
+
+"How long is that ago?"
+
+"Five years."
+
+"You are not--you have not been--married?"
+
+She laughed.
+
+"No indeed! I'm an old maid!"
+
+"Old?" And he raised his eyes to her face. "You are not old!"
+
+"Well, I'm not young, as young people go,"--she declared--"I'm
+thirty-four. I was never married for myself in my youth,--and I shall
+certainly never be married for my money in my age!" Again her pretty
+laugh rang softly on the silence. "But I'm quite happy, all the same!"
+
+He still looked at her intently,--and all suddenly it dawned upon him
+that she was a beautiful woman. He saw, as for the first time, the clear
+transparency of her skin, the soft brilliancy of her eyes, and the
+wonderful masses of her warm bronze brown hair. He noted the perfect
+poise of her figure, clad as it was in a cheap print gown,--the slimness
+of her waist, the fulness of her bosom, the white roundness of her
+throat. Then he smiled.
+
+"So you are an old maid!" he said--"That's very strange!"
+
+"Oh, I don't think so!" and she shook her head deprecatingly--"Many
+women are old maids by choice as well as by necessity. Marriage isn't
+always bliss, you know! And unless a woman loves a man very very
+much--so much that she can't possibly live her life without him, she'd
+better keep single. At least that's _my_ opinion. Now Mr. David, you
+must go to bed!"
+
+He rose obediently--but trembled as he rose, and could scarcely stand
+from sheer weakness. Mary Deane put her arm through his to support him.
+
+"I'm afraid,"--he faltered--"I'm afraid I shall be a burden to you! I
+don't think I shall be well enough to start again on my way to-morrow."
+
+"You won't be allowed to do any such foolish thing!" she answered, with
+quick decision--"So you can just make up your mind on _that_ score! You
+must stay here as my guest."
+
+"Not a paying one, I fear!" he said, with a pained smile, and a quick
+glance at her.
+
+She gave a slight gesture of gentle reproach.
+
+"I wouldn't have you on paying terms,"--she answered; "I don't take in
+lodgers."
+
+"But--but--how do you live?"
+
+He put the question hesitatingly, yet with keen curiosity.
+
+"How do I live? You mean how do I work for a living? I am a lace mender,
+and a bit of a laundress too. I wash fine muslin gowns, and mend and
+clean valuable old lace. It's pretty work and pleasant enough in its
+way."
+
+"Does it pay you well?"
+
+"Oh, quite sufficiently for all my needs. I don't cost much to keep!"
+And she laughed--"I'm all by myself, and I was never money-hungry! Now
+come!--you mustn't talk any more. You know who I am and what I am,--and
+we'll have a good long chat to-morrow. It's bed-time!"
+
+She led him, as though he were a child, into a little room,--one of the
+quaintest and prettiest he had ever seen,--with a sloping raftered
+ceiling, and one rather wide latticed window set in a deep embrasure and
+curtained with spotless white dimity. Here there was a plain
+old-fashioned oak bedstead, trimmed with the same white hangings, the
+bed itself being covered with a neat quilt of diamond-patterned silk
+patchwork. Everything was delicately clean, and fragrant with the odour
+of dried rose-leaves and lavender,--and it was with all the zealous care
+of an anxious housewife that Mary Deane assured her "guest" that the
+sheets were well-aired, and that there was not "a speck of damp"
+anywhere. A kind of instinct told him that this dainty little sleeping
+chamber, so fresh and pure, with not even a picture on its white-washed
+walls, and only a plain wooden cross hung up just opposite to the bed,
+must be Mary's own room, and he looked at her questioningly.
+
+"Where do you sleep yourself?" he asked.
+
+"Upstairs,"--she answered, at once--"Just above you. This is a
+two-storied cottage--quite large really! I have a parlour besides the
+kitchen,--oh, the parlour's very sweet!--it has a big window which my
+father built himself, and it looks out on a lovely view of the orchard
+and the stream,--then I have three more rooms, and a wash-house and
+cellar. It's almost too big a cottage for me, but father loved it, and
+he died here,--that's why I keep all his things about me and stay on in
+it. He planted all the roses in the orchard,--and I couldn't leave
+them!"
+
+Helmsley said nothing in answer to this. She put an armchair for him
+near the bed.
+
+"Now as soon as you're in bed, just call to me and I'll put out the
+light in the kitchen and go to bed myself,"--she said--"And I'll take
+the little doggie with me, and make him comfortable for the night. I'm
+leaving you a candle and matches, and if you feel badly at all, there's
+a handbell close by,--mind you ring it, and I'll come to you at once and
+do all I can for you."
+
+He bent his eyes searchingly upon her in his old suspicious "business"
+way, his fuzzy grey eyebrows almost meeting in the intensity of his
+gaze.
+
+"Tell me--why are you so good to me?" he asked.
+
+She smiled.
+
+"Don't ask nonsense questions, please, Mr. David! Haven't I told you
+already?--not why I am 'good,' because that's rubbish--but why I am
+trying to take care of you?"
+
+"Yes--because I am old!" he said, with a sudden pang of
+self-contempt--"and--useless!"
+
+"Good-night!" she answered, cheerfully--"Call to me when you are ready!"
+
+She was gone before he could speak another word and he heard her talking
+to Charlie in petting playful terms of endearment. Judging from the
+sounds in the kitchen, he concluded, and rightly, that she was getting
+her own supper and that of the dog at the same time. For two or three
+minutes he sat inert, considering his strange and unique position. What
+would this present adventure lead to? Unless his new friend, Mary Deane,
+examined the vest he had asked her to take care of for him, she would
+not discover who he was or from whence he came. Would she examine
+it?--would she unrip the lining, just out of feminine curiosity, and sew
+it up again, pretending that she had not touched it, after the "usual
+way of women"? No! He was sure,--absolutely sure--of her integrity.
+What? In less than an hour's acquaintance with her, would he swear to
+her honesty? Yes, he would! Never could such eyes as hers, so softly,
+darkly blue and steadfast, mirror a falsehood, or deflect the fragment
+of a broken promise! And so, for the time being, in utter fatigue of
+both body and mind, he put away all thought, all care for the future,
+and resigned himself to the circumstances by which he was now
+surrounded. Undressing as quickly as he could in his weak and trembling
+condition, he got into the bed so comfortably prepared for him, and lay
+down in utter lassitude, thankful for rest. After he had lain so for a
+few minutes he called:
+
+"Mary Deane!"
+
+She came at once, and looked in, smiling.
+
+"All cosy and comfortable?" she queried--"That's right!" Then entering
+the room, she showed him the very vest, the possible fate of which he
+had been considering.
+
+"This is quite dry now,"--she said--"I've been thinking that perhaps as
+there are letters and papers inside, you'd like to have it near you,--so
+I'm just going to put it in here--see?" And she opened a small cupboard
+in the wall close to the bed--"There! Now I'll lock it up"--and she
+suited the action to the word--"Where shall I put the key?"
+
+"Please keep it for me yourself!" he answered, earnestly,--"It will be
+safest with you!"
+
+"Well, perhaps it will,"--she agreed. "Anyhow no one can get at your
+letters without _my_ consent! Now, are you quite easy?"
+
+And, as she spoke, she came and smoothed the bedclothes over him, and
+patted one of his thin, worn hands which lay, almost unconsciously to
+himself, outside the quilt.
+
+"Quite!" he said, faintly, "God bless you!"
+
+"And you too!" she responded--"Good-night--David!"
+
+"Good-night--Mary!"
+
+She went away with a light step, softly closing the door behind her.
+Returning to the kitchen she took up the little dog Charlie in her arms,
+and nestled him against her bosom, where he was very well content to be,
+and stood for a moment looking meditatively into the fire.
+
+"Poor old man!" she murmured--"I'm so glad I found him before it was too
+late! He would have died out there on the hills, I'm sure! He's very
+ill--and so worn out and feeble!"
+
+Involuntarily her glance wandered to a framed photograph which stood on
+the mantelshelf, showing the likeness of a white-haired man standing
+among a group of full-flowering roses, with a smile upon his wrinkled
+face,--a smile expressing the quaintest and most complete satisfaction,
+as though he sought to illustrate the fact that though he was old, he
+was still a part of the youthful blossoming of the earth in summer-time.
+
+"What would you have done, father dear, if you had been here
+to-night?"--she queried, addressing the portrait--"Ah, I need not ask! I
+know! You would have brought your suffering brother home, to share all
+you had;--you would have said to him 'Rest, and be thankful!' For you
+never turned the needy from your door, my dear old dad!--never!--no
+matter how much you were in need yourself!"
+
+She wafted a kiss to the venerable face among the roses,--and then
+turning, extinguished the lamp on the table. The dying glow of the fire
+shone upon her for a moment, setting a red sparkle in her hair, and a
+silvery one on the silky head of the little dog she carried, and
+outlining her fine profile so that it gleamed with a pure soft pallor
+against the surrounding darkness,--and with one final look round to see
+that all was clear for the night, she went away noiselessly like a
+lovely ghost and disappeared, her step making no sound on the short
+wooden stairs that led to the upper room which she had hastily arranged
+for her own accommodation, in place of the one now occupied by the
+homeless wayfarer she had rescued.
+
+There was no return of the storm. The heavens, with their mighty burden
+of stars, remained clear and tranquil,--the raging voice of ocean was
+gradually sinking into a gentle crooning song of sweet content,--and
+within the little cottage complete silence reigned, unbroken save for
+the dash of the stream outside, rushing down through the "coombe" to the
+sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+The next morning Helmsley was too ill to move from his bed, or to be
+conscious of his surroundings. And there followed a long period which to
+him was well-nigh a blank. For weeks he lay helpless in the grasp of a
+fever which over and over again threatened to cut the last frail thread
+of his life asunder. Pain tortured every nerve and sinew in his body,
+and there were times of terrible collapse,--when he was conscious of
+nothing save an intense longing to sink into the grave and have done
+with all the sharp and cruel torment which kept him on the rack of
+existence. In a semi-delirious condition he tossed and moaned the hours
+away, hardly aware of his own identity. In certain brief pauses of the
+nights and days, when pain was momentarily dulled by stupor, he saw, or
+fancied he saw a woman always near him, with anxiety in her eyes and
+words of soothing consolation on her lips;--and then he found himself
+muttering, "Mary! Mary! God bless you!" over and over again. Once or
+twice he dimly realised that a small dark man came to his bedside and
+felt his pulse and looked at him very doubtfully, and that she, Mary,
+called this personage "doctor," and asked him questions in a whisper.
+But all within his own being was pain and bewilderment,--sometimes he
+felt as though he were one drop in a burning whirlpool of madness--and
+sometimes he seemed to himself to be spinning round and round in a haze
+of blinding rain, of which the drops were scalding hot, and heavy as
+lead,--and occasionally he found that he was trying to get out of bed,
+uttering cries of inexplicable anguish, while at such moments, something
+cool was placed on his forehead, and a gentle arm was passed round him
+till the paroxysm abated, and he fell down again among his pillows
+exhausted. Slowly, and as it were grudgingly, after many days, the
+crisis of the illness passed and ebbed away in dull throbs of
+agony,--and he sank into a weak lethargy that was almost like the
+comatose condition preceding death. He lay staring at the ceiling for
+hours, heedless as to whether he ever moved or spoke again. Some-one
+came and put spoonfuls of liquid nourishment between his lips, and he
+swallowed it mechanically without any sign of conscious appreciation.
+White as white marble, and aged by many years, he remained stretched in
+his rigid corpse-like attitude, his eyes always fixedly upturned, till
+one day he was roused from his deepening torpor by the sound of sobbing.
+With a violent effort he brought his gaze down from the ceiling, and saw
+a figure kneeling by his bed, and a mass of bronze brown hair falling
+over a face concealed by two shapely white hands through which the tears
+were falling. Feebly astonished, he stretched out his thin, trembling
+fingers to touch that wonderful bright mesh of waving tresses, and
+asked--
+
+"What is this? Who--who is crying?"
+
+The hidden face was uplifted, and two soft eyes, wet with weeping,
+looked up hopefully.
+
+"It's Mary!" said a trembling voice--"You know me, don't you? Oh,
+dearie, if you would but try to rouse yourself, you'd get well even
+now!"
+
+He gazed at her in a kind of childish admiration.
+
+"It's Mary!" he echoed, faintly--"And who is Mary?"
+
+"Don't you remember?" And rising from her knees, she dashed away her
+tears and smiled at him--"Or is it too hard for you to think at all
+about it just now? Didn't I find you out on the hills in the storm, and
+bring you home here?--and didn't I tell you that my name was Mary?"
+
+He kept his eyes upon her wistful face,--and presently a wan smile
+crossed his lips.
+
+"Yes!--so you did!" he answered--"I know you now, Mary! I've been ill,
+haven't I?"
+
+She nodded at him--the tears were still wet on her lashes.
+
+"Very ill!"
+
+"Ill all night, I suppose?"
+
+She nodded again.
+
+"It's morning now?"
+
+"Yes, it's morning!"
+
+"I shall get up presently,"--he said, in his old gentle courteous
+way--"I am sorry to have given you so much trouble! I must not burden
+your hospitality--your kindness----"
+
+His voice trailed away into silence,--his eyelids drooped--and fell into
+a sound slumber,--the first refreshing sleep he had enjoyed for many
+weary nights and days.
+
+Mary Deane stood looking at him thoughtfully. The turn had come for the
+better, and she silently thanked God. Night after night, day after day,
+she had nursed him with unwearying patience and devotion, having no
+other help or guidance save her own womanly instinct, and the occasional
+advice of the village doctor, who, however, was not a qualified medical
+man, but merely a herbalist who prepared his own simples. This humble
+Gamaliel diagnosed Helmsley's case as one of rheumatic fever,
+complicated by heart trouble, as well as by the natural weakness of
+decaying vitality. Mary had explained to him Helmsley's presence in her
+cottage by a pious falsehood, which Heaven surely forgave her as soon as
+it was uttered. She had said that he was a friend of her late father's,
+who had sought her out in the hope that she might help him to find some
+light employment in his old age, and that not knowing the country at
+all, he had lost his way across the hills during the blinding fury of
+the storm. This story quickly ran through the little village, of which
+Mary's house was the last, at the summit of the "coombe," and many of
+its inhabitants came to inquire after "Mr. David," while he lay tossing
+and moaning between life and death, most of them seriously commiserating
+Mary herself for the "sight o' trouble" she had been put to,--"all for a
+trampin' stranger like!"
+
+"Though,"--observed one rustic sage--"Bein' a lone woman as y' are, Mis'
+Deane, m'appen if he knew yer father 'twould be pleasant to talk to him
+when 'is 'ed comes clear, if clear it iver do come. For when we've put
+our owd folk under the daisies, it do cheer the 'art a bit to talk of
+'em to those as knew 'em when they was a standin' upright, bold an'
+strong, for all they lays so low till last trumpet."
+
+Mary smiled a grave assent, and with wise tact and careful forethought
+for the comfort and well-being of her unknown guest, quietly accepted
+the position she had brought upon herself as having given shelter and
+lodging to her "father's friend," thus smoothing all difficulties away
+for him, whether he recovered from his illness or not. Had he died, she
+would have borne the expenses of his burial without a word of other
+explanation than that which she had offered by way of appeasing the
+always greedy curiosity of any community of human beings who are
+gathered in one small town or village,--and if he recovered, she was
+prepared to treat him in very truth as her "father's friend."
+
+"For,"--she argued with herself, quite simply--"I am sure father would
+have been kind to him, and when once _he_ was kind, it was impossible
+not to be his friend."
+
+And, little by little, Helmsley struggled back to life,--life that was
+very weak and frail indeed, but still, life that contained the whole
+essence and elixir of being,--a new and growing interest. Little by
+little his brain cleared and recovered its poise,--once more he found
+himself thinking of things that had been done, and of things that were
+yet worth doing. Watching Mary Deane as she went softly to and fro in
+constant attendance on his needs, he was divided in his mind between
+admiration, gratitude, and--a lurking suspicion, of which he was
+ashamed. As a business man, he had been taught to look for interested
+motives lying at the back of every action, bad or good,--and as his
+health improved, and calm reason again asserted its sway, he found it
+difficult and well-nigh impossible to realise or to believe that this
+woman, to whom he was a perfect stranger, no more than a vagrant on the
+road, could have given him so much of her time, attention, and care,
+unless she had dimly supposed him to be something other than he had
+represented himself. Unable yet to leave his bed, he lay, to all
+appearances, quietly contented, acknowledging her gentle ministrations
+with equally gentle words of thanks, while all the time he was mentally
+tormenting himself with doubts and fears. He knew that during his
+illness he had been delirious,--surely in that delirium he might have
+raved and talked of many things that would have yielded the entire
+secret of his identity. This thought made him restless,--and one
+afternoon when Mary came in with the deliciously prepared cup of tea
+which she always gave him about four o'clock, he turned his eyes upon
+her with a sudden keen look which rather startled her by its piercing
+brightness suggesting, as it did, some return of fever.
+
+"Tell me,"--he said--"Have I been ill long? More than a week?"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"A little more than a week,"--she answered, gently--"Don't worry!"
+
+"I'm not worrying. Please tell me what day it is!"
+
+"What day it is? Well, to-day is Sunday."
+
+"Sunday! Yes--but what is the date of the month?"
+
+She laughed softly, patting his hand.
+
+"Oh, never mind! What does it matter?"
+
+"It does matter,"--he protested, with a touch of petulance--"I know it
+is July, but what time of July?"
+
+She laughed again.
+
+"It's not July," she said.
+
+"Not July!"
+
+"No. Nor August!"
+
+He raised himself on his pillow and stared at her in questioning
+amazement.
+
+"Not July? Not August? Then----?"
+
+She took his hand between her own kind warm palms, stroking it
+soothingly up and down.
+
+"It's not July, and it's not August!" she repeated, nodding at him as
+though he were a worried and fractious child--"It's the second week in
+September. There!"
+
+His eyes turned from right to left in utter bewilderment. "But how----"
+he murmured----
+
+Then he suddenly caught her hands in the one she was holding.
+
+"You mean to say that I have been ill all those weeks--a burden upon
+you?"
+
+"You've been ill all those weeks--yes!" she answered "But you haven't
+been a burden. Don't you think it! You've--you've been a pleasure!" And
+her blue eyes filled with soft tears, which she quickly mastered and
+sent back to the tender source from which they sprang; "You have,
+really!"
+
+He let go her hand and sank back on his pillows with a smothered groan.
+
+"A pleasure!" he muttered--"I!" And his fuzzy eyebrows met in almost a
+frown as he again looked at her with one of the keen glances which those
+who knew him in business had learned to dread. "Mary Deane, do not tell
+me what is not and what cannot be true! A sick man--an old man--can be
+no 'pleasure' to anyone;--he is nothing but a bore and a trouble, and
+the sooner he dies the better!"
+
+The smiling softness still lingered in her eyes.
+
+"Ah well!"--she said--"You talk like that because you're not strong yet,
+and you just feel a bit cross and worried! You'll be better in another
+few days----"
+
+"Another few days!" he interrupted her--"No--no--that cannot be--I must
+be up and tramping it again--I must not stay on here--I have already
+stayed too long."
+
+A slight shadow crossed her face, but she was silent. He watched her
+narrowly.
+
+"I've been off my head, haven't I?" he queried, affecting a certain
+brusqueness in his tone--"Talking a lot of nonsense, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes--sometimes,"--she replied--"But only when you were _very_ bad."
+
+"And what did I say?"
+
+She hesitated a moment, and he grew impatient.
+
+"Come, come!" he demanded, irritably--"What did I say?"
+
+She looked at him candidly.
+
+"You talked mostly about 'Tom o' the Gleam,'"--she answered--"That was a
+poor gypsy well known in these parts. He had just one little child left
+to him in the world--its mother was dead. Some rich lord driving a motor
+car down by Cleeve ran over the poor baby and killed it--and Tom----"
+
+"Tom tracked the car to Blue Anchor, where he found the man who had run
+over his child and killed _him_!" said Helmsley, with grim
+satisfaction--"I saw it done!"
+
+Mary shuddered.
+
+"I saw it done!" repeated Helmsley--"And I think it was rightly done!
+But--I saw Tom himself die of grief and madness--with his dead child in
+his arms--and _that!_--that broke something in my heart and brain and
+made me think God was cruel!"
+
+She bent over him, and arranged his pillows more comfortably.
+
+"I knew Tom,"--she said, presently, in a soft voice--"He was a wild
+creature, but very kind and good for all that. Some folks said he had
+been born a gentleman, and that a quarrel with his family had made him
+take to the gypsy life--but that's only a story. Anyway his little
+child--'kiddie'--as it used to be called, was the dearest little fellow
+in the world--so playful and affectionate!--I don't wonder Tom went mad
+when his one joy was killed! And you saw it all, you say?"
+
+"Yes, I saw it all!" And Helmsley, with a faint sigh half closed his
+eyes as he spoke--"I was tramping from Watchett,--and the motor passed
+me on my way, but I did not see the child run over. I meant to get a
+lodging at Blue Anchor--and while I was having my supper at the public
+house Tom came in,--and--and it was all over in less than fifteen
+minutes! A horrible sight--a horrible, horrible sight! I see it now!--I
+shall never forget it!"
+
+"Enough to make you ill, poor dear!" said Mary, gently--"Don't think of
+it now! Try and sleep a little. You mustn't talk too much. Poor Tom is
+dead and buried now, and his little child with him--God rest them both!
+It's better he should have died than lived without anyone to love him in
+the world."
+
+"That's true!" And opening his eyes widely again, he gazed full at
+her--"That's the worst fate of all--to live in the world without anyone
+to love you! Tell me--when I was delirious did I only talk of Tom o' the
+Gleam?"
+
+"That's the only person whose name you seemed to have on your
+mind,"--she answered, smiling a little--"But you _did_ make a great
+noise about money!"
+
+"Money?" he echoed--"I--I made a noise about money?"
+
+"Yes!" And her smile deepened--"Often at night you quite startled me by
+shouting 'Money! Money!' I'm sure you've wanted it very badly!"
+
+He moved restlessly and avoided her gaze. Presently he asked
+querulously:
+
+"Where is my old vest with all my papers?"
+
+"It's just where I put it the night you came,"--she answered--"I haven't
+touched it. Don't you remember you told me to keep the key of the
+cupboard which is right here close to your bed? I've got it quite safe."
+
+He turned his head round on the pillow and looked at her with a sudden
+smile.
+
+"Thank you! You are very kind to me, Mary! But you must let me work off
+all I owe you as soon as I'm well."
+
+She put one finger meditatively on her lips and surveyed him with a
+whimsically indulgent air.
+
+"Let you work it off? Well, I don't mind that at all! But a minute ago
+you were saying you must get up and go on the tramp again. Now, if you
+want to work for me, you must stay----"
+
+"I will stay till I have paid you my debt somehow!" he said--"I'm
+old--but I can do a few useful things yet."
+
+"I'm sure you can!" And she nodded cheerfully--"And you shall! Now rest
+a while, and don't fret!"
+
+She went away from him then to fetch the little dog, Charlie, who, now
+that his master was on the fair road to complete recovery, was always
+brought in to amuse him after tea. Charlie was full of exuberant life,
+and his gambols over the bed where Helmsley lay, his comic interest in
+the feathery end of his own tail, and his general intense delight in the
+fact of his own existence, made him a merry and affectionate little
+playmate. He had taken immensely to his new home, and had attached
+himself to Mary Deane with singular devotion, trotting after her
+everywhere as close to her heels as possible. The fame of his beauty had
+gone through the village, and many a small boy and girl came timidly to
+the cottage door to try and "have a peep" at the smallest dog ever seen
+in the neighbourhood, and certainly the prettiest.
+
+"That little dawg be wurth twenty pun!"--said one of the rustics to
+Mary, on one occasion when she was sitting in her little garden,
+carefully brushing and combing the silky coat of the little
+"toy"--"Th'owd man thee's been a' nussin' ought to give 'im to thee as a
+thank-offerin'."
+
+"I wouldn't take him,"--Mary answered--"He's perhaps the only friend the
+poor old fellow has got in the world. It would be just selfish of me to
+want him."
+
+And so the time went on till it was past mid-September, and there came a
+day, mild, warm, and full of the soft subdued light of deepening autumn,
+when Mary told her patient that he might get up, and sit in an armchair
+for a few hours in the kitchen. She gave him this news when she brought
+him his breakfast, and added--
+
+"I'll wrap you up in father's dressing gown, and you'll be quite cosy
+and safe from chill. And after another week you'll be so strong that
+you'll be able to dress yourself and do without me altogether!"
+
+This phrase struck curiously on his ears. "Do without her altogether!"
+That would be strange indeed--almost impossible! It was quite early in
+the morning when she thus spoke--about seven o'clock,--and he was not to
+get up till noon, "when the air was at its warmest," said Mary--so he
+lay very quietly, thinking over every detail of the position in which he
+found himself. He was now perfectly aware that it was a position which
+opened up great possibilities. His dream,--the vague indefinable
+longing which possessed him for love--pure, disinterested, unselfish
+love,--seemed on the verge of coming true. Yet he would not allow
+himself to hope too much,--he preferred to look on the darker side of
+probable disillusion. Meanwhile, he was conscious of a sweetness and
+comfort in his life such as he had never yet experienced. His thoughts
+dwelt with secret pleasure on the open frankness and calm beauty of the
+face that had bent over him with the watchfulness of a guardian angel
+through so many days and nights of pain, delirium, and dread of
+death,--and he noted with critically observant eyes the noiseless
+graceful movement of this humbly-born woman, whose instincts were so
+delicate and tender, whose voice was so gentle, and whose whole bearing
+expressed such unaffected dignity and purity of mind. On this particular
+morning she was busy ironing;--and she had left the door open between
+his bedroom and the kitchen, so that he might benefit by the inflow of
+fresh air from the garden, the cottage door itself being likewise thrown
+back to allow a full entrance of the invigorating influences of the
+light breeze from the sea and the odours of the flowers. From his bed he
+could see her slim back bent over the fine muslin frills she was
+pressing out with such patient precision, and he caught the glint of the
+sun on the rich twist of her bronze brown hair. Presently he heard some
+one talking to her,--a woman evidently, whose voice was pitched in a
+plaintive and almost querulous key.
+
+"Well, Mis' Deane, say 'ow ye will an' what ye will,--there's a spider
+this very blessed instant a' crawlin' on the bottom of the ironin'
+blanket, which is a sure sign as 'ow yer washin' won't come to no good
+try iver so 'ard, for as we all knows--'See a spider at morn, An' ye'll
+wish ye wornt born: See a spider at night, An' yer wrongs'll come
+right!'"
+
+Mary laughed; and Helmsley listened with a smile on his own lips. She
+had such a pretty laugh,--so low and soft and musical.
+
+"Oh, never mind the poor spider, Mrs. Twitt!"--she said--"Let it climb
+up the ironing blanket if it likes! I see dozens of spiders 'at morn,'
+and I've never in my life wished I wasn't born! Why, if you go out in
+the garden early, you're bound to see spiders!"
+
+"That's true--that's Testymen true!" And the individual addressed as
+Mrs. Twitt, heaved a profound sigh which was loud enough to flutter
+through the open door to Helmsley's ears--"Which, as I sez to Twitt
+often, shows as 'ow we shouldn't iver tempt Providence. Spiders there
+is, an' spiders there will be 'angin' on boughs an' 'edges, frequent too
+in September, but we aint called upon to look at 'em, only when the
+devil puts 'em out speshul to catch the hi, an' then they means
+mischief. An' that' just what 'as 'appened this present minit, Mis'
+Deane,--that spider on yer ironin' blanket 'as caught my hi."
+
+"I'm so sorry!" said Mary, sweetly--"But as long as the spider doesn't
+bring _you_ any ill-luck, Mrs. Twitt, I don't mind for myself--I don't,
+really!"
+
+Mrs. Twitt emitted an odd sound, much like the grunt of a small and
+discontented pig.
+
+"It's a reckless foot as don't mind precipeges,"--she remarked,
+solemnly--"'Owsomever, I've given ye fair warnin'. An' 'ow's yer
+father's friend?"
+
+"He's much better,--quite out of danger now,"--replied Mary--"He's going
+to get up to-day."
+
+"David's 'is name, so I 'ears,"--continued Mrs. Twitt; "I've never
+myself knowed anyone called David, but it's a common name in some parts,
+speshul in Scripter. Is 'e older than yer father would 'a bin if so be
+the Lord 'ad carried 'im upright to this present?"
+
+"He seems a little older than father was when he died,"--answered Mary,
+in slow, thoughtful accents--"But perhaps it is only trouble and illness
+that makes him look so. He's very gentle and kind. Indeed,"--here she
+paused for a second--then went on--"I don't know whether it's because
+I've been nursing him so long and have got accustomed to watch him and
+take care of him--but I've really grown quite fond of him!"
+
+Mrs. Twitt gave a short laugh.
+
+"That's nat'ral, seein' as ye're lone in life without 'usband or
+childer,"--she said--"There's a many wimmin as 'ud grow fond of an Aunt
+Sally on a pea-stick if they'd nothin' else to set their 'arts on. An'
+as the old chap was yer father's friend, there's bin a bit o' feelin'
+like in lookin' arter 'im. But I wouldn't take 'im on my back as a
+burgin, Mis' Deane, if I were you. Ye're far better off by yerself with
+the washin' an' lace-mendin' business."
+
+Mary was silent.
+
+"It's all very well,"--proceeded Mrs. Twitt--"for 'im to say 'e knew yer
+father, but arter all _that_ mayn't be true. The Lord knows whether 'e
+aint a 'scaped convick, or a man as is grown 'oary-'edded with 'is own
+wickedness. An' though 'e's feeble now an' wants all ye can give 'im,
+the day may come when, bein' strong again, 'e'll take a knife an' slit
+yer throat. Bein' a tramp like, it 'ud come easy to 'im an' not to be
+blamed, if we may go by what they sez in the 'a'penny noospapers. I mind
+me well on the night o' the storm, the very night ye went out on the
+'ills an' found 'im, I was settin' at my door down shorewards watchin'
+the waves an' hearin' the wind cryin' like a babe for its mother, an' if
+ye'll believe me, there was a sea-gull as came and flopped down on a
+stone just in front o' me!--a thing no sea-gull ever did to me all the
+time I've lived 'ere, which is thirty years since I married Twitt. There
+it sat, drenched wi' the rain, an' Twitt came out in that slow, silly
+way 'e 'as, an' 'e sez--'Poor bird! 'Ungry, are ye? an' throws it a
+reg'lar full meal, which, if you believe me, it ate all up as cool as a
+cowcumber. An' then----"
+
+"And then?" queried Mary, with a mirthful quiver in her voice.
+
+"Then,--oh, well, then it flew away,"--and Mrs. Twitt seemed rather
+sorry for this commonplace end to what she imagined was a thrilling
+incident--"But the way that bird looked at me was somethin' awful! An'
+when I 'eerd as 'ow you'd found a friend o' yer father's a' trampin' an'
+wanderin' an' 'ad took 'im in to board an' lodge on trust, I sez to
+Twitt--'There you've got the meanin' o' that sea-gull! A stranger in the
+village bringin' no good to the 'and as feeds'im!'"
+
+Mary's laughter rang out now like a little peal of bells.
+
+"Dear Mrs. Twitt!" she said--"I know how good and kind you are--but you
+mustn't have any of your presentiments about me! I'm sure the poor
+sea-gull meant no harm! And I'm sure that poor old David won't ever hurt
+me----" Here she suddenly gave an exclamation--"Why, I forgot! The door
+of his room has been open all this time! He must have heard us talking!"
+
+She made a hurried movement, and Helmsley diplomatically closed his
+eyes. She entered, and came softly up to his bedside, and he felt that
+she stood there looking at him intently. He could hardly forbear a
+smile;--but he managed to keep up a very creditable appearance of being
+fast asleep, and she stole away again, drawing the door to behind her.
+Thus, for the time being, he heard no more,--but he had gathered quite
+enough to know exactly how matters stood with regard to his presence in
+her little home.
+
+"She has given out that I am an old friend of her father's!" he
+mused--"And she has done that in order to silence both inquiry and
+advice as to the propriety of her having taken me under her shelter and
+protection. Kind heart! Gentle soul! And--what else did she say? That
+she had 'really grown quite fond' of me! Can I--dare I--believe that?
+No!--it is a mere feminine phrase--spoken out of compassionate impulse.
+Fond of me! In my apparent condition of utter poverty,--old, ill and
+useless, who could or would be 'fond' of me!"
+
+Yet he dwelt on the words with a kind of hope that nerved and
+invigorated him, and when at noon Mary came and assisted him to get up
+out of bed, he showed greater evidence of strength than she had imagined
+would be possible. True, his limbs ached sorely, and he was very feeble,
+for even with the aid of a stick and the careful support of her strong
+arm, his movements were tottering and uncertain, and the few steps
+between his bedroom and the kitchen seemed nearly a mile of exhausting
+distance. But the effort to walk did him good, and when he sank into the
+armchair which had been placed ready for him near the fire, he looked up
+with a smile and patted the gentle hand that had guided him along so
+surely and firmly.
+
+"I'm an old bag of bones!" he said--"Not much good to myself or to any
+one else! You'd better bundle me out on the doorstep!"
+
+For an answer she brought him a little cup of nourishing broth tastily
+prepared and bade him drink it--"every drop, mind!"--she told him with a
+little commanding nod. He obeyed her,--and when he gave her back the cup
+empty he said, with a keen glance:
+
+"So I am your father's friend, am I, Mary?"
+
+The blood rushed to her cheeks in a crimson tide,--she looked at him
+appealingly, and her lips trembled a little.
+
+"You were so very ill!" she murmured--"I was afraid you might die,--and
+I had to send for the only doctor we have in the village--Mr.
+Bunce,--the boys call him Mr. Dunce, but that's their mischief, for
+he's really quite clever,--and I was bound to tell him something by way
+of introducing you and making him take care of you--even--even if what I
+said wasn't quite true! And--and--I made it out to myself this way--that
+if father had lived he would have done just all he could for you, and
+then you _would_ have been his friend--you couldn't have helped
+yourself!"
+
+He kept his eyes upon her as she spoke. He liked to see the soft
+flitting of the colour to-and-fro in her face,--- her skin was so clear
+and transparent,--a physical reflection, he thought, of the clear
+transparency of her mind.
+
+"And who was your father, Mary?" he asked, gently.
+
+"He was a gardener and florist,"--she answered, and taking from the
+mantelshelf the photograph of the old man smiling serenely amid a
+collection of dwarf and standard roses, she showed it to him--"Here he
+is, just as he was taken after an exhibition where he won a prize. He
+was so proud when he heard that the first prize for a dwarf red rose had
+been awarded to James Deane of Barnstaple. My dear old dad! He was a
+good, good man--he was indeed! He loved the flowers--he used to say that
+they thought and dreamed and hoped, just as we do--and that they had
+their wishes and loves and ambitions just as we have. He had a very good
+business once in Barnstaple, and every one respected him, but somehow he
+could not keep up with the demands for new things--'social sensations in
+the way of flowers,' he used to call them, and he failed at last,
+through no fault of his own. We sold all we had to pay the creditors,
+and then we came away from Barnstaple into Somerset, and took this
+cottage. Father did a little business in the village, and for some of
+the big houses round about,--not much, of course--but I was always handy
+with my needle, and by degrees I got a number of customers for
+lace-mending and getting up ladies' fine lawn and muslin gowns. So
+between us we made quite enough to live on--till he died." Her voice
+sank--and she paused--then she added--"I've lived alone here ever
+since."
+
+He listened attentively.
+
+"And that is all your history, Mary? What of your mother?" he asked.
+
+Mary's eyes softened and grew wistful.
+
+"Mother died when I was ten,"--she said--"But though I was so little, I
+remember her well. She was pretty--oh, so very pretty! Her hair was
+quite gold like the sun,--and her eyes were blue--like the sea. Dad
+worshipped her, and he never would say that she was dead. He liked to
+think that she was always with him,--and I daresay she was. Indeed, I am
+sure she was, if true love can keep souls together."
+
+He was silent.
+
+"Are you tired, David?" she asked, with sudden anxiety,--"I'm afraid I'm
+talking too much!"
+
+He raised a hand in protest.
+
+"No--no! I--I love to hear you talk, Mary! You have been so good to
+me--so more than kind--that I'd like to know all about you. But I've no
+right to ask you any questions--you see I'm only an old, poor man, and
+I'm afraid I shall never be able to do much in the way of paying you
+back for all you've done for me. I used to be clever at office
+work--reading and writing and casting up accounts, but my sight is
+failing and my hands tremble,--so I'm no good in that line. But whatever
+I _can_ do for you, as soon as I'm able, I will!--you may depend upon
+that!"
+
+She leaned towards him, smiling.
+
+"I'll teach you basket-making,"--she said--"Shall I?"
+
+His eyes lit up with a humorous sparkle.
+
+"If I could learn it, should I be useful to you?" he asked.
+
+"Why, of course you would! Ever so useful! Useful to me and useful to
+yourself at the same time!" And she clapped her hands with pleasure at
+having thought of something easy upon which he could try his energies;
+"Basket-making pays well here,--the farmers want baskets for their
+fruit, and the fishermen want baskets for their fish,--and its really
+quite easy work. As soon as you're a bit stronger, you shall begin--and
+you'll be able to earn quite a nice little penny!"
+
+He looked stedfastly into her radiant face.
+
+"I'd like to earn enough to pay you back all the expense you've been put
+to with me,"--he said, and his voice trembled--"But your patience and
+goodness--that--I can never hope to pay for--that's heavenly!--that's
+beyond all money's worth----"
+
+He broke off and put his hand over his eyes. Mary feigned not to notice
+his profound emotion, and, taking up a paper parcel on the table, opened
+it, and unrolled a long piece of wonderful old lace, yellow with age,
+and fine as a cobweb.
+
+"Do you mind my going on with my work?" she asked, cheerily--"I'm
+mending this for a Queen!" And as he took away his hand from his eyes,
+which were suspiciously moist, and looked at her wonderingly, she nodded
+at him in the most emphatic way. "Yes, truly, David!--for a Queen! Oh,
+it's not a Queen who is my direct employer--no Queen ever knows anything
+about me! It's a great firm in London that sends this to me to mend for
+a Queen--they trust me with it, because they know me. I've had lace
+worth thousands of pounds in my hands,--this piece is valued at eight
+hundred, apart from its history--it belonged to Marie Louise, second
+wife of Napoleon the First. It's a lovely bit!--but there are some cruel
+holes in it. Ah, dear me!" And, sitting down near the door, she bent her
+head closely over the costly fabric--"Queens don't think of the eyes
+that have gone out in blindness doing this beautiful work!--or the hands
+that have tired and the hearts that have broken over it! They would
+never run pins into it if they did!"
+
+He watched her sitting as she now was in the sunlight that flooded the
+doorway, and tried to overcome the emotional weakness that moved him to
+stretch out his arms to her as though she were his daughter, to call her
+to his side, and lay his hands on her head in blessing, and to beg her
+to let him stay with her now and always until the end of his days,--an
+end which he instinctively felt could not be very long in coming. But he
+realised enough of her character to know that were he to give himself
+away, and declare his real identity and position in the world of men,
+she would probably not allow him to remain in her cottage for another
+twenty-four hours. She would look at him with her candid eyes, and
+express her honest regret that he had deceived her, but he was certain
+that she would not accept a penny of payment at his hands for anything
+she had done for him,--her simple familiar manner and way of speech
+would change--and he should lose her--lose her altogether. And he was
+nervously afraid just now to think of what her loss might mean to him.
+He mastered his thoughts by an effort, and presently, forcing a smile,
+said:
+
+"You were ironing lace this morning, instead of mending it, weren't you,
+Mary?"
+
+She looked up quickly.
+
+"No, I wasn't ironing lace--lace must never be ironed, David! It must
+all be pulled out carefully with the fingers, and the pattern must be
+pricked out on a frame or a cushion, with fine steel pins, just as if it
+were in the making. I was ironing a beautiful muslin gown for a lady who
+buys all her washing dresses in Paris. She couldn't get any one in
+England to wash them properly till she found me. She used to send them
+all away to a woman in Brittany before. The French are wonderful
+washers,--we're not a patch on them over here. So you saw me ironing?"
+
+"I could just catch a glimpse of you at work through the door," he
+answered--"and I heard you talking as well----"
+
+"To Mrs. Twitt? Ah, I thought you did!" And she laughed. "Well, I wish
+you could have seen her, as well as heard her! She is the quaintest old
+soul! She's the wife of a stonemason who lives at the bottom of the
+village, near the shore. Almost everything that happens in the day or
+the night is a sign of good or bad luck with her. I expect it's because
+her husband makes so many tombstones that she gets morbid,--but, oh
+dear!--if God managed the world according to Mrs. Twitt's notions, what
+a funny world it would be!"
+
+She laughed again,--then shook her finger archly at him.
+
+"You _pretended_ to be asleep, then, when I came in to see if you heard
+us talking?"
+
+He nodded a smiling assent.
+
+"That was very wrong of you! You should never pretend to be what you are
+not!" He started nervously at this, and to cover his confusion called to
+the little dog, Charlie, who at once jumped up on his knees;--"You
+shouldn't, really! Should he, Charlie?" Charlie sat upright, and lolled
+a small red tongue out between two rows of tiny white teeth, by way of a
+laugh at the suggestion--"People--even dogs--are always found out when
+they do that!"
+
+"What are those bright flowers out in your garden just beyond the door
+where you are sitting?" Helmsley asked, to change the conversation.
+
+"Phloxes,"--she answered--"I've got all kinds and colours--crimson,
+white, mauve, pink, and magenta. Those which you can see from where you
+sit are the crimson ones--father's favourites. I wish you could get out
+and look at the Virginian creeper--it's lovely just now--quite a blaze
+of scarlet all over the cottage. And the Michaelmas daisies are coming
+on finely."
+
+"Michaelmas!" he echoed--"How late in the year it is growing!"
+
+"Ay, that's true!" she replied--"Michaelmas means that summer's past."
+
+"And it was full summer when I started on my tramp to Cornwall!" he
+murmured.
+
+"Never mind thinking about that just now," she said quickly--"You
+mustn't worry your head. Mr. Bunce says you mustn't on any account worry
+your head."
+
+"Mr. Bunce!" he repeated wearily--"What does Mr. Bunce care?"
+
+"Mr. Bunce _does_ care," averred Mary, warmly--"Mr. Bunce is a very good
+little man, and he says you are a very gentle patient to deal with. He's
+done all he possibly could for you, and he knows you've got no money to
+pay him, and that I'm a poor woman, too--but he's been in to see you
+nearly every day--so you must really think well of Mr. Bunce."
+
+"I do think well of him--I am most grateful to him," said David
+humbly--"But all the same it's _you_, Mary! You even got me the
+attention of Mr. Bunce!"
+
+She smiled happily.
+
+"You're feeling better, David!" she declared--"There's a nice bright
+sparkle in your eyes! I should think you were quite a cheerful old boy
+when you're well!"
+
+This suggestion amused him, and he laughed.
+
+"I have tried to be cheerful in my time,"--he said--"though I've not had
+much to be cheerful about."
+
+"Oh, that doesn't matter!" she replied!--"Dad used to say that whatever
+little we had to be thankful for, we ought to make the most of it. It's
+easy to be glad when everything is gladness,--but when you've only got
+just a tiny bit of joy in a whole wilderness of trouble, then we can't
+be too grateful for that tiny bit of joy. At least, so I take it."
+
+"Where did you learn your philosophy, Mary?" he asked, half
+whimsically--"I mean, who taught you to think?"
+
+She paused in her lace-mending, needle in hand.
+
+"Who taught me to think! Well, I don't know!--it come natural to me.
+But I'm not what is called 'educated' at all."
+
+"Are you not?"
+
+"No. I never learnt very much at school. I got the lessons into my head
+as long as I had to patter them off by heart like a parrot,--but the
+teachers were all so dull and prosy, and never took any real pains to
+explain things to me,--indeed, now when I come to think of it, I don't
+believe they _could_ explain!--they needed teaching themselves. Anyhow,
+as soon as I came away I forgot everything but reading and writing and
+sums--and began to learn all over again with Dad. Dad made me read to
+him every night--all sorts of books."
+
+"Had you a Free Library at Barnstaple?"
+
+"I don't know--I never asked,"--she said--"Father hated 'lent' books. He
+had a savings-box--he used to call it his 'book-box'--and he would
+always drop in every spare penny he had for books till he'd got a few
+shillings, and then he would buy what he called 'classics.' They're all
+so cheap, you see. And by degrees we got Shakespeare and Carlyle, and
+Emerson and Scott and Dickens, and nearly all the poets; when you go
+into the parlour you'll see quite a nice bookcase there, full of books.
+It's much better to have them like that for one's own, than wait turns
+at a Free Library. I've read all Shakespeare at least twenty times
+over." The garden-gate suddenly clicked open and she turned her head.
+"Here's Mr. Bunce come to see you."
+
+Helmsley drew himself up a little in his chair as the village doctor
+entered, and after exchanging a brief "Good-morning!" with Mary,
+approached him. The situation was curious;--here was he,--a
+multi-millionaire, who could have paid the greatest specialists in the
+world for their medical skill and attendance,--under the supervision and
+scrutiny of this simple herbalist, who, standing opposite to him, bent a
+pair of kindly brown eyes enquiringly upon his face.
+
+"Up to-day, are we?" said Mr. Bunce--"That is well; that's very well!
+Better in ourselves, too, are we? Better in ourselves?"
+
+"I am much better,"--replied Helmsley--"Very much better!--thanks to you
+and Miss Deane. You--you have both been very good to me."
+
+"That's well--that's very well!" And Mr. Bunce appeared to ruminate,
+while Helmsley studied his face and figure with greater appreciation
+than he had yet been able to do. He had often seen this small dark man
+in the pauses of his feverish delirium,--often he had tried to answer
+his gentle questions,--often in the dim light of early morning or late
+evening he had sought to discern his features, and yet could make
+nothing clear as to their actual form, save that their expression was
+kind. Now, as it seemed for the first time, he saw Mr. Bunce as he
+was,--small and wiry, with a thin, clean-shaven face, deeply furrowed,
+broad brows, and a pleasant look,--the eyes especially, deep sunk in the
+head though they were, had a steady tenderness in them such as one sees
+in the eyes of a brave St. Bernard dog who has saved many lives.
+
+"We must,"--said Mr. Bunce, after a long pause--"be careful. We have got
+out of bed, but we must not walk much. The heart is weak--we must avoid
+any strain upon it. We must sit quiet."
+
+Mary was listening attentively, and nodded her agreement to this
+pronouncement.
+
+"We must,"--proceeded Mr. Bunce, laboriously--"sit quiet. We may get up
+every day now,--a little earlier each time, remaining up a little later
+each time,--but we must sit quiet."
+
+Again Mary nodded gravely. Helmsley looked quickly from one to the
+other. A close observer might have seen the glimmer of a smile through
+his fuzzy grey-white beard,--for his thoughts were very busy. He saw in
+Bunce another subject whose disinterested honesty might be worth
+dissecting.
+
+"But, doctor----" he began.
+
+Mr. Bunce raised a hand.
+
+"I'm not 'doctor,' my man!" he said--"have no degree--no
+qualification--no diploma--no anything whatever but just a little, a
+very little common sense,--yes! And I am simply Bunce,"--and here a
+smile spread out all the furrows in his face and lit up his eyes; "Or,
+as the small boys call me, Dunce!"
+
+"That's all very well, but you're a doctor to me," said Helmsley--"And
+you've been as much as any other doctor could possibly be, I'm sure. But
+you tell me I must sit quiet--I don't see how I can do that. I was on
+the tramp till I broke down,--and I must go on the tramp again,--I
+can't be a burden on--on----"
+
+He broke off, unable to find words to express himself. But his inward
+eagerness to test the character and attributes of the two human beings
+who had for the present constituted themselves as his guardians, made
+him tremble violently. And Mr. Bunce looked at him with the scrutinising
+air of a connoisseur in the ailments of all and sundry.
+
+"We are nervous,"--he pronounced--"We are highly nervous. And we are
+therefore not sure of ourselves. We must be entirely sure of ourselves,
+unless we again wish to lose ourselves. Now we presume that when 'on the
+tramp' as we put it, we were looking for a friend. Is that not so?"
+
+Helmsley nodded.
+
+"We were trying to find the house of the late Mr. James Deane?"
+
+Mary uttered a little sound that was half a sob and half a sigh.
+Helmsley glanced at her with a reassuring smile, and then replied
+steadily,--
+
+"That was so!"
+
+"Our friend, Mr. Deane, unfortunately died some five years
+since,"--proceeded Mr. Bunce,--"And we found his daughter, or rather,
+his daughter found us, instead. This we may put down to an act of
+Providence. Now the only thing we can do under the present circumstances
+is to remain with our late old friend's daughter, till we get well."
+
+"But, doctor,"--exclaimed Helmsley, determined, if possible, to shake
+something selfish, commercial and commonplace out of this odd little man
+with the faithful canine eyes--"I can't be a burden on her! I've got no
+money--I can't pay you for all your care! What you do for me, you do for
+absolutely nothing--nothing--nothing! Don't you understand?"
+
+His voice rang out with an almost rasping harshness, and Mr. Bunce
+tapped his own forehead gently, but significantly.
+
+"We worry ourselves,"--he observed, placidly--"We imagine what does not
+exist. We think that Bunce is sending in his bill. We should wait till
+the bill comes, should we not, Miss Deane?" He smiled, and Mary gave a
+soft laugh of agreement--"And while we wait for Bunce's bill, we will
+also wait for Miss Deane's. And, in the meantime, we must sit quiet."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Helmsley felt a smarting moisture at the
+back of his eyes. He longed to pour out all his history to these two
+simple unworldly souls,--to tell them that he was rich,--rich beyond the
+furthest dreams of their imagining,--rich enough to weigh down the
+light-hearted contentment of their lives with a burden of gold,--and
+yet--yet he knew that if he spoke thus and confessed himself, all the
+sweetness of the friendship which was now so disinterested would be
+embittered and lost. He thought, with a latent self-contempt and
+remorse, of certain moods in which he had sometimes indulged,--moods in
+which he had cynically presumed that he could buy everything in the
+world for money. Kings, thrones, governments, might be had for money, he
+knew, for he had often purchased their good-will--but Love was a jewel
+he had never found in any market--unpurchasable as God! And while he yet
+inwardly mused on his position, Bunce bent over him, and taking his thin
+wrinkled hand, patted it gently.
+
+"Good-bye for the present, David!" he said, kindly--"We are on the
+mend--we are certainly on the mend! We hope the ways of nature will be
+remedial--and that we shall pick up our strength before the winter
+fairly sets in--yes, we hope--we certainly may hope for that----"
+
+"Mr. Bunce," said Helmsley, with sudden energy--"God bless you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+The time now went on peacefully, one day very much like another, and
+Helmsley steadily improved in health and strength, so far recovering
+some of his old vigour and alertness as to be able to take a slow and
+halting daily walk through the village, which, for present purposes
+shall be called Weircombe. The more he saw of the place, the more he
+loved it, and the more he was enchanted with its picturesque position.
+In itself it was a mere cluster of little houses, dotted about on either
+side of a great cleft in the rocks through which a clear mountain stream
+tumbled to the sea,--but the houses were covered from basement to roof
+with clambering plants and flowers, especially the wild fuschia, which,
+with one or two later kinds of clematis and "morning glory" convolvolus,
+were still in brilliant bloom when the mellow days of October began to
+close in to the month's end. All the cottages in the "coombe" were
+pretty, but to Helmsley's mind Mary Deane's was the prettiest, perched
+as it was on a height overlooking the whole village and near to the tiny
+church, which crowned the hill with a little tower rising heavenward.
+The view of the ocean from Weircombe was very wide and grand,--on sunny
+days it was like an endless plain of quivering turquoise-blue, with
+white foam-roses climbing up here and there to fall and vanish
+again,--and when the wind was high, it was like an onward sweeping array
+of Titanic shapes clothed in silver armour and crested with snowy
+plumes, all rushing in a wild charge against the shore, with such a
+clatter and roar as often echoed for miles inland. To make his way
+gradually down through the one little roughly cobbled street to the very
+edge of the sea, was one of Helmsley's greatest pleasures, and he soon
+got to know most of the Weircombe folk, while they in their turn, grew
+accustomed to seeing him about among them, and treated him with a kindly
+familiarity, almost as if he were one of themselves. And his new lease
+of life was, to himself, singularly happy. He enjoyed every moment of
+it,--every little incident was a novel experience, and he was never
+tired of studying the different characters he met,--especially and above
+all the character of the woman whose house was, for the time being, his
+home, and who treated with him all the care and solicitude that a
+daughter might show to her father. And--he was learning what might be
+called a trade or a craft,--which fact interested and amused him. He who
+had moved the great wheel of many trades at a mere touch of his finger,
+was now docilely studying the art of basket-making, and training his
+unaccustomed hands to the bending of withes and osiers,--he whose
+deftly-laid financial schemes had held the money-markets of the world in
+suspense, was now patiently mastering the technical business of forming
+a "slath," and fathoming the mysteries of "scalluming." Like an obedient
+child at school he implicitly followed the instructions of his teacher,
+Mary, who with the first basket he completed went out and effected a
+sale as she said "for fourpence," though really for twopence.
+
+"And good pay, too!" she said, cheerfully--"It's not often one gets so
+much for a first make."
+
+"That fourpence is yours," said Helmsley, smiling at her--"You've the
+right to all my earnings!"
+
+She looked serious.
+
+"Would you like me to keep it?" she asked--"I mean, would it please you
+if I did,--would you feel more content?"
+
+"I should--you know I should!" he replied earnestly.
+
+"All right, then! I'll check it off your account!" And laughing merrily,
+she patted his head as he sat bending over another specimen of his
+basket manufacture--"At any rate, you're not getting bald over your
+work, David! I never saw such beautiful white hair as yours!"
+
+He glanced up at her.
+
+"May I say, in answer to that, that I never saw such beautiful brown
+hair as yours?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Oh, yes, you may say it, because I know it's true. My hair is my one
+beauty,--see!"
+
+And pulling out two small curved combs, she let the whole wealth of her
+tresses unwind and fall. Her hair dropped below her knees in a glorious
+mass of colour like that of a brown autumn leaf with the sun just
+glistening on it. She caught it up in one hand and knotted it all again
+at the back of her head in a minute.
+
+"It's lovely, isn't it?"--she said, quite simply--"I should think it
+lovely if I saw it on anybody else's head, or cut off hanging in a
+hair-dresser's shop window. I don't admire it because it's mine, you
+know! I admire it as hair merely."
+
+"Hair merely--yes, I see!" And he bent and twisted the osiers in his
+hands with a sudden vigour that almost snapped them. He was thinking of
+certain women he had known in London--women whose tresses, dyed, waved,
+crimped and rolled over fantastically shaped "frames," had moved him to
+positive repulsion,--so much so that he would rather have touched the
+skin of a dead rat than laid a finger on the tinted stuff called "hair"
+by these feminine hypocrites of fashion. He had so long been accustomed
+to shams that the open sincerity of the Weircombe villagers was almost
+confusing to his mind. Nobody seemed to have anything to conceal.
+Everybody knew, or seemed to know, all about everybody else's business.
+There were no bye-roads or corners in Weircombe. There was only one way
+out,--to the sea. Height at the one end,--width and depth at the other.
+It seemed useless to have any secrets. He, David Helmsley, felt himself
+to be singular and apart, in that he had his own hidden mystery. He
+often found himself getting restless under the quiet observation of Mr.
+Bunce's eye, yet Mr. Bunce had no suspicions of him whatever. Mr. Bunce
+merely watched him "professionally," and with the kindest intention. In
+fact, he and Bunce became great friends. Bunce had entirely accepted the
+story he told about himself to the effect that he had once been "in an
+office in the city," and looked upon him as a superannuated bank clerk,
+too old to be kept on in his former line of business. Questions that
+were put to him respecting his "late friend, James Deane," he answered
+with apparent good faith by saying that it was a long time since he had
+seen him, and that it was only as a "last forlorn hope" that he had set
+out to try and find him, "as he had always been helpful to those in
+need." Mary herself wished that this little fiction of her "father's
+friend" should be taken as fact by all the village, and a curious part
+of her character was that she never sought to ask Helmsley privately,
+for her own enlightenment, anything of his history. She seemed content
+to accept him as an old and infirm man, who must be taken care of simply
+because he was old and infirm, without further question or argument.
+Bunce was always very stedfast in his praise of her.
+
+"She ought--yes--she ought possibly to have married,--" he said, in his
+slow, reflective way--"She would have made a good wife, and a still
+better mother. But an all-wise Providence has a remarkable habit--yes, I
+think we may call it quite a remarkable habit!--of persuading men
+generally to choose thriftless and flighty women for their wives, and to
+leave the capable ones single. That is so. Or in Miss Deane's case it
+may be an illustration of the statement that 'Mary hath chosen the
+better part.' Certainly when either men or women are happy in a state of
+single blessedness, a reference to the Seventh Chapter of the Epistle of
+St. Paul to the Corinthians, will strengthen their minds and
+considerably assist them to remain in that condition."
+
+Thus Bunce would express himself, with a weighty air as of having given
+some vastly important and legal pronouncement. And when Helmsley
+suggested that it was possible Mary might yet marry, he shook his head
+in a strongly expressed negative.
+
+"No, David--no!" he said--"She is what we call--yes, I think we call
+it--an old maid. This is not a kind term, perhaps, but it is a true one.
+She is, I believe, in her thirty-fifth year,--a settled and mature
+woman. No man would take her unless she had a little money--enough, let
+us say, to help him set up a farm. For if a man takes youth to his
+bosom, he does not always mind poverty,--but if he cannot have youth he
+always wants money. Always! There is no middle course. Now our good Miss
+Deane will never have any money. And, even if she had, we may take
+it--yes, I certainly _think_ we may take it--that she would not care to
+_buy_ a husband. No--no! Her marrying days are past."
+
+"She is a beautiful woman!" said Helmsley, quietly.
+
+"You think so? Well, well, David! We have got used to her in
+Weircombe,--she seems to be a part of the village. When one is familiar
+with a person, one often fails to perceive the beauty that is apparent
+to a stranger. I believe this to be so--I believe, in general, we may
+take it to be so."
+
+And such was the impression that most of the Weircombe folks had about
+Mary--that she was just "a part of the village." During his slow
+ramblings about the little sequestered place, Helmsley talked to many of
+the cottagers, who all treated him with that good-humour and tolerance
+which they considered due to his age and feebleness. Young men gave him
+a ready hand if they saw him inclined to falter or to stumble over rough
+places in the stony street,--little children ran up to him with the
+flowers they had gathered on the hills, or the shells they had collected
+from the drift on the shore--women smiled at him from their open doors
+and windows--girls called to him the "Good morning!" or
+"Good-night!"--and by and by he was almost affectionately known as "Old
+David, who makes baskets up at Miss Deane's." One of his favourite
+haunts was the very end of the "coombe," which,--sharply cutting down to
+the shore,--seemed there to have split asunder with volcanic force,
+hurling itself apart to right and left in two great castellated rocks,
+which were piled up, fortress-like, to an altitude of about four hundred
+or more feet, and looked sheer down over the sea. When the tide was high
+the waves rushed swirlingly round the base of these natural towers,
+forming a deep blackish-purple pool in which the wash to and fro of pale
+rose and deep magenta seaweed, flecked with trails of pale grassy green,
+were like the colours of a stormy sunset reflected in a prism. The
+sounds made here by the inflowing and outgoing of the waves were
+curiously musical,--like the thudding of a great organ, with harp
+melodies floating above the stronger bass, while every now and then a
+sweet sonorous call, like that of a silver trumpet, swung from the
+cavernous depths into clear space and echoed high up in the air, dying
+lingeringly away across the hills. Near this split of the "coombe" stood
+the very last house at the bottom of the village, built of white stone
+and neatly thatched, with a garden running to the edge of the mountain
+stream, which at this point rattled its way down to the sea with that
+usual tendency to haste exhibited by everything in life and nature when
+coming to an end. A small square board nailed above the door bore the
+inscription legibly painted in plain black letters:--
+
+             ABEL TWITT,
+            Stone Mason,
+    N. B. Good Grave-Work Guaranteed.
+
+The author of this device, and the owner of the dwelling, was a round,
+rosy-faced little man, with shrewd sparkling grey eyes, a pleasant
+smile, and a very sociable manner. He was the great "gossip" of the
+place; no old woman at a wash-tub or behind a tea-tray ever wagged her
+tongue more persistently over the concerns of he and she and you and
+they, than Abel Twitt. He had a leisurely way of talking,--a "slow and
+silly way" his wife called it,--but he managed to convey a good deal of
+information concerning everybody and everything, whether right or wrong,
+in a very few sentences. He was renowned in the village for his
+wonderful ability in the composition of epitaphs, and by some of his
+friends he was called "Weircombe's Pote Lorit." One of his most
+celebrated couplets was the following:--
+
+    "_This Life while I lived it, was Painful and seldom Victorious,
+    I trust in the Lord that the next will be Pleasant and Glorious!_"
+
+Everybody said that no one but Abel Twitt could have thought of such
+grand words and good rhymes. Abel himself was not altogether without a
+certain gentle consciousness that in this particular effort he had done
+well. But he had no literary vanity.
+
+"It comes nat'ral to me,"--he modestly declared--"It's a God's gift
+which I takes thankful without pride."
+
+Helmsley had become very intimate with both Mr. and Mrs. Twitt. In his
+every-day ramble down to the ocean end of the "coombe" he often took a
+rest of ten minutes or a quarter of an hour at Twitt's house before
+climbing up the stony street again to Mary Deane's cottage, and Mrs.
+Twitt, in her turn, was a constant caller on Mary, to whom she brought
+all the news of the village, all the latest remedies for every sort of
+ailment, and all the oddest superstitions and omens which she could
+either remember or invent concerning every incident that had occurred to
+her or to her neighbours within the last twenty-four hours. There was no
+real morbidity of character in Mrs. Twitt; she only had that peculiar
+turn of mind which is found quite as frequently in the educated as in
+the ignorant, and which perceives a divine or a devilish meaning in
+almost every trifling occurrence of daily life. A pin on the ground
+which was not picked up at the very instant it was perceived, meant
+terrible ill-luck to Mrs. Twitt,--if a cat sneezed, it was a sign that
+there was going to be sickness in the village,--and she always carried
+in her pocket "a bit of coffin" to keep away the cramp. She also had a
+limitless faith in the power of cursing, and she believed most
+implicitly in the fiendish abilities of a certain person, (whether male
+or female, she did not explain) whose address she gave vaguely as, "out
+on the hills," and who, if requested, and paid for the trouble, would
+put a stick into the ground, muttering a mysterious malison on any man
+or woman you chose to name as an enemy, with the pronounced guarantee:--
+
+    "As this stick rotteth to decay,
+    So shall (Mr, Miss or Mrs So-and-so) rot away!"
+
+But with the exception of these little weaknesses, Mrs. Twitt was a good
+sort of motherly old body, warm-hearted and cheerful, too, despite her
+belief in omens. She had taken quite a liking to "old David" as she
+called him, and used to watch his thin frail figure, now since his
+illness sadly bent, jogging slowly down the street towards the sea, with
+much kindly solicitude. For despite Mr. Bunce's recommendation that he
+should "sit quiet," Helmsley could not bring himself to the passively
+restful condition of weak and resigned old age. He had too much on his
+mind for that. He worked patiently every morning at basket-making, in
+which he was quickly becoming an adept; but in the afternoon he grew
+restless, and Mary, seeing it was better for him to walk as long as
+walking was possible to him, let him go out when he fancied it, though
+always with a little anxiety for him lest he should meet with some
+accident. In this anxiety, however, all the neighbours took a share, so
+that he was well watched, and more carefully guarded than he knew, on
+his way down to the shore and back again, Abel Twitt himself often
+giving him an arm on the upward climb home.
+
+"You'll have to do some of that for me soon!" said Helmsley on one of
+these occasions, pointing up with his stick at the board over Twitt's
+door, which said "Good Grave-Work Guaranteed:"
+
+Twitt rolled his eyes slowly up in the direction indicated, smiled, and
+rolled them down again.
+
+"So I will,--so I will!" he replied cheerfully--"An I'll charge ye
+nothin' either. I'll make ye as pretty a little stone as iver ye
+saw--what'll last too!--ay, last till th' Almighty comes a' tearin' down
+in clouds o' glory. A stone well bedded in, ye unnerstan'?--one as'll
+stay upright--no slop work. An' if ye can't think of a hepitaph for
+yerself I'll write one for ye--there now! Bible texes is goin' out o'
+fashion--it's best to 'ave somethin' orig'nal--an' for originality I
+don't think I can be beat in these parts. I'll do ye yer hepitaph with
+pleasure!"
+
+"That will be kind!" And Helmsley smiled a little sadly--"What will you
+say of me when I'm gone?"
+
+Twitt looked at him thoughtfully, with his head very much on one side.
+
+"Well, ye see, I don't know yer history,"--he said--"But I considers ye
+'armless an' unfortunate. I'd 'ave to make it out in my own mind like.
+Now Timbs, the grocer an' 'aberdashery man, when 'is wife died, he
+wouldn't let me 'ave my own way about the moniment at all. 'Put 'er
+down,' sez 'e--'Put 'er down as the Dearly-Beloved Wife of Samuel
+Timbs.' 'Now, Timbs,' sez I--'don't ye go foolin' with 'ell-fire! Ye
+know she wor'nt yer Dearly Beloved, forbye that she used to throw wet
+dish-clouts at yer 'ed, screechin' at ye for all she was wuth, an' there
+ain't no Dearly Beloved in that. Why do ye want to put a lie on a stone
+for the Lord to read?' But 'e was as obst'nate as pigs. 'Dish-clouts or
+no dish-clouts,' sez 'e, 'I'll 'ave 'er fixed up proper as my
+Dearly-Beloved Wife for sight o' parson an' neighbours.' 'Ah, Sam!' sez
+I--'I've got ye! It's for parson an' neighbours ye want the hepitaph,
+an' not for the Lord at all! Well, I'll do it if so be yer wish it, but
+I won't take the 'sponsibility of it at the Day o' Judgment.' 'I don't
+want ye to'--sez 'e, quite peart. 'I'll take it myself.' An' if ye'll
+believe me, David, 'e sits down an' writes me what 'e calls a 'Memo' of
+what 'e wants put on the grave stone, an' it's the biggest whopper I've
+iver seen out o' the noospapers. I've got it 'ere--" And, referring to a
+much worn and battered old leather pocket-book, Twitt drew from it a
+soiled piece of paper, and read as follows--
+
+              Here lies
+          All that is Mortal
+                  of
+            CATHERINE TIMBS
+        The Dearly Beloved Wife
+                  of
+       Samuel Timbs of Weircombe.
+               She Died
+     At the Early Age of Forty-Nine
+    Full of Virtues and Excellencies
+        Which those who knew Her
+             Deeply Deplore
+                  and
+            NOW is in Heaven.
+
+"And the only true thing about that hepitaph,"--continued Twitt, folding
+up the paper again and returning it to its former receptacle,--"is the
+words 'Here Lies.'"
+
+Helmsley laughed, and Twitt laughed with him.
+
+"Some folks 'as the curiousest ways o' wantin' theirselves remembered
+arter they're gone"--he went on--"An' others seems as if they don't care
+for no mem'ry at all 'cept in the 'arts o' their friends. Now there was
+Tom o' the Gleam, a kind o' gypsy rover in these parts, 'im as murdered
+a lord down at Blue Anchor this very year's July----"
+
+Helmsley drew a quick breath.
+
+"I know!" he said--"I was there!"
+
+"So I've 'eerd say,"--responded Twitt sympathetically--"An' an awsome
+sight it must a' bin for ye! Mary Deane told us as 'ow ye'd bin ravin'
+about Tom--an' m'appen likely it give ye a turn towards yer long
+sickness."
+
+"I was there,"--said Helmsley, shuddering at the recollection--"I had
+stopped on the road to try and get a cheap night's lodging at the very
+inn where the murder took place--but--but there were two murders that
+day, and the _first_ one was the worst!"
+
+"That's what I said at the time, an' that's what I've allus
+thought!"--declared Twitt--"Why that little 'Kiddie' child o' Tom's was
+the playfullest, prettiest little rogue ye'd see in a hundred mile or
+more! 'Oldin' out a posy o' flowers to a motor-car, poor little
+innercent! It might as well 'ave 'eld out flowers to the devil!--though
+my own opinion is as the devil 'imself wouldn't 'a ridden down a child.
+But a motorin' lord o' these days is neither man nor beast nor
+devil,--'e's a somethin' altogether _on_human--_on_human out an' out,--a
+thing wi' goggles over his eyes an' no 'art in his body, which we aint
+iver seen in this poor old world afore. Thanks be to the Lord no motors
+can ever come into Weircombe,--they tears round an' round by another
+road, an' we neither sees, 'ears, nor smells 'em, for which I often sez
+to my wife--'O be joyful in the Lord all ye lands; serve the Lord with
+gladness an' come before His presence with a song!' An' she ups an'
+sez--'Don't be blaspheemous, Twitt,--I'll tell parson'--an' I sez--'Tell
+'im, old 'ooman, if ye likes!' An' when she tells 'im, 'e smiles nice
+an' kind, an' sez--'It's quite lawful, Mrs. Twitt, to quote Scriptural
+thanksgiving on all _necessary_ occasions!' E's a good little chap, our
+parson, but 'e's that weak on his chest an' ailing that 'e's goin' away
+this year to Madeira for rest and warm--an' a blessid old Timp'rance
+raskill's coming to take dooty in 'is place. Ah!--none of us Weircombe
+folk 'ill be very reg'lar church-goers while Mr. Arbroath's here."
+
+Helmsley started slightly.
+
+"Arbroath? I've seen that man."
+
+'Ave ye? Well, ye 'aven't seen no beauty!" And Twitt gave vent to a
+chuckling laugh--"'E'll be startin' 'is 'Igh Jink purcessions an'
+vestiments in our plain little church up yonder, an' by the Lord, 'e'll
+'ave to purcess an' vestiment by 'isself, for Weircombe wont 'elp 'im.
+We aint none of us 'Igh Jink folks."
+
+"Is that your name for High Church?" asked Helmsley, amused.
+
+"It is so, an' a very good name it be," declared Twitt, stoutly--"For if
+all the bobbins' an' scrapins' an' crosses an' banners aint a sort o'
+jinkin' Lord Mayor's show, then what be they? It's fair oaffish to bob
+to the east as them 'Igh Jinkers does, for we aint never told in the
+Gospels that th' Almighty 'olds that partikler quarter o' the wind as a
+place o' residence. The Lord's everywhere,--east, west, north,
+south,--why he's with us at this very minute!"--and Twitt raised his
+eyes piously to the heavens--"He's 'elpin' you an' me to draw the breath
+through our lungs--for if He didn't 'elp, we couldn't do it, that's
+certain. An' if He makes the sun to rise in the east, He makes it to
+sink in the west, an' there's no choice either way, an' we sez our
+prayers simple both times o' day, not to the sun at all, but to the
+Maker o' the sun, an' of everything else as we sees. No, no!--no 'Igh
+Jinks for me!--I don't want to bow to no East when I sees the Lord's no
+more east than He's west, an' no more in either place than He is here,
+close to me an' doin' more for me than I could iver do for myself. 'Igh
+Jinks is unchristin,--as unchristin as cremation, an' nothin's more
+unchristin than that!"
+
+"Why, what makes you think so?" asked Helmsley, surprised.
+
+"What makes me think so?" And Twitt drew himself up with a kind of
+reproachful dignity--"Now, old David, don't go for to say as _you_ don't
+think so too?"
+
+"Cremation unchristian? Well, I can't say I've ever thought of it in
+that light,--it's supposed to be the cleanest way of getting rid of the
+dead----"
+
+"Gettin' rid of the dead!"--echoed Twitt, almost scornfully--"That's
+what ye can never do! They'se everywhere, all about us, if we only had
+strong eyes enough to see 'em. An' cremation aint Christin. I'll tell ye
+for why,"--here he bent forward and tapped his two middle fingers slowly
+on Helmsley's chest to give weight to his words--"Look y'ere! Supposin'
+our Lord's body 'ad been cremated, where would us all a' bin? Where
+would a' bin our 'sure an' certain 'ope' o' the resurrection?"
+
+Helmsley was quite taken aback by this sudden proposition, which
+presented cremation in an entirely new light. But a moment's thought
+restored to him his old love of argument, and he at once replied:--
+
+"Why, it would have been just the same as it is now, surely! If Christ
+was divine, he could have risen from burnt ashes as well as from a
+tomb."
+
+"Out of a hurn?" demanded Twitt, persistently--"If our Lord's body 'ad
+bin burnt an' put in a hurn, an' the hurn 'ad bin took into the 'ouse o'
+Pontis Pilate, an' sealed, an' _kept till now_? Eh? What d'ye say to
+that? I tell ye, David, there wouldn't a bin no savin' grace o'
+Christ'anity at all! An' that's why I sez cremation is unchristin,--it's
+blaspheemous an' 'eethen. For our Lord plainly said to 'is disciples
+arter he came out o' the tomb--'Behold my hands and my feet,--handle me
+and see,'--an' to the doubtin' Thomas He said--'Reach hither thy hand
+and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless but believing.' David,
+you mark my words!--them as 'as their bodies burnt in crematorums is
+just as dirty in their souls as they can be, an' they 'opes to burn all
+the blackness o' theirselves into nothingness an' never to rise no more,
+'cos they'se afraid! They don't want to be laid in good old mother
+earth, which is the warm forcin' place o' the Lord for raisin' up 'uman
+souls as He raises up the blossoms in spring, an' all other things which
+do give Him grateful praise an' thanksgivin'! They gits theirselves
+burnt to ashes 'cos they don't _want_ to be raised up,--they'se never
+praised the Lord 'ere, an' they wouldn't know 'ow to do it _there_! But,
+mercy me!" concluded Twitt ruminatingly,--"I've seen orful queer things
+bred out of ashes!--beetles an' sich like reptiles,--an' I wouldn't much
+care to see the spechul stock as raises itself from the burnt bits of a
+liar!"
+
+Helmsley hardly knew whether to smile or to look serious,--such quaint
+propositions as this old stonemason put forward on the subject of
+cremation were utterly novel to his experience. And while he yet stood
+under the little porch of Twitt's cottage, there came shivering up
+through the quiet autumnal air a slow thud of breaking waves.
+
+"Tide's comin' in,"--said Twitt, after listening a minute or two--"An'
+that minds me o' what I was goin' to tell ye about Tom o' the Gleam.
+After the inkwist, the gypsies came forward an' claimed the bodies o'
+Tom an' 'is Kiddie,--an' they was buried accordin' to Tom's own wish,
+which it seems 'e'd told one of 'is gypsy pals to see as was carried out
+whenever an' wheresoever 'e died. An' what sort of a buryin'd'ye think
+'e 'ad?"
+
+Helmsley shook his head in an expressed inability to imagine.
+
+"'Twas out there,"--and Twitt pointed with one hand to the shining
+expanse of the ocean--"The gypsies put 'im an' is Kiddie in a basket
+coffin which they made theirselves, an' covered it all over wi' garlands
+o' flowers an' green boughs, an' then fastened four great lumps o' lead
+to the four corners, an' rowed it out in a boat to about four or five
+miles from the shore, right near to the place where the moon at full
+'makes a hole in the middle o' the sea,' as the children sez, and there
+they dropped it into the water. Then they sang a funeral song--an' by
+the Lord!--the sound o' that song crept into yer veins an' made yer
+blood run cold!--'twas enough to break a man's 'art, let alone a
+woman's, to 'ear them gypsy voices all in a chorus wailin' a farewell to
+the man an' the child in the sea,--an' the song floated up an' about,
+'ere an' there an' everywhere, all over the land from Cleeve Abbey
+onnards, an' at Blue Anchor, so they sez, it was so awsome an' eerie
+that the people got out o' their beds, shiverin', an' opened their
+windows to listen, an' when they listened they all fell a cryin' like
+children. An' it's no wonder the inn where poor Tom did his bad deed and
+died his bad death, is shut up for good, an' the people as kept it gone
+away--no one couldn't stay there arter that. Ay, ay!" and Twitt sighed
+profoundly--"Poor wild ne'er-do-weel Tom! He lies deep down enough now
+with the waves flowin' over 'im an' 'is little 'Kiddie' clasped tight in
+'is arms. For they never separated 'em,--death 'ad locked 'em up too
+fast together for that. An' they're sleepin' peaceful,--an' there
+they'll sleep till--till 'the sea gives up its dead.'"
+
+Helmsley could not speak,--he was too deeply moved. The sound of the
+in-coming tide grew fuller and more sonorous, and Twitt presently turned
+to look critically at the heaving waters.
+
+"There's a cry in the sea to-day,"--he said,--"M'appen it'll be rough
+to-night."
+
+They were silent again, till presently Helmsley roused himself from the
+brief melancholy abstraction into which he had been plunged by the story
+of Tom o' the Gleam's funeral.
+
+"I think I'll go down on the shore for a bit,"--he said; "I like to get
+as close to the waves as I can when they're rolling in."
+
+"Well, don't get too close,"--said Twitt, kindly--"We'll be havin' ye
+washed away if ye don't take care! There's onny an hour to tea-time, an'
+Mary Deane's a punctooal 'ooman!"
+
+"I shall not keep her waiting--never fear!" and Helmsley smiled as he
+said good-day, and jogged slowly along his favourite accustomed path to
+the beach. The way though rough, was not very steep, and it was becoming
+quite easy and familiar to him. He soon found himself on the firm brown
+sand sprinkled with a fringe of seaweed and shells, and further adorned
+in various places with great rough boulders, picturesquely set up on
+end, like the naturally hewn memorials of great heroes passed away.
+Here, the ground being level, he could walk more quickly and with
+greater comfort than in the one little precipitous street of Weircombe,
+and he paced up and down, looking at the rising and falling hollows of
+the sea with wistful eyes that in their growing age and dimness had an
+intensely pathetic expression,--the expression one sometimes sees in the
+eyes of a dog who knows that its master is leaving it for an indefinite
+period.
+
+"What a strange chaos of brain must be that of the suicide!" he
+thought--"Who, that can breathe the fresh air and watch the lights and
+shadows in the sky and on the waves, would really wish to leave the
+world, unless the mind had completely lost its balance! We have never
+seen anything more beautiful than this planet upon which we are
+born,--though there is a sub-consciousness in us which prophesies of yet
+greater beauty awaiting higher vision. The subconscious self! That is
+the scientist's new name for the Soul,--but the Soul is a better term.
+Now my subconscious self--my Soul,--is lamenting the fact that it must
+leave life when it has just begun to learn how to live! I should like
+to be here and see what Mary will do when--when I am gone! Yet how do I
+know but that in very truth I shall be here?--or in some way be made
+aware of her actions? She has a character such as I never thought to
+find in any mortal woman,--strong, pure, tender,--and sincere!--ah, that
+sincerity of hers is like the very sunlight!--so bright and warm, and
+clean of all ulterior motive! And measured by a worldly estimate
+only--what is she? The daughter of a humble florist,--herself a mere
+mender of lace, and laundress of fine ladies' linen! And her sweet and
+honest eyes have never looked upon that rag-fair of nonsense we call
+'society';--she never thinks of riches;--and yet she has refined and
+artistic taste enough to love the lace she mends, just for pure
+admiration of its beauty,--not because she herself desires to wear it,
+but because it represents the work and lives of others, and because it
+is in itself a miracle of design. I wonder if she ever notices how
+closely I watch her! I could draw from memory the shapely outline of her
+hand,--a white, smooth, well-kept hand, never allowed to remain soiled
+by all her various forms of domestic labour,--an expressive hand,
+indicating health and sanity, with that deep curve at the wrist, and the
+delicately shaped fingers which hold the needle so lightly and guide it
+so deftly through the intricacies of the riven lace, weaving a web of
+such fairy-like stitches that the original texture seems never to have
+been broken. I have sat quiet for an hour or more studying her when she
+has thought me asleep in my chair by the fire,--and I have fancied that
+my life is something like the damaged fabric she is so carefully
+repairing,--holes and rents everywhere,--all the symmetry of design
+dropping to pieces,--the little garlands of roses and laurels snapped
+asunder,--and she, with her beautiful white hands is gently drawing the
+threads together and mending it,--for what purpose?--to what end?"
+
+And here the involuntary action of some little brain-cell gave him the
+memory of certain lines in Browning's "Rabbi Ben Ezra":--
+
+          "Therefore I summon age
+          To grant youth's heritage
+    Life's struggle having so far reached its term;
+          Thence shall I pass, approved
+          A man, for aye removed
+    From the developed brute; a god, though in the germ.
+          And I shall thereupon
+          Take rest ere I be gone
+    Once more on my adventures brave and new--
+          Fearless--and unperplexed
+          When I wage battle next,
+    What weapons to select, what armour to indue!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He turned his eyes again to the sea just as a lovely light, pale golden
+and clear as topaz, opened suddenly in the sky, shedding a shower of
+luminant reflections on the waves. He drew a deep breath, and
+unconsciously straightened himself.
+
+"When death comes it shall find me ready!" he said, half aloud;--and
+then stood, confronting the ethereal glory. The waves rolled in slowly
+and majestically one after the other, and broke at his feet in long
+wreaths of creamy foam,--and presently one or two light gusts of a
+rather chill wind warned him that he had best be returning homeward.
+While he yet hesitated, a leaf of paper blew towards him, and danced
+about like a large erratic butterfly, finally dropping just where the
+stick on which he leaned made a hole in the sand. He stooped and picked
+it up. It was covered with fine small handwriting, and before he could
+make any attempt to read it, a man sprang up from behind one of the
+rocky boulders close by, and hurried forward, raising his cap as he
+came.
+
+"That's mine!" he said, quickly, with a pleasant smile--"It's a loose
+page from my notebook. Thank-you so much for saving it!"
+
+Helmsley gave him the paper at once, with a courteous inclination of the
+head.
+
+"I've been scribbling down here all day,"--proceeded the new comer--"And
+there's not been much wind till now. But"--and he glanced up and about
+him critically; "I think we shall have a puff of sou'wester to-night."
+
+Helmsley looked at him with interest. He was a man of distinctive
+appearance,--tall, well-knit, and muscular, with a fine intellectual
+face and keen clear grey eyes. Not a very young man;--he seemed about
+thirty-eight or forty, perhaps more, for his dark hair was fairly
+sprinkled with silver. But his manner was irresistibly bright and
+genial, and it was impossible to meet his frank, open, almost boyish
+gaze, without a desire to know more of him, and an inclination to like
+him.
+
+"Do you make the seashore your study?" asked Helmsley, with a slight
+gesture towards the notebook into which the stranger was now carefully
+putting the strayed leaflet.
+
+"Pretty much so!" and he laughed--"I've only got one room to live
+in--and it has to serve for both sleeping and eating--so I come out here
+to breathe and expand a bit." He paused, and then added gently--"May I
+give you my arm up to Miss Deane's cottage?"
+
+"Why, how do you know I live there?" and Helmsley smiled as he put the
+question.
+
+"Oh, well, all the village knows that!--and though I'm quite new to the
+village--I've only been here a week--I know it too. You're old David,
+the basket-maker, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes." And Helmsley nodded emphatically--"That's me!"
+
+"Then I know all about you! My name's Angus Reay. I'm a Scotchman,--I
+am, or rather, I _was_ a journalist, and as poor as Job! That's _me_!
+Come along!"
+
+The cheery magnetism of his voice and look attracted Helmsley, and
+almost before he knew it he was leaning on this new friend's arm,
+chatting with him concerning the village, the scenery, and the weather,
+in the easiest way possible.
+
+"I came on here from Minehead,"--said Reay--"That was too expensive a
+place for me!" And a bright smile flashed from lips to eyes with an
+irresistible sunny effect; "I've got just twenty pounds in the world,
+and I must make it last me a year. For room, food, fuel, clothes, drink
+and smoke! I've promptly cut off the last two!"
+
+"And you're none the worse for it, I daresay!" rejoined Helmsley.
+
+"Not a bit! A good deal the better. In Fleet Street the men drank and
+smoked pretty heavily, and I had to drink and smoke with them, if I
+wanted to keep in with the lot. I did want to keep in with them, and yet
+I didn't. It was a case of 'needs must when the devil drives!'"
+
+"You say you were a journalist. Aren't you one now?"
+
+"No. I'm 'kicked off'!" And Reay threw back his head and laughed
+joyously. "'Off you go!' said my editor, one fine morning, after I had
+slaved away for him for nearly two years--'We don't want any canting
+truth-tellers here!' Now mind that stone! You nearly slipped. Hold my
+arm tighter!"
+
+Helmsley did as he was told, quite meekly, looking up with a good deal
+of curiosity at this tall athletic creature, with the handsome head and
+masterful manner. Reay caught his enquiring glance and laughed again.
+
+"You look as if you wanted to know more about me, old David!" he said
+gaily--"So you shall! I've nothing to conceal! As I tell you I was
+'kicked off' out of journalism--my fault being that I published a
+leaderette exposing a mean 'deal' on the part of a certain city
+plutocrat. I didn't know the rascal had shares in the paper. But he
+_had_--under an 'alias.' And he made the devil's own row about it with
+the editor, who nearly died of it, being inclined to apoplexy--and
+between the two of them I was 'dropped.' Then the word ran along the
+press wires that I was an 'unsafe' man. I could not get any post worth
+having--I had saved just twenty pounds--so I took it all and walked away
+from London--literally _walked_ away! I haven't spent a penny in other
+locomotion than my own legs since I left Fleet Street."
+
+Helmsley listened with eager interest. Here was a man who had done the
+very thing which he himself had started to do;--"tramped" the road.
+But--with what a difference! Full manhood, physical strength, and
+activity on the one side,--decaying power, feebleness of limb and
+weariness on the other. They had entered the village street by this
+time, and were slowly walking up it together.
+
+"You see,"--went on Reay,--"of course I could have taken the train--but
+twenty pounds is only twenty pounds--and it must last me twelve solid
+months. By that time I shall have finished my work."
+
+"And what's that?" asked Helmsley.
+
+"It's a book. A novel. And"--here he set his teeth hard--"I intend that
+it shall make me--famous!"
+
+"The intention is good,"--said Helmsley, slowly--"But--there are so many
+novels!"
+
+"No, there are not!" declared Reay, decisively--"There are plenty of
+rag-books _called_ novels--but they are not real 'novels.' There's
+nothing 'new' in them. There's no touch of real, suffering, palpitating
+humanity in them! The humanity of to-day is infinitely more complex than
+it was in the days of Scott or Dickens, but there's no Scott or Dickens
+to epitomise its character or delineate its temperament. I want to be
+the twentieth century Scott and Dickens rolled into one stupendous
+literary Titan!"
+
+His mellow laughter was hearty and robust. Helmsley caught its infection
+and laughed too.
+
+"But why,"--he asked--"do you want to write a novel? Why not write a
+real _book_?"
+
+"What do you call a real book, old David?" demanded Reay, looking down
+upon him with a sudden piercing glance.
+
+Helmsley was for a moment confused. He was thinking of such books as
+Carlyle's "Past and Present"--Emerson's "Essays" and the works of
+Ruskin. But he remembered in good time that for an old "basket-maker" to
+be familiar with such literary masterpieces might seem strange to a
+wide-awake "journalist," therefore he checked himself in time.
+
+"Oh, I don't know! I believe I was thinking of 'Pilgrim's Progress'!" he
+said.
+
+"'Pilgrim's Progress'? Ah! A fine book--a grand book! Twelve years and a
+half of imprisonment in Bedford Jail turned Bunyan out immortal! And
+here am I--_not_ in jail--but free to roam where I choose,--with twenty
+pounds! By Jove! I ought to be greater than Bunyan! Now 'Pilgrim's
+Progress' was a 'novel,' if you like!"
+
+"I thought,"--submitted Helmsley, with the well-assumed air of a man who
+was not very conversant with literature--"that it was a religious book?"
+
+"So it is. A religious novel. And a splendid one! But humanity's gone
+past that now--it wants a wider view--a bigger, broader outlook. Do you
+know--" and here he stopped in the middle of the rugged winding street,
+and looked earnestly at his companion--"do you know what I see men doing
+at the present day?--I see them rushing towards the verge--the very
+extreme edge of what they imagine to be the Actual--and from that edge
+getting ready to plunge--into Nothingness!"
+
+Something thrilling in his voice touched a responsive chord in
+Helmsley's own heart.
+
+"Why--that is where we all tend!" he said, with a quick sigh--"That is
+where _I_ am tending!--where _you_, in your time, must also
+tend--nothingness--or death!"
+
+"No!" said Reay, almost loudly--"That's not true! That's just what I
+deny! For me there is no 'Nothingness'--no 'death'! Space is full of
+creative organisms. Dissolution means re-birth. It is all
+life--life:--glorious life! We live--we have always lived--we _shall_
+always live!" He paused, flushing a little as though half ashamed of
+his own enthusiasm--then, dropping his voice to its normal tone he
+said--"You've got me on my hobby horse--I must come off it, or I shall
+gallop too far! We're just at the top of the street now. Shall I leave
+you here?"
+
+"Please come on to the cottage,"--said Helmsley--"I'm sure Mary--Miss
+Deane--will give you a cup of tea."
+
+Angus Reay smiled.
+
+"I don't allow myself that luxury,"--he said.
+
+"Not when you're invited to share it with others?"
+
+"Oh yes, in that way I do--but I'm not overburdened with friends just
+now. A man must have more than twenty pounds to be 'asked out'
+anywhere!"
+
+"Well, _I_ ask you out!"--said Helmsley, smiling--"Or rather, I ask you
+_in_. I'm sure Miss Deane will be glad to talk to you. She is very fond
+of books."
+
+"I've seen her just once in the village,"--remarked Reay--"She seems to
+be very much respected here. And what a beautiful woman she is!"
+
+"You think so?" and Helmsley's eyes lighted with pleasure--"Well, I
+think so, too--but they tell me that it's only because I'm old, and apt
+to see everyone beautiful who is kind to me. There's a good deal in
+that!--there's certainly a good deal in that!"
+
+They could now see the garden gate of Mary's cottage through the boughs
+of the great chestnut tree, which at this season was nearly stripped of
+all its leaves, and which stood like a lonely forest king with some
+scanty red and yellow rags of woodland royalty about him, in solitary
+grandeur at the bending summit of the hill. And while they were yet
+walking the few steps which remained of the intervening distance, Mary
+herself came out to the gate, and, leaning one arm lightly across it,
+watched them approaching. She wore a pale lilac print gown, high to the
+neck and tidily finished off by a plain little muslin collar fastened
+with a coquettish knot of black velvet,--her head was uncovered, and the
+fitful gleams of the sinking sun shed a russet glow on her shining hair
+and reddened the pale clear transparency of her skin. In that restful
+waiting attitude, with a smile on her face, she made a perfect picture,
+and Helmsley stole a side-glance at his companion, to see if he seemed
+to be in any way impressed by her appearance. Angus Reay was certainly
+looking at her, but what he thought could hardly be guessed by his
+outward expression. They reached the gate, and she opened it.
+
+"I was getting anxious about you, David!"--she said; "you aren't quite
+strong enough to be out in such a cold wind." Then she turned her eyes
+enquiringly on Reay, who lifted his cap while Helmsley explained his
+presence.
+
+"This is a gentleman who is staying in the village--Mr. Reay,"--he
+said--"He's been very kind in helping me up the hill--and I said you
+would give him a cup of tea."
+
+"Why, of course!"--and Mary smiled--"Please come in, sir!"
+
+She led the way, and in another few minutes, all three of them were
+seated in her little kitchen round the table and Mary was busy pouring
+out the tea and dispensing the usual good things that are always found
+in the simplest Somersetshire cottage,--cream, preserved fruit, scones,
+home-made bread and fresh butter.
+
+"So you met David on the seashore?" she said, turning her soft dark-blue
+eyes enquiringly on Reay, while gently checking with one hand the
+excited gambols of Charlie, who, as an epicurean dog, always gave
+himself up to the wildest enthusiasms at tea-time, owing to his
+partiality for a small saucer of cream which came to him at that
+hour--"I sometimes think he must expect to pick up a fortune down among
+the shells and seaweed, he's so fond of walking about there!"--And she
+smiled as she put Helmsley's cup of tea before him, and gently patted
+his wrinkled hand in the caressing fashion a daughter might show to a
+father whose health gave cause for anxiety.
+
+"Well, _I_ certainly don't go down to the shore in any such
+expectation!" said Reay, laughing--"Fortunes are not so easily picked
+up, are they, David?"
+
+"No, indeed!" replied Helmsley, and his old eyes sparkled up humorously
+under their cavernous brows; "fortunes take some time to make, and one
+doesn't meet millionaires every day!"
+
+"Millionaires!" exclaimed Reay--"Don't speak of them! I hate them!"
+
+Helmsley looked at him stedfastly.
+
+"It's best not to hate anybody,"--he said--"Millionaires are often the
+loneliest and most miserable of men."
+
+"They deserve to be!" declared Reay, hotly--"It isn't right--it isn't
+just that two or three, or let us say four or five men should be able
+to control the money-markets of the world. They generally get their
+wealth through some unscrupulous 'deal,' or through 'sweating' labour. I
+hate all 'cornering' systems. I believe in having enough to live upon,
+but not too much."
+
+"It depends on what you call enough,"--said Helmsley, slowly--"We're
+told that some people never know when they _have_ enough."
+
+"Why _this_ is enough!" said Reay, looking admiringly round the little
+kitchen in which they sat--"This sweet little cottage with this oak
+raftered ceiling, and all the dear old-fashioned crockery, and the
+ingle-nook over there,--who on earth wants more?"
+
+Mary laughed.
+
+"Oh dear me!" she murmured, gently--"You praise it too much!--it's only
+a very poor place, sir,----"
+
+He interrupted her, the colour rushing to his brows.
+
+"Please don't!"
+
+She glanced at him in surprise.
+
+"Don't--what?"
+
+"Don't call me 'sir'! I'm only a poor chap,--my father was a shepherd,
+and I began life as a cowherd--I don't want any titles of courtesy."
+
+She still kept her eyes upon him thoughtfully.
+
+"But you're a gentleman, aren't you?" she asked.
+
+"I hope so!" And he laughed. "Just as David is! But we neither of us
+wish the fact emphasised, do we, David? It goes without saying!"
+
+Helmsley smiled. This Angus Reay was a man after his own heart.
+
+"Of course it does!"--he said--"In the way you look at it! But you
+should tell Miss Deane all about yourself--she'll be interested."
+
+"Would you really care to hear?" enquired Reay, suddenly, turning his
+clear grey eyes full on Mary's face.
+
+"Why certainly I should!" she answered, frankly meeting his glance,--and
+then, from some sudden and inexplicable embarrassment, she blushed
+crimson, and her eyelids fell. And Reay thought what a clear, healthy
+skin she had, and how warmly the blood flowed under it.
+
+"Well, after tea I'll hold forth!" he said--"But there isn't much to
+tell. Such as there is, you shall know, for I've no mysteries about me.
+Some fellows love a mystery--I cannot bear it! Everything must be fair,
+open and above board with me,--else I can't breathe! Pouf!" And he
+expanded his broad chest and took a great gulp of air in as he spoke--"I
+hate a man who tries to hide his own identity, don't you, David?"
+
+"Yes--yes--certainly!" murmured Helmsley, absently, feigning to be
+absorbed in buttering a scone for his own eating--"It is often very
+awkward--for the man."
+
+"I always say, and I always will maintain,"--went on Reay--"let a man be
+a man--a something or a nothing. If he is a criminal, let him say he is
+a criminal, and not pretend to be virtuous--if he is an atheist, let him
+say he is an atheist, and not pretend to be religious--if he's a beggar
+and can't help himself, let him admit the fact--if he's a millionaire,
+don't let him skulk round pretending he's as poor as Job--always let him
+be himself and no other!--eh?--what is it, David?"
+
+For Helmsley was looking at him intently with eyes that were almost
+young in their sudden animation and brilliancy.
+
+"Did you ever meet a millionaire who skulked round pretending he was as
+poor as Job?" he enquired, with a whimsical air--"_I_ never did!"
+
+"Well no, I never did, either!" And Reay's mellow laughter was so loud
+and long that Mary was quite infected by it, and laughed with him--"But
+you see millionaires are all marked men. Everybody knows them. Their
+portraits are in all the newspapers--horrid-looking rascals most of
+them!--Nature doesn't seem to endow them with handsome features anyway.
+'Keep your gold, and never mind your face,'--she seems to say--'_I'll_
+take care of that!' And she does take care of it! O Lord! The only
+millionaire I ever saw in my life was ugly enough to frighten a baby
+into convulsions!"
+
+"What was his name?" asked Helmsley.
+
+"Well, it wouldn't be fair to tell his name now, after what I've said!"
+laughed Reay--"Besides, he lives in America, thank God! He's one of the
+few who have spared the old country his patronage!"
+
+Here a diversion was created by the necessity of serving the tiny but
+autocratic Charlie with his usual "dish of cream," of which he partook
+on Mary's knee, while listening (as was evident from the attentive
+cocking of his silky ears) to the various compliments he was accustomed
+to receive on his beauty. This business over, they rose from the
+tea-table. The afternoon had darkened into twilight, and the autumnal
+wind was sighing through the crannies of the door. Mary stirred the fire
+into a brighter blaze, and drawing Helmsley's armchair close to its warm
+glow, stood by him till he was comfortably seated--then she placed
+another chair opposite for Reay, and sat down herself on a low oaken
+settle between the two.
+
+"This is the pleasantest time of the day just now,"--she said--"And the
+best time for talking! I love the gloaming. My father loved it too."
+
+"So did _my_ father!" and Reay's eyes softened as he bent them on the
+sparkling fire--"In winter evenings when the darkness fell down upon our
+wild Highland hills, he would come home to our shieling on the edge of
+the moor, shaking all the freshness of the wind and the scent of the
+dying heather out of his plaid as he threw it from his shoulders,--and
+he would toss fresh peat on the fire till it blazed red and golden, and
+he would lay his hand on my head and say to me: 'Come awa' bairnie! Now
+for a bogle story in the gloamin'!' Ah, those bogle stories! They are
+answerable for a good deal in my life! They made me want to write bogle
+stories myself!"
+
+"And _do_ you write them?" asked Mary.
+
+"Not exactly. Though perhaps all human life is only a bogle tale!
+Invented to amuse the angels!"
+
+She smiled, and taking up a delicate piece of crochet lace, which she
+called her "spare time work," began to ply the glittering needle in and
+out fine intricacies of thread, her shapely hands gleaming like
+alabaster in the fire-light reflections.
+
+"Well, now tell us your own bogle tale!" she said--"And David and I will
+play the angels!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+He watched her working for a few minutes before he spoke again. And
+shading his eyes with one hand from the red glow of the fire, David
+Helmsley watched them both.
+
+"Well, it's rather cool of me to take up your time talking about my own
+affairs,"--began Reay, at last--"But I've been pretty much by myself for
+a good while, and it's pleasant to have a chat with friendly people--man
+wasn't made to live alone, you know! In fact, neither man nor beast nor
+bird can stand it. Even a sea cormorant croaks to the wind!"
+
+Mary laughed.
+
+"But not for company's sake,"--she said--"It croaks when it's hungry."
+
+"Oh, I've often croaked for that reason!" and Reay pushed from his
+forehead a wayward tuft of hair which threatened to drop over his eye in
+a thick silvery brown curl--"But it's wonderful how little a fellow can
+live upon in the way of what is called food. I know all sorts of dodges
+wherewith to satisfy the greedy cravings of the vulgar part of me."
+
+Helmsley took his hand from his eyes, and fixed a keenly observant look
+upon the speaker. Mary said nothing, but her crochet needle moved more
+slowly.
+
+"You see," went on Reay, "I've always been rather fortunate in having
+had very little to eat."
+
+"You call it 'fortunate'?" queried Helmsley, abruptly.
+
+"Why, of course! I've never had what the doctors call an 'overloaded
+system'--therefore I've no lading bill to pay. The million or so of
+cells of which I am composed are not at all anxious to throw any extra
+nourishment off,--sometimes they intimate a strong desire to take some
+extra nourishment in--but that is an uneducated tendency in them which I
+sternly repress. I tell all those small grovelling cells that extra
+nourishment would not be good for them. And they shrink back from my
+moral reproof ashamed of themselves--and become wiry instead of fatty.
+Which is as it should be."
+
+"You're a queer chap!" said Helmsley, with a laugh.
+
+"Think so? Well, I daresay I am--all Scotsmen are. There's always the
+buzzing of the bee in our bonnets. I come of an ancient Highland stock
+who were certainly 'queer' as modern ways go,--for they were famous for
+their pride, and still more famous for their poverty all the way
+through. As far back as I can go in the history of my family, and that's
+a pretty long way, we were always at our wit's end to live. From the
+days of the founder of our house, a glorious old chieftain who used to
+pillage his neighbour chieftain in the usual style of those glorious old
+times, we never had more than just enough for the bare necessities of
+life. My father, as I told you, was a shepherd--a strong, fine-looking
+man over six feet in height, and as broad-chested as a Hercules--he
+herded sheep on the mountains for a Glasgow dealer, as low-down a rascal
+as ever lived, a man who, so far as race and lineage went, wasn't fit to
+scrape mud off my father's boots. But we often see gentlemen of birth
+obliged to work for knaves of cash. That was the way it was with my
+father. As soon as I was old enough--about ten,--I helped him in his
+work--I used to tramp backwards and forwards to school in the nearest
+village, but after school hours I got an evening job of a shilling a
+week for bringing home eight Highland bull-heifers from pasture. The man
+who owned them valued them highly, but was afraid of them--wouldn't go
+near them for his life--and before I'd been with them a fortnight they
+all knew me. I was only a wee laddie, but they answered to my call like
+friendly dogs rather than the great powerful splendid beasts they were,
+with their rough coats shining like floss silk in the sunset, when I
+went to drive them home, singing as I came. And my father said to me one
+night--'Laddie, tell me the truth--are ye ever scared at the bulls!'
+'No, father!' said I--'It's a bonnie boy I am to the bulls!' And he
+laughed--by Jove!--how he laughed! 'Ye're a wee raskell!' he said--'An'
+as full o' conceit as an egg's full o' meat!' I expect that was true
+too, for I always thought well of myself. You see, if I hadn't thought
+well of myself, no one would ever have thought well of _me_!"
+
+"There's something in that!" said Helmsley, the smile still lingering in
+his eyes--"Courage and self-reliance have often conquered more than
+eight bulls!"
+
+"Oh, I don't call it either courage or self-reliance--it was just that
+I thought myself of too much importance to be hurt by bulls or anything
+else,"--and Angus laughed,--then with a sudden knitting of his brows as
+though his thoughts were making hard knots in his brain, he added--"Even
+as a laddie I had an idea--and I have it now--that there was something
+in me which God had put there for a purpose of His own,--something that
+he would not and _could_ not destroy till His purpose had been
+fulfilled!"
+
+Mary stopped working and looked at him earnestly. Her breath came and
+went quickly--her eyes shone dewily like stars in a summer haze,--she
+was deeply interested.
+
+"That was--and _is_--a conceited notion, of course,"--went on Angus,
+reflectively--"And I don't excuse it. But I'm not one of the 'meek who
+shall inherit the earth.' I'm a robustious combustious sort of chap--if
+a fellow knocks me down, I jump up and give it him back with as jolly
+good interest as I can--and if anyone plays me a dirty trick I'll move
+all the mental and elemental forces of the universe to expose him.
+That's my way--unfortunately----"
+
+"Why 'unfortunately'?" asked Helmsley.
+
+Reay threw back his head and indulged in one of his mellow peals of
+laughter.
+
+"Can you ask why? Oh David, good old David!--it's easy to see you don't
+know much of the world! If you did, you'd realise that the best way to
+'get on' in the usual way of worldly progress, is to make up to all
+sorts of social villains and double-dyed millionaire-scoundrels, find
+out all their tricks and their miserable little vices and pamper them,
+David!--pamper them and flatter them up to the top of their bent till
+you've got them in your power--and then--then _use_ them--use them for
+everything you want. For once you know what blackguards they are,
+they'll give you anything not to tell!"
+
+"I should be sorry to think that's true,"--murmured Mary.
+
+"Don't think it, then,"--said Angus--"You needn't,--because millionaires
+are not likely to come in your way. Nor in mine--now. I've cut myself
+adrift from all chance of ever meeting them. But only a year ago I was
+on the road to making a good thing out of one or two of the so-called
+'kings of finance'--then I suddenly took a 'scunner' as we Scots say, at
+the whole lot, and hated and despised myself for ever so much as
+thinking that it might serve my own ends to become their tool. So I
+just cast off ropes like a ship, and steamed out of harbour."
+
+"Into the wide sea!" said Mary, looking at him with a smile that was
+lovely in its radiance and sympathy.
+
+"Into the wide sea--yes!" he answered--"And sea that was pretty rough at
+first. But one can get accustomed to anything--even to the high
+rock-a-bye tossing of great billows that really don't want to put you to
+sleep so much as to knock you to pieces. But I'm galloping along too
+fast. From the time I made friends with young bulls to the time I began
+to scrape acquaintance with newspaper editors is a far cry--and in the
+interim my father died. I should have told you that I lost my mother
+when I was born--and I don't think that the great wound her death left
+in my father's heart ever really healed. He never seemed quite at one
+with the things of life--and his 'bogle tales' of which I was so fond,
+all turned on the spirits of the dead coming again to visit those whom
+they had loved, and from whom they had been taken--and he used to tell
+them with such passionate conviction that sometimes I trembled and
+wondered if any spirit were standing near us in the light of the peat
+fire, or if the shriek of the wind over our sheiling were the cry of
+some unhappy soul in torment. Well! When his time came, he was not
+allowed to suffer--one day in a great storm he was struck by lightning
+on the side of the mountain where he was herding in his flocks--and
+there he was found lying as though he were peacefully asleep. Death must
+have been swift and painless--and I always thank God for that!" He
+paused a moment--then went on--"When I found myself quite alone in the
+world, I hired myself out to a farmer for five years--and worked
+faithfully for him--worked so well that he raised my wages and would
+willingly have kept me on--but I had the 'bogle tales' in my head and
+could not rest. It was in the days before Andrew Carnegie started trying
+to rub out the memory of his 'Homestead' cruelty by planting 'free'
+libraries, (for which taxpayers are rated) all over the country--and
+pauperising Scottish University education by grants of money--I suppose
+he is a sort of little Pontiff unto himself, and thinks that money can
+pacify Heaven, and silence the cry of brothers' blood rising from the
+Homestead ground. In my boyhood a Scottish University education had to
+be earned by the would-be student himself--earned by hard work, hard
+living, patience, perseverance and _grit_. That's the one quality I
+had--grit--and it served me well in all I wanted. I entered at St.
+Andrews--graduated, and came out an M.A. That helped to give me my first
+chance with the press. But I'm sure I'm boring you by all this chatter
+about myself! David, _you_ stop me when you think Miss Deane has had
+enough!"
+
+Helmsley looked at Mary's figure in its pale lilac gown touched here and
+there by the red sparkle of the fire, and noted the attentive poise of
+her head, and the passive quietude of her generally busy hands which now
+lay in her lap loosely folded over her lace work.
+
+"Have we had enough, Mary, do you think?" he asked, with the glimmering
+of a tender little smile under his white moustache.
+
+She glanced at him quickly in a startled way, as though she had been
+suddenly wakened from a reverie.
+
+"Oh no!" she answered--"I love to hear of a brave man's fight with the
+world--it's the finest story anyone can listen to."
+
+Reay coloured like a boy.
+
+"I'm not a brave man,"--he said--"I hope I haven't given you that idea.
+I'm an awful funk at times."
+
+"When are those times?" and Mary smiled demurely, as she put the
+question.
+
+Again the warm blood rushed up to his brows.
+
+"Well,--please don't laugh! I'm afraid--horribly afraid--of women!"
+
+Helmsley's old eyes sparkled.
+
+"Upon my word!" he exclaimed--"That's a funny thing for you to say!"
+
+"It is, rather,"--and Angus looked meditatively into the fire--"It's not
+that I'm bashful, at all--no--I'm quite the other way,
+really,--only--only--ever since I was a lad I've made such an ideal of
+woman that I'm afraid of her when I meet her,--afraid lest she shouldn't
+come up to my ideal, and equally afraid lest I shouldn't come up to
+hers! It's all conceit again! Fear of anything or anybody is always born
+of self-consciousness. But I've been disappointed once----"
+
+"In your ideal?" questioned Mary, raising her eyes and letting them rest
+observantly upon his face.
+
+"Yes. I'll come to that presently. I was telling you how I graduated at
+St. Andrews, and came out with M.A. tacked to my name, but with no other
+fortune than those two letters. I had made a few friends, however, and
+one of them, a worthy old professor, gave me a letter of recommendation
+to a man in Glasgow, who was the proprietor of one of the newspapers
+there. He was a warm-hearted, kindly fellow, and gave me a berth at
+once. It was hard work for little pay, but I got into thorough harness,
+and learnt all the ins and outs of journalism. I can't say that I ever
+admired the general mechanism set up for gulling the public, but I had
+to learn how it was done, and I set myself to master the whole business.
+I had rather a happy time of it in Glasgow, for though it's the
+dirtiest, dingiest and most depressing city in the world, with its
+innumerable drunkards and low Scoto-Irish ne'er-do-weels loafing about
+the streets on Saturday nights, it has one great charm--you can get away
+from it into some of the loveliest scenery in the world. All my spare
+time was spent in taking the steamer up the Clyde, and sometimes going
+as far as Crinan and beyond it--or what I loved best of all, taking a
+trip to Arran, and there roaming about the hills to my heart's content.
+Glorious Arran! It was there I first began to feel my wings growing!"
+
+"Was it a pleasant feeling?" enquired Helmsley, jocosely.
+
+"Yes--it _was_!" replied Angus, clenching his right hand and bringing it
+down on his knee with emphasis; "whether they were goose wings or eagle
+wings didn't matter--the pricking of the budding quills was an _alive_
+sensation! The mountains, the burns, the glens, all had something to say
+to me--or I thought they had--something new, vital and urgent. God
+Himself seemed to have some great command to impose upon me--and I was
+ready to hear and obey. I began to write--first verse--then prose--and
+by and by I got one or two things accepted here and there--not very
+much, but still enough to fire me to further endeavours. Then one
+summer, when I was taking a holiday at a little village near Loch
+Lomond, I got the final dig of the spur of fate--I fell in love."
+
+Mary raised her eyes again and looked at him. A slow smile parted her
+lips.
+
+"And did the girl fall in love with you?" she asked.
+
+"For a time I believe she did,"--said Reay, and there was an under-tone
+of whimsical amusement in his voice as he spoke--"She was spending the
+summer in Scotland with her mother and father, and there wasn't anything
+for her to do. She didn't care for scenery very much--and I just came
+in as a sort of handy man to amuse her. She was a lovely creature in
+her teens,--I thought she was an angel--till--till I found her out."
+
+"And then?" queried Helmsley.
+
+"Oh well, then of course I was disillusioned. When I told her that I
+loved her more than anything else in the world, she laughed ever so
+sweetly, and said, 'I'm sure you do!' But when I asked her if she loved
+_me_, she laughed again, and said she didn't know what I was talking
+about--she didn't believe in love. 'What do you believe in?' I asked
+her. And she looked at me in the prettiest and most innocent way
+possible, and said quite calmly and slowly--'A rich marriage.' And my
+heart gave a great dunt in my side, for I knew it was all over. 'Then
+you won't marry _me_?'--I said--'for I'm only a poor journalist. But I
+mean to be famous some day!' 'Do you?' she said, and again that little
+laugh of hers rippled out like the tinkle of cold water--'Don't you
+think famous men are very tiresome? And they're always dreadfully poor!'
+Then I took hold of her hands, like the desperate fool I was, and kissed
+them, and said, 'Lucy, wait for me just a few years! Wait for me! You're
+so young'--for she was only seventeen, and still at school in Brighton
+somewhere--'You can afford to wait,--give me a chance!' And she looked
+down at the water--we were 'on the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond,' as the
+song says--in quite a picturesque little attitude of reflection, and
+sighed ever so prettily, and said--'I can't, Angus! You're very nice and
+kind!--and I like you very much!--but I am going to marry a
+millionaire!' Now you know why I hate millionaires."
+
+"Did you say her name was Lucy?" asked Helmsley.
+
+"Yes. Lucy Sorrel."
+
+A bright flame leaped up in the fire and showed all three faces to one
+another--Mary's face, with its quietly absorbed expression of attentive
+interest--Reay's strongly moulded features, just now somewhat sternly
+shadowed by bitter memories--and Helmsley's thin, worn, delicately
+intellectual countenance, which in the brilliant rosy light flung upon
+it by the fire-glow, was like a fine waxen mask, impenetrable in its
+unmoved austerity and calm. Not so much as the faintest flicker of
+emotion crossed it at the mention of the name of the woman he knew so
+well,--the surprise he felt inwardly was not apparent outwardly, and he
+heard the remainder of Reay's narration with the most perfectly
+controlled imperturbability of demeanour.
+
+"She told me then," proceeded Reay--"that her parents had spent nearly
+all they had upon her education, in order to fit her for a position as
+the wife of a rich man--and that she would have to do her best to
+'catch'--that's the way she put it--to 'catch' this rich man as soon as
+she got a good opportunity. He was quite an old man, she said--old
+enough to be her grandfather. And when I asked her how she could
+reconcile it to her conscience to marry such a hoary-headed rascal----"
+
+Here Helmsley interrupted him.
+
+"Was he a hoary-headed rascal?"
+
+"He must have been," replied Angus, warmly--"Don't you see he must?"
+
+Helmsley smiled.
+
+"Well--not exactly!" he submitted, with a gentle air of deference--"I
+think--perhaps--he might deserve a little pity for having to be 'caught'
+as you say just for his money's sake."
+
+"Not a bit of it!" declared Reay--"Any old man who would marry a young
+girl like that condemns himself as a villain. An out-an-out,
+golden-dusted villain!"
+
+"But _has_ he married her?" asked Mary.
+
+Angus was rather taken aback at this question,--and rubbed his forehead
+perplexedly.
+
+"Well, no, he hasn't--not yet--not that I know of, and I've watched the
+papers carefully too. Such a marriage couldn't take place without
+columns and columns of twaddle about it--all the dressmakers who made
+gowns for the bride would want a mention--and if they paid for it of
+course they'd get it. No--it hasn't come off yet--but it will. The
+venerable bridegroom that is to be has just gone abroad somewhere--so I
+see by one of the 'Society' rags,--probably to the States to make some
+more 'deals' in cash before his wedding."
+
+"You know his name, then?"
+
+"Oh yes! Everybody knows it, and knows him too! David Helmsley's too
+rich to hide his light under a bushel! They call him 'King David' in the
+city. Now your name's David--but, by Jove, what a difference in Davids!"
+And he laughed, adding quickly--"I prefer the David I see before me now,
+to the David I never saw!"
+
+"Oh! You never saw the old rascal then?" murmured Helmsley, putting up
+one hand to stroke his moustache slowly down over the smile which he
+could not repress.
+
+"Never--and don't want to! If I become famous--which I _will_ do,"--and
+here Angus set his teeth hard--"I'll make my bow at one of Mrs.
+Millionaire Helmsley's receptions one day! And how will she look then!"
+
+"I should say she would look much the same as usual,"--said Helmsley,
+drily--"If she is the kind of young woman you describe, she is not
+likely to be overcome by the sight of a merely 'famous' man. You would
+have to be twice or three times as wealthy as herself to move her to any
+sense of respect for you. That is, if we are to judge by what our
+newspapers tell us of 'society' people. The newspapers are all we poor
+folk have got to go by."
+
+"Yes--I've often thought of that!" and Angus rubbed his forehead again
+in a vigorous way as though he were trying to rub ideas out of it--"And
+I've pitied the poor folks from the bottom of my heart! They get pretty
+often misled--and on serious matters too."
+
+"Oh, we're not all such fools as we seem,"--said Helmsley--"We can read
+between the lines as well as anyone--and we understand pretty clearly
+that it's only money which 'makes' the news. We read of 'society ladies'
+doing this, that and t' other thing, and we laugh at their doings--and
+when we read of a great lady conducting herself like an outcast, we feel
+a contempt for her such as we never visit on her poor sister of the
+streets. The newspapers may praise these women, but we 'common people'
+estimate them at their true worth--and that is--nothing! Now the girl
+you made an ideal of----"
+
+"She was to be bought and sold,"--interrupted Reay; "I know that now.
+But I didn't know it then. She looked a sweet innocent angel,--with a
+pretty face and beautiful eyes--just the kind of creature we men fall in
+love with at first sight----"
+
+"The kind of creature who, if you had married her, would have made you
+wretched for life,"--said Helmsley. "Be thankful you escaped her!"
+
+"Oh, I'm thankful enough now!" and Reay pushed back his rebellious lock
+of hair again--"For when one has a great ambition in view, freedom is
+better than love----"
+
+Helmsley raised his wrinkled, trembling hand.
+
+"No, don't say that!" he murmured, gently--"Nothing--nothing in all the
+world is better than love!"
+
+Involuntarily his eyes turned towards Mary with a strange wistfulness.
+There was an unspoken yearning in his face that was almost pain. Her
+quick instinctive sympathy responded to his thought, and rising, she
+went to him on the pretext of re-arranging the cushion in his chair, so
+that he might lean back more comfortably. Then she took his hand and
+patted it kindly.
+
+"You're a sentimental old boy, aren't you, David!" she said,
+playfully--"You like being taken care of and fussed over! Of course you
+do! Was there ever a man that didn't!"
+
+He was silent, but he pressed her caressing hand gratefully.
+
+"No one has ever taken care of or fussed over _me_," said Reay--"I
+should rather like to try the experiment!"
+
+Mary laughed good-humouredly.
+
+"You must find yourself a wife,"--she said--"And then you'll see how you
+like it."
+
+"But wives don't make any fuss over their husbands it seems to me,"
+replied Reay--"At any rate in London, where I have lived for the past
+five years--husbands seem to be the last persons in the world whom their
+wives consider. I don't think I shall ever marry."
+
+"I'm sure _I_ shan't,"--said Mary, smiling--and as she spoke, she bent
+over the fire, and threw a fresh log of wood on to keep up the bright
+glow which was all that illuminated the room, from which almost every
+pale glimmer of the twilight had now departed--"I'm an old maid. But I
+was an engaged girl once!"
+
+Helmsley lifted up his head with sudden and animated interest.
+
+"Were you, Mary?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" And the smile deepened round her expressive mouth and played
+softly in her eyes--"Yes, David, really! I was engaged to a very
+good-looking young man in the electrical engineering business. And I was
+very fond of him. But when my father lost every penny, my good-looking
+young man went too. He said he couldn't possibly marry a girl with
+nothing but the clothes on her back. I cried very much at the time, and
+thought my heart was broken. But--it wasn't!"
+
+"I should hope it wouldn't break for such a selfish rascal!" said Reay,
+warmly.
+
+"Do you think he was more selfish than most?" queried Mary,
+thoughtfully--"There's a good many who would do as he did."
+
+A silence followed. She sat down and resumed her work.
+
+"Have you finished your story?" she asked Reay--"It has interested me so
+much that I'm hoping there's some more to tell."
+
+As she spoke to him he started as if from a dream. He had been watching
+her so earnestly that he had almost forgotten what he had previously
+been talking about. He found himself studying the beautiful outline of
+her figure, and wondering why he had never before seen such gracious
+curves of neck and shoulder, waist and bosom as gave symmetrical
+perfection of shape to this simple woman born of the "common" people.
+
+"More to tell?" he echoed, hastily,--"Well, there's a little--but not
+much. My love affair at Loch Lomond did one thing for me,--it made me
+work hard. I had a sort of desperate idea that I might wrest a fortune
+out of journalism by dint of sheer grinding at it--but I soon found out
+my mistake there. I toiled away so steadily and got such a firm hold of
+all the affairs of the newspaper office where I was employed, that one
+fine morning I was dismissed. My proprietor, genial and kindly as ever,
+said he found 'no fault'--but that he wanted 'a change.' I quite
+understood that. The fact is I knew too much--that's all. I had saved a
+bit, and so, with a few good letters of introduction, went on from
+Glasgow to London. There, in that great black ant-hill full of crawling
+sooty human life, I knocked about for a time from one newspaper office
+to another, doing any sort of work that turned up, just to keep body and
+soul together,--and at last I got a fairly good berth in the London
+branch of a big press syndicate. It was composed of three or four
+proprietors, ever so many editors, and an army of shareholders
+representing almost every class in Great Britain. Ah, those
+shareholders! There's the whole mischief of the press nowadays!"
+
+"I suppose it's money again!" said Helmsley.
+
+"Of course it is. Here's how the matter stands. A newspaper syndicate is
+like any other trading company, composed for the sole end and object of
+making as much profit out of the public as possible. The lion's portion
+naturally goes to the heads of the concern--then come the shareholders'
+dividends. The actual workers in the business, such as the 'editors,'
+are paid as little as their self-respect will allow them to take, and as
+for the other fellows _under_ the editors--well!--you can just imagine
+they get much less than the little their self-respect would claim, if
+they were not, most of them, so desperately poor, and so anxious for a
+foothold somewhere as to be ready to take anything. I took the first
+chance I could get, and hung on to it, not for the wretched pay, but for
+the experience, and for the insight it gave me into men and things. I
+witnessed the whole business;--the 'doctoring up' of social
+scandals,--the tampering with the news in order that certain items might
+not affect certain shares on the Stock Exchange,--the way 'discussions'
+of the most idiotic kind were started in the office just to fill up
+space, such as what was best to make the hair grow; what a baby ought to
+weigh at six months; what food authors write best on; and whether modern
+girls make as good wives as their mothers did, and so on. These things
+were generally got up by 'the fool of the office' as we called him--a
+man with a perpetual grin and an undyingly good opinion of himself. He
+was always put into harness when for some state or financial reason the
+actual facts had to be euphonised or even suppressed and the public 'let
+down gently.' For a time I was drafted off on the 'social'
+business--ugh?--how I hated it?"
+
+"What did you have to do?" asked Mary, amused.
+
+"Oh, I had to deal with a motley crowd of court flunkeys, Jews, tailors
+and dressmakers, and fearful-looking women catering for 'fashion,' who
+came with what they called 'news,' which was generally that 'Mrs.
+"Bunny" Bumpkin looked sweet in grey'--or that 'Miss "Toby" Tosspot was
+among the loveliest of the débutantes at Court.' Sometimes a son of
+Israel came along, all in a mortal funk, and said he 'didn't want it
+mentioned' that Mrs. So-and-So had dined with him at a certain public
+restaurant last night. Generally, he was a shareholder, and his orders
+had to be obeyed. The shareholders in fact had most to do with the
+'society' news,--and they bored me nearly to death. The trifles they
+wanted 'mentioned' were innumerable--the other trifles they didn't want
+mentioned, were quite as endless. One day there was a regular row--a
+sort of earthquake in the place. Somebody had presumed to mention that
+the beautiful Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup had smoked several cigarettes with
+infinite gusto at a certain garden party,--now what are you laughing at,
+Miss Deane?"
+
+"At the beautiful Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup!" and Mary's clear laughter
+rippled out in a silvery peal of purest merriment--"That's not her name
+surely!"
+
+"Oh no, that's not her name!" and Angus laughed too--"It wouldn't do to
+give her real name!--but Ketchup's quite as good and high-sounding as
+the one she's got. And as I tell you, the whole 'staff' was convulsed.
+Three shareholders came down post haste to the office--one at full speed
+in a motor,--and said how _dare_ I mention Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup at all?
+It was like my presumption to notice that she had smoked! Mrs. Mushroom
+Ketchup's name must be kept out of the papers--she was a 'lady'! Oh, by
+Jove!--how I laughed!--I couldn't help myself! I just roared with
+laughter in the very faces of those shareholders! 'A lady!' said
+I--'Why, she's---- ' But I wasn't allowed to say what she was, for the
+shareholder who had arrived in the motor, fixed a deadly glance upon me
+and said--'If you value your po-seetion'--he was a Lowland Scot, with
+the Lowland accent--'if you value your po-seetion on this paper, you'll
+hold your tongue!' So I did hold my tongue then--but only because I
+meant to wag it more violently afterwards. I always devote Mrs. Mushroom
+Ketchup to the blue blazes, because I'm sure it was through her I lost
+my post. You see a shareholder in a paper has a good deal of influence,
+especially if he has as much as a hundred thousand shares. You'd be
+surprised if I told you the real names of some of the fellows who
+control newspaper syndicates!--you wouldn't believe it! Or at any rate,
+if you _did_ believe it, you'd never believe the newspapers!"
+
+"I don't believe them now,"--said Helmsley--"They say one thing to-day
+and contradict it to-morrow."
+
+"Oh, but that's like all news!" said Mary, placidly--"Even in our little
+village here, you never know quite what to believe. One morning you are
+told that Mrs. Badge's baby has fallen downstairs and broken its neck,
+and you've scarcely done being sorry for Mrs. Badge, when in comes Mrs.
+Badge herself, baby and all, quite well and smiling, and she says she
+'never did hear such tales as there are in Wiercombe'!"
+
+They all laughed.
+
+"Well, there's the end of my story,"--said Angus--"I worked on the
+syndicate for two years, and then was given the sack. The cause of my
+dismissal was, as I told you, that I published a leading article
+exposing a mean and dirty financial trick on the part of a man who
+publicly assumed to be a world's benefactor--and he turned out to be a
+shareholder in the paper under an 'alias.' There was no hope for me
+after that--it was a worse affair than that of Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup. So
+I marched out of the office, and out of London--I meant to make for
+Exmoor, which is wild and solitary, because I thought I might find some
+cheap room in a cottage there, where I might live quietly on almost
+nothing and write my book--but I stumbled by chance on this place
+instead--and I rather like being so close to the sea."
+
+"You are writing a book?" said Mary, her eyes resting upon him
+thoughtfully.
+
+"Yes. I've got a room in the village for half-a-crown a week and 'board
+myself' as the good woman of the house says. And I'm perfectly happy!"
+
+A long pause followed. The fire was dying down from a flame to a dull
+red glow, and a rush of wind against the kitchen window was accompanied
+by the light pattering of rain. Angus Reay rose.
+
+"I must be going,"--he said--"I've made you quite a visitation! Old
+David is nearly asleep!"
+
+Helmsley looked up.
+
+"Not I!" and he smiled--"I'm very wide awake: I like your story, and I
+like _you_! Perhaps you'll come in again sometimes and have a chat with
+us?"
+
+Reay glanced enquiringly at Mary, who had also risen from her chair, and
+was now lighting the lamp on the table.
+
+"May I?" he asked hesitatingly.
+
+"Why, of course!" And her eyes met his with hospitable frankness--"Come
+whenever you feel lonely!"
+
+"I often do that!" he said.
+
+"All the better!--then we shall often see you!"--she answered--"And
+you'll always be welcome!"
+
+"Thank-you! I believe you mean it!"
+
+Mary smiled.
+
+"Why of course I do! I'm not a newspaper syndicate!"
+
+"Nor a Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup!" put in Helmsley.
+
+Angus threw back his head and gave one of his big joyous laughs.
+
+"No! You're a long way off that!" he said--"Good-evening, David!"
+
+And going up to the armchair where Helmsley sat he shook hands with him.
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Reay!" rejoined Helmsley, cheerily; "I'm very glad we
+met this afternoon!"
+
+"So am I!" declared Angus, with energy--"I don't feel quite so much of a
+solitary bear as I did. I'm in a better temper altogether with the world
+in general!"
+
+"That's right!" said Mary--"Whatever happens to you it's never the fault
+of the world, remember!--it's only the trying little ways of the people
+in it!"
+
+She held out her hand in farewell, and he pressed it gently. Then he
+threw on his cap, and she opened her cottage door for him to pass out. A
+soft shower of rain blew full in their faces as they stood on the
+threshold.
+
+"You'll get wet, I'm afraid!" said Mary.
+
+"Oh, that's nothing!" And he buttoned his coat across his chest--"What's
+that lovely scent in the garden here, just close to the door?"
+
+"It's the old sweetbriar bush,"--she replied--"It lasts in leaf till
+nearly Christmas and always smells so delicious. Shall I give you a bit
+of it?"
+
+"It's too dark to find it now, surely!" said Angus.
+
+"Oh, no! I can feel it!"
+
+And stretching out her white hand into the raining darkness, she brought
+it back holding a delicate spray of odorous leaves.
+
+"Isn't it sweet?" she said, as she gave it to him.
+
+"It is indeed!" he placed the little sprig in his buttonhole.
+"Thank-you! Good-night!"
+
+"Good-night!"
+
+He lifted his hat and smiled into her eyes--then walked quickly through
+the tiny garden, opened the gate, shut it carefully behind him, and
+disappeared. Mary listened for a moment to the swish of the falling rain
+among the leaves, and the noise of the tumbling hill-torrent over its
+stony bed. Then she closed and barred the door.
+
+"It's going to be a wet night, David!" she said, as she came back
+towards the fire--"And a bit rough, too, by the sound of the sea."
+
+He did not answer immediately, but watched her attentively as she made
+up the fire, and cleared the table of the tea things, packing up the
+cups and plates and saucers in the neat and noiseless manner which was
+particularly her own, preparatory to carrying them all on a tray out to
+the little scullery adjoining the kitchen, which with its well polished
+saucepans, kettles, and crockery was quite a smart feature of her small
+establishment. Then--
+
+"What do you think of him, Mary?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"Of Mr. Reay?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She hesitated a moment, looking intently at a small crack in one of the
+plates she was putting by.
+
+"Well, I don't know, David!--it's rather difficult to say on such a
+short acquaintance--but he seems to me quite a good fellow."
+
+"Quite a good fellow, yes!" repeated Helmsley, nodding gravely--"That's
+how he seems to me, too."
+
+"I think,"--went on Mary, slowly--"that he's a thoroughly manly
+man,--don't you?" He nodded gravely again, and echoed her words----
+
+"A thoroughly manly man!"
+
+"And perhaps," she continued--"it would be pleasant for you, David, to
+have a chat with him now and then especially in the long winter
+evenings--wouldn't it?"
+
+She had moved to his side, and now stood looking down upon him with such
+a wistful sweetness of expression, that he was content to merely watch
+her, without answering her question.
+
+"Because those long winter evenings are sometimes very dull, you know!"
+she went on--"And I'm afraid I'm not very good company when I'm at work
+mending the lace--I have to take all my stitches so carefully that I
+dare not talk much lest I make a false knot."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"_You_ make a false knot!" he said--"You couldn't do it, if you tried!
+You'll never make a false knot--never!"--and his voice sank to an almost
+inaudible murmur--"Neither in your lace nor in your life!"
+
+She looked at him a little anxiously.
+
+"Are you tired, David?"
+
+"No, my dear! Not tired--only thinking!"
+
+"Well, you mustn't think too much,"--she said--"Thinking is weary work,
+sometimes!"
+
+He raised his eyes and looked at her steadily.
+
+"Mr. Reay was very frank and open in telling us all about himself,
+wasn't he, Mary?"
+
+"Oh yes!" and she laughed--"But I think he is one of those men who
+couldn't possibly be anything else but frank and open."
+
+"Oh, you do?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Don't you sometimes wonder,"--went on Helmsley slowly, keeping his gaze
+fixed on the fire--"why _I_ haven't told you all about myself?"
+
+She met his eyes with a candid smile.
+
+"No--I haven't thought about it!" she said.
+
+"Why haven't you thought about it?" he persisted.
+
+She laughed outright.
+
+"Simply because I haven't! That's all!"
+
+"Mary,"--he said, seriously--"You know I was not your 'father's friend'!
+You know I never saw your father!"
+
+The smile still lingered in her eyes.
+
+"Yes--I know that!"
+
+"And yet you never ask me to give an account of myself!"
+
+She thought he was worrying his mind needlessly, and bending over him
+took his hand in hers.
+
+"No, David, I never ask impertinent questions!" she said--"I don't want
+to know anything more about you than you choose to tell. You seem to me
+like my dear father--not quite so strong as he was, perhaps--but I have
+taken care of you for so many weeks, that I almost feel as if you
+belonged to me! And I want to take care of you still, because I know you
+_must_ be taken care of. And I'm so well accustomed to you now that I
+shouldn't like to lose you, David--I shouldn't really! Because you've
+been so patient and gentle and grateful for the little I have been able
+to do for you, that I've got fond of you, David! Yes!--actually fond of
+you! What do you say to that?"
+
+"Say to it!" he murmured, pressing the hand he held. "I don't know what
+to say to it, Mary!--except--God bless you!"
+
+She was silent a minute--then she went on in a cheerfully rallying
+tone--
+
+"So I don't want to know anything about you, you see! Now, as to Mr.
+Reay----"
+
+"Ah, yes!" and Helmsley gave her a quick observant glance which she
+herself did not notice--"What about Mr. Reay?"
+
+"Well it would be nice if we could cheer him up a little and make him
+bear his poor and lonely life more easily. Wouldn't it?"
+
+"Cheer him up a little and make him bear his poor and lonely life more
+easily!" repeated Helmsley, slowly, "Yes. And do you think we can do
+that, Mary?"
+
+"We can try!" she said, smiling--"At any rate, while he's living in
+Wiercombe, we can be friendly to him, and give him a bit of dinner now
+and then!"
+
+"So we can!" agreed Helmsley--"Or rather, so _you_ can!"
+
+"_We!_" corrected Mary--"_You're_ helping me to keep house now,
+David,--remember that!"
+
+"Why I haven't paid half or a quarter of my debt to you yet!" he
+exclaimed.
+
+"But you're paying it off every day,"--she answered; "Don't you fear! I
+mean to have every penny out of you that I can!"
+
+She laughed gaily, and taking up the tray upon which she had packed all
+the tea-things, carried it out of the kitchen. Helmsley heard her
+singing softly to herself in the scullery, as she set to work to wash
+the cups and saucers. And bending his old eyes on the fire, he
+smiled,--and an indomitable expression of energetic resolve strengthened
+every line of his features.
+
+"You mean to have every penny out of me that you can, my dear, do you!"
+he said, softly--"And so--if Love can find out the way--you will!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+The winter now closed in apace,--and though the foliage all about
+Weircombe was reluctant to fall, and kept its green, russet and gold
+tints well on into December, the high gales which blew in from the sea
+played havoc with the trembling leaves at last and brought them to the
+ground like the painted fragments of Summer's ruined temple. All the
+fishermen's boats were hauled up high and dry, and great stretches of
+coarse net like black webs, were spread out on the beach for drying and
+mending,--while through the tunnels scooped out of the tall castellated
+rocks which guarded either side of the little port, or "weir," the great
+billows dashed with a thunderous roar of melody, oftentimes throwing
+aloft fountains of spray well-nigh a hundred feet in height--spray which
+the wild wind caught and blew in pellets of salty foam far up the little
+village street. Helmsley was now kept a prisoner indoors,--he had not
+sufficient strength to buffet with a gale, or to stand any unusually
+sharp nip of cold,--so he remained very comfortably by the side of the
+fire, making baskets, which he was now able to turn out quickly with
+quite an admirable finish, owing to the zeal and earnestness with which
+he set himself to the work. Mary's business in the winter months was
+entirely confined to the lace-mending--she had no fine laundry work to
+do, and her time was passed in such household duties as kept her little
+cottage sweet and clean, in attentive guardianship and care of her
+"father's friend"--and in the delicate weaving of threads whereby the
+fine fabric which had once perchance been damaged and spoilt by
+flaunting pride, was made whole and beautiful again by simple patience.
+Helmsley was never tired of watching her. Whether she knelt down with a
+pail of suds, and scrubbed her cottage doorstep--or whether she sat
+quietly opposite to him, with the small "Charlie" snuggled on a rug
+between them, while she mended her lace, his eyes always rested upon her
+with deepening interest and tenderness. And he grew daily more conscious
+of a great peace and happiness--peace and happiness such as he had
+never known since his boyhood's days. He, who had found the ways of
+modern society dull to the last point of excruciating boredom, was not
+aware of any monotony in the daily round of the hours, which, laden with
+simple duties and pleasures, came and went softly and slowly like angel
+messengers stepping gently from one heaven to another. The world--or
+that which is called the world,--had receded from him altogether. Here,
+where he had found a shelter, there was no talk of finance--the claims
+of the perpetual "bridge" party had vanished like the misty confusion of
+a bad dream from the brain--the unutterably vulgar intrigues common to
+the so-called "better" class of twentieth century humanity could not
+intrude any claim on his attention or his time--the perpetual lending of
+money to perpetually dishonest borrowers was, for the present, a
+finished task--and he felt himself to be a free man--far freer than he
+had been for many years. And, to add to the interest of his days, he
+became engrossed in a scheme--a strange scheme which built itself up in
+his head like a fairy palace, wherein everything beautiful, graceful,
+noble, helpful and precious, found place and position, and grew from
+promise to fulfilment as easily as a perfect rosebud ripens to a perfect
+rose. But he said nothing of his thoughts. He hugged them, as it were,
+to himself, and toyed with them as though they were jewels,--precious
+jewels selected specially to be set in a crown of inestimable worth.
+Meanwhile his health kept fairly equable, though he was well aware
+within his own consciousness that he did not get stronger. But he was
+strong enough to be merry at times--and his kindly temper and cheery
+conversation made him a great favourite with the Weircombe folk, who
+were never tired of "looking in" as they termed it, on Mary, and "'avin'
+a bit of a jaw with old David."
+
+Sociable evenings they had too, during that winter--evenings when Angus
+Reay came in to tea and stayed to supper, and after supper entertained
+them by singing in a deep baritone voice as soft as honey, the old
+Scotch songs now so hopelessly "out of fashion"--such as "My Nannie
+O"--"Ae fond kiss"--and "Highland Mary," in which last exquisite ballad
+he was always at his best. And Mary sang also, accompanying herself on a
+quaint old Hungarian zither, which she said had been left with her
+father as guarantee for ten shillings which he had lent to a street
+musician wandering about Barnstaple. The street musician disappeared and
+the ten shillings were never returned, so Mary took possession of the
+zither, and with the aid of a cheap instruction book, managed to learn
+enough of its somewhat puzzling technique to accompany her own voice
+with a few full, rich, plaintive chords. And it was in this fashion that
+Angus heard her first sing what she called "A song of the sea," running
+thus:
+
+    I heard the sea cry out in the night
+        Like a fretful child--
+    Moaning under the pale moonlight
+        In a passion wild--
+    And my heart cried out with the sea, in tears,
+    For the sweet lost joys of my vanished years!
+
+    I heard the sea laugh out in the noon
+        Like a girl at play--
+    All forgot was the mournful moon
+        In the dawn of day!
+    And my heart laughed out with the sea, in gladness,
+    And I thought no more of bygone sadness.
+
+    I think the sea is a part of me
+        With its gloom and glory--
+    What Has Been, and what yet Shall Be
+        Is all its story;
+    Rise up, O Heart, with the tidal flow,
+    And drown the sorrows of Long Ago!
+
+Something eerie and mystical there was in these words, sung as she sang
+them in a low, soft, contralto, sustained by the pathetic quiver of the
+zither strings throbbing under the pressure of her white fingers, and
+Angus asked her where she had learned the song.
+
+"I found it,"--she answered, somewhat evasively.
+
+"Did you compose it yourself?"
+
+She flushed a little.
+
+"How can you imagine such a thing?"
+
+He was silent, but "imagined" the more. And after this he began to show
+her certain scenes and passages in the book he was writing, sometimes
+reading them aloud to her with all that eager eloquence which an author
+who loves and feels his work is bound to convey into the pronounced
+expression of it. And she listened, absorbed and often entranced, for
+there was no gain-saying the fact that Angus Reay was a man of genius.
+He was inclined to underrate rather than overestimate his own
+abilities, and often showed quite a pathetic mistrust of himself in his
+very best and most original conceptions.
+
+"When I read to you,"--he said to her, one day--"You must tell me the
+instant you feel bored. That's a great point! Because if _you_ feel
+bored, other people who read the book will feel bored exactly as you do
+and at the very same passage. And you must criticise me mercilessly!
+Rend me to pieces--tear my sentences to rags, and pick holes in every
+detail, if you like! That will do me a world of good!"
+
+Mary laughed.
+
+"But why?" she asked, "Why do you want me to be so unkind to you?"
+
+"It won't be unkind,"--he declared--"It will be very helpful. And I'll
+tell you why. There's no longer any real 'criticism' of literary work in
+the papers nowadays. There's only extravagant eulogium written up by an
+author's personal friends and wormed somehow into the press--or equally
+extravagant abuse, written and insinuated in similar fashion by an
+author's personal enemies. Well now, you can't live without having both
+friends and enemies--you generally have more of the latter than the
+former, particularly if you are successful. There's nothing a lazy man
+won't do to 'down' an industrious one,--nothing an unknown scrub won't
+attempt in the way of trying to injure a great fame. It's a delightful
+world for that sort of thing!--so truly 'Christian,' pleasant and
+charitable! But the consequence of all these mean and petty 'personal'
+views of life is, that sound, unbiased, honest literary criticism is a
+dead art. You can't get it anywhere. And yet if you could, there's
+nothing that would be so helpful, or so strengthening to a man's work.
+It would make him put his best foot foremost. I should like to think
+that my book when it comes out, would be 'reviewed' by a man who had no
+prejudices, no 'party' politics, no personal feeling for or against
+me,--but who simply and solely considered it from an impartial,
+thoughtful, just and generous point of view--taking it as a piece of
+work done honestly and from a deep sense of conviction. Criticism from
+fellows who just turn over the pages of a book to find fault casually
+wherever they can--(I've seen them at it in newspaper offices!) or to
+quote unfairly mere scraps of sentences without context,--or to fly off
+into a whirlwind of personal and scurrilous calumnies against an author
+whom they don't know, and perhaps never will know,--that sort of thing
+is quite useless to me. It neither encourages nor angers me. It is a
+mere flabby exhibition of incompetency--much as if a jelly-fish should
+try to fight a sea-gull! Now you,--if you criticise me,--your criticism
+will be valuable, because it will be quite honest--there will be no
+'personal' feeling in it----"
+
+She raised her eyes to his and smiled.
+
+"No?"
+
+Something warm and radiant in her glance flashed into his soul and
+thrilled it strangely. Vaguely startled by an impression which he did
+not try to analyse, he went on hastily--"No--because you see you are
+neither my friend nor my enemy, are you?"
+
+She was quite silent.
+
+"I mean,"--he continued, blundering along somewhat lamely,--"You don't
+hate me very much, and you don't like me very much. I'm just an ordinary
+man to you. Therefore you're bound to be perfectly impartial, because
+what I do is a matter of 'personal' indifference to you. That's why your
+criticism will be so helpful and valuable."
+
+She bent her head closely over the lace she was mending for a minute or
+two, as though she were making a very intricate knot. Then she looked up
+again.
+
+"Well, if you wish it, I'll tell you just what I think," she said,
+quietly--"But you mustn't call it criticism. I'm not clever enough to
+judge a book. I only know what pleases _me_,--and what pleases me may
+not please the world. I know very little about authors, and I've taught
+myself all that I do know. I love Shakespeare,--but I could not explain
+to you why I love him, because I'm not clever enough. I only feel his
+work,--I feel that it's all right and beautiful and wonderful--but I
+couldn't criticise it."
+
+"No one can,--no one should!" said Reay, warmly--"Shakespeare is above
+all criticism!"
+
+"But is he not always being criticised?" she asked.
+
+"Yes. By little men who cannot understand greatness,"--he answered--"It
+gives a kind of 'scholarly importance' to the little men, but it leaves
+the great one unscathed."
+
+This talk led to many others of a similar nature between them, and
+Reay's visits to Mary's cottage became more and more frequent. David
+Helmsley, weaving his baskets day by day, began to weave something more
+delicate and uncommon than the withes of willow,--a weaving which went
+on in his mind far more actively than the twisting and plaiting of the
+osiers in his hands. Sometimes in the evenings, when work was done, and
+he sat in his comfortable easy chair by the fire watching Mary at her
+sewing and Angus talking earnestly to her, he became so absorbed in his
+own thoughts that he scarcely heard their voices, and often when they
+spoke to him, he started from a profound reverie, unconscious of their
+words. But it was not the feebleness or weariness of age that made him
+seem at times indifferent to what was going on around him--it was the
+intensity and fervour of a great and growing idea of happiness in his
+soul,--an idea which he cherished so fondly and in such close secrecy,
+as to be almost afraid to whisper it to himself lest by some unhappy
+chance it should elude his grasp and vanish into nothingness.
+
+And so the time went on to Christmas and New Year. Weircombe kept these
+festivals very quietly, yet not without cheerfulness. There was plenty
+of holly about, and the children, plunging into the thick of the woods
+at the summit of the "coombe" found mistletoe enough for the common
+need. The tiny Church was prettily decorated by the rector's wife and
+daughters, assisted by some of the girls of the village, and everybody
+attended service on Christmas morning, not only because it was
+Christmas, but because it was the last time their own parson would
+preach to them, before he went away for three months or more to a warm
+climate for the benefit of his health. But Helmsley did not join the
+little crowd of affectionate parishioners--he stayed at home while Mary
+went, as she said "to pray for him." He watched her from the open
+cottage door, as she ascended the higher part of the "coombe," dressed
+in a simple stuff gown of darkest blue, with a prim little "old maid's"
+bonnet, as she called it, tied neatly under her rounded white chin--and
+carrying in her hand a much worn "Book of Common Prayer" which she held
+with a certain delicate reverence not often shown to holy things by the
+church-going women of the time. Weircombe Church had a small but musical
+chime of bells, presented to it by a former rector--and the silvery
+sweetness of the peal just now ringing was intensified by the close
+proximity of the mountain stream, which, rendered somewhat turbulent by
+recent rains, swept along in a deep swift current, carrying the melody
+of the chimes along with it down to the sea and across the waves in
+broken pulsation, till they touched with a faint mysterious echo the
+masts of home-returning ships, and brought a smile to the faces of
+sailors on board who, recognising the sound, said "Weircombe bells,
+sure-_ly_!"
+
+Helmsley stood listening, lost in meditation. To anyone who could have
+seen him then, a bent frail figure just within the cottage door, with
+his white hair, white beard, and general appearance of gentle and
+resigned old age, he would have seemed nothing more than a venerable
+peasant, quietly satisfied with his simple surroundings, and as far
+apart from every association of wealth, as the daisy in the grass is
+from the star in the sky. Yet, in actual fact, his brain was busy
+weighing millions of money,--the fate of an accumulated mass of wealth
+hung on the balance of his decision,--and he was mentally arranging his
+plans with all the clearness, precision and practicality which had
+distinguished him in his biggest financial schemes,--schemes which had
+from time to time amazed and convulsed the speculating world. A certain
+wistful sadness touched him as he looked on the quiet country landscape
+in the wintry sunlight of this Christmas morn,--some secret instinctive
+foreboding told him that it might be the last Christmas he should ever
+see. And a sudden wave of regret swept over his soul,--regret that he
+had not appreciated the sweet things of life more keenly when he had
+been able to enjoy their worth. So many simple joys missed!--so many
+gracious and helpful sentiments discarded!--all the best of his years
+given over to eager pursuit of gold,--not because he cared for gold
+really, but because, owing to a false social system which perverted the
+moral sense, it seemed necessary to happiness. Yet he had proved it to
+be the very last thing that could make a man happy. The more money, the
+less enjoyment of it--the greater the wealth, the less the content. Was
+this according to law?--the spiritual law of compensation, which works
+steadily behind every incident which we may elect to call good or evil?
+He thought it must be so. This very festival--Christmas--how thoroughly
+he had been accustomed by an effete and degenerate "social set" to
+regard it as a "bore,"--an exploded superstition--a saturnalia of beef
+and pudding--a something which merely served as an excuse for throwing
+away good money on mere stupid sentiment. "Stupid" sentiment? Had he
+ever thought true, tender, homely sentiment "stupid"? Yes,--perhaps he
+had, when in the bold carelessness of full manhood he had assumed that
+the race was to the swift and the battle to the strong--but now, when
+the shadows were falling--when, perhaps, he would never hear the
+Christmas bells again, or be troubled by the "silly superstitions" of
+loving, praying, hoping, believing humanity, he would have given much
+could he have gone back in fancy to every Christmas of his life and seen
+each one spent cheerily amid the warm associations of such "sentiments"
+as make friendship valuable and lasting. He looked up half vaguely at
+the sky, clear blue on this still frosty morning, and was conscious of
+tears that crept smartingly behind his eyes and for a moment dimmed his
+sight. And he murmured dreamily--
+
+    "Behold we know not anything;
+      I can but trust that good shall fall
+        At last--far off--at last, to all--
+    And every winter change to spring!"
+
+A tall, athletic figure came between him and the light, and Angus Reay's
+voice addressed him--
+
+"Hullo, David! A merry Christmas to you! Do you know you are standing
+out in the cold? What would Miss Mary say?"
+
+"Miss Mary" was the compromise Angus hit upon between "Miss Deane" and
+"Mary,"--considering the first term too formal, and the last too
+familiar.
+
+Helmsley smiled.
+
+"Miss Mary has gone to church,"--he replied--"I thought you had gone
+too."
+
+Reay gave a slight gesture of mingled regret and annoyance.
+
+"No--I never go to church,"--he said--"But don't you think I despise the
+going. Not I. I wish I could go to church! I'd give anything to go as I
+used to do with my father every Sunday."
+
+"And why can't you?"
+
+"Because the church is not what it used to be,"--declared Reay--"Don't
+get me on that argument, David, or I shall never cease talking! Now, see
+here!--if you stand any longer at that open door you'll get a chill! You
+go inside the house and imitate Charlie's example--look at him!" And he
+pointed to the tiny toy terrier snuggled up as usual in a ball of silky
+comfort on the warm hearth--"Small epicure! Come back to your chair,
+David, and sit by the fire--your hands are quite cold."
+
+Helmsley yielded to the persuasion, not because he felt cold, but
+because he was rather inclined to be alone with Reay for a little. They
+entered the house and shut the door.
+
+"Doesn't it look a different place without her!" said Angus, glancing
+round the trim little kitchen--"As neat as a pin, of course, but all the
+life gone from it."
+
+Helmsley smiled, but did not answer. Seating himself in his armchair, he
+spread out his thin old hands to the bright fire, and watched Reay as he
+stood near the hearth, leaning one arm easily against a rough beam which
+ran across the chimney piece.
+
+"She is a wonderful woman!" went on Reay, musingly; "She has a power of
+which she is scarcely conscious."
+
+"And what is that?" asked Helmsley, slowly rubbing his hands with quite
+an abstracted air.
+
+Angus laughed lightly, though a touch of colour reddened his bronzed
+cheeks.
+
+"The power that the old alchemists sought and never could find!" he
+answered--"The touch that transmutes common metals to fine gold, and
+changes the every-day prose of life to poetry."
+
+Helmsley went on rubbing his hands slowly.
+
+"It's so extraordinary, don't you think, David,"--he continued--"that
+there should be such a woman as Miss Mary alive at all?"
+
+Helmsley looked up at him questioningly, but said nothing.
+
+"I mean,"--and Angus threw out his hand with an impetuous gesture--"that
+considering all the abominable, farcical tricks women play nowadays, it
+is simply amazing to find one who is contented with a simple life like
+this, and who manages to make that simple life so gracious and
+beautiful!"
+
+Still Helmsley was silent.
+
+"Now, just think of that girl I've told you about--Lucy
+Sorrel,"--proceeded Angus--"Nothing would have contented her in all this
+world!"
+
+"Not even her old millionaire?" suggested Helmsley, placidly.
+
+"No, certainly not! Poor old devil! He'll soon find himself put on the
+shelf if he marries her. He won't be able to call his soul his own! If
+he gives her diamonds, she'll want more diamonds--if he covers her and
+stuffs her with money, she'll never have enough! She'll want all she can
+get out of him while he lives and everything he has ever possessed when
+he's dead."
+
+Helmsley rubbed his hands more vigorously together.
+
+"A very nice young lady," he murmured. "Very nice indeed! But if you
+judge her in this way now, why did you ever fall in love with her?"
+
+"She was pretty, David!" and Reay smiled--"That's all! My passion for
+her was skin-deep! And hers for me didn't even touch the cuticle! She
+was pretty--as pretty as a wax-doll,--perfect eyes, perfect hair,
+perfect figure, perfect complexion--ugh! how I hate perfection!"
+
+And taking up the poker, he gave a vigorous blow to a hard lump of coal
+in the grate, and split it into a blaze.
+
+"I hate perfection!" he resumed--"Or rather, I hate what passes for
+perfection, for, as a matter of fact, there's nothing perfect. And I
+specially and emphatically hate the woman that considers herself a
+'beauty,' that gets herself photographed as a 'beauty,' that the press
+reporter speaks of as a 'beauty,'--and that affronts you with her
+'beauty' whenever you look at her, as though she were some sort of
+first-class goods for sale. Now Miss Mary is a beautiful woman--and she
+doesn't seem to know it."
+
+"Her time for vanity is past,"--said Helmsley, sententiously--"She is an
+old maid."
+
+"Old maid be shot!" exclaimed Angus, impetuously--"By Jove! Any man
+might be proud to marry her!"
+
+A keen, sharp glance, as incisive as any that ever flashed up and down
+the lines of a business ledger, gleamed from under Helmsley's fuzzy
+brows.
+
+"Would you?" he asked.
+
+"Would I marry her?" And Angus reddened suddenly like a boy--"Dear old
+David, bless you! That's just what I want you to help me to do!"
+
+For a moment such a great wave of triumph swept over Helmsley's soul
+that he could not speak. But he mastered his emotion by an effort.
+
+"I'm afraid,"--he said--"I'm afraid I should be no use to you in such a
+business,--you'd much better speak to her yourself--"
+
+"Why, of course I mean to speak to her myself,"--interrupted Reay,
+warmly--"Don't be dense, David! You don't suppose I want _you_ to speak
+for me, do you? Not a bit of it! Only before I speak, I do wish you
+could find out whether she likes me a little--because--because--I'm
+afraid she doesn't look upon me at all in _that_ light----"
+
+"In what light?" queried Helmsley, gently.
+
+"As a lover,"--replied Angus--"She's given up thinking of lovers."
+
+Helmsley leaned back in his chair, and clasping his hands together so
+that the tips of his fingers met, looked over them in almost the same
+meditative businesslike way as he had looked at Lucy Sorrel when he had
+questioned her as to her ideas of her future.
+
+"Well, naturally she has,"--he answered--"Lovers have given up thinking
+of _her_!"
+
+"I hope they have!" said Angus, fervently--"I hope I have no rivals! For
+my love for her is a jealous love, David! I must be all in all to her,
+or nothing! I must be the very breath of her breath, the life of her
+life! I must!--or I am no use to her. And I want to be of use. I want to
+work for her, to look upon her as the central point of all my
+actions--the very core of ambition and endeavour,--so that everything I
+do may be well done enough to meet with her praise. If she does not like
+it, it will be worthless. For her soul is as pure as the sunlight and as
+full of great depths as the sea! Simplest and sweetest of women as she
+is, she has enough of God in her to make a man live up to the best that
+is in him!"
+
+His voice thrilled with passion as he spoke--and Helmsley felt a strange
+contraction at his heart--a pang of sharp memory, desire and regret all
+in one, which moved him to a sense of yearning for this love which he
+had never known--this divine and wonderful emotion whose power could so
+transform a man as to make him seem a very king among men. For so Angus
+Reay looked just now, with his eyes flashing unutterable tenderness, and
+his whole aspect expressive of a great hope born of a great ideal. But
+he restrained the feeling that threatened to over-master him, and merely
+said very quietly, and with a smile--
+
+"I see you are very much in love with her, Mr. Reay!"
+
+"In love?" Angus laughed--"No, my dear old David! I'm not a bit 'in
+love.' I love her! That's love with a difference. But you know how it is
+with me. I haven't a penny in the world but just what I told you must
+last me for a year--and I don't know when I shall make any more. So that
+I wouldn't be such a cad as to speak to her about it yet. But--if I
+could only get a little hope,--if I could just find out whether she
+liked me a little, that would give me more energy in my work, don't you
+see? And that's where you could help me, David!"
+
+Helmsley smiled ever so slightly.
+
+"Tell me how,"--he said.
+
+"Well, you might talk to her sometimes and ask her if she ever thinks of
+getting married--"
+
+"I have done that,"--interrupted Helmsley--"and she has always said
+'No.'"
+
+"Never mind what she _has_ said--ask her again, David,"--persisted
+Angus--"And then lead her on little by little to talk about me--"
+
+"Lead her on to talk about you--yes!" and Helmsley nodded his head
+sagaciously.
+
+"David, my dear old man, you _will_ interrupt me,"--and Angus laughed
+like a boy--"Lead her on, I say,--and find out whether she likes me ever
+so little--and then----"
+
+"And then?" queried Helmsley, his old eyes beginning to sparkle--"Must I
+sing your praises to her?"
+
+"Sing my praises! No, by Jove!--there's nothing to praise in me. I don't
+want you to say a word, David. Let _her_ speak--hear what _she_
+says--and then--and then tell _me_!"
+
+"Then tell _you_--yes--yes, I see!" And Helmsley nodded again in a
+fashion that was somewhat trying to Reay's patience. "But, suppose she
+finds fault with you, and says you are not at all the style of man she
+likes--what then?"
+
+"Then,"--said Reay, gloomily--"my book will never be finished!"
+
+"Dear, dear!" Helmsley raised his hands with a very well acted gesture
+of timid concern--"So bad as all that!"
+
+"So bad as all that!" echoed Reay, with a quick sigh; "Or rather so good
+as all that. I don't know how it has happened, David, but she has quite
+suddenly become the very life of my work. I don't think I could get on
+with a single page of it, if I didn't feel that I could go to her and
+ask her what she thinks of it."
+
+"But,"--said Helmsley, in a gentle, argumentative way--"all this is very
+strange! She is not an educated woman."
+
+Reay laughed lightly.
+
+"No? What do you call an educated woman, David?"
+
+Helmsley thought a moment. The situation was a little difficult, for he
+had to be careful not to say too much.
+
+"Well, I mean,"--he said, at last--"She is not a lady."
+
+Reay's eyes flashed sudden indignation.
+
+"Not a lady!" he ejaculated--"Good God! Who is a lady then?"
+
+Helmsley glanced at him covertly. How fine the man looked, with his
+tall, upright figure, strong, thoughtful face, and air of absolute
+determination!
+
+"I'm afraid,"--he murmured, humbly--"I'm afraid I don't know how to
+express myself,--but what I want to say is that she is not what the
+world would call a lady,--just a simple lace-mender,--real 'ladies'
+would not ask her to their houses, or make a friend of her, perhaps--"
+
+"She's a simple lace-mender,--I was a common cowherd,"--said Angus,
+grimly--"Do you think those whom the world calls 'ladies' would make a
+friend of _me_?"
+
+Helmsley smiled.
+
+"You're a man--and to women it doesn't matter what a man _was_, so long
+as he _is_ something. You were a cowherd, as you say--but you educated
+yourself at a University and got a degree. In that way you've raised
+yourself to the rank of a gentleman--"
+
+"I was always that,"--declared Angus, boldly, "even as a cowherd! Your
+arguments won't hold with me, David! A gentleman is not made by a frock
+coat and top hat. And a lady is not a lady because she wears fine
+clothes and speaks one or two foreign languages very badly. For that's
+about all a 'lady's' education amounts to nowadays. According to
+Victorian annals, 'ladies' used to be fairly accomplished--they played
+and sang music well, and knew that it was necessary to keep up
+intelligent conversation and maintain graceful manners--but they've gone
+back to sheer barbarism in the frantic ugliness of their performances
+at hockey--and they've taken to the repulsive vices of Charles the
+Second's time in gambling and other immoralities. No, David! I don't
+take kindly to the 'ladies' who disport themselves under the benevolent
+dispensation of King Edward the Seventh."
+
+Helmsley was silent. After a pause, Reay went on--
+
+"You see, David, I'm a poor chap--poorer than Mary is. If I could get a
+hundred, or say, two hundred pounds for my book when it is finished, I
+could ask her to marry me then, because I could bring that money to her
+and do something to keep up the home. I never want anything sweeter or
+prettier than this little cottage to live in. If she would let me share
+it with her as her husband, we should live a perfectly happy life--a
+life that thousands would envy us! That is, of course, if she loved me."
+
+"Ay!--that's a very important 'if,'" said Helmsley.
+
+"I know it is. That's why I want you to help me to find out her mind,
+David--will you? Because, if you should discover that I am objectionable
+to her in any way, it would be better for me, I think, to go straight
+away from Weircombe, and fight my trouble out by myself. Then, you see,
+she would never know that I wanted to bother her with my life-long
+presence. Because she's very happy as she is,--her face has all the
+lovely beauty of perfect content--and I'd rather do anything than
+trouble her peace."
+
+There followed a pause. The fire crackled and burned with a warm
+Christmas glow, and Charlie, uncurling his soft silky body, stretched
+out each one of his tiny paws separately, with slow movements expressive
+of intense comfort. If ever that little dog had known what it was to lie
+in the lap of luxury amid aristocratic surroundings, it was certain that
+he was conscious of being as well off in a poor cottage as in a palace
+of a king. And after a minute or two, Helmsley raised himself in his
+chair and held out his hand to Angus Reay, who grasped it warmly.
+
+"I'll do my best,"--he said, quietly--"I know what you mean--and I think
+your feeling does you honour. Of course you know I'm only a kind of
+stranger here--just a poor old lonely man, very dependent on Miss Deane
+for her care of me, and trying my best to show that I'm not ungrateful
+to her for all her goodness--and I mustn't presume too far--but--I'll do
+my best. And I hope--I hope all will be well!" He paused--and pressed
+Reay's hand again--then glanced up at the quaint sheep-faced clock that
+ticked monotonously against the kitchen wall. "She will be coming back
+from church directly,"--he continued--"Won't you go and meet her?"
+
+"Shall I?" And Reay's face brightened.
+
+"Do!"
+
+Another moment, and Helmsley was alone--save for the silent company of
+the little dog stretched out upon the hearth. And he lost himself in a
+profound reverie, the while he built a castle in the air of his own
+designing, in which Self had no part. How many airy fabrics of beauty
+and joy had he not raised one after the other in his mind, only to see
+them crumble into dust!--but this one, as he planned it in his thoughts,
+nobly uplifted above all petty limits, with all the light of a broad
+beneficence shining upon it, and a grand obliteration of his own
+personality serving as the very cornerstone of its foundation, seemed
+likely to be something resembling the house spoken of by Christ, which
+was built upon a rock--against which neither winds, nor rains, nor
+floods could prevail. And when Mary came back from Church, with Reay
+accompanying her, she found him looking very happy. In fact, she told
+him he had quite "a Christmas face."
+
+"What is a Christmas face, Mary?" he asked, smiling.
+
+"Don't you know? A face that looks glad because other people are
+glad,"--she replied, simply.
+
+An expressive glance flashed from Reay's eyes,--a glance which Helmsley
+caught and understood in all its eloquent meaning.
+
+"We had quite a touching little sermon this morning," she went on,
+untying her bonnet strings, and taking off that unassuming
+head-gear--"It was just a homely simple, kind talk. Our parson's sorry
+to be going away, but he hopes to be back with us at the beginning of
+April, fit and well again. He's looking badly, poor soul! I felt a bit
+like crying when he wished us all a bright Christmas and happy New Year,
+and said he hoped God would allow him to see us all again."
+
+"Who is going to take charge of the parish in his absence?" asked Reay.
+
+"A Mr. Arbroath. He isn't a very popular man in these parts, and I can't
+think why he has volunteered to come here, seeing he's got several
+parishes of his own on the other side of Dunster to attend to. But I'm
+told he also wants a change--so he's got some one to take his duties,
+and he is coming along to us. Of course, it's well known that he likes
+to try a new parish whenever he can."
+
+"Has he any reason for that special taste?" enquired Reay.
+
+"Oh yes!" answered Mary, quietly--"He's a great High Churchman, and he
+wants to introduce Mass vestments and the confessional whenever he can.
+Some people say that he receives an annual payment from Rome for doing
+this kind of work."
+
+"Another form of the Papal secret service!" commented Reay, drily--"I
+understand! I've seen enough of it!"
+
+Mary had taken a clean tablecloth from an oaken press, and was spreading
+it out for dinner.
+
+"Well," she said, smilingly, "he won't find it very advantageous to him
+to take the duties here. For every man and woman in the village intends
+to keep away from Church altogether if he does not give us our services
+exactly as we have always been accustomed to them. And it won't be
+pleasant for him to read prayers and preach to empty seats, will it?"
+
+"Scarcely!"
+
+And Angus, standing near the fire, bent his brows with meditative
+sternness on the glowing flames. Then suddenly addressing Helmsley, he
+said--"You asked me a while ago, David, why I didn't go to Church. I
+told you I wished I could go, as I used to do with my father every
+Sunday. For, when I was a boy, our Sundays were real devotional
+days--our preachers _felt_ what they preached, and when they told us to
+worship the great Creator 'in spirit and in truth,' we knew they were in
+earnest about it. Now, religion is made a mere 'party' system--a form of
+struggle as to which sect can get the most money for its own purposes.
+Christ,--the grand, patient, long-suffering Ideal of all goodness, is
+gone from it! How can He remain with it while it is such a Sham! Our
+bishops in England truckle to Rome--and, Rome itself is employing every
+possible means to tamper with the integrity of the British constitution.
+The spies and emissaries of Rome are everywhere--both in our so-called
+'national' Church and in our most distinctly _un_-national Press!"
+
+Helmsley listened with keen interest. As a man of business, education,
+observation, and discernment, he knew that what Reay said was true,--but
+in his assumed rōle of a poor and superannuated old office clerk, who
+had been turned adrift from work by reason of age and infirmities, he
+had always to be on his guard against expressing his opinion too openly
+or frankly.
+
+"I don't know much about the newspapers,"--he said, mildly--"I read
+those I can get, just for the news--but there isn't much news, it
+appears to me----"
+
+"And what there is may be contradicted in an hour's time,"--said
+Angus--"I tell you, David, when I started working in journalism, I
+thought it was the finest profession going. It seemed to me to have all
+the responsibilities of the world on its back. I considered it a force
+with which to educate, help, and refine all peoples, and all classes.
+But I found it was only a money speculation after all. How much profit
+could be made out of it? That was the chief point of action. That was
+the mainspring of every political discussion--and in election times, one
+side had orders to abuse the other, merely to keep up the popular
+excitement. By Jove! I should like to take a select body of electors
+'behind the scenes' of a newspaper office and show them how the whole
+business is run!"
+
+"You know too much, evidently!" said Mary smiling--"I don't wonder you
+were dismissed!"
+
+He laughed--then as suddenly frowned.
+
+"I swear as I stand here," he said emphatically, "that the press is not
+serving the people well! Do you know--no, of course you don't!--but I
+can tell you for a fact that a short time ago an offer was made from
+America through certain financial powers in the city, to buy up several
+of the London dailies, and run them on American lines![1] Germany had a
+finger in the pie, too, through her German Jews!"
+
+Helmsley looked at his indignant face with a slight imperceptible smile.
+
+"Well!" he said, with a purposely miscomprehending air.
+
+"Well! You say 'Well,' David, as if such a proposition contained nothing
+remarkable. That's because you don't understand! Imagine for a moment
+the British Press being run by America!"
+
+Helmsley stroked his beard thoughtfully.
+
+"I _can't_ imagine it,"--he said.
+
+"No--of course you can't! But a few rascally city financiers _could_
+imagine it, and more than that, were prepared to carry the thing
+through. Then, the British people would have been led, guided, advised,
+and controlled by a Yankee syndicate! And the worst of it is that this
+same British people would have been kept in ignorance of the 'deal.'
+They would actually have been paying their pennies to keep up the shares
+of a gang of unscrupulous rascals whose sole end and object was to get
+the British press into their power! Think of it!"
+
+"But did they succeed?" asked Helmsley.
+
+"No, they didn't. Somebody somewhere had a conscience. Somebody
+somewhere refused to 'swop' the nation's much boasted 'liberty of the
+press' for so much cash down. I believe the 'Times' is backed by the
+Rothschilds, and managed by American advertisers--I don't know whether
+it is so or not--but I _do_ know that the public ought to be put on
+their guard. If I were a powerful man and a powerful speaker I would
+call mass meetings everywhere, and urge the people not to purchase a
+single newspaper till each one published in its columns a full and
+honest list of the shareholders concerned in it. Then the public would
+have a chance of seeing where they are. At present they _don't_ know
+where they are."
+
+"Well, you know very well where _you_ are!" said Mary, interrupting him
+at this juncture--"You are in my house,--it's Christmas Day, and
+dinner's ready!"
+
+He laughed, and they all three sat down to table. It had been arranged
+for fully a week before that Angus should share his Christmas dinner
+with Mary and "old David"--and a very pleasant and merry meal they made
+of it. And in the afternoon and evening some of the villagers came in to
+gossip--and there was singing of songs, and one or two bashful attempts
+on the part of certain gawky lads to kiss equally gawky girls under the
+mistletoe. And Mary, as hostess of the haphazard little party, did her
+best to promote kindly feeling among them all, effacing herself so
+utterly, and playing the "old maid" with such sweet and placid
+loveliness that Angus became restless, and was moved by a feverish
+desire to possess himself of one of the little green twigs with white
+berries, which, looking so innocent, were apparently so provocative,
+and to try its effect by holding it suddenly above the glorious masses
+of her brown hair, which shone with the soft and shimmering hue of
+evening sunlight. But he dared not. Kissing under the mistletoe was all
+very well for boys and girls--but for a mature bachelor of thirty-nine
+and an "old maid" of thirty-five, these uncouth and calf-like
+gambollings lacked dignity. Moreover, when he looked at Mary's pure
+profile--the beautifully shaped eyes, classic mouth, and exquisite line
+of neck and shoulder, the very idea of touching those lips with a kiss
+given in mere lightness, seemed fraught with impertinence and
+irreverence. If ever he kissed Mary, he thought,--and then all the
+powers of his mind galloped off like wild horses let loose on a
+sun-baked ranch--if ever he kissed Mary! What a dream!--what a boldness
+unprecedented! But again--if ever he kissed her, it must be with the
+kiss of a lover, for whom such a token of endearment was the sign of a
+sacred betrothal. And he became so lost and abstracted in his musings
+that he almost forgot the simple village merriment around him, and only
+came back to himself a little when the party broke up altogether, and he
+himself had to say "good-night," and go with the rest. Mary, while
+giving him her hand in farewell, looked at him with a sisterly
+solicitude.
+
+"You're tired, Mr. Reay,"--she said--"I'm afraid we've been too noisy
+for you, haven't we? But one can't keep boys and girls quiet!"
+
+"I don't want them kept quiet,"--said Reay, holding her hand very
+hard--"And I'm not tired. I've only been thinking."
+
+"Ah! Of your book?"
+
+"Yes. Of my book."
+
+He went then, and came no more to the cottage till a week later when it
+was New Year's Eve. This they celebrated very quietly--just they three
+alone. Mary thought it somewhat imprudent for "old David" to sit up till
+midnight in order to hear the bells "ring out the Old, ring in the
+New"--but he showed a sudden vigorous resolution about it which was not
+to be gainsaid.
+
+"Let me have my way, my dear,"--he implored her--"I may never see
+another New Year!"
+
+"Nonsense, David!" she said cheerily--"You will see many and many a one,
+please God!"
+
+"Please God, I shall!" he answered, quietly--"But if it should not
+please God--then--"
+
+"There!--you want to stay up, and you shall stay up!" she declared,
+smiling--"After all, as Mr. Reay is with us, the time won't perhaps seem
+so long for you."
+
+"But for you,"--put in Angus--"it will seem very long won't it!"
+
+"Oh, I always sit up for the coming-in of the New Year,"--she
+replied--"Father used to do it, and I like to keep up all father's ways.
+Only I thought David might feel too tired. You must sing to us, Mr.
+Reay, to pass the hours away."
+
+"And so must you!" he replied.
+
+And she did sing that night as she had never sung to them before, with a
+fuller voice and more passion than she had hitherto shown,--one little
+wild ballad in particular taking Reay's fancy so much that he asked her
+to sing it more than once. The song contained just three six-line
+stanzas, having little merit save in their suggestiveness.
+
+    Oh love, my love! I have giv'n you my heart
+      Like a rose full-blown,
+    With crimson petals trembling apart--
+      It is all your own--
+    What will you do with it. Dearest,--say?
+    Keep it for ever or throw it away?
+
+    Oh love, my love! I have giv'n you my life,
+      Like a ring of gold;
+    Symbol of peace in a world of strife,
+      To have and to hold.
+    What will you do with it, Dearest,--say?
+    Treasure it always, or throw it away?
+
+    Oh love, my love! Have all your will--
+      I am yours to the end;
+    Be false or faithful--comfort or kill,
+      Be lover or friend,--
+    Where gifts are given they must remain,
+    I never shall ask for them back again!
+
+"Do you know that you have a very beautiful voice, Miss Mary?" said
+Angus, after hearing this for the second time.
+
+"Oh, I don't think so at all,"--she answered, quickly; "Father used to
+like to hear me sing--but I can only just give ballads their meaning,
+and pronounce the words carefully so the people may know what I am
+trying to sing about. I've no real voice."
+
+"You have!" And Angus turned to Helmsley for his opinion--"Hasn't she,
+David?"
+
+"Her voice is the sweetest _I_ ever heard,"--replied Helmsley--"But then
+I'm not much of a judge."
+
+And his thoughts went roving back to certain entertainments in London
+which he had given for the benefit of his wealthy friends, when he had
+paid as much as five or six hundred guineas in fees to famous opera
+singers, that they might shriek or warble, as their respective talents
+dictated, to crowds of indifferent loungers in his rooms, who cared no
+more for music than they did for religion. He almost smiled as he
+recalled those nights, and contrasted them with this New Year's evening,
+when seated in an humble cottage, he had for his companions only a
+lowly-born poor woman, and an equally lowly-born poor man, both of whom
+evinced finer education, better manners, greater pride of spirit, and
+more resolute independence than nine-tenths of the "society" people who
+had fawned upon him and flattered him, simply because they knew he was a
+millionaire. And the charm of his present position was that these two,
+poor, lowly-born people were under the impression that even in their
+poverty and humility they were better off than he was, and that because
+fortune had been, as they considered, kind to them, they were bound to
+treat him in a way that should not remind him of his dependent and
+defenceless condition. It was impossible to imagine greater satisfaction
+than that which he enjoyed in the contemplation of his own actual
+situation as compared with that which he had impressed upon the minds of
+these two friends of his who had given him their friendship trustingly
+and frankly for himself alone. And he listened placidly, with folded
+hands and half shut eyes, while Angus, at Mary's request, trolled forth
+"The Standard on the Braes o' Mar" and "Sound the pibroch,"--varying
+those warlike ditties with "Jock o' Hazledean," and "Will ye no come
+back again,"--till all suddenly Mary rose from her chair, and with her
+finger to her lips said "Hark!" The church-bells were ringing out the
+Old Year, and glancing at the clock, they saw it wanted but ten minutes
+to midnight. Softly Mary stepped to the cottage door and opened it. The
+chime swung melodiously in, and Angus Reay went to the threshold, and
+stood beside Mary, listening. Had they glanced back that instant they
+would have seen Helmsley looking at them both, with an intensity of
+yearning in his pale face and sad old eyes that was pitiful and earnest
+beyond all expression--they would have seen his lips move, as he
+murmured--"God grant that I may make their lives beautiful! God give me
+this peace of mind before I die! God bless them!" But they were absorbed
+in listening--and presently with a deep clang the bells ceased. Mary
+turned her head.
+
+"The Old Year's out, David!"
+
+Then she went to him and knelt down beside him.
+
+"It's been a kind old year!"--she said--"It brought you to me to take
+care of, and _me_ to you to take care of you--didn't it?"
+
+He laid one hand on hers, tremblingly, but was silent. She turned up her
+kind, sweet face to his.
+
+"You're not tired, are you?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"No, my dear, no!"
+
+A rush and a clang of melody swept suddenly through the open door--the
+bells had begun again.
+
+"A Happy New Year, Miss Mary!" said Angus, looking towards her from
+where he stood on the threshold--"And to you, David!"
+
+With an irrepressible movement of tenderness Helmsley raised his
+trembling hands and laid them gently on Mary's head.
+
+"Take an old man's blessing, my dear!" he said, softly, "And from a most
+grateful heart!"
+
+She caught his hands as he lifted them again from her brow, and kissed
+them. There were tears in her eyes, but she brushed them quickly away.
+
+"You talk just like father!" she said, smiling--"He was always grateful
+for nothing!"
+
+And rising from her kneeling attitude by Helmsley's chair, she went
+again towards the open cottage door, holding out her two hands to Reay.
+Looking at her as she approached he seemed to see in her some gracious
+angel, advancing with all the best possibilities of life for him in her
+sole power and gift.
+
+"A Happy New Year, Mr. Reay! And success to the book!"
+
+He clasped the hands she extended.
+
+"If you wish success for it, success is bound to come!" he answered in a
+low voice--"I believe in your good influence!"
+
+She looked at him, and whatever answer rose to her lips was suddenly
+silenced by the eloquence of his eyes. She coloured hotly, and then grew
+very pale. They both stood on the threshold of the open door, silent and
+strangely embarrassed, while the bells swung and clanged musically
+through the frosty air, and the long low swish of the sea swept up like
+a harmonious bass set to the silvery voice of the chimes. They little
+guessed with what passionate hope, yearning, and affection, Helmsley
+watched them standing there!--they little knew that on them the last
+ambition of his life was set!--and that any discovery of sham or
+falsehood in their natures would make cruel havoc of his dearest dreams!
+They waited, looking out on the dark quiet space, and listening to the
+rush of the stream till the clamour of the bells ceased again, and
+sounded no more. In the deep stillness that followed Angus said softly--
+
+"There's not a leaf left on the old sweetbriar bush now!"
+
+"No,"--answered Mary, in the same soft tone--"But it will be the first
+thing to bud with the spring."
+
+"I've kept the little sprig you gave me,"--he added, apparently by way
+of a casual after-thought.
+
+"Have you?"
+
+Silence fell again--and not another word passed between them save a
+gentle "Good-night" when, the New Year having fully come in, they
+parted.
+
+[Footnote 1: A fact.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+The dreariest season of the year had now set in, but frost and cold were
+very seldom felt severely in Weircombe. The little village lay in a deep
+warm hollow, and was thoroughly protected at the back by the hills,
+while in the front its shores were washed by the sea, which had a
+warming as well as bracing effect on the atmosphere. To invalids
+requiring an equable temperature, it would have been a far more ideal
+winter resort than any corner of the much-vaunted Riviera, except indeed
+for the fact that feeding and gambling dens were not among its
+attractions. To "society" people it would have proved insufferably dull,
+because society people, lacking intelligence to do anything themselves,
+always want everything done for them. Weircombe folk would not have
+understood that method of living. To them it seemed proper and
+reasonable that men, and women too, should work for what they ate. The
+theory that only a few chosen persons, not by any means estimable either
+as to their characters or their abilities, should eat what others were
+starved for, would not have appealed to them. They were a small and
+unimportant community, but their ideas of justice and principles of
+conduct were very firmly established. They lived on the lines laid down
+by their forefathers, and held that a simple faith in God, coupled with
+honest hard labour, was sufficient to make life well worth living. And,
+on the whole they were made of that robust human material of which in
+the days gone by there was enough to compose and consolidate the
+greatness of Britain. They were kindly of heart, but plain in
+speech,--and their remarks on current events, persons and things, would
+have astonished and perhaps edified many a press man had he been among
+them, when on Saturday nights they "dropped in" at the one little
+public-house of the village, and argued politics and religion till
+closing-time. Angus Reay soon became a favourite with them all, though
+at first they had looked upon him with a little distrust as a "gentleman
+_tow_-rist"; but when he had mixed with them freely and familiarly,
+making no secret of the fact that he was poor, and that he was
+endeavouring to earn a livelihood like all the rest of them, only in a
+different way, they abandoned all reserve, and treated him as one of
+themselves. Moreover, when it was understood that "Mis' Deane," whose
+reputation stood very high in the village, considered him not unworthy
+of her friendship, he rose up several degrees in the popular estimation,
+and many a time those who were the self-elected wits and wise-acres of
+the place, would "look in" as they termed it, at Mary's cottage, and
+pass the evening talking with him and with "old David," who, if he did
+not say much, listened the more. Mr. Bunce, the doctor, and Mr. Twitt,
+the stonemason, were in particular profoundly impressed when they knew
+that Reay had worked for two years on a London newspaper.
+
+"Ye must 'ave a ter'uble knowledge of the world, Mister!" said Twitt,
+thoughtfully--"Just ter'uble!"
+
+"Yes, I should assume it must be so,"--murmured Bunce--"I should think
+it could hardly fail to be so?"
+
+Reay gave a short laugh.
+
+"Well, I don't know!" he said--"You may call it a knowledge of the world
+if you like--I call it an unpleasant glimpse into the shady side of
+life. I'd rather walk in the sunshine."
+
+"And what would you call the sunshine, sir?" asked Bunce, with his head
+very much on one side like a meditative bird.
+
+Honesty, truth, belief in God, belief in good!"--answered Angus, with
+some passion--"Not perpetual scheming, suspicion of motives, personal
+slander, and pettiness--O Lord!--such pettiness as can hardly be
+believed! Journalism is the most educational force in the world, but its
+power is being put to wrong uses."
+
+"Well,--said Twitt, slowly--"I aint so blind but I can see through a
+wall when there's a chink in it. An' when I gets my 'Daily' down from
+Lunnun, an' sees harf a page given up to a kind o' poster about Pills,
+an' another harf a page praisin' up somethin' about Tonics, I often sez
+to myself: 'Look 'ere, Twitt! What are ye payin' yer pennies out for?
+For a Patent Pill or for News? For a Nervy Tonic or for the latest
+pol'tics?' An' myself--me--Twitt--answers an' sez--'Why ye're payin' for
+news an' pol'tics, of course!' Well then, I sez, 'Twitt, ye aint
+gettin' nothin' o' the sort!' An' t' other day, blow'd if I didn't see
+in my paper a long piece about ''Ow to be Beautiful'--an' that 'adn't
+nothin' to do wi' me nor no man, but was just mere gabble for fool
+women. ''Ow to be Beautiful,' aint news o' the world!"
+
+"No,"--said Reay--"You're not intended to know the news of the world.
+News, real news, is the property of the Stock Exchange. It's chiefly
+intended for company gambling purposes. The People are not expected to
+know much about it. Modern Journalism seeks to play Pope and assert the
+doctrine of infallibility. What It does not authorise, isn't supposed to
+exist."
+
+"Is that truly so?" asked Bunce, solemnly.
+
+"Most assuredly!"
+
+"You mean to say,"--said Helmsley, breaking in upon the conversation,
+and speaking in quiet unconcerned tones--"that the actual national
+affairs of the world are not told to the people as they should be, but
+are jealously guarded by a few whose private interests are at stake?"
+
+"Yes. I certainly do mean that."
+
+"I thought you did. You see," went on Helmsley--"when I was in regular
+office work in London, I used to hear a good deal concerning the
+business schemes of this, that and the other great house in the
+city,--and I often wondered what the people would say if they ever came
+to know!"
+
+"Came to know what?" said Mr. Bunce, anxiously.
+
+"Why, the names of the principal shareholders in the newspapers,"--said
+Reay, placidly--"_That_ might possibly open their eyes to the way their
+opinions are manufactured for them! There's very little 'liberty of the
+press' in Great Britain nowadays. The press is the property of a few
+rich men."
+
+Mary, who was working very intently on a broad length of old lace she
+was mending, looked up at him--her eyes were brilliant and her cheeks
+softly flushed.
+
+"I hope you will be brave enough to say that some day right out to the
+people as you say it to us,"--she observed.
+
+"I will! Never fear about that! If I _am_ ever anything--if I ever _can_
+be anything--I will do my level best to save my nation from being
+swallowed up by a horde of German-American Jews!" said Reay, hotly--"I
+would rather suffer anything myself than see the dear old country
+brought to shame."
+
+"Right, very right!" said Mr. Bunce, approvingly--"And many--yes, I
+think we may certainly say many,--are of your spirit,--what do you
+think, David?"
+
+Helmsley had raised himself in his chair, and was looking wonderfully
+alert. The conversation interested him.
+
+"I quite agree,"--he said--"But Mr. Reay must remember that if he should
+ever want to make a clean sweep of German-American Jews and speculators
+as he says, and expose the way they tamper with British interests, he
+would require a great deal of money. A _very_ great deal of money!" he
+repeated, slowly,--"Now I wonder, Mr. Reay, what you would do with a
+million?--two millions?--three millions?--four millions?"--
+
+"Stop, stop, old David!"--interrupted Twitt, suddenly holding up his
+hand--"Ye takes my breath away!"
+
+They all laughed, Reay's hearty tones ringing above the rest.
+
+"Oh, I should know what to do with them!"--he said; "but I wouldn't
+spend them on my own selfish pleasures--that I swear! For one thing, I'd
+run a daily newspaper on _honest_ lines----"
+
+"It wouldn't sell!" observed Helmsley, drily.
+
+"It would--it _should_!" declared Reay--"And I'd tell the people the
+truth of things,--I'd expose every financial fraud I could find----"
+
+"And you'd live in the law-courts, I fear!" said Mr. Bunce, gravely
+shaking his head--"We may be perfectly certain, I think--may we not,
+David?--that the law-courts would be Mr. Reay's permanent address?"
+
+They laughed again, and the conversation turned to other topics, though
+its tenor was not forgotten by anyone, least of all by Helmsley, who sat
+very silent for a long time afterwards, thinking deeply, and seeing in
+his thoughts various channels of usefulness to the world and the world's
+progress, which he had missed, but which others after him would find.
+
+Meanwhile Weircombe suffered a kind of moral convulsion in the advent of
+the Reverend Mr. Arbroath, who arrived to "take duty" in the absence of
+its legitimate pastor. He descended upon the tiny place like an embodied
+black whirlwind, bringing his wife with him, a lady whose facial
+lineaments bore the strangest and most remarkable resemblance to those
+of a china cat; not a natural cat, because there is something soft and
+appealing about a real "pussy,"--whereas Mrs. Arbroath's countenance was
+cold and hard and shiny, like porcelain, and her smile was precisely
+that of the immovable and ruthless-looking animal designed long ago by
+old-time potters and named "Cheshire." Her eyes were similar to the eyes
+of that malevolent china creature--and when she spoke, her voice had the
+shrill tone which was but a few notes off the actual "_me-iau_" of an
+angry "Tom." Within a few days after their arrival, every cottage in the
+"coombe" had been "visited," and both Mr. and Mrs. Arbroath had made up
+their minds as to the neglected, wholly unspiritual and unregenerate
+nature of the little flock whom they had offered, for sake of their own
+health and advantage, to tend. The villagers had received them civilly,
+but without enthusiasm. When tackled on the subject of their religious
+opinions, most of them declined to answer, except Mr. Twitt, who, fixing
+a filmy eye sternly on the plain and gloomy face of Mr. Arbroath, said
+emphatically:
+
+"We aint no 'Igh Jinks!"
+
+"What do you mean, my man?" demanded Arbroath, with a dark smile.
+
+"I mean what I sez"--rejoined Twitt--"I've been stonemason 'ere goin' on
+now for thirty odd years an' it's allus been the same 'ere--no 'Igh
+Jinks. Purcessin an' vestiments"--here Twitt spread out a broad dirty
+thumb and dumped it down with each word into the palm of his other
+hand--"candles, crosses, bobbins an' bowins--them's what we calls 'Igh
+Jinks, an' I make so bold as to say that if ye gets 'em up 'ere, Mr.
+Arbroath, ye'll be mighty sorry for yourself!"
+
+"I shall conduct the services as I please!" said Arbroath. "You take too
+much upon yourself to speak to me in such a fashion! You should mind
+your own business!"
+
+"So should you, Mister, so should you!" And Twitt chuckled
+contentedly--"An' if ye _don't_ mind it, there's those 'ere as'll _make_
+ye!"
+
+Arbroath departed in a huff, and the very next Sunday announced that
+"Matins" would be held at seven o'clock daily in the Church, and
+"Evensong" at six in the afternoon. Needless to say, the announcement
+was made in vain. Day after day passed, and no one attended. Smarting
+with rage, Arbroath sought to "work up" the village to a proper "'Igh
+Jink" pitch--but his efforts were wasted. And a visit to Mary Deane's
+cottage did not sweeten his temper, for the moment he caught sight of
+Helmsley sitting in his usual corner by the fire, he recognised him as
+the "old tramp" he had interviewed in the common room of the "Trusty
+Man."
+
+"How did _you_ come here?" he demanded, abruptly.
+
+Helmsley, who happened to be at work basket-making, looked up, but made
+no reply. Whereupon Arbroath turned upon Mary--
+
+"Is this man a relative of yours?" he asked.
+
+Mary had risen from her chair out of ordinary civility as the clergyman
+entered, and now replied quietly.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Oh! Then what is he doing here?"
+
+"You can see what he is doing,"--she answered, with a slight smile--"He
+is making baskets."
+
+"He is a tramp!" said Arbroath, pointing an inflexible finger at him--"I
+saw him last summer smoking and drinking with a gang of low ruffians at
+a roadside inn called 'The Trusty Man'!" And he advanced a step towards
+Helmsley--"Didn't I see you there?"
+
+Helmsley looked straight at him.
+
+"You did."
+
+"You told me you were tramping to Cornwall."
+
+"So I was."
+
+"Then what are you doing here?"
+
+"Earning a living."
+
+Arbroath turned sharply on Mary.
+
+"Is that true?"
+
+"Of course it is true,"--she replied--"Why should he tell you a lie?"
+
+"Does he lodge with you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Arbroath paused a moment, his little brown eyes sparkling vindictively.
+
+"Well, you had better be careful he does not rob you!" he said. "For I
+can prove that he seemed to be very good friends with that notorious
+rascal Tom o' the Gleam who murdered a nobleman at Blue Anchor last
+summer, and who would have hung for his crime if he had not fortunately
+saved the expense of a rope by dying."
+
+Helmsley, bending over his basket-weaving, suddenly straightened himself
+and looked the clergyman full in the face.
+
+"I never knew Tom o' the Gleam till that night on which you saw me at
+'The Trusty Man,'" he said--"But I know he had terrible provocation for
+the murder he committed. I saw that murder done!"
+
+"You saw it done!" exclaimed Arbroath--"And you are here?"
+
+"Why should I not be here?" demanded Helmsley--"Would you have expected
+me to stay _there_? I was only one of many witnesses to that terrible
+deed of vengeance--but, as God lives, it was a just vengeance!"
+
+"Just? You call murder just!" and Arbroath gave a gesture of scorn and
+horror--"And you,"--he continued, turning to Mary indignantly--"can
+allow a ruffian like this to live in your house?"
+
+"He is no ruffian,"--said Mary steadily,--"Nor was Tom o' the Gleam a
+ruffian either. He was well-known in these parts for many and many a
+deed of kindness. The real ruffian was the man who killed his little
+child. Indeed I think he was the chief murderer."
+
+"Oh, you do, do you?" and Mr. Arbroath frowned heavily--"And you call
+yourself a respectable woman?"
+
+Mary smiled, and resuming her seat, bent her head intently over her lace
+work.
+
+Arbroath stood irresolute, gazing at her. He was a sensual man, and her
+physical beauty annoyed him. He would have liked to sit down alone with
+her and take her hand in his own and talk to her about her "soul" while
+gloating over her body. But in the "old tramp's" presence there was
+nothing to be done. So he assumed a high moral tone.
+
+"Accidents will happen,"--he said, sententiously--"If a child gets into
+the way of a motor going at full speed, it is bound to be
+unfortunate--for the child. But Lord Wrotham was a rich man--and no
+doubt he would have paid a handsome sum down in compensation----"
+
+"Compensation!" And Helmsley suddenly stood up, drawing his frail thin
+figure erect--"Compensation! Money! Money for a child's life--money for
+a child's love! Are you a minister of Christ, that you can talk of such
+a thing as possible? What is all the wealth of the world compared to
+the life of one beloved human creature! Reverend sir, I am an old poor
+man,--a tramp as you say, consorting with rogues and ruffians--but were
+I as rich as the richest millionaire that ever 'sweated' honest labour,
+I would rather shoot myself than offer money compensation to a father
+for the loss of a child whom my selfish pleasure had slain!"
+
+He trembled from head to foot with the force of his own eloquence, and
+Arbroath stared at him dumb-foundered.
+
+"You are a preacher,"--went on Helmsley--"You are a teacher of the
+Gospel. Do you find anything in the New Testament that gives men licence
+to ride rough-shod over the hearts and emotions of their fellow-men? Do
+you find there that selfishness is praised or callousness condoned? In
+those sacred pages are we told that a sparrow's life is valueless, or a
+child's prayer despised? Sir, if you are a Christian, teach Christianity
+as Christ taught it--_honestly_!"
+
+Arbroath turned livid.
+
+"How dare you--!" he began--when Mary quietly rose.
+
+"I would advise you to be going, sir,"--she said, quite
+courteously--"The old man is not very strong, and he has a trouble of
+the heart. It is little use for persons to argue who feel so
+differently. We poor folk do not understand the ways of the gentry."
+
+And she held open the door of her cottage for him to pass out. He
+pressed his slouch-hat more heavily over his eyes, and glared at her
+from under the shadow of its brim.
+
+"You are harbouring a dangerous customer in your house!" he said--"A
+dangerous customer! It will be my duty to warn the parish against him!"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"You are very welcome to do so, sir! Good-morning!"
+
+And as he tramped away through her tiny garden, she quickly shut and
+barred the door after him, and hurried to Helmsley in some anxiety, for
+he looked very pale, and his breath came and went somewhat rapidly.
+
+"David dear, why did you excite yourself so much over that man!" she
+said, kneeling beside him as he sank back exhausted in his chair--"Was
+it worth while?"
+
+He patted her head with a tremulous hand.
+
+"Perhaps not!" And he smiled--"Perhaps not, Mary! But the cold-blooded
+way in which he said that a money compensation might have been offered
+to poor Tom o' the Gleam for his little child's life--my God! As if any
+sort of money could compare with love!"
+
+He stroked her hair gently, and went on murmuring to himself--
+
+"As if all the gold in the world could make up for the loss of one
+loving heart!"
+
+Mary was silent. She saw that he was greatly agitated, and thought it
+better to let him speak out his whole mind rather than suppress his
+feelings.
+
+"What can a man do with wealth!" he went on, speaking more to himself
+than to her--"He can buy everything that is to be bought, certainly--but
+if he has no one to share his goods with him, what then? Eh, Mary? What
+then?"
+
+"Why then he'd be a very miserable man, David!" she answered,
+smiling--"He'd wish he were poor, with some one to love him!"
+
+He looked at her, and his sunken eyes flashed with quite an eager light.
+
+"That's true!" he said--"He'd wish he were poor with some one to love
+him! Mary, you've been so kind to me--promise me one thing!"
+
+"What's that?" and she patted his hand soothingly.
+
+"Just this--if I die on your hands don't let that man Arbroath bury me!
+I think my very bones would split at the sound of his rasping voice!"
+
+Mary laughed.
+
+"Don't you worry about that!" she said--"Mr. Arbroath won't have the
+chance to bury you, David! Besides, he never takes the burials of the
+very poor folk even in his own parishes. He wrote a letter in one of the
+countryside papers not very long ago, to complain of the smallness of
+the burial fees, and said it wasn't worth his while to bury paupers!"
+And she laughed again. "Poor, bitter-hearted man! He must be very
+wretched in himself to be so cantankerous to others."
+
+"Well, don't let him bury _me_!" said Helmsley--"That's all I ask. I'd
+much rather Twitt dug a hole in the seashore and put my body into it
+himself, without any prayers at all, than have a prayer croaked over me
+by that clerical raven! Remember that!"
+
+"I'll remember!" And Mary's face beamed with kindly tolerance and
+good-humour--"But you're really quite an angry old boy to-day, David! I
+never saw you in such a temper!"
+
+Her playful tone brought a smile to his face at last.
+
+"It was that horrible suggestion of money compensation for a child's
+life that angered me,"--he said, half apologetically--"The notion that
+pounds, shillings and pence could pay for the loss of love, got on my
+nerves. Why, love is the only good thing in the world!"
+
+She had been half kneeling by his chair--but she now rose slowly, and
+stretched her arms out with a little gesture of sudden weariness.
+
+"Do you think so, David?" and she sighed, almost unconsciously to
+herself--"I'm not so sure!"
+
+He glanced at her in sudden uneasiness. Was she too going to say, like
+Lucy Sorrel, that she did not believe in love? He thought of Angus Reay,
+and wondered. She caught his look and smiled.
+
+"I'm not so sure!" she repeated--"There's a great deal talked about
+love,--but it often seems as if there was more talk than deed. At least
+there is in what is generally called 'love.' I know there's a very real
+and beautiful love, like that which I had for my father, and which he
+had for me,--that was as near being perfect as anything could be in this
+world. But the love I had for the young man to whom I was once engaged
+was quite a different thing altogether."
+
+"Of course it was!" said Helmsley--"And quite naturally, too. You loved
+your father as a daughter loves--and I suppose you loved the young man
+as a sweetheart loves--eh?"
+
+"Sweetheart is a very pretty word,"--she answered, the smile still
+lingering about her lips--"It's quite old-fashioned too, and I love
+old-fashioned things. But I don't think I loved the young man exactly as
+a 'sweetheart.' It all came about in a very haphazard way. He took a
+fancy to me, and we used to go long walks together. He hadn't very much
+to say for himself--he smoked most of the time. But he was honest and
+respectable--and I got rather fond of him--so that when he asked me to
+marry him, I thought it would perhaps please father to see me provided
+for--and I said yes, without thinking very much about it. Then, when
+father failed in business and my man threw me over, I fretted a bit just
+for a day or two--mostly I think because we couldn't go any more Sunday
+walks together. I was in the early twenties, but now I'm getting on in
+the thirties. I know I didn't understand a bit about real love then. It
+was just fancy and the habit of seeing the one young man oftener than
+others. And, of course, that isn't love."
+
+Helmsley listened to her every word, keenly interested. Surely, if he
+guided the conversation skilfully enough, he might now gain some useful
+hints which would speed the cause of Angus Reay?
+
+"No--of course that isn't love,"--he echoed--"But what do you take to
+_be_ love?--Can you tell me?"
+
+Her eyes filled with a dreamy light, and her lips quivered a little.
+
+"Can I tell you? Not very well, perhaps--but I'll try. Of course it's
+all over for me now--and I can only just picture what I think it ought
+to be. I never had it. I mean I never had that kind of love I have
+dreamed about, and it seems silly for an old maid to even talk of such a
+thing. But love to my mind ought to be the everything of life! If I
+loved a man----" Here she suddenly paused, and a wave of colour flushed
+her cheeks. Helmsley never took his eyes off her face.
+
+"Yes?" he said, tentatively--"Well!--go on--if you loved a man?----"
+
+"If I loved a man, David,"--she continued, slowly, clasping her hands
+meditatively behind her back, and looking thoughtfully into the glowing
+centre of the fire--"I should love him so completely that I should never
+think of anything in which he had not the first and greatest share. I
+should see his kind looks in every ray of sunshine--I should hear his
+loving voice in every note of music,--if I were to read a book alone, I
+should wonder which sentence in it would please _him_ the most--if I
+plucked a flower, I should ask myself if he would like me to wear it,--I
+should live _through_ him and _for_ him--he would be my very eyes and
+heart and soul! The hours would seem empty without him----"
+
+She broke off with a little sob, and her eyes brimmed over with tears.
+
+"Why Mary! Mary, my dear!" murmured Helmsley, stretching out his hand to
+touch her--"Don't cry!"
+
+"I'm not crying, David!" and a rainbow smile lighted her face--"I'm only
+just--_feeling_! It's like when I read a little verse of poetry that is
+very sad and sweet, I get tears into my eyes--and when I talk about
+love--especially now that I shall never know what it is, something rises
+in my throat and chokes me----"
+
+"But you do know what it is,"--said Helmsley, powerfully moved by the
+touching simplicity of her confession of loneliness--"There isn't a more
+loving heart than yours in the world, I'm sure!"
+
+She came and knelt down again beside him.
+
+"Oh yes, I've a loving heart!" she said--"But that's just the worst of
+it! I can love, but no one loves or ever will love me--now. I'm past the
+age for it. No woman over thirty can expect to be loved by a lover, you
+know! Romance is all over--and one 'settles down,' as they say. I've
+never quite 'settled'--there's always something restless in me. You're
+such a dear old man, David, and so kind!--I can speak to you just as if
+you were my father--and I daresay you will not think it very wrong or
+selfish of me if I say I have longed to be loved sometimes! More than
+that, I've wished it had pleased God to send me a husband and
+children--I should have dearly liked to hold a baby in my arms, and
+soothe its little cries, and make it grow up to be happy and good, and a
+blessing to every one. Some women don't care for children--but I should
+have loved mine!"
+
+She paused a moment, and Helmsley took her hand, and silently pressed it
+in his own.
+
+"However,"--she went on, more lightly--"it's no good grieving over what
+cannot be helped. No man has ever really loved me--because, of course,
+the one I was engaged to wouldn't have thrown me over just because I was
+poor if he had cared very much about me. And I shall be thirty-five this
+year--so I must--I really _must_"--and she gave herself an admonitory
+little shake--"settle down! After all there are worse things in life
+than being an old maid. I don't mind it--it's only sometimes when I feel
+inclined to grizzle, that I think to myself what a lot of love I've got
+in my heart--all wasted!"
+
+"Wasted?" echoed Helmsley, gently--"Do you think love is ever wasted?"
+
+Her eyes grew serious and dreamy.
+
+"Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't"--she answered--"When I begin to
+like a person very much I often pull myself back and say 'Take care!
+Perhaps he doesn't like _you!_'"
+
+"Oh! The person must be a 'he' then!" said Helmsley, smiling a little.
+
+She coloured.
+
+"Oh no--not exactly!--but I mean,--now, for instance,"--and she spoke
+rapidly as though to cover some deeper feeling--"I like _you_ very
+much--indeed I'm fond of you, David!--I've got to know you so well, and
+to understand all your ways--but I can't be sure that you like _me_ as
+much as I like _you_, can I?"
+
+He looked at her kind and noble face with eyes full of tenderness and
+gratitude.
+
+"If you can be sure of anything, you can be sure of that!"--he said--"To
+say I 'like' you would be a poor way of expressing myself. I owe my very
+life to you--and though I am only an old poor man, I would say I loved
+you if I dared!"
+
+She smiled--and her whole face shone with the reflected sunshine of her
+soul.
+
+"Say it, David dear! Do say it! I should like to hear it!"
+
+He drew the hand he held to his lips, and gently kissed it.
+
+"I love you, Mary!" he said--"As a father loves a daughter I love you,
+and bless you! You have been a good angel to me--and I only wish I were
+not so old and weak and dependent on your care. I can do nothing to show
+my affection for you--I'm only a burden upon your hands----"
+
+She laid her fingers lightly across his lips.
+
+"Sh-sh!" she said--"That's foolish talk, and I won't listen to it! I'm
+glad you're fond of me--it makes life so much pleasanter. Do you know, I
+sometimes think God must have sent you to me?"
+
+"Do you? Why?"
+
+"Well, I used to fret a little at being so much alone,--the days seemed
+so long, and it was hard to have to work only for one's wretched self,
+and see nothing in the future but just the same old round--and I missed
+my father always. I never could get accustomed to his empty chair. Then
+when I found you on the hills, lost and solitary, and ill, and brought
+you home to nurse and take care of, all the vacancy seemed filled--and I
+was quite glad to have some one to work for. I've been ever so much
+happier since you've been with me. We'll be like father and daughter to
+the end, won't we?"
+
+She put one arm about him coaxingly. He did not answer.
+
+"You won't go away from me now,--will you, David?" she urged--"Even when
+you've paid me back all you owe me as you wish by your own earnings, you
+won't go away?"
+
+He lifted his head and looked at her as she bent over him.
+
+"You mustn't ask me to promise anything,"--he said, "I will stay with
+you--as long as I can!"
+
+She withdrew her arm from about him, and stood for a moment irresolute.
+
+"Well--I shall be very miserable if you do go,"--she said--"And I'm sure
+no one will take more care of you than I will!"
+
+"I'm sure of that, too, Mary!" and a smile that was almost youthful in
+its tenderness brightened his worn features--"I've never been so well
+taken care of in all my life before! Mr. Reay thinks I am a very lucky
+old fellow."
+
+"Mr. Reay!" She echoed the name--and then, stooping abruptly towards the
+fire, began to make it up afresh. Helmsley watched her intently.
+
+"Don't you like Mr. Reay?" he asked.
+
+She turned a smiling face round upon him.
+
+"Why, of course I like him!" she answered--"I think everyone in
+Weircombe likes him."
+
+"I wonder if he'll ever marry?" pursued Helmsley, with a meditative air.
+
+"Ah, I wonder! I hope if he does, he'll find some dear sweet little girl
+who will really love him and be proud of him! For he's going to be a
+great man, David!--a great and famous man some day!"
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"I'm sure of it!"
+
+And she lifted her head proudly, while her blue eyes shone with
+enthusiastic fervour. Helmsley made a mental note of her expression, and
+wondered how he could proceed.
+
+"And you'd like him to marry some 'dear sweet little girl'"--he went on,
+reflectively--"I'll tell him that you said so!"
+
+She was silent, carefully piling one or two small logs on the fire.
+
+"Dear sweet little girls are generally uncommonly vain of themselves,"
+resumed Helmsley--"And in the strength of their dearness and sweetness
+they sometimes fail to appreciate love when they get it. Now Mr. Reay
+would love very deeply, I should imagine--and I don't think he could
+bear to be played with or slighted."
+
+"But who would play with or slight such love as his?" asked Mary, with a
+warm flush on her face--"No woman that knew anything of his heart would
+wilfully throw it away!"
+
+Helmsley stroked his beard thoughtfully.
+
+"That story of his about a girl named Lucy Sorrel,"--he began.
+
+"Oh, she was wicked--downright wicked!" declared Mary, with some
+passion--"Any girl who would plan and scheme to marry an old man for his
+money must be a worthless creature. I wish I had been in that Lucy
+Sorrel's place!"
+
+"Ah! And what would you have done?" enquired Helmsley.
+
+"Well, if I had been a pretty girl, in my teens, and I had been
+fortunate enough to win the heart of a splendid fellow like Angus
+Reay,"--said Mary, "I would have thanked God, as Shakespeare tells us to
+do, for a good man's love! And I would have waited for him years, if he
+had wished me to! I would have helped him all I could, and cheered him
+and encouraged him in every way I could think of--and when he had won
+his fame, I should have been prouder than a queen! Yes, I should!--I
+think any girl would have been lucky indeed to get such a man to care
+for her as Angus Reay!"
+
+Thus spake Mary, with sparkling eyes and heaving bosom--and Helmsley
+heard her, showing no sign of any especial interest, the while he went
+on meditatively stroking his beard.
+
+"It is a pity,"--he said, after a discreet pause--"that you are not a
+few years younger, Mary! You might have loved him yourself."
+
+Her face grew suddenly scarlet, and she seemed about to utter an
+exclamation, but she repressed it. The colour faded from her cheeks as
+rapidly as it had flushed them, leaving her very pale.
+
+"So I might!" she answered quietly,--and she smiled; "Indeed I think it
+would have been very likely! But that sort of thing is all over for me."
+
+She turned away, and began busying herself with some of her household
+duties. Helmsley judged that he had said enough--and quietly exulted in
+his own mind at the discovery which he was confident he had made. All
+seemed clear and open sailing for Angus Reay--if--if she could be
+persuaded that it was for herself and herself alone that he loved her.
+
+"Now if she were a rich woman, she would never believe in his love!" he
+thought--"There again comes in the curse of money! Suppose she were
+wealthy as women in her rank of life would consider it--suppose that she
+had a prosperous farm, and a reliable income of so much per annum, she
+would never flatter herself that a man loved her for her own good and
+beautiful self--especially a man in the situation of Reay, with only
+twenty pounds in the world to last him a year, and nothing beyond it
+save the dream of fame! She would think--and naturally too--that he
+sought to strengthen and improve his prospects by marrying a woman of
+some 'substance' as they call it. And even as it is the whole business
+requires careful handling. I myself must be on my guard. But I think I
+may give hope to Reay!--indeed I shall try and urge him to speak to her
+as soon as possible--before fortune comes to either of them! Love in its
+purest and most unselfish form, is such a rare blessing--such a glorious
+Angel of the kingdom of Heaven, that we should not hesitate to give it
+welcome, or delay in offering it reverence! It is all that makes life
+worth living--God knows how fully I have proved it!"
+
+And that night in the quiet darkness of his own little room, he folded
+his worn hands and prayed--
+
+"Oh God, before whom I appear as a wasted life, spent with toil in
+getting what is not worth the gaining, and that only seems as dross in
+Thy sight!--Give me sufficient time and strength to show my gratefulness
+to Thee for Thy mercy in permitting me to know the sweetness of Love at
+last, and in teaching me to understand, through Thy guidance, that those
+who may seem to us the unconsidered and lowly in this world, are often
+to be counted among Thy dearest creatures! Grant me but this, O God, and
+death when it comes, shall find me ready and resigned to Thy Will!"
+
+Thus he murmured half aloud,--and in the wonderful restfulness which he
+obtained by the mere utterance of his thoughts to the Divine Source of
+all good, closed his eyes with a sense of abiding joy, and slept
+peacefully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+And now by slow and beautiful degrees the cold and naked young year grew
+warm, and expanded from weeping, shivering infancy into the delighted
+consciousness of happy childhood. The first snowdrops, the earliest
+aconites, perked up their pretty heads in Mary's cottage garden, and
+throughout all nature there came that inexplicable, indefinite, soft
+pulsation of new life and new love which we call the spring. Tiny buds,
+rosy and shining with sap, began to gleam like rough jewels on every
+twig and tree--a colony of rooks which had abode in the elms surrounding
+Weircombe Church, started to make great ado about their housekeeping,
+and kept up as much jabber as though they were inaugurating an Irish
+night in the House of Commons,--and, over a more or less tranquil sea,
+the gulls poised lightly on the heaving waters in restful attitudes, as
+though conscious that the stress of winter was past. To look at
+Weircombe village as it lay peacefully aslant down the rocky "coombe,"
+no one would have thought it likely to be a scene of silent, but none
+the less violent, internal feud; yet such nevertheless was the case, and
+all the trouble had arisen since the first Sunday of the first month of
+the Reverend Mr. Arbroath's "taking duty" in the parish. On that day six
+small choirboys had appeared in the Church, together with a tall lanky
+youth in a black gown and white surplice--and to the stupefied amazement
+of the congregation, the lanky youth had carried a gilt cross round the
+Church, followed by Arbroath himself and the six little boys, all
+chanting in a manner such as the Weircombe folk had never heard before.
+It was a deeply resented innovation, especially as the six little boys
+and the lanky cross-bearer, as well as the cross itself, had been
+mysteriously "hired" from somewhere by Mr. Arbroath, and were altogether
+strange to the village. Common civility, as well as deeply rooted
+notions of "decency and order," kept the parishioners in their seats
+during what they termed the "play-acting" which took place on this
+occasion, but when they left the Church and went their several ways,
+they all resolved on the course they meant to adopt with the undesired
+introduction of "'Igh Jinks" for the future. And from that date
+henceforward not one of the community attended Church. Sunday after
+Sunday, the bells rang in vain. Mr. Arbroath conducted the service
+solely for Mrs. Arbroath and for one ancient villager who acted the
+double part of sexton and verger, and whose duties therefore compelled
+him to remain attached to the sacred edifice. And the people read their
+morning prayers in their own houses every Sunday, and never stirred out
+on that day till after their dinners. In vain did both Mr. and Mrs.
+Arbroath run up and down the little village street, calling at every
+house, coaxing, cajoling, and promising,--they spoke to deaf ears.
+Nothing they could say or do made amends for the "insult" to which the
+parishioners considered they had been subjected, by the sudden
+appearance of six strange choirboys and the lanky youth in a black gown,
+who had carried a gilt cross round and round the tiny precincts of their
+simple little Church, which,--until the occurrence of this remarkable
+"mountebank" performance as they called it,--had been everything to them
+that was sacred in its devout simplicity. Finally, in despair, Mr.
+Arbroath wrote a long letter of complaint to the Bishop of the diocese,
+and after a considerable time of waiting, was informed by the secretary
+of that gentleman that the matter would be enquired into, but that in
+the meantime he had better conduct the Sunday services in the manner to
+which the parishioners had been accustomed. This order Arbroath flatly
+refused to obey, and there ensued a fierce polemical correspondence,
+during which the Church remained, as has been stated, empty of
+worshippers altogether. Casting about for reasons which should prove
+some contumacious spirit to be the leader of this rebellion, Arbroath
+attacked Mary Deane among others, and asked her if she was "a regular
+Communicant." To which she calmly replied--
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"And why are you not?" demanded the clergyman imperiously.
+
+"Because I do not feel like it," she said; "I do not believe in going to
+Communion unless one really feels the spiritual wish and desire."
+
+"Oh! Then that is to say that you are very seldom conscious of any
+spiritual wish or desire?"
+
+She was silent.
+
+"I am sorry for you!" And Arbroath shook his bullet head dismally. "You
+are one of the unregenerate, and if you do not amend your ways will be
+among the lost----"
+
+"'I tell thee, churlish priest, A ministering angel shall my sister be,
+when thou liest howling!'" said Helmsley suddenly.
+
+Arbroath turned upon him sharply.
+
+"What's that?" he snarled.
+
+"Shakespeare!" and Helmsley smiled.
+
+"Shakespeare! Much you know about Shakespeare!" snapped out the
+irritated clergyman. "But atheists and ruffians always quote Shakespeare
+as glibly as they quote the New Testament!"
+
+"It's lucky that atheists and ruffians have got such good authorities to
+quote from," said Helmsley placidly.
+
+Arbroath gave an impatient exclamation, and again addressed Mary.
+
+"Why don't you come to Church?" he asked.
+
+She raised her calm blue eyes and regarded him steadfastly.
+
+"I don't like the way you conduct the service, sir, and I don't take you
+altogether for a Christian."
+
+"What!" And he stared at her so furiously that his little pig eyes grew
+almost large for the moment--"You don't take me--_me_--for a Christian?"
+
+"No, sir,--not altogether. You are too hard and too proud. You are not
+careful of us poor folk, and you don't seem to mind whether you hurt our
+feelings or not. We're only very humble simple people here in Weircombe,
+but we're not accustomed to being ordered about as if we were children,
+or as if our parson was a Romish priest wanting to get us all under his
+thumb. We believe in God with all our hearts and souls, and we love the
+dear gentle Saviour who came to show us how to live and how to die,--but
+we like to pray as we've always been accustomed to pray, just without
+any show, as our Lord taught us to do, not using any 'vain
+repetitions.'"
+
+Helmsley, who was bending some stiff osiers in his hands, paused to
+listen. Arbroath stared gloomily at the noble, thoughtful face on which
+there was just now an inspired expression of honesty and truth which
+almost shamed him.
+
+"I think," went on Mary, speaking very gently and modestly--"that if we
+read the New Testament, we shall find that our Lord expressly forbade
+all shows and ceremonies,--and that He very much disliked them. Indeed,
+if we strictly obeyed all His orders, we should never be seen praying in
+public at all! Of course it is pleasant and human for people to meet
+together in some place and worship God--but I think such a meeting
+should be quite without any ostentation--and that all our prayers should
+be as simple as possible. Pray excuse me if I speak too boldly--but that
+is the spirit and feeling of most of the Weircombe folk, and they are
+really very good, honest people."
+
+The Reverend Mr. Arbroath stood inert and silent for about two minutes,
+his eyes still fixed upon her,--then, without a word, he turned on his
+heel and left the cottage. And from that day he did his best to sow
+small seeds of scandal against her,--scattering half-implied
+innuendoes,--faint breathings of disparagement, coarse jests as to her
+"old maid" condition, and other mean and petty calumnies, which,
+however, were all so much wasted breath on his part, as the Weircombe
+villagers were as indifferent to his attempted mischief as Mary herself.
+Even with the feline assistance of Mrs. Arbroath, who came readily to
+her husband's aid in his capacity of "downing" a woman, especially as
+that woman was so much better-looking than herself, nothing of any
+importance was accomplished in the way of either shaking Mary's
+established position in the estimation of Weircombe, or of persuading
+the parishioners to a "'Igh Jink" view of religious matters. Indeed, on
+this point they were inflexible, and as Mrs. Twitt remarked on one
+occasion, with a pious rolling-up of the whites of her eyes--
+
+"To see that little black man with the 'igh stomach a-walkin' about this
+village is enough to turn a baby's bottle sour! It don't seem nat'ral
+like--he's as different from our good old parson as a rat is from a
+bird, an' you'll own, Mis' Deane, as there's a mighty difference between
+they two sorts of insecks. An' that minds me, on the Saturday night
+afore they got the play-actin' on up in the Church, the wick o' my
+candle guttered down in a windin' sheet as long as long, an' I sez to
+Twitt--'There you are! Our own parson's gone an' died over in Madery,
+an' we'll never 'ave the likes of 'im no more! There's trouble comin'
+for the Church, you mark my words.' An' Twitt, 'e says, 'G'arn, old
+'ooman, it's the draught blowin' in at the door as makes the candle
+gutter,'--but all the same my words 'as come true!"
+
+"Why no, surely not!" said Mary, "Our parson isn't dead in Madeira at
+all! The Sunday-school mistress had a letter from him only yesterday
+saying how much better he felt, and that he hoped to be home again with
+us very soon."
+
+Mrs. Twitt pursed her lips and shook her head.
+
+"That may be!" she observed--"I aint a-sayin' nuthin' again it. I sez to
+Twitt, there's trouble comin' for the Church, an' so there is. An' the
+windin' sheet in the candle means a death for somebody somewhere!"
+
+Mary laughed, though her eyes were a little sad and wistful.
+
+"Well, of course, there's always somebody dying somewhere, they say!"
+And she sighed. "There's a good deal of grief in the world that nobody
+ever sees or hears of."
+
+"True enough, Mis' Deane!--true enough!" And Mrs. Twitt shook her head
+again--"But ye're spared a deal o' worrit, seein' ye 'aven't a husband
+nor childer to drive ye silly. When I 'ad my three boys at 'ome I never
+know'd whether I was on my 'ed or my 'eels, they kept up such a racket
+an' torment, but the Lord be thanked they're all out an' doin' for
+theirselves in the world now--forbye the eldest is thinkin' o' marryin'
+a girl I've never seen, down in Cornwall, which is where 'e be a-workin'
+in tin mines, an' when I 'eerd as 'ow 'e was p'raps a-goin' to tie
+hisself up in the bonds o' matterimony, I stepped out in the garden just
+casual like, an' if you'll believe me, I sees a magpie! Now, Mis' Deane,
+magpies is total strangers on these coasts--no one as I've ever 'eard
+tell on 'as ever seen one--an' they's the unlikeliest and unluckiest
+birds to come across as ever the good God created. An' of course I knows
+if my boy marries that gel in Cornwall, it'll be the worst chance and
+change for 'im that 'e's 'ad ever since 'e was born! That magpie comed
+'ere to warn me of it!"
+
+Mary tried to look serious, but Helmsley was listening to the
+conversation, and she caught the mirthful glance of his eyes. So she
+laughed, and taking Mrs. Twitt by the shoulders, kissed her heartily on
+both cheeks.
+
+"You're a dear!" she said--"And I'll believe in the magpie if you want
+me to! But all the same, I don't think any mischief is coming for your
+son or for you. I like to hope that everything happening in this world
+is for the best, and that the good God means kindly to all of us. Don't
+you think that's the right way to live?"
+
+"It may be the right way to live," replied Mrs. Twitt with a doubtful
+air--"But there's ter'uble things allus 'appenin', an' I sez if warnings
+is sent to us even out o' the mouths o' babes and sucklings, let's
+accept 'em in good part. An' if so be a magpie is chose by the Lord as a
+messenger we'se fools if we despises the magpie. But that little paunchy
+Arbroath's worse than a whole flock o' magpies comin' together, an' 'e's
+actin' like a pestilence in keepin' decent folk away from their own
+Church. 'Owsomever, Twitt reads prayers every Sunday mornin', an'
+t'other day Mr. Reay came in an' 'eerd 'im. An' Mr. Reay sez--'Twitt,
+ye're better than any parson I ever 'eerd!' An' I believe 'e is--'e's
+got real 'art an' feelin' for Scripter texes, an' sez 'em just as solemn
+as though 'e was carvin' 'em on tombstones. It's powerful movin'!"
+
+Mary kept a grave face, but said nothing.
+
+"An' last Sunday," went on Mrs. Twitt, encouraged, "Mr. Reay hisself
+read us a chapter o' the New Tesymen, an' 'twas fine! Twitt an' me, we
+felt as if we could 'a served the Lord faithful to the end of the world!
+An' we 'ardly ever feels like that in Church. In Church they reads the
+words so sing-songy like, that, bein' tired, we goes to sleep wi' the
+soothin' drawl. But Mr. Reay, he kep' us wide awake an' starin'! An'
+there's one tex which sticks in my 'ed an' comforts me for myself an'
+for everybody in trouble as I ever 'eerd on----"
+
+"And what's that, Mrs. Twitt?" asked Helmsley, turning round in his
+chair, that he might see her better.
+
+"It's this, Mister David," and Mrs. Twitt drew a long breath in
+preparation before beginning the quotation,--"an' it's beautiful! 'If
+the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you.' Now
+if that aint enuff to send us on our way rejoicin', I don't know what
+is! For Lord knows if the dear Christ was hated, we can put up wi' a bit
+o' the hate for ourselves!"
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"So Mr. Reay reads very well, does he?" asked Mary.
+
+"Fine!" said Mrs. Twitt,--"'E's a lovely man with a lovely voice! If
+'e'd bin a parson 'e'd 'a drawed thousands to 'ear 'im! 'E wouldn't 'a
+wanted crosses nor candles to show us as 'e was speakin' true. Twitt sez
+to 'im t'other day--'Why aint you a parson, Mr. Reay?' an' 'e sez, 'Cos
+I'm goin' to be a preacher!' An' we couldn't make this out nohow, till
+'e showed us as 'ow 'e was a-goin' to tell people things as they ought
+to know in the book 'e's writin'. An' 'e sez it's the only way, cos the
+parsons is gettin' so uppish, an' the Pope 'as got 'old o' some o' the
+newspapers, so that there aint no truth told nowheres, unless a few
+writers o' books will take 'art o' grace an' speak out. An' 'e sez
+there's a many as 'll do it, an' he tells Twitt--'Twitt,' sez he, 'Pin
+your faith on brave books! Beware o' newspapers, an' fight off the
+priest! Read brave books--books that were written centuries ago to teach
+people courage--an' read brave books that are written now to keep
+courage goin'!' An' we sez, so we will--for books is cheap enuff, God
+knows!--an' only t'other day Twitt went over to Minehead an' bought a
+new book by Sir Walter Scott called _Guy Mannering_ for ninepence. It's
+a grand story! an' keeps us alive every evenin'! I'm just mad on that
+old woman in it--Meg Merrilies--she knew a good deal as goes on in the
+world, I'll warrant! All about signs an' omens too. It's just fine! I'd
+like to see Sir Walter Scott!"
+
+"He's dead," said Mary, "dead long ago. But he was a good as well as a
+great man."
+
+"'E must 'a bin," agreed Mrs. Twitt; "I'm right sorry 'e's dead. Some
+folks die as is bound to be missed, an' some folks lives on as one 'ud
+be glad to see in their long 'ome peaceful at rest, forbye their bein'
+born so grumblesome like. Twitt 'ud be at 'is best composin' a hepitaph
+for Mr. Arbroath now!"
+
+As she said this the corners of her mouth, which usually drooped in
+somewhat lachrymose lines, went up in a whimsical smile. And feeling
+that she had launched a shaft of witticism which could not fail to reach
+its mark, she trotted off on further gossiping errands bent.
+
+The tenor of her conversation was repeated to Angus Reay that afternoon
+when he arrived, as was often his custom, for what was ostensibly "a
+chat with old David," but what was really a silent, watchful worship of
+Mary.
+
+"She is a dear old soul!" he said, "and Twitt is a rough diamond of
+British honesty. Such men as he keep the old country together and help
+to establish its reputation for integrity. But that man Arbroath ought
+to be kicked out of the Church! In fact, I as good as told him so!"
+
+"You did!" And Helmsley's sunken eyes began to sparkle with sudden
+animation. "Upon my word, sir, you are very bold!"
+
+"Bold? Why, what can he do to me?" demanded Angus. "I told him I had
+been for some years on the press, and that I knew the ins and outs of
+the Jesuit propaganda there. I told him he was false to the principles
+under which he had been ordained. I told him that he was assisting to
+introduce the Romish 'secret service' system into Great Britain, and
+that he was, with a shameless disregard of true patriotism, using such
+limited influence as he had to put our beloved free country under the
+tyranny of the Vatican. I said, that if ever I got a hearing with the
+British public, I meant to expose him, and all such similar wolves in
+sheep's clothing as himself."
+
+"But--what did he say?" asked Mary eagerly.
+
+"Oh, he turned livid, and then told me I was an atheist, adding that
+nearly all writers of books were of the same evil persuasion as myself.
+I said that if I believed that the Maker of Heaven and Earth took any
+pleasure in seeing him perambulate a church with a cross and six
+wretched little boys who didn't understand a bit what they were doing, I
+should be an atheist indeed. I furthermore told him I believed in God,
+who upheld this glorious Universe by the mere expressed power of His
+thought, and I said I believed in Christ, the Teacher who showed to men
+that the only way to obtain immortal life and happiness was by the
+conquest of Self. 'You may call that atheistical if you like,' I
+said,--'It's a firm faith that will help to keep _me_ straight, and that
+will hold me to the paths of right and truth without any crosses or
+candles.' Then I told him that this little village of Weircombe, in its
+desire for simplicity in forms of devotion, was nearer heaven than he
+was. And--and I think," concluded Angus, ruffling up his hair with one
+hand, "that's about all I told him!"
+
+Helmsley gave a low laugh of intense enjoyment.
+
+"All!" he echoed, "I should say it was enough!"
+
+"I hope it was," said Angus seriously, "I meant it to be." And moving to
+Mary's side, he took up the end of a lace flounce on which she was at
+work. "What a creation in cobwebs!" he exclaimed--"Who does it belong
+to, Miss Mary?"
+
+"To a very great lady," she replied, working busily with her needle and
+avoiding the glance of his eyes; "her name is often in the papers." And
+she gave it. "No doubt you know her?"
+
+"Know her? Not I!" And he shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. "But she
+is very generally known--as a thoroughly bad woman! I _hate_ to see you
+working on anything for her!"
+
+She looked up surprised, and the colour came and went in a delicate
+flush on her face.
+
+"False to her husband, false to her children, and false to herself!"
+went on Angus hotly--"And disloyal to her king! And having turned on her
+own family and her own class, she seeks to truckle to the People under
+pretence of serving _them_, while all the time her sole object is to
+secure notoriety for herself! She is a shame to England!"
+
+"You speak very hotly, sir!" said Helmsley, slowly. "Are you sure of
+your facts?"
+
+"The facts are not concealed," returned Reay--"They are public property.
+That no one has the courage to denounce such women--women who openly
+flaunt their immoralities in our midst--is a bad sign of the times.
+Women are doing a great deal of mischief just now. Look at them fussing
+about Female Suffrage! Female Suffrage, quotha! Let them govern their
+homes properly, wisely, reasonably, and faithfully, and they will govern
+the nation!"
+
+"That's true!" And Helmsley nodded gravely. "That's very true!"
+
+"A woman who really loves a man," went on Angus, mechanically fingering
+the skeins of lace thread which lay on the table at Mary's side, ready
+for use--"governs him, unconsciously to herself, by the twin powers of
+sex and instinct. She was intended for his help-mate, to guide him in
+the right way by her finer forces. If she neglects to cultivate these
+finer forces--if she tramples on her own natural heritage, and seeks to
+'best' him with his own weapons--she fails--she must fail--she deserves
+to fail! But as true wife and true mother, she is supreme!"
+
+"But the ladies are not content with such a limited sphere," began
+Helmsley, with a little smile.
+
+"Limited? Good God!--where does the limit come in?" demanded Reay. "It
+is because they are not sufficiently educated to understand their own
+privileges that women complain of limitations. An unthinking,
+unreasoning, unintelligent wife and mother is of course no higher than
+any other female of the animal species--but I do not uphold this class.
+I claim that the woman who _thinks_, and gives her intelligence full
+play--the woman who is physically sound and morally pure--the woman who
+devoutly studies the noblest side of life, and tries to bring herself
+into unison with the Divine intention of human progress towards the
+utmost good--she, as wife and mother, is the angel of the world. She
+_is_ the world!--she makes it, she rejuvenates it, she gives it
+strength! Why should she condescend to mix with the passing political
+squabbles of her slaves and children?--for men are no more than her
+slaves and children. Love is her weapon--one true touch of that, and the
+wildest heart that ever beat in a man's breast is tamed."
+
+There was a silence. Suddenly Mary pushed aside her work, and going to
+the door opened it.
+
+"It's so warm to-day, don't you think?" she asked, passing her hand a
+little wearily across her forehead. "One would think it was almost
+June."
+
+"You are tired, Miss Mary!" said Reay, somewhat anxiously.
+
+"No--I'm not tired--but"--here all at once her eyes filled with tears.
+"I've got a bit of a headache," she murmured, forcing a smile--"I think
+I'll go to my room and rest for half an hour. Good-bye, Mr. Reay!"
+
+"Good-bye--for the moment!" he answered--and taking her hand he pressed
+it gently. "I hope the headache will soon pass."
+
+She withdrew her hand from his quickly and left the kitchen. Angus
+watched her go, and when she had disappeared heaved an involuntary but
+most lover-like sigh. Helmsley looked at him with a certain whimsical
+amusement.
+
+"Well!" he said.
+
+Reay gave himself a kind of impatient shake.
+
+"Well, old David!" he rejoined.
+
+"Why don't you speak to her?"
+
+"I dare not! I'm too poor!"
+
+"Is she so rich?"
+
+"She's richer than I am."
+
+"It is quite possible," said Helmsley slowly, "that she will always be
+richer than you. Literary men must never expect to be millionaires."
+
+"Don't tell me that--I know it!" and Angus laughed. "Besides, I don't
+want to be a millionaire--wouldn't be one for the world! By the way, you
+remember that man I told you about--the old chap my first love was going
+to marry--David Helmsley?"
+
+Helmsley did not move a muscle.
+
+"Yes--I remember!" he answered quietly.
+
+"Well, the papers say he's dead."
+
+"Oh! the papers say he's dead, do they?"
+
+"Yes. It appeared that he went abroad last summer,--it is thought that
+he went to the States on some matters of business--and has not since
+been heard of."
+
+Helmsley kept an immovable face.
+
+"He may possibly have got murdered for his money," went on Angus
+reflectively--"though I don't see how such an act could benefit the
+murderer. Because his death wouldn't stop the accumulation of his
+millions, which would eventually go to his heir."
+
+"Has he an heir?" enquired Helmsley placidly.
+
+"Oh, he's sure to have left his vast fortune to somebody," replied Reay.
+"He had two sons, so I was told--but they're dead. It's possible he may
+have left everything to Lucy Sorrel."
+
+"Ah yes! Quite possible!"
+
+"Of course," went on Reay, "it's only the newspapers that say he's
+dead--and there never was a newspaper yet that could give an absolutely
+veracious account of anything. His lawyers--a famous firm, Vesey and
+Symonds,--have written a sort of circular letter to the press stating
+that the report of his death is erroneous--that he is travelling for
+health's sake, and on account of a desire for rest and privacy, does not
+wish his whereabouts to be made publicly known."
+
+Helmsley smiled.
+
+"I knew I might trust Vesey!" he thought. Aloud he said--
+
+"Well, I should believe the gentleman's lawyers more than the newspaper
+reporters. Wouldn't you?"
+
+"Of course. I shouldn't have taken the least interest in the rumour, if
+I hadn't been once upon a time in love with Lucy Sorrel. Because if the
+old man is really dead and has done nothing in the way of providing for
+her, I wonder what she will do?"
+
+"Go out charing!" said Helmsley drily. "Many a better woman than you
+have described her to be, has had to come to that."
+
+There was a silence. Presently Helmsley spoke again in a quiet voice--
+
+"I think, Mr. Reay, you should tell all your mind to Miss Mary."
+
+Angus started nervously.
+
+"Do you, David? Why?"
+
+"Why?--well--because--" Here Helmsley spoke very gently--"because I
+believe she loves you!"
+
+The colour kindled in Reay's face.
+
+"Ah, don't fool me, David!" he said--"you don't know what it would mean
+to me----"
+
+"Fool you!" Helmsley sat upright in his chair and looked at him with an
+earnestness which left no room for doubt. "Do you think I would 'fool'
+you, or any man, on such a matter? Old as I am, and lonely and
+friendless as I _was_, before I met this dear woman, I know that love is
+the most sacred of all things--the most valuable of all things--better
+than gold--greater than power--the only treasure we can lay up in heaven
+'where neither moth nor rust do corrupt, and where thieves do not break
+through nor steal!' Do not"--and here his strong emotion threatened to
+get the better of him--"do not, sir, think that because I was tramping
+the road in search of a friend to help me, before Miss Mary found me and
+brought me home here and saved my life, God bless her!--do not think, I
+say, that I have no feeling! I feel very much--very strongly--" He broke
+off breathing quickly, and his hands trembled. Reay hastened to his side
+in some alarm, remembering what Mary had told him about the old man's
+heart.
+
+"Dear old David, I know!" he said. "Don't worry! I know you feel it
+all--I'm sure you do! Now, for goodness' sake, don't excite yourself
+like this--she--she'll never forgive me!" and he shook up the cushion at
+the back of Helmsley's chair and made him lean upon it. "Only it would
+be such a joy to me--such a wonder--such a help--to know that she really
+loved me!--_loved_ me, David!--you understand--why, I think I could
+conquer the world!"
+
+Helmsley smiled faintly. He was suffering physical anguish at the
+moment--the old sharp pain at his heart to which he had become more or
+less wearily accustomed, had dizzied his senses for a space, but as the
+spasm passed he took Reay's hand and pressed it gently.
+
+"What does the Great Book tell us?" he muttered. "'If a man would give
+all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned!'
+That's true! And I would never 'fool' or mislead you on a matter of such
+life and death to you, Mr. Reay. That's why I tell you to speak to Miss
+Mary as soon as you can find a good opportunity--for I am sure she loves
+you!"
+
+"Sure, David?"
+
+"Sure!"
+
+Reay stood silent,--his eyes shining, and "the light that never was on
+sea or land" transfigured his features.
+
+At that moment a tap came at the door. A hand, evidently accustomed to
+the outside management of the latch, lifted it, and Mr. Twitt entered,
+his rubicund face one broad smile.
+
+"'Afternoon, David! 'Afternoon, Mister! Wheer's Mis' Deane?"
+
+"She's resting a bit in her room," replied Helmsley.
+
+"Ah, well! You can tell 'er the news when she comes in. Mr. Arbroath's
+away for 'is life wi' old Nick in full chase arter 'im! It don't do
+t'ave a fav'rite gel!"
+
+Helmsley and Reay stared at him, and then at one another.
+
+"Why, what's up?" demanded Reay.
+
+"Oh, nuthin' much!" and Twitt's broad shoulders shook with internal
+laughter. "It's wot 'appens often in the fam'lies o' the haris-to-crazy,
+an' aint taken no notice of, forbye 'tis not so common among poor folk.
+Ye see Mr. Arbroath he--he--he--he--he--he----" and here the pronoun
+"he" developed into a long chuckle. "He's got a sweet'art on the sly,
+an'--an'--an'--_'is wife's found it out_! Ha-ha-ha-he-he-he! 'Is wife's
+found it out! That's the trouble! An' she's gone an' writ to the Bishop
+'erself! Oh lor'! Never trust a woman wi' cat's eyes! She's writ to the
+Bishop, an' gone 'ome in a tearin' fit o' the rantin' 'igh-strikes,--an'
+Mister Arbroath 'e's follerd 'er, an' left us wi' a curate--a 'armless
+little chap wi' a bad cold in 'is 'ed, an' a powerful red nose--but
+'onest an' 'omely like 'is own face. An' 'e'll take the services till
+our own vicar comes 'ome, which'll be, please God, this day fort_night_.
+But oh lor'!--to think o' that grey-'aired rascal Arbroath with a
+fav'rite gel on the sly! Ha-ha-ha-he-he-he! We'se be all mortal!" and
+Twitt shook his head with profound solemnity. "Ef I was a-goin' to carve
+a tombstone for that 'oly 'igh Churchman, I'd write on it the old
+'ackneyed sayin', 'Man wants but little 'ere below, Nor wants that
+little long!' Ha-ha-ha-he-he-he!"
+
+His round jolly face beamed with merriment, and Angus Reay caught
+infection from his mirth and laughed heartily.
+
+"Twitt, you're an old rascal!" he exclaimed. "I really believe you enjoy
+showing up Mr. Arbroath's little weaknesses!"
+
+"Not I--not I, Mister!" protested Twitt, his eyes twinkling. "I sez, be
+fair to all men! I sez, if a parson wants to chuck a gel under the chin,
+let 'im do so by all means, God willin'! But don't let 'im purtend as 'e
+_couldn't_ chuck 'er under the chin for the hull world! Don't let 'im go
+round lookin' as if 'e was vinegar gone bad, an' preach at the parish as
+if we was all mis'able sinners while 'e's the mis'ablest one hisself.
+But old Arbroath--damme!" and he gave a sounding slap to his leg in
+sheer ecstacy. "Caught in the act by 'is wife! Oh lor', oh lor'! 'Is
+wife! An' _aint_ she a tartar!"
+
+"But how did all this happen?" asked Helmsley, amused.
+
+"Why, this way, David--quite 'appy an' innocent like, Missis Arbroath,
+she opens a letter from 'ome, which 'avin' glanced at the envelope
+casual-like she thinks was beggin' or mothers' meetin', an' there she
+finds it all out. Vicar's fav'rite gel writin' for money or clothes or
+summat, an' endin' up 'Yer own darlin'!' Ha-ha-ha-he-he-he! Oh Lord!
+There was an earthquake up at the rect'ry this marnin'--the cook there
+sez she never 'eerd sich a row in all 'er life--an' Missis Arbroath she
+was a-shriekin' for a divorce at the top of 'er voice! It's a small
+place, Weircombe Rect'ry, an' a woman can't shriek an' 'owl in it
+without bein' 'eerd. So both the cook an' 'ousemaid worn't by no manner
+o' means surprised when Mister Arbroath packed 'is bag an' went off in a
+trap to Minehead--an' we'll be left with a cheap curate in charge of our
+pore souls! Ha-ha-ha! But 'e's a decent little chap,--an' there'll be no
+'igh falutin' services with _'im_, so we can all go to Church next
+Sunday comfortable. An' as for old Arbroath, we'll be seein' big
+'edlines in the papers by and by about 'Scandalous Conduck of a
+Clergyman with 'is Fav'rite Gel!'" Here he made an effort to pull a
+grave face, but it was no use,--his broad smile beamed out once more
+despite himself. "Arter all," he said, chuckling, "the two things does
+fit in nicely together an' nat'ral like--'Igh Jinks an' a fav'rite gel!"
+
+It was impossible not to derive a sense of fun from his shining eyes and
+beaming countenance, and Angus Reay gave himself up to the enjoyment of
+the moment, and laughed again and again.
+
+"So you think he's gone altogether, eh?" he said, when he could speak.
+
+"Oh, 'e's gone all right!" rejoined Twitt placidly. "A man may do lots
+o' queer things in this world, an' so long as 'is old 'ooman don't find
+'im out, it's pretty fair sailin'; but once a parson's wife gets 'er
+nose on to the parson's fav'rite, then all the fat's bound to be in the
+fire! An' quite right as it should be! I wouldn't bet on the fav'rite
+when it come to a neck-an'-neck race atween the two!"
+
+He laughed again, and they all talked awhile longer on this unexpected
+event, which, to such a village as Weircombe, was one of startling
+importance and excitement, and then, as the afternoon was drawing in and
+Mary did not reappear, Angus Reay took his departure with Twitt, leaving
+Helmsley sitting alone in his chair by the fire. But he did not go
+without a parting word--a word which was only a whisper.
+
+"You think you are _sure_, David!" he said--"Sure that she loves me! I
+wish you would make doubly, trebly sure!--for it seems much too good to
+be true!"
+
+Helmsley smiled, but made no answer.
+
+When he was left alone in the little kitchen to which he was now so
+accustomed, he sat for a space gazing into the red embers of the fire,
+and thinking deeply. He had attained what he never thought it would be
+possible to attain--a love which had been bestowed upon him for himself
+alone. He had found what he had judged would be impossible to find--two
+hearts which, so far as he personally was concerned, were utterly
+uninfluenced by considerations of self-interest. Both Mary Deane and
+Angus Reay looked upon him as a poor, frail old man, entirely
+defenceless and dependent on the kindness and care of such strangers as
+sympathised with his condition. Could they now be suddenly told that he
+was the millionaire, David Helmsley, they would certainly never believe
+it. And even if they were with difficulty brought to believe it, they
+would possibly resent the deception he had practised on them. Sometimes
+he asked himself whether it was quite fair or right to so deceive them?
+But then,--reviewing his whole life, and seeing how at every step of his
+career men, and women too, had flattered him and fawned upon him as well
+as fooled him for mere money's sake,--he decided that surely he had the
+right at the approaching end of that career to make a fair and free
+trial of the world as to whether any thing or any one purely honest
+could be found in it.
+
+"For it makes me feel more at peace with God," he said--"to know and to
+realise that there _are_ unselfish loving hearts to be found, if only in
+the very lowliest walks of life! I,--who have seen Society,--the modern
+Juggernaut,--rolling its great wheels recklessly over the hopes and joys
+and confidences of thousands of human beings--I, who know that even
+kings, who should be above dishonesty, are tainted by their secret
+speculations in the money-markets of the world,--surely I may be
+permitted to rejoice for my few remaining days in the finding of two
+truthful and simple souls, who have no motive for their kindness to
+me,--who see nothing in me but age, feebleness and poverty,--and whom I
+have perhaps been the means, through God's guidance, of bringing
+together. For it was to me that Reay first spoke that day on the
+seashore--and it was at my request that he first entered Mary's home.
+Can this be the way in which Divine Wisdom has chosen to redeem me?
+I,--who have never been loved as I would have desired to be loved,--am I
+now instructed how,--leaving myself altogether out of the question,--I
+may prosper the love of others and make two noble lives happy? It may be
+so,--and that in the foundation of their joy, I shall win my own soul's
+peace! So--leaving my treasures on earth,--I shall find my treasure in
+heaven, 'where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do
+not break through nor steal!'"
+
+Still looking at the fire he watched the glowing embers, now reddening,
+now darkening--or leaping up into sparks of evanescent flame,--and
+presently stooping, picked up the little dog Charlie from his warm
+corner on the hearth and fondled him.
+
+"You were the first to love me in my loneliness!" he said, stroking the
+tiny animal's soft ears--"And,--to be quite exact,--I owe my life and
+all my present surroundings to you, Charlie! What shall I leave you in
+my will, eh?"
+
+Charlie yawned capaciously, showing very white teeth and a very red
+tongue, and winked one bright eye.
+
+"You're only a dog, Charlie! You've no use for money! You rely entirely
+upon your own attractiveness and the kindness of human nature! And so
+far your confidence has not been misplaced. But your fidelity and
+affection are only additional proofs of the powerlessness of money.
+Money bought you, Charlie, no doubt, in the first place--but money
+failed to keep you! And now, though by your means Mary found me where I
+lay helpless and unconscious on the hills in the storm, I can neither
+make you richer nor happier, Charlie! You're only a dog!--and a
+millionaire is no more to you than any other man!"
+
+Charlie yawned comfortably again. He seemed to be perfectly aware that
+his master was talking to him, but what it was about he evidently did
+not know, and still more evidently did not care. He liked to be petted
+and made much of--and presently curled himself up in a soft silken ball
+on Helmsley's knee, with his little black nose pointed towards the fire,
+and his eyes blinking lazily at the sparkle of the flames. And so Mary
+found them, when at last she came down from her room to prepare supper.
+
+"Is the headache better, my dear?" asked Helmsley, as she entered.
+
+"It's quite gone, David!" she answered cheerily--"Mending the lace often
+tries one's eyes--it was nothing but that."
+
+He looked at her intently.
+
+"But you've been crying!" he said, with real concern.
+
+"Oh, David! Women always cry when they feel like it!"
+
+"But did _you_ feel like it?"
+
+"Yes. I often do."
+
+"Why?"
+
+She gave a playful gesture with her hands.
+
+"Who can tell! I remember when I was quite a child, I cried when I saw
+the first primrose of the spring after a long winter. I knelt down and
+kissed it, too! That's me all over. I'm stupid, David! My heart's too
+big for me--and there's too much in it that never comes out!"
+
+He took her hand gently.
+
+"All shut up like a volcano, Mary! But the fire is there!"
+
+She laughed, with a touch of embarrassment.
+
+"Oh yes! The fire is there! It will take years to cool down!"
+
+"May it never cool down!" said Helmsley--"I hope it will always burn,
+and make life warm for you! For without the fire that is in _your_
+heart, my dear, Heaven itself would be cold!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+The scandal affecting the Reverend Mr. Arbroath's reputation which had
+been so graphically related by Twitt, turned out to be true in every
+respect, and though considerable efforts were made to hush it up, the
+outraged feelings of the reverend gentleman's wife were not to be
+silenced. Proceedings for divorce were commenced, and it was understood
+that there would be no defence. In due course the "big 'edlines" which
+announced to the world in general that one of the most imperious "High"
+Anglicans of the Church had not only slipped from moral rectitude, but
+had intensified that sin by his publicly aggressive assumption of
+hypocritical virtue, appeared in the newspapers, and the village of
+Weircombe for about a week was brought into a certain notoriety which
+was distinctly displeasing to itself. The arrival of the "dailies"
+became a terror to it, and a general feeling of devout thankfulness was
+experienced by the whole community, when the rightful spiritual shepherd
+of the little flock returned from his sojourn abroad to take up the
+reigns of government, and restore law and order to his tiny distracted
+commonwealth. Fortunately for the peace of Weircombe, the frantic rush
+of social events, and incidents in which actual "news" of interest has
+no part, is too persistent and overwhelming for any one occurrence out
+of the million to occupy more than a brief passing notice, which is in
+its turn soon forgotten, and the "Scandalous Conduck of a Clergyman," as
+Mr. Twitt had put it, was soon swept aside in other examples of
+"Scandalous Conduck" among all sorts and conditions of men and women,
+which, caught up by flying Rumour with her thousand false and blatant
+tongues, is the sort of useless and pernicious stuff which chiefly keeps
+the modern press alive. Even the fact that the Reverend Mr. Arbroath was
+summarily deprived of his living and informed by the Bishop in the usual
+way, that his services would no longer be required, created very little
+interest. Some months later a small journalistic flourish was heard on
+behalf of the discarded gentleman, upon the occasion of his being
+"received" into the Church of Rome, with all his sins forgiven,--but so
+far as Weircombe was concerned, the story of himself and his "fav'rite"
+was soon forgotten, and his very name ceased to be uttered. The little
+community resumed its normal habit of cheerful attendance at Church
+every Sunday, satisfied to have shown to the ecclesiastical powers that
+be, the fact that "'Igh Jinks" in religion would never be tolerated
+amongst them; and the life of Weircombe went on in the usual placid way,
+divided between work and prayer, and governed by the twin forces of
+peace and contentment.
+
+Meantime, the secret spells of Mother Nature were silently at work in
+the development and manifestation of the Spring. The advent of April
+came like a revelation of divine beauty to the little village nestled in
+the "coombe," and garlanded it from summit to base with tangles of
+festal flowers. The little cottage gardens and higher orchards were
+smothered in the snow of plum and cherry-blossom,--primroses carpeted
+the woods which crowned the heights of the hills, and the long dark
+spikes of bluebells, ready to bud and blossom, thrust themselves through
+the masses of last year's dead leaves, side by side with the uncurling
+fronds of the bracken and fern. Thrushes and blackbirds piped with
+cheerful persistence among the greening boughs of the old chestnut which
+shaded Mary Deane's cottage, and children roaming over the grassy downs
+above the sea, brought news of the skylark's song and the cuckoo's call.
+Many a time in these lovely, fresh and sunny April days Angus Reay would
+persuade Mary away from her lace-mending to take long walks with him
+across the downs, or through the woods--and on each occasion when they
+started on these rambles together, David Helmsley would sit and watch
+for their return in a curious sort of timorous suspense--wondering,
+hoping, and fearing,--eager for the moment when Angus should speak his
+mind to the woman he loved, and yet always afraid lest that woman
+should, out of some super-sensitive feeling, put aside and reject that
+love, even though she might long to accept it. However, day after day
+passed and nothing happened. Either Angus hesitated, or else Mary was
+unapproachable--and Helmsley worried himself in vain. They, who did not
+know his secret, could not of course imagine the strained condition of
+mind in which their undeclared feelings kept him,--and and he found
+himself more perplexed and anxious over their apparent uncertainty than
+he had ever been over some of his greatest financial schemes. Facts and
+figures can to a certain extent be relied upon, but the fluctuating
+humours and vagaries of a man and woman in love with each other are
+beyond the most precise calculations of the skilled mathematician. For
+it often happens that when they seem to be coldest they are warmest--and
+cases have been known where they have taken the greatest pains to avoid
+each other at a time when they have most deeply longed to be always
+together. It was during this uncomfortable period of uneasiness and
+hesitation for Helmsley, that Angus and Mary were perhaps most supremely
+happy. Dimly, sweetly conscious that the gate of Heaven was open for
+them and that it was Love, the greatest angel of all God's mighty host,
+that waited for them there, they hovered round and round upon the
+threshold of the glory, eager, yet afraid to enter. Up in the
+primrose-carpeted woods together they talked, like good friends, of a
+thousand things,--of the weather, of the promise of fruit in the
+orchards, of the possibilities of a good fishing year, and of the
+general beauty of the scenery around Weircombe. Then, of course, there
+was the book which Angus was writing--a book now nearing completion. It
+was a very useful book, because it gave them a constant and safe topic
+of conversation. Many chapters were read and re-read--many passages
+written and re-written for Mary's hearing and criticism,--and it may at
+once be said that what had at first been merely clever, brilliant, and
+intellectual writing, was now becoming not so much a book as an artistic
+creation, through which the blood and colour of human life pulsed and
+flowed, giving it force and vitality. Sometimes they persuaded Helmsley
+to accompany them on some of their shorter rambles,--but he was not
+strong enough to walk far, and he often left them half-way up the
+"coombe," returning to the cottage alone. Mary had frequently expressed
+a great wish to take him to a favourite haunt of hers, which she called
+the "Giant's Castle"--but he was unable to make the steep ascent--so on
+one fine afternoon she took Angus there instead. "The Giant's Castle"
+had no recognised name among the Weircombe villagers save this one which
+Mary had bestowed upon it, and which the children repeated after her so
+often that it seemed highly probable that the title would stick to it
+for ever. "Up Giant's Castle way" was quite a familiar direction to any
+one ascending the "coombe," or following the precipitous and narrow path
+which wound along the edge of the cliffs to certain pastures where
+shepherds as well as sheep were in daily danger of landslips, and which
+to the ordinary pedestrian were signalled by a warning board as
+"Dangerous." But "Giant's Castle" itself was merely the larger and
+loftier of the two towering rocks which guarded the sea-front of
+Weircombe village. A tortuous grassy path led up to its very pinnacle,
+and from here, there was an unbroken descent as straight and smooth as a
+well-built wall, of several hundred feet sheer down into the sea, which
+at this point swirled round the rocky base in dark, deep, blackish-green
+eddies, sprinkled with trailing sprays of brown and crimson weed. It was
+a wonderful sight to look down upon this heaving mass of water, if it
+could be done without the head swimming and the eyes growing blind with
+the light of the sky striking sharp against the restless heaving of the
+waves, and Mary was one of the few who could stand fearlessly on almost
+the very brink of the parapet of the "Giant's Castle," and watch the
+sweep of the gulls as they flew under and above her, uttering their
+brief plaintive cries of gladness or anger as the wild wind bore them to
+and fro. When Reay first saw her run eagerly to the very edge, and stand
+there, a light, bold, beautiful figure, with the wind fluttering her
+garments and blowing loose a long rippling tress of her amber-brown
+hair, he could not refrain from an involuntary cry of terror, and an
+equally involuntary rush to her side with his arms outstretched. But as
+she turned her sweet face and grave blue eyes upon him there was
+something in the gentle dignity and purity of her look that held him
+back, abashed, and curiously afraid. She made him feel the power of her
+sex,--a power invincible when strengthened by modesty and reserve,--and
+the easy licence which modern women, particularly those of a degraded
+aristocracy, permit to men in both conversation and behaviour nowadays,
+would have found no opportunity of being exercised in her presence. So,
+though his impulse moved him to catch her round the waist and draw her
+with forcible tenderness away from the dizzy eminence on which she
+stood, he dared not presume so far, and merely contented himself with a
+bounding stride which brought him to the same point of danger as
+herself, and the breathless exclamation--
+
+"Miss Mary! Take care!"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"Oh, there is nothing to be frightened of!" she said. "Often and often I
+have come here quite alone and looked down upon the sea in all weathers.
+Just after my father's death, this used to be the place I loved best,
+where I could feel that I was all by myself with God, who alone
+understood my sadness. At night, when the moon is at the full, it is
+very beautiful here. One looks down into the water and sees a world of
+waving light, and then, looking up to the sky, there is a heaven of
+stars!--and all the weary ways of life are forgotten! The angels seem so
+near!"
+
+A silent agreement with this latter statement shone in Reay's eyes as he
+looked at her.
+
+"It's good sometimes to find a woman who still believes in angels," he
+said.
+
+"Don't _you_ believe in them?"
+
+"Implicitly,--with all my heart and soul!" And again his eyes were
+eloquent.
+
+A wave of rosy colour flitted over her face, and shading her eyes from
+the strong glare of the sun, she gazed across the sea.
+
+"I wish dear old David could see this glorious sight!" she said. "But
+he's not strong--and I'm afraid--I hardly like to think it--that he's
+weaker than he knows."
+
+"Poor old chap!" said Angus, gently. "Any way, you've done all you can
+for him, and he's very grateful. I hope he'll last a few years longer."
+
+"I hope so too," she answered quickly. "For I should miss him very much.
+I've grown quite to love him."
+
+"I think he feels that," and Angus seated himself on a jutting crag of
+the "Giant's Castle" and prepared for the utterance of something
+desperate. "Any one would, you know!"
+
+She made no reply. Her gaze was fixed on the furthest silver gleaming
+line of the ocean horizon.
+
+"Any one would be bound to feel it, if you loved--if you were fond of
+him," he went on in rather a rambling way. "It would make all the
+difference in the world----"
+
+She turned towards him quickly with a smile. Her breathing was a little
+hurried.
+
+"Shall we go back now?" she said.
+
+"Certainly!--if--if you wish--but isn't it rather nice up here?" he
+pleaded.
+
+"We'll come another day," and she ran lightly down the first half of the
+grassy path which had led them to the summit. "But I mustn't waste any
+more time this afternoon."
+
+"Why? Any pressing demands for mended lace?" asked Angus, as he followed
+her.
+
+"Oh no! Not particularly so. Only when the firm that employs me, sends
+any very specially valuable stuff worth five or six hundred pounds or
+so, I never like to keep it longer that I can help. And the piece I'm at
+work on is valued at a thousand guineas."
+
+"Wouldn't you like to wear it yourself?" he asked suddenly, with a
+laugh.
+
+"I? I wouldn't wear it for the world! Do you know, Mr. Reay, that I
+almost hate beautiful lace! I admire the work and design, of course--no
+one could help that--but every little flower and leaf in the fabric
+speaks to me of so many tired eyes growing blind over the intricate
+stitches--so many weary fingers, and so many aching hearts--all toiling
+for the merest pittance! For it is not the real makers of the lace who
+get good profit by their work, it is the merchants who sell it that have
+all the advantage. If I were a great lady and a rich one, I would refuse
+to buy any lace from the middleman,--I would seek out the actual poor
+workers, and give them my orders, and see that they were comfortably fed
+and housed as long as they worked for me."
+
+"And it's just ten chances to one whether they would be grateful to
+you----" Angus began. She silenced him by a slight gesture.
+
+"But I shouldn't care whether they were grateful or not," she said. "I
+should be content to know that I had done what was right and just to my
+fellow-creatures."
+
+They had no more talk that day, and Helmsley, eagerly expectant, and
+watching them perhaps more intently than a criminal watches the face of
+a judge, was as usual disappointed. His inward excitement, always
+suppressed, made him somewhat feverish and irritable, and Mary, all
+unconscious of the cause, stayed in to "take care of him" as she said,
+and gave up her afternoon walks with Angus for a time altogether, which
+made the situation still more perplexing, and to Helmsley almost
+unbearable. Yet there was nothing to be done. He felt it would be unwise
+to speak of the matter in any way to her--she was a woman who would
+certainly find it difficult to believe that she had won, or could
+possibly win the love of a lover at her age;--she might even resent
+it,--no one could tell. And so the days of April paced softly on, in
+bloom and sunlight, till May came in with a blaze of colour and
+radiance, and the last whiff of cold wind blew itself away across the
+sea. The "biting nor'easter," concerning which the comic press gives
+itself up to senseless parrot-talk with each recurrence of the May
+month, no matter how warm and beautiful that month may be, was a "thing
+foregone and clean forgotten,"--and under the mild and beneficial
+influences of the mingled sea and moorland air, Helmsley gained a
+temporary rush of strength, and felt so much better, that he was able to
+walk down to the shore and back again once or twice a a day, without any
+assistance, scarcely needing even the aid of his stick to lean upon. The
+shore remained his favourite haunt; he was never tired of watching the
+long waves roll in, edged with gleaming ribbons of foam, and roll out
+again, with the musical clatter of drawn pebbles and shells following
+the wake of the backward sweeping ripple,--and he made friends with many
+of the Weircombe fisherfolk, who were always ready to chat with him
+concerning themselves and the difficulties and dangers of their trade.
+The children, too, were all eager to run after "old David," as they
+called him,--and many an afternoon he would sit in the sun, with a group
+of these hardy little creatures gathered about him, listening entranced,
+while he told them strange stories of foreign lands and far
+travels,--travels which men took "in search of gold"--as he would say,
+with a sad little smile--"gold, which is not nearly so much use as it
+seems to be."
+
+"But can't us buy everything with plenty of money?" asked a
+seven-year-old urchin, on one of these occasions, looking solemnly up
+into his face with a pair of very round, big brown eyes.
+
+"Not everything, my little man," he answered, smoothing the rough locks
+of the small inquirer with a very tender hand. "I could not buy _you_,
+for instance! Your mother wouldn't sell you!"
+
+The child laughed.
+
+"Oh, no! But I didn't mean me!"
+
+"I know you didn't mean me!" and Helmsley smiled. "But suppose some one
+put a thousand golden sovereigns in a bag on one side, and you in your
+rough little torn clothes on the other, and asked your mother which she
+would like best to have--what do you think she would say?"
+
+"She'd 'ave _me_!" and a smile of confident satisfaction beamed on the
+grinning little face like a ray of sunshine.
+
+"Of course she would! The bag of sovereigns would be no use at all
+compared to you. So you see we cannot buy everything with money."
+
+"But--most things?" queried the boy--"Eh?"
+
+"Most things--perhaps," Helmsley answered, with a slight sigh. "But
+those 'most things' are not things of much value even when you get them.
+You can never buy love,--and that is the only real treasure,--the
+treasure of Heaven!"
+
+The child looked at him, vaguely impressed by his sudden earnestness,
+but scarcely understanding his words.
+
+"Wouldn't _you_ like a little money?" And the inquisitive young eyes
+fixed themselves on his face with an expression of tenderest pity.
+"You'se a very poor old man!"
+
+Helmsley laughed, and again patted the little curly head.
+
+"Yes--yes--a very poor old man!" he repeated. "But I don't want any more
+than I've got!"
+
+One afternoon towards mid-May, a strong yet soft sou'wester gale blew
+across Weircombe, bringing with it light showers of rain, which, as they
+fell upon the flowering plants and trees, brought out all the perfume of
+the spring in such rich waves of sweetness, that, though as yet there
+were no roses, and the lilac was only just budding out, the whole
+countryside seemed full of the promised fragrance of the blossoms that
+were yet to be. The wind made scenery in the sky, heaping up snowy
+masses of cloud against the blue in picturesque groups resembling Alpine
+heights, and fantastic palaces of fairyland, and when,--after a glorious
+day of fresh and invigorating air which swept both sea and hillside, a
+sudden calm came with the approach of sunset, the lovely colours of
+earth and heaven, melting into one another, where so pure and brilliant,
+that Mary, always a lover of Nature, could not resist Angus Reay's
+earnest entreaty that she would accompany him to see the splendid
+departure of the orb of day, in all its imperial panoply of royal gold
+and purple.
+
+"It will be a beautiful sunset," he said--"And from the 'Giant's Castle'
+rock, a sight worth seeing."
+
+Helmsley looked at him as he spoke, and looking, smiled.
+
+"Do go, my dear," he urged--"And come back and tell me all about it."
+
+"I really think you want me out of your way, David!" she said
+laughingly. "You seem quite happy when I leave you!"
+
+"You don't get enough fresh air," he answered evasively. "And this is
+just the season of the year when you most need it."
+
+She made no more demur, and putting on the simple straw hat, which,
+plainly trimmed with a soft knot of navy-blue ribbon, was all her summer
+head-gear, she left the house with Reay. After a while, Helmsley also
+went out for his usual lonely ramble on the shore, from whence he could
+see the frowning rampart of the "Giant's Castle" above him, though it
+was impossible to discern any person who might be standing at its
+summit, on account of the perpendicular crags that intervened. From both
+shore and rocky height the scene was magnificent. The sun, dipping
+slowly down towards the sea, shot rays of glory around itself in an
+aureole of gold, which, darting far upwards, and spreading from north to
+south, pierced the drifting masses of floating fleecy cloud like arrows,
+and transfigured their whiteness to splendid hues of fiery rose and
+glowing amethyst, while just between the falling Star of Day and the
+ocean, a rift appeared of smooth and delicate watery green, touched here
+and there with flecks of palest pink and ardent violet. Up on the
+parapet of the "Giant's Castle," all this loyal panoply of festal colour
+was seen at its best, sweeping in widening waves across the whole
+surface of the Heavens; and there was a curious stillness everywhere, as
+though earth itself were conscious of a sudden and intense awe. Standing
+on the dizzy edge of her favourite point of vantage, Mary Deane gazed
+upon the sublime spectacle with eyes so passionately tender in their
+far-away expression, that, to Angus Reay, who watched those eyes with
+much more rapt admiration than he bestowed upon the splendour of the
+sunset, they looked like the eyes of some angel, who, seeing heaven all
+at once revealed, recognised her native home, and with the recognition,
+was prepared for immediate flight And on the impulse which gave him this
+fantastic thought, he said softly--
+
+"Don't go away, Miss Mary! Stay with us--with me--as long as you can!"
+
+She turned her head and looked at him, smiling.
+
+"Why, what do you mean? I'm not going away anywhere--who told you that I
+was?"
+
+"No one,"--and Angus drew a little nearer to her--"But just now you
+seemed so much a part of the sea and the sky, leaning forward and giving
+yourself entirely over to the glory of the moment, that I felt as if you
+might float away from me altogether." Here he paused--then added in a
+lower tone--"And I could not bear to lose you!"
+
+She was silent. But her face grew pale, and her lips quivered. He saw
+the tremor pass over her, and inwardly rejoiced,--his own nerves
+thrilling as he realised that, after all, _if_--if she loved him, he was
+the master of her fate.
+
+"We've been such good friends," he went on, dallying with his own desire
+to know the best or worst--"Haven't we?"
+
+"Indeed, yes!" she answered, somewhat faintly. "And I hope we always
+will be."
+
+"I hope so, too!" he answered in quite a matter-of-fact way. "You see
+I'm rather a clumsy chap with women----"
+
+She smiled a little.
+
+"Are you?"
+
+"Yes,--I mean I never get on with them quite as well as other fellows do
+somehow--and--er--and--what I want to say, Miss Mary, is that I've never
+got on with any woman so well as I have with you--and----"
+
+He paused. At no time in his life had he been at such a loss for
+language. His heart was thumping in the most extraordinary fashion, and
+he prodded the end of his walking-stick into the ground with quite a
+ferocious earnestness. She was still looking at him and still smiling.
+
+"And," he went on ramblingly, "that's why I hope we shall always be good
+friends."
+
+As he uttered this perfectly commonplace remark, he cursed himself for a
+fool. "What's the matter with me?" he inwardly demanded. "My tongue
+seems to be tied up!--or I'm going to have lockjaw! It's awful!
+Something better than this has got to come out of me somehow!" And
+acting on a brilliant flash of inspiration which suddenly seemed to have
+illumined his brain, he said--
+
+"The fact is, I want to get married. I'm thinking about it."
+
+How quiet she was! She seemed scarcely to breathe.
+
+"Yes?" and the word, accentuated without surprise and merely as a
+question, was spoken very gently. "I do hope you have found some one who
+loves you with all her heart!"
+
+She turned her head away, and Angus saw, or thought he saw, the bright
+tears brim up from under her lashes and slowly fall. Without another
+instant's pause he rushed upon his destiny, and in that rush grew
+strong.
+
+"Yes, Mary!" he said, and moving to her side he caught her hand in his
+own--"I dare to think I have found that some one! I believe I have! I
+believe that a woman whom I love with all my heart, loves me in return!
+If I am mistaken, then I've lost the whole world! Tell me, Mary! Am I
+wrong?"
+
+She could not speak,--the tears were thick in her eyes.
+
+"Mary--dear, dearest Mary!" and he pressed the hand he held--"You know I
+love you!--you know----"
+
+She turned her face towards him--a pale, wondering face,--and tried to
+smile.
+
+"How do I know?" she murmured tremulously--"How can I believe? I'm past
+the time for love!"
+
+For all answer he drew her into his arms.
+
+"Ask Love itself about that, Mary!" he said. "Ask my heart, which beats
+for you,--ask my soul, which longs for you!--ask me, who worship you,
+you, best and dearest of women, about the time for love! That time for
+us is now, Mary!--now and always!"
+
+Then came a silence--that eloquent silence which surpasses all speech.
+Love has no written or spoken language--it is incommunicable as God. And
+Mary, whose nature was open and pure as the daylight, would not have
+been the woman she was if she could have expressed in words the deep
+tenderness and passion which at that supreme moment silently responded
+to her lover's touch, her lover's embrace. And when,--lifting her face
+between his two hands, he gazed at it long and earnestly, a smile,
+shining between tears, brightened her sweet eyes.
+
+"You are looking at me as if you never saw me before, Angus!" she said,
+her voice sinking softly, as she pronounced his name.
+
+"Positively, I don't think I ever have!" he answered "Not as you are
+now, Mary! I have never seen you look so beautiful! I have never seen
+you before as my love! my wife!"
+
+She drew herself a little away from him.
+
+"But, are you sure you are doing right for yourself?" she asked--"You
+know you could marry anybody----"
+
+He laughed, and threw one arm round her waist.
+
+"Thanks!--I don't want to marry 'anybody'--I want to marry _you_! The
+question is, will you have me?"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"If I thought it would be for your good----"
+
+Stooping quickly he kissed her.
+
+"_That's_ very much for my good!" he declared. "And now that I've told
+you my mind, you must tell me yours. Do you love me, Mary?"
+
+"I'm afraid you know that already too well!" she said, with a wistful
+radiance in her eyes.
+
+"I don't!" he declared--"I'm not at all sure of you----"
+
+She interrupted him.
+
+"Are you sure of yourself?"
+
+"Mary!"
+
+"Ah, don't look so reproachful! It's only for you I'm thinking! You see
+I'm nothing but a poor working woman of what is called the lower
+classes--I'm not young, and I'm not clever. Now you've got genius;
+you'll be a great man some day, quite soon perhaps--you may even become
+rich as well as famous, and then perhaps you'll be sorry you ever met
+me----"
+
+"In that case I'll call upon the public hangman and ask him to give me a
+quick despatch," he said promptly; "Though I shouldn't be worth the
+expense of a rope!"
+
+"Angus, you won't be serious!"
+
+"Serious? I never was more serious in my life! And I want my question
+answered."
+
+"What question?"
+
+"Do you love me? Yes or no!"
+
+He held her close and looked her full in the face as he made this
+peremptory demand. Her cheeks grew crimson, but she met his searching
+gaze frankly.
+
+"Ah, though you are a man, you are a spoilt child!" she said. "You know
+I love you more than I can say!--and yet you want me to tell you what
+can never be told!"
+
+He caught her to his heart, and kissed her passionately.
+
+"That's enough!" he said--"For if you love me, Mary, your love is love
+indeed!--it's no sham; and like all true and heavenly things, it will
+never change. I believe, if I turned out to be an utter wastrel, you'd
+love me still!"
+
+"Of course I should!" she answered.
+
+"Of course you would!" and he kissed her again. "Mary, _my_ Mary, if
+there were more women like you, there would be more men!--men in the
+real sense of the word--manly men, whose love and reverence for women
+would make them better and braver in the battle of life. Do you know, I
+can do anything now, with you to love me! I don't suppose,"--and here he
+unconsciously squared his shoulders--"I really don't suppose there is a
+single difficulty in my way that I won't conquer!"
+
+She smiled, leaning against him.
+
+"If you feel like that, I am very happy!" she said.
+
+As she spoke, she raised her eyes to the sky, and uttered an involuntary
+exclamation.
+
+"Look, look!" she cried--"How glorious!"
+
+The heavens above them were glowing red,--forming a dome of burning
+rose, deepening in hue towards the sea, where the outer rim of the
+nearly vanished sun was slowly disappearing below the horizon--and in
+the centre of this ardent glory, a white cloud, shaped like a dove with
+outspread wings, hung almost motionless. The effect was marvellously
+beautiful, and Angus, full of his own joy, was more than ever conscious
+of the deep content of a spirit attuned to the infinite joy of nature.
+
+"It is like the Holy Grail," he said, and, with one arm round the woman
+he loved, he softly quoted the lines:--
+
+
+    "And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail,
+    Rose-red, with beatings in it as if alive!"
+
+"That is Tennyson," she said.
+
+"Yes--that is Tennyson--the last great poet England can boast," he
+answered. "The poet who hated hate and loved love."
+
+"All poets are like that," she murmured.
+
+"Not all, Mary! Some of the modern ones hate love and love hate!"
+
+"Then they are not poets," she said. "They would not see any beauty in
+that lovely sky--and they would not understand----"
+
+"Us!" finished Angus. "And I assure you, Mary at the present moment, we
+are worth understanding!"
+
+She laughed softly.
+
+"Do we understand ourselves?" she asked.
+
+"Of course we don't! If we did, we should probably be miserable. It's
+just because we are mysterious one to another, that we are so happy. No
+human being should ever try to analyse the fact of existence. It's
+enough that we exist--and that we love each other. Isn't it, Mary?"
+
+"Enough? It is too much,--too much happiness altogether for _me_, at any
+rate," she said. "I can't believe in it yet! I can't really, Angus! Why
+should you love me?"
+
+"Why, indeed!" And his eyes grew dark and warm with tenderness--"Why
+should you love _me_?"
+
+"Ah, there's so much to love in you!" and she made her heart's
+confession with a perfectly naļve candour. "I daresay you don't see it
+yourself, but I do!"
+
+"And I assure you, Mary," he declared, with a whimsical solemnity, "that
+there's ever so much more to love in you! I know you don't see it for
+yourself, but I do!"
+
+Then they laughed together like two children, and all constraint was at
+an end between them. Hand in hand they descended the grassy steep of the
+"Giant's Castle"--charmed with one another, and at every step of the way
+seeing some new delight which they seemed to have missed before. The
+crimson sunset burned about them like the widening petals of a rose in
+fullest bloom,--earth caught the fervent glory and reflected it back
+again in many varying tints of brilliant colour, shading from green to
+gold, from pink to amethyst--and as they walked through the splendid
+vaporous light, it was as though they were a living part of the glory of
+the hour.
+
+"We must tell David," said Mary, as they reached the bottom of the hill.
+"Poor old dear! I think he will be glad."
+
+"I know he will!" and Angus smiled confidently. "He's been waiting for
+this ever since Christmas Day!"
+
+Mary's eyes opened in wonderment.
+
+"Ever since Christmas Day?"
+
+"Yes. I told him then that I loved you, Mary,--that I wanted to ask you
+to marry me,--but that I felt I was too poor----"
+
+Her hand stole through his arm.
+
+"Too poor, Angus! Am I not poor also?"
+
+"Not as poor as I am," he answered, promptly possessing himself of the
+caressing hand. "In fact, you're quite rich compared to me. You've got a
+house, and you've got work, which brings you in enough to live
+upon,--now I haven't a roof to call my own, and my stock of money is
+rapidly coming to an end. I've nothing to depend upon but my book,--and
+if I can't sell that when it's finished, where am I? I'm nothing but a
+beggar--less well off than I was as a wee boy when I herded cattle. And
+I'm not going to marry you----"
+
+She stopped in her walk and looked at him with a smile.
+
+"Oh Angus! I thought you were!"
+
+He kissed the hand he held.
+
+"Don't make fun of me, Mary! I won't allow it! I _am_ going to marry
+you!--but I'm _not_ going to marry you till I've sold my book. I don't
+suppose I'll get more than a hundred pounds for it, but that will do to
+start housekeeping together on. Won't it?"
+
+"I should think it would indeed!" and she lifted her head with quite a
+proud gesture--"It will be a fortune!"
+
+"Of course," he went on, "the cottage is yours, and all that is in it. I
+can't add much to that, because to my mind, it's just perfect. I never
+want any sweeter, prettier little home. But I want to work _for_ you,
+Mary, so that you'll not have to work for yourself, you understand?"
+
+She nodded her head gravely.
+
+"I understand! You want me to sit with my hands folded in my lap, doing
+nothing at all, and getting lazy and bad-tempered."
+
+"Now you know I don't!" he expostulated.
+
+"Yes, you do, Angus! If you don't want me to work, you want me to be a
+perfectly useless and tiresome woman! Why, my dearest, now that you love
+me, I should like to work all the harder! If you think the cottage
+pretty, I shall try to make it even prettier. And I don't want to give
+up all my lace-mending. It's just as pleasant and interesting as the
+fancy-work which the rich ladies play with You must really let me go on
+working, Angus! I shall be a perfectly unbearable person if you don't!"
+
+She looked so sweetly at him, that as they were at the moment passing
+under the convenient shadow of a tree he took her in his arms and kissed
+her.
+
+"When _you_ become a perfectly unbearable person," he said, "then it
+will be time for another deluge, and a general renovation of human kind.
+You shall work if you like, my Mary, but you shall not work for _me_.
+See?"
+
+A tender smile lingered in her eyes.
+
+"I see!" and linking her arm through his again, she moved on with him
+over the thyme-scented grass, her dress gently sweeping across the stray
+clusters of golden cowslips that nodded here and there. "_I_ will work
+for myself, _you_ will work for _me_, and old David will work for both
+of us!"
+
+They laughed joyously.
+
+"Poor old David!" said Angus. "He's been wondering why I have not spoken
+to you before,--he declared he couldn't understand it. But then I wasn't
+quite sure whether you liked me at all----"
+
+"Weren't you?" and her glance was eloquent.
+
+"No--and I asked him to find out!"
+
+She looked at him in a whimsical wonderment.
+
+"You asked him to find out? And did he?"
+
+"He seems to think so. At any rate, he gave me courage to speak."
+
+Mary grew suddenly meditative.
+
+"Do you know, Angus," she said, "I think old David was sent to me for a
+special purpose. Some great and good influence guided him to me--I am
+sure of it. You don't know all his history. Shall I tell it to you?"
+
+"Yes--do tell me--but I think I know it. Was he not a former old friend
+of your father's?"
+
+"No--that's a story I had to invent to satisfy the curiosity of the
+villagers. It would never have done to let them know that he was only an
+old tramp whom I found ill and nearly dying out on the hills during a
+great storm we had last summer. There had been heavy thunder and
+lightning all the afternoon, and when the storm ceased I went to my door
+to watch the clearing off of the clouds, and I heard a dog yelping
+pitifully on the hill just above the coombe. I went out to see what was
+the matter, and there I found an old man lying quite unconscious on the
+wet grass, looking as if he were dead, and a little dog--you know
+Charlie?--guarding him and barking as loudly as it could. Well, I
+brought him back to life, and took him home and nursed him--and--that's
+all. He told me his name was David--and that he had been 'on the tramp'
+to Cornwall to find a friend. You know the rest."
+
+"Then he is really quite a stranger to you, Mary?" said Angus
+wonderingly.
+
+"Quite. He never knew my father. But I am sure if Dad had been alive, he
+would have rescued him just as I did, and then he _would_ have been his
+'friend,'--he could not have helped himself. That's the way I argued it
+out to my own heart and conscience."
+
+Angus looked at her.
+
+"You darling!" he said suddenly.
+
+She laughed.
+
+"That doesn't come in!" she said.
+
+"It does come in! It comes in everywhere!" he declared. "There's no
+other woman in the world that would have done so much for a poor forlorn
+old tramp like that, adrift on the country roads. And you exposed
+yourself to some risk, too, Mary! He might have been a dangerous
+character!"
+
+"Poor dear, he didn't look it," she said gently--"and he hasn't proved
+it. Everything has gone well for me since I did my best for him. It was
+even through him that you came to know me, Angus!--think of that!
+Blessings on the dear old man!--I'm sure he must be an angel in
+disguise!"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Well, we never know!" he said. "Angels certainly don't come to us with
+all the celestial splendour which is supposed to belong to them--they
+may perhaps choose the most unlikely way in which to make their errands
+known. I have often--especially lately--thought that I have seen an
+angel looking at me out of the eyes of a woman!"
+
+"You _will_ talk poetry!" protested Mary.
+
+"I'm not talking it--I'm living it!" he answered.
+
+There was nothing to be said to this. He was an incorrigible lover, and
+remonstrances were in vain.
+
+"You must not tell David's real history to any of the villagers," said
+Mary presently, as they came in sight of her cottage--"I wouldn't like
+them to know it."
+
+"They shall never know it so far as I am concerned," he answered. "He's
+been a good friend to me--and I wouldn't cause him a moment's trouble.
+I'd like to make him happier if I could!"
+
+"I don't think that's possible,"--and her eyes were clouded for a moment
+with a shadow of melancholy--"You see he has no money, except the little
+he earns by basket-making, and he's very far from strong. We must be
+kind to him, Angus, as long as he needs kindness."
+
+Angus agreed, with sundry ways of emphasis that need not here be
+narrated, as they composed a formula which could not be rendered into
+set language. Arriving at the cottage they found the door open, and no
+one in the kitchen,--but on the table lay two sprigs of sweetbriar.
+Angus caught sight of them at once.
+
+"Mary! See! Don't you think he knows?"
+
+She stood hesitating, with a lovely wavering colour in her cheeks.
+
+"Don't you remember," he went on, "you gave me a bit of sweetbriar on
+the evening of the first day we ever met?"
+
+"I remember!" and her voice was very soft and tremulous.
+
+"I have that piece of sweetbriar still," he said; "I shall never part
+with it. And old David must have known all about it!"
+
+He took up the little sprays set ready for them, and putting one in his
+own buttonhole, fastened the other in her bodice with a loving,
+lingering touch.
+
+"It's a good emblem," he said, kissing her--"Sweet Briar--sweet
+Love!--not without thorns, which are the safety of the rose!"
+
+A slow step sounded on the garden path, and they saw Helmsley
+approaching, with the tiny "Charlie" running at his heels. Pausing on
+the threshold of the open door, he looked at them with a questioning
+smile.
+
+"Well, did you see the sunset?" he asked, "Or only each other?"
+
+Mary ran to him, and impulsively threw her arms about his neck.
+
+"Oh David!" she said. "Dear old David! I am so happy!"
+
+He was silent,--her gentle embrace almost unmanned him. He stretched out
+a hand to Angus, who grasped it warmly.
+
+"So it's all right!" he said, in a low voice that trembled a little.
+"You've settled it together?"
+
+"Yes--we've settled it, David!" Angus answered cheerily. "Give us your
+blessing!"
+
+"You have that--God knows you have that!"--and as Mary, in her usual
+kindly way, took his hat and stick from him, keeping her arm through his
+as he went to his accustomed chair by the fireside, he glanced at her
+tenderly. "You have it with all my heart and soul, Mr. Reay!--and as for
+this dear lady who is to be your wife, all I can say is that you have
+won a treasure--yes, a treasure of goodness and sweetness and patience,
+and most heavenly kindness----"
+
+His voice failed him, and the quick tears sprang to Mary's eyes.
+
+"Now, David, please stop!" she said, with a look between affection and
+remonstrance. "You are a terrible flatterer! You mustn't spoil me."
+
+"Nothing will spoil you!" he answered, quietly. "Nothing could spoil
+you! All the joy in the world, all the prosperity in the world, could
+not change your nature, my dear! Mr. Reay knows that as well as I
+do,--and I'm sure he thanks God for it! You are all love and gentleness,
+as a woman should be,--as all women would be if they were wise!"
+
+He paused a moment, and then, raising himself a little more uprightly in
+his chair, looked at them both earnestly.
+
+"And now that you have made up your minds to share your lives together,"
+he went on, "you must not think that I will be so selfish as to stay on
+here and be a burden to you both. I should like to see you married, but
+after that I will go away----"
+
+"You will do nothing of the sort!" said Mary, dropping on her knees
+beside him and lifting her serene eyes to his face. "You don't want to
+make us unhappy, do you? This is your home, as long as it is ours,
+remember! We would not have you leave us on any account, would we,
+Angus?"
+
+"Indeed no!" answered Reay, heartily. "David, what are you talking
+about? Aren't _you_ the cause of my knowing Mary? Didn't _you_ bring me
+to this dear little cottage first of all? Don't I owe all my happiness
+to _you_? And you talk about going away! It's pretty evident you don't
+know what's good for you! Look here! If I'm good for anything at all,
+I'm good for hard work--and for that matter I may as well go in for the
+basket-making trade as well as the book-making profession. We've got
+Mary to work for, David!--and we'll both work for her--together!"
+
+Helmsley turned upon him a face in which the expression was difficult to
+define.
+
+"You really mean that?" he said.
+
+"Really mean it! Of course I do! Why shouldn't I mean it?"
+
+There was a moment's silence, and Helmsley, looking down on Mary as she
+knelt beside him, laid his hand caressingly on her hair.
+
+"I think," he said gently, "that you are both too kind-hearted and
+impulsive, and that you are undertaking a task which should not be
+imposed upon you. You offer me a continued home with you after your
+marriage--but who am I that I should accept such generosity from you? I
+am not getting younger. Every day robs me of some strength--and my
+work--such work as I can do--will be of very little use to you. I may
+suffer from illness, which will cause you trouble and expense,--death is
+closer to me than life--and why should I die on your hands? It can only
+mean trouble for you if I stay on,--and though I am grateful to you with
+all my heart--more grateful than I can say"--and his voice trembled--"I
+know I ought to be unselfish,--and that the truest and best way to thank
+you for all you have done for me is to go away and leave you in peace
+and happiness----"
+
+"We should not be happy without you, David!" declared Mary. "Can't you,
+won't you understand that we are both fond of you?"
+
+"Fond of me!" And he smiled. "Fond of a useless old wreck who can
+scarcely earn a day's wage!"
+
+"That's rather wide of the mark, David!" said Reay. "Mary's not the
+woman--and I'm sure I'm not the man--to care for any one on account of
+the money he can make. We like you for yourself,--so don't spoil this
+happiest day of our lives by suggesting any separation between us. Do
+you hear?"
+
+"I hear!"--and a sudden brightness flashed up in Helmsley's sunken eyes,
+making them look almost young--"And I understand! I understand that
+though I am poor and old, and a stranger to you,--you are giving me
+friendship such as rich men often seek for and never find!--and I will
+try,--yes, I will try, God helping me,--to be worthy of your trust! If I
+stay with you----"
+
+"There must be no 'if' in the case, David!" said Mary, smiling up at
+him.
+
+He stroked her bright hair caressingly.
+
+"Well, then, I will put it not 'if,' but as long as I stay with you," he
+answered--"as long as I stay with you, I will do all I can to show you
+how grateful I am to you,--and--and--I will never give you cause"--here
+he spoke more slowly, and with deliberate emphasis--"I will never give
+you cause to regret your confidence in me! I want you both to be
+glad--not sorry--that you spared a lonely old man a little of your
+affection!"
+
+"We _are_ glad, David!"--and Mary, as he lifted his hand from her head,
+caught it and kissed it lightly. "And we shall never be sorry! And here
+is Charlie"--and she picked up the little dog as she spoke and fondled
+it playfully,--"wondering why he is not included in the family party!
+For, after all, it is quite your affair, isn't it, Charlie? _You_ were
+the cause of my finding David out on the hills!--and David was the cause
+of my knowing Angus--so if it hadn't been for _you_, nothing would have
+happened at all, Charlie!--and I should have been a lonely old maid all
+the days of my life! And I can't do anything to show my gratitude to
+you, you quaint wee soul, but give you a saucer of cream!"
+
+She laughed, and springing up, began to prepare the tea. While she was
+moving quickly to and fro on this household business, Helmsley beckoned
+Reay to come closer to him.
+
+"Speak frankly, Mr. Reay!" he said. "As the master of her heart, you are
+the master of her home. I can easily slip away--and tramping is not such
+hard work in summer time. Shall I go?"
+
+"If you go, I shall start out and bring you back again," replied Reay,
+shaking his head at him determinedly. "You won't get so far but that I
+shall be able to catch you up in an hour! Please consider that you
+belong to us,--and that we have no intention of parting with you!"
+
+Tears rose in Helmsley's eyes, and for a moment he covered them with his
+hand. Angus saw that he was deeply moved, and to avoid noticing him,
+especially as he was somewhat affected himself by the touching
+gratefulness of this apparently poor and lonely old man, went after Mary
+with all the pleasant ease and familiarity of an accepted lover, to help
+her bring in the tea. The tiny "Charlie," meanwhile, sitting on the
+hearth in a vigilantly erect attitude, with quivering nose pointed in a
+creamward direction, waited for the approach of the expected afternoon
+refreshment, trembling from head to tail with nervous excitement. And
+Helmsley, left alone for those few moments, presently mastered the
+strong emotion which made him long to tell his true history to the two
+sincere souls who, out of his whole life's experience, had alone proved
+themselves faithful to the spirit of a friendship wherein the claims of
+cash had no part. Regaining full command of himself, and determining to
+act out the part he had elected to play to whatever end should most
+fittingly arrive,--an end he could not as yet foresee,--he sat quietly
+in his chair as usual, gazing into the fire with the meditative patience
+and calm of old age, and silently building up in a waking dream the last
+story of his House of Love,--which now promised to be like that house
+spoken of in the Divine Parable--"And the rain descended, and the floods
+came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for
+it was founded upon a rock." For as he knew,--and as we all must surely
+know,--the greatest rains and floods and winds of a world of sorrow, are
+powerless to destroy love, if love be true.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Three days later, when the dawn was scarcely declared and the earliest
+notes of the waking birds trembled on the soft air with the faint
+sweetness of a far-off fluty piping, the door of Mary Deane's cottage
+opened stealthily, and David Helmsley, dressed ready for a journey,
+stepped noiselessly out into the little garden. He wore the same
+ordinary workman's outfit in which he had originally started on his
+intended " tramp," including the vest which he had lined with banknotes,
+and which he had not used once since his stay with Mary Deane. For she
+had insisted on his wearing the warmer and softer garments which had
+once belonged to her own father,--and all these he had now taken off and
+left behind him, carefully folded up on the bed in his room. He had
+examined his money and had found it just as he had placed it,--even the
+little "surprise packet" which poor Tom o' the Gleam had collected for
+his benefit in the "Trusty Man's" common room, was still in the
+side-pocket where he had himself put it. Unripping a corner of the vest
+lining, he took out two five-pound notes, and with these in a rough
+leather purse for immediate use, and his stout ash stick grasped firmly
+in his hand, he started out to walk to the top of the coombe where he
+knew the path brought him to the verge of the highroad leading to
+Minehead. As he moved almost on tip-toe through Mary's garden, now all
+fragrant with golden wall-flowers, lilac, and mayblossom, he paused a
+moment,--looking up at the picturesque gabled eaves and latticed
+windows. A sudden sense of loneliness affected him almost to tears. For
+now he had not even the little dog Charlie with him to console him--that
+canine friend slept in a cushioned basket in Mary's room, and was
+therefore all unaware that his master was leaving him.
+
+"But, please God, I shall come back in a day or two!" he murmured. "
+Please God, I shall see this dear shrine of peace and love again before
+I die! Meanwhile--good-bye, Mary! Good-bye, dearest and kindest of
+women! God bless you!"
+
+He turned away with an effort--and, lifting the latch of the garden
+gate, opened it and closed it softly behind him. Then he began the
+ascent of the coombe. Not a soul was in sight,--the actual day had not
+yet begun. The hill torrent flowed along with a subdued purling sound
+over the rough stones and pebbles,--there had been little rain of late
+and the water was shallow, though clear and bright enough to gleam like
+a wavering silver ribbon in the dimness of the early morning,--and as he
+followed it upward and finally reached a point from whence the open sea
+was visible he rested a moment, leaning on his stick and looking
+backward on the way he had come. Strangely beautiful and mystical was
+the scene his eyes dwelt upon,--or rather perhaps it should be said that
+he saw it in a somewhat strange and mystical fashion of his own. There,
+out beyond the furthest edge of land, lay the ocean, shadowed just now
+by a delicate dark grey mist, which, like a veil, covered its placid
+bosom,--a mist which presently the rising sun would scatter with its
+glorious rays of gold;--here at his feet nestled Weircombe,--a cluster
+of simple cottages, sweetly adorned by nature with her fairest
+garlanding of springtime flowers,--and behind him, just across a length
+of barren moor, was the common highroad leading to the wider, busier
+towns. And he thought as he stood alone,--a frail and solitary figure,
+gazing dreamily out of himself, as it were, to things altogether beyond
+himself,--that the dim and shadowy ocean was like the vast Unknown which
+we call Death,--which we look upon tremblingly,--afraid of its darkness,
+and unable to realise that the sun of Life will ever rise again to
+pierce its gloom with glory. And the little world--the only world that
+can be called a world,--namely, that special corner of the planet which
+holds the hearts that love us--a world which for him, the
+multi-millionaire, was just a tiny village with one sweet woman living
+in it--resembled a garland of flowers flung down from the rocks as
+though to soften their ruggedness,--a garland broken asunder at the
+shoreline, even as all earthly garlands must break and fade at the touch
+of the first cold wave of the Infinite. As for the further road in which
+he was about to turn and go, that, to his fancy, was a nearer similitude
+of an approach to hell than any scene ever portrayed in Dante's _Divine
+Comedy_. For it led to the crowded haunts of men--the hives of greedy
+business,--the smoky, suffocating centres where each human unit seeks
+to over-reach and outrival the other--where there is no time to be
+kind--no room to be courteous; where the passion for gain and the
+worship of self are so furious and inexhaustible, that all the old fair
+virtues which make nations great and lasting, are trampled down in the
+dust, and jeered at as things contemptible and of no value,--where, if a
+man is honourable, he is asked "What do you get by it?"--and where, if a
+woman would remain simple and chaste, she is told she is giving herself
+"no chance." In this whirl of avarice, egotism, and pushfulness,
+Helmsley had lived nearly all his life, always conscious of, and longing
+for, something better--something truer and more productive of peace and
+lasting good. Almost everything he had touched had turned to
+money,--while nothing he had ever gained had turned to love. Except
+now--now when the end was drawing nigh--when he must soon say farewell
+to the little earth, so replete with natural beauty--farewell to the
+lovely sky, which whether in storm or calm, ever shows itself as a
+visible reflex of divine majesty and power--farewell to the sweet birds,
+which for no thanks at all, charm the ear by their tender songs and
+graceful wingėd ways--farewell to the flowers, which, flourishing in the
+woods and fields without care, lift their cups to the sun, and fill the
+air with fragrance,--and above all, farewell to the affection which he
+had found so late!--to the heart whose truth he had tested--to the woman
+for whose sake, could he in some way have compassed her surer and
+greater happiness, he would gladly have lived half his life over again,
+working with every moment of it to add to her joy. But an instinctive
+premonition warned him that the sands in Time's hour-glass were for him
+running to an end,--there was no leisure left to him now for any new
+scheme or plan by which he could improve or strengthen that which he had
+already accomplished. He realised this fully, with a passing pang of
+regret which soon tempered itself into patient resignation,--and as the
+first arrowy beam of the rising sun shot upwards from the east, he
+slowly turned his back on the quiet hamlet where in a few months he had
+found what he had vainly sought for in many long and weary years, and
+plodded steadily across the moor to the highroad. Here he sat down on
+the bank to wait till some conveyance going to Minehead should pass
+by--for he knew he had not sufficient strength to walk far. "Tramping
+it" now was for him impossible,--moreover, his former thirst for
+adventure was satisfied; he had succeeded in his search for "a friend"
+without going so far as Cornwall. There was no longer any cause for him
+to endure unnecessary fatigue--so he waited patiently, listening to the
+first wild morning carol of a skylark, which, bounding up from its nest
+hard by, darted into the air with quivering wings beating against the
+dispersing vapours of the dawn, and sang aloud in the full rapture of a
+joy made perfect by innocence. And he thought of the lovely lines of
+George Herbert:--
+
+      "How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean
+    Are Thy returns! Ev'n as the flowers in Spring,
+      To which, besides their own demean,
+    The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring;
+                Grief melts away
+                Like snow in May,
+            As if there were no such cold thing.
+
+      "Who would have thought my shrivell'd heart
+    Could have recover'd greenness? It was gone
+      Quite under ground; as flowers depart
+    To see their mother-root, when they have blown,
+                Where they together
+                All the hard weather,
+            Dead to the world, keep house unknown.
+
+      "These are Thy wonders, Lord of power,
+    Killing and quick'ning, bringing down to Hell
+      And up to Heaven in an hour;
+    Making a chiming of a passing bell.
+                We say amiss
+                This or that is;
+            Thy Word is all, if we could spell!"
+
+"If we could spell!" he murmured, half aloud. "Ay, if we could learn
+even a quarter of the alphabet which would help us to understand the
+meaning of that 'Word!'--the Word which 'was in the beginning, and the
+word was with God, and the word _was_ God!' Then we should be wise
+indeed with a wisdom that would profit us,--we should have no fears and
+no forebodings,--we should know that all is, all _must_ be for the
+best!" And he raised his eyes to the slowly brightening sky. "Yet, after
+all, the attitude of simple faith is the right one for us, if we would
+call ourselves children of God--the faith which affirms--'Though He
+slay me, yet will I trust in Him!'"
+
+As he thus mused, a golden light began to spread around him,--the sun
+had risen above the horizon, and its cheerful radiance sparkled on every
+leaf and every blade of grass that bore a drop of dew. The morning mists
+rose hoveringly, paused awhile, and then lightly rolled away, disclosing
+one picture after another of exquisite sylvan beauty,--every living
+thing took up anew its burden of work and pleasure for the day, and
+"Now" was again declared the acceptable time. To enjoy the moment, and
+to make much of the moment while it lasts, is the very keynote of
+Nature's happiness, and David Helmsley found himself on this particular
+morning more or less in tune with the general sentiment. Certain sad
+thoughts oppressed him from time to time, but they were tempered and
+well-nigh overcome by the secret pleasure he felt within himself at
+having been given the means wherewith to ensure happiness for those whom
+he considered were more deserving of it than himself. And he sat
+patiently watching the landscape grow in glory as the sun rose higher
+and higher, till presently, struck by a sudden fear lest Mary Deane
+should get up earlier than usual, and missing him, should come out to
+seek for him, he left the bank by the roadside, and began to trudge
+slowly along in the direction of Minehead. He had not walked for a much
+longer time than about ten minutes, when he heard the crunching sound of
+heavy wheels behind him, and, looking back, saw a large mill waggon
+piled with sacks of flour and drawn by two sturdy horses, coming
+leisurely along. He waited till it drew near, and then called to the
+waggoner--
+
+"Will you give me a lift to Minehead for half a crown?"
+
+The waggoner, stout, red-faced, and jolly-looking, nodded an emphatic
+assent.
+
+"I'd do it for 'arf the money!" he said. "Gi' us yer 'and, old gaffer!"
+
+The "old gaffer" obeyed, and was soon comfortably seated between the
+projecting corners of two flour sacks, which in their way were as
+comfortable as cushions.
+
+"'Old on there," said the waggoner, "an' ye'll be as safe as though ye
+was in Abram's bosom. Not that I knows much about Abram anyway. Wheer
+abouts d'ye want in Minehead?"
+
+"The railway station."
+
+"Right y' are! That's my ticket too. Tired o' trampin' it, I s'pose,
+aint ye?"
+
+"A bit tired--yes. I've walked since daybreak."
+
+The waggoner cracked his whip, and the horses plodded on. Their heavy
+hoofs on the dusty road, and the noise made by the grind of the cart
+wheels, checked any attempt at prolonged conversation, for which
+Helmsley was thankful. He considered himself lucky in having met with a
+total stranger, for the name of the owner of the waggon, which was duly
+displayed both on the vehicle itself and the sacks of flour it
+contained, was unknown to him, and the place from which it had come was
+an inland village several miles away from Weircombe. He was therefore
+safe--so far--from any chance of recognition. To be driven along in a
+heavy mill cart was a rumblesome, drowsy way of travelling, but it was
+restful, and when Minehead was at last reached, he did not feel himself
+at all tired. The waggoner had to get his cargo of flour off by rail, so
+there was no lingering in the town itself, which was as yet scarcely
+astir. They were in time for the first train going to Exeter, and
+Helmsley, changing one of his five-pound notes at the railway station,
+took a third-class ticket to that place. Then he paid the promised
+half-crown to his friendly driver, with an extra threepence for a
+morning "dram," whereat the waggoner chuckled.
+
+"Thankee! I zee ye be no temp'rance man!"
+
+Helmsley smiled.
+
+"No. I'm a sober man, not a temperance man!"
+
+"Ay! We'd a parzon in these 'ere parts as was temp'rance, but 'e took
+'is zpirits different like! 'E zkorned 'is glass, but 'e loved 'is gel!
+Har--ar--ar! Ivir 'eerd o' Parzon Arbroath as woz put out o' the Church
+for 'avin' a fav'rite?"
+
+"I saw something about it in the papers," said Helmsley.
+
+"Ay, 'twoz in the papers. Har--ar--ar! 'E woz a temp'rance man. But wot
+I sez is, we'se all a bit o' devil in us, an' we can't be temp'rance
+ivry which way. An' zo, if not the glass, then the gel! Har--ar--ar!
+Good-day t' ye, an' thank ye kindly!"
+
+He went off then, and a few minutes later the train came gliding in. The
+whirr and noise of the panting engine confused Helmsley's ears and dazed
+his brain, after his months of seclusion in such a quiet little spot as
+Weircombe,--and he was seized with quite a nervous terror and doubt as
+to whether he would be able, after all, to undertake the journey he had
+decided upon, alone. But an energetic porter put an end to his
+indecision by opening all the doors of the various compartments in the
+train and banging them to again, whereupon he made up his mind quickly,
+and managed, with some little difficulty, to clamber up the high step of
+a third-class carriage and get in before the aforesaid porter had the
+chance to push him in head foremost. In another few minutes the engine
+whistle set up a deafening scream, and the train ran swiftly out of the
+station. He was off;--the hills, the sea, were left behind--and
+Weircombe--restful, simple little Weircombe, seemed not only miles of
+distance, but ages of time away! Had he ever lived there, he hazily
+wondered? Would he ever go back? Was he "old David the basket-maker," or
+David Helmsley the millionaire? He hardly knew. It did not seem worth
+while to consider the problem of his own identity. One figure alone was
+real,--one face alone smiled out of the cloudy vista of thoughts and
+memories, with the true glory of an ineffable tenderness--the sweet,
+pure face of Mary, with her clear and candid eyes lighting every
+expression to new loveliness. On Angus Reay his mind did not dwell so
+much--Angus was a man--and as a man he regarded him with warm liking and
+sympathy--but it was as the future husband and protector of Mary that he
+thought of him most--as the one out of all the world who would care for
+her, when he, David Helmsley, was no more. Mary was the centre of his
+dreams--the pivot round which all his last ambitions in this world were
+gathered together in one focus,--without her there was, there could be
+nothing for him--nothing to give peace or comfort to his last
+days--nothing to satisfy him as to the future of all that his life had
+been spent to gain.
+
+Meantime,--while the train bearing him to Exeter was rushing along
+through wide and ever-varying stretches of fair landscape,--there was
+amazement and consternation in the little cottage he had left behind
+him. Mary, rising from a sound night's sleep, and coming down to the
+kitchen as usual to light the fire and prepare breakfast, saw a letter
+on the table addressed to her, and opening, it read as follows:--
+
+    "MY DEAR MARY,--Do not be anxious this morning when you find that
+    I am gone. I shall not be long away. I have an idea of getting some
+    work to do, which may be more useful to you and Angus than my poor
+    attempts at basket-making. At any rate I feel it would be wrong if I
+    did not try to obtain some better paying employment, of a kind which
+    I can do at home, so that I may be of greater assistance to you both
+    when you marry and begin your double housekeeping. Old though I am
+    and ailing, I want to feel less of a burden and more of a help. You
+    will not think any the worse of me for wishing this. You have been
+    so good and charitable to me in my need, that I should not die happy
+    if I, in my turn, did not make an effort to give you some
+    substantial proof of gratitude. This is Tuesday morning, and I shall
+    hope to be home again with you before Sunday. In the meanwhile, do
+    not worry at all about me, for I feel quite strong enough to do what
+    I have in my mind. I leave Charlie with you. He is safest and
+    happiest in your care. Good-bye for a little while, dear, kind
+    friend, and God bless you!
+                                                              DAVID."
+
+She read this with amazement and distress, the tears welling up in her
+eyes.
+
+"Oh, David!" she exclaimed. "Poor, poor old man! What will he do all by
+himself, wandering about the country with no money! It's dreadful! How
+could he think of such a thing! He is so weak, too!--he can't possibly
+get very far!"
+
+Here a sudden thought struck her, and picking up Charlie, who had
+followed her downstairs from her bedroom and was now trotting to and
+fro, sniffing the air in a somewhat disconsolate and dubious manner, she
+ran out of the house bareheaded, and hurried up to the top of the
+"coombe." There she paused, shading her eyes from the sun and looking
+all about her. It was a lovely morning, and the sea, calm and sparkling
+with sunbeams, shone like a blue glass flecked with gold. The sky was
+clear, and the landscape fresh and radiant with the tender green of the
+springtime verdure. But everything was quite solitary. Vainly her glance
+swept from left to right and from right to left again,--there was no
+figure in sight such as the one she sought and half-expected to
+discover. Putting Charlie down to follow at her heels, she walked
+quickly across the intervening breadth of moor to the highroad, and
+there paused, looking up and down its dusty length, hoping against hope
+that she might see David somewhere trudging slowly along on his lonely
+way, but there was not a human creature visible. Charlie, assuming a
+highly vigilant attitude, cocked his tiny ears and sniffed the air
+suspiciously, as though he scented the trail of his lost master, but no
+clue presented itself as likely to serve the purpose of tracking the way
+in which he had gone. Moved by a sudden loneliness and despondency, Mary
+slowly returned to the cottage, carrying the little dog in her arms, and
+was affected to tears again when she entered the kitchen, because it
+looked so empty. The bent figure, the patient aged face, on which for
+her there was ever a smile of grateful tenderness--these had composed a
+picture by her fireside to which she had grown affectionately
+accustomed,--and to see it no longer there made her feel almost
+desolate. She lit the fire listlessly and prepared her own breakfast
+without interest--it was a solitary meal and lacked flavour. She was
+glad when, after breakfast, Angus Reay came in, as was now his custom,
+to say good-morning, and to "gain inspiration,"--so he told her,--for
+his day's work. He was no less astonished than herself at David's sudden
+departure.
+
+"Poor old chap! I believe he thinks he is in our way, Mary!" he said, as
+he read the letter of explanation which their missing friend had left
+behind him. "And yet he says quite plainly here that he will be back
+before Sunday. Perhaps he will. But where can he have gone to?"
+
+"Not far, surely!" and Mary looked, as she felt, perplexed. "He has no
+money!"
+
+"Not a penny?"
+
+"Not a penny! He makes me take everything he earns to help pay for his
+keep and as something towards the cost of his illness last year. I don't
+want it--but it pleases him that I should have it----"
+
+"Of course--I understand that,"--and Angus slipped an arm round her
+waist, while he read the letter through again. "But if he hasn't a
+penny, how can he get along?"
+
+"He must be on the tramp again," said Mary. "But he isn't strong enough
+to tramp. I went up the coombe this morning and right out to the
+highroad, for I thought I might see him and catch up with him--because I
+know it would take him ever so long to walk a mile. But he had gone
+altogether."
+
+Reay stood thinking.
+
+"I tell you what, Mary," he said at last, "I'll take a brisk walk down
+the road towards Minehead. I should think that's the only place where
+he'd try for work. I daresay I shall overtake him."
+
+Her eyes brightened.
+
+"Yes, that's quite possible,"--and she was evidently pleased at the
+suggestion. "He's so old and feeble, and you're so strong and quick on
+your feet----"
+
+"Quick with my lips, too," said Angus, promptly kissing her. "But I
+shall have to be on my best behaviour now you're all alone in the
+cottage, Mary! David has left you defenceless!"
+
+He laughed, but as she raised her eyes questioningly to his face, grew
+serious.
+
+"Yes, my Mary! You'll have to stay by your own sweet lonesome! Otherwise
+all the dear, kind, meddlesome old women in the village will talk! Mrs.
+Twitt will lead the chorus, with the best intentions, unless--and this
+is a dreadful alternative!--you can persuade her to come up and play
+propriety!"
+
+The puzzled look left her face, and she smiled though a wave of colour
+flushed her cheeks.
+
+"Oh! I see what you mean, Angus! But I'm too old to want looking
+after--I can look after myself."
+
+"Can you?" And he took her into his arms and held her fast. "And how
+will you do it?"
+
+She was silent a moment, looking into his eyes with a grave and musing
+tenderness. Then she said quietly--
+
+"By trusting you, my love, now and always!"
+
+Very gently he released her from his embrace--very reverently he kissed
+her.
+
+"And you shall never regret your trust, you dear, sweet angel of a
+woman! Be sure of that! Now I'm off to look for David--I'll try and
+bring him back with me. By the way, Mary, I've told Mr. and Mrs. Twitt
+and good old Bunce that we are engaged--so the news is now the public
+property of the whole village. In fact, we might just as well have put
+up the banns and secured the parson!"
+
+He laughed his bright, jovial laugh, and throwing on his cap went out,
+striding up the coombe with swift, easy steps, whistling joyously "My
+Nannie O" as he made the ascent. Twice he turned to wave his hand to
+Mary who stood watching him from her garden gate, and then he
+disappeared. She waited a moment among all the sweetly perfumed flowers
+in her little garden, looking at the bright glitter of the hill stream
+as it flowed equably by.
+
+"How wonderful it is," she thought, "that God should have been so good
+to me! I have done nothing to deserve any love at all, and yet Angus
+loves me! It seems too beautiful to be real! I am not worthy of such
+happiness! Sometimes I dare not think too much of it lest it should all
+prove to be only a dream! For surely no one in the world could wish for
+a better life than we shall live--Angus and I--in this dear little
+cottage together,--he with his writing, which I know will some day move
+the world,--and I with my usual work, helping as much as I can to make
+his life sweet to him. For we have the great secret of all joy--we love
+each other!"
+
+With her eyes full of the dreamy light of inward heart's content, she
+turned and went into the house. The sight of David's empty chair by the
+fire troubled her,--but she tried to believe that Angus would succeed in
+finding him on the highroad, and in persuading him to return at once.
+Towards noon Mrs. Twitt came in, somewhat out of breath, on account of
+having climbed the village street more rapidly than was her custom on
+such a warm day as it had turned out to be, and straightway began
+conversation.
+
+"Wonders 'ull never cease, Mis' Deane, an' that's a fact!" she said,
+wiping her hot face with the corner of her apron--"An' while there's
+life there's 'ope! I'd as soon 'a thought o' Weircombe Church walkin'
+down to the shore an' turnin' itself into a fishin' smack, as that you'd
+a' got engaged to be married! I would, an' that's a Gospel truth! Ye
+seemed so steady like an' settled--lor' a mussy me!" And here, despite
+her effort to look serious, a broad smile got the better of her. "An' a
+fine man too you've got,--none o' your scallywag weaklings as one sees
+too much of nowadays, but a real upright sort o' chap wi' no nonsense
+about 'im. An' I wishes ye well, Mary, my dear,"--and the worthy soul
+took Mary's hand in hers and gave her a hearty kiss. "For it's never too
+late to mend, as the Scripter tells us, an' forbye ye're not in yer
+green gooseberry days there's those as thinks ripe fruit better than
+sour-growin' young codlings. An' ye may take 'art o' grace for one
+thing--them as marries young settles quickly old--an' to look at the
+skin an' the 'air an' the eyes of ye, you beat ivery gel I've ivir seen
+in the twenties, so there's good preservin' stuff in ye wot'll last. An'
+I bet you're more fond o' the man ye've got late than if ye'd caught 'im
+early!"
+
+Mary laughed, but her eyes were full of wistful tenderness.
+
+"I love him very dearly," she said simply--"And I know he's a great deal
+too good for me."
+
+Mrs. Twitt sniffed meaningly.
+
+"Well, I'm not in any way sure o' that," she observed. "When a man's too
+good for a woman it's what we may call a Testymen' miracle. For the
+worst wife as ivir lived is never so bad as a bad 'usband. There's a
+suthin' in a man wot's real devil-like when it gits the uppermost of
+'im--an' 'e's that crafty born that I've known 'im to be singin' hymns
+one hour an' drinkin' 'isself silly the next. 'Owsomever, Mister Reay
+seems a decent chap, forbye 'e do give 'is time to writin' which don't
+appear to make 'is pot boil----"
+
+"Ah, but he will be famous!" interrupted Mary exultantly. "I know he
+will!"
+
+"An' what's the good o' that?" enquired Mrs. Twitt. "If bein' famous is
+bein' printed about in the noospapers, I'd rather do without it if I wos
+'im. Parzon Arbroath got famous that way!" And she chuckled. "But the
+great pint is that you an' 'e is a-goin' to be man an' wife, an' I'm
+right glad to 'ear it, for it's a lonely life ye've been leadin' since
+yer father's death, forbye ye've got a bit o' company in old David. An'
+wot'll ye do with David when you're married?"
+
+"He'll stay on with us, I hope," said Mary. "But this morning he has
+gone away--and we don't know where he can have gone to."
+
+Mrs. Twitt raised her eyes and hands in astonishment.
+
+"Gone away?"
+
+"Yes." And Mary showed her the letter Helmsley had written, and
+explained how Angus Reay had started off to walk towards Minehead, in
+the hope of overtaking the wanderer.
+
+"Well, I never!" And Mrs. Twitt gave a short gasp of wonder. "Wants to
+find employment, do 'e? The poor old innercent! Why, Twitt would 'a
+given 'im a job in the stoneyard if 'e'd 'a known. He'll never find a
+thing to do anywheres on the road at 'is age!"
+
+And the news of David's sudden and lonely departure affected her more
+powerfully than the prospect of Mary's marriage, which had, in the first
+place, occupied all her mental faculties.
+
+"An' that reminds me," she went on, "of 'ow the warnin' came to me
+yesterday when I was a-goin' out to my wash-tub an' I slipt on a bit o'
+potato peelin'. That's allus a sign of a partin' 'twixt friends. Put
+that together with the lump o' clinkers as flew out o' the fire last
+week and split in two in the middle of the kitchen, an' there ye 'ave it
+all writ plain. I sez to Twitt--'Suthin's goin' to 'appen'--an' 'e sez
+in 'is fool way--'G'arn, old woman, suthin's allus a-'appenin'
+somewheres'--then when Mister Reay looked in all smiles an' sez
+'Good-mornin', Twitt! I'm goin' to marry Miss Mary Deane! Wish us joy!'
+Twitt, 'e up an' sez, 'There's your suthin', old gel! A marriage!' an' I
+sez, 'Not at all, Twitt--not at all, Mister Reay, if I may make so bold,
+but slippin' on peel don't mean marriage, nor yet clinkers, though two
+spoons in a saucer does convey 'ints o' the same, an' two spoons was in
+Twitt's saucer only this very mornin'. Which I wishes both man an' woman
+as runs the risk everlastin' joy!' An' Twitt, as is allus puttin' in 'is
+word where 'taint wanted, sez, 'Don't talk about everlastin' joy,
+mother, 'tis like a hepitaph'--which I answers quick an' sez, 'Your mind
+may run on hepitaphs, Twitt, seein' 'tis your livin', but mine don't do
+no such thing, an' when I sez everlastin' joy for man an' wife, I means
+it.' An' then Mister Reay comes an' pats me on the shoulder cosy like
+an' sez, 'Right you are, Mrs. Twitt!' an' 'e walks off laughin', an'
+Twitt 'e laughs too an' sez, 'Good luck to the bridegroom an' the
+bride,' which I aint denyin', but there was still the thought o' the
+potato peel an' the clinker, an' it's come clear to-day now I've 'eerd
+as 'ow poor old David's gone!" She paused to take breath, and shook her
+head solemnly. "It's my opinion 'e'll never come back no more!"
+
+"Oh, don't say that!" exclaimed Mary, distressed. "Don't even think it!"
+
+But Mrs. Twitt was not to be shaken in her pronouncement.
+
+"'E'll never come back no more!" she said. "An' the children on the
+shore 'ull miss 'im badly, for 'e was a reg'lar Father Christmas to
+'em, not givin' presents by any manner o' means, 'avin' none to give,
+but tellin' 'em stories as kep' 'em quiet an' out of 'arms way for
+'ours,--an' mendin' their toys an' throwin' their balls an' spinnin'
+their tops like the 'armless old soul 'e was! I'm right sorry 'e's gone!
+Weircombe 'll miss 'im for sartin sure!"
+
+And this was the general feeling of the whole village when the
+unexpected departure of "old David" became known. Angus Reay, returning
+in the afternoon, reported that he had walked half the way, and had
+driven the other half with a man who had given him a lift in his trap,
+right into Minehead, but had seen and heard nothing of the missing waif
+and stray. Coming back to Weircombe with the carrier's cart, he had
+questioned the carrier as to whether he had seen the old man anywhere
+along the road, but this inquiry likewise met with failure.
+
+"So the only thing to do, Mary," said Angus, finally, "is to believe his
+own written word,--that he will be back with us before Sunday. I don't
+think he means to leave you altogether in such an abrupt way,--that
+would be churlish and ungrateful--and I'm sure he is neither."
+
+"Oh, he's anything but churlish!" she answered quickly. "He has always
+been most thoughtful and kind to me; and as for gratitude!--why, the
+poor old dear makes too much of it altogether--one would think I had
+given him a fortune instead of just taking common human care of him. I
+expect he must have worked in some very superior house of business, for
+though he's so poor, he has all the ways of a gentleman."
+
+"What are the ways of a gentleman, my Mary?" demanded Angus, gaily. "Do
+you know? I mean, do you know what they are nowadays? To stick a cigar
+in one's mouth and smoke it all the time a woman is present--to keep
+one's hat on before her, and to talk to her in such a loose, free and
+easy fashion as might bring one's grandmother out of her grave and make
+her venerable hair curl! Those are the 'ways' of certain present-time
+'gentlemen' who keep all the restaurants and music-halls of London
+going--and I don't rank good old David with these. I know what _you_
+mean--you mean that he has all the fine feeling, delicacy and courtesy
+of a gentleman, as 'gentlemen' used to be before our press was degraded
+to its present level by certain clowns and jesters who make it their
+business to jeer at every "gentlemanly" feeling that ever inspired
+humanity--yes, I understand! He is a gentleman of the old
+school,--well,--I think he is--and I think he would always be that, if
+he tramped the road till he died. He must have seen better days."
+
+"Oh yes, I'm sure of that!" said Mary. "So many really capable men get
+turned out of work because they are old----"
+
+"Well, there's one advantage about my profession," interrupted Angus.
+"No one can turn _me_ out of literature either for young or old age, if
+I choose to make a name in it! Think of that, my Mary! The glorious
+independence of it! An author is a law unto himself, and if he succeeds,
+he is the master of his own fate. Publishers are his humble
+servants--waiting eagerly to snatch up his work that they may get all
+they can for themselves out of it,--and the public--the great public
+which, apart from all 'interested' critical bias, delivers its own
+verdict, is always ready to hearken and to applaud the writer of its
+choice. There is no more splendid and enviable life!--if I could only
+make a hundred pounds a year by it, I would rather be an author than a
+king! For if one has something in one's soul to say--something that is
+vital, true, and human as well as divine, the whole world will pause to
+listen. Yes, Mary! In all its toil and stress, its scheming for
+self-advantage, its political changes, its little temporary passing
+shows of empires and monarchies, the world will stop to hear what the
+Thinker and the Writer tells it! The words of old Socrates still ring
+down the ages--the thoughts of Shakespeare are still the basis of
+English literature!--what a grand life it is to be among the least of
+one of the writing band! I tell you, Mary, that even if I fail, I shall
+be proud to have at any rate _tried_ to succeed!"
+
+"You will not fail!" she said, her eyes glowing with enthusiasm. "I
+shall see you win your triumph!"
+
+"Well, if I cannot conquer everything with you by my side, I shall be
+but a poor and worthless devil!" he answered. "And now I must be off and
+endeavour to make up for my lost time this morning, running after David!
+Poor old chap! Don't worry about him, Mary. I think you may take his
+word for it that he means to be back before Sunday."
+
+He left her then, and all the day and all the evening too she spent the
+time alone. It would have been impossible to her to express in words
+how greatly she missed the companionship of the gentle old man who had
+so long been the object of her care. There was a sense of desolate
+emptiness in the little cottage such as had not so deeply affected her
+for years--not indeed since the first months following immediately on
+her own father's death. That Angus Reay kept away was, she knew, care
+for her on his part. Solitary woman as she was, the villagers, like all
+people who live in very small, mentally restricted country places, would
+have idly gossiped away her reputation had she received her lover into
+her house alone. So she passed a very dismal time all by herself; and
+closing up the house early, took little Charlie in her arms and went to
+bed, where, much to her own abashment, she cried herself to sleep.
+
+Meanwhile, David himself, for whom she fretted, had arrived in Exeter.
+The journey had fatigued him considerably, though he had been able to
+get fairly good food and a glass of wine at one of the junctions where
+he had changed _en route_. On leaving the Exeter railway station, he
+made his way towards the Cathedral, and happening to chance on a very
+small and unpretending "Temperance Hotel" in a side street, where a
+placard intimating that "Good Accommodation for Travellers" might be had
+within, he entered and asked for a bedroom. He obtained it at once, for
+his appearance was by no means against him, being that of a respectable
+old working man who was prepared to pay his way in a humble, but
+perfectly honest fashion. As soon as he had secured his room, which was
+a curious little three-cornered apartment, partially obscured by the
+shadows of the many buttresses of the Cathedral, his next care was to go
+out into the High Street and provide himself with a good stock of
+writing materials. These obtained, he returned to his temporary lodging,
+where, after supper, he went to bed early in order to rise early. With
+the morning light he was up and dressed, eager to be at work,--an inrush
+of his old business energy came back on him,--his brain was clear, his
+mental force keen and active. There happened to be an old-fashioned oak
+table in his room, and drawing this to the window, he sat down to write
+the document which his solicitor and friend, Sir Francis Vesey, had so
+often urged him to prepare--his Will. He knew what a number of legal
+technicalities might, or could be involved in this business, and was
+therefore careful to make it as short, clear, and concise as possible,
+leaving no chance anywhere open of doubt or discussion. And with a firm,
+unwavering pen, in his own particularly distinct and characteristic
+caligraphy, he disposed of everything of which he died possessed
+"absolutely and without any conditions whatsoever" to Mary Deane,
+spinster, at present residing in Weircombe, Somerset, adding the hope
+that she would, if she saw fit to do so, carry out certain requests of
+his, the testator's, as conveyed privately to her in a letter
+accompanying the Will. All the morning long he sat thoughtfully
+considering and weighing each word he used--till at last, when the
+document was finished to his satisfaction, he folded it up, and putting
+it in his pocket, started out to get his midday meal and find a lawyer's
+office. He was somewhat surprised at his own alertness and vigour as he
+walked through the streets of Exeter on this quest;--excitement buoyed
+him up to such a degree that be was not conscious of the slightest
+fatigue or lassitude--he felt almost young. He took his lunch at a small
+restaurant where he saw city clerks and others of that type going in,
+and afterwards, strolling up a dull little street which ended in a _cul
+de sac_, he spied a dingy archway, offering itself as an approach to a
+flight of equally dingy stairs. Here a brass plate, winking at the
+passer-by, stated that "Rowden and Owlett, Solicitors," would be found
+on the first floor. Helmsley paused, considering a moment--then, making
+up his mind that "Rowden and Owlett" would suit his purpose as well as
+any other equally unknown firm, he slowly climbed the steep and unwashed
+stair. Opening the first door at the top of the flight, he saw a small
+boy leaning both arms across a large desk, and watching the gyrations of
+two white mice in a revolving cage.
+
+"Hullo!" said the boy sharply, "what d' ye want?"
+
+"I want to see Mr. Rowden or Mr. Owlett," he replied.
+
+"Right y' are!" and the boy promptly seized the cage containing the
+white mice and hid it in a cupboard. "You're our first caller to-day.
+Mr. Rowden's gone to Dawlish,--but Mr. Owlett's in. Wait a minute."
+
+Helmsley obeyed, sitting down in a chair near the door, and smiling to
+himself at the evidences of slack business which the offices of Messrs.
+Rowden and Owlett presented. In about five minutes the boy returned, and
+gave him a confidential nod.
+
+"You can go in now," he said; "Mr. Owlett was taking his after-dinner
+snooze, but he's jumped up at once, and he's washed his hands and face,
+so he's quite ready for business. This way, please!"
+
+He beckoned with a rather dirty finger, and Helmsley followed him into a
+small apartment where Mr. Owlett, a comfortably stout, middle-aged
+gentleman, sat at a large bureau covered with papers, pretending to
+read. He looked up as his hoped-for client entered, and flushed redly in
+the face with suppressed vexation as he saw that it was only a working
+man after all--"Some fellow wanting a debt collected," he decided,
+pushing away his papers with a rather irritated movement. However, in
+times when legal work was so scarce, it did not serve any good purpose
+to show anger, so, smoothing his ruffled brow, he forced a reluctantly
+condescending smile, as his office-boy, having ushered in the visitor,
+left the room.
+
+"Good afternoon, my man!" he said, with a patronising air. "What can I
+do for you?"
+
+"Well, not so very much, sir," and Helmsley took off his hat
+deferentially, standing in an attitude of humility. "It's only a matter
+of making my Will,--I've written it out myself, and if you would be so
+good as to see whether it is all in order, I'm prepared to pay you for
+your trouble."
+
+"Oh, certainly, certainly!" Here Mr. Owlett took off his spectacles and
+polished them. "I suppose you know it's not always a wise thing to draw
+up your own Will yourself? You should always let a lawyer draw it up for
+you."
+
+"Yes, sir, I've heard that," answered Helmsley, with an air of
+respectful attention--"And that's why I've brought the paper to you, for
+if there's anything wrong with it, you can put it right, or draw it up
+again if you think proper. Only I'd rather not be put to more expense
+than I can help."
+
+"Just so!" And the worthy solicitor sighed, as he realised that there
+were no "pickings" to be made out of his present visitor--"Have you
+brought the document with you?"
+
+"Yes, sir!" Helmsley fumbled in his pocket, and drew out the paper with
+a well-assumed air of hesitation; "I'm leaving everything I've got to a
+woman who has been like a daughter to me in my old age--my wife and
+children are dead--and I've no one that has any blood claim on me--so I
+think the best thing I can do is to give everything I've got to the one
+that's been kind to me in my need."
+
+"Very right--very proper!" murmured Mr. Owlett, as he took the offered
+document from Helmsley's hand and opened it--"Um--um!--let me see!----"
+Here he read aloud--"I, David
+Helmsley,--um--um!--Helmsley--Helmsley!--that's a name that I seem to
+have heard somewhere!--David Helmsley!--yes!--why that's the name of a
+multi-millionaire!--ha-ha-ha! A multi-millionaire! That's curious! Do
+you know, my man, that your name is the same as that of one of the
+richest men in the world?"
+
+Helmsley permitted himself to smile.
+
+"Really, sir? You don't say so!"
+
+"Yes, yes!" And Mr. Owlett fixed his spectacles on his nose and beamed
+at his humble client through them condescendingly--"One of the richest
+men in the world!" And he smacked his lips as though he had just
+swallowed a savoury morsel--"Amazing! Now if you were he, your Will
+would be a world's affair--a positively world's affair!"
+
+"Would it indeed?" And again Helmsley smiled.
+
+"Everybody would talk of it," proceeded Owlett, lost in rapturous
+musing--"The disposal of a rich man's millions is always a most
+interesting subject of conversation! And you actually didn't know you
+had such a rich namesake?"
+
+"No, sir, I did not."
+
+"Ah well! I suppose you live in the country, and people in the country
+seldom hear of the names that are famous in towns. Now let me consider
+this Will again--'I, David Helmsley, being in sound health of mind and
+body, thanks be to God, do make this to be my Last Will and Testament,
+revoking all former Wills, Codicils and Testamentary Dispositions. First
+I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping and
+believing, through the merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour, to be made
+partaker of life everlasting'--Dear me, dear me!" and Mr. Owlett took
+off his spectacles. "You must be a very old-fashioned man! This sort of
+thing is not at all necessary nowadays!"
+
+"Not necessary, perhaps," said Helmsley gently--"But there is no harm in
+putting it in, sir, I hope?"
+
+"Oh, there's no harm! It doesn't affect the Will itself, of
+course,--but--but--it's odd--it's unusual! You see nobody minds what
+becomes of your Soul, or your Body either--the only question of
+importance to any one is what is to be done with your Money!"
+
+"I see!" And Helmsley nodded his head and spoke with perfect
+mildness--"But I'm an old man, and I've lived long enough to be fonder
+of old-fashioned ways than new, and I should like, if you please, to let
+it be known that I died a Christian, which is, to me, not a member of
+any particular church or chapel, but just a Christian--a man who
+faithfully believes in the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ."
+
+The attorney stared at him astonished, and moved by a curious sense of
+shame. There was something both pathetic and dignified in the aspect of
+this frail old "working man," who stood before him so respectfully with
+his venerable white hair uncovered, and his eyes full of an earnest
+resolution which was not to be gainsaid. Coughing a cough of nervous
+embarrassment, he again glanced at the document before him.
+
+"Of course," he said--"if you wish it, there is not the slightest
+objection to your making this--this public statement as to your
+religious convictions. It does not affect the disposal of your worldly
+goods in any way. It used--yes, it used to be quite the ordinary way of
+beginning a Last Will and Testament--but we have got beyond any special
+commendation of our souls to God, you know----"
+
+"Oh yes, I quite understand that," rejoined Helmsley. "Present-day
+people like to think that God takes no interest whatever in His own
+creation. It's a more comfortable doctrine to believe that He is
+indifferent rather than observant. But, so far as I'm concerned, I don't
+go with the time."
+
+"No, I see you don't," and Mr. Owlett bent his attention anew on the
+Will--"And the religious preliminary being quite unimportant, you shall
+have it your own way. Apart from that, you've drawn it up quite
+correctly, and in very good form. I suppose you understand that you have
+in this Will left 'everything' to the named legatee, Mary Deane,
+spinster, that is to say, excluding no item whatsoever? That she becomes
+the possessor, in fact, of your whole estate?"
+
+Helmsley bent his head in assent.
+
+"That is what I wish, sir, and I hope I have made it clear."
+
+"Yes, you have made it quite clear. There is no room for discussion on
+any point. You wish us to witness your signature?"
+
+"If you please, sir."
+
+And he advanced to the bureau ready to sign. Mr. Owlett rang a bell
+sharply twice. An angular man with a youngish face and a very elderly
+manner answered the summons.
+
+"My confidential clerk," said Owlett, briefly introducing him. "Here,
+Prindle! I want you to be witness with me to this gentleman's Will."
+
+Prindle bowed, and passed his hand across his mouth to hide a smile.
+Prindle was secretly amused to think that a working man had anything to
+leave worth the trouble of making a Will at all. Mr. Owlett dipped a pen
+in ink, and handed it to his client. Whereat, Helmsley wrote his
+signature in a clear, bold, unfaltering hand. Mr. Owlett appended his
+own name, and then Prindle stepped up to sign. As he saw the signature
+"David Helmsley," he paused and seemed astonished. Mr. Owlett gave a
+short laugh.
+
+"We know that name, don't we, Prindle?"
+
+"Well, sir, I should say all the world knew it!" replied Prindle.
+
+"All the world--yes!--all except our friend here," said Owlett, nodding
+towards Helmsley. "You didn't know, my man, did you, that there was a
+multi-millionaire existing of the same name as yourself?"
+
+"No, sir, I did not!" answered Helmsley. "I hope he's made his Will!"
+
+"I hope he has!" laughed the attorney. "There'll be a big haul for the
+Crown if he hasn't!"
+
+Prindle, meanwhile, was slowly writing "James George Prindle, Clerk to
+the aforesaid Robert Owlett" underneath his legal employer's signature.
+
+"I should suggest," said Mr. Owlett, addressing David, jocosely, "that
+you go and make yourself known to the rich Mr. Helmsley as a namesake of
+his!"
+
+"Would you, sir? And why?"
+
+"Well, he might be interested. Men as rich as he is always want a new
+'sensation' to amuse them. And he might, for all you know, make you a
+handsome present, or leave you a little legacy!"
+
+Helmsley smiled--he very nearly laughed. But he carefully guarded his
+equanimity.
+
+"Thank you for the hint, sir! I'll try and see him some day!"
+
+"I hear he's dead," said Prindle, finishing the signing of his name and
+laying down his pen. "It was in the papers some time back."
+
+"But it was contradicted," said Owlett quickly.
+
+"Ah, but I think it was true all the same," and Prindle shook his head
+obstinately. "The papers ought to know."
+
+"Oh yes, they ought to know, but in nine cases out of ten they _don't_
+know," declared Owlett. "And if you contradict their lies, they're so
+savage at being put in the wrong that they'll blazon the lies all the
+more rather than confess them. That will do, Prindle! You can go."
+
+Prindle, aware that his employer was not a man to be argued with, at
+once retired, and Owlett, folding up the Will, handed it to Helmsley.
+
+"That's all right," he said, "I suppose you want to take it with you?
+You can leave it with us if you like."
+
+"Thank you, but I'd rather have it about me," Helmsley answered. "You
+see I'm old and not very strong, and I might die at any time. I'd like
+to keep my Will on my own person."
+
+"Well, take care of it, that's all," said the solicitor, smiling at what
+he thought his client's rustic _naļveté_. "No matter how little you've
+got to leave, it's just as well it should go where you want it to go
+without trouble or difficulty. And there's generally a quarrel over
+every Will."
+
+"I hope there's no chance of any quarrel over mine," said Helmsley, with
+a touch of anxiety.
+
+"Oh no! Not the least in the world! Even if you were as great a
+millionaire as the man who happens to bear the same name as yourself,
+the Will would hold good."
+
+"Thank you!" And Helmsley placed on the lawyer's desk more than his
+rightful fee, which that respectable personage accepted without any
+hesitation. "I'm very much obliged to you. Good afternoon!"
+
+"Good afternoon!" And Mr. Owlett leaned back in his chair, blandly
+surveying his visitor. "I suppose you quite understand that, having made
+your legatee, Mary Deane, your sole executrix likewise, you give her
+absolute control?"
+
+"Oh yes, I quite understand that!" answered Helmsley. "That is what I
+wish her to have--the free and absolute control of all I die possessed
+of."
+
+"Then you may be quite easy in your mind," said the lawyer. "You have
+made that perfectly clear."
+
+Whereat Helmsley again said "Good afternoon," and again Mr. Owlett
+briefly responded, sweeping the money his client had paid him off his
+desk, and pocketing the same with that resigned air of injured virtue
+which was his natural expression whenever he thought of how little good
+hard cash a country solicitor could make in the space of twenty-four
+hours. Helmsley, on leaving the office, returned at once to his lodging
+under the shadow of the Cathedral and resumed his own work, which was
+that of writing several letters to various persons connected with his
+financial affairs, showing to each and all what a grip he held, even in
+absence, on the various turns of the wheel of fortune, and dating all
+his communications from Exeter, "at which interesting old town I am
+making a brief stay," he wrote, for the satisfaction of such curiosity
+as his correspondents might evince, as well as for the silencing of all
+rumours respecting his supposed death. Last of all he wrote to Sir
+Francis Vesey, as follows:--
+
+    "MY DEAR VESEY,--On this day, in the good old city of Exeter, I have
+    done what you so often have asked me to do. I have made my Will. It
+    is drawn up entirely in my own handwriting, and has been duly
+    declared correct and valid by a legal firm here, Messrs. Rowden and
+    Owlett. Mr. Owlett and Mr. Owlett's clerk were good enough to
+    witness my signature. I wish you to consider this communication made
+    to you in the most absolute confidence, and as I carry the said
+    document, namely my 'Last Will and Testament,' upon my person, it
+    will not reach your hands till I am no more. Then I trust you will
+    see the business through without unnecessary trouble or worry to the
+    person who, by my desire, will inherit all I have to leave.
+
+    "I have spent nearly a year of almost perfect happiness away from
+    London and all the haunts of London men, and I have found what I
+    sought, but what you probably doubted I could ever find--Love! The
+    treasures of earth I possess and have seldom enjoyed--but the
+    treasure of Heaven,--that pure, disinterested, tender affection,
+    which bears the stress of poverty, sickness, and all other kindred
+    ills,--I never had till now. And now the restless craving of my soul
+    is pacified. I am happy,--moreover, I am perfectly at ease as
+    regards the disposal of my wealth when I am gone. I know you will be
+    glad to hear this, and that you will see that my last wishes and
+    instructions are faithfully carried out in every respect--that is,
+    if I should die before I see you again, which I hope may not be the
+    case.
+
+    "It is my present intention to return to London shortly, and tell
+    you personally the story of such adventures as have chanced to me
+    since I left Carlton House Terrace last July, but 'man proposes, and
+    God disposes,' and one can be certain of nothing. I need not ask you
+    to keep all my affairs going as if I myself were on the scene of
+    action, and also to inform the servants of my household to prepare
+    for my return, as I may be back in town any day. I must thank you
+    for your prompt and businesslike denial of the report of my death,
+    which I understand has been circulated by the press. I am well--as
+    well as a man of my age can expect to be, save for a troublesome
+    heart-weakness, which threatens a brief and easy ending to my
+    career. But for this, I should esteem myself stronger than some men
+    who are still young. And one of the strongest feelings in me at the
+    present moment (apart altogether from the deep affection and devout
+    gratitude I have towards the one who under my Will is to inherit all
+    I have spent my life to gain) is my friendship for you, my dear
+    Vesey,--a friendship cemented by the experience of years, and which
+    I trust may always be unbroken, even remaining in your mind as an
+    unspoilt memory after I am gone where all who are weary, long, yet
+    fear to go! Nevertheless, my faith is firm that the seeming darkness
+    of death will prove but the veil which hides the light of a more
+    perfect life, and I have learned, through the purity of a great and
+    unselfish human love, to believe in the truth of the Love
+    Divine.--Your friend always,
+                                                      DAVID HELMSLEY."
+
+This letter finished, he went out and posted it with all the others he
+had written, and then passed the evening in listening to the organist
+practising grave anthems and voluntaries in the Cathedral. Every little
+item he could think of in his business affairs was carefully gone over
+during the three days he spent in Exeter,--nothing was left undone that
+could be so arranged as to leave his worldly concerns in perfect and
+unquestionable order--and when, as "Mr. David," he paid his last daily
+score at the little Temperance hotel where he had stayed since the
+Tuesday night, and started by the early train of Saturday morning on his
+return to Minehead, he was at peace with himself and all men. True it
+was that the making of his will had brought home to him the fact that it
+was not the same thing as when, being in the prime of life, he had made
+it in favour of his two sons, who were now dead,--it was really and
+truly a final winding-up of his temporal interests, and an admitted
+approach to the verge of the Eternal,--but he was not depressed by this
+consciousness. On the contrary, a happy sense of perfect calm pervaded
+his whole being, and as the train bore him swiftly through the quiet,
+lovely land back to Minehead, that sea-washed portal to the little
+village paradise which held the good angel of his life, he silently
+thanked God that he had done the work which he had started out to do,
+and that he had been spared to return and look again into the beloved
+face of the one woman in all the world who had given him a true
+affection without any "motive," or hope of reward. And he murmured again
+his favourite lines:--
+
+    "Let the sweet heavens endure,
+      Not close nor darken above me,
+    Before I am quite, quite sure
+      That there is one to love me!
+    Then let come what come may,
+      To a life that has been so sad,
+    I shall have had my day!"
+
+"That is true!" he said--"And being 'quite, quite sure' beyond all
+doubt, that I have found 'one to love me' whose love is of the truest,
+holiest and purest, what more can I ask of Divine goodness!"
+
+And his face was full of the light of a heart's content and peace, as
+the dimpled hill coast of Somerset came into view, and the warm spring
+sunshine danced upon the sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Arriving at Minehead, Helmsley passed out of the station unnoticed by
+any one, and made his way easily through the sunny little town. He was
+soon able to secure a "lift" towards Weircombe in a baker's cart going
+half the way; the rest of the distance he judged he could very well
+manage to walk, albeit slowly. A fluttering sense of happiness, like the
+scarcely suppressed excitement of a boy going home from school for the
+holidays, made him feel almost agile on his feet,--if he had only had a
+trifle more strength he thought he could have run the length of every
+mile stretching between him and the dear cottage in the coombe, which
+had now become the central interest of his life. The air was so pure,
+the sun so bright--the spring foliage was so fresh and green, the birds
+sang so joyously--all nature seemed to be in such perfect tune with the
+deep ease and satisfaction of his own soul, that every breath he took
+was more or less of a thanksgiving to God for having been spared to
+enjoy the beauty of such halcyon hours. By the willing away of all his
+millions to one whom he knew to be of a pure, noble, and incorruptible
+nature, a great load had been lifted from his mind,--he had done with
+world's work for ever; and by some inexplicable yet divine compensation
+it seemed as though the true meaning of the life to come had been
+suddenly disclosed to him, and that he was allowed to realise for the
+first time not only the possibility, but the certainty, that Death is
+not an End, but a new Beginning. And he felt himself to be a free
+man,--free of all earthly confusion and worry--free to recommence
+another cycle of nobler work in a higher and wider sphere of action, And
+he argued with himself thus:--
+
+"A man is born into this world without his own knowledge or consent. Yet
+he finds himself--also without his own knowledge or consent--surrounded
+by natural beauty and perfect order--he finds nothing in the planet
+which can be accounted valueless--he learns that even a grain of dust
+has its appointed use, and that not a sparrow shall fall to the ground
+without 'Our Father.' Everything is ready to his hand to minister to his
+reasonable wants--and it is only when he misinterprets the mystic
+meaning of life, and puts God aside as an 'unknown quantity,' that
+things go wrong. His mission is that of progress and advancement--but
+not progress and advancement in base material needs and pleasures,--the
+progress and advancement required of him is primarily spiritual. For the
+spiritual, or Mind, is the only Real. Matter is merely the husk in which
+the seed of Spirit is enclosed--and Man's mistake is always that he
+attaches himself to the perishable husk instead of the ever germinating
+seed. He advances, but advances wrongly, and therefore has to go back
+upon his steps. He progresses in what he calls civilisation, which so
+long as it is purely self-aggrandisement, is but a common circle,
+bringing him back in due course to primitive savagery. Now I, for
+example, started in life to make money--I made it, and it brought me
+power, which I thought progress; but now, at the end of my tether, I see
+plainly that I have done no good in my career save such good as will
+come from my having placed all my foolish gainings under the control of
+a nature simpler and therefore stronger than my own. And I, leaving my
+dross behind me, must go forward and begin again--spiritually the wiser
+for my experience of this world, which may help me better to understand
+the next."
+
+Thus he mused, as he slowly trudged along under the bright and burning
+sun--happy enough in his thoughts except that now and then a curious
+touch of foreboding fear came over him as to whether anything ill had
+happened to Mary in his absence.
+
+"For one never knows!"--and a faint shudder came over him as he
+remembered Tom o' the Gleam, and the cruel, uncalled-for death of his
+child, the only human creature left to him in the world to care for.
+"One can never tell, whether in the scheme of creation there is such a
+being as a devil, who takes joy in running counter to the beneficent
+intentions of the Creator! Light exists--and Darkness. Good seems
+co-equal with Evil. It is all mystery! Now, suppose Mary were to die?
+Suppose she were, at this very moment, dead?"
+
+Such a horror came over him as this idea presented itself to his mind
+that he trembled from head to foot, and his brain grew dizzy. He had
+walked for a longer time than he knew since the cart in which he had
+ridden part of the way had left him at about four miles away from
+Weircombe, and he felt that he must sit down on the roadside and rest
+for a bit before going further. How cruel, how fiendish it would be, he
+continued to imagine, if Mary were dead! It would be devil's work!--and
+he would have no more faith in God! He would have lost his last
+hope,--and he would fall into the grave a despairing atheist and
+blasphemer! Why, if Mary were dead, then the world was a snare, and
+heaven a delusion!--truth a trick, and goodness a lie! Then--was all the
+past, the present, and future hanging for him like a jewel on the finger
+of one woman? He was bound to admit that it was so. He was also bound to
+admit that all the past, present, and future had, for poor Tom o' the
+Gleam, been centred in one little child. And--God?--no, not God--but a
+devil, using as his tools devilish men,--had killed that child! Then,
+might not that devil kill Mary? His head swam, and a sickening sense of
+bafflement and incompetency came over him. He had made his will,--that
+was true!--but who could guarantee that she whom he had chosen as his
+heiress would live to inherit his wealth?
+
+"I wish I did not think of such horrible things!" he said wearily--"Or I
+wish I could walk faster, and get home--home to the little cottage
+quickly, and see for myself that she is safe and well!"
+
+Sitting among the long grass and field flowers by the roadside, he
+grasped his stick in one hand and leaned his head upon that support,
+closing his eyes in sheer fatigue and despondency. Suddenly a sound
+startled him, and he struggled to his feet, his eyes shining with an
+intent and eager look. That clear, tender voice!--that quick, sweet cry!
+
+"David!"
+
+He listened with a vague and dreamy sense of pleasure. The soft patter
+of feet across the grass--the swish of a dress against the leaves, and
+then--then--why, here was Mary herself, one tress of her lovely hair
+tumbling loose in the sun, her eyes bright and her cheeks crimson with
+running.
+
+"Oh, David, dear old David! Here you are at last! Why _did_ you go away!
+We have missed you dreadfully! David, you look _so_ tired!--where have
+you been? Angus and I have been waiting for you ever so long,--you said
+in your letter you would be back by Sunday, and we thought you would
+likely choose to-day to come--oh, David?--you are quite worn out!
+Don't--don't give way!"
+
+For with the longed-for sight of her, the world's multi-millionaire had
+become only a weak, over-wrought old man, and his tired heart had leaped
+in his breast with quite a poor and common human joy which brought the
+tears falling from his eyes despite himself. She was beside him in a
+moment, her arm thrown affectionately about his shoulders, and her sweet
+face turned up close to his, all aglow with sympathy and tenderness.
+
+"Why did you leave us?" she went on with a gentle playfulness, though
+the tears were in her own eyes. "Whatever made you think of getting work
+out of Weircombe? Oh, you dissatisfied old boy! I thought you were quite
+happy with me!"
+
+He took her hand and held it a moment, then pressed it to his lips.
+
+"Happy!" he murmured. "My dear, I was _too_ happy!--and I felt that I
+owed you too much! I went away for a bit just to see if I could do
+something for you more profitable than basket-making----"
+
+Mary nodded her head at him in wise-like fashion, just as if he were a
+spoilt child.
+
+"I daresay you did!" she said, smiling. "And what's the end of it all,
+eh?"
+
+He looked at her, and in the brightness of her smile, smiled also.
+
+"Well, the end of it all is that I've come back to you in exactly the
+same condition in which I went away," he said. "No richer,--no poorer!
+I've got nothing to do. Nobody wants old people on their hands nowadays.
+It's a rough time of the world!"
+
+"You'll always find the world rough on you if you turn your back on
+those that love you!" she said.
+
+He lifted his head and gazed at her with such a pained and piteous
+appeal, that her heart smote her. He looked so very ill, and his worn
+face with the snow-white hair ruffled about it, was so pallid and thin.
+
+"God forbid that I should do that!" he murmured tremulously. "God
+forbid! Mary, you don't think I would ever do that?"
+
+"No--of course not!" she answered soothingly. "Because you see, you've
+come back again. But if you had gone away altogether----"
+
+"You'd have thought me an ungrateful, worthless old rascal, wouldn't
+you?" And the smile again sparkled in his dim eyes. "And you and Angus
+Reay would have said--'Well, never mind him! He served one useful
+purpose at any rate--he brought us together!'"
+
+"Now, David!" said Mary, holding up a warning finger, "You know we
+shouldn't have talked in such a way of you at all! Even if you had never
+come back, we should always have thought of you kindly--and I should
+have always loved you and prayed for you!"
+
+He was silent, mentally pulling himself together. Then he put his arm
+gently through hers.
+
+"Let us go home," he said. "I can walk now. Are we far from the coombe?"
+
+"Not ten minutes off," she answered, glad to see him more cheerful and
+alert. "By the short cut it's just over the brow of the hill. Will you
+come that way?"
+
+"Any way you like to take me," and leaning on her arm he walked bravely
+on. "Where is Angus?"
+
+"I left him sitting under a tree at the top of the coombe near the
+Church," she replied. "He was busy with his writing, and I told him I
+would just run across the hill and see if you were coming. I had a sort
+of fancy you would be tramping home this morning! And where have you
+been all these days?"
+
+"A good way," he answered evasively. "I'm rather a slow walker."
+
+"I should think you were!" and she laughed good-humouredly. "You must
+have been pretty near us all the while!"
+
+He made no answer, and together they paced slowly across the grass,
+sweet with the mixed perfume of thousands of tiny close-growing herbs
+and flowers which clung in unseen clumps to the soil. All at once the
+quaint little tower of Weircombe Church thrust its ivy-covered summit
+above the edge of the green slope which they were ascending, and another
+few steps showed the glittering reaches of the sunlit sea. Helmsley
+paused, and drew a deep breath.
+
+"I am thankful to see it all again!" he said.
+
+She waited, while leaning heavily on her arm he scanned the whole fair
+landscape with a look of eager love and longing. She saw that he was
+very tired and exhausted, and wondered what he had been doing with
+himself in his days of absence from her care, but she had too much
+delicacy and feeling for him to ask him any questions. And she was glad
+when a cheery "Hillo!" echoed over the hill and Angus appeared, striding
+across the grass and waving his cap in quite a jubilant fashion. As soon
+as he saw them plainly he exchanged his stride for a run and came up to
+them in a couple of minutes.
+
+"Why, David!" he exclaimed. "How are you, old boy? Welcome back! So Mary
+is right as usual! She said she was sure you would be home to-day!"
+
+Helmsley could not speak. He merely returned the pressure of Reay's
+warm, strong hand with all the friendly fervour of which he was capable.
+A glance from Mary's eyes warned Angus that the old man was sorely
+tired--and he at once offered him his arm.
+
+"Lean on me, David," he said. "Strong as bonnie Mary is, I'm just a bit
+stronger. We'll be across the brae in no time! Charlie's at home keeping
+house!"
+
+He laughed, and Helmsley smiled.
+
+"Poor wee Charlie!" he said. "Did he miss me?"
+
+"That he did!" answered Mary. "He's been quite lonesome, and not
+contented at all with only me. Every morning and every night he went
+into your room looking for you, and whined so pitifully at not finding
+you that I had quite a trouble to comfort him."
+
+"More tender-hearted than many a human so-called 'friend'!" murmured
+Helmsley.
+
+"Why yes, of course!" said Reay. "There's nothing more faithful on earth
+than a faithful dog--except"--and he smiled--"a faithful husband!"
+
+Mary laughed.
+
+"Or a faithful wife--which?" she playfully demanded. "How does the old
+rhyme go--
+
+    'A wife, a dog, and a walnut tree,
+    The more you beat 'em, the better they be!'
+
+Are you going to try that system when we are married, Angus?"
+
+She laughed again, and without waiting for an answer, ran on a little in
+front, in order to be first across the natural bridge which separated
+them from the opposite side of the "coombe," and from the spot where the
+big chestnut-tree waved its fan-like green leaves and plumes of pinky
+white blossom over her garden gate. Another few steps made easily with
+the support of Reay's strong arm, and Helmsley found himself again in
+the simple little raftered cottage kitchen, with Charlie tearing madly
+round and round him in ecstasy, uttering short yelps of joy. Something
+struggled in his throat for utterance,--it seemed ages since he had last
+seen this little abode of peace and sweet content, and a curious
+impression was in his mind of having left one identity here to take up
+another less pleasing one elsewhere. A deep, unspeakable gratitude
+overwhelmed him,--he felt to the full the sympathetic environment of
+love,--that indescribable sense of security which satisfies the heart
+when it knows it is "dear to some one else."
+
+    "If I be dear to some one else,
+    Then I should be to myself more dear."
+
+For there is nothing in the whole strange symphony of human life, with
+its concordances and dissonances, that strikes out such a chord of
+perfect music as the consciousness of love. To feel that there is one at
+least in the world to whom you are more dear than to any other living
+being, is the very centralisation of life and the mainspring of action.
+For that one you will work and plan,--for that one you will seek to be
+noble and above the average in your motives and character--for that one
+you will, despite a multitude of drawbacks, agree to live. But without
+this melodious note in the chorus all the singing is in vain.
+
+Led to his accustomed chair by the hearth, Helmsley sank into it
+restfully, and closed his eyes. He was so thoroughly tired out mentally
+and physically with the strain he had put upon himself in undertaking
+his journey, as well as in getting through the business he had set out
+to do, that he was only conscious of a great desire to sleep. So that
+when he shut his eyes for a moment, as he thought, he was quite unaware
+that he fell into a dead faint and so remained for nearly half an hour.
+When he came to himself again, Mary was kneeling beside him with a very
+pale face, and Angus was standing quite close to him, while no less a
+personage than Mr. Bunce was holding his hand and feeling his pulse.
+
+"Better now?" said Mr. Bunce, in a voice of encouraging mildness. "We
+have done too much. We have walked too far. We must rest."
+
+Helmsley smiled--the little group of three around him looked so
+troubled, while he himself felt nothing unusual.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked. "I'm all right--quite all right. Only
+just a little tired!"
+
+"Exactly!" And Mr. Bunce nodded profoundly. "Just a little tired! We
+have taken a very unnecessary journey away from our friends, and we are
+suffering for it! We must now be very good; we must stay at home and
+keep quiet!"
+
+Helmsley looked from one to the other questioningly.
+
+"Do you think I'm ill?" he asked. "I'm not, really! I feel very well."
+
+"That's all right, David, dear!" said Mary, patting his hand. "But you
+_are_ tired--you know you are!"
+
+His eyes rested on her fondly.
+
+"Yes, I'm tired," he confessed. "But that's nothing." He waited a
+minute, looking at them all. "That's nothing! Is it, Mr. Bunce?"
+
+"When we are young it is nothing," replied Mr. Bunce cautiously. "But
+when we are old, we must be careful!"
+
+Helmsley smiled.
+
+"Shake hands, Bunce!" he said, suiting the action to the word. "I'll
+obey your orders, never fear! I'll sit quiet!"
+
+And he showed so much cheerfulness, and chatted with them all so
+brightly, that, for the time, anxiety was dispelled. Mr. Bunce took his
+departure promptly, only pausing at the garden gate to give a hint to
+Angus Reay.
+
+"He will require the greatest care. Don't alarm Miss Deane--but his
+heart was always weak, and it has grown perceptibly weaker. He needs
+complete repose."
+
+Angus returned to the cottage somewhat depressed after this, and from
+that moment Helmsley found himself surrounded with evidences of tender
+forethought for his comfort such as no rich man could ever obtain for
+mere cash payment. The finest medical skill and the best trained nursing
+are, we know, to be had for money,--but the soothing touch of love,--the
+wordless sympathy which manifests itself in all the looks and movements
+of those by whom a life is really and truly held precious--these are
+neither to be bought nor sold. And David Helmsley in his assumed
+character of a man too old and too poor to have any so-called "useful"
+friends--a mere wayfarer on the road apparently without a home, or any
+prospect of obtaining one,--had, by the simplest, yet strangest chance
+in the world, found an affection such as he had never in his most
+successful and most brilliant days been able to win. He upon whom the
+society women of London and Paris had looked with greedy and speculative
+eyes, wondering how much they could manage to get out of him, was now
+being cared for by one simple-hearted sincere woman, who had no other
+motive for her affectionate solicitude save gentlest compassion and
+kindness;--he whom crafty kings had invited to dine with them because of
+his enormous wealth, and because is was possible that, for the "honour"
+of sitting at the same table with them he might tide them over a
+financial difficulty, was now tended with more than the duty and
+watchfulness of a son in the person of a poor journalist, kicked out of
+employment for telling the public certain important facts concerning
+financial "deals" on the part of persons of influence--a journalist, who
+for this very cause was likely never more to be a journalist, but rather
+a fighter against bitter storm and stress, for the fair wind of popular
+favour,--that being generally the true position of any independent
+author who has something new and out of the common to say to the world.
+Angus Reay, working steadily and hopefully on his gradually diminishing
+little stock of money, with all his energies bent on cutting a diamond
+of success out of the savagely hard rock of human circumstance, was more
+filial in his respect and thought for Helmsley than either of Helmsley's
+own sons had been; while his character was as far above the characters
+of those two ne'er-do-weel sprouts of their mother's treachery as light
+is above darkness. And the multi-millionaire was well content to rest in
+the little cottage where he had found a real home, watching the quiet
+course of events,--and waiting--waiting for something which he found
+himself disposed to expect--a something to which he could not give a
+name.
+
+There was quite a little rejoicing in the village of Weircombe when it
+was known he had returned from his brief wanderings, and there was also
+a good deal of commiseration expressed for him when it was known that he
+was somewhat weakened in physical health by his efforts to find more
+paying work. Many of the children with whom he was a favourite came up
+to see him, bringing little knots of flowers, or curious trophies of
+weed and shells from the seashore--and now that the weather was settled
+fine and warm, he became accustomed to sit in his chair outside the
+cottage door in the garden, with the old sweetbriar bush shedding
+perfume around him, and a clambering rose breaking into voluptuous
+creamy pink blossom above his head. Here he would pursue his occupation
+of basket-making, and most of the villagers made it their habit to pass
+up and down at least once or twice a day in their turns, to see how he
+fared, or, as they themselves expressed it, "to keep old David going."
+His frail bent figure, his thin, intellectual face, with its composed
+expression of peace and resignation, his soft white hair, and his slow
+yet ever patiently working hands, made up a picture which, set in the
+delicate framework of leaf and blossom, was one to impress the
+imagination and haunt the memory. Mr. and Mrs. Twitt were constant
+visitors, and many were the would-be jocose remarks of the old
+stonemason on David's temporary truancy.
+
+"Wanted more work, did ye?" And thrusting his hands deep in the pockets
+of his corduroys, Twitt looked at him with a whimsical complacency.
+"Well, why didn't ye come down to the stoneyard an' learn 'ow to cut a
+hepitaph? Nice chippy, easy work in its way, an' no 'arm in yer sittin'
+down to it. Why didn't ye, eh?"
+
+"I've never had enough education for such work as that, Mr. Twitt,"
+answered David mildly, with something of a humorous sparkle in his eyes.
+"I'm afraid I should spoil more than I could pay for. You want an
+artist--not an untrained clumsy old fellow like me."
+
+"Oh, blow artists!" said Mr. Twitt irreverently. "They talks a lot--they
+talks yer 'ed off--but they doos onny 'arf the labour as they spends in
+waggin' their tongues. An' for a hepitaph, they none of 'em aint got an
+idee. It's allus Scripter texes with 'em,--they aint got no 'riginality.
+Now I'm a reg'lar Scripter reader, an' nowheres do I find it writ as
+we're to use the words o' God Himself to carve on tombstones for our
+speshul convenience, cos we aint no notions o' feelin' an' respect of
+our own. But artists can't think o' nothin', an' I never cares to employ
+'em. Yet for all that there's not a sweeter, pruttier place than our
+little cemetery nowheres in all the world. There aint no tyranny in it,
+an' no pettifoggin' interference. Why, there's places in England where
+ye can't put what ye likes over the grave o' yer dead friends!--ye've
+got to 'submit' yer idee to the parzon, or wot's worse, the Corporation,
+if ser be yer last go-to-bed place is near a town. There's a town I know
+of," and here Mr. Twitt began to laugh,--"wheer ye can't 'ave a moniment
+put up to your dead folk without 'subjectin'' the design to the Town
+Council--an' we all knows the fine taste o' Town Councils! They'se
+'artists,' an' no mistake! I've got the rules of the cemetery of that
+town for my own eddification. They runs like this--" And drawing a paper
+from his pocket, he read as follows:--
+
+"'All gravestones, monuments, tombs, tablets, memorials, palisades,
+curbs, and inscriptions shall be subject to the approval of the Town
+Council; and a drawing, showing the form, materials, and dimensions of
+every gravestone, monument, tomb, tablet, memorial, palisades, or curb
+proposed to be erected or fixed, together with a copy of the inscription
+intended to be cut thereon (if any), on the form provided by the Town
+Council, must be left at the office of the Clerk at least ten days
+before the first Tuesday in any month. The Town Council reserve to
+themselves the right to remove or prevent the erection of any monument,
+tomb, tablet, memorial, etc., which shall not have previously received
+their sanction.' There! What d' ye think of that?"
+
+Helmsley had listened in astonishment.
+
+"Think? I think it is monstrous!" he said, with some indignation. "Such
+a Town Council as that is a sort of many-headed tyrant, resolved to
+persecute the unhappy townspeople into their very graves!"
+
+"Right y' are!" said Twitt. "But there's a many on 'em! An' ye may thank
+yer stars ye're not anywheres under 'em. Now when _you_ goes the way o'
+all flesh----"
+
+He paused, suddenly embarrassed, and conscious that he had perhaps
+touched on a sore subject. But Helmsley reassured him.
+
+"Yes, Twitt? Don't stop!--what then?"
+
+"Why, then," said Twitt, almost tenderly, "ye'll 'ave our good old
+parzon to see ye properly tucked under a daisy quilt, an' wotever ye
+wants put on yer tomb, or wotever's writ on it, can be yer own desire,
+if ye'll think about it afore ye goes. An' there'll be no expense at
+all--for I tell ye just the truth--I've grown to like ye that well that
+I'll carve ye the pruttiest little tombstone ye ever seed for nothin'!"
+
+Helmsley smiled.
+
+"Well, I shan't be able to thank you then, Mr. Twitt, so I thank you
+now," he said. "You know a good deed is always rewarded, if not in this
+world, then in the next."
+
+"I b'leeve that," rejoined Twitt; "I b'leeve it true. And though I know
+Mis' Deane is that straight an' 'onest, she'd see ye properly mementoed
+an' paid for, I wouldn't take a penny from 'er--not on account of a
+kindly old gaffer like yerself. I'd do it all friendly."
+
+"Of course you would!" and Helmsley shook his hand heartily; "And of
+course you _will_!"
+
+This, and many other conversations he had with Twitt and a certain few
+of the villagers, showed him that the little community of Weircombe
+evidently thought of him as being not long for this world. He accepted
+the position quietly, and passed day after day peacefully enough,
+without feeling any particular illness, save a great weakness in his
+limbs. He was in himself particularly happy, for Mary was always with
+him, and Angus passed every evening with them both. Another great
+pleasure, too, he found in the occasional and entirely unobtrusive
+visits of the parson of the little parish--a weak and ailing man
+physically, but in soul and intellect exceptionally strong. As different
+from the Reverend Mr. Arbroath as an old-time Crusader would be from a
+modern jockey, he recognised the sacred character of his mission as an
+ordained minister of Christ, and performed that mission simply and
+faithfully. He would sit by Helmsley's chair of a summer afternoon and
+talk with him as friend to friend--it made no difference to him that to
+all appearances the old man was poor and dependent on Mary Deane's
+bounty, and that his former life was, to him, the clergyman, a sealed
+book; he was there to cheer and to comfort, not to inquire, reproach, or
+condemn. He was the cheeriest of companions, and the most hopeful of
+believers.
+
+"If all clergymen were like you, sir," said Helmsley to him one day,
+"there would be no atheists!"
+
+The good man reddened at the compliment, as though he had been accused
+of a crime.
+
+"You think too kindly of my efforts," he said gently. "I only speak to
+you as I would wish others to speak to me."
+
+"'For this is the Law and the Prophets!'" murmured Helmsley. "Sir, will
+you tell me one thing--are there many poor people in Weircombe?"
+
+The clergyman looked a trifle surprised.
+
+"Why, yes, to tell the exact truth, they are all poor people in
+Weircombe," he answered. "You see, it is really only a little fishing
+village. The rich people's places are situated all about it, here and
+there at various miles of distance, but no one with money lives in
+Weircombe itself."
+
+"Yet every one seems happy," said Helmsley thoughtfully.
+
+"Oh, yes, every one not only seems, but _is_ happy!" and the clergyman
+smiled. "They have the ordinary troubles that fall to the common lot, of
+course--but they are none of them discontented. There's very little
+drunkenness, and as a consequence, very little quarrelling. They are a
+good set of people--typically English of England!"
+
+"If some millionaire were to leave every man, woman, and child a
+thousand or more pounds apiece, I wonder what would happen?" suggested
+Helmsley.
+
+"Their joy would be turned to misery!" said the clergyman--"and their
+little heaven would become a hell! Fortunately for them, such a disaster
+is not likely to happen!"
+
+Helmsley was silent; and after his kindly visitor had left him that day
+sat for a long time absorbed in thought, his hands resting idly on the
+osiers which he was gradually becoming too weak to bend.
+
+It was now wearing on towards the middle of June, and on one fine
+morning when Mary was carefully spreading out on a mending-frame a
+wonderful old flounce of priceless _point d'Alenēon_ lace, preparatory
+to examining the numerous repairs it needed, Helmsley turned towards her
+abruptly with the question--
+
+"When are you and Angus going to be married, my dear?"
+
+Mary smiled, and the soft colour flew over her face at the suggestion.
+
+"Oh, not for a long time yet, David!" she replied. "Angus has not yet
+finished his book,--and even when it is all done, he has to get it
+published. He won't have the banns put up till the book is accepted."
+
+"Won't he?" And Helmsley's eyes grew very wistful. "Why not?"
+
+"Well, it's for quite a good reason, after all," she said. "He wants to
+feel perfectly independent. You see, if he could get even a hundred
+pounds down for his book he would be richer than I am, and it would be
+all right. He'd never marry me with nothing at all of his own."
+
+"Yet _you_ would marry him?"
+
+"I'm not sure that I would," and she lifted her hand with a prettily
+proud gesture. "You see, David, I really love him! And my love is too
+strong and deep for me to be so selfish as to wish to drag him down. I
+wouldn't have him lower his own self-respect for the world!"
+
+"Love is greater than self-respect!" said Helmsley.
+
+"Oh, David! You know better than that! There's no love _without_
+self-respect--no real love, I mean. There are certain kinds of stupid
+fancies called love--but they've no 'wear' in them!" and she laughed.
+"They wouldn't last a month, let alone a lifetime!"
+
+He sighed a little, and his lips trembled nervously.
+
+"I'm afraid, my dear,--I'm afraid I shall not live to see you married!"
+he said.
+
+She left her lace frame and came to his side.
+
+"Don't say that, David! You mustn't think it for a moment. You're much
+better than you were--even Mr. Bunce says so!"
+
+"Even Mr. Bunce!" And he took her hand in his own and studied its smooth
+whiteness and beautiful shape attentively--anon he patted it tenderly.
+"You have a pretty hand, Mary! It's a rare beauty!"
+
+"Is it?" And she looked at her rosy palm meditatively. "I've never
+thought much about it--but I've noticed that Angus and you both have
+nice hands."
+
+"Especially Angus!" said Helmsley, with a smile.
+
+Her face reflected the smile.
+
+"Yes. Especially Angus!"
+
+After this little conversation Helmsley was very quiet and thoughtful.
+Often indeed he sat with eyes closed, pretending to sleep, in order
+inwardly to meditate on the plans he had most at heart. He saw no reason
+to alter them,--though the idea presented itself once or twice as to
+whether he should not reveal his actual identity to the clergyman who
+visited him so often, and who was, apart from his sacred calling, not
+only a thinking, feeling, humane creature, but a very perfect gentleman.
+But on due reflection he saw that this might possibly lead to awkward
+complications, so he still resolved to pursue the safer policy of
+silence.
+
+One evening, when Angus Reay had come in as usual to sit awhile and chat
+with him before he went to bed, he could hardly control a slight nervous
+start when Reay observed casually--
+
+"By the way, David, that old millionaire I told you about, Helmsley,
+isn't dead after all!"
+
+"Oh--isn't he?" And Helmsley feigned to be affected with a troublesome
+cough which necessitated his looking away for a minute. "Has he turned
+up?"
+
+"Yes--he's turned up. That is to say, that he's expected back in town
+for the 'season,' as the Cooing Column of the paper says."
+
+"Why, what's the Cooing Column?" asked Mary, laughing.
+
+"The fashionable intelligence corner," answered Angus, joining in her
+laughter. "I call it the Cooing Column, because it's the place where all
+the doves of society, soiled and clean, get their little grain of
+personal advertisement. They pay for it, of course. There it is that the
+disreputable Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup gets it announced that she wore a
+collar of diamonds at the Opera, and there the battered, dissipated Lord
+'Jimmy' Jenkins has it proudly stated that his yacht is undergoing
+'extensive alterations.' Who in the real work-a-day, sane world cares a
+button whether his lordship Jenkins sails in his yacht or sinks in it!
+And Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup's diamonds are only so much fresh fuel piled
+on the burning anguish of starving and suffering men,--anguish which
+results in anarchy. Any number of anarchists are bred from the Cooing
+Column!"
+
+"What would you have rich men do?" asked Helmsley suddenly. "If all
+their business turns out much more successfully than they have ever
+expected, and they make millions almost despite their own desire, what
+would you have them do with their wealth?"
+
+Angus thought a moment.
+
+"It would be difficult to advise," he said at last. "For one thing I
+would not have them pauperise two of the finest things in this world and
+the best worth fighting for--Education and Literature. The man who has
+no struggle at all to get himself educated is only half a man. And
+literature which is handed to the people free of cost is shamed by being
+put at a lower level than beer and potatoes, for which every man has to
+_pay_. Andrew Carnegie I look upon as one of the world's big meddlers. A
+'cute' meddler too, for he takes care to do nothing that hasn't got his
+name tacked on to it. However, I'm in great hopes that his pauperising
+of Scottish University education may in time wear itself out, and that
+Scotsmen will be sufficiently true to the spirit of Robert Burns to
+stick to the business of working and paying for what they get. I hate
+all things that are given _gratis_. There's always a smack of the
+advertising agent about them. God Himself gives nothing 'free'--you've
+got to pay with your very life for each gulp of air you breathe,--and
+rightly too! And if you try to get something out of His creation
+_without_ paying for it, the bill is presented in due course with
+compound interest!"
+
+"I agree with you," said Helmsley. "But what, then, of the poor rich
+men? You don't approve of Carnegie's methods of disbursing wealth. What
+would you suggest?"
+
+"The doing of private good," replied Angus promptly. "Good that is never
+heard of, never talked of, never mentioned in the Cooing Column. A rich
+man could perform acts of the most heavenly and helpful kindness if he
+would only go about personally and privately among the very poor, make
+friends with them, and himself assist them. But he will hardly ever do
+this. Now the millionaire who is going to marry my first love, Lucy
+Sorrel----"
+
+"Oh, _is_ he going to marry her?" And Helmsley looked up with sudden
+interest.
+
+"Well, I suppose he is!" And Angus threw back his head and laughed.
+"He's to be back in town for the 'season'--and you know what the London
+'season' is!"
+
+"I'm sure we don't!" said Mary, with an amused glance. "Tell us!"
+
+"An endless round of lunches, dinners, balls, operas, theatres,
+card-parties, and inane jabber," he answered. "A mixture of various
+kinds of food which people eat recklessly with the natural
+results,--dyspepsia, inertia, mental vacuity, and general uselessness. A
+few Court 'functions,' some picture shows, and two or three great
+races--and--that's all. Some unfortunate marriages are usually the
+result of each year's motley."
+
+"And you think the millionaire you speak of will be one of the
+unfortunate ones?" said Helmsley.
+
+"Yes, David, I do! If he's going back to London for the season, Lucy
+Sorrel will never let him out of her sight again! She's made up her mind
+to be a Mrs. Millionaire, and she's not troubled by any
+over-sensitiveness or delicacy of sentiment."
+
+"That I quite believe--from what you have told me,"--and Helmsley
+smiled. "But what do the papers--what does the Cooing Column say?"
+
+"The Cooing Column says that one of the world's greatest millionaires,
+Mr. David Helmsley, who has been abroad for nearly a year for the
+benefit of his health, will return to his mansion in Carlton House
+Terrace this month for the 'season.'"
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"That's all. Mary, my bonnie Mary,"--and Angus put an arm tenderly round
+the waist of his promised wife--"Your husband may, perhaps--only
+perhaps!--become famous--but you'll never, never be a Mrs. Millionaire!"
+
+She laughed and blushed as he kissed her.
+
+"I don't want ever to be rich," she said. "I'd rather be poor!"
+
+They went out into the little garden then, with their arms
+entwined,--and Helmsley, seated in his chair under the rose-covered
+porch, watched them half in gladness, half in trouble. Was he doing well
+for them, he wondered? Or ill? Would the possession of wealth disturb
+the idyll of their contented lives, their perfect love? Almost he wished
+that he really were in very truth the forlorn and homeless wayfarer he
+had assumed to be,--wholly and irrevocably poor!
+
+That night in his little room, when everything was quiet, and Mary was
+soundly sleeping in the attic above him, he rose quietly from his bed,
+and lighting a candle, took pen and ink and made a few additions to the
+letter of instructions which accompanied his will. Some evenings
+previously, when Mary and Angus had gone out for a walk together, he had
+taken the opportunity to disburden his "workman's coat" of all the
+banknotes contained in the lining, and, folding them up in one parcel,
+had put them in a sealed envelope, which envelope he marked in a
+certain fashion, enclosing it in the larger envelope which contained his
+will. In the same way he made a small, neatly sealed packet of the
+"collection" made for him at the "Trusty Man" by poor Tom o' the Gleam,
+marking that also. Now, on this particular night, feeling that he had
+done all he could think of to make business matters fairly easy to deal
+with, he packed up everything in one parcel, which he tied with a string
+and sealed securely, addressing it to Sir Francis Vesey. This parcel he
+again enclosed in another, equally tied up and sealed, the outer wrapper
+of which he addressed to one John Bulteel at certain offices in London,
+which were in truth the offices of Vesey and Symonds, Bulteel being
+their confidential clerk. The fact that Angus Reay knew the name of the
+firm which had been mentioned in the papers as connected with the famous
+millionaire, David Helmsley, caused him to avoid inscribing it on the
+packet which would have to be taken to its destination immediately after
+his death. As he had now arranged things, it would be conveyed to the
+office unsuspectingly, and Bulteel, opening the first wrapper, would see
+that the contents were for Sir Francis, and would take them to him at
+once. Locking the packet in the little cupboard in the wall which Mary
+had given him, as she playfully said, "to keep his treasures in"--he
+threw himself again on his bed, and, thoroughly exhausted, tried to
+sleep.
+
+"It will be all right, I think!" he murmured to himself, as he closed
+his eyes wearily--"At any rate, so far as I am concerned, I have done
+with the world! God grant some good may come of my millions after I am
+dead! After I am dead! How strange it sounds! What will it seem like, I
+wonder,--to be dead?"
+
+And he suddenly thought of a poem he had read some years back,--one of
+the finest and most daring thoughts ever expressed in verse, from the
+pen of a fine and much neglected poet, Robert Buchanan:--
+
+    "Master, if there be Doom,
+      All men are bereaven!
+    If in the Universe
+    One Spirit receive the curse,
+      Alas for Heaven!
+    If there be Doom for one,
+    Thou, Master, art undone!
+    "Were I a Soul in Heaven,
+      Afar from pain;--
+    Yea, on thy breast of snow,
+    At the scream of one below,
+      I should scream again--
+    Art Thou less piteous than
+    The conception of a Man?"
+
+"No, no, not less piteous!" he murmured--"But surely infinitely more
+pitiful!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+And now there came a wondrous week of perfect weather. All the lovely
+Somersetshire coast lay under the warmth and brilliance of a dazzling
+sun,--the sea was smooth,--and small sailing skiffs danced merrily up
+and down from Minehead to Weircombe and back again with the ease and
+security of seabirds, whose happiest resting-place is on the waves. A
+lovely calm environed the little village,--it was not a haunt of cheap
+"trippers,"--and summer-time was not only a working-time, but a playing
+time too with all the inhabitants, both young and old. The shore, with
+its fine golden sand, warm with the warmth of the cloudless sky, was a
+popular resort, and Helmsley, though his physical weakness perceptibly
+increased, was often able to go down there, assisted by Mary and Angus,
+one on each side supporting him and guarding his movements. It pleased
+him to sit under the shelter of the rocks and watch the long shining
+ripples of ocean roll forwards and backwards on the shore in silvery
+lines, edged with delicate, lace-like fringes of foam,--and the slow,
+monotonous murmur of the gathering and dispersing water soothed his
+nerves and hushed a certain inward fretfulness of spirit which teased
+him now and then, but to which he bravely strove not to give way.
+Sometimes--but only sometimes--he felt that it was hard to die. Hard to
+be old just as he was beginning to learn how to live,--hard to pass out
+of the beauty and wonder of this present life with all its best joys
+scarcely experienced, and exchange the consciousness of what little he
+knew for something concerning which no one could honestly give him any
+authentic information.
+
+"Yet I might have said the same, had I been conscious, before I was
+born!" he thought. "In a former state of existence I might have said,
+'Why send me from this that I know and enjoy, to something which I have
+not seen and therefore cannot believe in?' Perhaps, for all I can tell,
+I did say it. And yet God had His way with me and placed me here--for
+what? Only to learn a lesson! That is truly all I have done. For the
+making of money is as nothing in the sight of Eternal Law,--it is
+merely man's accumulation of perishable matter, which, like all
+perishable things, is swept away in due course, while he who accumulated
+it is of no more account as a mere corpse than his poverty-stricken
+brother. What a foolish striving it all is! What envyings, spites,
+meannesses and miserable pettinesses arise from this greed of money!
+Yes, I have learned my lesson! I wonder whether I shall now be permitted
+to pass into a higher standard, and begin again!"
+
+These inner musings sometimes comforted and sometimes perplexed him, and
+often he was made suddenly aware of a strange and exhilarating
+impression of returning youthfulness--a buoyancy of feeling and a
+delightful ease, such as a man in full vigour experiences when, after
+ascending some glorious mountain summit, he sees the panorama of a world
+below him. His brain was very clear and active--and whenever he chose to
+talk, there were plenty of his humble friends ready to listen. One day
+the morning papers were full of great headlines announcing the
+assassination of one of the world's throned rulers, and the Weircombe
+fishermen, discussing the news, sought the opinion of "old David"
+concerning the matter. "Old David" was, however, somewhat slow to be
+drawn on so questionable a subject, but Angus Reay was not so reticent.
+
+"Why should kings spend money recklessly on their often filthy vices and
+pleasures," he demanded, "while thousands, ay, millions of their
+subjects starve? As long as such a wretched state of things exists, so
+long will there be Anarchy. But I know the head and front of the
+offending! I know the Chief of all the Anarchists!"
+
+"Lord bless us!" exclaimed Mrs. Twitt, who happened to be standing by.
+"Ye don't say so! Wot's' 'ee like?"
+
+"He's all shapes and sizes--all colours too!" laughed Angus. "He's
+simply the Irresponsible Journalist!"
+
+"As you were once!" suggested Helmsley, with a smile.
+
+"No, I was never 'irresponsible,'" declared Reay, emphatically. "I may
+have been faulty in the following of my profession, but I never wrote a
+line that I thought might cause uneasiness in the minds of the million.
+What I mean is, that the Irresponsible Journalist who gives more
+prominence to the doings of kings and queens and stupid 'society' folk,
+than to the actual work, thought, and progress of the nation at large,
+is making a forcing-bed for the growth of Anarchy. Consider the
+feelings of a starving man who reads in a newspaper that certain people
+in London give dinners to their friends at a cost of Two Guineas a head!
+Consider the frenzied passion of a father who sees his children dying of
+want, when he reads that the mistress of a king wears diamonds worth
+forty thousand pounds round her throat! If the balance of material
+things is for the present thus set awry, and such vile and criminal
+anachronisms exist, the proprietors of newspapers should have better
+sense than to flaunt them before the public eye as though they deserved
+admiration. The Anarchist at any rate has an ideal. It may be a mistaken
+ideal, but whatever it is, it is a desperate effort to break down a
+system which anarchists imagine is at the root of all the bribery,
+corruption, flunkeyism and money-grubbing of the world. Moreover, the
+Anarchist carries his own life in his hand, and the risk he runs can
+scarcely be for his pleasure. Yet he braves everything for the 'ideal,'
+which he fancies, if realised, will release others from the yoke of
+injustice and tyranny. Few people have any 'ideals' at all
+nowadays;--what they want to do is to spend as much as they like, and
+eat as much as they can. And the newspapers that persist in chronicling
+the amount of their expenditure and the extent of their appetites, are
+the real breeders and encouragers of every form of anarchy under the
+sun!"
+
+"You may be right," said Helmsley, slowly. "Indeed I fear you are! If
+one is to judge by old-time records, it was a kinder, simpler world when
+there was no daily press."
+
+"Man is an imitative animal," continued Reay. "The deeds he hears of,
+whether good or bad, he seeks to emulate. In bygone ages crime existed,
+of course, but it was not blazoned in headlines to the public. Good and
+brave deeds were praised and recorded, and as a consequence--perhaps as
+a result of imitation--there were many heroes. In our times a good or
+brave deed is squeezed into an obscure paragraph,--while intellect and
+brilliant talent receive scarcely any acknowledgment--the silly doings
+of 'society' and the Court are the chief matter,--hence, possibly, the
+preponderance of dunces and flunkeys, again produced by sheer
+'imitativeness.' Is it pleasant for a man with starvation at his door,
+to read that a king pays two thousand a year to his cook? That same two
+thousand comes out of the pockets of the nation--and the starving man
+thinks some of it ought to fall in _his_ way instead of providing for a
+cooker of royal victuals! There is no end to the mischief generated by
+the publication of such snobbish statements, whether true or false. This
+was the kind of irresponsible talk that set Jean-Jacques Rousseau
+thinking and writing, and kindling the first spark of the fire of the
+French Revolution. 'Royal-Flunkey' methods of journalism provoke deep
+resentment in the public mind,--for a king after all is only the paid
+servant of the people--he is not an idol or a deity to which an
+independent nation should for ever crook the knee. And from the
+smouldering anger of the million at what they conceive to be injustice
+and hypocrisy, springs Anarchy."
+
+"All very well said,--but now suppose you were a wealthy man, what would
+you do with your money?" asked Helmsley.
+
+Angus smiled.
+
+"I don't know, David!--I've never realised the position yet. But I
+should try to serve others more than to serve myself."
+
+The conversation ceased then, for Helmsley looked pale and exhausted. He
+had been on the seashore for the greater part of the afternoon, and it
+was now sunset. Yet he was very unwilling to return home, and it was
+only by gentle and oft-repeated persuasion that he at last agreed to
+leave his well-loved haunt, leaning as usual on Mary's arm, with Angus
+walking on the other side. Once or twice as he slowly ascended the
+village street he paused, and looked back at the tranquil loveliness of
+ocean, glimmering as with millions of rubies in the red glow of the
+sinking sun.
+
+"'And there shall be no more sea!'" he quoted, dreamily--"I should be
+sorry if that were true! One would miss the beautiful sea!--even in
+heaven!"
+
+He walked very feebly, and Mary exchanged one or two anxious glances
+with Angus. But on reaching the cottage again, his spirits revived.
+Seated in his accustomed chair, he smiled as the little dog, Charlie,
+jumped on his knee, and peered with a comically affectionate gravity
+into his face.
+
+"Asking me how I am, aren't you, Charlie!" he said, cheerfully--"I'm all
+right, wee man!--all right!"
+
+Apparently Charlie was not quite sure about it, for he declined to be
+removed from the position he had chosen, and snuggling close down on
+his master's lap, curled himself up in a silky ball and went to sleep,
+now and then opening a soft dark eye to show that his slumbers were not
+so profound as they seemed.
+
+That evening when Angus had gone, after saying a prolonged good-night to
+Mary in the little scented garden under the lovely radiance of an almost
+full moon, Helmsley called her to his side.
+
+"Mary!"
+
+She came at once, and put her arm around him. He looked up at her,
+smiling.
+
+"You think I'm very tired, I know," he said--"But I'm not. I--I want to
+say a word to you."
+
+Still keeping her arm round him, she patted his shoulder gently.
+
+"Yes, David! What is it?"
+
+"It is just this. You know I told you I had some papers that I valued,
+locked away in the little cupboard in my room?"
+
+"Yes. I know."
+
+"Well now,--when--when I die--will you promise me to take these papers
+yourself to the address that is written on them? That's all I ask of
+you! Will you?"
+
+"Of course I will!" she said, readily--"You know you've kept the key
+yourself since you got well from your bad fever last year----"
+
+"There is the key," he said, drawing it from his pocket, and holding it
+up to her--"Take it now!"
+
+"But why now----?" she began.
+
+"Because I wish it!" he answered, with a slight touch of
+obstinacy--then, smiling rather wistfully, he added, "It will comfort me
+to know you have it in your own possession. And Mary--promise me that
+you will let no one--not even Angus--see or touch these papers!--that
+you will take the parcel just as you find it, straight to the person to
+whom it is addressed, and deliver it yourself to him! I don't want you
+to _swear_, but I want you to put your dear kind hand in mine, and say
+'On my word of honour I will not open the packet old David has entrusted
+to me. When he dies I will take it my own self to the person to whom it
+is addressed, and wait till I am told that everything in it has been
+received and understood.' Will you, for my comfort, say these words
+after me, Mary?"
+
+"Of course I will!"
+
+And placing her hand in his, she repeated it slowly word for word. He
+watched her closely as she spoke, her eyes gazing candidly into his own.
+Then he heaved a deep sigh.
+
+"Thank you, my dear! That will do. God bless you! And now to bed!"
+
+He rose somewhat unsteadily, and she saw he was very weak.
+
+"Don't you feel so well, David?" she asked, anxiously. "Would you like
+me to sit up with you?"
+
+"No, no, my dear, no! All I want is a good sleep--a good long sleep. I'm
+only tired."
+
+She saw him into his room, and, according to her usual custom, put a
+handbell on the small table which was at the side of his bed. Charlie,
+trotting at her heels, suddenly began to whimper. She stooped and picked
+the little creature up in her arms.
+
+"Mind you ring if you want me," she said to Helmsley then,--"I'm just
+above you, and I can hear the least sound."
+
+He looked at her earnestly. His eyes were almost young in their
+brightness.
+
+"God bless you, Mary!" he said--"You've been a good angel to me! I never
+quite believed in Heaven, but looking at you I know there is such a
+place--the place where you were born!"
+
+She smiled--but her eyes were soft with unshed tears.
+
+"You think too well of me, David," she said. "I'm not an angel--I wish I
+were! I'm only a very poor, ordinary sort of woman."
+
+"Are you?" he said, and smiled--"Well, think so, if it pleases you.
+Good-night--and again God bless you!"
+
+He patted the tiny head of the small Charlie, whom she held nestling
+against her breast.
+
+"Good-night, Charlie!"
+
+The little dog licked his hand and looked at him wistfully.
+
+"Don't part with him, Mary!" he said, suddenly--"Let him always have a
+home with you!"
+
+"Now, David! You really are tired out and over-melancholy! As if I
+should ever part with him!" And she kissed Charlie's silky head--"We'll
+all keep together! Good-night, David!"
+
+"Good-night!" he answered. He watched her as she went through the
+doorway, holding the dog in her arms and turning back to smile at him
+over her shoulder--anon he listened to her footfall ascending the
+stairway to her own room--then, to her gentle movements to and fro above
+his bed--till presently all was silent. Silence--except for the measured
+plash of the sea, which he heard distinctly echoing up through the
+coombe from the shore. A great loneliness environed him--touched by a
+great awe. He felt himself to be a solitary soul in the midst of some
+vast desert, yet not without the consciousness that a mystic joy, an
+undreamed-of glory, was drawing near that should make that desert
+"blossom like the rose." He moved slowly and feebly to the
+window--against one-half of the latticed pane leaned a bunch of white
+roses, shining with a soft pearl hue in the light of a lovely moon.
+
+"It is a beautiful world!" he said, half aloud--"No one in his right
+mind could leave it without some regret!"
+
+Then an inward voice seemed to whisper to him--
+
+"You knew nothing of this world you call so beautiful before you entered
+it; may there not be another world still more beautiful of which you
+equally know nothing, but of which you are about to make an experience,
+all life being a process of continuous higher progress?"
+
+And this idea now not only seemed to him possible but almost a
+certainty. For as our last Laureate expresses it:--
+
+    "Whatever crazy sorrow saith,
+    No life that breathes with human breath
+    Has ever truly longed for death.
+    'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant,
+    Oh life, not death, for which we pant--
+    More life, and fuller, that I want!"
+
+His brain was so active and his memory so clear that he was somewhat
+surprised to feel his body so feeble and aching, when at last he
+undressed, and lay down to sleep. He thought of many things--of his
+boyhood's home out in Virginia--of the stress and excitement of his
+business career--of his extraordinary successes, piled one on the top of
+the other--and then of the emptiness of it all!
+
+"I should have been happier and wiser," he said, "if I had lived the
+life of a student in some quiet home among the hills--where I should
+have seen less of men and learned more of God. But it is too late
+now--too late!"
+
+And a curious sorrow and pity moved him for certain men he knew who were
+eating up the best time of their lives in a mad struggle for money,
+losing everything of real value in their scramble for what was, after
+all, so valueless,--sacrificing peace, honour, love, and a quiet mind,
+for what in the eternal countings is of no more consideration than the
+dust of the highroad. Not what a man _has_, but what he _is_,--this is
+the sole concern of Divine Equity. Earthly ideas of justice are in
+direct opposition to this law, but the finite can never overbalance the
+infinite. We may, if we so please, honour a king as king,--but with God
+there are no kings. There are only Souls, "made in His image." And
+whosoever defaces that Divine Image, whether he be base-born churl or
+crowned potentate, must answer for the wicked deed. How many of us view
+our social acquaintances from any higher standard than the extent of
+their cash accounts, or the "usefulness" of their influence? Yet the
+inexorable Law works silently on,--and day after day, century after
+century, shows us the vanity of riches, the fall of pride and power, the
+triumph of genius, the immutability of love! And we are still turning
+over the well-worn pages of the same old school-book which was set
+before Tyre and Sidon, Carthage and Babylon--the same, the very same,
+with one saving exception--that a Divine Teacher came to show us how to
+spell it and read it aright--and He was crucified! Doubtless were He to
+come again and once more try to help us, we should re-enact that
+old-time Jewish murder!
+
+Lying quietly in his bed, Helmsley conversed with his inner self, as it
+were, reasoning with his own human perplexities and gradually
+unravelling them. After all, if his life had been, as he considered,
+only a lesson, was it not good for him that he had learned that lesson?
+A passing memory of Lucy Sorrel flitted across his brain--and he thought
+how singular it was that chance should have brought him into touch with
+the very man who would have given her that "rose of love" he desired she
+should wear, had she realised the value and beauty of that immortal
+flower. He, David Helmsley, had been apparently led by devious ways, not
+only to find an unselfish love for himself, but also to be the
+instrument of atoning to Angus Reay for his first love-disappointment,
+and uniting him to a woman whose exquisitely tender and faithful nature
+was bound to make the joy and sanctity of his life. In this, had not
+all things been ordered well? Did it not seem that, notwithstanding his,
+Helmsley's, self-admitted worthlessness, the Divine Power had used him
+for the happiness of others, to serve as a link of love between two
+deserving souls? He began to think that it was not by chance that he had
+been led to wander away from the centre of his business interests, and
+lose himself on the hills above Weircombe. Not accident, but a high
+design had been hidden in this incident--a design in which Self had been
+transformed to Selflessness, and loneliness to love. "I should like to
+believe in God--if I could!" This he had said to his friend Vesey, on
+the last night he had seen him. And now--did he believe? Yes!--for he
+had benefited by his first experience of what a truly God-like love may
+be--the love of a perfectly unselfish, tender, devout woman who, for no
+motive at all, but simply out of pure goodness and compassion for sorrow
+and suffering, had rescued one whom she judged to be in need of help. If
+therefore God could make one poor woman so divinely forbearing and
+gentle, it was certain that He, from whom all Love must emanate, was yet
+more merciful than the most merciful woman, as well as stronger than the
+strongest man. And he believed--believed implicitly;--lifted to the
+height of a perfect faith by the help of a perfect love. In the mirror
+of one sweet and simple human character he had seen the face of God--and
+he was of the same mind as the mighty musician who, when he was dying,
+cried out in rapture--"I believe I am only at the Beginning!"[2] He was
+conscious of a strange dual personality,--some spirit within him
+urgently expressed itself as being young, clamorous, inquisitive, eager,
+and impatient of restraint, while his natural bodily self was so weary
+and feeble that he felt as if he could scarcely move a hand. He listened
+for a little while to the ticking of the clock in the kitchen which was
+next to his room,--and by and by, being thoroughly drowsy, he sank into
+a heavy slumber. He did not know that Mary, anxious about him, had not
+gone to bed at all, but had resolved to sit up all night in case he
+should call her or want for anything. But the hours wore on peacefully
+for him till the moon began her downward course towards the west, and
+the tide having rolled in to its highest mark, began to ebb and flow out
+again. Then--all at once--he awoke--smitten by
+a shock of pain that seemed to crash through his heart and send his
+brain swirling into a blind chaos. Struggling for breath, he sprang up
+in his bed, and instinctively snatched the handbell at his side. He was
+hardly aware of ringing it, so great was his agony--but presently,
+regaining a glimmering sense of consciousness, he found Mary's arms
+round him, and saw Mary's eyes looking tenderly into his own.
+
+"David, dear David!" And the sweet voice was shaken by tears.
+"David!--Oh, my poor dear, don't you know me?"
+
+Know her? In the Valley of the Shadow what other Angel could there be so
+faithful or so tender! He sighed, leaning heavily against her bosom.
+
+"Yes, dear--I know you!" he gasped, faintly. "But--I am very ill--dying,
+I think! Open the window--give me air!"
+
+She laid his head gently back on the pillow, and ran quickly to throw
+open the lattice. In that same moment, the dog Charlie, who had followed
+her downstairs from her room, jumped on the bed, and finding his
+master's hand lying limp and pallid outside the coverlet, fawned upon it
+with a plaintive cry. The cool sea-air rushed in, and Helmsley's sinking
+strength revived. He turned his eyes gratefully towards the stream of
+silvery moonlight that poured through the open casement.
+
+"'Angels ever bright and fair!'" he murmured--then as Mary came back to
+his side, he smiled vaguely; "I thought I heard my little sister
+singing!"
+
+Slipping her arm again under his head, she carefully administered a dose
+of the cordial which had been made up for him as a calmative against his
+sudden heart attacks.
+
+He swallowed it slowly and with difficulty.
+
+"I'm--I'm all right," he said, feebly. "The pain has gone. I'm sorry to
+have wakened you up, Mary!--but you're always kind and patient----"
+
+His voice broke--and a grey pallor began to steal almost imperceptibly
+upwards over his wasted features. She watched him, her heart beating
+fast with grief and terror,--the tears rushing to her eyes in spite of
+her efforts to restrain them. For she saw that he was dying. The
+solemnly musical plash of the sea sounded rhythmically upon the quiet
+air like the soothing murmur of a loving mother's lullaby, and the
+radiance of the moonlight flooded the little room with mystical glory.
+In her womanly tenderness she drew him more protectingly into the
+embrace of her kind arm, as though seeking to hold him back from the
+abyss of the Unknown, and held his head close against her breast. He
+opened his eyes and saw her thus bending over him. A smile brightened
+his face--a smile of youth, and hope, and confidence.
+
+"The end is near, Mary!" he said in a clear, calm voice; "but--it's not
+difficult! There is no pain. And you are with me. That is enough!--that
+is more than I ever hoped for!--more than I deserve! God bless you
+always!"
+
+He shut his eyes again--but opened them quickly in a sudden struggle for
+breath.
+
+"The papers!" he gasped. "Mary--Mary--you won't forget--your promise!"
+
+"No, David!--dear David!" she sobbed. "I won't forget!"
+
+The paroxysm passed, and his hand wandered over the coverlet, where it
+encountered the soft, crouching head of the little dog who was lying
+close to him, shivering in every limb.
+
+"Why, here's Charlie!" he whispered, weakly. "Poor wee Charlie! 'Take
+care of me' is written on his collar. Mary will take care of you,
+Charlie!--good-bye, little man!"
+
+He lay quiet then, but his eyes were wide open, gazing not upward, but
+straight ahead, as though they saw some wondrous vision in the little
+room.
+
+"Strange!--strange that I did not know all this before!" he
+murmured--and then was silent, still gazing straight before him. All at
+once a great shudder shook his body--and his thin features grew suddenly
+pinched and wan.
+
+"It is almost morning!" he said, and his voice was like an echo of
+itself from very far away. "The sun will rise--but I shall not be here
+to see the sun or you, Mary!" and rallying his fast ebbing strength he
+turned towards her. "Keep your arms about me!--pray for me!--God will
+hear you--God must hear His own! Don't cry, dear! Kiss me!"
+
+She kissed him, clasping his poor frail form to her heart as though he
+were a child, and tenderly smoothing back his venerable snow-white
+hair. A slumbrous look of perfect peace softened the piteousness of his
+dying eyes.
+
+"The only treasure!" he murmured, faintly. "The treasure of
+Heaven--Love! God bless you for giving it to me, Mary!--good-bye, my
+dear!"
+
+"Not good-bye, David!" she cried. "No--not good-bye!"
+
+"Yes--good-bye!" he said,--and then, as another strong shudder convulsed
+him, he made a last feeble effort to lay his head against her bosom.
+"Don't let me go, Mary! Hold me!--closer!--closer! Your heart is warm,
+ah, so warm, Mary!--and death is cold--cold----!"
+
+Another moment--and the moonlight, streaming through the open window,
+fell on the quiet face of a dead man. Then came silence--broken only by
+the gentle murmur of the sea, and the sound of a woman's weeping.
+
+[Footnote 2: Beethoven.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+Not often is the death of a man, who to all appearances was nothing more
+than a "tramp," attended by any demonstrations of sorrow. There are so
+many "poor" men! The roads are infested with them. It would seem, in
+fact, that they have no business to live at all, especially when they
+are old, and can do little or nothing to earn their bread. Such,
+generally and roughly speaking, is the opinion of the matter-of-fact
+world. Nevertheless, the death of "old David" created quite an
+atmosphere of mourning in Weircombe, though, had it been known that he
+was one of the world's famous millionaires, such kindly regret and
+compassion might have been lacking. As things were, he carried his
+triumph of love to the grave with him. Mary's grief for the loss of the
+gentle old man was deep and genuine, and Angus Reay shared it with her
+to the full.
+
+"I shall miss him so much!" she sobbed, looking at the empty chair,
+which had been that of her own father. "He was always so kind and
+thoughtful for me--never wishing to give trouble!--poor dear old
+David!--and he did so hope to see us married, Angus!--you know it was
+through him that we knew each other!"
+
+"I know!"--and Angus, profoundly moved, was not ashamed of the tears in
+his own eyes--"God bless him! He was a dear, good old fellow! But, Mary,
+you must not fret; he would not like to see your pretty eyes all red
+with weeping. This life was getting very difficult for him,
+remember,--he endured a good deal of pain. Bunce says he must have
+suffered acutely often without saying a word about it, lest you should
+be anxious. He is at rest now."
+
+"Yes, he is at rest!"--and Mary struggled to repress her tears--"Come
+and see!"
+
+Hand in hand they entered the little room where the dead man lay,
+covered with a snowy sheet, his waxen hands crossed peacefully outside
+it, and delicate clusters of white roses and myrtle laid here and there
+around him. His face was like a fine piece of sculptured marble in its
+still repose--the gravity and grandeur of death had hallowed the worn
+features of old age, and given them a great sweetness and majesty. The
+two lovers stood gazing at the corpse for a moment in silent awe--then
+Mary whispered softly--
+
+"He seems only asleep! And he looks happy."
+
+"He _is_ happy, dear!--he must be happy!"--and Angus drew her gently
+away. "Poor and helpless as he was, still he found a friend in you at
+the last, and now all his troubles are over. He has gone to Heaven with
+the help and blessing of your kind and tender heart, my Mary! I am sure
+of that!"
+
+She sighed, and her eyes were clouded with sadness.
+
+"Heaven seems very far away sometimes!" she said. "And--often I
+wonder--what _is_ Heaven?"
+
+"Love!" he answered--"Love made perfect--Love that knows no change and
+no end! 'Nothing is sweeter than love; nothing stronger, nothing higher,
+nothing broader, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in
+heaven and in earth, for love is born of God, and can rest only in God
+above all things created.'"
+
+He quoted the beautiful words from the _Imitation of Christ_ reverently
+and tenderly.
+
+"Is that not true, my Mary?" he said, kissing her.
+
+"Yes, Angus! For _us_ I know it is true!--I wish it were true for all
+the world!"
+
+And then there came a lovely day, perfectly brilliant and intensely
+calm, on which "old David," was quietly buried in the picturesque little
+churchyard of Weircombe. Mary and Angus together had chosen his
+resting-place, a grassy knoll swept by the delicate shadows of a noble
+beech-tree, and facing the blue expanse of the ocean. Every man who had
+known and talked with him in the village offered to contribute to the
+expenses of his funeral, which, however, were very slight. The good
+Vicar would accept no burial fee, and all who knew the story of the old
+"tramp's" rescue from the storm by Mary Deane, and her gentle care of
+him afterwards, were anxious to prove that they too were not destitute
+of that pure and true charity which "suffereth long and is kind." Had
+David Helmsley been buried as David Helmsley the millionaire, it is more
+than likely that he might not have had one sincere mourner at his grave,
+with the exception of his friend, Sir Francis Vesey, and his valet
+Benson. There would have been a few "business" men,--and some empty
+carriages belonging to fashionable folk sent out of so-called "respect";
+but of the many he had entertained, assisted and benefited, not one
+probably would have taken the trouble to pay him, so much as a last
+honour. As the poor tramping old basket-maker, whose failing strength
+would not allow him to earn much of a living, his simple funeral was
+attended by nearly a whole village,--honest men who stood respectfully
+bareheaded as the coffin was lowered into the grave--kind-hearted women
+who wept for "poor lonely soul"--as they expressed it,--and little
+children who threw knots of flowers into that mysterious dark hole in
+the ground "where people went to sleep for a little, and then came out
+again as angels"--as their parents told them. It was a simple ceremony,
+performed in a spirit of perfect piety, and without any hypocrisy or
+formality. And when it was all over, and the villagers had dispersed to
+their homes, Mr. Twitt on his way "down street," as he termed it, from
+the churchyard, paused at Mary Deane's cottage to unburden his mind of a
+weighty resolution.
+
+"Ye see, Mis' Deane, it's like this," he said--"I as good as promised
+the poor old gaffer as I'd do 'im a tombstone for nuthin', an' I'm 'ere
+to say as I aint a-goin' back on that. But I must take my time on it.
+I'd like to think out a speshul hepitaph--an' doin' portry takes a bit
+of 'ard brain work. So when the earth's set down on 'is grave a bit, an'
+the daisies is a-growin' on the grass, I'll mebbe 'ave got an idea
+wot'll please ye. 'E aint left any mossel o' paper writ out like, with
+wot 'e'd like put on 'im, I s'pose?"
+
+Mary felt the colour rush to her face.
+
+"N--no! Not that I know of, Mr. Twitt," she said. "He has left a few
+papers which I promised him I would take to a friend of his, but I
+haven't even looked at them yet, and don't know to whom they are
+addressed. If I find anything I'll let you know."
+
+"Ay, do so!" and Twitt rubbed his chin meditatively. "I wouldn't run
+agin' 'is wishes for anything if ser be I can carry 'em out. I considers
+as 'e wor a very fine sort--gentle as a lamb, an' grateful for all wot
+was done for 'im, an' I wants to be as friendly to 'im in 'is death as I
+wos in 'is life--ye understand?"
+
+"Yes--I know--I quite understand," said Mary. "But there's plenty of
+time---"
+
+"Yes, there's plenty of time!" agreed Twitt. "But, lor,' if you could
+only know what a pain it gives me in the 'ed to work the portry out of
+it, ye wouldn't wonder at my preparin' ye, as 'twere. Onny I wishes ye
+just to understand that it'll all be done for love--an' no charge."
+
+Mary thanked him smiling, yet with tears in her eyes, and he strolled
+away down the street in his usual slow and somewhat casual manner.
+
+That evening,--the evening of the day on which all that was mortal of
+"old David" had been committed to the gentle ground, Mary unlocked the
+cupboard of which he had given her the key on the last night of his
+life, and took out the bulky packet it contained. She read the
+superscription with some surprise and uneasiness. It was addressed to a
+Mr. Bulteel, in a certain street near Chancery Lane, London. Now Mary
+had never been to London in her life. The very idea of going to that
+vast unknown metropolis half scared her, and she sat for some minutes,
+with the sealed packet in her lap, quite confused and troubled.
+
+"Yet I made the promise!" she said to herself--"And I dare not break it!
+I must go. And I must not tell Angus anything about it--that's the worst
+part of all!"
+
+She gazed wistfully at the packet,--anon she turned it over and over. It
+was sealed in several places--but the seal had no graven impress, the
+wax having merely been pressed with the finger.
+
+"I must go!" she repeated. "I'm bound to deliver it myself to the man
+for whom it is intended. But what a journey it will be! To London!"
+
+Absorbed in thought, she started as a tap came at the cottage door,--and
+rising, she hurriedly put the package out of sight, just as Angus
+entered.
+
+"Mary," he said, as he came towards her--"Do you know, I've been
+thinking we had better get quietly married as soon as possible?"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"Why? Is the book finished?" she asked.
+
+"No, it isn't. I wish it was! But it will be finished in another
+month----"
+
+"Then let us wait that other month," she said. "You will be happier, I
+know, if the work is off your mind."
+
+"Yes--I shall be happier--but Mary, I can't bear to think of you all
+alone in this little cottage----"
+
+She gently interrupted him.
+
+"I was all alone for five years after my father died," she said. "And
+though I was sometimes a little sad, I was not dull, because I always
+had work to do. Dear old David was a good companion, and it was pleasant
+to take care of him--indeed, this last year has been quite a happy one
+for me, and I shan't find it hard to live alone in the cottage for just
+a month now. Don't worry about me, Angus!"
+
+He stooped and picked up Charlie, who, since his master's death, had
+been very dispirited.
+
+"You see, Mary," he said, as he fondled the little dog and stroked its
+silky hair--"nothing will alter the fact that you are richer than I am.
+You do regular work for which you get regular pay--now I have no settled
+work at all, and not much chance of pay, even for the book on which I've
+been spending nearly a year of my time. You've got a house which you can
+keep going--and very soon I shall not be able to afford so much as a
+room!--think of that! And yet--I have the impertinence to ask you to
+marry me! Forgive me, dear! It is, as you say, better to wait."
+
+She came and entwined her arms about him.
+
+"I'll wait a month," she said--"No longer, Angus! By that time, if you
+don't marry me, I shall summons you for breach of promise!"
+
+She smiled--but he still remained thoughtful.
+
+"Angus!" she said suddenly--"I want to tell you--I shall have to go away
+from Weircombe for a day--perhaps two days."
+
+He looked surprised.
+
+"Go away!" he echoed. "What for? Where to?"
+
+She told him then of "old David's" last request to her, and of the duty
+she had undertaken to perform.
+
+He listened gravely.
+
+"You must do it, of course," he said. "But will you have to travel far?"
+
+"Some distance from Weircombe," she answered, evasively.
+
+"May I not go with you?" he asked.
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"I promised----" she began.
+
+"And you shall not break your word," he said, kissing her. "You are so
+true, my Mary, that I wouldn't tempt you to change one word or even half
+a word of what you have said to any one, living or dead. When do you
+want to take this journey?"
+
+"To-morrow, or the next day," she said. "I'll ask Mrs. Twitt to see to
+the house and look after Charlie, and I'll be back again as quickly as I
+can. Because, when I've given the papers over to David's friend, whoever
+he is, I shall have nothing more to do but just come home."
+
+This being settled, it was afterwards determined that the next day but
+one would be the most convenient for her to go, as she could then avail
+herself of the carrier's cart to take her as far as Minehead. But she
+was not allowed to start on her unexpected travels without a burst of
+prophecy from Mrs. Twitt.
+
+"As I've said an' allus thought," said that estimable lady--"Old David
+'ad suthin' 'idden in 'is 'art wot 'e never giv' away to nobody. Mark my
+words, Mis' Deane!--'e 'ad a sin or a sorrer at the back of 'im, an'
+whichever it do turn out to be I'm not a-goin' to blame 'im either way,
+for bein' dead 'e's dead, an' them as sez unkind o' the dead is apt to
+be picked morsels for the devil's gridiron. But now that you've got a
+packet to take to old David's friends somewheres, you may take my word
+for 't, Mis' Deane, you'll find out as 'e was wot ye didn't expect. Onny
+last night, as I was a-sittin' afore the kitchen fire, for though bein'
+summer I'm that chilly that I feels the least change in the temper o'
+the sea,--as I was a-sittin', I say, out jumps a cinder as long as a
+pine cone, red an' glowin' like a candle at the end. An' I stares at the
+thing, an' I sez: 'That's either a purse o' money, or a journey with a
+coffin at the end'--an' the thing burns an' shines like a reg'lar spark
+of old Nick's cookin' stove, an' though I pokes an' pokes it, it won't
+go out, but lies on the 'erth, frizzlin' all the time. An' I do 'ope,
+Mis' Deane, as now yer goin' off to 'and over old David's effecks to the
+party interested, ye'll come back safe, for the poor old dear 'adn't a
+penny to bless 'isself with, so the cinder must mean the journey, an'
+bein' warned, ye'll guard agin the coffin at the end."
+
+Mary smiled rather sadly.
+
+"I'll take care!" she said. "But I don't think anything very serious is
+likely to happen. Poor old David had no friends,--and probably the few
+papers he has left are only for some relative who would not do anything
+for him while he was alive, but who, all the same, has to be told that
+he is dead."
+
+"Maybe so!" and Mrs. Twitt nodded her head profoundly--"But that cinder
+worn't made in the fire for nowt! Such a shape as 'twas don't grow out
+of the flames twice in twenty year!"
+
+And, with the conviction of the village prophetess she assumed to be,
+she was not to be shaken from the idea that strange discoveries were
+pending respecting "old David." Mary herself could not quite get rid of
+a vague misgiving and anxiety, which culminated at last in her
+determination to show Angus Reay the packet left in her charge, in order
+that he might see to whom it was addressed.
+
+"For that can do no harm," she thought--"I feel that he really ought to
+know that I have to go all the way to London."
+
+Angus, however, on reading the superscription, was fully as perplexed as
+she was. He was familiar with the street near Chancery Lane where the
+mysterious "Mr. Bulteel" lived, but the name of Bulteel as a resident in
+that street was altogether unknown to him. Presently a bright idea
+struck him.
+
+"I have it!" he said. "Look here, Mary, didn't David say he used to be
+employed in office-work?"
+
+"Yes," she answered,--"He had to give up his situation, so I understand,
+on account of old age."
+
+"Then that makes it clear," Angus declared. "This Mr. Bulteel is
+probably a man who worked with him in the same office--perhaps the only
+link he had with his past life. I think you'll find that's the way it
+will turn out. But I hate to think of your travelling to London all
+alone!--for the first time in your life, too!"
+
+"Oh well, that doesn't matter much!" she said, cheerfully,--"Now that
+you know where I am going, it's all right. You forget, Angus!--I'm quite
+old enough to take care of myself. How many times must I remind you that
+you are engaged to be married to an old maid of thirty-five? You treat
+me as if I were quite a young girl!"
+
+"So I do--and so I will!" and his eyes rested upon her with a proud look
+of admiration. "For you _are_ young, Mary--young in your heart and soul
+and nature--younger than any so-called young girl I ever met, and
+twenty times more beautiful. So there!"
+
+She smiled gravely.
+
+"You are easily satisfied, Angus," she said--"But the world will not
+agree with you in your ideas of me. And when you become a famous
+man----"
+
+"If I become a famous man----" he interrupted.
+
+"No--not 'if'--I say 'when,'" she repeated. "When you become a famous
+man, people will say, 'what a pity he did not marry some one younger and
+more suited to his position----"
+
+She could speak no more, for Angus silenced her with a kiss.
+
+"Yes, what a pity it will be!" he echoed. "What a pity! When other men,
+less fortunate, see that I have won a beautiful and loving wife, whose
+heart is all my own,--who is pure and true as the sun in heaven,--'what
+a pity,' they will say, 'that we are not so lucky!' That's what the talk
+will be, Mary! For there's no man on earth who does not crave to be
+loved for himself alone--a selfish wish, perhaps--but it's implanted in
+every son of Adam. And a man's life is always more or less spoilt by
+lack of the love he needs."
+
+She put her arms round his neck, and her true eyes looked straightly
+into his own.
+
+"Your life will not be spoilt that way, dear!" she said. "Trust me for
+that!"
+
+"Do I not know it!" he answered, passionately. "And would I not lose the
+whole world, with all its chances of fame and fortune, rather than lose
+_you_!"
+
+And in their mutual exchange of tenderness and confidence they forgot
+all save
+
+    "The time and place
+    And the loved one all together!"
+
+It was a perfect summer's morning when Mary, for the first time in many
+years, left her little home in Weircombe and started upon a journey she
+had never taken and never had thought of taking--a journey which, to her
+unsophisticated mind, seemed fraught with strange possibilities of
+difficulty, even of peril. London had loomed upon her horizon through
+the medium of the daily newspaper, as a vast over-populated city where
+(if she might believe the press) humanity is more selfish than
+generous, more cruel than kind,--where bitter poverty and starvation are
+seen side by side with criminal extravagance and luxury,--and where,
+according to her simple notions, the people were forgetting or had
+forgotten God. It was with a certain lingering and wistful backward look
+that she left her little cottage embowered among roses, and waved
+farewell to Mrs. Twitt, who, standing at the garden gate with Charlie in
+her arms, waved hearty response, cheerfully calling out "Good Luck!"
+after her, and adding the further assurance--"Ye'll find everything as
+well an' straight as ye left it when ye comes 'ome, please God!"
+
+Angus Reay accompanied her in the carrier's cart to Minehead, and there
+she caught the express to London. On enquiry, she found there was a
+midnight train which would bring her back from the metropolis at about
+nine o'clock the next morning, and she resolved to travel home by it.
+
+"You will be so tired!" said Angus, regretfully. "And yet I would rather
+you did not stay away a moment longer than you can help!"
+
+"Don't fear!" and she smiled. "You cannot be a bit more anxious for me
+to come back than I am to come back myself! Good-bye! It's only for a
+day!"
+
+She waved her hand as the train steamed out of the station, and he
+watched her sweet face smiling at him to the very last, when the
+express, gathering speed, rushed away with her and whirled her into the
+far distance. A great depression fell upon his soul,--all the light
+seemed gone out of the landscape--all the joy out of his life--and he
+realised, as it were suddenly, what her love meant to him.
+
+"It is everything!" he said. "I don't believe I could write a line
+without her!--in fact I know I wouldn't have the heart for it! She is so
+different to every woman I have ever known,--she seems to make the world
+all warm and kind by just smiling her own bonnie smile!"
+
+And starting off to walk part of the way back to Weircombe, he sang
+softly under his breath as he went a verse of "Annie Laurie"--
+
+    "Like dew on the gowan lyin'
+      Is the fa' o' her fairy feet;
+    And like winds in simmer sighin'
+      Her voice is low an' sweet
+     Her voice is low an' sweet;
+    An' she's a' the world to me;
+      An' for bonnie Annie Laurie
+    I'd lay me doun and dee!"
+
+And all the beautiful influences of nature,--the bright sunshine, the
+wealth of June blossom, the clear skies and the singing of birds, seemed
+part of that enchanting old song, expressing the happiness which alone
+is made perfect by love.
+
+Meanwhile, no adventures of a startling or remarkable kind occurred to
+Mary during her rather long and tedious journey. Various passengers got
+into her third-class compartment and got out again, but they were
+somewhat dull and commonplace folk, many of them being of that curiously
+unsociable type of human creature which apparently mistrusts its
+fellows. Contrary to her ingenuous expectation, no one seemed to think a
+journey to London was anything of a unique or thrilling experience. Once
+only, when she was nearing her destination, did she venture to ask a
+fellow-passenger, an elderly man with a kindly face, how she ought to go
+to Chancery Lane. He looked at her with a touch of curiosity.
+
+"That's among the hornets' nests," he said.
+
+She raised her pretty eyebrows with a little air of perplexity.
+
+"Hornets' nests?"
+
+"Yes. Where a good many lawyers live, or used to live."
+
+"Oh, I see!" And she smiled responsively to what he evidently intended
+as a brilliant satirical joke. "But is it easy to get there?"
+
+"Quite easy. Take a 'bus."
+
+"From the station?"
+
+"Of course!"
+
+And he subsided into silence.
+
+She asked no more questions, and on her arrival at Paddington confided
+her anxieties to a friendly porter, who, announcing that he was "from
+Somerset born himself and would see her through," gave her concise
+directions which she attentively followed; with the result that despite
+much bewilderment in getting in and getting out of omnibuses, and
+jostling against more people than she had ever seen in the course of her
+whole life, she found herself at last at the entrance of a rather
+obscure-looking smutty little passage, guarded by a couple of round
+columns, on which were painted in black letters a considerable number of
+names, among which were those of "Vesey and Symonds." The numeral
+inscribed above the entrance to this passage corresponded to the number
+on the address of the packet which she carried for "Mr. Bulteel"--but
+though she read all the names on the two columns, "Bulteel" was not
+among them. Nevertheless, she made her way perseveringly into what
+seemed nothing but a little blind alley leading nowhere, and as she did
+so, a small boy came running briskly down a flight of dark stairs, which
+were scarcely visible from the street, and nearly knocked her over.
+
+"'Ullo! Beg pardon 'm! Which office d' ye want?"
+
+"Is there," began Mary, in her gentle voice--"is there a Mr.
+Bulteel----?"
+
+"Bulteel? Yes--straight up--second floor--third door--Vesey and
+Symonds!"
+
+With these words jerked out of himself at lightning speed, the boy
+rushed past her and disappeared.
+
+With a beating heart Mary cautiously climbed the dark staircase which he
+had just descended. When she reached the second floor, she paused. There
+were three doors all facing her,--on the first one was painted the name
+of "Sir Francis Vesey"--on the second "Mr. John Symonds"--and on the
+third "Mr. Bulteel." As soon as she saw this last, she heaved a little
+sigh of relief, and going straight up to it knocked timidly. It was
+opened at once by a young clerk who looked at her questioningly.
+
+"Mr. Bulteel?" she asked, hesitatingly.
+
+"Yes. Have you an appointment?"
+
+"No. I am quite a stranger," she said. "I only wish to tell Mr. Bulteel
+of the death of some one he knows."
+
+The clerk glanced at her and seemed dubious.
+
+"Mr. Bulteel is very busy," he began--"and unless you have an
+appointment----"
+
+"Oh, please let me see him!" And Mary's eyes almost filled with tears.
+"See!"--and she held up before him the packet she carried. "I've
+travelled all the way from Weircombe, in Somerset, to bring him this
+from his dead friend, and I promised to give it to him myself. Please,
+please do not turn me away!"
+
+The clerk stared hard at the superscription on the packet, as he well
+might. For he had at once recognised the handwriting of David Helmsley.
+But he suppressed every outward sign of surprise, save such as might
+appear in a glance of unconcealed wonder at Mary herself. Then he said
+briefly--
+
+"Come in!"
+
+She obeyed, and was at once shut in a stuffy cupboard-like room which
+had no other furniture than an office desk and high stool.
+
+"Name, please!" said the clerk.
+
+She looked startled--then smiled.
+
+"My name? Mary Deane."
+
+"Miss or Mrs.?"
+
+"'Miss,' if you please, sir," she answered, the colour flushing her
+cheeks with confusion at the sharpness of his manner.
+
+The clerk gave her another up-and-down look, and opening a door behind
+his office desk vanished like a conjuror tricking himself through a
+hole.
+
+She waited patiently for a couple of minutes--and then the clerk came
+back, with traces of excitement in his manner.
+
+"Yes--Mr. Bulteel will see you. This way!"
+
+She followed him with her usual quiet step and composed demeanour, and
+bent her head with a pretty air of respect as she found herself in the
+presence of an elderly man with iron-grey whiskers and a severely
+preoccupied air of business hardening his otherwise rather benevolent
+features. He adjusted his spectacles and looked keenly at her as she
+entered. She spoke at once.
+
+"You are Mr. Bulteel?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then this is for you," she said, approaching him, and handing him the
+packet she had brought. "They are some papers belonging to a poor old
+tramp named David, who lodged in my house for nearly a year--it will be
+a year come July. He was very weak and feeble and got lost in a storm on
+the hills above Weircombe--that's where I live--and I found him lying
+quite unconscious in the wet and cold, and took him home and nursed him.
+He got better and stayed on with me, making baskets for a living--he was
+too feeble to tramp any more--but he gave me no trouble, he was such a
+kind, good old man. I was very fond of him. And--and--last week he
+died"--here her sweet voice trembled. "He suffered great pain--but at
+the end he passed away quite peacefully--in my arms. He was very anxious
+that I should bring his papers to you myself--and I promised I would
+so----"
+
+She paused, a little troubled by his silence. Surely he looked very
+strangely at her.
+
+"I am sorry," she faltered, nervously--"if I have brought you any bad
+news;--poor David seemed to have no friends, but perhaps you were a
+friend to him once and may have a kind recollection of him----"
+
+He was still quite silent. Slowly he broke the seals of the packet, and
+drawing out a slip of paper which came first to his hand, read what was
+written upon it. Then he rose from his chair.
+
+"Kindly wait one moment," he said. "These--these papers and letters are
+not for me, but--but for--for another gentleman."
+
+He hurried out of the room, taking the packet with him, and Mary
+remained alone for nearly a quarter of an hour, vaguely perplexed, and
+wondering how any "other gentleman" could possibly be concerned in the
+matter. Presently Mr. Bulteel returned, in an evident state of
+suppressed agitation.
+
+"Will you please follow me, Miss Deane?" he said, with a singular air of
+deference. "Sir Francis is quite alone and will see you at once."
+
+Mary's blue eyes opened in amazement.
+
+"Sir Francis----!" she stammered. "I don't quite understand----"
+
+"This way," said Mr. Bulteel, escorting her out of his own room along
+the passage to the door which she had before seen labelled with the name
+of "Sir Francis Vesey"--then catching the startled and appealing glance
+of her eyes, he added kindly: "Don't be alarmed! It's all right!"
+
+Thereupon he opened the door and announced--
+
+"Miss Deane, Sir Francis."
+
+Mary looked up, and then curtsied with quite an "out-of-date" air of
+exquisite grace, as she found herself in the presence of a dignified
+white-haired old gentleman, who, standing near a large office desk on
+which the papers she had brought lay open, was wiping his spectacles,
+and looking very much as if he had been guilty of the womanish weakness
+of tears. He advanced to meet her.
+
+"How do you do!" he said, uttering this commonplace with remarkable
+earnestness, and taking her hand kindly in his own. "You bring me sad
+news--very sad news! I had not expected the death of my old friend so
+suddenly--I had hoped to see him again--yes, I had hoped very much to
+see him again quite soon! And so you were with him at the last?"
+
+Mary looked, as she felt, utterly bewildered.
+
+"I think," she murmured--"I think there must be some mistake,--the
+papers I brought here were for Mr. Bulteel----"
+
+"Yes--yes!" said Sir Francis. "That's quite right! Mr. Bulteel is my
+confidential clerk--and the packet was addressed to him. But a note
+inside requested that Mr. Bulteel should bring all the documents at once
+to me, which he has done. Everything is quite correct--quite in order.
+But--I forgot! You do not know! Please sit down--and I will endeavour to
+explain."
+
+He drew up a chair for her near his desk so that she might lean her arm
+upon it, for she looked frightened. As a matter of fact he was
+frightened himself. Such a task as he had now to perform had never
+before been allotted to him. A letter addressed to him, and enclosed in
+the packet containing Helmsley's Last Will and Testament, had explained
+the whole situation, and had fully described, with simple fidelity, the
+life his old friend had led at Weircombe, and the affectionate care with
+which Mary had tended him,--while the conclusion of the letter was
+worded in terms of touching farewell.
+
+    "For," wrote Helmsley, "when you read this, I shall be dead and in
+    my quiet grave at Weircombe. Let me rest there in peace,--for though
+    my eyes will no more see the sun,--or the kindness in the eyes of
+    the woman whose unselfish goodness has been more than the sunshine
+    to me, I shall--or so I think and hope--be spiritually conscious
+    that my mortal remains are buried where humble and simple folk think
+    well of me. This last letter from my hand to you is one not of
+    business so much as friendship--for I have learned that what we call
+    'business' counts for very little, while the ties of sympathy,
+    confidence, and love between human beings are the only forces that
+    assist in the betterment of the world. And so farewell! Let the
+    beloved angel who brings you these last messages from me have all
+    honour from you for my sake.--Yours,
+
+                                                       David Helmsley."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now, to Sir Francis Vesey's deep concern, the "beloved angel" thus
+spoken of sat opposite to him, moved by evident alarm,--her blue eyes
+full of tears, and her face pale and scared. How was he to begin telling
+her what she was bound to know?
+
+"Yes--I will--I must endeavour to explain," he repeated, bending his
+brows upon her and regaining something of his self-control. "You, of
+course, were not aware--I mean my old friend never told you who he
+really was?"
+
+Her anxious look grew more wistful.
+
+"No, and indeed I never asked," she said. "He was so feeble when I took
+him to my home out of the storm, and for weeks afterwards he was so
+dangerously ill, that I thought questions might worry him. Besides it
+was not my business to bother about where he came from. He was just old
+and poor and friendless--that was enough for me."
+
+"I hope--I do very much hope," said Sir Francis gently, "that you will
+not allow yourself to be too much startled--or--or overcome by what I
+have to tell you. David--he said his name was David, did he not?"
+
+She made a sign of assent. A strange terror was creeping upon her, and
+she could not speak.
+
+"David--yes!--that was quite right--David was his name," proceeded Sir
+Francis cautiously. "But he had another name--a surname which perhaps
+you may, or may not have heard. That name was Helmsley----"
+
+She sprang up with a cry, remembering Angus Reay's story about his first
+love, Lucy Sorrel, and her millionaire.
+
+"Helmsley! Not David Helmsley!"
+
+"Yes,--David Helmsley! The 'poor old tramp' you sheltered in your
+home,--the friendless and penniless stranger you cared for so
+unselfishly and tenderly, was one of the richest men in the world!"
+
+She stood amazed,--stricken as by a lightning shock.
+
+"One of the richest men in the world!" she faltered. "One of the
+richest----" and here, with a little stifled sob, she wrung her hands
+together. "Oh no--no! That can't be true! He would never have deceived
+me!"
+
+Sir Francis felt an uncomfortable tightness in his throat. The
+situation was embarrassing. He saw at once that she was not so much
+affected by the announcement of the supposed "poor" man's riches, as by
+the overwhelming thought that he could have represented himself to her
+as any other than he truly was.
+
+"Sit down again, and let me tell you all," he said gently--"You will, I
+am sure, forgive him for the part he played when you know his history.
+David Helmsley--who was my friend as well as my client for more than
+twenty years--was a fortunate man in the way of material
+prosperity,--but he was very unfortunate in his experience of human
+nature. His vast wealth made it impossible for him to see much more of
+men and women than was just enough to show him their worst side. He was
+surrounded by people who sought to use him and his great influence for
+their own selfish ends,--and the emotions and sentiments of life, such
+as love, fidelity, kindness, and integrity, he seldom or never met with
+among either his so-called 'friends' or his acquaintances. His wife was
+false to him, and his two sons brought him nothing but shame and
+dishonour. They all three died--and then--then in his old age he found
+himself alone in the world without any one who loved him, or whom he
+loved--without any one to whom he could confidently leave his enormous
+fortune, knowing it would be wisely and nobly used. When I last saw him
+I urged upon him the necessity of making his Will. He said he could not
+make it, as there was no one living whom he cared to name as his heir.
+Then he left London,--ostensibly on a journey for his health." Here Sir
+Francis paused, looking anxiously at his listener. She was deadly pale,
+and every now and then her eyes brimmed over with tears. "You can guess
+the rest," he continued,--"He took no one into his confidence as to his
+intention,--not even me. I understood he had gone abroad--till the other
+day--a short time ago--when I had a letter from him telling me that he
+was passing through Exeter."
+
+She clasped and unclasped her hands nervously.
+
+"Ah! That was where he went when he told me he had gone in search of
+work!" she murmured--"Oh, David, David!"
+
+"He informed me then," proceeded Sir Francis, "that he had made his
+Will. The Will is here,"--and he took up a document lying on his
+desk--"The manner of its execution coincides precisely with the letter
+of instructions received, as I say, from Exeter--of course it will have
+to be formally proved----"
+
+She lifted her eyes wonderingly.
+
+"What is it to me?" she said--"I have nothing to do with it. I have
+brought you the papers--but I am sorry--oh, so sorry to hear that he was
+not what he made himself out to be! I cannot think of him in the same
+way----"
+
+Sir Francis drew his chair closer to hers.
+
+"Is it possible," he said--"Is it possible, my dear Miss Deane, that you
+do not understand?"
+
+She gazed at him candidly.
+
+"Yes, of course I understand," she said--"I understand that he was a
+rich man who played the part of a poor one--to see if any one would care
+for him just for himself alone--and--I--I--did care--oh, I did
+care!--and now I feel as if I couldn't care any more----"
+
+Her voice broke sobbingly, and Sir Francis Vesey grew desperate.
+
+"Don't cry!" he said--"Please don't cry! I should not be able to bear
+it! You see I'm a business man"--here he took off his spectacles and
+rubbed them vigorously--"and my position is that of the late Mr. David
+Helmsley's solicitor. In that position I am bound to tell you the
+straight truth--because I'm afraid you don't grasp it at all. It is a
+very overwhelming thing for you,--but all the same, I am sure, quite
+sure, that my old friend had reason to rely confidently upon your
+strength of character--as well as upon your affection for him----"
+
+She had checked her sobs and was looking at him steadily.
+
+"And, therefore," he proceeded--"referring again to my own
+position--that of the late David Helmsley's solicitor, it is my duty to
+inform you that you, Mary Deane, are by his last Will and Testament, the
+late David Helmsley's sole heiress."
+
+She started up in terror.
+
+"Oh no, no!--not me!" she cried.
+
+"Everything which the late David Helmsley died possessed of, is left to
+you absolutely and unconditionally," went on Sir Francis, speaking with
+slow and deliberate emphasis--"And--even as he was one of the richest
+men, so you are now one of the richest women in the world!"
+
+She turned deathly white,--then suddenly, to his great alarm and
+confusion, dropped on her knees before him, clasping her hands in a
+passion of appeal.
+
+"Oh, don't say that, sir!" she exclaimed--"Please, please don't say it!
+I cannot be rich--I would not! I should be miserable--I should indeed!
+Oh, David, dear old David! I'm sure he never wished to make me
+wretched--he was fond of me--he was, really! And we were so happy and
+peaceful in the cottage at home! There was so little money, but so much
+love! Don't say I'm rich, sir!--or, if I am, let me give it all away at
+once! Let me give it to the starving and sick people in this great
+city--or please give it to them for me,--but don't, don't say that I
+must keep it myself!--I could not bear it!--oh, I could not bear it!
+Help me, oh, do help me to give it all away and let me remain just as I
+am, quite, quite poor!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+There was a moment's silence, broken only by the roar and din of the
+London city traffic outside, which sounded like the thunder of mighty
+wheels--the wheels of a rolling world. And then Sir Francis, gently
+taking Mary's hand in his own, raised her from the ground.
+
+"My dear,"--he said, huskily--"You must not--you really must not give
+way! See,"--and he took up a sealed letter from among the documents on
+the desk, addressed "To Mary"--and handed it to her--"my late friend
+asks me in the last written words I have from him to give this to you. I
+will leave you alone to read it. You will be quite private in this
+room--and no one will enter till you ring. Here is the bell,"--and he
+indicated it--"I think--indeed I am sure, when you understand
+everything, you will accept the great responsibility which will now
+devolve upon you, in as noble a spirit as that in which you accepted the
+care of David Helmsley himself when you thought him no more than what in
+very truth he was--a lonely-hearted old man, searching for what few of
+us ever find--an unselfish love!"
+
+He left her then--and like one in a dream, she opened and read the
+letter he had given her--a letter as beautiful and wise and tender as
+ever the fondest father could have written to the dearest of daughters.
+Everything was explained in it--everything made clear; and gradually she
+realised the natural, strong and pardonable craving of the rich, unloved
+man, to seek out for himself some means whereby he might leave all his
+world's gainings to one whose kindness to him had not been measured by
+any knowledge of his wealth, but which had been bestowed upon him solely
+for simple love's sake. Every line Helmsley had written to her in this
+last appeal to her tenderness, came from his very heart, and went to her
+own heart again, moving her to the utmost reverence, pity and affection.
+In his letter he enclosed a paper with a list of bequests which he left
+to her charge.
+
+"I could not name them in my Will,"--he wrote--"as this would have
+disclosed my identity--but you, my dear, will be more exact than the law
+in the payment of what I have here set down as just. And, therefore, to
+you I leave this duty."
+
+First among these legacies came one of Ten Thousand Pounds to "my old
+friend Sir Francis Vesey,"--and then followed a long list of legacies to
+servants, secretaries, and workpeople generally. The sum of Five Hundred
+Pounds was to be paid to Miss Tranter, hostess of "The Trusty
+Man,"--"for her kindness to me on the one night I passed under her
+hospitable roof,"--and sums of Two Hundred Pounds each were left to
+"Matthew Peke, Herb Gatherer," and Farmer Joltram, both these personages
+to be found through the aforesaid Miss Tranter. Likewise a sum of Two
+Hundred Pounds was to be paid to one "Meg Ross--believed to hold a farm
+near Watchett in Somerset." No one that had served the poor "tramp" was
+forgotten by the great millionaire;--a sum of Five Hundred Pounds was
+left to John Bunce, "with grateful and affectionate thanks for his
+constant care"--and a final charge to Mary was the placing of Fifty
+Thousand Pounds in trust for the benefit of Weircombe, its Church, and
+its aged poor. The money in bank notes, enclosed with the testator's
+last Will and Testament, was to be given to Mary for her own immediate
+use,--and then came the following earnest request;--"I desire that the
+sum of Half-a-crown, made up of coppers and one sixpence, which will be
+found with these effects, shall be enclosed in a casket of gold and
+inscribed with the words 'The "surprise gift" collected by "Tom o' the
+Gleam" for David Helmsley, when as a tramp on the road he seemed to be
+in need of the charity and sympathy of his fellow men and which to him
+was
+
+    MORE PRECIOUS THAN MANY MILLIONS.
+
+And I request that the said casket containing these coins may be
+retained by Mary Deane as a valued possession in her family, to be
+handed down as a talisman and cornerstone of fortune for herself and her
+heirs in perpetuity."
+
+Finally the list of bequests ended with one sufficiently unusual to be
+called eccentric. It ran thus:--"To Angus Reay I leave Mary Deane--and
+with Her, all that I value, and more than I have ever possessed!"
+
+Gradually, very gradually, Mary, sitting alone in Sir Francis Vesey's
+office, realised the whole position,--gradually the trouble and
+excitation of her mind calmed down, and her naturally even temperament
+reasserted itself. She was rich,--but though she tried to realise the
+fact, she could not do so, till at last the thought of Angus and how she
+might be able now to help him on with his career, roused a sudden rush
+of energy within her--which, however, was not by any means actual
+happiness. A great weight seemed to have fallen on her life--and she was
+bowed down by its heaviness. Kissing David Helmsley's letter, she put it
+in her bosom,--he had asked that its contents might be held sacred, and
+that no eyes but her own should scan his last words, and to her that
+request of a dead man was more than the command of a living King. The
+list of bequests she held in her hand ready to show Sir Francis Vesey
+when he entered, which he did as soon as she touched the bell. He saw
+that, though very pale, she was now comparatively calm and collected,
+and as she raised her eyes and tried to smile at him, he realised what a
+beautiful woman she was.
+
+"Please forgive me for troubling you so much,"--she said, gently--"I am
+very sorry! I understand it all now,--I have read David's letter,--I
+shall always call him David, I think!--and I quite see how it all
+happened. I can't help being sorry--very sorry, that he has left his
+money to me--because it will be so difficult to know how to dispose of
+it for the best. But surely a great deal of it will go in these
+legacies,"--and she handed him the paper she held--"You see he names you
+first."
+
+Sir Francis stared at the document, fairly startled and overcome by his
+late friend's generosity, as well as by Mary's naļve candour.
+
+"My dear Miss Deane,"--he began, with deep embarrassment.
+
+"You will tell me how to do everything, will you not?" she interrupted
+him, with an air of pathetic entreaty--"I want to carry out all his
+wishes exactly as if he were beside me, watching me--I think--" and her
+voice sank a little--"he may be here--with us--even now!" She paused a
+moment. "And if he is, he knows that I do not want money for myself at
+all--but that if I can do good with it, for his sake and memory, I will.
+Is it a very great deal?"
+
+"Is it a great deal of money, you mean?" he queried.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I should say that at the very least my late friend's personal estate
+must be between six and seven millions of pounds sterling."
+
+She clasped her hands in dismay.
+
+"Oh! It is terrible!" she said, in a low strained voice--"Surely God
+never meant one man to have so much money!"
+
+"It was fairly earned,"--said Sir Francis, quietly--"David Helmsley, to
+my own knowledge, never wronged or oppressed a single human being on his
+way to his own success. His money is clean! There's no brother's blood
+on the gold--and no 'sweated' labour at the back of it. That I can vouch
+for--that I can swear! No curse will rest on the fortune you inherit,
+Miss Deane--for it was made honestly!"
+
+Tears stood in her eyes, and she wiped them away furtively.
+
+"Poor David!" she murmured--"Poor lonely old man! With all that wealth
+and no one to care for him! Oh yes, the more I think of it the more I
+understand it! But now there is only one thing for me to do--I must get
+home as quickly as possible and tell Angus"--here she pointed to the
+last paragraph in Helmsley's list of bequests--"You see,"--she went
+on--"he leaves Mary Deane--that's me--to Angus Reay, 'and with Her all
+that I value.' I am engaged to be married to Mr. Reay--David wished very
+much to live till our wedding-day--"
+
+She broke off, passing her hand across her brow and looking puzzled.
+
+"Mr. Reay is very much to be congratulated!"--said Sir Francis, gently.
+
+She smiled rather sadly.
+
+"Oh, I'm not sure of that," she said--"He is a very clever man--he
+writes books, and he will be famous very soon--while I--" She paused
+again, then went on, looking very earnestly at Sir Francis--"May
+I--would you--write out something for me that I might sign before I go
+away to-day, to make it sure that if I die, all that I have--including
+this terrible, terrible fortune--shall come to Angus Reay? You see
+anything might happen to me--quite suddenly,--the very train I am going
+back in to-night might meet with some accident, and I might be
+killed--and then poor David's money would be lost, and his legacies
+never paid. Don't you see that?"
+
+Sir Francis certainly saw it, but was not disposed to admit its
+possibility.
+
+"There is really no necessity to anticipate evil," he began.
+
+"There is perhaps no necessity--but I should like to be sure, quite
+sure, that in case of such evil all was right,"--she said, with great
+feeling--"And I know you could do it for me----"
+
+"Why, of course, if you insist upon it, I can draw you up a form of Will
+in ten minutes,"--he said, smiling benevolently--"Would that satisfy
+you? You have only to sign it, and the thing is done."
+
+It was wonderful to see how she rejoiced at this proposition,--the eager
+delight with which she contemplated the immediate disposal of the wealth
+she had not as yet touched, to the man she loved best in the world--and
+the swift change in her manner from depression to joy, when Sir Francis,
+just to put her mind at ease, drafted a concise form of Will for her in
+his own handwriting, in which form she, with the same precision as that
+of David Helmsley, left "everything of which she died possessed,
+absolutely and unconditionally," to her promised husband. With a smile
+on her face and sparkling eyes, she signed this document in the presence
+of two witnesses, clerks of the office called up for the purpose, who,
+if it had been their business to express astonishment, would undoubtedly
+have expressed it then.
+
+"You will keep it here for me, won't you?" she said, when the clerks had
+retired and the business was concluded--"And I shall feel so much more
+at rest now! For when I have talked it over with Angus I shall realise
+everything more clearly--he will advise me what to do--he is so much
+wiser than I am! And you will write to me and tell me all that is
+needful for me to know--shall I leave this paper?"--and she held up the
+document in which the list of Helmsley's various legacies was
+written--"Surely you ought to keep it?"
+
+Sir Francis smiled gravely.
+
+"I think not!" he said--"I think I must urge you to retain that paper on
+which my name is so generously remembered, in your own possession, Miss
+Deane. You understand, I suppose, that you are not _by the law_
+compelled to pay any of these legacies. They are left entirely to your
+own discretion. They merely represent the last purely personal wishes of
+my late friend, David Helmsley, and you must yourself decide whether
+you consider it practical to carry them out."
+
+She looked surprised.
+
+"But the personal wishes of the dead are more than any law" she
+exclaimed--"They are sacred. How could I"--and moved by a sudden impulse
+she laid her hand appealingly on his arm--"How could I neglect or fail
+to fulfil any one of them? It would be impossible!
+
+Responding to her earnest look and womanly gentleness, Sir Francis who
+had not forgotten the old courtesies once practised by gentlemen to
+women whom they honoured, raised the hand that rested so lightly on his
+arm, and kissed it.
+
+"I know" he said--"that it would be impossible for you to do what is not
+right and true and just! And you will need no advice from me save such
+as is purely legal and technical. Let me be your friend in these
+matters----"
+
+"And in others too,"--said Mary, sweetly--"I do hope you will not
+dislike me!"
+
+Dislike her? Well, well! If any mortal man, old or young, could
+"dislike" a woman with a face like hers and eyes so tender, such an one
+would have to be a criminal or a madman! In a little while they fell
+into conversation as naturally as if they had known each other for
+years: Sir Francis listening with profound interest to the story of his
+old friend's last days. And presently, despatching a telegram to his
+wife to say that he was detained in the city by pressing business, he
+took Mary out with him to a quiet little restaurant where he dined with
+her, and finally saw her off from Paddington station by the midnight
+train for Minehead. Nothing would induce her to stay in London,--her one
+aim and object in life now was to return to Weircombe and explain
+everything to Angus as quickly as possible. And when the train had gone,
+Sir Francis left the platform in a state of profound abstraction, and
+was driven home in his brougham feeling more like a sentimentalist than
+a lawyer.
+
+"Extraordinary!" he ejaculated--"The most extraordinary thing I ever
+heard of in my life? But I knew--I felt that Helmsley would dispose of
+his wealth in quite an unexpected way! Now I wonder how the man--Mary
+Deane's lover--will take it? I wonder! But what a woman she is!--how
+beautiful!--how simple and honest--above all how purely womanly!--with
+all the sweet grace and gentleness which alone commands, and ever will
+command man's adoration! Helmsley must have been very much at peace and
+happy in his last days! Yes!--the sorrowful 'king' of many millions must
+have at last found the treasure he sought and which he considered more
+precious than all his money! For Solomon was right: 'If a man would give
+all the substance of his house for love, it would be utterly
+contemned!'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At Weircombe next day there was a stiff gale of wind blowing inland, and
+the village, with its garlands and pyramids of summer blossom, was swept
+from end to end by warm, swift, salty gusts, that bent the trees and
+shook the flowers in half savage, half tender sportiveness, while the
+sea, shaping itself by degrees into "wild horses" of blue water bridled
+with foam, raced into the shore with ever-increasing hurry and fury. But
+notwithstanding the strong wind, there was a bright sun, and a dazzling
+blue sky, scattered over with flying masses of cloud, like flocks of
+white birds soaring swiftly to some far-off region of rest. Everything
+in nature looked radiant and beautiful,--health and joy were exhaled
+from every breath of air--and yet in one place--one pretty
+rose-embowered cottage, where, until now, the spirit of content had held
+its happy habitation, a sudden gloom had fallen, and a dark cloud had
+blotted out all the sunshine. Mary's little "home sweet home" had been
+all at once deprived of sweetness,--and she sat within it like a
+mournful castaway, clinging to the wreck of that which had so long been
+her peace and safety. Tired out by her long night journey and lack of
+sleep, she looked very white and weary and ill--and Angus Reay, sitting
+opposite to her, looked scarcely less worn and weary than herself. He
+had met her on her return from London at the Minehead station, with all
+the ardour and eagerness of a lover and a boy,--and he had at once seen
+in her face that something unexpected had happened,--something that had
+deeply affected her--though she had told him nothing, till on their
+arrival home at the cottage, she was able to be quite alone with him.
+Then he learned all. Then he knew that "old David" had been no other
+than David Helmsley the millionaire,--the very man whom his first love,
+Lucy Sorrel, had schemed and hoped to marry. And he realised--and God
+alone knew with what a passion of despair he realised it!--that
+Mary--his bonnie Mary--his betrothed wife--had been chosen to inherit
+those very millions which had formerly stood between him and what he had
+then imagined to be his happiness. And listening to the strange story,
+he had sunk deeper and deeper into the Slough of Despond, and now sat
+rigidly silent, with all the light gone out of his features, and all the
+ardour quenched in his eyes. Mary looking at him, and reading every
+expression in that dark beloved face, felt the tears rising thickly in
+her throat, but bravely suppressed them, and tried to smile.
+
+"I knew you would be sorry when you heard all about it, Angus,"--she
+said--"I felt sure you would! I wish it had happened differently--" Here
+she stopped, and taking up the little dog Charlie, settled him on her
+knee. He was whimpering to be caressed, and she bent over his small
+silky head to hide the burning drops that fell from her eyes despite
+herself. "If it could only be altered!--but it can't--and the only thing
+to do is to give the money away to those who need it as quickly as
+possible----"
+
+"Give it away!" answered Angus, bitterly--"Good God! Why, to give away
+seven or eight millions of money in the right quarters would occupy one
+man's lifetime!"
+
+His voice was harsh, and his hand clenched itself involuntarily as he
+spoke. She looked at him in a vague fear.
+
+"No, Mary,"--he said--"You can't give it away--not as you imagine.
+Besides,--there is more than money--there is the millionaire's
+house--his priceless pictures, his books--his yacht--a thousand and one
+other things that he possessed, and which now belong to you. Oh Mary! I
+wish to God I had never seen him!"
+
+She trembled.
+
+"Then perhaps--you and I would never have met," she murmured.
+
+"Better so!" and rising, he paced restlessly up and down the little
+kitchen--"Better that I should never have loved you, Mary, than be so
+parted from you! By money, too! The last thing that should ever have
+come between us! Money! Curse it! It has ruined my life!"
+
+She lifted her tear-wet eyes to his.
+
+"What do you mean, Angus?" she asked, gently--"Why do you talk of
+parting? The money makes no difference to our love!"
+
+"No difference? No difference? Oh Mary, don't you see!" and he turned
+upon her a face white and drawn with his inward anguish--"Do you
+think--can you imagine that I would marry a woman with millions of
+money--I--a poor devil, with nothing in the world to call my own, and no
+means of livelihood save in my brain, which, after all, may turn out to
+be quite of a worthless quality! Do you think I would live on your
+bounty? Do you think I would accept money from you? Surely you know me
+better! Mary, I love you! I love you with my whole heart and soul!--but
+I love you as the poor working woman whose work I hoped to make easier,
+whose life it was my soul's purpose to make happy--but,--you have
+everything you want in the world now!--and I--I am no use to you! I can
+do nothing for you--nothing!--you are David Helmsley's heiress, and with
+such wealth as he has left you, you might marry a prince of the royal
+blood if you cared--for princes are to be bought,--like anything else in
+the world's market! But you are not of the world--you never were--and
+now--now--the world will take you! The world leaves nothing alone that
+has any gold upon it!"
+
+She listened quietly to his passionate outburst. She was deadly pale,
+and she pressed Charlie close against her bosom,--the little dog, she
+thought half vaguely, would love her just as well whether she was rich
+or poor.
+
+"How can the world take me, Angus?" she said--"Am I not yours?--all
+yours!--and what has the world to do with me? Do not speak in such a
+strange way--you hurt me----"
+
+"I know I hurt you!" he said, stopping in his restless walk and facing
+her--"And I know I should always hurt you--now! If David Helmsley had
+never crossed our path, how happy we might have been----"
+
+She raised her hand reproachfully.
+
+"Do not blame the poor old man, even in a thought, Angus!" she
+said--"His dream--his last hope was that we two might be happy! He
+brought us together,--and I am sure, quite sure, that he hoped we would
+do good in the world with the money he has left us----"
+
+"Us!" interrupted Angus, meaningly.
+
+"Yes,--surely us! For am I not to be one with you? Oh Angus, be patient,
+be gentle! Think kindly of him who meant so much kindness to those whom
+he loved in his last days!" She smothered a rising sob, and went on
+entreatingly--"He has forgotten no one who was friendly to
+him--and--and--Angus--remember!--remember in that paper I have shown to
+you--that list of bequests, which he has entrusted me to pay, he has
+left me to you, Angus!--me--with all I possess----"
+
+She broke off, startled by the sorrow in his eyes.
+
+"It is a legacy I cannot accept!" he said, hoarsely, his voice trembling
+with suppressed emotion--"I cannot take it--even though you, the most
+precious part of it, are the dearest thing to me in the world! I cannot!
+This horrible money has parted us, Mary! More than that, it has robbed
+me of my energy for work--I cannot work without you--and I must give you
+up! Even if I could curb my pride and sink my independence, and take
+money which I have not earned, I should never be great as a
+writer--never be famous. For the need of patience and grit would be
+gone--I should have nothing to work for--no object in view--no goal to
+attain. Don't you see how it is with me? And so--as things have turned
+out--I must leave Weircombe at once--I must fight this business through
+by myself----"
+
+"Angus!" and putting Charlie gently down, she rose from her chair and
+came towards him, trembling--"Do you mean--do you really mean that all
+is over between us?--that you will not marry me?"
+
+He looked at her straightly.
+
+"I cannot!" he said--"Not if I am true to myself as a man!"
+
+"You cannot be true to _me_, as a woman?"
+
+He caught her in his arms and held her there.
+
+"Yes--I can be so true to you, Mary, that as long as I live I shall love
+you! No other woman shall ever rest on my heart--here--thus--as you are
+resting now! I will never kiss another woman's lips as I kiss yours
+now!" And he kissed her again and again--"But, at the same time, I will
+never live upon your wealth like a beggar on the bounty of a queen! I
+will never accept a penny at your hands! I will go away and work--and
+if possible, will make the fame I have dreamed of--but I will never
+marry you, Mary--never! That can never be!" He clasped her more closely
+and tenderly in his arms--"Don't--don't cry, dear! You are tired with
+your long journey--and--and--with all the excitement and trouble. Lie
+down and rest awhile--and--don't--don't worry about me! You deserve your
+fortune--you will be happy with it by and by, when you find out how much
+it can do for you, and what pleasures you can have with it--and life
+will be very bright for you--I'm sure it will! Mary--don't cling to me,
+darling!--it--it unmans me!--and I must be strong--strong for your sake
+and my own"--here he gently detached her arms from about his
+neck--"Good-bye, dear!--you must--you must let me go!--God bless you!"
+
+As in a dream she felt him put her away from his embrace--the cottage
+door opened and closed--he was gone.
+
+Vaguely she looked about her. There was a great sickness at her
+heart--her eyes ached, and her brain was giddy. She was tired,--very
+tired--and hardly knowing what she did, she crept like a beaten and
+wounded animal into the room which had formerly been her own, but which
+she had so long cheerfully resigned for Helmsley's occupation and better
+comfort,--and there she threw herself upon the bed where he had died,
+and lay for a long time in a kind of waking stupor.
+
+"Oh, dear God, help me!" she prayed--"Help me to bear it! It is so
+hard--so hard!--to have won the greatest joy that life can give--and
+then--to lose it all!"
+
+She closed her eyes,--they were hot and burning, and now no tears
+relieved the pressure on her brain. By and by she fell into a heavy
+slumber. As the afternoon wore slowly away, Mrs. Twitt, on neighbourly
+thoughts intent, came up to the cottage, eager to hear all the news
+concerning "old David"--but she found the kitchen deserted; and peeping
+into the bedroom adjoining, saw Mary lying there fast asleep, with
+Charlie curled up beside her.
+
+"She's just dead beat and tired out for sure!" and Mrs. Twitt stole
+softly away again on tip-toe. "'Twould be real cruel to wake her. I'll
+put a bit on the kitchen fire to keep it going, and take myself off.
+There's plenty of time to hear all the news to-morrow."
+
+So, being left undisturbed, Mary slept on and on--and when she at last
+awoke it was quite dark. Dark save for the glimmer of the moon which
+shone with a white vividness through the lattice window--shedding on the
+room something of the same ghostly light as on the night when Helmsley
+died. She sat up, pressing her hands to her throbbing temples,--for a
+moment she hardly knew where she was. Then, with a sudden rush of
+recollection, she realised her surroundings--and smiled. She was one of
+the richest women in the world!--and--without Angus--one of the poorest!
+
+"But he does not need me so much as I need him!" she said aloud--"A man
+has so many thing to live for; but a woman has only one--love!"
+
+She rose from the bed, trembling a little. She thought she saw "old
+David" standing near the door,--how pale and cold he seemed!--what a
+sorrow there was in his eyes! She stretched out her arms to the fancied
+phantom.
+
+"Don't,--don't be unhappy, David dear!" she said--"You meant all for the
+best--I know--I know! But even you, old as you were, tried to find some
+one to care for you--and you see--surely in Heaven you see how hard it
+is for me to have found that some one, and then to lose him! But you
+must not grieve!--it will be all right!"
+
+Mechanically she smoothed her tumbled hair--and taking up Charlie from
+the bed where he was anxiously watching her, she went into the kitchen.
+A small fire was burning low--and she lit the lamp and set it on the
+table. A gust of wind rushed round the house, shaking the door and the
+window, then swept away again with a plaintive cry,--and pausing to
+listen, she heard the low, thunderous boom of the sea. Moving about
+almost automatically, she prepared Charlie's supper and gave it to him,
+and slipping a length of ribbon through his collar, tied him securely to
+a chair. The little animal was intelligent enough to consider this an
+unusual proceeding on her part--and as a consequence of the impression
+it made upon his canine mind, refused to take his food. She saw
+this--but made no attempt to coax or persuade him. Opening a drawer in
+her oaken press, she took out pen, ink, and paper, and sitting down at
+the table wrote a letter. It was not a long letter--for it was finished,
+put in an envelope and sealed in less than ten minutes. Addressing it
+"To Angus"--she left it close under the lamp where the light might fall
+upon it. Then she looked around her. Everything was very quiet. Charlie
+alone was restless--and sat on his tiny haunches, trembling nervously,
+refusing to eat, and watching her every movement. She stooped suddenly
+and kissed him--then without hat or cloak, went out, closing the cottage
+door behind her.
+
+What a night it was! What a scene of wild sky splendour! Overhead the
+moon, now at the full, raced through clouds of pearl-grey, lightening to
+milky whiteness, and the wind played among the trees as though with
+giant hands, bending them to and fro like reeds, and rustling through
+the foliage with a swishing sound like that of falling water. The ripple
+of the hill-torrent was almost inaudible, overwhelmed as it was by the
+roar of the gale and the low thunder of the sea--and Mary, going swiftly
+up the "coombe" to the churchyard, was caught by the blast like a leaf,
+and blown to and fro, till all her hair came tumbling about her face and
+almost blinded her eyes. But she scarcely heeded this. She was not
+conscious of the weather--she knew nothing of the hour. She saw the
+moon--the white, cold moon, staring at her now and then between
+pinnacles of cloud--and whenever it gleamed whitely upon her path, she
+thought of David Helmsley's dead face--its still smile--its peacefully
+closed eyelids. And with that face ever before her, she went to his
+grave. A humble grave--with the clods of earth still fresh and brown
+upon it--the chosen grave of "one of the richest men in the world!" She
+repeated this phrase over and over again to herself, not knowing why she
+did so. Then she knelt down and tried to pray, but could find no
+words--save "O God, bless my dear love, and make him happy!" It was
+foolish to say this so often,--God would be tired of it, she thought
+dreamily--but--after all--there was nothing else to pray for! She rose,
+and stood a moment--thinking--then she said aloud--"Good-night, David!
+Dear old David, you meant to make me so happy! Good-night! Sleep well!"
+
+Something frightened her at this moment,--a sound--or a shadow on the
+grass--and she uttered a cry of terror. Then, turning, she rushed out of
+the churchyard, and away--away up the hills, towards the rocks that
+over-hung the sea.
+
+Meanwhile, Angus Reay, feverish and miserable, had been shut up in his
+one humble little room for hours, wrestling with himself and trying to
+work out the way in which he could best master and overcome what he
+chose to consider the complete wreck of his life at what had promised
+to be its highest point of happiness. He could not shake himself free of
+the clinging touch of Mary's arms--her lovely, haunting blue eyes looked
+at him piteously out of the very air. Never had she been to him so
+dear--so unutterably beloved!--never had she seemed so beautiful as now
+when he felt that he must resign all claims of love upon her.
+
+"For she will be sought after by many a better man than myself,"--he
+said--"Even rich men, who do not need her millions, are likely to admire
+her--and why should I stand in her way?--I, who haven't a penny to call
+my own! I should be a coward if I kept her to her promise. For she does
+not know yet--she does not see what the possession of Helmsley's
+millions will mean to her. And by and bye when she does know she will
+change--she will be grateful to me for setting her free----"
+
+He paused, and the hot tears sprang to his eyes--"No--I am wrong!
+Nothing will change Mary! She will always be her sweet self--pure and
+faithful!--and she will do all the good with Helmsley's money that he
+believed and hoped she would. But I--I must leave her to it!"
+
+Then the thought came to him that he had perhaps been rough in speech to
+her that day--abrupt in parting from her--even unkind in overwhelming
+her with the force of his abnegation, when she was so tired with her
+journey--so worn out--so weary looking. Acting on a sudden impulse, he
+threw on his cap.
+
+"I will go and say good-night to her,"--he said--"For the last time!"
+
+He strode swiftly up the village street and saw through the cottage
+window that the lamp was lighted on the table. He knocked at the door,
+but there was no answer save a tiny querulous bark from Charlie. He
+tried the latch; it was unfastened, and he entered. The first object he
+saw was Charlie, tied to a chair, with a small saucer of untasted food
+beside him. The little dog capered to the length of his ribbon, and
+mutely expressed the absence of his kind mistress, while Angus,
+bewildered, looked round the deserted dwelling in amazement. All at once
+his eyes caught sight of the letter addressed to him, and he tore it
+open. It was very brief, and ran thus--
+
+    "My Dearest,
+
+    "When you read this, I shall be gone from you. I am sorry, oh, so
+    sorry, about the money--but it is not my fault that I did not know
+    who old David was. I hope now that everything will be right, when I
+    am out of the way. I did not tell you--but before I left London I
+    asked the kind gentleman, Sir Francis Vesey, to let me make a will
+    in case any accident happened to me on my way home. He arranged it
+    all for me very quickly--so that everything I possess, including all
+    the dreadful fortune that has parted you from me,--now belongs to
+    you. And you will be a great and famous man; and I am sure you will
+    get on much better without me than with me--for I am not clever, and
+    I should not understand how to live in the world as the world likes
+    to live. God bless you, darling! Thank you for loving me, who am so
+    unworthy of your love! Be happy! David and I will perhaps be able to
+    watch you from 'the other side,' and we shall be proud of all you
+    do. For you will spend those terrible millions in good deeds that
+    must benefit all the world, I am sure. That is what I hoped we might
+    perhaps have done together--but I see quite plainly now that it is
+    best you should be without me. My love, whom I love so much more
+    than I have ever dared to, say!--Good-bye!
+                                                        MARY."
+
+With a cry like that of a man in physical torture or despair, Angus
+rushed out of the house.
+
+"Mary! Mary!" he cried to the tumbling stream and the moonlit sky.
+"Mary!"
+
+He paused. Just then the clock in the little church tower struck ten.
+The village was asleep--and there was no sound of human life anywhere.
+The faint, subtle scent of sweetbriar stole on the air as he stood in a
+trance of desperate uncertainty--and as the delicate odour floated by, a
+rush of tears came to his eyes.
+
+"Mary!" he called again--"Mary!"
+
+Then all at once a fearful idea entered his brain that filled him as it
+were with a mad panic. Rushing up the coombe, he sprang across the
+torrent, and raced over the adjoining hill, as though racing for life.
+Soon in front of him towered the "Giant's Castle" Rock, and he ran up
+its steep ascent with an almost crazy speed. At the summit he halted
+abruptly, looking keenly from side to side. Was there any one there?
+No. There seemed to be no one. Chilled with a nameless horror, he stood
+watching--watching and listening to the crashing noise of the great
+billows as they broke against the rocks below. He raised his eyes to the
+heavens, and saw--almost unseeingly--a white cloud break asunder and
+show a dark blue space between,--just an azure setting for one brilliant
+star that shone out with a sudden flash like a signal. And then--then he
+caught sight of a dark crouching figure in the corner of the rocky
+platform over-hanging the sea,--a dear, familiar figure that even while
+he looked, rose up and advanced to the extreme edge with outstretched
+arms,--its lovely hair loosely flowing and flecked with glints of gold
+by the light of the moon. Nearer, nearer to the very edge of the dizzy
+height it moved--and Angus, breathless with terror, and fearing to utter
+a sound lest out of sudden alarm it should leap from its footing and be
+lost for ever, crept closer and ever closer. Closer still,--and he heard
+Mary's sweet voice murmuring plaintively--
+
+"I wish I did not love him so dearly! I wish the world were not so
+beautiful! I wish I could stay--but I must go--I must go!--"Here there
+was a little sobbing cry--"You are so deep and cruel, you sea!--you have
+drowned so many brave men! You will not be long in drowning poor me,
+will you?--I don't want to struggle with you! Cover me up quickly--and
+let me forget--oh, no, no! Dear God, don't let me forget Angus!--I want
+to remember him always--always!"
+
+She swayed towards the brink--one second more--and then, with a swift
+strong clasp and passionate cry Angus had caught her in her arms.
+
+"Mary! Mary, my love! My wife! Anything but that, Mary! Anything but
+that!"
+
+Heart to heart they stood, their arms entwined, clasping each other in a
+wild passion of tenderness,--Angus trembling in all his strong frame
+with the excitement and horror of the past moment, and Mary sobbing out
+all her weakness, weariness and gladness on his breast. Above their
+heads the bright star shone, pendant between the snowy wings of the
+dividing cloud, and the sound of the sea was as a sacred psalm of
+jubilation in their ears.
+
+"Thank God I came in time! Thank God I have you safe!" and Angus drew
+her closer and yet closer into his fervent embrace--"Oh Mary, my
+darling!--sweetest of women! How could you think of leaving me? What
+should I have done without you! Poverty or riches--either or neither--I
+care not which! But I cannot lose _you_, Mary! I cannot let my heavenly
+treasure go! Nothing else matters in all the world--I only want
+love--and you!"
+
+                              THE END
+
++---------------------------------------------------------------------+
+|                                                                     |
+| Transcriber's Notes                                                 |
+|                                                                     |
+| 1. Punctuation normalized to contemporary standards.                |
+|                                                                     |
+| 2. "Sorrel" was originally misspelled "Sorrell" on these pages:     |
+|     p. 15: "Mrs. Sorrel would be sorry"                             |
+|     p. 15: "Matt Sorrel never did anything"                         |
+|     p. 18: "Sorrel, I assure you!"                                  |
+|     p. 18: "Mrs. Sorrel peered at him"                              |
+|     p. 19: "Mrs. Sorrel did not attempt"                            |
+|     p. 20: "Mrs. Sorrel visibly swelled"                            |
+|                                                                     |
+| 3. Individual spelling corrections and context:                     |
+|     p. 30  pressent -> present ("always been present")              |
+|     p. 34  thresold -> threshold ("standing shyly on the thresold") |
+|     p. 44  repudiatel -> repudiated ("firmly repudiated")           |
+|     p. 77  temprary -> temporary ("such temporary pleasures")       |
+|     p. 82  kitting -> knitting ("went on kitting rapidly")          |
+|     p. 85  Brush -> Bush ("and Bill Bush")                          |
+|     p. 99  her -> he ("And he drew out")                            |
+|     p. 92  undisguisel -> undisguised ("undisguised admiration")    |
+|     p. 116 a -> I ("if I can")                                      |
+|     p. 147 Wothram -> Wrotham ("answered Lord Wrotram")             |
+|     p. 157 scared -> scared ("scarred his vision")                  |
+|     p. 184 sungly -> snugly ("was snugly ensconced")                |
+|     p. 190 mintes -> minutes ("A few minutes scramble")             |
+|     p. 255 must -> much ("dare not talk much")                      |
+|     p. 270 acomplished -> accomplished ("fairly accomplished")      |
+|     p. 276 gentlemen -> gentleman ("rank of a gentleman")           |
+|     p. 335 me -> be ("There must be")                               |
+|     p. 359 severel -> several ("writing several letters")           |
+|     p. 372 childred -> children ("sees his children")               |
+|     p. 396 troubed -> troubled ("quite confused and troubled")      |
+|     p. 399 addessed -> addressed ("to whom it was addressed")       |
+|                                                                     |
++---------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Treasure of Heaven, by Marie Corelli
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TREASURE OF HEAVEN ***
+
+***** This file should be named 18449-8.txt or 18449-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/4/4/18449/
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/18449-8.zip b/18449-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..704015b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18449-8.zip
diff --git a/18449-h.zip b/18449-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9088c51
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18449-h.zip
diff --git a/18449-h/18449-h.htm b/18449-h/18449-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..138e37a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18449-h/18449-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,18944 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Treasure of Heaven, by Marie Corelli.
+    </title>
+  <style type="text/css">
+  /*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
+  <!--
+    body              {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    p                 {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    h1                {text-align: center; clear: both; font-size: 180%}
+    h2                {text-align: center; clear: both; font-size: 120%}
+    table             {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; text-align: center; }
+    .pagenum          {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;}
+    hr.full           {width:100%; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom: 2em;}
+    hr.major          {width:75%; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom: 2em;}
+    hr.minor          {width:30%; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; }
+    .tnote            {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;
+                       padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em;
+                       padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;
+                       font-size: 90% }
+    ins               {text-decoration:none;  border-bottom: thin dotted gray;}
+    .figcenter        {margin: auto; text-align: center;}
+    .caption          {font-size: 80%;}
+    .footnotes        {border: dashed 1px;}
+    .footnote         {font-size: 0.9em;}
+    .footnote .label  {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;}
+    .fnanchor         {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;}
+  // -->
+  /* XML end  ]]>*/
+  </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Treasure of Heaven, by Marie Corelli
+
+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: The Treasure of Heaven
+       A Romance of Riches
+
+Author: Marie Corelli
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2006 [EBook #18449]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TREASURE OF HEAVEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class='figcenter' style='width: 300px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'>
+<a name="illus-002" id="illus-002"></a>
+<img src='images/illus-cover.jpg' width='300' alt='book cover' title='' /><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='figcenter' style='width: 300px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'>
+<a name="illus-003" id="illus-003"></a>
+<img src='images/illus-fpc.jpg' width='300' alt='COPYRIGHT 1906 BY MARIE CORELLI' title='' /><br />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<table width="450" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="" border="1">
+  <col style="width:80%;" />
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+    <br /><br />
+    <span style="font-size: 180%;">THE<br />TREASURE OF HEAVEN</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="font-size: 120%;">A ROMANCE OF RICHES</span><br />
+    <br /><br />
+    <span style="font-size: 100%;">BY</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="font-size: 120%;">MARIE CORELLI</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="font-size: 80%;">AUTHOR OF</span><br />
+    <span style="font-size: 80%;">"GOD'S GOOD MAN," "THELMA," "THE SORROWS<br/>OF SATAN," "ARDATH," "THE STORY OF<br/>A DEAD SELF," "FREE OPINIONS,"<br/>"TEMPORAL POWER," ETC.</span><br />
+    <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    <span style="font-size: 90%;">NEW YORK</span><br />
+    <span style="font-size: 100%;">DODD, MEAD &amp; COMPANY</span><br />
+    <span style="font-size: 90%;">1906</span><br />
+    <br /><br />
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<table width="450" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="" border="0">
+  <col style="width:80%;" />
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+    <span style="font-size: 100%; font-variant: small-caps;">Copyright, 1906, by</span><br />
+    <span style="font-size: 100%;">DODD, MEAD &amp; COMPANY</span><br />
+    <span style="font-size: 100%; font-style: italic">Published, August, 1906</span><br />
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<table width="450" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="" border="0">
+  <col style="width:80%;" />
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+    <span style="font-size: 100%; font-style: italic">To</span><br />
+    <span style="font-size: 120%;">Bertha</span><br />
+    <span style="font-size: 100%;">'A faithful friend is better than gold.'</span><br />
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>Contents</h2>
+<div class="smcap">
+  <table width="400" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+  <col style="width:50%;" />
+  <col style="width:28%;" />
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER I</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER II</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">17</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER III</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">29</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER IV</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">49</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER V</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">55</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER VI</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">71</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER VII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">89</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER VIII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">109</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER IX</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">123</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER X</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">142</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XI</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">157</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">182</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XIII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">196</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XIV</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">217</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XV</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">240</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XVI</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">258</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XVII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">281</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XVIII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">297</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XIX</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">315</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XX</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">337</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXI</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">362</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">381</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXIII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">393</a></td></tr>
+    <tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXIV</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">411</a></td></tr>
+  </table>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p style="text-align:center; font-size: 120%;">AUTHOR'S NOTE</p>
+
+<p>By the special request of the Publishers, a portrait of myself, taken in
+the spring of this year, 1906, forms the Frontispiece to the present
+volume. I am somewhat reluctant to see it so placed, because it has
+nothing whatever to do with the story which is told in the following
+pages, beyond being a faithful likeness of the author who is responsible
+for this, and many other previous books which have had the good fortune
+to meet with a friendly reception from the reading public. Moreover, I
+am not quite able to convince myself that my pictured personality can
+have any interest for my readers, as it has always seemed to me that an
+author's real being is more disclosed in his or her work than in any
+portrayed presentment of mere physiognomy.</p>
+
+<p>But&mdash;owing to the fact that various gross, and I think I may say
+libellous and fictitious misrepresentations of me have been freely and
+unwarrantably circulated throughout Great Britain, the Colonies, and
+America, by certain "lower" sections of the pictorial press, which, with
+a zeal worthy of a better and kinder cause, have striven by this means
+to alienate my readers from me,&mdash;it appears to my Publishers advisable
+that an authentic likeness of myself, as I truly am to-day, should now
+be issued in order to prevent any further misleading of the public by
+fraudulent inventions. The original photograph from which Messrs. Dodd,
+Mead &amp; Co. have reproduced the present photogravure, was taken by Mr. G.
+Gabell of Eccleston Street, London, who, at the time of my submitting
+myself to his camera, was not aware of my identity. I used, for the
+nonce, the name of a lady friend, who arranged that the proofs of the
+portrait should be sent to her at various different addresses,&mdash;and it
+was not till this "Romance of Riches" was on the verge of publication
+that I disclosed the real position to the courteous artist himself. That
+I thus elected to be photographed as an unknown rather than a known
+person was in order that no extra pains should be taken on my behalf,
+but that I should be treated just as an ordinary stranger would be
+treated, with no less, but at the same time certainly no more, care.</p>
+
+<p>I may add, in conclusion, for the benefit of those few who may feel any
+further curiosity on the subject, that no portraits resembling me in any
+way are published anywhere, and that invented sketches purporting to
+pass as true likenesses of me, are merely attempts to obtain money from
+the public on false pretences. One picture of me, taken in my own house
+by a friend who is an amateur photographer, was reproduced some time ago
+in the <i>Strand Magazine</i>, <i>The Boudoir</i>, <i>Cassell's Magazine</i>, and <i>The
+Rapid Review</i>; but beyond that, and the present one in this volume, no
+photographs of me are on sale in any country, either in shops or on
+postcards. My objection to this sort of "picture popularity" has already
+been publicly stated, and I here repeat and emphasise it. And I venture
+to ask my readers who have so generously encouraged me by their warm and
+constant appreciation of my literary efforts, to try and understand the
+spirit in which the objection is made. It is simply that to myself the
+personal "Self" of me is nothing, and should be, rightly speaking,
+nothing to any one outside the circle of my home and my intimate
+friends; while my work and the keen desire to improve in that work, so
+that by my work alone I may become united in sympathy and love to my
+readers, whoever and wherever they may be, constitutes for me the
+Everything of life.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right">MARIE CORELLI</p>
+<p class="smcap">Stratford-on-Avon<br />
+<i>July, 1906</i></p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<h1>The Treasure Of Heaven</h1>
+
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>London,&mdash;and a night in June. London, swart and grim, semi-shrouded in a
+warm close mist of mingled human breath and acrid vapour steaming up
+from the clammy crowded streets,&mdash;London, with a million twinkling
+lights gleaming sharp upon its native blackness, and looking, to a
+dreamer's eye, like some gigantic Fortress, built line upon line and
+tower upon tower,&mdash;with huge ramparts raised about it frowningly as
+though in self-defence against Heaven. Around and above it the deep sky
+swept in a ring of sable blue, wherein thousands of stars were visible,
+encamped after the fashion of a mighty army, with sentinel planets
+taking their turns of duty in the watching of a rebellious world. A
+sulphureous wave of heat half asphyxiated the swarms of people who were
+hurrying to and fro in that restless undetermined way which is such a
+predominating feature of what is called a London "season," and the
+general impression of the weather was, to one and all, conveyed in a
+sense of discomfort and oppression, with a vague struggling expectancy
+of approaching thunder. Few raised their eyes beyond the thick warm haze
+which hung low on the sooty chimney-pots, and trailed sleepily along in
+the arid, dusty parks. Those who by chance looked higher, saw that the
+skies above the city were divinely calm and clear, and that not a cloud
+betokened so much as the shadow of a storm.</p>
+
+<p>The deep bell of Westminster chimed midnight, that hour of picturesque
+ghostly tradition, when simple village maids shudder at the thought of
+traversing a dark lane or passing a churchyard, and when country folks
+of old-fashioned habits and principles are respectably in bed and for
+the most part sleeping. But so far as the fashionable "West End" was
+concerned, it might have been midday. Everybody assuming to be Anybody,
+was in town. The rumble<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> of carriages passing to and fro was
+incessant,&mdash;the swift whirr and warning hoot of coming and going motor
+vehicles, the hoarse cries of the newsboys, and the general insect-like
+drone and murmur of feverish human activity were as loud as at any busy
+time of the morning or the afternoon. There had been a Court at
+Buckingham Palace,&mdash;and a "special" performance at the Opera,&mdash;and on
+account of these two functions, entertainments were going on at almost
+every fashionable house in every fashionable quarter. The public
+restaurants were crammed with luxury-loving men and women,&mdash;men and
+women to whom the mere suggestion of a quiet dinner in their own homes
+would have acted as a menace of infinite boredom,&mdash;and these gilded and
+refined eating-houses were now beginning to shoot forth their bundles of
+well-dressed, well-fed folk into the many and various conveyances
+waiting to receive them. There was a good deal of needless shouting, and
+much banter between drivers and policemen. Now and again the melancholy
+whine of a beggar's plea struck a discordant note through the
+smooth-toned compliments and farewells of hosts and their departing
+guests. No hint of pause or repose was offered in the ever-changing
+scene of uneasy and impetuous excitation of movement, save where, far up
+in the clear depths of space, the glittering star-battalions of a
+wronged and forgotten God held their steadfast watch and kept their
+hourly chronicle. London with its brilliant "season" seemed the only
+living fact worth recognising; London, with its flaring noisy streets,
+and its hot summer haze interposed like a grey veil between itself and
+the higher vision. Enough for most people it was to see the
+veil,&mdash;beyond it the view is always too vast and illimitable for the
+little vanities of ordinary mortal minds.</p>
+
+<p>Amid all the din and turmoil of fashion and folly seeking its own in the
+great English capital at the midnight hour, a certain corner of an
+exclusively fashionable quarter seemed strangely quiet and sequestered,
+and this was the back of one of the row of palace-like dwellings known
+as Carlton House Terrace. Occasionally a silent-wheeled hansom,
+brougham, or flashing motor-car sped swiftly along the Mall, towards
+which the wide stone balcony of the house projected,&mdash;or the heavy
+footsteps of a policeman walking on his beat crunched the gravel of the
+path beneath, but the general atmosphere of the place was expressive of
+solitude<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> and even of gloom. The imposing evidences of great wealth,
+written in bold headlines on the massive square architecture of the
+whole block of huge mansions, only intensified the austere sombreness of
+their appearance, and the fringe of sad-looking trees edging the road
+below sent a faint waving shadow in the lamplight against the cold
+walls, as though some shuddering consciousness of happier woodland
+scenes had suddenly moved them to a vain regret. The haze of heat lay
+very thickly here, creeping along with slow stealth like a sluggish
+stream, and a suffocating odour suggestive of some subtle an&aelig;sthetic
+weighed the air with a sense of nausea and depression. It was difficult
+to realise that this condition of climate was actually summer in its
+prime&mdash;summer with all its glowing abundance of flower and foliage as
+seen in fresh green lanes and country dells,&mdash;rather did it seem a dull
+nightmare of what summer might be in a prison among criminals undergoing
+punishment. The house with the wide stone balcony looked particularly
+prison-like, even more so than some of its neighbours, perhaps because
+the greater number of its many windows were shuttered close, and showed
+no sign of life behind their impenetrable blackness. The only strong
+gleam of light radiating from the inner darkness to the outer, streamed
+across the balcony itself, which by means of two glass doors opened
+directly from the room behind it. Here two men sat, or rather half
+reclined in easy-cushioned lounge chairs, their faces turned towards the
+Mall, so that the illumination from the apartment in the background
+created a Rembrandt-like effect in partially concealing the expression
+of the one from the other's observation. Outwardly, and at a first
+causal glance, there was nothing very remarkable about either of them.
+One was old; the other more than middle-aged. Both were in
+evening-dress,&mdash;both smoked idly, and apparently not so much for the
+pleasure of smoking as for lack of something better to do, and both
+seemed self-centred and absorbed in thought. They had been conversing
+for some time, but now silence had fallen between them, and neither
+seemed disposed to break the heavy spell. The distant roar of constant
+traffic in the busy thoroughfares of the metropolis sounded in their
+ears like muffled thunder, while every now and again the soft sudden
+echo of dance music, played by a string band in evident attendance at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
+some festive function in a house not far away, shivered delicately
+through the mist like a sigh of pleasure. The melancholy tree-tops
+trembled,&mdash;a single star struggled above the sultry vapours and shone
+out large and bright as though it were a great signal lamp suddenly lit
+in heaven. The elder of the two men seated on the balcony raised his
+eyes and saw it shining. He moved uneasily,&mdash;then lifting himself a
+little in his chair, he spoke as though taking up a dropped thread of
+conversation, with the intention of deliberately continuing it to the
+end. His voice was gentle and mellow, with a touch of that singular
+pathos in its tone which is customary to the Celtic rather than to the
+Saxon vocal cords.</p>
+
+<p>"I have given you my full confidence," he said, "and I have put before
+you the exact sum total of the matter as I see it. You think me
+irrational,&mdash;absurd. Good. Then I am content to be irrational and
+absurd. In any case you can scarcely deny that what I have stated is a
+simple fact,&mdash;a truth which cannot be denied?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a truth, certainly," replied his companion, pulling himself
+upright in his chair with a certain vexed vehemence of action and
+flinging away his half-smoked cigar, "but it is one of those unpleasant
+truths which need not be looked at too closely or too often remembered.
+We must all get old&mdash;unfortunately,&mdash;and we must all die, which in my
+opinion is more unfortunate still. But we need not anticipate such a
+disagreeable business before its time."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet you are always drawing up Last Wills and Testaments," observed the
+other, with a touch of humour in his tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well! That, of course, has to be done. The youngest persons should
+make their wills if they have anything to leave, or else run the risk of
+having all their household goods and other belongings fought for with
+tooth and claw by their 'dearest' relations. Dearest relations are,
+according to my experience, very much like wild cats: give them the
+faintest hope of a legacy, and they scratch and squawl as though it were
+raw meat for which they have been starving. In all my long career as a
+solicitor I never knew one 'dearest relation' who honestly regretted the
+dead."</p>
+
+<p>"There you meet me on the very ground of our previous discussions," said
+the elder man. "It is not the consciousness of old age that troubles me,
+or the inevitable approach<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> of that end which is common to all,&mdash;it is
+merely the outlook into the void,&mdash;the teasing wonder as to who may step
+into my place when I am gone, and what will be done with the results of
+my life's labour."</p>
+
+<p>He rose as he spoke, and moved towards the balcony's edge, resting one
+hand upon its smooth stone. The change of attitude allowed the light
+from the interior room to play more fully on his features, and showed
+him to be well advanced in age, with a worn, yet strong face and
+deep-set eyes, over which the shelving brows stooped benevolently as
+though to guard the sinking vital fire in the wells of vision below. The
+mouth was concealed by an ashen-grey moustache, while on the forehead
+and at the sides of the temples the hair was perfectly white, though
+still abundant. A certain military precision of manner was attached to
+the whole bearing of the man,&mdash;his thin figure was well-built and
+upright, showing no tendency to feebleness,&mdash;his shoulders were set
+square, and his head was poised in a manner that might have been called
+uncompromising, if not obstinate. Even the hand that rested on the
+balcony, attenuated and deeply wrinkled as it was, suggested strength in
+its shape and character, and a passing thought of this flitted across
+the mind of his companion who, after a pause, said slowly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I really see no reason why you should brood on such things. What's the
+use? Your health is excellent for your time of life. Your end is not
+imminent. You are voluntarily undergoing a system of self-torture which
+is quite unnecessary. We've known each other for years, yet I hardly
+recognise you in your present humour. I thought you were perfectly
+happy. Surely you ought to be,&mdash;you, David Helmsley,&mdash;'King' David, as
+you are sometimes called&mdash;one of the richest men in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled, but with a suspicion of sadness.</p>
+
+<p>"Neither kings nor rich men hold special grants of happiness," he
+answered, quietly: "Your own experience of humanity must have taught you
+that. Personally speaking, I have never been happy since my boyhood.
+This surprises you? I daresay it does. But, my dear Vesey, old friend as
+you are, it sometimes happens that our closest intimates know us least!
+And even the famous firm of Vesey and Symonds, or Symonds and
+Vesey,&mdash;for your partner is one with you and you are one with your
+partner,&mdash;may, in spite of all their legal wisdom, fail to pierce the
+thick disguises<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> worn by the souls of their clients. The Man in the Iron
+Mask is a familiar figure in the office of his confidential solicitor. I
+repeat, I have never been happy since my boyhood&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Your happiness then was a mere matter of youth and animal spirits,"
+interposed Vesey.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you would say that!"&mdash;and again a faint smile illumined
+Helmsley's features. "It is just what every one would say. Yet the young
+are often much more miserable than the old; and while I grant that youth
+may have had something to do with my past joy in life, it was not all.
+No, it certainly was not all. It was simply that I had then what I have
+never had since."</p>
+
+<p>He broke off abruptly. Then stepping back to his chair he resumed his
+former reclining position, leaning his head against the cushions and
+fixing his eyes on the solitary bright star that shone above the mist
+and the trembling trees.</p>
+
+<p>"May I talk out to you?" he inquired suddenly, with a touch of
+whimsicality. "Or are you resolved to preach copybook moralities at me,
+such as 'Be good and you will be happy?'"</p>
+
+<p>Vesey, more ceremoniously known as Sir Francis Vesey, one of the most
+renowned of London's great leading solicitors, looked at him and
+laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Talk out, my dear fellow, by all means!" he replied. "Especially if it
+will do you any good. But don't ask me to sympathise very deeply with
+the imaginary sorrows of so enormously wealthy a man as you are!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't expect any sympathy," said Helmsley. "Sympathy is the one thing
+I have never sought, because I know it is not to be obtained, even from
+one's nearest and dearest. Sympathy! Why, no man in the world ever
+really gets it, even from his wife. And no man possessing a spark of
+manliness ever wants it, except&mdash;sometimes&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated, looking steadily at the star above him,&mdash;then went on.</p>
+
+<p>"Except sometimes,&mdash;when the power of resistance is weakened&mdash;when the
+consciousness is strongly borne in upon us of the unanswerable wisdom of
+Solomon, who wrote&mdash;'I hated all my labour which I had taken under the
+sun, because I should leave it to the man that should be after me. And
+who knows whether he shall be a wise man or a fool?'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sir Francis Vesey, dimly regretting the half-smoked cigar he had thrown
+away in a moment of impatience, took out a fresh one from his
+pocket-case and lit it.</p>
+
+<p>"Solomon has expressed every disagreeable situation in life with
+remarkable accuracy," he murmured placidly, as he began to puff rings of
+pale smoke into the surrounding yellow haze, "but he was a bit of a
+misanthrope."</p>
+
+<p>"When I was a boy," pursued Helmsley, not heeding his legal friend's
+comment, "I was happy chiefly because I believed. I never doubted any
+stated truth that seemed beautiful enough to be true. I had perfect
+confidence in the goodness of God and the ultimate happiness designed by
+Him for every living creature. Away out in Virginia where I was born,
+before the Southern States were subjected to Yankeedom, it was a
+glorious thing merely to be alive. The clear, pure air, fresh with the
+strong odour of pine and cedar,&mdash;the big plantations of cotton and
+corn,&mdash;the colours of the autumn woods when the maple trees turned
+scarlet, and the tall sumachs blazed like great fires on the sides of
+the mountains,&mdash;the exhilarating climate&mdash;the sweetness of the
+south-west wind,&mdash;all these influences of nature appealed to my soul and
+kindled a strange restlessness in it which has never been appeased.
+Never!&mdash;though I have lived my life almost to its end, and have done all
+those things which most men do who seek to get the utmost satisfaction
+they can out of existence. But I am not satisfied; I have never been
+satisfied."</p>
+
+<p>"And you never will be," declared Sir Francis firmly. "There are some
+people to whom Heaven itself would prove disappointing."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if Heaven is the kind of place depicted by the clergy, the
+poorest beggar might resent its offered attractions," said Helmsley,
+with a slight, contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. "After a life of
+continuous pain and struggle, the pleasures of singing for ever and ever
+to one's own harp accompaniment are scarcely sufficient compensation."</p>
+
+<p>Vesey laughed cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all symbolical," he murmured, puffing away at his cigar, "and
+really very well meant! Positively now, the clergy are capital fellows!
+They do their best,&mdash;they keep it up. Give them credit for that at
+least, Helmsley,&mdash;they do keep it up!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley was silent for a minute or two.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We are rather wandering from the point," he said at last. "What I know
+of the clergy generally has not taught me to rely upon them for any
+advice in a difficulty, or any help out of trouble. Once&mdash;in a moment of
+weakness and irresolution&mdash;I asked a celebrated preacher what suggestion
+he could make to a rich man, who, having no heirs, sought a means of
+disposing of his wealth to the best advantage for others after his
+death. His reply&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Was the usual thing, of course," interposed Sir Francis blandly. "He
+said, 'Let the rich man leave it all to me, and God will bless him
+abundantly!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes, it came to that,"&mdash;and Helmsley gave a short impatient sigh.
+"He evidently guessed that the rich man implied was myself, for ever
+since I asked him the question, he has kept me regularly supplied with
+books and pamphlets relating to his Church and various missions. I
+daresay he's a very good fellow. But I've no fancy to assist him. He
+works on sectarian lines, and I am of no sect. Though I confess I should
+like to believe in God&mdash;- if I could."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Francis, fanning a tiny wreath of cigar smoke away with one hand,
+looked at him curiously, but offered no remark.</p>
+
+<p>"You said I might talk out to you," continued Helmsley&mdash;"and it is
+perhaps necessary that I should do so, since you have lately so
+persistently urged upon me the importance of making my will. You are
+perfectly right, of course, and I alone am to blame for the apparently
+stupid hesitation I show in following your advice. But, as I have
+already told you, I have no one in the world who has the least claim
+upon me,&mdash;no one to whom I can bequeath, to my own satisfaction, the
+wealth I have earned. I married,&mdash;as you know,&mdash;and my marriage was
+unhappy. It ended,&mdash;and you are aware of all the facts&mdash;in the proved
+infidelity of my wife, followed by our separation (effected quietly,
+thanks to you, without the vulgar publicity of the divorce court), and
+then&mdash;in her premature death. Notwithstanding all this, I did my best
+for my two sons,&mdash;you are a witness to this truth,&mdash;and you remember
+that during their lifetime I did make my will,&mdash;in their favour. They
+turned out badly; each one ran his own career of folly, vice, and
+riotous dissipation, and both are dead. Thus it happens that here I
+am,&mdash;alone at the age of seventy, without any soul to care for me, or
+any creature to whom I can trust my business,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> or leave my fortune. It
+is not my fault that it is so; it is sheer destiny. How, I ask you, can
+I make any 'Last Will and Testament' under such conditions?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you make no will at all, your property goes to the Crown," said
+Vesey bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally. I know that. But one might have a worse heir than the Crown!
+The Crown may be trusted to take proper care of money, and this is more
+than can often be said of one's sons and daughters. I tell you it is all
+as Solomon said&mdash;'vanity and vexation of spirit.' The amassing of great
+wealth is not worth the time and trouble involved in the task. One could
+do so much better&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here he paused.</p>
+
+<p>"How?" asked Vesey, with a half-smile. "What else is there to be done in
+this world except to get rich in order to live comfortably?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know people who are not rich at all, and who never will be rich, yet
+who live more comfortably than I have ever done," replied
+Helmsley&mdash;"that is, if to 'live comfortably' implies to live peacefully,
+happily, and contentedly, taking each day as it comes with gladness as a
+real 'living' time. And by this, I mean 'living,' not with the rush and
+scramble, fret and jar inseparable from money-making, but living just
+for the joy of life. Especially when it is possible to believe that a
+God exists, who designed life, and even death, for the ultimate good of
+every creature. This is what I believed&mdash;once&mdash;'out in ole Virginny, a
+long time ago!'"</p>
+
+<p>He hummed the last words softly under his breath,&mdash;then swept one hand
+across his eyes with a movement of impatience.</p>
+
+<p>"Old men's brains grow addled," he continued. "They become clouded with
+a fog through which only the memories of the past and the days of their
+youth shine clear. Sometimes I talk of Virginia as if I were home-sick
+and wanted to go back to it,&mdash;yet I never do. I wouldn't go back to it
+for the world,&mdash;not now. I'm not an American, so I can say, without any
+loss of the patriotic sense, that I loathe America. It is a country to
+be used for the making of wealth, but it is not a country to be loved.
+It might have been the most lovable Father-and-Mother-Land on the globe
+if nobler men had lived long enough in it to rescue its people from the
+degrading Dollar-craze. But now, well!&mdash;those who make fortunes there
+leave it as soon as they can, shaking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> its dust off their feet and
+striving to forget that they ever experienced its incalculable greed,
+vice, cunning, and general rascality. There are plenty of decent folk in
+America, of course, just as there are decent folk everywhere, but they
+are in the minority. Even in the Southern States the 'old stock' of men
+is decaying and dying-out, and the taint of commercial vulgarity is
+creeping over the former simplicity of the Virginian homestead. No,&mdash;I
+would not go back to the scene of my boyhood, for though I had something
+there once which I have since lost, I am not such a fool as to think I
+should ever find it again."</p>
+
+<p>Here he looked round at his listener with a smile so sudden and sweet as
+to render his sunken features almost youthful.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I am boring you, Vesey!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not the least in the world,&mdash;you never bore me," replied Sir Francis,
+with alacrity. "You are always interesting, even in your most illogical
+humour."</p>
+
+<p>"You consider me illogical?"</p>
+
+<p>"In a way, yes. For instance, you abuse America. Why? Your misguided
+wife was American, certainly, but setting that unfortunate fact aside,
+you made your money in the States. Commercial vulgarity helped you
+along. Therefore be just to commercial vulgarity."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I am just to it,&mdash;I think I am," answered Helmsley slowly; "but
+I never was one with it. I never expected to wring a dollar out of ten
+cents, and never tried. I can at least say that I have made my money
+honestly, and have trampled no man down on the road to fortune. But
+then&mdash;I am not a citizen of the 'Great Republic.'"</p>
+
+<p>"You were born in America," said Vesey.</p>
+
+<p>"By accident," replied Helmsley, with a laugh, "and kindly fate favoured
+me by allowing me to see my first daylight in the South rather than in
+the North. But I was never naturalised as an American. My father and
+mother were both English,&mdash;they both came from the same little sea-coast
+village in Cornwall. They married very young,&mdash;theirs was a romantic
+love-match, and they left England in the hope of bettering their
+fortunes. They settled in Virginia and grew to love it. My father became
+accountant to a large business firm out there, and did fairly well,
+though he never was a rich man in the present-day meaning of the term.
+He had only two children,&mdash;myself and my sister,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> who died at sixteen. I
+was barely twenty when I lost both father and mother and started alone
+to face the world."</p>
+
+<p>"You have faced it very successfully," said Vesey; "and if you would
+only look at things in the right and reasonable way, you have really
+very little to complain of. Your marriage was certainly an unlucky
+one&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do not speak of it!" interrupted Helmsley, hastily. "It is past and
+done with. Wife and children are swept out of my life as though they had
+never been! It is a curious thing, perhaps, but with me a betrayed
+affection does not remain in my memory as affection at all, but only as
+a spurious image of the real virtue, not worth considering or
+regretting. Standing as I do now, on the threshold of the grave, I look
+back,&mdash;and in looking back I see none of those who wronged and deceived
+me,&mdash;they have disappeared altogether, and their very faces and forms
+are blotted out of my remembrance. So much so, indeed, that I could, if
+I had the chance, begin a new life again and never give a thought to the
+old!"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes flashed a sudden fire under their shelving brows, and his right
+hand clenched itself involuntarily.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," he continued, "that a kind of harking back to the memories
+of one's youth is common to all aged persons. With me it has become
+almost morbid, for daily and hourly I see myself as a boy, dreaming away
+the time in the wild garden of our home in Virginia,&mdash;watching the
+fireflies light up the darkness of the summer evenings, and listening to
+my sister singing in her soft little voice her favourite melody&mdash;'Angels
+ever bright and fair.' As I said to you when we began this talk, I had
+something then which I have never had since. Do you know what it was?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Francis, here finishing his cigar, threw away its glowing end, and
+shook his head in the negative.</p>
+
+<p>"You will think me as sentimental as I am garrulous," went on Helmsley,
+"when I tell you that it was merely&mdash;love!"</p>
+
+<p>Vesey raised himself in his chair and sat upright, opening his eyes in
+astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Love!" he echoed. "God bless my soul! I should have thought that you,
+of all men in the world, could have won that easily!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley turned towards him with a questioning look.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I 'of all men in the world' have won it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> he asked.
+"Because I am rich? Rich men are seldom, if ever, loved for
+themselves&mdash;only for what they can give to their professing lovers."</p>
+
+<p>His ordinarily soft tone had an accent of bitterness in it, and Sir
+Francis Vesey was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Had I remained poor,&mdash;poor as I was when I first started to make my
+fortune," he went on, "I might possibly have been loved by some woman,
+or some friend, for myself alone. For as a young fellow I was not
+bad-looking, nor had I, so I flatter myself, an unlikable disposition.
+But luck always turned the wheel in my favour, and at thirty-five I was
+a millionaire. Then I 'fell' in love,&mdash;and married on the faith of that
+emotion, which is always a mistake. 'Falling in love' is not loving. I
+was in the full flush of my strength and manhood, and was sufficiently
+proud of myself to believe that my wife really cared for me. There I was
+deceived. She cared for my millions. So it chances that the only real
+love I have ever known was the unselfish 'home' affection,&mdash;the love of
+my mother and father and sister 'out in ole Virginny,' 'a love so sweet
+it could not last,' as Shelley sings. Though I believe it can and does
+last,&mdash;for my soul (or whatever that strange part of me may be which
+thinks beyond the body) is always running back to that love with a full
+sense of certainty that it is still existent."</p>
+
+<p>His voice sank and seemed to fail him for a moment. He looked up at the
+large, bright star shining steadily above him.</p>
+
+<p>"You are silent, Vesey," he said, after a pause, speaking with an effort
+at lightness; "and wisely too, for I know you have nothing to say&mdash;that
+is, nothing that could affect the position. And you may well ask, if you
+choose, to what does all this reminiscent old man's prattle tend? Simply
+to this&mdash;that you have been urging me for the last six months to make my
+will in order to replace the one which was previously made in favour of
+my sons, and which is now destroyed, owing to their deaths before my
+own,&mdash;and I tell you plainly and frankly that I don't know how to make
+it, as there is no one in the world whom I care to name as my heir."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Francis sat gravely ruminating for a moment;&mdash;then he said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Why not do as I suggested to you once before&mdash;adopt a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> child? Find some
+promising boy, born of decent, healthy, self-respecting
+parents,&mdash;educate him according to your own ideas, and bring him up to
+understand his future responsibilities. How would that suit you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," replied Helmsley drily. "I <i>have</i> heard of parents willing
+to sell their children, but I should scarcely call them decent or
+self-respecting. I know of one case where a couple of peasants sold
+their son for five pounds in order to get rid of the trouble of rearing
+him. He turned out a famous man,&mdash;but though he was, in due course, told
+his history, he never acknowledged the unnatural vendors of his flesh
+and blood as his parents, and quite right too. No,&mdash;I have had too much
+experience of life to try such a doubtful business as that of adopting a
+child. The very fact of adoption by so miserably rich a man as myself
+would buy a child's duty and obedience rather than win it. I will have
+no heir at all, unless I can discover one whose love for me is sincerely
+unselfish and far above all considerations of wealth or worldly
+advantage."</p>
+
+<p>"It is rather late in the day, perhaps," said Vesey after a pause,
+speaking hesitatingly, "but&mdash;but&mdash;you might marry?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley laughed loudly and harshly.</p>
+
+<p>"Marry! I! At seventy! My dear Vesey, you are a very old friend, and
+privileged to say what others dare not, or you would offend me. If I had
+ever thought of marrying again I should have done so two or three years
+after my wife's death, when I was in the fifties, and not waited till
+now, when my end, if not actually near, is certainly well in sight.
+Though I daresay there are plenty of women who would marry me&mdash;even
+me&mdash;at my age,&mdash;knowing the extent of my income. But do you think I
+would take one of them, knowing in my heart that it would be a mere
+question of sale and barter? Not I!&mdash;I could never consent to sink so
+low in my own estimation of myself. I can honestly say I have never
+wronged any woman. I shall not begin now."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why you should take that view of it," murmured Sir Francis
+placidly. "Life is not lived nowadays as it was when you first entered
+upon your career. For one thing, men last longer and don't give up so
+soon. Few consider themselves old at seventy. Why should they? There's a
+learned professor at the Pasteur Institute who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> declares we ought all to
+live to a hundred and forty. If he's right, you are still quite a young
+man."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley rose from his chair with a slightly impatient gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"We won't discuss any so-called 'new theories,'" he said. "They are only
+echoes of old fallacies. The professor's statement is merely a modern
+repetition of the ancient belief in the elixir of life. Shall we go in?"</p>
+
+<p>Vesey got up from his lounging position more slowly and stiffly than
+Helmsley had done. Some ten years younger as he was, he was evidently
+less active.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, as he squared his shoulders and drew himself erect, "we
+are no nearer a settlement of what I consider a most urgent and
+important affair than when we began our conversation."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"When I come back to town, we will go into the question again," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You are off at the end of the week?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Going abroad?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I think so."</p>
+
+<p>The answer was given with a slight touch of hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"Your last 'function' of the season is the dance you are giving
+to-morrow night, I suppose," continued Sir Francis, studying with a
+vague curiosity the spare, slight figure of his companion, who had
+turned from him and, with one foot on the sill of the open French
+window, was just about to enter the room beyond.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It is Lucy's birthday."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Miss Lucy Sorrel! How old is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just twenty-one."</p>
+
+<p>And, as he spoke, Helmsley stepped into the apartment from which the
+window opened out upon the balcony, and waited a moment for Vesey to
+follow.</p>
+
+<p>"She has always been a great favourite of yours," said Vesey, as he
+entered. "Now, why&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't I leave her my fortune, you would ask?" interrupted Helmsley,
+with a touch of sarcasm. "Well, first, because she is a woman, and she
+might possibly marry a fool or a wastrel. Secondly, because though I
+have known her ever since she was a child of ten, I have no liking for
+her parents or for any of her family connections.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> When I first took a
+fancy to her she was playing about on the shore at a little seaside
+place on the Sussex coast,&mdash;I thought her a pretty little creature, and
+have made rather a pet of her ever since. But beyond giving her trinkets
+and bon-bons, and offering her such gaieties and amusements as are
+suitable to her age and sex, I have no other intentions concerning her."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Francis took a comprehensive glance round the magnificent
+drawing-room in which he now stood,&mdash;a drawing-room more like a royal
+reception-room of the First Empire than a modern apartment in the modern
+house of a merely modern millionaire. Then he chuckled softly to
+himself, and a broad smile spread itself among the furrows of his
+somewhat severely featured countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Sorrel would be sorry if she knew that," he said. "I think&mdash;I
+really think, Helmsley, that Mrs. Sorrel believes you are still in the
+matrimonial market!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley's deeply sunken eyes flashed out a sudden searchlight of keen
+and quick inquiry, then his brows grew dark with a shadow of scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Lucy!" he murmured. "She is very unfortunate in her mother, and
+equally so in her father. Matt Sorrel never did anything in his life but
+bet on the Turf and gamble at Monte Carlo, and it's too late for him to
+try his hand at any other sort of business. His daughter is a nice girl
+and a pretty one,&mdash;but now that she has grown from a child into a woman
+I shall not be able to do much more for her. She will have to do
+something for herself in finding a good husband."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Francis listened with his head very much on one side. An owl-like
+inscrutability of legal wisdom seemed to have suddenly enveloped him in
+a cloud. Pulling himself out of this misty reverie he said abruptly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;good-night! or rather good-morning! It's past one o'clock. Shall
+I see you again before you leave town?"</p>
+
+<p>"Probably. If not, you will hear from me."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't reconsider the advisability of&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I won't!" And Helmsley smiled. "I'm quite obstinate on that point.
+If I die suddenly, my property goes to the Crown,&mdash;if not, why then you
+will in due course receive your instructions."</p>
+
+<p>Vesey studied him with thoughtful attention.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a queer fellow, David!" he said, at last. "But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> I can't help
+liking you. I only wish you were not quite so&mdash;so romantic!"</p>
+
+<p>"Romantic!" Helmsley looked amused. "Romance and I said good-bye to each
+other years ago. I admit that I used to be romantic&mdash;but I'm not now."</p>
+
+<p>"You are!" And Sir Francis frowned a legal frown which soon brightened
+into a smile. "A man of your age doesn't want to be loved for himself
+alone unless he's very romantic indeed! And that's what you do
+want!&mdash;and that's what I'm afraid you won't get, in your position&mdash;not
+as this world goes! Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>They walked out of the drawing-room to the head of the grand staircase,
+and there shook hands and parted, a manservant being in waiting to show
+Sir Francis to the door. But late as the hour was, Helmsley did not
+immediately retire to rest. Long after all his household were in bed and
+sleeping, he sat in the hushed solitude of his library, writing many
+letters. The library was on a line with the drawing-room, and its one
+window, facing the Mall, was thrown open to admit such air as could ooze
+through the stifling heat of the sultry night. Pausing once in the busy
+work of his hand and pen, Helmsley looked up and saw the bright star he
+had watched from the upper balcony, peering in upon him steadily like an
+eye. A weary smile, sadder than scorn, wavered across his features.</p>
+
+<p>"That's Venus," he murmured half aloud. "The Eden star of all very young
+people,&mdash;the star of Love!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>On the following evening the cold and frowning aspect of the mansion in
+Carlton House Terrace underwent a sudden transformation. Lights gleamed
+from every window; the strip of garden which extended from the rear of
+the building to the Mall, was covered in by red and white awning, and
+the balcony where the millionaire master of the dwelling had, some few
+hours previously, sat talking with his distinguished legal friend, Sir
+Francis Vesey, was turned into a kind of lady's bower, softly carpeted,
+adorned with palms and hothouse roses, and supplied with cushioned
+chairs for the voluptuous ease of such persons of opposite sexes as
+might find their way to this suggestive "flirtation" corner. The music
+of a renowned orchestra of Hungarian performers flowed out of the open
+doors of the sumptuous ballroom which was one of the many attractions of
+the house, and ran in rhythmic vibrations up the stairs, echoing through
+all the corridors like the sweet calling voices of fabled nymphs and
+sirens, till, floating still higher, it breathed itself out to the
+night,&mdash;a night curiously heavy and sombre, with a blackness of sky too
+dense for any glimmer of stars to shine through. The hum of talk, the
+constant ripple of laughter, the rustle of women's silken garments, the
+clatter of plates and glasses in the dining-room, where a costly
+ball-supper awaited its devouring destiny,&mdash;the silvery tripping and
+slipping of light dancing feet on a polished floor&mdash;all these sounds,
+intermingling with the gliding seductive measure of the various waltzes
+played in quick succession by the band, created a vague impression of
+confusion and restlessness in the brain, and David Helmsley himself, the
+host and entertainer of the assembled guests, watched the brilliant
+scene from the ballroom door with a weary sense of melancholy which he
+knew was unfounded and absurd, yet which he could not resist,&mdash;a touch
+of intense and utter loneliness, as though he were a stranger in his own
+home.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel," he mused, "like some very poor old fellow asked in by chance
+for a few minutes, just to see the fun!"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled,&mdash;yet was unable to banish his depression.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> The bare fact of
+the worthlessness of wealth was all at once borne in upon him with
+overpowering weight. This magnificent house which his hard earnings had
+purchased,&mdash;this ballroom with its painted panels and sculptured
+friezes, crowded just now with kaleidoscope pictures of men and women
+whirling round and round in a maze of music and movement,&mdash;the thousand
+precious and costly things he had gathered about him in his journey
+through life,&mdash;must all pass out of his possession in a few brief years,
+and there was not a soul who loved him or whom he loved, to inherit them
+or value them for his sake. A few brief years! And then&mdash;darkness. The
+lights gone out,&mdash;the music silenced&mdash;the dancing done! And the love
+that he had dreamed of when he was a boy&mdash;love, strong and great and
+divine enough to outlive death&mdash;where was it? A sudden sigh escaped
+him&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Dear</i> Mr. Helmsley, you look so <i>very</i> tired!" said a woman's purring
+voice at his ear. "<i>Do</i> go and rest in your own room for a few minutes
+before supper! You have been so kind!&mdash;Lucy is quite touched and
+overwhelmed by <i>all</i> your goodness to her,&mdash;no <i>lover</i> could do more for
+a girl, I'm <i>sure</i>! But really you <i>must</i> spare yourself! What <i>should</i>
+we do without you!"</p>
+
+<p>"What indeed!" he replied, somewhat drily, as he looked down at the
+speaker, a cumbrous matron attired in an over-frilled and over-flounced
+costume of pale grey, which delicate Quakerish colour rather painfully
+intensified the mottled purplish-red of her face. "But I am not at all
+tired, Mrs. Sorrel, I assure you! Don't trouble yourself about me&mdash;I'm
+very well."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Are</i> you?" And Mrs. Sorrel looked volumes of tenderest insincerity.
+"Ah! But you know we <i>old</i> people <i>must</i> be careful! Young folks can do
+anything and everything&mdash;but <i>we</i>, at <i>our</i> age, need to be
+<i>over</i>-particular!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> shouldn't call yourself old, Mrs. Sorrel," said Helmsley, seeing
+that she expected this from him, "you're quite a young woman."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sorrel gave a little deprecatory laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear no!" she said, in a tone which meant "Oh dear yes!" "I wasn't
+married at sixteen, you know!"</p>
+
+<p>"No? You surprise me!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sorrel peered at him from under her fat eyelids with a slightly
+dubious air. She was never quite sure in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> her own mind as to the way in
+which "old Gold-Dust," as she privately called him, regarded her. An
+aged man, burdened with an excess of wealth, was privileged to have what
+are called "humours," and certainly he sometimes had them. It was
+necessary&mdash;or so Mrs. Sorrel thought&mdash;to deal with him delicately and
+cautiously&mdash;neither with too much levity, nor with an overweighted
+seriousness. One's plan of conduct with a multi-millionaire required to
+be thought out with sedulous care, and entered upon with circumspection.
+And Mrs Sorrel did not attempt even as much as a youthful giggle at
+Helmsley's half-sarcastically implied compliment with its sarcastic
+implication as to the ease with which she supported her years and
+superabundance of flesh tissue. She merely heaved a short sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"I was just one year younger than Lucy is to-day," she said, "and I
+really thought myself quite an <i>old</i> bride! I was a mother at
+twenty-one."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley found nothing to say in response to this interesting statement,
+particularly as he had often heard it before.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Lucy dancing with?" he asked irrelevantly, by way of diversion.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my <i>dear</i> Mr. Helmsley, who is she <i>not</i> dancing with!" and Mrs.
+Sorrel visibly swelled with maternal pride. "Every young man in the room
+has rushed at her&mdash;positively rushed!&mdash;and her programme was full five
+minutes after she arrived! Isn't she looking lovely to-night?&mdash;a perfect
+sylph! <i>Do</i> tell me you think she is a sylph!"</p>
+
+<p>David's old eyes twinkled.</p>
+
+<p>"I have never seen a sylph, Mrs. Sorrel, so I cannot make the
+comparison," he said; "but Lucy is a very beautiful girl, and I think
+she is looking her best this evening. Her dress becomes her. She ought
+to find a good husband easily."</p>
+
+<p>"She ought,&mdash;indeed she ought! But it is very difficult&mdash;very, very
+difficult! All the men marry for money nowadays, not for love&mdash;ah!&mdash;how
+different it was when you and I were young, Mr. Helmsley! Love was
+everything then,&mdash;and there was so much romance and poetical sentiment!"</p>
+
+<p>"Romance is a snare, and poetical sentiment a delusion," said Helmsley,
+with sudden harshness. "I proved that in my marriage. I should think you
+had equally proved it in yours!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sorrel recoiled a little timorously. "Old Gold-Dust" often said
+unpleasant things&mdash;truthful, but eminently tactless,&mdash;and she felt that
+he was likely to say some of those unpleasant things now. Therefore she
+gave a fluttering gesture of relief and satisfaction as the waltz-music
+just then ceased, and her daughter's figure, tall, slight, and
+marvellously graceful, detached itself from the swaying crowd in the
+ballroom and came towards her.</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest child!" she exclaimed effusively, "are you not <i>quite</i> tired
+out?"</p>
+
+<p>The "dearest child" shrugged her white shoulders and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing tires me, mother&mdash;you know that!" she answered&mdash;then with a
+sudden change from her air of careless indifference to one of coaxing
+softness, she turned to Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> must be tired!" she said. "Why have you been standing so long at
+the ballroom door?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have been watching you, Lucy," he replied gently. "It has been a
+pleasure for me to see you dance. I am too old to dance with you myself,
+otherwise I should grudge all the young men the privilege."</p>
+
+<p>"I will dance with you, if you like," she said, smiling. "There is one
+more set of Lancers before supper. Will you be my partner?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Not even to please you, my child!" and taking her hand he patted it
+kindly. "There is no fool like an old, fool, I know, but I am not quite
+so foolish as that."</p>
+
+<p>"I see nothing at all foolish in it," pouted Lucy. "You are my host, and
+it's my coming-of-age party."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"So it is! And the festival must not be spoilt by any incongruities. It
+will be quite sufficient honour for me to take you in to supper."</p>
+
+<p>She looked down at the flowers she wore in her bodice, and played with
+their perfumed petals.</p>
+
+<p>"I like you better than any man here," she said suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>A swift shadow crossed his face. Glancing over his shoulder he saw that
+Mrs. Sorrel had moved away. Then the cloud passed from his brow, and the
+thought that for a moment had darkened his mind, yielded to a kinder
+impulse.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You flatter me, my dear," he said quietly. "But I am such an old friend
+of yours that I can take your compliment in the right spirit without
+having my head turned by it. Indeed, I can hardly believe that it is
+eleven years ago since I saw you playing about on the seashore as a
+child. You seem to have grown up like a magic rose, all at once from a
+tiny bud into a full blossom. Do you remember how I first made your
+acquaintance?"</p>
+
+<p>"As if I should ever forget!" and she raised her lovely, large dark eyes
+to his. "I had been paddling about in the sea, and I had lost my shoes
+and stockings. You found them for me, and you put them on!"</p>
+
+<p>"True!" and he smiled. "You had very wet little feet, all rosy with the
+salt of the sea&mdash;and your long hair was blown about in thick curls round
+the brightest, sweetest little face in the world. I thought you were the
+prettiest little girl I had ever seen in my life, and I think just the
+same of you now."</p>
+
+<p>A pale blush flitted over her cheeks, and she dropped him a demure
+curtsy.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you!" she said. "And if you won't dance the Lancers, which are
+just beginning, will you sit them out with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gladly!" and he offered her his arm. "Shall we go up to the
+drawing-room? It is cooler there than here."</p>
+
+<p>She assented, and they slowly mounted the staircase together. Some of
+the evening's guests lounging about in the hall and loitering near the
+ballroom door, watched them go, and exchanged significant glances. One
+tall woman with black eyes and a viperish mouth, who commanded a certain
+exclusive "set" by virtue of being the wife of a dissolute Earl whose
+house was used as a common gambling resort, found out Mrs. Sorrel
+sitting among a group of female gossips in a corner, and laid a
+patronising hand upon her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Do</i> tell me!" she softly breathed. "<i>Is</i> it a case?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sorrel began to flutter immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Dearest</i> Lady Larford! What <i>do</i> you mean!"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely you know!" And the wide mouth of her ladyship grew still wider,
+and the black eyes more steely. "Will Lucy get him, do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sorrel fidgeted uneasily in her chair. Other people were
+listening.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Really," she mumbled nervously&mdash;"really, <i>dear</i> Lady Larford!&mdash;you put
+things so <i>very</i> plainly!&mdash;I&mdash;I cannot say!&mdash;you see&mdash;he is more like
+her father&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Lady Larford showed all her white teeth in an expansive grin.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's very safe!" she said. "The 'father' business works very well
+when sufficient cash is put in with it. I know several examples of
+perfect matrimonial bliss between old men and young girls&mdash;absolutely
+<i>perfect</i>! One is bound to be happy with heaps of money!"</p>
+
+<p>And keeping her teeth still well exposed, Lady Larford glided away, her
+skirts exhaling an odour of civet-cat as she moved. Mrs. Sorrel gazed
+after her helplessly, in a state of worry and confusion, for she
+instinctively felt that her ladyship's pleasure would now be to tell
+everybody whom she knew, that Lucy Sorrel, "the new girl who was
+presented at Court last night," was having a "try" for the Helmsley
+millions; and that if the "try" was not successful, no one living would
+launch more merciless and bitter jests at the failure and defeat of the
+Sorrels than this same titled "leader" of a section of the aristocratic
+gambling set. For there has never been anything born under the sun
+crueller than a twentieth-century woman of fashion to her own
+sex&mdash;except perhaps a starving hy&aelig;na tearing asunder its living prey.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, David Helmsley and his young companion had reached the
+drawing-room, which they found quite unoccupied. The window-balcony,
+festooned with rose-silk draperies and flowers, and sparkling with tiny
+electric lamps, offered itself as an inviting retreat for a quiet chat,
+and within it they seated themselves, Helmsley rather wearily, and Lucy
+Sorrel with the queenly air and dainty rustle of soft garments habitual
+to the movements of a well-dressed woman.</p>
+
+<p>"I have not thanked you half enough," she began, "for all the delightful
+things you have done for my birthday&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pray spare me!" he interrupted, with a deprecatory gesture&mdash;"I would
+rather you said nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but I must say something!" she went on. "You are so generous and
+good in yourself that of course you cannot bear to be thanked&mdash;I know
+that&mdash;but if you will persist in giving so much pleasure to a girl who,
+but for you, would have no pleasure at all in her life, you must expect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+that girl to express her feelings somehow. Now, mustn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>She leaned forward, smiling at him with an arch expression of sweetness
+and confidence. He looked at her attentively, but said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"When I got your lovely present the first thing this morning," she
+continued, "I could hardly believe my eyes. Such an exquisite
+necklace!&mdash;such perfect pearls! Dear Mr. Helmsley, you quite spoil me!
+I'm not worth all the kind thought and trouble you take on my behalf."</p>
+
+<p>Tears started to her eyes, and her lips quivered. Helmsley saw her
+emotion with only a very slight touch of concern. Her tears were merely
+sensitive, he thought, welling up from a young and grateful heart, and
+as the prime cause of that young heart's gratitude he delicately forbore
+to notice them. This chivalrous consideration on his part caused some
+little disappointment to the shedder of the tears, but he could not be
+expected to know that.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad you are pleased with my little gift," he said simply, "though
+I'm afraid it is quite a conventional and ordinary one. Pearls and girls
+always go together, in fact as in rhyme. After all, they are the most
+suitable jewels for the young&mdash;for they are emblems of everything that
+youth should be&mdash;white and pure and innocent."</p>
+
+<p>Her breath came and went quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think youth is always like that?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not always,&mdash;but surely most often," he answered. "At any rate, I wish
+to believe in the simplicity and goodness of all young things."</p>
+
+<p>She was silent. Helmsley studied her thoughtfully,&mdash;even critically. And
+presently he came to the conclusion that as a child she had been much
+prettier than she now was as a woman. Yet her present phase of
+loveliness was of the loveliest type. No fault could be found with the
+perfect oval of her face, her delicate white-rose skin, her small
+seductive mouth, curved in the approved line of the "Cupid's bow," her
+deep, soft, bright eyes, fringed with long-lashes a shade darker than
+the curling waves of her abundant brown hair. But her features in
+childhood had expressed something more than the beauty which had
+developed with the passing of years. A sweet affection, a tender
+earnestness, and an almost heavenly candour had made the attractiveness
+of her earlier age quite irresistible, but now&mdash;or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> so Helmsley
+fancied&mdash;that fine and subtle charm had gone. He was half ashamed of
+himself for allowing this thought to enter his mind, and quickly
+dismissing it, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"How did your presentation go off last night? Was it a full Court?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe so," she replied listlessly, unfurling a painted fan and
+waving it idly to and fro&mdash;"I cannot say that I found it very
+interesting. The whole thing bored me dreadfully."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Bored you! Is it possible to be bored at twenty-one?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think every one, young or old, is bored more or less nowadays," she
+said. "Boredom is a kind of microbe in the air. Most society functions
+are deadly dull. And where's the fun of being presented at Court? If a
+woman wears a pretty gown, all the other women try to tread on it and
+tear it off her back if they can. And the Royal people only speak to
+their own special 'set,' and not always the best-looking or
+best-mannered set either."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley looked amused.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's what is called an <i>entr&eacute;e</i> into the world,"&mdash;he replied.
+"For my own part, I have never been 'presented,' and never intend to be.
+I see too much of Royalty privately, in the dens of finance."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;all the kings and princes wanting to borrow money," she said
+quickly and flippantly. "And you must despise the lot. <i>You</i> are a real
+'King,' bigger than any crowned head, because you can do just as you
+like, and you are not the servant of Governments or peoples. I am sure
+you must be the happiest man in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>She plucked off a rose from a flowering rose-tree near her, and began to
+wrench out its petals with a quick, nervous movement. Helmsley watched
+her with a vague sense of annoyance.</p>
+
+<p>"I am no more happy," he said suddenly, "than that rose you are picking
+to pieces, though it has never done you any harm."</p>
+
+<p>She started, and flushed,&mdash;then laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the poor little rose!" she exclaimed&mdash;"I'm sorry! I've had so many
+roses to-day, that I don't think about them. I suppose it's wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not wrong," he answered quietly; "it's merely the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> fault of those
+who give you more roses than you know how to appreciate."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him inquiringly, but could not fathom his expression.</p>
+
+<p>"Still," he went on, "I would not have your life deprived of so much as
+one rose. And there is a very special rose that does not grow in earthly
+gardens, which I should like you to find and wear on your heart,
+Lucy,&mdash;I hope I shall see you in the happy possession of it before I
+die,&mdash;I mean the rose of love."</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her head, and her eyes shone coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Mr. Helmsley," she said, "I don't believe in love!"</p>
+
+<p>A flash of amazement, almost of anger, illumined his worn features.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't believe in love!" he echoed. "O child, what <i>do</i> you believe
+in, then?"</p>
+
+<p>The passion of his tone moved her to a surprised smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I believe in being happy while you can," she replied tranquilly.
+"And love isn't happiness. All my girl and men friends who are what they
+call 'in love' seem to be thoroughly miserable. Many of them get
+perfectly ill with jealousy, and they never seem to know whether what
+they call their 'love' will last from one day to another. I shouldn't
+care to live at such a high tension of nerves. My own mother and father
+married 'for love,' so I am always told,&mdash;and I'm sure a more
+quarrelsome couple never existed. I believe in friendship more than
+love."</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke, Helmsley looked at her steadily, his face darkening with a
+shadow of weary scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"I see!" he murmured coldly. "You do not care to over-fatigue the
+heart's action by unnecessary emotion. Quite right! If we were all as
+wise as you are at your age, we might live much longer than we do. You
+are very sensible, Lucy!&mdash;more sensible than I should have thought
+possible for so young a woman."</p>
+
+<p>She gave him a swift, uneasy glance. She was not quite sure of his mood.</p>
+
+<p>"Friendship," he continued, speaking in a slow, meditative tone, "is a
+good thing,&mdash;it may be, as you suggest, safer and sweeter than love. But
+even friendship, to be worthy of its name, must be quite unselfish,&mdash;and
+unselfishness, in both love and friendship, is rare."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Very, very rare!" she sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"You will be thinking of marriage <i>some</i> day, if you are not thinking of
+it now," he went on. "Would a husband's friendship&mdash;friendship and no
+more&mdash;satisfy you?"</p>
+
+<p>She gazed at him candidly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure it would!" she said; "I'm not the least bit sentimental."</p>
+
+<p>He regarded her with a grave and musing steadfastness. A very close
+observer might have seen a line of grim satire near the corners of his
+mouth, and a gleam of irritable impatience in his sunken eyes; but these
+signs of inward feeling were not apparent to the girl, who, more than
+usually satisfied with herself and over-conscious of her own beauty,
+considered that she was saying just the very thing that he would expect
+and like her to say.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not crave for love, then?" he queried. "You do not wish to know
+anything of the 'divine rapture falling out of heaven,'&mdash;the rapture
+that has inspired all the artists and poets in the world, and that has
+probably had the largest share in making the world's history?"</p>
+
+<p>She gave a little shrug of amused disdain.</p>
+
+<p>"Raptures never last!" and she laughed. "And artists and poets are
+dreadful people! I've seen a few of them, and don't want to see them any
+more. They are always very untidy, and they have the most absurd ideas
+of their own abilities. You can't have them in society, you know!&mdash;you
+simply can't! If I had a house of my own I would never have a poet
+inside it."</p>
+
+<p>The grim lines round Helmsley's mouth hardened, and made him look almost
+cruelly saturnine. Yet he murmured under his breath:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"'All thoughts, all passions, all delights,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whatever stirs this mortal frame;</span><br />
+Are but the ministers of Love,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And feed his sacred flame!'"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" she asked quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Poetry!" he answered, "by a man named Coleridge. He is dead now. He
+used to take opium, and he did not understand business matters. He was
+never rich in anything but thoughts."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled brilliantly.</p>
+
+<p>"How silly!" she said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he was very silly," agreed Helmsley, watching her narrowly from
+under his half-closed eyelids. "But most thinkers are silly, even when
+they don't take opium. They believe in Love."</p>
+
+<p>She coloured. She caught the sarcastic inflection in his tone. But she
+was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Most men who have lived and worked and suffered," he went on, "come to
+know before they die that without a great and true love in their lives,
+their work is wasted, and their sufferings are in vain. But there are
+exceptions, of course. Some get on very well without love at all, and
+perhaps these are the most fortunate."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure they are!" she said decisively.</p>
+
+<p>He picked up two or three of the rose-petals her restless fingers had
+scattered, and laying them in his palm looked at the curved, pink,
+shell-like shapes abstractedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, they are saved a good deal of trouble," he answered quietly.
+"They spare themselves many a healing heart-ache and many purifying
+tears. But when they grow old, and when they find that, after all, the
+happiest folks in the world are still those who love, or who have loved
+and have been loved, even though the loved ones are perhaps no longer
+here, they may&mdash;I do not say they will&mdash;possibly regret that they never
+experienced that marvellous sense of absorption into another's life of
+which Mrs. Browning writes in her letters to her husband. Do you know
+what she says?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I don't!" and she smothered a slight yawn as she spoke. He
+fixed his eyes intently upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"She tells her lover her feeling in these words: '<i>There is nothing in
+you that does not draw all out of me.</i>' That is the true emotion of
+love,&mdash;the one soul must draw all out of the other, and the best of all
+in each."</p>
+
+<p>"But the Brownings were a very funny couple," and the fair Lucy arched
+her graceful throat and settled more becomingly in its place a straying
+curl of her glossy brown hair. "I know an old gentleman who used to see
+them together when they lived in Florence, and <i>he</i> says they were so
+queer-looking that people used to laugh at them. It's all very well to
+love and to be in love, but if you look odd and people laugh at you,
+what's the good of it?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley rose from his seat abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"True!" he exclaimed. "You're right, Lucy! Little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> girl, you're quite
+right! What's the good of it! Upon my word, you're a most practical
+woman!&mdash;you'll make a capital wife for a business man!" Then as the gay
+music of the band below-stairs suddenly ceased, to give place to the
+noise of chattering voices and murmurs of laughter, he glanced at his
+watch.</p>
+
+<p>"Supper-time!" he said. "Let me take you down. And after supper, will
+you give me ten minutes' chat with you alone in the library!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked up eagerly, with a flush of pink in her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I will! With pleasure!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you!" And he drew her white-gloved hand through his arm. "I am
+leaving town next week, and I have something important to say to you
+before I go. You will allow me to say it privately?"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled assent, and leaned on his arm with a light, confiding
+pressure, to which he no more responded than if his muscles had been
+rigid iron. Her heart beat quickly with a sense of gratified vanity and
+exultant expectancy,&mdash;but his throbbed slowly and heavily, chilled by
+the double frost of age and solitude.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>To see people eating is understood to be a very interesting and
+"brilliant" spectacle, and however insignificant you may be in the
+social world, you get a reflex of its "brilliancy" when you allow people
+in their turn to see you eating likewise. A well-cooked, well-served
+supper is a "function," in which every man and woman who can move a jaw
+takes part, and though in plain parlance there is nothing uglier than
+the act of putting food into one's mouth, we have persuaded ourselves
+that it is a pretty and pleasant performance enough for us to ask our
+friends to see us do it. Byron's idea that human beings should eat
+privately and apart, was not altogether without &aelig;sthetic justification,
+though according to medical authority such a procedure would be very
+injurious to health. The slow mastication of a meal in the presence of
+cheerful company is said to promote healthy digestion&mdash;moreover, custom
+and habit make even the most incongruous things acceptable, therefore
+the display of tables, crowded with food-stuffs and surrounded by
+eating, drinking, chattering and perspiring men and women, does not
+affect us to any sense of the ridiculous or the unseemly. On the
+contrary, when some of us see such tables, we exclaim "How lovely!" or
+"How delightful!" according to our own pet vocabulary, or to our
+knowledge of the humour of our host or hostess,&mdash;or perhaps, if we are
+young cynics, tired of life before we have confronted one of its
+problems, we murmur, "Not so bad!" or "Fairly decent!" when we are
+introduced to the costly and appetising delicacies heaped up round
+masses of flowers and silver for our consideration and entertainment. At
+the supper given by David Helmsley for Lucy Sorrel's twenty-first
+birthday, there was, however, no note of dissatisfaction&mdash;the <i>blas&eacute;</i>
+breath of the callow critic emitted no withering blight, and even
+latter-day satirists in their teens, frosted like tender pease-blossom
+before their prime, condescended to approve the lavish generosity,
+combined with the perfect taste, which made the festive scene a glowing
+picture of luxury and elegance. But Helmsley<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> himself, as he led his
+beautiful partner, "the" guest of the evening, to the head of the
+principal table, and took his place beside her, was conscious of no
+personal pleasure, but only of a dreary feeling which seemed lonelier
+than loneliness and more sorrowful than sorrow. The wearied scorn that
+he had lately begun to entertain for himself, his wealth, his business,
+his influence, and all his surroundings, was embittered by a
+disappointment none the less keen because he had dimly foreseen it. The
+child he had petted, the girl he had indulged after the fashion of a
+father who seeks to make the world pleasant to a young life just
+entering it, she, even she, was, or seemed to be, practically as selfish
+as any experienced member of the particular set of schemers and
+intriguers who compose what is sometimes called "society" in the present
+day. He had no wish to judge her harshly, but he was too old and knew
+too much of life to be easily deceived in his estimation of character. A
+very slight hint was sufficient for him. He had seen a great deal of
+Lucy Sorrel as a child&mdash;she had always been known as his "little
+favourite"&mdash;but since she had attended a fashionable school at Brighton,
+his visits to her home had been less frequent, and he had had very few
+opportunities of becoming acquainted with the gradual development of her
+mental and moral self. During her holidays he had given her as many
+little social pleasures and gaieties as he had considered might be
+acceptable to her taste and age, but on these occasions other persons
+had always been present, and Lucy herself had worn what are called
+"company" manners, which in her case were singularly charming and
+attractive, so much so, indeed, that it would have seemed like heresy to
+question their sincerity. But now&mdash;whether it was the slight hint
+dropped by Sir Francis Vesey on the previous night as to Mrs. Sorrel's
+match-making proclivities, or whether it was a scarcely perceptible
+suggestion of something more flippant and assertive than usual in the
+air and bearing of Lucy herself that had awakened his suspicions,&mdash;he
+was certainly disposed to doubt, for the first time in all his knowledge
+of her, the candid nature of the girl for whom he had hitherto
+entertained, half-unconsciously, an almost parental affection. He sat by
+her side at supper, seldom speaking, but always closely observant. He
+saw everything; he watched the bright, exulting flash of her eyes as she
+glanced at her various friends, both near her and at a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> distance, and he
+fancied he detected in their responsive looks a subtle inquiry and
+meaning which he would not allow himself to investigate. And while the
+bubbling talk and laughter eddied round him, he made up his mind to
+combat the lurking distrust that teased his brain, and either to
+disperse it altogether or else confirm it beyond all mere shadowy
+misgiving. Some such thought as this had occurred to him, albeit
+vaguely, when he had, on a sudden unpremeditated impulse, asked Lucy to
+give him a few minutes' private conversation with her after supper, but
+now, what had previously been a mere idea formulated itself into a fixed
+resolve.</p>
+
+<p>"For what, after all, does it matter to me?" he mused. "Why should I
+hesitate to destroy a dream? Why should I care if another rainbow bubble
+of life breaks and disappears? I am too old to have ideals&mdash;so most
+people would tell me. And yet&mdash;with the grave open and ready to receive
+me,&mdash;I still believe that love and truth and purity surely exist in
+women's hearts&mdash;if one could only know just where to find the women!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear King David!" murmured a cooing voice at his ear. "Won't you drink
+my health?"</p>
+
+<p>He started as from a reverie. Lucy Sorrel was bending towards him, her
+face glowing with gratified vanity and self-elation.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course!" he answered, and rising to his feet, he lifted his glass
+full of as yet untasted champagne, at which action on his part the
+murmur of voices suddenly ceased sand all eyes were turned upon him.
+"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, in his soft, tired voice,&mdash;"I beg to
+propose the health of Miss Lucy Sorrel! She has lived twenty-one years
+on this interesting old planet of ours, and has found it, so far, not
+altogether without charm. I have had seventy years of it, and strange as
+it may seem to you all, I am able to keep a few of the illusions and
+delusions I had when I was even younger than our charming guest of the
+evening. I still believe in good women! I think I have one sitting at my
+right hand to-night. I take for granted that her nature is as fair as
+her face; and I hope that every recurring anniversary of this day may
+bring her just as much happiness as she deserves. I ask you to drink to
+her health, wealth, and prosperity; and&mdash;may she soon find a good
+husband!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Applause and laughter followed this conventional little speech, and the
+toast was honoured in the usual way, Lucy bowing and smiling her thanks
+to all present. And then there ensued one of those strange
+impressions&mdash;one might almost call them telepathic instead of
+atmospheric effects&mdash;which, subtly penetrating the air, exerted an
+inexplicable influence on the mind;&mdash;the expectancy of some word never
+to be uttered,&mdash;the waiting for some incident never to take place.
+People murmured and smiled, and looked and laughed, but there was an
+evident embarrassment among them,&mdash;an under-sense of something like
+disappointment. The fortunately commonplace and methodical habits of
+waiters, whose one idea is to keep their patrons busy eating and
+drinking, gradually overcame this insidious restraint, and the supper
+went on gaily till at one o'clock the Hungarian band again began to
+play, and all the young people, eager for their "extras" in the way of
+dances, quickly rose from the various tables and began to crowd out
+towards the ballroom. In the general dispersal, Lucy having left him for
+a partner to whom she had promised the first "extra," Helmsley stopped
+to speak to one or two men well known to him in the business world. He
+was still conversing with these when Mrs. Sorrel, not perceiving him in
+the corner where he stood apart with his friend, trotted past him with
+an agitated step and flushed countenance, and catching her daughter by
+the skirt of her dress as that young lady moved on with the pushing
+throng in front of her, held her back for a second.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you done?" she demanded querulously, in not too soft a tone.
+"Were you careful? Did you manage him properly? What did he say to you?"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy's beautiful face hardened, and her lips met in a thin, decidedly
+bad-tempered line.</p>
+
+<p>"He said nothing to the purpose," she replied coldly. "There was no
+time. But"&mdash;and she lowered her voice&mdash;"he wants to speak to me alone
+presently. I'm going to him in the library after this dance."</p>
+
+<p>She passed on, and Mrs. Sorrel, heaving a deep sigh, drew out a black
+pocket-fan and fanned herself vigorously. Wreathing her face with social
+smiles, she made her way slowly out of the supper-room, happily unaware
+that Helmsley had been near enough to hear every word that had passed.
+And hearing, he had understood; but he went on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> talking to his friends
+in the quiet, rather slow way which was habitual to him, and when he
+left them there was nothing about him to indicate that he was in a
+suppressed state of nervous excitement which made him for the moment
+quite forget that he was an old man. Impetuous youth itself never felt a
+keener blaze of vitality in the veins than he did at that moment, but it
+was the withering heat of indignation that warmed him&mdash;not the tender
+glow of love. The clarion sweetness of the dance-music, now pealing
+loudly on the air, irritated his nerves,&mdash;the lights, the flowers, the
+brilliancy of the whole scene jarred upon his soul,&mdash;what was it all but
+sham, he thought!&mdash;a show in the mere name of friendship!&mdash;an ephemeral
+rose of pleasure with a worm at its core! Impatiently he shook himself
+free of those who sought to detain him and went at once to his
+library,&mdash;a sombre, darkly-furnished apartment, large enough to seem
+gloomy by contrast with the gaiety and cheerfulness which were dominant
+throughout the rest of the house that evening. Only two or three shaded
+lamps were lit, and these cast a ghostly flicker on the row of books
+that lined the walls. A few names in raised letters of gold relief upon
+the backs of some of the volumes, asserted themselves, or so he fancied,
+with unaccustomed prominence. "Montaigne," "Seneca," "Rochefoucauld,"
+"Goethe," "Byron," and "The Sonnets of William Shakespeare," stood forth
+from the surrounding darkness as though demanding special notice.</p>
+
+<p>"Voices of the dead!" he murmured half aloud. "I should have learned
+wisdom from you all long ago! What have the great geniuses of the world
+lived for? For what purpose did they use their brains and pens? Simply
+to teach mankind the folly of too much faith! Yet we continue to delude
+ourselves&mdash;and the worst of it is that we do it wilfully and knowingly.
+We are perfectly aware that when we trust, we shall be deceived&mdash;yet we
+trust on! Even I&mdash;old and frail and about to die&mdash;cannot rid myself of a
+belief in God, and in the ultimate happiness of each man's destiny. And
+yet, so far as my own experience serves me, I have nothing to go
+upon&mdash;absolutely nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>He gave an unconscious gesture&mdash;half of scorn, half of despair&mdash;and
+paced the room slowly up and down. A life of toil&mdash;a life rounding into
+worldly success, but blank of all love and heart's comfort&mdash;was this to
+be the only conclusion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> to his career? Of what use, then, was it to have
+lived at all?</p>
+
+<p>"People talk foolishly of a 'declining birth-rate,'" he went on; "yet
+if, according to the modern scientist, all civilisations are only so
+much output of wasted human energy, doomed to pass into utter oblivion,
+and human beings only live but to die and there an end, of what avail is
+it to be born at all? Surely it is but wanton cruelty to take upon
+ourselves the responsibility of continuing a race whose only
+consummation is rottenness in unremembered graves!"</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the door opened and Lucy Sorrel entered softly, with a
+pretty air of hesitating timidity which became her style of beauty
+excellently well. As he looked up and saw her standing half shyly on the
+threshold, a white, light, radiant figure expressing exquisitely fresh
+youth, grace and&mdash;innocence?&mdash;yes! surely that wondrous charm which hung
+about her like a delicate atmosphere redolent with the perfume of
+spring, could only be the mystic exhalation of a pure mind adding
+spiritual lustre to the material attraction of a perfect body,&mdash;his
+heart misgave him. Already he was full of remorse lest so much as a
+passing thought in his brain might have done her unmerited wrong. He
+advanced to meet her, and his voice was full of kindness as he said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Is your dance quite over, Lucy? Are you sure I am not selfishly
+depriving you of pleasure by asking you to come away from all your young
+friends just to talk to me for a few minutes in this dull room?"</p>
+
+<p>She raised her beautiful eyes confidingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Mr. Helmsley, there can be no greater pleasure for me than to talk
+to you!" she answered sweetly.</p>
+
+<p>His expression changed and hardened. "That's not true," he thought; "and
+<i>she</i> knows it, and <i>I</i> know it." Aloud he said: "Very prettily spoken,
+Lucy! But I am aware of my own tediousness and I won't detain you long.
+Will you sit down?" and he offered her an easy-chair, into which she
+sank with the soft slow grace of a nestling bird. "I only want to say
+just a few words,&mdash;such as your father might say to you if he were so
+inclined&mdash;about your future."</p>
+
+<p>She gave him a swift glance of keen inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>"My future?" she echoed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Have you thought of it at all yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>She heaved a little sigh, smiled, and shook her head in the negative.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I'm very silly," she confessed plaintively. "I never think!"</p>
+
+<p>He drew up another armchair and sat down opposite to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, try to do so now for five minutes at least," he said, gently. "I
+am going away to-morrow or next day for a considerable time&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A quick flush flew over her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Going away!" she exclaimed. "But&mdash;not far?"</p>
+
+<p>"That depends on my own whim," he replied, watching her attentively. "I
+shall certainly be absent from England for a year, perhaps longer. But,
+Lucy,&mdash;you were such a little pet of mine in your childhood that I
+cannot help taking an interest in you now you are grown up. That is, I
+think, quite natural. And I should like to feel that you have some good
+and safe idea of your own happiness in life before I leave you."</p>
+
+<p>She stared,&mdash;her face fell.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no ideas at all," she answered after a pause, the corners of her
+red mouth drooping in petulant, spoilt-child fashion, "and if you go
+away I shall have no pleasures either!"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry you take it that way," he said. "But I'm nearing the end of
+my tether, Lucy, and increasing age makes me restless. I want change of
+scene&mdash;and change of surroundings. I am thoroughly tired of my present
+condition."</p>
+
+<p>"Tired?" and her eyes expressed whole volumes of amazement. "Not really?
+<i>You</i>&mdash;tired of your present condition? With all your money?"</p>
+
+<p>"With all my money!" he answered drily, "Money is not the elixir of
+happiness, Lucy, though many people seem to think it is. But I prefer
+not to talk about myself. Let me speak of you. What do you propose to do
+with your life? You will marry, of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I suppose so," she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there any one you specially favour?&mdash;any young fellow who loves you,
+or whom you are inclined to love&mdash;and who wants a start in the world? If
+there is, send<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> him to me, and, if he has anything in him, I'll make
+myself answerable for his prosperity."</p>
+
+<p>She looked up with a cold, bright steadfastness.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no one," she said. "Dear Mr. Helmsley, you are very good, but
+I assure you I have never fallen in love in my life. As I told you
+before supper, I don't believe in that kind of nonsense. And I&mdash;I want
+nothing. Of course I know my father and mother are poor, and that they
+have kept up a sort of position which ranks them among the 'shabby
+genteel,'&mdash;and I suppose if I don't marry quickly I shall have to do
+something for a living&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She broke off, embarrassed by the keenness of the gaze he fixed upon
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Many good, many beautiful, many delicate women 'do something,' as you
+put it, for a living," he said slowly. "But the fight is always fierce,
+and the end is sometimes bitter. It is better for a woman that she
+should be safeguarded by a husband's care and tenderness than that she
+should attempt to face the world alone."</p>
+
+<p>A flashing smile dimpled the corners of her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes, I quite agree with you," she retorted playfully. "But if no
+husband come forward, then it cannot be helped!"</p>
+
+<p>He rose, and, pushing away his chair, walked up and down in silence.</p>
+
+<p>She watched him with a sense of growing irritability, and her heart beat
+with uncomfortable quickness. Why did he seem to hesitate so long?
+Presently he stopped in his slow movement to and fro, and stood looking
+down upon her with a fixed intensity which vaguely troubled her.</p>
+
+<p>"It is difficult to advise," he said, "and it is still more difficult to
+control. In your case I have no right to do either. I am an old man, and
+you are a very young woman. You are beginning your life,&mdash;I am ending
+mine. Yet, young as you are, you say with apparent sincerity that you do
+not believe in love. Now I, though I have loved and lost, though I have
+loved and have been cruelly deceived in love, still believe that if the
+true, heavenly passion be fully and faithfully experienced, it must
+prove the chief joy, if not the only one, of life. You think otherwise,
+and perhaps you correctly express the opinion of the younger generation
+of men and women. These appear to crowd more emotion and excitement into
+their lives than ever was attained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> or attainable in the lives of their
+forefathers, but they do not, or so it seems to me, secure for
+themselves as much peace of mind and satisfaction of soul as were the
+inheritance of bygone folk whom we now call 'old-fashioned.' Still, you
+may be right in depreciating the power of love&mdash;from your point of view.
+All the same, I should be sorry to see you entering into a loveless
+marriage."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment she was silent, then she suddenly plunged into speech.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Mr. Helmsley, do you really think all the silly sentiment talked
+and written about love is any good in marriage? We know so much
+nowadays,&mdash;and the disillusion of matrimony is so <i>very</i> complete! One
+has only to read the divorce cases in the newspapers to see what
+mistakes people make&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He winced as though he had been stung.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you read the divorce cases, Lucy?" he asked. "You&mdash;a mere girl like
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked surprised at the regret and pain in his tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course! One <i>must</i> read the papers to keep up with all the
+things that are going on. And the divorce cases have always such
+startling headings,&mdash;in such big print!&mdash;one is obliged to read
+them&mdash;positively obliged!"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed carelessly, and settled herself more cosily in her chair.</p>
+
+<p>"You nearly always find that it is the people who were desperately in
+love with each other before marriage who behave disgracefully and are
+perfectly sick of each other afterwards," she went on. "They wanted
+perpetual poetry and moonlight, and of course they find they can't have
+it. Now, I don't want poetry or moonlight,&mdash;I hate both! Poetry makes me
+sleepy, and moonlight gives me neuralgia. I should like a husband who
+would be a <i>friend</i> to me&mdash;a real kind friend!&mdash;some one who would be
+able to take care of me, and be nice to me always&mdash;some one much older
+than myself, who was wise and strong and clever&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And rich," said Helmsley quietly. "Don't forget that! Very rich!"</p>
+
+<p>She glanced at him furtively, conscious of a slight nervous qualm. Then,
+rapidly reviewing the situation in her shallow brain, she accepted his
+remark smilingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, of course!" she said. "It's not pleasant to live without
+plenty of money."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He turned from her abruptly, and resumed his leisurely walk to and fro,
+much to her inward vexation. He was becoming fidgety, she decided,&mdash;old
+people were really very trying! Suddenly, with the air of a man arriving
+at an important decision, he sat down again in the armchair opposite her
+own, and leaning indolently back against the cushion, surveyed her with
+a calm, critical, entirely businesslike manner, much as he would have
+looked at a Jew company-promoter, who sought his aid to float a "bogus"
+scheme.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not pleasant to live without plenty of money, you think," he said,
+repeating her last words slowly. "Well! The pleasantest time of my life
+was when I did not own a penny in the bank, and when I had to be very
+sharp in order to earn enough for my day's dinner. There was a zest, a
+delight, a fine glory in the mere effort to live that brought out the
+strength of every quality I possessed. I learned to know myself, which
+is a farther reaching wisdom than is found in knowing others. I had
+ideals then,&mdash;and&mdash;old as I am, I have them still."</p>
+
+<p>He paused. She was silent. Her eyes were lowered, and she played idly
+with her painted fan.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if it would surprise you," he went on, "to know that I have
+made an ideal of <i>you</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked up with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Really? Have you? I'm afraid I shall prove a disappointment!"</p>
+
+<p>He did not answer by the obvious compliment which she felt she had a
+right to expect. He kept his gaze fixed steadily on her face, and his
+shaggy eyebrows almost met in the deep hollow which painful thought had
+ploughed along his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"I have made," he said, "an ideal in my mind of the little child who sat
+on my knee, played with my watch-chain and laughed at me when I called
+her my little sweetheart. She was perfectly candid in her laughter,&mdash;she
+knew it was absurd for an old man to have a child as his sweetheart. I
+loved to hear her laugh so,&mdash;because she was true to herself, and to her
+right and natural instincts. She was the prettiest and sweetest child I
+ever saw,&mdash;full of innocent dreams and harmless gaiety. She began to
+grow up, and I saw less and less of her, till gradually I lost the child
+and found the woman. But I believe in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> child's heart still&mdash;I think
+that the truth and simplicity of the child's soul are still in the
+womanly nature,&mdash;and in that way, Lucy, I yet hold you as an ideal."</p>
+
+<p>Her breath quickened a little.</p>
+
+<p>"You think too kindly of me," she murmured, furling and unfurling her
+fan slowly; "I'm not at all clever."</p>
+
+<p>He gave a slight deprecatory gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Cleverness is not what I expect or have ever expected of you," he said.
+"You have not as yet had to endure the misrepresentation and wrong which
+frequently make women clever,&mdash;the life of solitude and despised dreams
+which moves a woman to put on man's armour and sally forth to fight the
+world and conquer it, or else die in the attempt. How few conquer, and
+how many die, are matters of history. Be glad you are not a clever
+woman, Lucy!&mdash;for genius in a woman is the mystic laurel of Apollo
+springing from the soft breast of Daphne. It hurts in the growing, and
+sometimes breaks the heart from which it grows."</p>
+
+<p>She answered nothing. He was talking in a way she did not
+understand,&mdash;his allusion to Apollo and Daphne was completely beyond
+her. She smothered a tiny yawn and wondered why he was so tedious.
+Moreover, she was conscious of some slight chagrin, for though she said,
+out of mere social hypocrisy, that she was not clever, she thought
+herself exceptionally so. Why could he not admit her abilities as
+readily as she herself admitted them?</p>
+
+<p>"No, you are not clever," he resumed quietly. "And I am glad you are
+not. You are good and pure and true,&mdash;these graces outweigh all
+cleverness."</p>
+
+<p>Her cheeks flushed prettily,&mdash;she thought of a girl who had been her
+schoolmate at Brighton, one of the boldest little hussies that ever
+flashed eyes to the light of day, yet who could assume the dainty
+simpering air of maiden&mdash;modest perfection at the moment's notice. She
+wished she could do the same, but she had not studied the trick
+carefully enough, and she was afraid to try more of it than just a
+little tremulous smile and a quick downward glance at her fan. Helmsley
+watched her attentively&mdash;almost craftily. It did not strain his sense of
+perspicuity over much to see exactly what was going on in her mind. He
+settled himself a little more comfortably in his chair, and pressing the
+tips of his fingers together, looked at her over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> this pointed rampart
+of polished nails as though she were something altogether curious and
+remarkable.</p>
+
+<p>"The virtues of a woman are her wealth and worth," he said
+sententiously, as though he were quoting a maxim out of a child's
+copybook. "A jewel's price is not so much for its size and weight as for
+its particular lustre. But common commercial people&mdash;like myself&mdash;even
+if they have the good fortune to find a diamond likely to surpass all
+others in the market, are never content till they have tested it. Every
+Jew bites his coin. And I am something of a Jew. I like to know the
+exact value of what I esteem as precious. And so I test it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" She threw in this interjected query simply because she did not
+know what to say. She thought he was talking very oddly, and wondered
+whether he was quite sane.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he echoed; "I test it. And, Lucy, I think so highly of you, and
+esteem you as so very fair a pearl of womanhood, that I am inclined to
+test you just as I would a priceless gem. Do you object?"</p>
+
+<p>She glanced up at him flutteringly, vaguely surprised. The corners of
+his mouth relaxed into the shadow of a smile, and she was reassured.</p>
+
+<p>"Object? Of course not! As if I should object to anything you wish!" she
+said amiably. "But&mdash;I don't quite understand&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, possibly not," he interrupted; "I know I have not the art of making
+myself very clear in matters which deeply and personally affect myself.
+I have nerves still, and some remnant of a heart,&mdash;these occasionally
+trouble me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She leaned forward and put her delicately gloved hand on his.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear King David!" she murmured. "You are always so good!"</p>
+
+<p>He took the little fingers in his own clasp and held them gently.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to ask you a question, Lucy," he said; "and it is a very
+difficult question, because I feel that your answer to it may mean a
+great sorrow for me,&mdash;a great disappointment. The question is the 'test'
+I speak of. Shall I put it to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Please do!" she answered, her heart beginning to beat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> violently. He
+was coming to the point at last, she thought, and a few words more would
+surely make her the future mistress of the Helmsley millions! "If I can
+answer it I will!"</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I ask you my question, or shall I not?" he went on, gripping her
+hand hard, and half raising himself in his chair as he looked intently
+at her telltale face. "For it means more than you can realise. It is an
+audacious, impudent question, Lucy,&mdash;one that no man of my age ought to
+ask any woman,&mdash;one that is likely to offend you very much!"</p>
+
+<p>She withdrew her hand from his.</p>
+
+<p>"Offend me?" and her eyes widened with a blank wonder. "What can it be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! What can it be! Think of all the most audacious and impudent things
+a man&mdash;an old man&mdash;could say to a young woman! Suppose,&mdash;it is only
+supposition, remember,&mdash;suppose, for instance, I were to ask you to
+marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>A smile, brilliant and exultant, flashed over her features,&mdash;she almost
+laughed out her inward joy.</p>
+
+<p>"I should accept you at once!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>With sudden impetuosity he rose, and pushing away his chair, drew
+himself up to his full height, looking down upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"You would!" and his voice was low and tense. "<i>You!</i>&mdash;you would
+actually marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>She, rising likewise, confronted him in all her fresh and youthful
+beauty, fair and smiling, her bosom heaving and her eyes dilating with
+eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"I would,&mdash;indeed I would!" she averred delightedly. "I would rather
+marry you than any man in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence. Then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The simple monosyllabic query completely confused her. It was
+unexpected, and she was at her wit's end how to reply to it. Moreover,
+he kept his eyes so pertinaciously fixed upon her that she felt her
+blood rising to her cheeks and brow in a hot flush of&mdash;shame? Oh
+no!&mdash;not shame, but merely petulant vexation. The proper way for him to
+behave at this juncture, so she reflected, would be that he should take
+her tenderly in his arms and murmur, after the penny-dreadful style of
+elderly hero, "My darling, my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> darling! Can you, so young and beautiful,
+really care for an old fogey like me?'" to which she would, of course,
+have replied in the same fashion, and with the most charming
+insincerity&mdash;"Dearest! Do not talk of age! You will never be old to my
+fond heart!" But to stand, as he was standing, like a rigid figure of
+bronze, with a hard pale face in which only the eyes seemed living, and
+to merely ask "Why" she would rather marry him than any other man in the
+world, was absurd, to say the least of it, and indeed quite lacking in
+all delicacy of sentiment. She sought about in her mind for some way out
+of the difficulty and could find none. She grew more and more painfully
+crimson, and wished she could cry. A well worked-up passion of tears
+would have come in very usefully just then, but somehow she could not
+turn the passion on. And a horrid sense of incompetency and failure
+began to steal over her&mdash;an awful foreboding of defeat. What could she
+do to seize the slippery opportunity and grasp the doubtful prize? How
+could she land the big golden fish which she foolishly fancied she had
+at the end of her line? Never had she felt so helpless or so angry.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" he repeated&mdash;"Why would you marry me? Not for love certainly.
+Even if you believed in love&mdash;which you say you do not,&mdash;you could not
+at your age love a man at mine. That would be impossible and unnatural.
+I am old enough to be your grandfather. Think again, Lucy! Perhaps you
+spoke hastily&mdash;- out of girlish thoughtlessness&mdash;or out of kindness and
+a wish to please me,&mdash;but do not, in so serious a matter, consider me at
+all. Consider yourself. Consider your own nature and temperament&mdash;your
+own life&mdash;your own future&mdash;your own happiness. Would you, young as you
+are, with all the world before you&mdash;would you, if I asked you,
+deliberately and of your own free will, marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>She drew a sharp breath, and hurriedly wondered what was best to do. He
+spoke so strangely!&mdash;he looked so oddly! But that might be because he
+was in love with her! Her lips parted,&mdash;she faced him straightly,
+lifting her head with a little air of something like defiance.</p>
+
+<p>"I would!&mdash;of course I would!" she replied. "Nothing could make me
+happier!"</p>
+
+<p>He gave a kind of gesture with his hands as though he threw aside some
+cherished object.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"So vanishes my last illusion!" he said. "Well! Let it go!"</p>
+
+<p>She gazed at him stupidly. What did he mean? Why did he not now emulate
+the penny-dreadful heroes and say "My darling!" Nothing seemed further
+from his thoughts. His eyes rested upon her with a coldness such as she
+had never seen in them before, and his features hardened.</p>
+
+<p>"I should have known the modern world and modern education better," he
+went on, speaking more to himself than to her. "I have had experience
+enough. I should never have allowed myself to keep even the shred of a
+belief in woman's honesty!"</p>
+
+<p>She started, and flamed into a heat of protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Helmsley!"</p>
+
+<p>He raised a deprecatory hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me!" he said wearily&mdash;"I am an old man, accustomed to express
+myself bluntly. Even if I vex you, I fear I shall not know how to
+apologise. I had thought&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He broke off, then with an effort resumed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I had thought, Lucy, that you were above all bribery and corruption."</p>
+
+<p>"Bribery?&mdash;Corruption?" she stammered, and in a tremor of excitement and
+perturbation her fan dropped from her hands to the floor. He stooped for
+it with the ease and grace of a far younger man, and returned it to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, bribery and corruption," he continued quietly. "The bribery of
+wealth&mdash;the corruption of position. These are the sole objects for which
+(if I asked you, which I have not done) you would marry me. For there is
+nothing else I have to offer you. I could not give you the sentiment or
+passion of a husband (if husbands ever have sentiment or passion
+nowadays), because all such feeling is dead in me. I could not be your
+'friend' in marriage&mdash;because I should always remember that our
+matrimonial 'friendship' was merely one of cash supply and demand. You
+see I speak very plainly. I am not a polite person&mdash;not even a
+Conventional one. I am too old to tell lies. Lying is never a profitable
+business in youth&mdash;but in age it is pure waste of time and energy. With
+one foot in the grave it is as well to keep the other from slipping."</p>
+
+<p>He paused. She tried to say something, but could find no suitable words
+with which to answer him. He looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> at her steadily, half expecting her
+to speak, and there was both pain and sorrow in the depths of his tired
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I need not prolong this conversation," he said, after a minute's
+silence. "For it must be as embarrassing to you as it is to me. It is
+quite my own fault that I built too many hopes upon you, Lucy! I set you
+up on a pedestal and you have yourself stepped down from it&mdash;I have put
+you to the test, and you have failed. I daresay the failure is as much
+the concern of your parents and the way in which they have brought you
+up, as it is of any latent weakness in your own mind and character.
+But,&mdash;if, when I suggested such an absurd and unnatural proposition as
+marriage between myself arid you, you had at once, like a true woman,
+gently and firmly repudiated the idea, then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;what?" she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then I should have made you my sole heiress," he said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes opened in blank wonderment and despair. Was it possible! Had
+she been so near her golden El Dorado only to see the shining shores
+receding, and the glittering harbour closed! Oh, it was cruel! Horrible!
+There was a convulsive catch in her throat which she managed to turn
+into the laugh hysterical.</p>
+
+<p>"Really!" she ejaculated, with a poor attempt at flippancy; and, in her
+turn, she asked the question, "Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I should have known you were honest," answered Helmsley, with
+emphasis. "Honest to your womanly instincts, and to the simplest and
+purest part of your nature. I should have proved for myself the fact
+that you refused to sell your beautiful person for gold&mdash;that you were
+no slave in the world's auction-mart, but a free, proud, noble-hearted
+English girl who meant to be faithful to all that was highest and best
+in her soul. Ah, Lucy! You are not this little dream-girl of mine! You
+are a very realistic modern woman with whom a man's 'ideal' has nothing
+in common!"</p>
+
+<p>She was silent, half-stifled with rage. He stepped up to her and took
+her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Lucy! Good-bye!"</p>
+
+<p>She wrenched her fingers from his clasp, and a sudden, uncontrollable
+fury possessed her.</p>
+
+<p>"I hate you!" she said between her set teeth. "You are mean! Mean! I
+hate you!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He stood quite still, gravely irresponsive.</p>
+
+<p>"You have deceived me&mdash;cheated me!" she went on, angrily and recklessly.
+"You made me think you wanted to marry me."</p>
+
+<p>The corners of his mouth went up under his ashen-grey moustache in a
+chill smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me!" he interrupted. "But did I make you think? or did you think
+it of your own accord?"</p>
+
+<p>She plucked at her fan nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"Any girl&mdash;I don't care who she is&mdash;would accept you if you asked her to
+marry you!" she said hotly. "It would be perfectly idiotic to refuse
+such a rich man, even if he were Methusaleh himself. There's nothing
+wrong or dishonest in taking the chance of having plenty of money, if it
+is offered."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her, vaguely compassionating her loss of self-control.</p>
+
+<p>"No, there is nothing wrong or dishonest in taking the chance of having
+plenty of money, if such a chance can be had without shame and
+dishonour," he said. "But I, personally, should consider a woman
+hopelessly lost to every sense of self-respect, if at the age of
+twenty-one she consented to marry a man of seventy for the sake of his
+wealth. And I should equally consider the man of seventy a disgrace to
+the name of manhood if he condoned the voluntary sale of such a woman by
+becoming her purchaser."</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her head with a haughty air.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, if you thought these things, you had no right to propose to me!"
+she said passionately.</p>
+
+<p>He was faintly amused.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not propose to you, Lucy," he answered, "and I never intended to
+do so! I merely asked what your answer would be if I did."</p>
+
+<p>"It comes to the same thing!" she muttered.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, not quite! I told you I was putting you to a test. That you
+failed to stand my test is the conclusion of the whole affair. We really
+need say no more about it. The matter is finished."</p>
+
+<p>She bit her lips vexedly, then forced a hard smile.</p>
+
+<p>"It's about time it was finished, I'm sure!" she said carelessly. "I'm
+perfectly tired out!"</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt you are&mdash;you must be&mdash;I was forgetting how late it is," and
+with ceremonious politeness he opened the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> door for her to pass. "You
+have had an exhausting evening! Forgive me for any pain or
+vexation&mdash;or&mdash;or anger I may have caused you&mdash;and, good-night, Lucy! God
+bless you!"</p>
+
+<p>He held out his hand. He looked worn and wan, and his face showed
+pitiful marks of fatigue, loneliness, and sorrow, but the girl was too
+much incensed by her own disappointment to forgive him for the
+unexpected trial to which he had submitted her disposition and
+character.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night!" she said curtly, avoiding his glance. "I suppose
+everybody's gone by this time; mother will be waiting for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you shake hands?" he pleaded gently. "I'm sorry that I expected
+more of you than you could give, Lucy! but I want you to be happy, and I
+think and hope you will be, if you let the best part of you have its
+way. Still, it may happen that I shall never see you again&mdash;so let us
+part friends!"</p>
+
+<p>She raised her eyes, hardened now in their expression by intense
+malignity and spite, and fixed them fully upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to be friends with you any more!" she said. "You are cruel
+and selfish, and you have treated me abominably! I am sure you will die
+miserably, without a soul to care for you! And I hope&mdash;yes, I hope I
+shall never hear of you, never see you any more as long as you live! You
+could never have really had the least bit of affection for me when I was
+a child."</p>
+
+<p>He interrupted her by a quick, stern gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"That child is dead! Do not speak of her!"</p>
+
+<p>Something in his aspect awed her&mdash;something of the mute despair and
+solitude of a man who has lost his last hope on earth, shadowed his
+pallid features as with a forecast of approaching dissolution.
+Involuntarily she trembled, and felt cold; her head drooped;&mdash;for a
+moment her conscience pricked her, reminding her how she had schemed and
+plotted and planned to become the wife of this sad, frail old man ever
+since she had reached the mature age of sixteen,&mdash;for a moment she was
+impelled to make a clean confession of her own egotism, and to ask his
+pardon for having, under the tuition of her mother, made him the
+unconscious pivot of all her worldly ambitions,&mdash;then, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> a sudden
+impetuous movement, she swept past him without a word, and ran
+downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>There she found half the evening's guests gone, and the other half well
+on the move. Some of these glanced at her inquiringly, with "nods and
+becks and wreathed smiles," but she paid no heed to any of them. Her
+mother came eagerly up to her, anxiety purpling every vein of her
+mottled countenance, but no word did she utter, till, having put on
+their cloaks, the two waited together on the steps of the mansion, with
+flunkeys on either side, for the hired brougham to bowl up in as
+<i>un</i>-hired a style as was possible at the price of one guinea for the
+night's outing.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Mr. Helmsley?" then asked Mrs. Sorrel.</p>
+
+<p>"In his own room, I believe," replied Lucy, frigidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't he coming to see you into the carriage and say good-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should he?" demanded the girl, peremptorily.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sorrel became visibly agitated. She glanced at the impassive
+flunkeys nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"O my dear!" she whimpered softly, "what's the matter? Has anything
+happened?"</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the expected vehicle lumbered up with a very creditable
+clatter of well-assumed importance. The flunkeys relaxed their formal
+attitudes and hastened to assist both mother and daughter into its
+somewhat stuffy recess. Another moment and they were driven off, Lucy
+looking out of the window at the numerous lights which twinkled from
+every story of the stately building they had just left, till the last
+bright point of luminance had vanished. Then the strain on her mind gave
+way&mdash;and to Mrs. Sorrel's alarm and amazement, she suddenly burst into a
+stormy passion of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all over!" she sobbed angrily, "all over! I've lost him! I've lost
+everything!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sorrel gave a kind of weasel cry and clasped her fat hands
+convulsively.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you little fool!" she burst out, "what have you done?"</p>
+
+<p>Thus violently adjured, Lucy, with angry gasps of spite and
+disappointment, related in full the maddening, the eccentric, the
+altogether incomprehensible and inexcusable conduct of the famous
+millionaire, "old Gold-dust," towards her beautiful, outraged, and
+injured self. Her mother sat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> listening in a kind of frozen horror which
+might possibly have become rigid, had it not been for the occasional
+bumping of the hired brougham over ruts and loose stones, which bumping
+shook her superfluous flesh into agitated bosom-waves.</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to have guessed it! I ought to have followed my own instinct!"
+she said, in sepulchral tones. "It came to me like a flash, when I was
+talking to him this evening! I said to myself, 'he is in a moral mood.'
+And he was. Nothing is so hopeless, so dreadful! If I had only thought
+he would carry on that mood with you, I would have warned you! You could
+have held off a little&mdash;it would perhaps have been the wiser course."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think it would indeed!" cried Lucy, dabbing her eyes with her
+scented handkerchief; "He would have left me every penny he has in the
+world if I had refused him! He told me so as coolly as possible!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sorrel sank back with a groan.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear, oh dear!" she wailed feebly. "Can nothing be done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing!" And Lucy, now worked up to hysterical pitch, felt as if she
+could break the windows, beat her mother, or do anything else equally
+reckless and irresponsible. "I shall be left to myself now,&mdash;he will
+never ask me to his house again, never give me any parties or drives or
+opera-boxes or jewels,&mdash;he will never come to see me, and I shall have
+no pleasure at all! I shall sink into a dowdy, frowsy, shabby-genteel
+old maid for the rest of my life! It is <i>detestable</i>!" and she uttered a
+suppressed small shriek on the word, "It has been a hateful, abominable
+birthday! Everybody will be laughing at me up their sleeves! Think of
+Lady Larford!"</p>
+
+<p>This suggestion was too dreadful for comment, and Mrs. Sorrel closed her
+eyes, visibly shuddering.</p>
+
+<p>"Who would have thought it possible!" she moaned drearily, "a
+millionaire, with such mad ideas! I <i>had</i> thought him always such a
+sensible man! And he seemed to admire you so much! What will he do with
+all his money?"</p>
+
+<p>The fair Lucy sighed, sobbed, and swallowed her tears into silence. And
+again, like the doubtful refrain of a song in a bad dream, her mother
+moaned and murmured&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What will he do with all his money!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Two or three days later, Sir Francis Vesey was sitting in his private
+office, a musty den encased within the heart of the city, listening, or
+trying to listen, to the dull clerical monotone of a clerk's dry voice
+detailing the wearisome items of certain legal formul&aelig; preliminary to an
+impending case. Sir Francis had yawned capaciously once or twice, and
+had played absently with a large ink-stained paperknife,&mdash;signs that his
+mind was wandering somewhat from the point at issue. He was a
+conscientious man, but he was getting old, and the disputations of
+obstinate or foolish clients were becoming troublesome to him. Moreover,
+the case concerning which his clerk was prosing along in the style of a
+chapel demagogue engaged in extemporary prayer, was an extremely
+uninteresting one, and he thought hazily of his lunch. The hour for that
+meal was approaching,&mdash;a fact for which he was devoutly thankful. For
+after lunch, he gave himself his own release from work for the rest of
+the day. He left it all to his subordinates, and to his partner Symonds,
+who was some eight or ten years his junior. He glanced at the clock, and
+beat a tattoo with his foot on the floor, conscious of his inward
+impatience with the reiterated "Whereas the said" and "Witnesseth the
+so-and-so," which echoed dully on the otherwise unbroken silence. It was
+a warm, sunshiny morning, but the brightness of the outer air was poorly
+reflected in the stuffy room, which though comfortably and even
+luxuriously furnished, conveyed the usual sense of dismal depression
+common to London precincts of the law. Two or three flies buzzed
+irritably now and then against the smoke-begrimed windowpanes, and the
+clerk's dreary preamble went on and on till Sir Francis closed his eyes
+and wondered whether a small "catnap" would be possible between the
+sections of the seeming interminable document. Suddenly, to his relief,
+there came a sharp tap at the door, and an office boy looked in.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Helmsley's man, sir," he announced. "Wants to see you personally."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Francis got up from his chair with alacrity.</p>
+
+<p>"All right! Show him in."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The boy retired, and presently reappearing, ushered in a staid-looking
+personage in black who, saluting Sir Francis respectfully, handed him a
+letter marked "Confidential."</p>
+
+<p>"Nice day, Benson," remarked the lawyer cheerfully, as he took the
+missive. "Is your master quite well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly well, Sir Francis, thank you," replied Benson. "Leastways he
+was when I saw him off just now."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! He's gone then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Sir Francis. He's gone."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Francis broke the seal of the letter,&mdash;then bethinking himself of
+"Whereas the said" and "Witnesseth the so-and-so," turned to his worn
+and jaded clerk.</p>
+
+<p>"That will do for the present," he said. "You can go."</p>
+
+<p>With pleasing haste the clerk put together the voluminous folios of blue
+paper from which he had been reading, and quickly made his exit, while
+Sir Francis, still standing, put on his glasses and unfolded the one
+sheet of note-paper on which Helmsley's communication was written.
+Glancing it up and down, he turned it over and over&mdash;then addressed
+himself to the attentively waiting Benson.</p>
+
+<p>"So Mr. Helmsley has started on his trip alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Sir Francis. Quite alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he say where he was going?"</p>
+
+<p>"He booked for Southhampton, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>"And," proceeded Benson, "he only took one portmanteau."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" again ejaculated the lawyer. And, stroking his bearded chin, he
+thought awhile.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to stay at Carlton House Terrace till he comes back?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have a month's holiday, sir. Then I return to my place. The same
+order applies to all the servants, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I see! Well!"</p>
+
+<p>And then there came a pause.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," said Sir Francis, after some minutes' reflection, "I
+suppose you know that during Mr. Helmsley's absence you are to apply to
+me for wages and household expenses&mdash;that, in fact, your master has
+placed me in charge of all his affairs?"</p>
+
+<p>"So I have understood, sir," replied Benson, deferentially. "Mr.
+Helmsley called us all into his room last night and told us so."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he did, did he? But, of course, as a man of business, he would
+leave nothing incomplete. Now, supposing Mr. Helmsley is away more than
+a month, I will call or send to the house at stated intervals to see how
+things are getting on, and arrange any matters that may need
+arranging"&mdash;here he glanced at the letter in his hand&mdash;"as your master
+requests. And&mdash;if you want anything&mdash;or wish to know any news,&mdash;you can
+always call here and inquire."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Sir Francis."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry,"&mdash;and the lawyer's shrewd yet kindly eyes looked somewhat
+troubled&mdash;"I'm very sorry that my old friend hasn't taken you with him,
+Benson."</p>
+
+<p>Benson caught the ring of sympathetic interest in his voice and at once
+responded to it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, so am I!" he said heartily. "For Mr. Helmsley's over
+seventy, and he isn't as strong as he thinks himself to be by a long
+way. He ought to have some one with him. But he wouldn't hear of my
+going. He can be right down obstinate if he likes, you know, sir, though
+he is one of the best gentlemen to work for that ever lived. But he will
+have his own way, and, bad or good, he takes it."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite true!" murmured Sir Francis meditatively. "Very true!"</p>
+
+<p>A silence fell between them.</p>
+
+<p>"You say he isn't as strong as he thinks himself to be," began Vesey
+again, presently. "Surely he's wonderfully alert and active for his time
+of life?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes, sir, he's active enough, but it's all effort and nerve with
+him now. He makes up his mind like, and determines to be strong, in
+spite of being weak. Only six months ago the doctor told him to be
+careful, as his heart wasn't quite up to the mark."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" ejaculated Sir Francis ruefully. "And did the doctor recommend any
+special treatment?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. Change of air and complete rest."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer's countenance cleared.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you may depend upon it that's why he has gone away by himself,
+Benson," he said. "He wants change of air, rest, and different
+surroundings. And as he won't have letters forwarded, and doesn't give
+any future address, I shouldn't wonder if he starts off yachting
+somewhere&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, sir, I don't think so," interposed Benson, "The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> yacht's in the
+dry dock, and I know he hasn't given any orders to have her got ready."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, if he wants change and rest, he's wise to put a distance
+between himself and his business affairs"&mdash;and Sir Francis here looked
+round for his hat and walking-stick. "Take me, for example! Why, I'm a
+different man when I leave this office and go home to lunch! I'm going
+now. I don't think&mdash;I really don't think there is any cause for
+uneasiness, Benson. Your master will let us know if there's anything
+wrong with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, sir, he'll be sure to do that. He said he would telegraph for
+me if he wanted me."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! Now, if you get any news of him before I do, or if you are
+anxious that I should attend to any special matter, you'll always find
+me here till one o'clock. You know my private address?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right. And when I go down to my country place for the
+summer, you can come there whenever your business is urgent. I'll settle
+all expenses with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Sir Francis. Good-day!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-day! A pleasant holiday to you!"</p>
+
+<p>Benson bowed his respectful thanks again, and retired.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Francis Vesey, left alone, took his hat and gazed abstractedly into
+its silk-lined crown before putting it on his head. Then setting it
+aside, he drew Helmsley's letter from his pocket and read it through
+again. It ran as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">My dear Vesey</span>,&mdash;I had some rather bad news on the night of Miss
+Lucy Sorrel's birthday party. A certain speculation in which I had
+an interest has failed, and I have lost on the whole 'gamble.' The
+matter will not, however, affect my financial position. You have
+all your instructions in order as given to you when we last met, so
+I shall leave town with an easy mind. I am likely to be away for
+some time, and am not yet certain of my destination. Consider me,
+therefore, for the present as lost. Should I die suddenly, or at
+sickly leisure, I carry a letter on my person which will be
+conveyed to you, making you acquainted with the sad (?) event as
+soon as it occurs. And for all your kindly services in the way of
+both business and friendship, I owe you a vast debt of thanks,
+which debt shall be fully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> and gratefully acknowledged,&mdash;<i>when I
+make my Will</i>. I may possibly employ another lawyer than yourself
+for this purpose. But, for the immediate time, all my affairs are
+in your hands, as they have been for these twenty years or more. My
+business goes on as usual, of course; it is a wheel so well
+accustomed to regular motion that it can very well grind for a
+while without my personal supervision. And so far as my individual
+self is concerned, I feel the imperative necessity of rest and
+freedom. I go to find these, even if I lose myself in the
+endeavour. So farewell! And as old-fashioned folks used to
+say&mdash;'God be with you!' If there be any meaning in the phrase, it
+is conveyed to you in all sincerity by your old friend,</p></div>
+
+<p>
+"<span class="smcap">David Helmsley</span>."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Cryptic, positively cryptic!" murmured Sir Francis, as he folded up the
+letter and put it by. "There's no clue to anything anywhere. What does
+he mean by a bad speculation?&mdash;a loss 'on the whole gamble'? I know&mdash;or
+at least I thought I knew&mdash;every number on which he had put his money.
+It won't affect his financial position, he says. I should think not! It
+would take a bigger Colossus than that of Rhodes to overshadow Helmsley
+in the market! But he's got some queer notion in his mind,&mdash;some scheme
+for finding an heir to his millions,&mdash;I'm sure he has! A fit of romance
+has seized him late in life,&mdash;he wants to be loved for himself
+alone,&mdash;which, of course, at his age, is absurd! No one loves old
+people, except, perhaps (in very rare cases), their children,&mdash;if the
+children are not hopelessly given over to self and the hour, which they
+generally are." He sighed, and his brows contracted. He had a
+spendthrift son and a "rapid" daughter, and he knew well enough how
+little he could depend upon them for either affection or respect.</p>
+
+<p>"Old age is regarded as a sort of crime nowadays," he continued,
+apostrophising the dingy walls of his office, as he took his
+walking-stick and prepared to leave the premises&mdash;"thanks to the
+donkey-journalism of the period which brays down everything that is not
+like itself&mdash;mere froth and scum. And unlike our great classic teachers
+who held that old age was honourable and deserved the highest place in
+the senate, the present generation affects to consider a man well on the
+way to dotage after forty. God<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> bless me!&mdash;what fools there are in this
+twentieth century!&mdash;what blatant idiots! Imagine national affairs
+carried on in the country by its young men! The Empire would soon became
+a mere football for general kicking! However, there's one thing in this
+Helmsley business that I'm glad of"&mdash;and his eyes twinkled&mdash;"I believe
+the Sorrels have lost their game! Positively, I think Miss Lucy has
+broken her line, and that the fish has gone <i>without</i> her hook in its
+mouth! Old as he is, David is not too old to outwit a woman! I gave him
+a hint, just the slightest hint in the world,&mdash;and I think he's taken
+it. Anyhow, he's gone,&mdash;booked for Southampton. And from Southampton a
+man can 'ship himself all aboard of a ship,' like Lord Bateman in the
+ballad, and go anywhere. Anywhere, yes!&mdash;but in this case I wonder where
+he will go? Possibly to America&mdash;yet no!&mdash;I think not!" And Sir Francis,
+descending his office stairs, went out into the broad sunshine which
+flooded the city streets, continuing his inward reverie as he
+walked,&mdash;"I think not. From what he said the other night, I fancy not
+even the haunting memory of 'ole Virginny' will draw him back <i>there</i>.
+'Consider me as lost,' he says. An odd notion! David Helmsley, one of
+the richest men in the whole of two continents, wishes to lose himself!
+Impossible! He's a marked multi-millionaire,&mdash;branded with the golden
+sign of unlimited wealth, and as well known as a London terminus! If he
+were 'lost' to-day, he'd be found to-morrow. As matters stand I daresay
+he'll turn up all fight in a month's time and I need not worry my head
+any more about him!"</p>
+
+<p>With this determination Sir Francis went home to luncheon, and after
+luncheon duly appeared driving in the Park with Lady Vesey, like the
+attentive and obliging husband he ever was, despite the boredom which
+the "Row" and the "Ladies' Mile" invariably inflicted upon him,&mdash;yet
+every now and then before him there rose a mental image of his old
+friend "King David,"&mdash;grey, sad-eyed, and lonely&mdash;flitting past like
+some phantom in a dream, and wandering far away from the crowded vortex
+of London life, where his name was as honey to a swarm of bees, into
+some dim unreachable region of shadow and silence, with the brief
+farewell:</p>
+
+<p>
+"Consider me as lost!"<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Among the many wild and lovely tangles of foliage and flower which
+Nature and her subject man succeed in working out together after
+considerable conflict and argument, one of the most beautiful and
+luxuriant is a Somersetshire lane. Narrow and tortuous, fortified on
+either side with high banks of rough turf, topped by garlands of
+climbing wild-rose, bunches of corn-cockles and tufts of meadow-sweet,
+such a lane in midsummer is one of beauty's ways through the world,&mdash;a
+path, which if it lead to no more important goal than a tiny village or
+solitary farm, is, to the dreamer and poet, sufficiently entrancing in
+itself to seem a fairy road to fairyland. Here and there some grand elm
+or beech tree, whose roots have hugged the soil for more than a century,
+spreads out broad protecting branches all a-shimmer with green
+leaves,&mdash;between the uneven tufts of grass, the dainty "ragged robin"
+sprays its rose-pink blossoms contrastingly against masses of snowy
+star-wort and wild strawberry,&mdash;the hedges lean close together, as
+though accustomed to conceal the shy confidences of young lovers,&mdash;and
+from the fields beyond, the glad singing of countless skylarks, soaring
+one after the other into the clear pure air, strikes a wave of repeated
+melody from point to point of the visible sky. All among the delicate or
+deep indentures of the coast, where the ocean creeps softly inland with
+a caressing murmur, or scoops out caverns for itself among the rocks
+with perpetual roar and dash of foam, the glamour of the green
+extends,&mdash;the "lane runs down to meet the sea, carrying with it its
+garlands of blossoms, its branches of verdure, and all the odour and
+freshness of the woodlands and meadows, and when at last it drops to a
+conclusion in some little sandy bay or sparkling weir, it leaves an
+impression of melody on the soul like the echo of a sweet song just
+sweetly sung. High up the lanes run;&mdash;low down on the shoreline they
+come to an end,&mdash;and the wayfarer, pacing along at the summit of their
+devious windings, can hear the plash of the sea below him as he
+walks,&mdash;the little tender laughing plash if the winds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> are calm and the
+day is fair,&mdash;the angry thud and boom of the billows if a storm is
+rising. These bye-roads, of which there are so many along the
+Somersetshire coast, are often very lonely,&mdash;they are dangerous to
+traffic, as no two ordinary sized vehicles can pass each other
+conveniently within so narrow a compass,&mdash;and in summer especially they
+are haunted by gypsies, "pea-pickers," and ill-favoured men and women of
+the "tramp" species, slouching along across country from Bristol to
+Minehead, and so over Countisbury Hill into Devon. One such
+questionable-looking individual there was, who,&mdash;in a golden afternoon
+of July, when the sun was beginning to decline towards the west,&mdash;paused
+in his slow march through the dust, which even in the greenest of hill
+and woodland ways is bound to accumulate thickly after a fortnight's
+lack of rain,&mdash;and with a sigh of fatigue, sat down at the foot of a
+tree to rest. He was an old man, with a thin weary face which was
+rendered more gaunt and haggard-looking by a ragged grey moustache and
+ugly stubble beard of some ten days' growth, and his attire suggested
+that he might possibly be a labourer dismissed from farm work for the
+heinous crime of old age, and therefore "on the tramp" looking out for a
+job. He wore a soft slouched felt hat, very much out of shape and
+weather-stained,&mdash;and when he had been seated for a few minutes in a
+kind of apathy of lassitude, he lifted the hat off, passing his hand
+through his abundant rough white hair in a slow tired way, as though by
+this movement he sought to soothe some teasing pain.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," he murmured, addressing himself to a tiny brown bird which
+had alighted on a branch of briar-rose hard by, and was looking at him
+with bold and lively inquisitiveness,&mdash;"I think I have managed the whole
+thing very well! I have left no clue anywhere. My portmanteau will tell
+no tales, locked up in the cloak-room at Bristol. If it is ever sold
+with its contents 'to defray expenses,' nothing will be found in it but
+some unmarked clothes. And so far as all those who know me are
+concerned, every trace of me ends at Southampton. Beyond Southampton
+there is a blank, into which David Helmsley, the millionaire, has
+vanished. And David Helmsley, the tramp, sits here in his place!"</p>
+
+<p>The little brown bird preened its wing, and glanced at him sideways
+intelligently, as much as to say: "I quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> understand! You have become
+one of us,&mdash;a wanderer, taking no thought for the morrow, but letting
+to-morrow take thought for the things of itself. There is a bond of
+sympathy between me, the bird, and you, the man&mdash;we are brothers!"</p>
+
+<p>A sudden smile illumined his face. The situation was novel, and to him
+enjoyable. He was greatly fatigued,&mdash;he had over-exerted himself during
+the past three or four days, walking much further than he had ever been
+accustomed to, and his limbs ached sorely&mdash;nevertheless, with the sense
+of rest and relief from strain, came a certain exhilaration of spirit,
+like the vivacious delight of a boy who has run away from school, and is
+defiantly ready to take all the consequences of his disobedience to the
+rules of discipline and order. For years he had wanted a "new"
+experience of life. No one would give him what he sought. To him the
+"social" round was ever the same dreary, heartless and witless thing, as
+empty under the sway of one king or queen as another, and as utterly
+profitless to peace or happiness as it has always been. The world of
+finance was equally uninteresting so far as he was concerned; he had
+exhausted it, and found it no more than a monotonous grind of gain which
+ended in a loathing of the thing gained. Others might and would consume
+themselves in fevers of avarice, and surfeits of luxury,&mdash;but for him
+such temporary pleasures were past. He desired a complete change,&mdash;a
+change of surroundings, a change of associations&mdash;and for this, what
+could be more excellent or more wholesome than a taste of poverty? In
+his time he had met men who, worn out with the constant fight of the
+body's materialism against the soul's idealism, had turned their backs
+for ever on the world and its glittering shows, and had shut themselves
+up as monks of "enclosed" or "silent" orders,&mdash;others he had known, who,
+rushing away from what we call civilisation, had encamped in the
+backwoods of America, or high up among the Rocky Mountains, and had
+lived the lives of primeval savages in their strong craving to assert a
+greater manliness than the streets of cities would allow them to
+enjoy,&mdash;and all were moved by the same mainspring of action,&mdash;the
+overpowering spiritual demand within themselves which urged them to
+break loose from cowardly conventions and escape from Sham. He could not
+compete with younger men in taking up wild sport and "big game" hunting
+in far lands, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> order to give free play to the natural savage
+temperament which lies untamed at the root of every man's individual
+being,&mdash;and he had no liking for "monastic" immurements. But he longed
+for liberty,&mdash;liberty to go where he liked without his movements being
+watched and commented upon by a degraded "personal" press,&mdash;liberty to
+speak as he felt and do as he wished, without being compelled to weigh
+his words, or to consider his actions. Hence&mdash;he had decided on his
+present course, though how that course was likely to shape itself in its
+progress he had no very distinct idea. His actual plan was to walk to
+Cornwall, and there find out the native home of his parents, not so much
+for sentiment's sake as for the necessity of having a definite object or
+goal in view. And the reason of his determination to go "on the road,"
+as it were, was simply that he wished to test for himself the actual
+happiness or misery experienced by the very poor as contrasted with the
+supposed joys of the very wealthy. This scheme had been working in his
+brain for the past year or more,&mdash;all his business arrangements had been
+made in such a way as to enable him to carry it out satisfactorily to
+himself without taking any one else into his confidence. The only thing
+that might possibly have deterred him from his quixotic undertaking
+would have been the moral triumph of Lucy Sorrel over the temptation he
+had held out to her. Had she been honest to her better womanhood,&mdash;had
+she still possessed the "child's heart," with which his remembrance and
+imagination had endowed her, he would have resigned every other thought
+save that of so smoothing the path of life for her that she might tread
+it easily to the end. But now that she had disappointed him, he had, so
+he told himself, done with fine illusions and fair beliefs for ever. And
+he had started on a lonely quest,&mdash;a search for something vague and
+intangible, the very nature of which he himself could not tell. Some
+glimmering ghost of a notion lurked in his mind that perhaps, during his
+self-imposed solitary ramblings, he might find some new and unexplored
+channel wherein his vast wealth might flow to good purpose after his
+death, without the trammels of Committee-ism and Red-Tape-ism. But he
+expected and formulated nothing,&mdash;he was more or less in a state of
+quiescence, awaiting adventures without either hope or fear. In the
+meantime, here he sat in the shady Somersetshire lane, resting,&mdash;the
+multi-millionaire whose very name shook the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> money-markets of the world,
+but who to all present appearances seemed no more than a tramp, footing
+it wearily along one of the many winding "short cuts" through the
+country between Somerset and Devon, and as unlike the actual self of him
+as known to Lombard Street and the Stock Exchange as a beggar is unlike
+a king.</p>
+
+<p>"After all, it's quite as interesting as 'big game' shooting!" he said,
+the smile still lingering in his eyes. "I am after 'sport,'&mdash;in a novel
+fashion! I am on the lookout for new specimens of men and women,&mdash;real
+honest ones! I may find them,&mdash;I may not,&mdash;but the search will surely
+prove at least as instructive and profitable as if one went out to the
+Arctic regions for the purpose of killing innocent polar bears! Change
+and excitement are what every one craves for nowadays&mdash;I'm getting as
+much as I want&mdash;in my own way!"</p>
+
+<p>He thought over the whole situation, and reviewed with a certain sense
+of interest and amusement his method of action since he left London.
+Benson, his valet, had packed his portmanteau, according to orders, with
+everything that was necessary for a short sea trip, and then had seen
+him off at the station for Southampton,&mdash;and to Southampton he had gone.
+Arrived there, he had proceeded to a hotel, where, under an assumed
+name, he had stayed the night. The next day he had left Southampton for
+Salisbury by train, and there staying another night, had left again for
+Bath and Bristol. On the latter journey he had "tipped" the guard
+heavily to keep his first-class compartment reserved to himself. This
+had been done; and the train being an express, stopping at very few
+stations, he had found leisure and opportunity to unpack his portmanteau
+and cut away every mark on his linen and other garments which could give
+the slightest clue to their possessor. When he had removed all possible
+trace of his identity on or in this one piece of luggage, he packed it
+up again, and on reaching Bristol, took it to the station's cloak-room,
+and there deposited it with the stated intention of calling back for it
+at the hour of the next train to London. This done, he stepped forth
+untrammelled, a free man. He had with him five hundred pounds in
+banknotes, and for a day or so was content to remain in Bristol at one
+of the best hotels, under an assumed name as before, while privately
+making such other preparations for his intended long "tramp" as he
+thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> necessary. In one of the poorest quarters of the town he
+purchased a few second-hand garments such as might be worn by an
+ordinary day-labourer, saying to the dealer that he wanted to "rig out"
+a man who had just left hospital and who was going in for "field" work.
+The dealer saw nothing either remarkable or suspicious in this seemingly
+benevolent act of a kindly-looking well-dressed old gentleman, and sent
+him the articles he had purchased done up in a neat package and
+addressed to him at his hotel, by the name he had for the time assumed.
+When he left the hotel for good, he did so with nothing more than this
+neat package, which he carried easily in one hand by a loop of string.
+And so he began his journey, walking steadily for two or three
+hours,&mdash;then pausing to rest awhile,&mdash;and after rest, going on again.
+Once out of Bristol he was glad, and at certain lonely places, when the
+shadows of night fell, he changed all his garments one by one till he
+stood transformed as now he was. The clothes he was compelled to discard
+he got rid of by leaving them in unlikely holes and corners on the
+road,&mdash;as for example, at one place he filled the pockets of his good
+broadcloth coat with stones and dropped it into the bottom of an old
+disused well. The curious sense of guilt he felt when he performed this
+innocent act surprised as well as amused him.</p>
+
+<p>"It is exactly as if I had murdered somebody and had sunk a body into
+the well instead of a coat!" he said&mdash;"and&mdash;perhaps I have! Perhaps I am
+killing my Self,&mdash;getting rid of my Self,&mdash;which would be a good thing,
+if I could only find Some one or Some thing better than my Self in my
+Self's place!"</p>
+
+<p>When he had finally disposed of every article that could suggest any
+possibility of his ever having been clothed as a gentleman, he unripped
+the lining of his rough "workman's" vest, and made a layer of the
+banknotes he had with him between it and the cloth, stitching it
+securely over and over with coarse needle and thread, being satisfied by
+this arrangement to carry all his immediate cash hidden upon his person,
+while for the daily needs of hunger and thirst he had a few loose
+shillings and coppers in his pocket. He had made up his mind not to
+touch a single one of the banknotes, unless suddenly overtaken by
+accident or illness. When his bit of silver and copper came to an end,
+he meant to beg alms along the road and prove for himself how far<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> it
+was true that human beings were in the main kind and compassionate, and
+ready to assist one another in the battle of life. With these ideas and
+many others in his mind, he started on his "tramp"&mdash;and during the first
+two or three days of it suffered acutely. Many years had passed since he
+had been accustomed to long sustained bodily exercise, and he was
+therefore easily fatigued. But by the time he reached the open country
+between the Quantocks and the Brendon Hills, he had got somewhat into
+training, and had begun to feel a greater lightness and ease as well as
+pleasure in walking. He had found it quite easy to live on very simple
+food,&mdash;in fact one of the principal charms of the strange "holiday" he
+had planned for his own entertainment was to prove for himself beyond
+all dispute that no very large amount of money is required to sustain a
+man's life and health. New milk and brown bread had kept him going
+bravely every day,&mdash;fruit was cheap and so was cheese, and all these
+articles of diet are highly nourishing, so that he had wanted for
+nothing. At night, the weather keeping steadily fine and warm, he had
+slept in the open, choosing some quiet nook in the woodland under a
+tree, or else near a haystack in the fields, and he had benefited
+greatly by thus breathing the pure air during slumber, and getting for
+nothing the "cure" prescribed by certain Artful Dodgers of the medical
+profession who take handfuls of guineas from credulous patients for what
+Mother Nature willingly gives gratis. And he was beginning to understand
+the joys of "loafing,"&mdash;so much so indeed that he felt a certain
+sympathy with the lazy varlet who prefers to stroll aimlessly about the
+country begging his bread rather than do a stroke of honest work. The
+freedom of such a life is self-evident,&mdash;and freedom is the broadest and
+best way of breathing on earth. To "tramp the road" seems to the
+well-dressed, conventional human being a sorry life; but it may be
+questioned whether, after all, he with his social trammels and household
+cares, is not leading a sorrier one. Never in all his brilliant,
+successful career till now had David Helmsley, that king of modern
+finance, realised so intensely the beauty and peace of being alone with
+Nature,&mdash;the joy of feeling the steady pulse of the Spirit of the
+Universe throbbing through one's own veins and arteries,&mdash;the quiet yet
+exultant sense of knowing instinctively beyond all formulated theory or
+dogma, that one is a vital part of the immortal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> Entity, as
+indestructible as Itself. And a great calm was gradually taking
+possession of his soul,&mdash;a smoothing of all the waves of his emotional
+and nervous temperament. Under this mystic touch of unseen and
+uncomprehended heavenly tenderness, all sorrows, all disappointments,
+all disillusions sank out of sight as though they had never been. It
+seemed to him that he had put away his former life for ever, and that
+another life had just begun,&mdash;and his brain was ready and eager to rid
+itself of old impressions in order to prepare for new. Nothing of much
+moment had occurred to him as yet. A few persons had said "good-day " or
+"good-night" to him in passing,&mdash;a farmer had asked him to hold his
+horse for a quarter of an hour, which he had done, and had thereby
+earned threepence,&mdash;but he had met with no interesting or exciting
+incidents which could come under the head of "adventures." Nevertheless
+he was gathering fresh experiences,&mdash;experiences which all tended to
+show him how the best and brightest part of life is foolishly wasted and
+squandered by the modern world in a mad rush for gain.</p>
+
+<p>"So very little money really suffices for health, contentment, and
+harmless pleasure!" he thought. "The secret of our growing social
+mischief does not lie with the natural order of created things, but
+solely with ourselves. We will not set any reasonable limit to our
+desires. If we would, we might live longer and be far happier!"</p>
+
+<p>He stretched out his limbs easefully, and dropped into a reclining
+posture. The tree he had chosen to rest under was a mighty elm, whose
+broad branches, thick with leaves, formed a deep green canopy through
+which the sunbeams filtered in flecks and darts of gold. A constant
+twittering of birds resounded within this dome of foliage, and a thrush
+whistled melodious phrases from one of the highest boughs. At his feet
+was spread a carpet of long soft moss, interspersed with wild thyme and
+groups of delicate harebells, and the rippling of a tiny stream into a
+hollow cavity of stones made pleasant and soothing music. Charmed with
+the tranquillity and loveliness of his surroundings, he determined to
+stay here for a couple of hours, reading, and perhaps sleeping, before
+resuming his journey. He had in his pocket a shilling edition of Keats's
+poems which he had bought in Bristol by way of a silent companion to his
+thoughts, and he took it out and opened it now, reading<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> and re-reading
+some of the lines most dear and familiar to him, when, as a boy, he had
+elected this poet, so wickedly done to death ere his prime by
+commonplace critics, as one of his chief favourites among the highest
+Singers. And his lips, half-murmuring, followed the verse which tells of
+that</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">"untrodden region of the mind,</span><br />
+Where branch&euml;d thoughts, new-grown with pleasant pain,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Instead of pines, shall murmur in the wind;</span><br />
+Far, far around shall these dark clustered trees,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fledge the wild ridg&euml;d mountains steep by steep,</span><br />
+And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds and bees,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The moss-lain Dryads shall be lulled to sleep;</span><br />
+And in the midst of this wide quietness,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A rosy sanctuary will I dress</span><br />
+With the wreathed trellis of a working brain,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With buds and bells and stars without a name,</span><br />
+With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who, breeding flowers, will never breed the same;</span><br />
+And there shall be for thee all soft delight,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That shadowy thought can win,</span><br />
+A bright torch and a casement ope at night,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To let the warm Love in!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>A slight sigh escaped him.</p>
+
+<p>"How perfect is that stanza!" he said. "How I used to believe in all it
+suggested! And how, when I was a young man, my heart was like that
+'casement ope at night, to let the warm Love in!' But Love never
+came,&mdash;only a spurious will-o'-the-wisp imitation of Love. I wonder if
+many people in this world are not equally deceived with myself in their
+conceptions of this divine passion? All the poets and romancists may be
+wrong,&mdash;and Lucy Sorrel, with her hard materialism encasing her youth
+like a suit of steel armour, may be right. Boys and girls 'love,' so
+they say,&mdash;men and women 'love' and marry&mdash;and with marriage, the
+wondrous light that led them on and dazzled them, seems, in nine cases
+out of ten, to suddenly expire! Taking myself as an example, I cannot
+say that actual marriage made me happy. It was a great disillusion; a
+keen disappointment. The birth of my sons certainly gave me some
+pleasure as well as latent hope, for as little children they were
+lovable and lovely; but as boys&mdash;as men&mdash;what bitterness they brought
+me! Were they the heirs of Love? Nay!&mdash;surely Love never generated such
+callous hearts! They were the double reflex of their mother's nature,
+grasping all and giving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> nothing. Is there no such virtue on earth as
+pure unselfish Love?&mdash;love that gives itself freely, unasked, without
+hope of advantage or reward&mdash;and without any personal motive lurking
+behind its offered tenderness?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned over the pages of the book he held, with a vague idea that
+some consoling answer to his thoughts would flash out in a stray line or
+stanza, like a beacon lighting up the darkness of a troubled sea. But no
+such cheering word met his eyes. Keats is essentially the poet of the
+young, and for the old he has no comfort. Sensuous, passionate, and
+almost cloying in the excessive sweetness of his amorous muse, he offers
+no support to the wearied spirit,&mdash;no sense of strength or renewal to
+the fagged brain. He does not grapple with the hard problems of life;
+and his mellifluous murmurings of delicious fantasies have no place in
+the poignant griefs and keen regrets of those who have passed the
+meridian of earthly hopes, and who see the shadows of the long night
+closing in. And David Helmsley realised this all suddenly, with
+something of a pang.</p>
+
+<p>"I am too old for Keats," he said in a half-whisper to the leafy
+branches that bowed their weight of soft green shelteringly over him.
+"Too old! Too old for a poet in whose imaginative work I vised to take
+such deep delight. There is something strange in this, for I cherished a
+belief that fine poetry would fit every time and every age, and that no
+matter how heavy the burden of years might be, I should always be able
+to forget myself and my sorrows in a poet's immortal creations. But I
+have left Keats behind me. He was with me in the sunshine,&mdash;he does not
+follow me into the shade."</p>
+
+<p>A cloud of melancholy darkened his worn features, and he slowly closed
+the book. He felt that it was from henceforth a sealed letter. For him
+the half-sad, half-scornful musings of Omar Khayy&aacute;m were more fitting,
+such as the lines that run thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"Fair wheel of heaven, silvered with many a star,<br />
+Whose sickly arrows strike us from afar,<br />
+Never a purpose to my soul was dear,<br />
+But heaven crashed down my little dream to mar.<br />
+<br />
+Never a bird within my sad heart sings<br />
+But heaven a flaming stone of thunder flings;<br />
+O valiant wheel! O most courageous heaven,<br />
+To leave me lonely with the broken wings!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>tinging pain, as of tears that rose but would not fall, troubled his
+eyes. He passed his hand across them, and leaned back against the sturdy
+trunk of the elm which served him for the moment as a protecting haven
+of rest. The gentle murmur of the bees among the clover, the soft
+subdued twittering of the birds, and the laughing ripple of the little
+stream hard by, all combined to make one sweet monotone of sound which
+lulled his senses to a drowsiness that gradually deepened into slumber.
+He made a pathetic figure enough, lying fast asleep there among the
+wilderness of green,&mdash;a frail and apparently very poor old man, adrift
+and homeless, without a friend in the world. The sun sank, and a crimson
+after-glow spread across the horizon from west to east, the rich colours
+flung up from the centre of the golden orb merging by slow degrees into
+that pure pearl-grey which marks the long and lovely summer twilight of
+English skies. The air was very still, not so much as the rumble of a
+distant cart wheel disturbing the silence. Presently, however, the slow
+shuffle of hesitating footsteps sounded through the muffling thickness
+of the dust, and a man made his appearance on the top of the little
+rising where the lane climbed up into a curve of wild-rose hedge and
+honeysuckle which almost hid the actual road from view. He was not a
+prepossessing object in the landscape; short and squat, unkempt and
+dirty, and clad in rough garments which were almost past hanging
+together, he looked about as uncouth and ugly a customer as one might
+expect to meet anywhere on a lonely road at nightfall. He carried a
+large basket on his back, seemingly full of weeds,&mdash;the rope which
+supported it was tied across his chest, and he clasped this rope with
+both hands crossed in the middle, after the fashion of a praying monk.
+Smoking a short black pipe, he trudged along, keeping his eyes fixed on
+the ground with steady and almost surly persistence, till arriving at
+the tree where Helmsley lay, he paused, and lifting his head stared long
+and curiously at the sleeping man. Then, unclasping his hands, he
+lowered his basket to the ground and set it down. Stealthily creeping
+close up to Helmsley's side, he examined the prone figure from head to
+foot with quick and eager scrutiny. Spying the little volume of Keats on
+the grass where it had dropped from the slumberer's relaxed hand, he
+took it up gingerly, turning over its pages with grimy thumb and
+finger.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Portry!" he ejaculated. "Glory be good to me! 'E's a reg'ler noddy
+none-such! An' measly old enuff to know better!"</p>
+
+<p>He threw the book on the grass again with a sniff of contempt. At that
+moment Helmsley stirred, and opening his eyes fixed them full and
+inquiringly on the lowering face above him.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ullo, gaffer! Woke up, 'ave yer?" said the man gruffly. "Off yer lay?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley raised himself on one elbow, looking a trifle dazed.</p>
+
+<p>"Off my what?" he murmured. "I didn't quite hear you&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh come, stow that!" said the man. "You dunno what I'm talkin' about;
+that's plain as a pike. <i>You</i> aint used to the road! Where d'ye come
+from?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've walked from Bristol," he answered&mdash;"And you're quite right,&mdash;I'm
+not used to the road."</p>
+
+<p>The man looked at him and his hard face softened. Pushing back his
+tattered cap from his brows he showed his features more openly, and a
+smile, half shrewd, half kindly, made them suddenly pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>"Av coorse you're not!" he declared. "Glory be good to me! I've tramped
+this bit o' road for years, an' never come across such a poor old
+chuckle-headed gammer as you sleepin' under a tree afore! Readin' portry
+an' droppin' to by-by over it! The larst man as iver I saw a' readin'
+portry was what they called a 'Serious Sunday' man, an' 'e's doin' time
+now in Portland."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled. He was amused;&mdash;his "adventures," he thought, were
+beginning. To be called "a poor old chuckle-headed gammer" was a new and
+almost delightful experience.</p>
+
+<p>"Portland's an oncommon friendly place," went on his uninvited
+companion. "Once they gits ye, they likes ye to stop. 'Taint like the
+fash'nable quality what says to their friends: 'Do-ee come an' stay wi'
+me, loveys!' wishin' all the while as they wouldn't. Portland takes ye
+willin', whether ye likes it or not, an' keeps ye so fond that ye can't
+git away nohow. Oncommon 'ospitable Portland be!"</p>
+
+<p>And he broke into a harsh laugh. Then he glanced at Helmsley again with
+a more confiding and favourable eye.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ye seems a 'spectable sort," he said. "What's wrong wi' ye? Out o'
+work?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Turned off, eh? Too old?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's about it!" he answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, ye do look a bit of a shivery-shake,&mdash;a kind o'
+not-long-for-this-world," said the man. "Howsomiver, we'se be all
+'elpless an' 'omeless soon, for the Lord hisself don't stop a man
+growin' old, an' under the new ways o' the world, it's a reg'lar crime
+to run past forty. I'm sixty, an' I gits my livin' my own way, axin'
+nobody for the kind permission. <i>That's</i> my fortin!"</p>
+
+<p>And he pointed to the basket of weedy stuff which he had just set down.
+Helmsley looked at it with some curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"What's in it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"What's in it? What's <i>not</i> in it!" And the man gave a gesture of
+mingled pride and defiance. "There's all what the doctors makes their
+guineas out of with their purr-escriptions, for they can't purr-escribe
+no more than is in that there basket without they goes to minerals. An'
+minerals is rank poison to ivery 'uman body. But so far as 'erbs an'
+seeds, an' precious stalks an' flowers is savin' grace for man an'
+beast, Matthew Peke's got 'em all in there. An' Matthew Peke wouldn't be
+the man he is, if he didn't know where to find 'em better'n any livin'
+soul iver born! Ah!&mdash;an' there aint a toad in a hole hoppin' out between
+Quantocks an' Cornwall as hasn't seen Matthew Peke gatherin' the
+blessin' an' health o' the fields at rise o' sun an' set o' moon,
+spring, summer, autumn, ay, an' even winter, all the year through!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley became interested.</p>
+
+<p>"And you are the man!" he said questioningly&mdash;"You are Matthew Peke?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am! An' proud so ter be! An' you&mdash;'ave yer got a name for the
+arskin'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, certainly!" And Helmsley's pale face flushed. "My name is David."</p>
+
+<p>"Chrisen name? Surname?"</p>
+
+<p>"Both."</p>
+
+<p>Matthew Peke shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"'Twon't fadge!" he declared. "It don't sound right. It's like th' owld
+Bible an' the Book o' Kings where there's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> nowt but Jews; an' Jews is
+the devil to pay wheriver you finds 'em!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not a Jew," said Helmsley, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Mebbe not&mdash;mebbe not&mdash;but yer name's awsome like it. An' if ye put it
+short, like D. David, that's just Damn David an' nothin' plainer. Aint
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly!" he said&mdash;"You're right! Damn David suits me down to the
+ground!"</p>
+
+<p>Peke looked at him dubiously, as one who is not quite sure of his man.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a rum old sort!" he said; "an' I tell ye what it is&mdash;you're as
+tired as a dog limpin' on three legs as has nipped his fourth in a
+weasel-trap. Wheer are ye goin' on to?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," answered Helmsley&mdash;"I'm a stranger to this part of the
+country. But I mean to tramp it to the nearest village. I slept out in
+the open yesterday,&mdash;I think I'd like a shelter over me to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Got any o' the King's pictures about ye?" asked Peke.</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley looked, as he felt, bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>"The King's pictures?" he echoed&mdash;"You mean&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"This!" and Peke drew out of his tattered trouser pocket a dim and
+blackened sixpence&mdash;"'Ere 'e is, as large as life, a bit bald about the
+top o' 'is blessed old 'ead, Glory be good to 'im, but as useful as if
+all 'is 'air was still a blowin' an' a growin'! Aint that the King's
+picture, D. David? Don't it say 'Edwardus VII. D. G. Britt.,' which
+means Edward the Seventh, thanks be to God Britain? Don't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>do</i>!" replied Helmsley emphatically, taking a fantastic pleasure in
+the bad grammar of his reply. "I've got a few more pictures of the same
+kind," and he took out two or three loose shillings and pennies&mdash;"Can we
+get a night's lodging about here for that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Av coorse we can! I'll take ye to a place where ye'll be as welcome as
+the flowers in May with Matt Peke interroducin' of ye. Two o' them
+thank-God Britts in silver will set ye up wi' a plate o' wholesome food
+an' a clean bed at the 'Trusty Man.' It's a pub, but Miss Tranter what
+keeps it is an old maid, an' she's that proud o' the only 'Trusty Man'
+she ever 'ad that she calls it an '<i>O</i>tel!"</p>
+
+<p>He grinned good-humouredly at what he considered his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> own witticism
+concerning the little weakness of Miss Tranter, and proceeded to
+shoulder his basket.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> aint proud, are ye?" he said, as he turned his ferret-brown eyes
+on Helmsley inquisitively.</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley, who had, quite unconsciously to himself, drawn up his spare
+figure in his old habitual way of standing very erect, with that
+composed air of dignity and resolution which those who knew him
+personally in business were well accustomed to, started at the question.</p>
+
+<p>"Proud!" he exclaimed&mdash;"I? What have I to be proud of? I'm the most
+miserable old fellow in the world, my friend! You may take my word for
+that! There's not a soul that cares a button whether I live or die! I'm
+seventy years of age&mdash;out of work, and utterly wretched and friendless!
+Why the devil should <i>I</i> be proud?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if ye never was proud in yer life, ye can be now," said Peke
+condescendingly, "for I tell ye plain an' true that if Matt Peke walks
+with a tramp on this road, every one round the Quantocks knows as how
+that tramp aint altogether a raskill! I've took ye up on trust as
+'twere, likin' yer face for all that it's thin an' mopish,&mdash;an' steppin'
+in wi' me to the 'Trusty Man' will mebbe give ye a character. Anyways,
+I'll do my best for ye!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Helmsley simply.</p>
+
+<p>Again Peke looked at him, and again seemed troubled. Then, stuffing his
+pipe full of tobacco, he lit it and stuck it sideways between his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Now come along!" he said. "You're main old, but ye must put yer best
+foot foremost all the same. We've more'n an hour's trampin' up hill an'
+down dale, an' the dew's beginnin' to fall. Keep goin' slow an'
+steady&mdash;I'll give ye a hand."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Helmsley hesitated. This shaggy, rough, uncouth
+herb-gatherer evidently regarded him as very feeble and helpless, and,
+out of a latent kindliness of nature, wished to protect him and see him
+to some safe shelter for the night. Nevertheless, he hated the position.
+Old as he knew himself to be, he resented being pitied for his age,
+while his mind was yet so vigorous and his heart felt still so warm and
+young. Yet the commonplace fact remained that he was very tired,&mdash;very
+worn out, and conscious that only a good rest would enable him to
+continue his journey with comfort. Moreover, his experiences at the
+"Trusty Man"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> might prove interesting. It was best to take what came in
+his way, even though some episodes should possibly turn out less
+pleasing than instructive. So putting aside all scruples, he started to
+walk beside his ragged comrade of the road, finding, with some secret
+satisfaction, that after a few paces his own step was light and easy
+compared to the heavy shuffling movement with which Peke steadily
+trudged along. Sweet and pungent odours of the field and woodland
+floated from the basket of herbs as it swung slightly to and fro on its
+bearer's shoulders, and amid the slowly darkening shadows of evening, a
+star of sudden silver brilliance sparkled out in the sky.</p>
+
+<p>"Yon's the first twinkler," said Peke, seeing it at once, though his
+gaze was apparently fixed on the ground. "The love-star's allus up early
+o' nights to give the men an' maids a chance!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,&mdash;Venus is the evening star just now," rejoined Helmsley,
+half-absently.</p>
+
+<p>"Stow Venus! That's a reg'lar fool's name," said Peke surlily. "Where
+did ye git it from? That aint no Venus,&mdash;that's just the love-star, an'
+it'll be nowt else in these parts till the world-without-end-amen!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley made no answer. He walked on patiently, his limbs trembling a
+little with fatigue and nervous exhaustion. But Peke's words had started
+the old dream of his life again into being,&mdash;the latent hope within him,
+which though often half-killed, was not yet dead, flamed up like newly
+kindled vital fire in his mind,&mdash;and he moved as in a dream, his eyes
+fixed on the darkening heavens and the brightening star.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>They plodded on together side by side for some time in unbroken silence.
+At last, after a short but stiff climb up a rough piece of road which
+terminated in an eminence commanding a wide and uninterrupted view of
+the surrounding country, they paused. The sea lay far below them, dimly
+covered by the gathering darkness, and the long swish and roll of the
+tide could be heard sweeping to and from the shore like the grave and
+graduated rhythm of organ music.</p>
+
+<p>"We'd best 'ave a bit of a jabber to keep us goin'," said Peke,
+then&mdash;"Jabberin' do pass time, as the wimin can prove t' ye; an' arter
+such a jumblegut lane as this, it'll seem less lonesome. We're off the
+main road to towns an' sich like&mdash;this is a bye, an' 'ere it stops.
+We'll 'ave to git over yon stile an' cross the fields&mdash;'taint an easy
+nor clean way, but it's the best goin'. We'll see the lights o' the
+'Trusty Man' just over the brow o' the next hill."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley drew a long breath, and sat down on a stone by the roadside.
+Peke surveyed him critically.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old gaffer! Knocked all to pieces, aint ye! Not used to the road?
+Glory be good to me! I should think ye wornt! Short in yer wind an' weak
+on yer pins! I'd as soon see my old grandad trampin' it as you. Look
+'ere! Will ye take a dram out o' this 'ere bottle?"</p>
+
+<p>He held up the bottle he spoke of,&mdash;it was black, and untemptingly
+dirty. Yet there was such a good-natured expression in the man's eyes,
+and so much honest solicitude written on his rough bearded face, that
+Helmsley felt it would be almost like insulting him to refuse his
+invitation.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what's in it first!" he said, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"'Taint whisky," said Peke. "And 'taint brandy neither. <i>Nor</i> rum. <i>Nor</i>
+gin. Nor none o' them vile stuffs which brewers makes as arterwards goes
+to Parl'ment on the profits of 'avin' poisoned their consti<i>too</i>ants.
+'Tis nowt but just yerb wine."</p>
+
+<p>"Yerb wine? Wine made of herbs?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That's it! 'Erbs or yerbs&mdash;I aint pertikler which&mdash;I sez both.
+This,"&mdash;and he shook the bottle he held vigorously&mdash;"is genuine yerb
+wine&mdash;an' made as I makes it, what do the Wise One say of it? 'E
+sez:&mdash;'It doth strengthen the heart of a man mightily, and refresheth
+the brain; drunk fasting, it braceth up the sinews and maketh the old
+feel young; it is of rare virtue to expel all evil humours, and if
+princes should drink of it oft it would be but an ill service to the
+world, as they might never die!'"</p>
+
+<p>Peke recited these words slowly and laboriously; it was evident that he
+had learned them by heart, and that the effort of remembering them
+correctly was more or less painful to him.</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley laughed, and stretched out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Give it over here!" he said. "It's evidently just the stuff for me. How
+much shall I take at one go?"</p>
+
+<p>Peke uncorked the precious fluid with care, smelt it, and nodded
+appreciatively.</p>
+
+<p>"Swill it all if ye like," he remarked graciously. "'Twont hurt ye, an'
+there's more where that came from. It's cheap enuff, too&mdash;nature don't
+keep it back from no man. On'y there aint a many got sense enuff to
+thank the Lord when it's offered."</p>
+
+<p>As he thus talked, Helmsley took the bottle from him and tasted its
+contents. The "yerb wine" was delicious. More grateful to his palate
+than Chambertin or Clos Vougeot, it warmed and invigorated him, and he
+took a long draught, Matthew Peke watching him drink it with great
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"Let the yerbs run through yer veins for two or three minits, an' ye'll
+step across yon fields as light as a bird 'oppin' to its nest," he
+declared. "Talk o' tonics,&mdash;there's more tonic in a handful o' green
+stuff growin' as the Lord makes it to grow, than all the
+purr-escriptions what's sent out o' them big 'ouses in 'Arley Street,
+London, where the doctors sits from ten to two like spiders waitin' for
+flies, an' gatherin' in the guineas for lookin' at fools' tongues. Glory
+be good to me! If all the world were as sick as it's silly, there'd be
+nowt wantin' to 't but a grave an' a shovel!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled, and taking another pull at the black bottle, declared
+himself much better and ready to go on. He was certainly refreshed, and
+the weary aching of his limbs which had made every step of the road
+painful and difficult to him, was gradually passing off.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You are very good to me," he said, as he returned the remainder of the
+"yerb wine" to its owner. "I wonder why?"</p>
+
+<p>Peke took a draught of his mixture before replying. Then corking the
+bottle, he thrust it in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye wonders why?" And he uttered a sound between a grunt and a
+chuckle&mdash;"Ye may do that! I wonders myself!"</p>
+
+<p>And, giving his basket a hitch, he resumed his slow trudging movement
+onward.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," pursued Helmsley, keeping up the pace beside him, and
+beginning to take pleasure in the conversation&mdash;"I may be anything or
+anybody&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye may that," agreed Peke, his eyes fixed as usual on the ground. "Ye
+may be a jail-bird or a missioner,&mdash;they'se much of a muchity, an' goes
+on the road lookin' quite simple like, an' the simpler they seems the
+deeper they is. White 'airs an' feeble legs 'elps 'em along
+considerable,&mdash;nowt's better stock-in-trade than tremblin' shins. Or ye
+might be a War-office neglect,&mdash;ye looks a bit set that way."</p>
+
+<p>"What's a War-office neglect?" asked Helmsley, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"One o' them totterin' old chaps as was in the Light Brigade," answered
+Peke. "There's no end to 'em. They'se all over every road in the
+country. All of 'em fought wi' Lord Cardigan, an' all o' 'em's driven to
+starve by an ungrateful Gov'ment. They won't be all dead an' gone till a
+hundred years 'as rolled away, an' even then I shouldn't wonder if one
+or two was still left on the tramp a-pipin' his little 'arf-a-league
+onard tale o' woe to the first softy as forgits the date o' the battle."
+Here he gave an inquisitive side-glance at his companion. "But you aint
+quite o' the Balaclava make an' colour. Yer shoulders is millingterry,
+but yer 'ead is business. Ye might be a gentleman if 'twornt for yer
+clothes."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley heard this definition of himself without flinching.</p>
+
+<p>"I might be a thief," he said&mdash;"or an escaped convict. You've been kind
+to me without knowing whether I am one or the other, or both. And I want
+to know why?"</p>
+
+<p>Peke stopped in his walk. They had come to the stile over which the way
+lay across the fields, and he rested himself and his basket for a moment
+against it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why?" he repeated,&mdash;then suddenly raising one hand, he whispered,
+"Listen! Listen to the sea!"</p>
+
+<p>The evening had now almost closed in, and all around them the country
+lay dark and solitary, broken here and there by tall groups of trees
+which at night looked like sable plumes, standing stiff and motionless
+in the stirless summer air. Thousands of stars flashed out across this
+blackness, throbbing in their orbits with a quick pulsation as of uneasy
+hearts beating with nameless and ungratified longing. And through the
+tense silence came floating a long, sweet, passionate cry,&mdash;a shivering
+moan of pain that touched the edge of joy,&mdash;a song without words, of
+pleading and of prayer, as of a lover, who, debarred from the possession
+of the beloved, murmurs his mingled despair and hope to the
+unsubstantial dream of his own tortured soul. The sea was calling to the
+earth,&mdash;calling to her in phrases of eloquent and urgent
+music,&mdash;caressing her pebbly shores with winding arms of foam, and
+showering kisses of wild spray against her rocky bosom. "If I could come
+to thee! If thou couldst come to me!" was the burden of the waves,&mdash;the
+ceaseless craving of the finite for the infinite, which is, and ever
+shall be, the great chorale of life. The shuddering sorrow of that low
+rhythmic boom of the waters rising and falling fathoms deep under cliffs
+which the darkness veiled from view, awoke echoes from the higher hills
+around, and David Helmsley, lifting his eyes to the countless
+planet-worlds sprinkled thick as flowers in the patch of sky immediately
+above him, suddenly realised with a pang how near he was to death,&mdash;how
+very near to that final drop into the unknown where the soul of man is
+destined to find All or Nothing! He trembled,&mdash;not with fear,&mdash;but with
+a kind of anger at himself for having wasted so much of his life. What
+had he done, with all his toil and pains? He had gathered a multitude of
+riches. Well, and then? Then,&mdash;why then, and now, he had found riches
+but vain getting. Life and Death were still, as they have always been,
+the two supreme Facts of the universe. Life, as ever, asserted itself
+with an insistence demanding something far more enduring than the mere
+possession of gold, and the power which gold brings. And Death presented
+its unwelcome aspect in the same perpetual way as the Last Recorder who,
+at the end of the day, closes up accounts with a sum-total paid exactly
+in proportion to the work done. No more, and no less.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> And with Helmsley
+these accounts were reaching a figure against which his whole nature
+fiercely rebelled,&mdash;the figure of Nought, showing no value in his life's
+efforts or its results. And the sound of the sea to-night in his ears
+was more full of reproach than peace.</p>
+
+<p>"When the water moans like that," said Peke softly, under his breath,
+"it seems to me as if all the tongues of drowned sailors 'ad got into it
+an' was beggin' of us not to forget 'em lyin' cold among the shells an'
+weed. An' not only the tongues o' them seems a-speakin' an' a-cryin',
+but all the stray bones o' them seems to rattle in the rattle o' the
+foam. It goes through ye sharp, like a knife cuttin' a sour apple; an'
+it's made me wonder many a time why we was all put 'ere to git drowned
+or smashed or choked off or beat down somehows just when we don't expect
+it. Howsomiver, the Wise One sez it's all right!"</p>
+
+<p>"And who is the Wise One?" asked Helmsley, trying to rouse himself from
+the heavy thoughts engendered in his mind by the wail of the sea.</p>
+
+<p>"The Wise One was a man what wrote a book a 'underd years ago about
+'erbs," said Peke. "'<i>The Way o' Long Life</i>,' it's called, an' my father
+an' grandfather and great-grandfather afore 'em 'ad the book, an' I've
+got it still, though I shows it to nobody, for nobody but me wouldn't
+unnerstand it. My father taught me my letters from it, an' I could spell
+it out when I was a kid&mdash;I've growed up on it, an' it's all I ever
+reads. It's 'ere"&mdash;and he touched his ragged vest. "I trusts it to keep
+me goin' 'ale an' 'arty till I'm ninety,&mdash;an' that's drawin' it mild,
+for my father lived till a 'underd, an' then on'y went through slippin'
+on a wet stone an' breakin' a bone in 'is back; an' my grandfather saw
+'is larst Christmas at a 'underd an' ten, an' was up to kissin' a wench
+under the mistletoe, 'e was sich a chirpin' old gamecock. 'E didn't look
+no older'n you do now, an' you're a chicken compared to 'im. You've wore
+badly like, not knowin' the use o' yerbs."</p>
+
+<p>"That's it!" said Helmsley, now following his companion over the stile
+and into the dark dewy fields beyond&mdash;"I need the advice of the Wise
+One! Has he any remedy for old age, I wonder?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, now there ye treads on my fav'rite corn!" and Peke shook his head
+with a curious air of petulance. "That's what I'm a-lookin' for day an'
+night, for the Wise One 'as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> got a bit in 'is book which 'e's cropped
+out o' another Wise One's savin's,&mdash;a chap called Para-Cel-Sus"&mdash;and
+Peke pronounced this name in three distinct and well-divided syllables.
+"An this is what it is: 'Take the leaves of the Daura, which prevent
+those who use it from dying for a hundred and twenty years. In the same
+way the flower of the <i>secta croa</i> brings a hundred years to those who
+use it, whether they be of lesser or of longer age.' I've been on the
+'unt for the 'Daura' iver since I was twenty, an' I've arskt ivery
+'yerber I've ivir met for the 'Secta Croa,' an' all I've 'ad sed to me
+is 'Go 'long wi' ye for a loony jackass! There aint no sich thing.' But
+jackass or no, I'm of a mind to think there <i>is</i> such things as both the
+'Daura' an' the 'Secta Croa,' if I on'y knew the English of 'em. An'
+s'posin' I ivir found 'em&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You would become that most envied creature of the present age,&mdash;a
+millionaire," said Helmsley; "you could command your own terms for the
+wonderful leaves,&mdash;you would cease to tramp the road or to gather herbs,
+and you would live in luxury like a king!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not I!"&mdash;and Peke gave a grunt of contempt. "Kings aint my notion of
+'appiness nor 'onesty neither. They does things often for which some o'
+the poor 'ud be put in quod, an' no mercy showed 'em, an' yet 'cos
+they're kings they gits off. An' I aint great on millionaires neither.
+They'se mis'able ricketty coves, all gone to pot in their in'ards
+through grubbin' money an' eatin' of it like, till ivery other kind o'
+food chokes 'em. There's a chymist in London what pays me five shillings
+an ounce for a little green yerb I knows on, cos' it's the on'y med'cine
+as keeps a millionaire customer of 'is a-goin'. I finds the yerb, an'
+the chymist gits the credit. I gits five shillin', an' the chymist gits
+a guinea. <i>That's</i> all right! <i>I</i> don't mind! I on'y gathers,&mdash;the
+chymist, 'e's got to infuse the yerb, distil an' bottle it. I'm paid my
+price, an 'e's paid 'is. All's fair in love an' war!"</p>
+
+<p>He trudged on, his footsteps now rendered almost noiseless by the thick
+grass on which he trod. The heavy dew sparkled on every blade, and here
+and there the pale green twinkle of a glow-worm shone like a jewel
+dropped from a lady's gown. Helmsley walked beside his companion at an
+even pace,&mdash;the "yerb wine" had undoubtedly put strength in him and he
+was almost unconscious of his former<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> excessive fatigue. He was
+interested in Peke's "jabber," and wondered, somewhat enviously, why
+such a man as this, rough, ragged, and uneducated, should seem to
+possess a contentment such as he had never known.</p>
+
+<p>"Millionaires is gin'rally fools," continued Peke; "they buys all they
+wants, an' then they aint got nothin' more to live for. They gits into
+motor-cars an' scours the country, but they never sees it. They never
+'ears the birds singin', an' they misses all the flowers. They never
+smells the vi'lets nor the mayblossom&mdash;they on'y gits their own petrol
+stench wi' the flavour o' the dust mixed in. Larst May I was a-walkin'
+in the lanes o' Devon, an' down the 'ill comes a motor-car tearin' an'
+scorchin' for all it was worth, an' bang went somethin' at the bottom o'
+the thing, an' it stops suddint. Out jumps a French chauffy, parlyvooin'
+to hisself, an' out jumps the man what owns it an' takes off his
+goggles. 'This is Devonshire, my man?' sez 'e to me. 'It is,' I sez to
+'im. An' then the cuckoo started callin' away over the trees. 'What's
+that?' sez 'e lookin' startled like. 'That's the cuckoo,' sez I. An' he
+takes off 'is 'at an' rubs 'is 'ead, which was a' fast goin' bald.
+'Dear, dear me!' sez 'e&mdash;'I 'aven't 'eard the cuckoo since I was a boy!'
+An' he rubs 'is 'ead again, an' laughs to hisself&mdash;'Not since I was a
+boy!' 'e sez. 'An' that's the cuckoo, is it? Dear, dear me!' 'You
+'aven't bin much in the country p'r'aps?' sez I. 'I'm always in the
+country,' 'e sez&mdash;'I motor everywhere, but I've missed the cuckoo
+somehow!' An' then the chauffy puts the machine right, an' he jumps in
+an' gives me a shillin'. 'Thank-ye, my man!' sez 'e&mdash;'I'm glad you told
+me 'twas a <i>real</i> cuckoo!' Hor&mdash;er&mdash;hor&mdash;er&mdash;hor&mdash;er!" And Peke gave
+vent to a laugh peculiarly his own. "Mebbe 'e thought I'd got a Swiss
+clock with a sham cuckoo workin' it in my basket! 'I'm glad,' sez 'e,
+'you told me 'twas a <i>real</i> cuckoo!' Hor&mdash;er&mdash;hor&mdash;er&mdash;hor&mdash;er!"</p>
+
+<p>The odd chuckling sounds of merriment which were slowly jerked forth as
+it were from Peke's husky windpipe, were droll enough in themselves to
+be somewhat infectious, and Helmsley laughed as he had not done for many
+days.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, there's a mighty sight of tringum-trangums an' nonsense i' the
+world," went on Peke, still occasionally giving vent to a suppressed
+"Hor&mdash;er&mdash;hor"&mdash;"an' any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> amount o' Tom Conys what don't know a real
+cuckoo from a sham un'. Glory be good to me! Think o' the numskulls as
+goes in for pendlecitis! There's a fine name for ye! Pendlecitis!
+Hor&mdash;er&mdash;hor! All the fash'nables 'as got it, an' all the doctors 'as
+their knives sharpened an' ready to cut off the remains o' the tail we
+'ad when we was all 'appy apes together! Hor&mdash;er&mdash;hor! An' the bit o'
+tail 's curled up in our in'ards now where it ain't got no business to
+be. Which shows as 'ow Natur' don't know 'ow to do it, seein' as if we
+'adn't wanted a tail, she'd a' took it sheer off an' not left any
+behind. But the doctors thinks they knows a darn sight better'n Natur',
+an' they'll soon be givin' lessons in the makin' o' man to the Lord
+A'mighty hisself! Hor&mdash;er&mdash;hor! Pendlecitis! That's a precious monkey's
+tail, that there! In my grandfather's day we didn't 'ear 'bout no
+monkey's tails,&mdash;'twas just a chill an' inflammation o' the in'ards, an'
+a few yerbs made into a tea an' drunk 'ot fastin', cured it in
+twenty-four hours. But they've so many new-fangled notions nowadays,
+they've forgot all the old 'uns. There's the cancer illness,&mdash;people
+goes off all over the country now from cancer as never used to in my
+father's day, an' why? 'Cos they'se gittin' too wise for Nature's own
+cure. Nobody thinks o' tryin' agrimony,&mdash;water agrimony&mdash;some calls it
+water hemp an' bastard agrimony&mdash;'tis a thing that flowers in this month
+an' the next,&mdash;a brown-yellow blossom on a purple stalk, an' ye find it
+in cold places, in ponds an' ditches an' by runnin' waters. Make a drink
+of it, an' it'll mend any cancer, if 'taint too far gone. An' a cancer
+that's outside an' not in, 'ull clean away beautiful wi' the 'elp o' red
+clover. Even the juice o' nettles, which is common enough, drunk three
+times a day will kill any germ o' cancer, while it'll set up the blood
+as fresh an' bright as iver. But who's a-goin' to try common stuff like
+nettles an' clover an' water hemp, when there's doctors sittin' waitin'
+wi' knives an' wantin' money for cuttin' up their patients an' 'urryin'
+'em into kingdom-come afore their time! Glory be good to me! What wi'
+doctors an' 'omes an' nusses, an' all the fuss as a sick man makes about
+hisself in these days, I'd rather be as I am, Matt Peke, a-wanderin' by
+hill an' dale, an' lyin' down peaceful to die under a tree when my times
+comes, than take any part wi' the pulin' cowards as is afraid o' cold
+an' fever an' wet feet an' the like, just as if they was poor little
+shiverin' mice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> instead o' men. Take 'em all round, the wimin's the
+bravest at bearin' pain,&mdash;they'll smile while they'se burnin' so as it
+sha'n't ill-convenience anybody. Wonderful sufferers, is wimin!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yet they are selfish enough sometimes," said Helmsley, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Selfish? Wheer was ye born, D. David?" queried Peke&mdash;"An' what wimin
+'ave ye know'd? Town or country?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Arsk no questions an' ye'll be told no lies!" commented Peke, with a
+chuckle. "I sees! Ye've bin a gay old chunk in yer time, mebbe! An' it's
+the wimin as goes in for gay old chunks as ye've made all yer larnin of.
+But they ain't wimin&mdash;not as the country knows 'em. Country wimin works
+all day an' as often as not dandles a babby all night,&mdash;they've not got
+a minnit but what they aint a-troublin' an' a-worryin' 'bout 'usband or
+childer, an' their faces is all writ over wi' the curse o' the garden of
+Eden. Selfish? They aint got the time! Up at cock-crow, scrubbin' the
+floors, washin' the babies, feedin' the fowls or the pigs, peelin' the
+taters, makin' the pot boil, an' tryin' to make out 'ow twelve shillin's
+an' sixpence a week can be made to buy a pound's worth o' food, trapsin'
+to market, an' wonderin' whether the larst born in the cradle aint
+somehow got into the fire while mother's away,&mdash;'opin' an' prayin' for
+the Lord's sake as 'usband don't come 'ome blind drunk,&mdash;where's the
+room for any selfishness in sich a life as that?&mdash;the life lived by
+'undreds o' wimin all over this 'ere blessed free country? Get 'long wi'
+ye, D. David! Old as y' are, ye 'ad a mother in yer time,&mdash;an' I'll take
+my Gospel oath there was a bit o' good in 'er!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley stopped abruptly in his walk.</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, man!" he said, "And I am wrong! You know women better
+than I do, and&mdash;you give me a lesson! One is never too old to
+learn,"&mdash;and he smiled a rather pained smile. "But&mdash;I have had a bad
+experience!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if y'ave 'ad it ivir so bad, yer 'xperience aint every one's,"
+retorted Peke. "If one fly gits into the soup, that don't argify that
+the hull pot 's full of 'em. An' there's more good wimin than
+bad&mdash;takin' 'em all round an' includin' 'op pickers, gypsies an' the
+like. Even Miss Tranter aint wantin' in feelin', though she's a bit sour
+like, owin' to 'avin missed a 'usband an' all the savin' worrity
+wear-an-tear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> a 'usband brings, but she aint arf bad. Yon's the lamp of
+'er 'Trusty Man' now."</p>
+
+<p>A gleam of light, not much larger than the glitter of one of the
+glow-worms in the grass, was just then visible at the end of the long
+field they were traversing.</p>
+
+<p>"That's an old cart-road down there wheer it stands," continued Peke.
+"As bad a road as ivir was made, but it runs straight into Devonshire,
+an' it's a good place for a pub. For many a year 'twornt used, bein' so
+rough an' ready, but now there's such a crowd o' motors tearin, over
+Countisbury 'Ill, the carts takes it, keepin' more to theirselves like,
+an' savin' smashin'. Miss Tranter she knew what she was a-doin' of when
+she got a licence an' opened 'er bizniss. 'Twas a ramshackle old
+farm-'ouse, goin' all to pieces when she bought it an' put up 'er sign
+o' the 'Trusty Man,' an' silly wenches round 'ere do say as 'ow it's
+'aunted, owin' to the man as 'ad it afore Miss Tranter, bein' found dead
+in 'is bed with 'is 'ands a-clutchin' a pack o' cards. An' the ace o'
+spades&mdash;that's death&mdash;was turned uppermost. So they goes chatterin' an'
+chitterin' as 'ow the old chap 'ad been playin' cards wi' the devil, an'
+got a bad end. But Miss Tranter, she don't listen to maids'
+gabble,&mdash;she's doin' well, devil or no devil&mdash;an' if any one was to talk
+to 'er 'bout ghosteses an' sich-like, she'd wallop 'em out of 'er bar
+with a broom! Ay, that she would! She's a powerful strong woman Miss
+Tranter, an' many's the larker what's felt 'er 'and on 'is collar
+a-chuckin' 'im out o' the 'Trusty Man' neck an' crop for sayin'
+somethin' what aint ezackly agreeable to 'er feelin's. She don't stand
+no nonsense, an' though she's lib'ral with 'er pennorths an' pints she
+don't wait till a man's full boozed 'fore lockin' up the tap-room. 'Git
+to bed, yer hulkin' fools!' sez she, 'or ye may change my '<i>O</i>tel for
+the Sheriff's.' An' they all knuckles down afore 'er as if they was
+childer gettin' spanked by their mother. Ah, she'd 'a made a grand wife
+for a man! 'E wouldn't 'ave 'ad no chance to make a pig of hisself if
+she'd been anywheres round!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps she won't take me in!" suggested Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"She will, an' that sartinly!" said Peke. "She'll not refuse bed an'
+board to any friend o' mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Friend!" Helmsley echoed the word wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, friend! Any one's a friend what trusts to ye on the road, aint 'e?
+Leastways that's 'ow I take it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"As I said before, you are very kind to me," murmured Helmsley; "and I
+have already asked you&mdash;Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"There aint no rhyme nor reason in it," answered Peke. "You 'elps a man
+along if ye sees 'e wants 'elpin', sure-<i>ly</i>,&mdash;that's nat'ral. 'Tis on'y
+them as is born bad as don't 'elp nothin' nor nobody. Ye're old an'
+fagged out, an' yer face speaks a bit o' trouble&mdash;that's enuff for me.
+Hi' y' are!&mdash;hi' y' are, old 'Trusty Man!'"</p>
+
+<p>And striding across a dry ditch which formed a kind of entrenchment
+between the field and the road, Peke guided his companion round a dark
+corner and brought him in front of a long low building, heavily
+timbered, with queer little lop-sided gable windows set in the slanting,
+red-tiled roof. A sign-board swung over the door and a small lamp fixed
+beneath it showed that it bore the crudely painted portrait of a
+gentleman in an apron, spreading out both hands palms upwards as one who
+has nothing to conceal,&mdash;the ideal likeness of the "Trusty Man" himself.
+The door itself stood open, and the sound of male voices evinced the
+presence of customers within. Peke entered without ceremony, beckoning
+Helmsley to follow him, and made straight for the bar, where a tall
+woman with remarkably square shoulders stood severely upright, knitting.</p>
+
+<p>"'Evenin', Miss Tranter!" said Peke, pulling off his tattered cap. "Any
+room for poor lodgers?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Tranter glanced at him, and then at his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"That depends on the lodgers," she answered curtly.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right! That's quite right, Miss!" said Peke with propitiatory
+deference. "You 'se allus right whatsoever ye does an' sez! But yer
+knows <i>me</i>,&mdash;yer knows Matt Peke, don't yer?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Tranter smiled sourly, and her knitting needles glittered like
+crossed knives as she finished a particular row of stitches on which she
+was engaged before condescending to reply. Then she said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know <i>you</i> right enough, but I don't know your company. I'm not
+taking up strangers."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord love ye! This aint a stranger!" exclaimed Peke. "This 'ere's old
+David, a friend o' mine as is out o' work through gittin' more years on
+'is back than the British Gov'ment allows, an' 'e's trampin' it to see
+'is relations afore 'e gits put to bed wi' a shovel. 'E's as 'armless as
+they makes 'em, an' I've told 'im as 'ow ye' don't take in nowt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> but
+'spectable folk. Doant 'ee turn out an old gaffer like 'e be, fagged an'
+footsore, to sleep in open&mdash;doant 'ee now, there's a good soul!"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Tranter went on knitting rapidly. Presently she turned her piercing
+gimlet grey eyes on Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you come from, man?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley lifted his hat with the gentle courtesy habitual to him.</p>
+
+<p>"From Bristol, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"Tramping it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>"To Cornwall."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a long way and a hard road," commented Miss Tranter; "You'll
+never get there!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley gave a slight deprecatory gesture, but said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Tranter eyed him more keenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you hungry?"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Not very!"</p>
+
+<p>"That means you're half-starved without knowing it," she said
+decisively. "Go in yonder," and she pointed with one of her knitting
+needles to the room beyond the bar whence the hum of male voices
+proceeded. "I'll send you some hot soup with plenty of stewed meat and
+bread in it. An old man like you wants more than the road food. Take him
+in, Peke!"</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't I tell ye!" ejaculated Peke, triumphantly looking round at
+Helmsley. "She's one that's got 'er 'art in the right place! I say, Miss
+Tranter, beggin' yer parding, my friend aint a sponger, ye know! 'E can
+pay ye a shillin' or two for yer trouble!"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Tranter nodded her head carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"The food's threepence and the bed fourpence," she said. "Breakfast in
+the morning, threepence,&mdash;and twopence for the washing towel. That makes
+a shilling all told. Ale and liquors extra."</p>
+
+<p>With that she turned her back on them, and Peke, pulling Helmsley by the
+arm, took him into the common room of the inn, where there were several
+men seated round a long oak table with "gate-legs" which must have been
+turned by the handicraftsmen of the time of Henry the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> Seventh. Here
+Peke set down his basket of herbs in a corner, and addressed the company
+generally.</p>
+
+<p>"'Evenin', mates! All well an' 'arty?"</p>
+
+<p>Three or four of the party gave gruff response. The others sat smoking
+silently. One end of the table was unoccupied, and to this Peke drew a
+couple of rush-bottomed chairs with sturdy oak backs, and bade Helmsley
+sit down beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"It be powerful warm to-night!" he said, taking off his cap, and showing
+a disordered head of rough dark hair, sprinkled with grey. "Powerful
+warm it be trampin' the road, from sunrise to sunset, when the dust lies
+thick and 'eavy, an' all the country's dry for a drop o' rain."</p>
+
+<p>"Wal, <i>you</i> aint got no cause to grumble at it," said a fat-faced man in
+very dirty corduroys. "It's <i>your</i> chice, an' <i>your</i> livin'! <i>You</i> likes
+the road, an' <i>you</i> makes your grub on it! 'Taint no use <i>you</i> findin'
+fault with the gettin' o' <i>your</i> victuals!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who's findin' fault, Mister Dubble?" asked Peke soothingly. "I on'y
+said 'twas powerful warm."</p>
+
+<p>"An' no one but a sawny 'xpects it to be powerful cold in July," growled
+Dubble&mdash;"though some there is an' some there be what cries fur snow in
+August, but I aint one on 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"No, 'e aint one on 'em," commented a burly farmer, blowing away the
+foam from the brim of a tankard of ale which was set on the table in
+front of him. "'E alluz takes just what cooms along easy loike, do
+Mizter Dubble!"</p>
+
+<p>There followed a silence. It was instinctively felt that the discussion
+was hardly important enough to be continued. Moreover, every man in the
+room was conscious of a stranger's presence, and each one cast a furtive
+glance at Helmsley, who, imitating Peke's example, had taken off his
+hat, and now sat quietly under the flickering light of the oil lamp
+which was suspended from the middle of the ceiling. He himself was
+intensely interested in the turn his wanderings had taken. There was a
+certain excitement in his present position,&mdash;he was experiencing the
+"new sensation" he had longed for,&mdash;and he realised it with the fullest
+sense of enjoyment. To be one of the richest men in the world, and yet
+to seem so miserably poor and helpless as to be regarded with suspicion
+by such a class of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> fellows as those among whom he was now seated, was
+decidedly a novel way of acquiring an additional relish for the varying
+chances and changes of life.</p>
+
+<p>"Brought yer father along wi' ye, Matt?" suddenly asked a wizened little
+man of about sixty, with a questioning grin on his hard weather-beaten
+features.</p>
+
+<p>"I aint up to 'awkin' dead bodies out o' their graves yet, Bill Bush,"
+answered Peke. "Unless my old dad's corpsy's turned to yerbs, which is
+more'n likely, I aint got 'im. This 'ere's a friend o' mine,&mdash;Mister
+David&mdash;e's out o' work through the Lord's speshul dispensation an' rule
+o' natur&mdash;gettin' old!"</p>
+
+<p>A laugh went round, but a more favourable impression towards Peke's
+companion was at once created by this introduction.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry for ye!" said the individual called Bill Bush, nodding
+encouragingly to Helmsley. "I'm a bit that way myself."</p>
+
+<p>He winked, and again the company laughed. Bill was known as one of the
+most daring and desperate poachers in all the countryside, but as yet he
+had never been caught in the act, and he was one of Miss Tranter's
+"respectable" customers. But, truth to tell, Miss Tranter had some very
+odd ideas of her own. One was that rabbits were vermin, and that it was
+of no consequence how or by whom they were killed. Another was that
+"wild game" belonged to everybody, poor and rich. Vainly was it
+explained to her that rich landowners spent no end of money on breeding
+and preserving pheasants, grouse, and the like,&mdash;she would hear none of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Stuff and nonsense," she said sharply. "The birds breed by themselves
+quite fast enough if let alone,&mdash;and the Lord intended them so to do for
+every one's use and eating, not for a few mean and selfish money-grubs
+who'd shoot and sell their own babies if they could get game prices for
+them!"</p>
+
+<p>And she had a certain sympathy with Bill Bush and his nefarious
+proceedings. As long as he succeeded in evading the police, so long
+would he be welcome at the "Trusty Man," but if once he were to be
+clapped into jail the door of his favourite "public" would be closed to
+him. Not that Miss Tranter was a woman who "went back," as the saying
+is, on her friends, but she had to think of her licence,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> and could not
+afford to run counter to those authorities who had the power to take it
+away from her.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a-shrivellin' away for want o' suthin' to do," proceeded Bill. "My
+legs aint no show at all to what they once was."</p>
+
+<p>And he looked down at those members complacently. They were encased in
+brown velveteens much the worse for wear, and in shape resembled a
+couple of sticks with a crook at the knees.</p>
+
+<p>"I lost my sitiwation as gamekeeper to 'is Royal 'Ighness the Dook o'
+Duncy through bein' too 'onest," he went on with another wink. "'Orful
+pertikler, the Dook was,&mdash;nobuddy was 'llowed to be 'onest wheer '<i>e</i>
+was but 'imself! Lord love ye! It don't do to be straight an' square in
+this world!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley listened to this bantering talk, saying nothing. He was pale,
+and sat very still, thus giving the impression of being too tired to
+notice what was going on around him. Peke took up the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Stow yer gab, Bill!" he said. "When <i>you</i> gits straight an' square,
+it'll be a round 'ole ye'll 'ave to drop into, mark my wurrd! An' no
+Dook o' Duncy 'ull pull ye out! This 'ere old friend o' mine don't
+unnerstand ye wi' yer fustian an' yer galligaskins. 'E's kinder
+eddicated&mdash;got a bit o' larnin' as I 'aves myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Eddicated!" echoed Bill. "Eddication's a fine thing, aint it, if it
+brings an old gaffer like 'im to trampin' the road! Seems to me the more
+people's eddicated the less they's able to make a livin'."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true! that's <i>dorned</i> true!" said the man named Dubble, bringing
+his great fist down on the table with a force that made the tankards
+jump. "My darter, she's larned to play the pianner, an' I'm <i>dorned</i> if
+she kin do anythin' else! Just a gillflurt she is, an' as sassy as a
+magpie. That's what eddication 'as made of 'er an' be <i>dorned</i> to 't!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Scuse me," and Bill Bush now addressed himself immediately to
+Helmsley, "<i>ef</i> I may be so bold as to arsk you wheer ye comes from,
+meanin' no 'arm, an' what's yer purfession?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley looked up with a friendly smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I've no profession now," he answered at once. "But in my time&mdash;before I
+got too old&mdash;I did a good deal of office work."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Office work! In a 'ouse of business, ye means? Readin', 'ritin',
+'rithmetic, an' mebbe sweepin' the floor at odd times an' runnin'
+errands?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's it!" answered Helmsley, still smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"An' they won't 'ave ye no more?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am too old," he answered quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Here Dubble turned slowly round and surveyed him.</p>
+
+<p>"How old be ye?"</p>
+
+<p>"Seventy."</p>
+
+<p>Silence ensued. The men glanced at one another. It was plain that the
+"one touch of nature which makes the whole world kin" was moving them
+all to kindly and compassionate feeling for the age and frail appearance
+of their new companion. What are called "rough" and "coarse" types of
+humanity are seldom without a sense of reverence and even affection for
+old persons. It is only among ultra-selfish and callous communities
+where over-luxurious living has blunted all the finer emotions, that age
+is considered a crime, or what by some individuals is declared worse
+than a crime, a "bore."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a short girl, with a very red face and round beady eyes,
+came into the room carrying on a tray two quaint old pewter tureens full
+of steaming soup, which emitted very savoury and appetising odours.
+Setting these down before Matt Peke and Helmsley, with two goodly slices
+of bread beside them, she held out her podgy hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Threepence each, please!"</p>
+
+<p>They paid her, Peke adding a halfpenny to his threepence for the girl
+herself, and Helmsley, who judged it safest to imitate Peke's behaviour,
+doing the same. She giggled.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ope you aint deprivin' yourselves!" she said pertly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, my dear, we aint!" retorted Peke. "We can afford to treat ye like
+the gentlemen doos! Buy yerself a ribbin to tie up yer bonnie brown
+'air!"</p>
+
+<p>She giggled again, and waited to see them begin their meal, then, with a
+comprehensive roll of her round eyes upon all the company assembled, she
+retired. The soup she had brought was certainly excellent,&mdash;strong,
+invigorating, and tasty enough to have done credit to a rich man's
+table, and Peke nodded over it with mingled surprise and appreciation.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Tranter knows what's good, she do!" he remarked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> to Helmsley in a
+low tone. "She's cooked this up speshul! This 'ere broth aint flavoured
+for <i>me</i>,&mdash;it's for <i>you</i>! Glory be good to me if she aint taken a fancy
+ter yer!&mdash;shouldn't wonder if ye 'ad the best in the 'ouse!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley shook his head demurringly, but said nothing. He knew that in
+the particular position in which he had placed himself, silence was
+safer than speech.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the short beady-eyed handmaiden returned to her mistress in
+the kitchen, and found that lady gazing abstractedly into the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"They've got their soup," she announced, "an' they're eatin' of it up!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is the old man taking it?" asked Miss Tranter.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm. An' 'e seems to want it 'orful bad, 'orful bad 'e do, on'y 'e
+swallers it slower an' more soft like than Matt Peke swallers."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Tranter ceased to stare at the fire, and stared at her domestic
+instead.</p>
+
+<p>"Prue," she said solemnly, "that old man is a gentleman!"</p>
+
+<p>Prue's round eyes opened a little more roundly.</p>
+
+<p>"Lor', Mis' Tranter!"</p>
+
+<p>"He's a gentleman," repeated the hostess of the "Trusty Man" with
+emphasis and decision; "and he's fallen on bad times. He may have to beg
+his bread along the road or earn a shilling here and there as best he
+can, but nothing"&mdash;and here Miss Tranter shook her forefinger defiantly
+in the air&mdash;"nothing will alter the fact that he's a gentleman!"</p>
+
+<p>Prue squeezed her fat red hands together, breathed hard, and not knowing
+exactly what else to do, grinned. Her mistress looked at her severely.</p>
+
+<p>"You grin like a Cheshire cat," she remarked. "I wish you wouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>Prue at once pursed in her wide mouth to a more serious double line.</p>
+
+<p>"How much did they give you?" pursued Miss Tranter.</p>
+
+<p>"'Apenny each," answered Prue.</p>
+
+<p>"How much have you made for yourself to-day all round!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sevenpence three fardin's," confessed Prue, with an appealing look.</p>
+
+<p>"You know I don't allow you to take tips from my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> customers," went on
+Miss Tranter. "You must put those three farthings in my poor-box."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm!" sighed Prue meekly.</p>
+
+<p>"And then you may keep the sevenpence."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh thank y' 'm! Thank y', Mis' Tranter!" And Prue hugged herself
+ecstatically. "You'se 'orful good to me, you is, Mis' Tranter!"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Tranter stood a moment, an upright inflexible figure, surveying
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you say your prayers every night and morning as I told you to do?"</p>
+
+<p>Prue became abnormally solemn.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I allus do, Mis' Tranter, wish I may die right 'ere if I don't!"</p>
+
+<p>"What did I teach you to say to God for the poor travellers who stop at
+the 'Trusty Man'?"</p>
+
+<p>"'That it may please Thee to succour, help and comfort all that are in
+danger, necessity and tribulation, we beseech Thee to hear us Good
+Lord!'" gabbled Prue, shutting her eyes and opening them again with
+great rapidity.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right!" And Miss Tranter bent her head graciously. "I'm glad you
+remember it so well! Be sure you say it to-night. And now you may go,
+Prue."</p>
+
+<p>Prue went accordingly, and Miss Tranter, resuming her knitting, returned
+to the bar, and took up her watchful position opposite the clock, there
+to remain patiently till closing time.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>The minutes wore on, and though some of the company at the "Trusty Man"
+went away in due course, others came in to replace them, so that even
+when it was nearing ten o'clock the common room was still fairly full.
+Matt Peke was evidently hail-fellow-well-met with many of the loafers of
+the district, and his desultory talk, with its quaint leaning towards a
+kind of rustic philosophy intermingled with an assumption of profound
+scientific wisdom, appeared to exercise considerable fascination over
+those who had the patience and inclination to listen to it. Helmsley
+accepted a pipe of tobacco offered to him by the surly-looking Dubble
+and smoked peacefully, leaning back in his chair and half closing his
+eyes with a drowsy air, though in truth his senses had never been more
+alert, or his interest more keenly awakened. He gathered from the
+general conversation that Bill Bush was an accustomed night lodger at
+the "Trusty Man," that Dubble had a cottage not far distant, with a
+scolding wife and an uppish daughter, and that it was because she knew
+of his home discomforts that Miss Tranter allowed him to pass many of
+his evenings at her inn, smoking and sipping a mild ale, which without
+fuddling his brains, assisted him in part to forget for a time his
+domestic worries. And he also found out that the sturdy farmer sedately
+sucking his pipe in a corner, and now and then throwing in an unexpected
+and random comment on whatever happened to be the topic of conversation,
+was known as "Feathery" Joltram, though why "Feathery" did not seem very
+clear, unless the term was, as it appeared to be, an adaptation of
+"father" or "feyther" Joltram. Matt Peke explained that old "Feathery"
+was a highly respected character in the "Quantocks," and not only rented
+a large farm, but thoroughly understood the farming business. Moreover,
+that he had succeeded in making himself somewhat of a terror to certain
+timorous time-servers, on account of his heterodox and obstinate
+principles. For example, he had sent his children to school because
+Government compelled him to do so, but when their schooldays were over,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+he had informed them that the sooner they forgot all they had ever
+learned during that period and took to "clean an' 'olesome livin'," the
+better he should be pleased.</p>
+
+<p>"For it's all rort an' rubbish," he declared, in his broad, soft
+dialect. "I dozn't keer a tinker's baad 'apenny whether tha knaw 'ow to
+'rite tha mizchief or to read it, or whether king o' England is eatin'
+'umble pie to the U-nited States top man, or noa,&mdash;I keerz nawt aboot
+it, noben way or t'other. My boys 'as got to laarn draawin' crops out o'
+fields,&mdash;an' my gels must put 'and to milkin' and skimmin' cream an'
+makin' foinest butter as iver went to market. An' time comin' to wed,
+the boys 'ull take strong dairy wives, an' the gels 'ull pick men as can
+thraw through men's wurrk, or they'ze nay gels nor boys o' mine. Tarlk
+o' Great Britain! Heart alive! Wheer would th' owd country be if 'twere
+left to pulin' booky clerks what thinks they're gemmen, an' what weds
+niminy-piminy shop gels, an' breeds nowt but ricketty babes fit for
+workus' burial! Noa, by the Lord! No school larnin' for me nor mine,
+thank-ee! Why, the marster of the Board School 'ere doant know more
+practical business o' life than a suckin' calf! With a bit o' garden
+ground to 'is cot, e' doant reckon 'ow io till it, an' that's the
+rakelness o' book larnin'. Noa, noa! Th' owd way o' wurrk's the best
+way,&mdash;brain, 'ands, feet an' good ztrong body all zet on't, an' no
+meanderin' aff it! Take my wurrd the Lord A'mighty doant 'elp corn to
+grow if there's a whinin' zany ahint the plough!"</p>
+
+<p>With these distinctly "out-of-date" notions, "Feathery" Joltram had also
+set himself doggedly against church-going and church people generally.
+Few dared mention a clergyman in his presence, for his open and
+successful warfare with the minister of his own parish had been going on
+for years and had become well-nigh traditional. Looking at him, however,
+as he sat in his favourite corner of the "Trusty Man's" common room, no
+one would have given him credit for any particular individuality. His
+round red face expressed nothing,&mdash;his dull fish-like eyes betrayed no
+intelligence,&mdash;he appeared to be nothing more than a particularly large,
+heavy man, wedged in his chair rather than seated in it, and absorbed in
+smoking a long pipe after the fashion of an infant sucking a
+feeding-bottle, with infinite relish that almost suggested gluttony.</p>
+
+<p>The hum of voices grew louder as the hour grew later,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> and one or two
+rather noisy disputations brought Miss Tranter to the door. A look of
+hers was sufficient to silence all contention, and having bent the
+warning flash of her eyes impressively upon her customers, she retired
+as promptly and silently as she had appeared. Helmsley was just thinking
+that he would slip away and get to bed, when, a firm tread sounded in
+the outer passage, and a tall man, black-haired, black-eyed, and of
+herculean build, suddenly looked in upon the tavern company with a
+familiar nod and smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, my hearties!" he exclaimed. "Is all tankards drained, or is a
+drop to spare?"</p>
+
+<p>A shout of welcome greeted him:&mdash;"Tom!" "Tom o' the Gleam!" "Come in,
+Tom!" "Drinks all round!"&mdash;and there followed a general hustle and
+scraping of chairs on the floor,&mdash;every one seemed eager to make room
+for the newcomer. Helmsley, startled in a manner by his appearance,
+looked at him with involuntary and undisguised admiration. Such a
+picturesque figure of a man he had seldom or never seen, yet the fellow
+was clad in the roughest, raggedest homespun, the only striking and
+curious note of colour about him being a knitted crimson waistcoat,
+which instead of being buttoned was tied together with two or three tags
+of green ribbon. He stood for a moment watching the men pushing up
+against one another in order to give him a seat at the table, and a
+smile, half-amused, half-ironical, lighted up his sun-browned, handsome
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't put yourselves out, mates!" he said carelessly. "Mind Feathery's
+toes!&mdash;if you tread on his corns there'll be the devil to pay! Hullo,
+Matt Peke! How are you?"</p>
+
+<p>Matt rose and shook hands.</p>
+
+<p>"All the better for seein' ye again, Tom," he answered, "Wheer d'ye hail
+from this very present minit?"</p>
+
+<p>"From the caves of Cornwall!" laughed the man. "From picking up drift on
+the shore and tracking seals to their lair in the hollows of the rocks!"
+He laughed again, and his great eyes flashed wildly. "All sport, Matt! I
+live like a gentleman born, keeping or killing at my pleasure!"</p>
+
+<p>Here "Feathery" Joltram looked up and dumbly pointed with the stem of
+his pipe to a chair left vacant near the middle of the table. Tom o' the
+Gleam, by which name he seemed to be known to every one present, sat
+down, and in response to the calls of the company, a wiry pot-boy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> in
+shirt-sleeves made his appearance with several fresh tankards of ale, it
+now being past the hour for the attendance of that coy handmaiden of the
+"Trusty Man," Miss Prue.</p>
+
+<p>"Any fresh tales to tell, Tom?" inquired Matt Peke then&mdash;"Any more
+harum-scarum pranks o' yours on the road?"</p>
+
+<p>Tom drank off a mug of ale before replying, and took a comprehensive
+glance around the room.</p>
+
+<p>"You have a stranger here," he said suddenly, in his deep, thrilling
+voice, "One who is not of our breed,&mdash;one who is unfamiliar with our
+ways. Friend or foe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Friend!" declared Peke emphatically, while Bill Bush and one or two of
+the men exchanged significant looks and nudged each other. "Now, Tom,
+none of yer gypsy tantrums! I knows all yer Romany gibberish, an' I
+ain't takin' any. Ye've got a good 'art enough, so don't work yer dander
+up with this 'ere old chap what's a-trampin' it to try and find out all
+that's left o's fam'ly an' friends 'fore turnin' up 'is toes to the
+daisies. 'Is name is David, an' 'e's been kickt out o' office work
+through bein' too old. That's <i>'is</i> ticket!"</p>
+
+<p>Tom o' the Gleam listened to this explanation in silence, playing
+absently with the green tags of ribbon at his waistcoat. Then slowly
+lifting his eyes he fixed them full on Helmsley, who, despite himself,
+felt an instant's confusion at the searching intensity of the man's bold
+bright gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Old and poor!" he ejaculated. "That's a bad lookout in this world!
+Aren't you tired of living!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nearly," answered Helmsley quietly&mdash;"but not quite."</p>
+
+<p>Their looks met, and Tom's dark features relaxed into a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You're fairly patient!" he said, "for it's hard enough to be poor, but
+it's harder still to be old. If I thought I should live to be as old as
+you are, I'd drown myself in the sea! There's no use in life without
+body's strength and heart's love."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, tha be graat on the love business, Tom!" chuckled "Feathery"
+Joltram, lifting his massive body with a shake out of the depths of his
+comfortable chair. "Zeems to me tha's zummat like the burd what cozies a
+new mate ivery zummer!"</p>
+
+<p>Tom o' the Gleam laughed, his strong even white teeth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> shining like a
+row of pearls between his black moustaches and short-cropped beard.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a steady-going man, Feathery," he said, "and I'm a wastrel. But
+I'm ne'er as fickle as you think. I've but one love in the world that's
+left me&mdash;my kiddie."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, an' 'ow's the kiddie?" asked Matt Peke&mdash;"Thrivin' as iver?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fine! As strong a little chap as you'll see between Quantocks and
+Land's End. He'll be four come Martinmas."</p>
+
+<p>"Zo agein' quick as that!" commented Joltram with a broad grin. "For
+zure 'e be a man grow'd! Tha'll be puttin' the breechez on 'im an'
+zendin' 'im to the school&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" interrupted Tom defiantly. "They'll never catch my kiddie if I
+know it! I want him for myself,&mdash;others shall have no part in him. He
+shall grow up wild like a flower of the fields&mdash;wild as his mother
+was&mdash;wild as the wild roses growing over her grave&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He broke off suddenly with an impatient gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Psha! Why do you drag me over the old rough ground talking of Kiddie!"
+he exclaimed, almost angrily. "The child's all right. He's safe in camp
+with the women."</p>
+
+<p>"Anywheres nigh?" asked Bill Bush.</p>
+
+<p>Tom o' the Gleam made no answer, but the fierce look in his eyes showed
+that he was not disposed to be communicative on this point. Just then
+the sound of voices raised in some dispute on the threshold of the
+"Trusty Man," caused all the customers in the common room to pause in
+their talking and drinking, and to glance expressively at one another.
+Miss Tranter's emphatic accents rang out sharply on the silence.</p>
+
+<p>"It wants ten minutes to ten, and I never close till half-past ten," she
+said decisively. "The law does not compel me to do so till eleven, and I
+resent private interference."</p>
+
+<p>"I am aware that you resent any advice offered for your good," was the
+reply, delivered in harsh masculine tones. "You are a singularly
+obstinate woman. But I have my duty to perform, and as minister of this
+parish I shall perform it."</p>
+
+<p>"Mind your own business first!" said Miss Tranter, with evident
+vehemence.</p>
+
+<p>"My business is my duty, and my duty is my business,"&mdash;and here the male
+voice grew more rasping and raucous.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> "I have as much right to use this
+tavern as any one of the misled men who spend their hard earnings here
+and neglect their homes and families for the sake of drink. And as you
+do not close till half-past ten, it is not too late for me to enter."</p>
+
+<p>During this little altercation, the party round the table in the common
+room sat listening intently. Then Dubble, rousing himself from a
+pleasant ale-warm lethargy, broke the spell.</p>
+
+<p>"Dorned if it aint old Arbroath!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, 'tis old Arbroath zartin zure!" responded "Feathery" Joltram
+placidly. "Let 'un coom in! Let 'un coom in!"</p>
+
+<p>Tom o' the Gleam gave vent to a loud laugh, and throwing himself back in
+his chair, crossed his long legs and administered a ferocious twirl to
+his moustache, humming carelessly under his breath:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"'And they called the parson to marry them,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But devil a bit would he&mdash;</span><br />
+For they were but a pair of dandy prats<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As couldn't pay devil's fee!'"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley's curiosity was excited. There was a marked stir of expectation
+among the guests of the "Trusty Man"; they all appeared to be waiting
+for something about to happen of exceptional interest. He glanced
+inquiringly at Peke, who returned the glance by one of warning.</p>
+
+<p>"Best sit quiet a while longer," he said. "They won't break up till
+closin' hour, an' m'appen there'll be a bit o' fun."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, sit quiet!" said Tom o' the Gleam, catching these words, and
+turning towards Helmsley with a smile&mdash;"There's more than enough time
+for tramping. Come! Show me if you can smoke <i>that</i>!" "That" was a
+choice Havana cigar which he took out of the pocket of his crimson wool
+waistcoat. "You've smoked one before now, I'll warrant!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley met his flashing eyes without wavering.</p>
+
+<p>"I will not say I have not," he answered quietly, accepting and lighting
+the fragrant weed, "but it was long ago!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, away in the Long, long ago!" said Tom, still regarding him fixedly,
+but kindly&mdash;"where we have all buried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> such a number of beautiful
+things,&mdash;loves and hopes and beliefs, and dreams and fortunes!&mdash;all, all
+tucked away under the graveyard grass of the Long Ago!"</p>
+
+<p>Here Miss Tranter's voice was heard again outside, saying acidly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It's clear out and lock up at half-past ten, business or no business,
+duty or no duty. Please remember that!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Ware, mates!" exclaimed Tom,&mdash;"Here comes our reverend!"</p>
+
+<p>The door was pushed open as he spoke, and a short, dark man in clerical
+costume walked in with a would-be imposing air of dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-evening, my friends!" he said, without lifting his hat.</p>
+
+<p>There was no response.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled sourly, and surveyed the assembled company with a curious air
+of mingled authority and contempt. He looked more like a petty officer
+of dragoons than a minister of the Christian religion,&mdash;one of those
+exacting small military martinets accustomed to brow-beating and
+bullying every subordinate without reason or justice.</p>
+
+<p>"So you're there, are you, Bush!" he continued, with a frowning glance
+levied in the direction of the always suspected but never proved
+poacher,&mdash;"I wonder you're not in jail by this time!"</p>
+
+<p>Bill Bush took up his pewter tankard, and affected to drain it to the
+last dregs, but made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that Mr. Dubble!" pursued the clergyman, shading his eyes with one
+hand from the flickering light of the lamp, and feigning to be doubtful
+of the actual personality of the individual he questioned. "Surely not!
+I should be very much surprised and very sorry to see Mr. Dubble here at
+such a late hour!"</p>
+
+<p>"Would ye now!" said Dubble. "Wal, I'm allus glad to give ye both a
+sorrer an' a surprise together, Mr. Arbroath&mdash;darned if I aint!"</p>
+
+<p>"You must be keeping your good wife and daughter up waiting for you,"
+proceeded Arbroath, his iron-grey eyebrows drawing together in an ugly
+line over the bridge of his nose. "Late hours are a mistake, Dubble!"</p>
+
+<p>"So they be, so they be, Mr. Arbroath!" agreed Dubble. "Ef I was oop
+till midnight naggin' away at my good wife an' darter as they nags away
+at me, I'd say my keepin' o'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> late 'ours was a dorned whoppin' mistake
+an' no doubt o't. But seein' as 'taint arf-past ten yet, an' I aint
+naggin' nobody nor interferin' with my neighbours nohow, I reckon I'm on
+the right side o' the night so fur."</p>
+
+<p>A murmur of approving laughter from all the men about him ratified this
+speech. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath gave a gesture of disdain, and bent
+his lowering looks on Tom o' the Gleam.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you wanted by the police?" he suggested sarcastically.</p>
+
+<p>The handsome gypsy glanced him over indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't wonder!" he retorted. "Perhaps the police want me as much
+as the devil wants <i>you</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Arbroath flushed a dark red, and his lips tightened over his teeth
+vindictively.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a zummat for tha thinkin' on, Pazon Arbroath!" said "Feathery"
+Joltram, suddenly rising from his chair and showing himself in all his
+great height and burly build. "Zummat for a zermon on owd Nick, when
+tha're wantin' to scare the zhoolboys o' Zundays!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Arbroath's countenance changed from red to pale.</p>
+
+<p>"I was not aware of your presence, Mr. Joltram," he said stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>"Noa, noa, Pazon, m'appen not, but tha's aweer on it now. Nowt o' me's
+zo zmall as can thraw to heaven through tha straight and narrer way. I'd
+'ave to squeeze for 't!"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed,&mdash;a big, slow laugh, husky with good living and good humour.
+Arbroath shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I prefer not to speak to you at all, Mr. Joltram," he said. "When
+people are bound to disagree, as we have disagreed for years, it is best
+to avoid conversation."</p>
+
+<p>"Zed like the Church all over, Pazon!" chuckled the imperturbable
+Joltram. "Zeems as if I 'erd the 'Glory be'! But if tha don't want any
+talk, why does tha coom in 'ere wheer we'se all a-drinkin' steady and
+talkin' 'arty, an' no quarrellin' nor backbitin' of our neighbours? Tha
+wants us to go 'ome,&mdash;why doezn't tha go 'ome thysen? Tha's a wife a
+zettin' oop there, an' m'appen she's waitin' with as fine a zermon as
+iver was preached from a temperance cart in a wasterne field!"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed again; Arbroath turned his back upon him in disgust, and
+strode up to the shadowed corner where Helmsley sat watching the little
+scene.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Now, my man, who are <i>you</i>?" demanded the clergyman imperiously. "Where
+do you come from?"</p>
+
+<p>Matt Peke would have spoken, but Helmsley silenced him by a look and
+rose to his feet, standing humbly with bent head before his arrogant
+interlocutor. There were the elements of comedy in the situation, and he
+was inclined to play his part thoroughly.</p>
+
+<p>"From Bristol," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Getting rest, food, and a night's lodging."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you leave out drink in the list?" sneered Arbroath. "For, of
+course, it's your special craving! Where are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>"To Cornwall."</p>
+
+<p>"Tramping it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Begging, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"Disgraceful!" And the reverend gentleman snorted offence like a walrus
+rising from deep waters. "Why don't you work?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm too old."</p>
+
+<p>"Too old! Too lazy you mean! How old are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Seventy."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Arbroath paused, slightly disconcerted. He had entered the "Trusty
+Man" in the hope of discovering some or even all of its customers in a
+state of drunkenness. To his disappointment he had found them perfectly
+sober. He had pounced on the stray man whom he saw was a stranger, in
+the expectation of proving him, at least, to be intoxicated. Here again
+he was mistaken. Helmsley's simple straight answers left him no opening
+for attack.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better make for the nearest workhouse," he said, at last. "Tramps
+are not encouraged on these roads."</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently not!" And Helmsley raised his calm eyes and fixed them on the
+clergyman's lowering countenance with a faintly satiric smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not too old to be impudent, I see!" retorted Arbroath, with an
+unpleasant contortion of his features. "I warn you not to come cadging
+about anywhere in this neighbourhood, for if you do I shall give you in
+charge. I have four parishes under my control, and I make it a rule to
+hand all beggars over to the police."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That's not very good Christianity, is it?" asked Helmsley quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Matt Peke chuckled. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath started indignantly, and
+stared so hard that his rat-brown eyes visibly projected from his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Not very good Christianity!" he echoed. "What&mdash;what do you mean? How
+dare you speak to me about Christianity!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, 'tis a bit aff!" drawled "Feathery" Joltram, thrusting his great
+hands deep into his capacious trouser-pockets. "'Tis a bit aff to taalk
+to Christian parzon 'bout Christianity, zeein' 'tis the one thing i'
+this warld 'e knaws nawt on!"</p>
+
+<p>Arbroath grew livid, but his inward rage held him speechless.</p>
+
+<p>"That's true!" cried Tom o' the Gleam excitedly&mdash;"That's as true as
+there's a God in heaven! I've read all about the Man that was born a
+carpenter in Galilee, and so far as I can understand it, He never had a
+rough word for the worst creatures that crawled, and the worse they
+were, and the more despised and down-trodden, the gentler He was with
+them. That's not the way of the men that call themselves His ministers!"</p>
+
+<p>"I 'eerd once," said Mr. Dubble, rising slowly and laying down his pipe,
+"of a little chap what was makin' a posy for 'is mother's birthday, an'
+passin' the garden o' the rector o' the parish, 'e spied a bunch o' pink
+chestnut bloom 'angin' careless over the 'edge, ready to blow to bits
+wi' the next puff o' wind. The little raskill pulled it down an' put it
+wi' the rest o' the flowers 'e'd got for 'is mother, but the good an'
+lovin' rector seed 'im at it, an' 'ad 'im nabbed as a common thief an'
+sent to prison. 'E wornt but a ten-year-old lad, an' that prison spoilt
+'im for life. 'E wor a fust-class Lord's man as did that for a babby
+boy, an' the hull neighbourhood's powerful obleeged to 'im. So don't
+ye,"&mdash;and here he turned his stolid gaze on Helmsley,&mdash;"don't ye, for
+all that ye're old, an' poor, an' 'elpless, go cadgin' round this 'ere
+reverend gemmen's property, cos 'e's got a real pityin' Christian 'art
+o's own, an' ye'd be sent to bed wi' the turnkey." Here he paused with a
+comprehensive smile round at the company,&mdash;then taking up his hat, he
+put it on. "There's one too many 'ere for pleasantness, an' I'm goin'.
+Good-den, Tom! Good-den, all!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And out he strode, whistling as he went. With his departure every one
+began to move,&mdash;the more quickly as the clock in the bar had struck ten
+a minute or two since. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath stood irresolute for a
+moment, wishing his chief enemy, "Feathery" Joltram, would go. But
+Joltram remained where he was, standing erect, and surveying the scene
+like a heavily caparisoned charger scenting battle.</p>
+
+<p>"Tha's heerd Mizter Dubble's tale afore now, Pazon, hazn't tha?" he
+inquired. "M'appen tha knaw'd the little chap as Christ's man zent to
+prizon thysen?"</p>
+
+<p>Arbroath lifted his head haughtily.</p>
+
+<p>"A theft is a theft," he said, "whether it is committed by a young
+person or an old one, and whether it is for a penny or a hundred pounds
+makes no difference. Thieves of all classes and all ages should be
+punished as such. Those are my opinions."</p>
+
+<p>"They were nowt o' the Lord's opinions," said Joltram, "for He told the
+thief as 'ung beside Him, 'This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise,'
+but He didn't say nowt o' the man as got the thief punished!"</p>
+
+<p>"You twist the Bible to suit your own ends, Mr. Joltram," retorted
+Arbroath contemptuously. "It is the common habit of atheists and
+blasphemers generally."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, by the Lord!" exclaimed the irrepressible "Feathery," "All th'
+atheists an' blasphemers must be a-gathered in the fold o' the Church,
+for if the pazons doan't twist the Bible to suit their own ends, I'm
+blest if I knaw whaat else they does for a decent livin'!"</p>
+
+<p>Just then a puff of fine odour from the Havana cigar which Helmsley was
+enjoying floated under the nostrils of Mr. Arbroath, and added a fresh
+touch of irritation to his temper. He turned at once upon the offending
+smoker.</p>
+
+<p>"So! You pretend to be poor!" he snarled, "And yet you can smoke a cigar
+that must have cost a shilling!"</p>
+
+<p>"It was given to me," replied Helmsley gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Given to you! Bah! Who would give an old tramp a cigar like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would!" And Tom o' the Gleam sprang lightly up from his chair, his
+black eyes sparkling with mingled defiance and laughter&mdash;"And I did!
+Here!&mdash;will you take another?" And he drew out and opened a handsome
+case full of the cigars in question.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Thank you!" and Arbroath's pallid lips trembled with rage. "I decline
+to share in stolen plunder!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ha&mdash;ha&mdash;ha! Ha&mdash;ha!" laughed Tom hilariously. "Stolen plunder! That's
+good! D'ye think I'd steal when I can buy! Reverend sir, Tom o' the
+Gleam is particular as to what he smokes, and he hasn't travelled all
+over the world for nothing:</p>
+
+<p>
+'Qu'en dictes-vous? Faut-il &agrave; ce musier,<br />
+<i>Il n'est tr&eacute;sor que de vivre &agrave; son aise</i>!'"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley listened in wonderment. Here was a vagrant of the highroads and
+woods, quoting the refrain of Villon's <i>Contreditz de Franc-Gontier</i>,
+and pronouncing the French language with as soft and pure an accent as
+ever came out of Provence. Meanwhile, Mr. Arbroath, paying no attention
+whatever to Tom's outburst, looked at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"It is now a quarter-past ten," he announced dictatorially; "I should
+advise you all to be going."</p>
+
+<p>"By the law we needn't go till eleven, though Miss Tranter <i>does</i> halve
+it," said Bill Bush sulkily&mdash;"and perhaps we won't!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Arbroath fixed him with a stern glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know that I am here in the cause of Temperance?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, are ye? Then why don't ye call on Squire Evans, as is the brewer
+wi' the big 'ouse yonder?" queried Bill defiantly. "'E's the man to go
+to! Arsk 'im to shut up 'is brewery an' sell no more ale wi' pizon in't
+to the poor! That'll do more for Temp'rance than the early closin' o'
+the 'Trusty Man.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye're right enough," said Matt Peke, who had refrained from taking any
+part in the conversation, save by now and then whispering a side comment
+to Helmsley. "There's stuff put i' the beer what the brewers brew, as is
+enough to knock the strongest man silly. I'm just fair tired o' hearin'
+o' Temp'rance this an' Temp'rance that, while 'arf the men as goes to
+Parl'ment takes their livin' out o' the brewin' o' beer an' spiritus
+liquors. An' they bribes their poor silly voters wi' their drink till
+they'se like a flock o' sheep runnin' into wotever field o' politics
+their shepherds drives 'em. The best way to make the temp'rance cause
+pop'lar is to stop big brewin'. Let every ale'ouse 'ave its own
+pertikler brew, an' m'appen we'll git some o' the old-fashioned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> malt
+an' 'ops agin. That'll be good for the small trader, an' the big brewin'
+companies can take to somethin' 'onester than the pizonin' bizness."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a would-be wise man, and you talk too much, Matthew Peke!"
+observed the Reverend Mr. Arbroath, smiling darkly, and still glancing
+askew at his watch. "I know you of old!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye knows me an' I knows you," responded Peke placidly. "Yer can't
+interfere wi' me nohow, an' I dessay it riles ye a bit, for ye loves
+interferin' with ivery sort o' folk, as all the parsons do. I b'longs to
+no parish, an' aint under you no more than Tom o' the Gleam be, an' we
+both thanks the Lord for't! An' I'm earnin' a livin' my own way an'
+bein' a benefit to the sick an' sorry, which aint so far from proper
+Christianity. Lor', Parson Arbroath! I wonder ye aint more 'uman like,
+seein' as yer fav'rite gel in the village was arskin' me t'other day if
+I 'adn't any yerb for to make a love-charm. 'Love-charm!' sez I&mdash;'what
+does ye want that for, my gel?' An' she up an' she sez&mdash;'I'd like to
+make Parson Arbroath eat it!' Hor&mdash;er&mdash;hor&mdash;er&mdash;hor&mdash;er! 'I'd like to
+make Parson Arbroath eat it!' sez she. An' she's a foine strappin'
+wench, too!&mdash;'Ullo, Parson! Goin'?"</p>
+
+<p>The door slammed furiously,&mdash;Arbroath had suddenly lost his dignity and
+temper together. Peke's raillery proved too much for him, and amid the
+loud guffaws of "Feathery" Joltram, Bill Bush and the rest, he beat a
+hasty retreat, and they heard his heavy footsteps go hurriedly across
+the passage of the "Trusty Man," and pass out into the road beyond.
+Roars of laughter accompanied his departure, and Peke looked round with
+a smile of triumph.</p>
+
+<p>"It's just like a witch-spell!" he declared. "There's nowt to do but
+whisper, 'Parson's fav'rite!'&mdash;an' Parson hisself melts away like a mist
+o' the mornin' or a weasel runnin' into its 'ole! Hor&mdash;er, hor&mdash;er,
+hor&mdash;er!"</p>
+
+<p>And again the laughter pealed out long and loud, "Feathery" Joltram
+bending himself double with merriment, and slapping the sides of his
+huge legs in ecstasy. Miss Tranter hearing the continuous uproar, looked
+in warningly, but there was a glimmering smile on her face.</p>
+
+<p>"We'se goin', Miss Tranter!" announced Bill Bush, his wizened face all
+one broad grin. "We aint the sort to keep you up, never fear! Your worst
+customer's just cleared out!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"So I see!" replied Miss Tranter calmly,&mdash;then, nodding towards
+Helmsley, she said&mdash;"Your room's ready."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley took the hint. He rose from his chair, and held out his hand to
+Peke.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night!" he said. "You've been very kind to me, and I shan't forget
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>The herb-gatherer looked for a moment at the thin, refined white hand
+extended to him before grasping it in his own horny palm. Then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, old chap!" he responded heartily. "Ef I don't see ye i' the
+mornin' I'll leave ye a bottle o' yerb wine to take along wi' ye
+trampin', for the more ye drinks o't the soberer ye'll be an' the better
+ye'll like it. But ye should give up the idee o' footin' it to Cornwall;
+ye'll never git there without a liftin'."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have a good try, anyway," rejoined Helmsley. "Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>He turned towards Tom o' the Gleam.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night!" And Tom's dark eyes glowed upon him with a sombre
+intentness. "You know the old proverb which says, 'It's a long lane
+which has never a turning'?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley nodded with a faint smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Your turning's near at hand," said Tom. "Take my word for it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Will it be a pleasant turning?" asked Helmsley, still smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Pleasant? Ay, and peaceful!" And Tom's mellow voice sank into a softer
+tone. "Peaceful as the strong love of a pure woman, and as sweet with
+contentment as is the summer when the harvest is full! Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley looked at him thoughtfully; there was something poetic and
+fascinating about the man.</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to meet you again," he said impulsively.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you?" Tom o' the Gleam smiled. "So you will, as sure as God's in
+heaven! But how or when, who can tell!" His handsome face clouded
+suddenly,&mdash;some dark shadow of pain or perplexity contracted his
+brows,&mdash;then he seemed to throw the feeling, whatever it was, aside, and
+his features cleared. "You are bound to meet me," he continued. "I am as
+much a part of this country as the woods and hills,&mdash;the Quantocks and
+Brendons know me as well as Exmoor and the Valley of Rocks. But you are
+safe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> from me and mine! Not one of our tribe will harm you,&mdash;you can
+pursue your way in peace&mdash;and if any one of us can give you help at any
+time, we will."</p>
+
+<p>"You speak of a community?"</p>
+
+<p>"I speak of a Republic!" answered Tom proudly. "There are thousands of
+men and women in these islands whom no king governs and no law
+controls,&mdash;free as the air and independent as the birds! They ask
+nothing at any man's hands&mdash;they take and they keep!"</p>
+
+<p>"Like the millionaires!" suggested Bill Bush, with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>"Right you are, Bill!&mdash;like the millionaires! None take more than they
+do, and none keep their takings closer!"</p>
+
+<p>"And very miserable they must surely be sometimes, on both their takings
+and their keepings," said Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt of it! There'd be no justice in the mind of God if
+millionaires weren't miserable," declared Tom o' the Gleam. "They've
+more money than they ought to have,&mdash;it's only fair they should have
+less happiness. Compensation's a natural law that there's no getting
+away from,&mdash;that's why a gypsy's merrier than a king!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled assent, and with another friendly good-night all round,
+left the room. Miss Tranter awaited him, candle in hand, and preceding
+him up a short flight of ancient and crooked oaken stairs, showed him a
+small attic room with one narrow bed in it, scrupulously neat and clean.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be all right here," she said. "There's no lock to your door, but
+you're out of the truck of house work, and no one will come nigh you."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, madam,"&mdash;and Helmsley bent his head gently, almost
+humbly,&mdash;"You are very good to me. I am most grateful!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" said Miss Tranter, affecting snappishness. "You pay for a
+bed, and here it is. The lodgers here generally share one room between
+them, but you are an old man and need rest. It's better you should get
+your sleep without any chance of disturbance. Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>She set down the candle by his bedside with a "Mind you put it out!"
+final warning, and descended the stairs to see the rest of her customers
+cleared off the premises, with the exception of Bill Bush, Matt Peke,
+and Tom o' the Gleam, who were her frequent night lodgers. She found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+Tom o' the Gleam standing up and delivering a kind of extemporary
+oration, while his rough cap, under the pilotage of Bill Bush, was being
+passed round the table in the fashion of a collecting plate.</p>
+
+<p>"The smallest contribution thankfully received!" he laughed, as he
+looked and saw her. "Miss Tranter, we're doing a mission! We're
+Salvationists! Now's your chance! Give us a sixpence!"</p>
+
+<p>"What for?" And setting her arms akimbo, the hostess of the "Trusty Man"
+surveyed all her lingering guests with a severe face. "What games are
+you up to now? It's time to clear!"</p>
+
+<p>"So it is, and all the good little boys are going to bed," said Tom.
+"Don't be cross, Mammy! We want to close our subscription list&mdash;that's
+all! We've raised a few pennies for the old grandfather upstairs. He'll
+never get to Cornwall, poor chap! He's as white as paper. Office work
+doesn't fit a man of his age for tramping the road. We've collected two
+shillings for him among us,&mdash;you give sixpence, and there's half-a-crown
+all told. God bless the total!"</p>
+
+<p>He seized his cap as it was handed back to him, and shook it, to show
+that it was lined with jingling halfpence, and his eyes sparkled like
+those of a child enjoying a bit of mischief.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Miss Tranter! Help the Gospel mission!"</p>
+
+<p>Her features relaxed into a smile, and feeling in her apron pocket, she
+produced the requested coin.</p>
+
+<p>"There you are!" she said.&mdash;"And now you've got it, how are you going to
+give him the money?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never you mind!" and Tom swept all the coins together, and screwed them
+up in a piece of newspaper. "We'll surprise the old man as the angels
+surprise the children!"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Tranter said nothing more, but withdrawing to the passage, stood
+and watched her customers go out of the door of the "Trusty Man," one by
+one. Each great hulking fellow doffed his cap to her and bade her a
+respectful "Good-night" as he passed, "Feathery" Joltram pausing a
+moment to utter an "aside" in her ear.</p>
+
+<p>"'A fixed oop owd Arbroath for zartin zure!"&mdash;and here, with a sly wink,
+he gave a forcible nudge to her arm,&mdash;"An owd larrupin' fox 'e be!&mdash;an'
+Matt Peke giv' 'im the finish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> wi's fav'rite! Ha&mdash;ha&mdash;ha! 'A can't abide
+a wurrd o' that long-legged wench! Ha&mdash;ha&mdash;ha! An' look y'ere, Miss
+Tranter! I'd 'a given a shillin' in Tom's 'at when it went round, but
+I'm thinkin' as zummat in the face o' the owd gaffer up in bed ain't zet
+on beggin', an' m'appen a charity'd 'urt 'is feelin's like the
+poor-'ouse do. But if 'e's wantin' to 'arn a mossel o' victual, I'll
+find 'im a lightsome job on the farm if he'll reckon to walk oop to me
+afore noon to-morrer. Tell 'im' that from farmer Joltram, an' good-night
+t'ye!"</p>
+
+<p>He strode out, and before eleven had struck, the old-fashioned iron bar
+clamped down across the portal, and the inn was closed. Then Miss
+Tranter turned into the bar, and before shutting it up paused, and
+surveyed her three lodgers critically.</p>
+
+<p>"So you pretend to be all miserably poor, and yet you actually collect
+what you call a 'fund' for the old tramp upstairs who's a perfect
+stranger to you!" she said&mdash;"Rascals that you are!"</p>
+
+<p>Bill Bush looked sheepish.</p>
+
+<p>"Only halfpence, Miss," he explained. "Poor we be as church mice, an' ye
+knows that, doesn't ye? But we aint gone broken yet, an' Tom 'e started
+the idee o' doin' a good turn for th' old gaffer, for say what ye like
+'e do look a bit feeble for trampin' it."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Tranter sniffed the atmosphere of the bar with a very good
+assumption of lofty indifference.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> started the idea, did you?" she went on, looking at Tom o' the
+Gleam. "You're a nice sort of ruffian to start any idea at all, aren't
+you? I thought you always took, and never gave!"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled, leaning his handsome head back against the white-washed wall
+of the little entry where he stood, but said nothing. Matt Peke then
+took up the parable.</p>
+
+<p>"Th' old man be mortal weak an' faint for sure," he said. "I come upon
+'im lyin' under a tree wi' a mossel book aside 'im, an' I takes an'
+looks at the book, an' 'twas all portry an' simpleton stuff like, an' 'e
+looked old enough to be my dad, an' tired enough to be fast goin' where
+my dad's gone, so I just took 'im along wi' me, an' giv' 'im my name an'
+purfession, an' 'e did the same, a-tellin' me as 'ow 'is name was D.
+David, an' 'ow 'e 'd lost 'is office work through bein' too old an'
+shaky. 'E's all right,&mdash;an office man aint much good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> on the road, weak
+on 'is pins an' failin' in 'is sight. M'appen the 'arf-crown we've got
+'im 'ull 'elp 'im to a ride part o' the way 'e's goin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't you men bother about him any more," said Miss Tranter
+decisively. "You get off early in the morning, as usual. <i>I'll</i> look
+after him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Will ye now?" and Peke's rugged features visibly brightened&mdash;"That's
+just like ye, Miss! Aint it, Tom? Aint it, Bill?"</p>
+
+<p>Both individuals appealed to agreed that it was "Miss Tranter all over."</p>
+
+<p>"Now off to bed with you!" proceeded that lady peremptorily. "And leave
+your collected 'fund' with me&mdash;I'll give it to him."</p>
+
+<p>But Tom o' the Gleam would not hear of this.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Miss Tranter!&mdash;with every respect for you, no!" he said gaily.
+"It's not every night we can play angels! I play angel to my kiddie
+sometimes, putting a fairing in his little hammock where he sleeps like
+a bird among the trees all night, but I've never had the chance to do it
+to an old grandad before! Let me have my way!"</p>
+
+<p>And so it chanced that at about half-past eleven, Helmsley, having lain
+down with a deep sense of relief and repose on his clean comfortable
+little bed, was startled out of his first doze by hearing stealthy steps
+approaching his door. His heart began to beat quickly,&mdash;a certain vague
+misgiving troubled him,&mdash;after all, he thought, had he not been very
+rash to trust himself to the shelter of this strange and lonely inn
+among the wild moors and hills, among unknown men, who, at any rate by
+their rough and uncouth appearance, might be members of a gang of
+thieves? The steps came nearer, and a hand fumbled gently with the door
+handle. In that tense moment of strained listening he was glad to
+remember that when undressing, he had carefully placed his vest, lined
+with the banknotes he carried, under the sheet on which he lay, so that
+in the event of any one coming to search his clothes, nothing would be
+found but a few loose coins in his coat pocket. The fumbling at his door
+continued, and presently it slowly opened, letting in a pale stream of
+moonlight from a lattice window outside. He just saw the massive figure
+of Tom o' the Gleam standing on the threshold, clad in shirt and
+trousers only, and behind him there seemed to be the shadowy outline of
+Matt Peke's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> broad shoulders and Bill Bush's bullet head. Uncertain what
+to expect, he determined to show no sign of consciousness, and half
+closing his eyes, he breathed heavily and regularly, feigning to be in a
+sound slumber. But a cold chill ran through his veins as Tom o' the
+Gleam slowly and cautiously approached the bed, holding something in his
+right hand, while Matt Peke and Bill Bush tiptoed gently after him
+half-way into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old gaffer!" he heard Tom whisper&mdash;"Looks all ready laid out and
+waiting for the winding!"</p>
+
+<p>And the hand that held the something stole gently and ever gentlier
+towards the pillow. By a supreme effort Helmsley kept quite still. How
+he controlled his nerves he never knew, for to see through his almost
+shut eyelids the dark herculean form of the gypsy bending over him with
+the two other men behind, moved him to a horrible fear. Were they going
+to murder him? If so, what for? To them he was but an old
+tramp,&mdash;unless&mdash;unless somebody had tracked him from London!&mdash;unless
+somebody knew who he really was, and had pointed him out as likely to
+have money about him. These thoughts ran like lightning through his
+brain, making his blood burn and his pulses, tingle almost to the verge
+of a start and cry, when the creeping hand he dreaded quietly laid
+something on his pillow and withdrew itself with delicate precaution.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll be pleased when he wakes," said Tom o' the Gleam, in the mildest
+of whispers, retreating softly from the bedside&mdash;"Won't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, that he will!" responded Peke, under his breath;, "aint 'e sleepin'
+sound?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sound as a babe!"</p>
+
+<p>Slowly and noiselessly they stepped backward,&mdash;slowly and noiselessly
+they closed the door, and the faint echo of their stealthy footsteps
+creeping away along the outer passage to another part of the house, was
+hushed at last into silence. After a long pause of intense stillness,
+some clock below stairs struck midnight with a mellow clang, and
+Helmsley opening his eyes, lay waiting till the excited beating of his
+heart subsided, and his quickened breath grew calm. Blaming himself for
+his nervous terrors, he presently rose from his bed, and struck a match
+from the box which Miss Tranter had thoughtfully left beside him, and
+lit his candle. Something had been placed on his pillow, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> curiosity
+moved him to examine it. He looked,&mdash;but saw nothing save a mere screw
+of soiled newspaper. He took it up wonderingly. It was heavy,&mdash;and
+opening it he found it full of pennies, halfpennies, and one odd
+sixpence. A scrap of writing accompanied this collection, roughly
+pencilled thus:&mdash;"To help you along the road. From friends at the Trusty
+Man. Good luck!"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he stood inert, fingering the humble coins,&mdash;for a moment
+he could hardly realise that these rough men of doubtful character and
+calling, with whom he had passed one evening, were actually humane
+enough to feel pity for his age, and sympathy for his seeming loneliness
+and poverty, and that they had sufficient heart and generosity to
+deprive themselves of money in order to help one whom they judged to be
+in greater need;&mdash;then the pure intention and honest kindness of the
+little "surprise" gift came upon him all at once, and he was not ashamed
+to feel his eyes full of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"God forgive me!" he murmured&mdash;"God forgive me that I ever judged the
+poor by the rich!"</p>
+
+<p>With an almost reverential tenderness, he folded the paper and coins
+together, and put the little packet carefully away, determining never to
+part with it.</p>
+
+<p>"For its value outweighs every banknote I ever handled!" he said&mdash;"And I
+am prouder of it than of all my millions!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>The light of the next day's sun, beaming with all the heat and
+effulgence of full morning, bathed moor and upland in a wide shower of
+gold, when Miss Tranter, standing on the threshold of her dwelling, and
+shading her eyes with one hand from the dazzling radiance of the skies,
+watched a man's tall figure disappear down the rough and precipitous
+road which led from the higher hills to the seashore. All her night's
+lodgers had left her save one&mdash;and he was still soundly sleeping. Bill
+Bush had risen as early as five and stolen away,&mdash;Matt Peke had broken
+his fast with a cup of hot milk and a hunch of dry bread, and
+shouldering his basket, had started for Crowcombe, where he had several
+customers for his herbal wares.</p>
+
+<p>"Take care o' the old gaffer I brought along wi' me," had been his
+parting recommendation to the hostess of the "Trusty Man." "Tell 'im
+I've left a bottle o' yerb wine in the bar for 'im. M'appen ye might
+find an odd job or two about th' 'ouse an' garden for 'im, just for
+lettin' 'im rest a while."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Tranter had nodded curtly in response to this suggestion, but had
+promised nothing.</p>
+
+<p>The last to depart from the inn was Tom o' the Gleam. Tom had risen in
+what he called his "dark mood." He had eaten no breakfast, and he
+scarcely spoke at all as he took up his stout ash stick and prepared to
+fare forth upon his way. Miss Tranter was not inquisitive, but she had
+rather a liking for Tom, and his melancholy surliness was not lost upon
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with you?" she asked sharply. "You're like a bear
+with a sore head this morning!"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her with sombre eyes in which the flame of strongly
+restrained passions feverishly smouldered.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what's the matter with me," he answered slowly. "Last
+night I was happy. This morning I am wretched!"</p>
+
+<p>"For no cause?"</p>
+
+<p>"For no cause that I know of,"&mdash;and he heaved a sudden sigh. "It is the
+dark spirit&mdash;the warning of an evil hour!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Tranter.</p>
+
+<p>He was silent. His mouth compressed itself into a petulant line, like
+that of a chidden child ready to cry.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be all right when I have kissed the kiddie," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Tranter sniffed and tossed her head.</p>
+
+<p>"You're just a fool over that kiddie," she declared with emphasis,&mdash;"You
+make too much of him."</p>
+
+<p>"How can I make too much of my all?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Her face softened.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's a pity you look at it in that way," she said. "You shouldn't
+set your heart on anything in this world."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" he demanded. "Is God a friend that He should grudge us love?"</p>
+
+<p>Her lips trembled a little, but she made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"What am I to set my heart on?" he continued&mdash;"If not on anything in
+this world, what have I got in the next?"</p>
+
+<p>A faint tinge of colour warmed Miss Tranter's sallow cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"Your wife's in the next," she answered, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>His face changed&mdash;his eyes lightened.</p>
+
+<p>"My wife!" he echoed. "Good woman that you are, you know she was never
+my wife! No parson ever mocked us wild birds with his blessing! She was
+my love&mdash;my love!&mdash;so much more than wife! By Heaven! If prayer and
+fasting would bring me to the world where <i>she</i> is, I'd fast and pray
+till I turned this body of mine to dust and ashes! But my kiddie is all
+I have that's left of her; and shall I not love him, nay, worship him
+for <i>her</i> sake?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Tranter tried to look severe, but could not,&mdash;the strong vehemence
+of the man shook her self-possession.</p>
+
+<p>"Love him, yes!&mdash;but don't worship him," she said. "It's a mistake, Tom!
+He's only a child, after all, and he might be taken from you."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say that!" and Tom suddenly gripped her by the arm. "For God's
+sake don't say that! Don't send me away this morning with those words
+buzzing in my ears!"</p>
+
+<p>Great tears flashed into his eyes,&mdash;his face paled and contracted as
+with acutest agony.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, Tom," faltered Miss Tranter, herself quite overcome by his
+fierce emotion&mdash;"I didn't mean&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;yes!&mdash;that's right! Say you didn't mean it!" muttered Tom, with a
+pained smile&mdash;"You didn't&mdash;&mdash;?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean it!" declared Miss Tranter earnestly. "Upon my word I
+didn't, Tom!"</p>
+
+<p>He loosened his hold of her arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you! God bless you!" and a shudder ran through his massive frame.
+"But it's all one with the dark hour!&mdash;all one with the wicked tongue of
+a dream that whispers to me of a coming storm!"</p>
+
+<p>He pulled his rough cap over his brows, and strode forward a step or
+two. Then he suddenly wheeled round again, and doffed the cap to Miss
+Tranter.</p>
+
+<p>"It's unlucky to turn back," he said, "yet I'm doing it,
+because&mdash;because&mdash;I wouldn't have you think me sullen or ill-tempered
+with <i>you</i>! Nor ungrateful. You're a good woman, for all that you're a
+bit rough sometimes. If you want to know where we are, we've camped down
+by Cleeve, and we're on the way to Dunster. I take the short cuts that
+no one else dare venture by&mdash;over the cliffs and through the cave-holes
+of the sea. When the old man comes down, tell him I'll have a care of
+him if he passes my way. I like his face! I think he's something more
+than he seems."</p>
+
+<p>"So do I!" agreed Miss Tranter. "I'd almost swear that he's a gentleman,
+fallen on hard times."</p>
+
+<p>"A gentleman!" Tom o' the Gleam laughed disdainfully&mdash;"What's that? Only
+a robber grown richer than his neighbours! Better be a plain Man any day
+than your up-to-date 'gentleman'!"</p>
+
+<p>With another laugh he swung away, and Miss Tranter remained, as already
+stated, at the door of the inn for many minutes, watching his easy
+stride over the rough stones and clods of the "by-road" winding down to
+the sea. His figure, though so powerfully built, was singularly graceful
+in movement, and commanded the landscape much as that of some chieftain
+of old might have commanded it in that far back period of time when
+mountain thieves and marauders were the progenitors of all the British
+kings and their attendant nobility.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I knew that man's real history!" she mused, as he at last
+disappeared from her sight. "The folks about here, such as Mr. Joltram,
+for instance, say he was never born to the gypsy life,&mdash;he speaks too
+well, and knows too much. Yet he's wild enough&mdash;and&mdash;yes!&mdash;I'm afraid
+he's bad enough&mdash;sometimes&mdash;to be anything!"</p>
+
+<p>Her meditations were here interrupted by a touch on her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> arm, and
+turning, she beheld her round-eyed handmaiden Prue.</p>
+
+<p>"The old man you sez is a gentleman is down, Mis' Tranter!"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Tranter at once stepped indoors and confronted Helmsley, who,
+amazed to find it nearly ten o'clock, now proffered humble excuses to
+his hostess for his late rising. She waived these aside with a
+good-humoured nod and smile.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right!" she said. "I wanted you to have a good long rest,
+and I'm glad you got it. Were you disturbed at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only by kindness," answered Helmsley in a rather tremulous voice. "Some
+one came into my room while I was asleep&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;I found a 'surprise
+packet' on my pillow&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know all about it," interrupted Miss Tranter, with a touch of
+embarrassment&mdash;"Tom o' the Gleam did that. He's just gone. He's a rough
+chap, but he's got a heart. He thinks you're not strong enough to tramp
+it to Cornwall. And all those great babies of men put their heads
+together last night after you'd gone upstairs, and clubbed up enough
+among them to give you a ride part of the way&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"They're very good!" murmured Helmsley. "Why should they trouble about
+an old fellow like me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well!" said Miss Tranter cheerfully, "it's just because you <i>are</i> an
+old fellow, I suppose! You see you might walk to a station to-day, and
+take the train as far as Minehead before starting on the road again.
+Anyhow you've time to think it over. If you'll step into the room
+yonder, I'll send Prue with your breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>She turned her back upon him, and with a shrill call of "Prue! Prue!"
+affected to be too busy to continue the conversation. Helmsley,
+therefore, went as she bade him into the common room, which at this hour
+was quite empty. A neat white cloth was spread at one end of the table,
+and on this was set a brown loaf, a pat of butter, a jug of new milk, a
+basin of sugar, and a brightly polished china cup and saucer. The window
+was open, and the inflow of the pure fresh morning air had done much to
+disperse the odours of stale tobacco and beer that subtly clung to the
+walls as reminders of the drink and smoke of the previous evening.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Just outside, a tangle of climbing roses hung like a delicate pink
+curtain between Helmsley's eyes and the sunshine, while the busy humming
+of bees in and out the fragrant hearts of the flowers, made a musical
+monotony of soothing sound. He sat down and surveyed the simple scene
+with a quiet sense of pleasure. He contrasted it in his memory with the
+weary sameness of the breakfasts served to him in his own palatial
+London residence, when the velvet-footed butler creeping obsequiously
+round the table, uttered his perpetual "Tea or coffee, sir? 'Am or
+tongue? Fish or heggs?" in soft sepulchral tones, as though these
+comestibles had something to do with poison rather than nourishment.
+With disgust at the luxury which engendered such domestic appurtenances,
+he thought of the two tall footmen, whose chief duty towards the serving
+of breakfast appeared to be the taking of covers off dishes and the
+putting them on again, as if six-footed able-bodied manhood were not
+equipped for more muscular work than that!</p>
+
+<p>"We do great wrong," he said to himself&mdash;"We who are richer than what
+are called the rich, do infinite wrong to our kind by tolerating so much
+needless waste and useless extravagance. We merely generate mischief for
+ourselves and others. The poor are happier, and far kindlier to each
+other than the moneyed classes, simply because they cannot demand so
+much self-indulgence. The lazy habits of wealthy men and women who
+insist on getting an unnecessary number of paid persons to do for them
+what they could very well do for themselves, are chiefly to blame for
+all our tiresome and ostentatious social conditions. Servants must, of
+course, be had in every well-ordered household&mdash;but too many of them
+constitute a veritable hive of discord and worry. Why have huge houses
+at all? Why have enormous domestic retinues? A small house is always
+cosiest, and often prettiest, and the fewer servants, the less trouble.
+Here again comes in the crucial question&mdash;Why do we spend all our best
+years of youth, life, and sentiment in making money, when, so far as the
+sweetest and highest things are concerned, money can give so little!"</p>
+
+<p>At that moment, Prue entered with a brightly shining old brown "lustre"
+teapot, and a couple of boiled eggs.</p>
+
+<p>"Mis' Tranter sez you're to eat the eggs cos' they'se new-laid an'
+incloodid in the bill," she announced glibly&mdash;"An' 'opes you've got all
+ye want."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Helmsley looked at her kindly.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a smart little girl!" he said. "Beginning to earn your own
+living already, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lor', that aint much!" retorted Prue, putting a knife by the brown
+loaf, and setting the breakfast things even more straightly on the table
+than they originally were. "I lives on nothin' scarcely, though I'm
+turned fifteen an' likes a bit o' fresh pork now an' agen. But I've got
+a brother as is on'y ten, an' when 'e aint at school 'e's earnin' a bit
+by gatherin' mussels on the beach, an' 'e do collect a goodish bit too,
+though 'taint reg'lar biziness, an' 'e gets hisself into such a pickle
+o' salt water as never was. But he brings mother a shillin' or two."</p>
+
+<p>"And who is your mother?" asked Helmsley, drawing up his chair to the
+table and sitting down.</p>
+
+<p>"Misses Clodder, up at Blue-bell Cottage, two miles from 'ere across the
+moor," replied Prue. "She goes out a-charing, but it's 'ard for 'er to
+be doin' chars now&mdash;she's gettin' old an' fat&mdash;orful fat she be gettin'.
+Dunno what we'll do if she goes on fattenin'."</p>
+
+<p>It was difficult not to laugh at this statement, Prue's eyes were so
+round, her cheeks were so red, and she breathed so spasmodically as she
+spoke. David Helmsley bit his lips to hide a broad smile, and poured out
+his tea.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you no father?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, never 'ad," declared Prue, quite jubilantly. "'E droonk 'isself to
+death an' tumbled over a cliff near 'ere one dark night an' was
+drowned!" This, with the most thrilling emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"That's very sad! But you can't say you never had a father," persisted
+Helmsley. "You had him before he was drowned?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I 'adn't," said Prue. "'E never comed 'ome at all. When 'e seed me
+'e didn't know me, 'e was that blind droonk. When my little brother was
+born 'e was 'owlin' wild down Watchet way, an' screechin' to all the
+folks as 'ow the baby wasn't his'n!"</p>
+
+<p>This was a doubtful subject,&mdash;a "delicate and burning question," as
+reviewers for the press say when they want to praise some personal
+friend's indecent novel and pass it into decent households,&mdash;and
+Helmsley let it drop. He devoted himself to the consideration of his
+breakfast, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> was excellent, and found that he had an appetite to
+enjoy it thoroughly.</p>
+
+<p>Prue watched him for a minute or two in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye likes yer food?" she demanded, presently.</p>
+
+<p>"Very much!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thought yer did! I'll tell Mis' Tranter."</p>
+
+<p>With that she retired, and shutting the door behind her left Helmsley to
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>Many and conflicting were the thoughts that chased one another through
+his brain during the quiet half-hour he gave to his morning meal,&mdash;a
+whole fund of new suggestions and ideas were being generated in him by
+the various episodes in which he was taking an active yet seemingly
+passive part. He had voluntarily entered into his present circumstances,
+and so far, he had nothing to complain of. He had met with friendliness
+and sympathy from persons who, judged by the world's conventions, were
+of no social account whatever, and he had seen for himself men in a
+condition of extreme poverty, who were nevertheless apparently contented
+with their lot. Of course, as a well-known millionaire, his secretaries
+had always had to deal with endless cases of real or assumed distress,
+more often the latter,&mdash;and shoals of begging letters from people
+representing themselves as starving and friendless, formed a large part
+of the daily correspondence with which his house and office were
+besieged,&mdash;but he had never come into personal contact with these
+shameless sort of correspondents, shrewdly judging them to be
+undeserving simply by the very fact that they wrote begging letters. He
+knew that no really honest or plucky-spirited man or woman would waste
+so much as a stamp in asking money from a stranger, even if such a
+stranger were twenty times a millionaire. He had given huge sums away to
+charitable institutions anonymously; and he remembered with a thrill of
+pain the "Christian kindness" of some good "Church" people, who, when
+the news accidentally slipped out that he was the donor of a
+particularly munificent gift to a certain hospital, remarked that "no
+doubt Mr. Helmsley had given it anonymously <i>at first</i>, in order that it
+might be made public more effectively <i>afterwards,</i> by way of a personal
+<i>advertisement</i>!" Such spiteful comment often repeated, had effectually
+checked the outflow of his naturally warm and generous spirit,
+nevertheless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> he was always ready to relieve any pressing cases of want
+which were proved genuine, and many a wretched family in the East End of
+London had cause to bless him for his timely and ungrudging aid. But
+this present kind of life,&mdash;the life of the tramp, the poacher, the
+gypsy, who is content to be "on the road" rather than submit to the
+trammels of custom and ordinance, was new to him and full of charm. He
+took a peculiar pleasure in reflecting as to what he could do to make
+these men, with whom he had casually foregathered, happier? Did it lie
+in his power to give them any greater satisfaction than that which they
+already possessed? He doubted whether a present of money to Matt Peke,
+for instance, would not offend that rustic philosopher, more than it
+would gratify him;&mdash;while, as for Tom o' the Gleam, that handsome
+ruffian was more likely to rob a man of gold than accept it as a gift
+from him. Then involuntarily, his thoughts reverted to the "kiddie." He
+recalled the look in Tom's wild eyes, and the almost womanish tremble of
+tenderness in his rough voice, when he had spoken of this little child
+of his on whom he openly admitted he had set all his love.</p>
+
+<p>"I should like," mused Helmsley, "to see that kiddie! Not that I believe
+in the apparent promise of a child's life,&mdash;for my own sons taught me
+the folly of indulging in any hopes on that score&mdash;and Lucy Sorrel has
+completed the painful lesson. Who would have ever thought that she,&mdash;the
+little angel creature who seemed too lovely and innocent for this world
+at ten,&mdash;could at twenty have become the extremely commonplace and
+practical woman she is,&mdash;practical enough to wish to marry an old man
+for his money! But that talk among the men last night about the 'kiddie'
+touched me somehow,&mdash;I fancy it must be a sturdy little lad, with a
+bright face and a will of its own. I might possibly do something for the
+child if,&mdash;if its father would let me! And that's very doubtful!
+Besides, should I not be interfering with the wiser and healthier
+dispensations of nature? The 'kiddie' is no doubt perfectly happy in its
+wild state of life,&mdash;free to roam the woods and fields, with every
+chance of building up a strong and vigorous constitution in the simple
+open-air existence to which it has been born and bred. All the riches in
+the world could not make health or freedom for it,&mdash;and thus again I
+confront myself with my own weary problem&mdash;Why have I toiled all my
+life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> to make money, merely to find money so useless and comfortless at
+the end?"</p>
+
+<p>With a sigh he rose from the table. His simple breakfast was finished,
+and he went to the window to look at the roses that pushed their pretty
+pink faces up to the sun through a lattice-work of green leaves. There
+was a small yard outside, roughly paved with cobbles, but clean, and
+bordered here and there with bright clusters of flowers, and in one
+particularly sunny corner where the warmth from the skies had made the
+cobbles quite hot, a tiny white kitten rolled on its back, making the
+most absurd efforts to catch its own tail between its forepaws,&mdash;and a
+promising brood of fowls were clucking contentedly round some scattered
+grain lately flung out from the window of the "Trusty Man's" wash-house
+for their delectation. There was nothing in the scene at all of a
+character to excite envy in the most morbid and dissatisfied mind;&mdash;it
+was full of the tamest domesticity, and yet&mdash;it was a picture such as
+some thoughtful Dutch artist would have liked to paint as a suggestion
+of rural simplicity and peace.</p>
+
+<p>"But if one only knew the ins and outs of the life here, it might not
+prove so inviting," he thought. "I daresay all the little towns and
+villages in this neighbourhood are full of petty discords, jealousies,
+envyings and spites,&mdash;even Prue's mother, Mrs. Clodder, may have, and
+probably has, a neighbour whom she hates, and wishes to get the better
+of, in some way or other, for there is really no such thing as actual
+peace anywhere except&mdash;in the grave! And who knows whether we shall even
+find it there! Nothing dies which does not immediately begin to live&mdash;in
+another fashion. And every community, whether of insects, birds, wild
+animals, or men and women, is bound to fight for existence,&mdash;therefore
+those who cry: 'Peace, peace!' only clamour for a vain thing. The very
+stones and rocks and mountains maintain a perpetual war with destroying
+elements,&mdash;they appear immutable things to our short lives, but they
+change in their turn even as we do&mdash;they die to live again in other
+forms, even as we do. And what is it all for? What is the sum and
+substance of so much striving&mdash;if merest Nothingness is the end?"</p>
+
+<p>He was disturbed from his reverie by the entrance of Miss Tranter. He
+turned round and smiled at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" she said&mdash;"Enjoyed your breakfast?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Very much indeed, thanks to your kindness!" he replied. "I hardly
+thought I had such a good appetite left to me. I feel quite strong and
+hearty this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"You look twice the man you were last night, certainly,"&mdash;and she eyed
+him thoughtfully&mdash;"Would you like a job here?"</p>
+
+<p>A flush rose to his brows. He hesitated before replying.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd rather not!" snapped out Miss Tranter&mdash;"I can see 'No' in your
+face. Well, please yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her. Her lips were compressed in a thin line, and she wore
+a decidedly vexed expression.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you think I don't want to work!" he said&mdash;"There you're wrong! But
+I haven't many years of life in me,&mdash;there's not much time left to do
+what I have to do,&mdash;and I must get on."</p>
+
+<p>"Get on, where?"</p>
+
+<p>"To Cornwall."</p>
+
+<p>"Whereabouts in Cornwall?"</p>
+
+<p>"Down by Penzance way."</p>
+
+<p>"You want to start off on the tramp again at once?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, you must do as you like, I suppose,"&mdash;and Miss Tranter
+sniffed whole volumes of meaning in one sniff&mdash;"But Farmer Joltram told
+me to say that if you wanted a light job up on his place,&mdash;that's about
+a mile from here,&mdash;- he wouldn't mind giving you a chance. You'd get
+good victuals there, for he feeds his men well. And I don't mind
+trusting you with a bit of gardening&mdash;you could make a shilling a day
+easy&mdash;so don't say you can't get work. That's the usual whine&mdash;but if
+you say it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be a liar!" said Helmsley, his sunken eyes lighting up with a
+twinkle of merriment&mdash;"And don't you fear, Miss Tranter,&mdash;I <i>won't</i> say
+it! I'm grateful to Mr. Joltram&mdash;but I've only one object left to me in
+life, and that is&mdash;to get on, and find the person I'm looking for&mdash;if I
+can!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you're looking for a person, are you?" queried Miss Tranter, more
+amicably&mdash;"Some long-lost relative?"</p>
+
+<p>"No,&mdash;not a relative, only&mdash;a friend."</p>
+
+<p>"I see!" Miss Tranter smoothed down her neatly fitting plain cotton gown
+with both hands reflectively&mdash;"And you'll be all right if you find this
+friend?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never want anything any more," he answered,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> with an
+unconsciously pathetic tremor in his voice&mdash;"My dearest wish will be
+granted, and I shall be quite content to die!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, content or no content, you've got to do it," commented Miss
+Tranter&mdash;"And so have I&mdash;and so have all of us. Which I think is a pity.
+I shouldn't mind living for ever and ever in this world. It's a very
+comfortable world, though some folks say it isn't. That's mostly liver
+with them though. People who don't over-eat or over-drink themselves,
+and who get plenty of fresh air, are generally fairly pleased with the
+world as they find it. I suppose the friend you're looking for will be
+glad to see you?"</p>
+
+<p>"The friend I'm looking for will certainly be glad to see me," said
+Helmsley, gently&mdash;"Glad to see me&mdash;glad to help me&mdash;glad above all
+things to love me! If this were not so, I should not trouble to search
+for my friend at all."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Tranter fixed her eyes full upon him while he thus spoke. They were
+sharp eyes, and just now they were visibly inquisitive.</p>
+
+<p>"You've not been very long used to tramping," she observed.</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"I expect you've seen better days?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some few, perhaps,"&mdash;and he smiled gravely&mdash;"But it comes harder to a
+man who has once known comfort to find himself comfortless in his old
+age."</p>
+
+<p>"That's very true! Well!"&mdash;and Miss Tranter gave a short sigh&mdash;"I'm
+sorry you won't stay on here a bit to pick up your strength&mdash;but a
+wilful man must have his way! I hope you'll find your friend!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I shall!" said Helmsley earnestly. "And believe me I'm most
+grateful to you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Tut!" and Miss Tranter tossed her head. "What do you want to be
+grateful to me for! You've had food and lodging, and you've paid me for
+it. I've offered you work and you won't take it. That's the long and
+short of it between us."</p>
+
+<p>And thereupon she marched out of the room, her head very high, her
+shoulders very square, and her back very straight. Helmsley watched her
+dignified exit with a curious sense of half-amused contrition.</p>
+
+<p>"What odd creatures some women are!" he thought. "Here's this
+sharp-tongued, warm-hearted hostess of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> roadside inn quite angry
+because, apparently, an old tramp won't stay and do incompetent work for
+her! She knows that I should make a mere boggle of her garden,&mdash;she is
+equally aware that I could be no use in any way on 'Feathery' Joltram's
+farm&mdash;and yet she is thoroughly annoyed and disappointed because I won't
+try to do what she is perfectly confident I can't do, in order that I
+shall rest well and be fed well for one or two days! Really the kindness
+of the poor to one another outvalues all the gifts of the rich to the
+charities they help to support. It is so much more than ordinary
+'charity,' for it goes hand in hand with a touch of personal feeling.
+And that is what few rich men ever get,&mdash;except when their pretended
+'friends' think they can make something for themselves out of their
+assumed 'friendship'!"</p>
+
+<p>He put on his hat, and plucked one of the roses clambering in at the
+window to take with him as a remembrance of the "Trusty Man,"&mdash;a place
+which he felt would henceforward be a kind of landmark for the rest of
+his life to save him from drowning in utter cynicism, because within its
+walls he had found unselfish compassion for his age and loneliness, and
+disinterested sympathy for his seeming need. Then he went to say
+good-bye to Miss Tranter. She was, as usual, in the bar, standing very
+erect. She had taken up her knitting, and her needles clicked and
+glittered busily.</p>
+
+<p>"Matt Peke left a bottle of his herb wine for you," she said. "There it
+is."</p>
+
+<p>She indicated by a jerk of her head a flat oblong quart flask, neatly
+corked and tied with string, which lay on the counter. It was of a
+conveniently portable shape, and Helmsley slipped it into one of his
+coat pockets with ease.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall you be seeing Peke soon again, Miss Tranter?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Maybe so, and maybe not. He's gone on to Crowcombe. I
+daresay he'll come back this way before the end of the month. He's a
+pretty regular customer."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, will you thank him for me, and say that I shall never forget his
+kindness?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never forget is a long time," said Miss Tranter. "Most folks forget
+their friends directly their backs are turned."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true," said Helmsley, gently; "but I shall not. Good-bye!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye!" Miss Tranter paused in her knitting. "Which road are you
+going from here?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley thought a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," he said at last, "one of the main roads would be best. I'd
+rather not risk any chance of losing my way."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Tranter stepped out of the bar and came to the open doorway of the
+inn.</p>
+
+<p>"Take that path across the moor," and she pointed with one of her bright
+knitting needles to a narrow beaten track between the tufted grass,
+whitened here and there by clusters of tall daisies, "and follow it as
+straight as you can. It will bring you out on the highroad to Williton
+and Watchett. It's a goodish bit of tramping on a hot day like this, but
+if you keep to it steady you'll be sure to get a lift or so in waggons
+going along to Dunster. And there are plenty of publics about where I
+daresay you'd get a night's sixpenny shelter, though whether any of them
+are as comfortable as the 'Trusty Man,' is open to question."</p>
+
+<p>"I should doubt it very much," said Helmsley, his rare kind smile
+lighting up his whole face. "The 'Trusty Man' thoroughly deserves trust;
+and, if I may say so, its kind hostess commands respect."</p>
+
+<p>He raised his cap with the deferential easy grace which was habitual to
+him, and Miss Tranter's pale cheeks reddened suddenly and violently.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm only a rough sort!" she said hastily. "But the men like me
+because I don't give them away. I hold that the poor must get a bit of
+attention as well as the rich."</p>
+
+<p>"The poor deserve it more," rejoined Helmsley. "The rich get far too
+much of everything in these days,&mdash;they are too much pampered and too
+much flattered. Yet, with it all, I daresay they are often miserable."</p>
+
+<p>"It must be pretty hard to be miserable on twenty or thirty thousand a
+year!" said Miss Tranter.</p>
+
+<p>"You think so? Now, I should say it was very easy. For when one has
+everything, one wants nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, isn't it all right to want nothing?" she queried, looking at him
+inquisitively.</p>
+
+<p>"All right? No!&mdash;rather all wrong! For want stimulates the mind and body
+to work, and work generates health and energy,&mdash;and energy is the pulse
+of life. Without that pulse, one is a mere husk of a man&mdash;as I am!" He
+doffed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> his cap again. "Thank you for all your friendliness. Good-bye!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye! Perhaps I shall see you again some time this way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"With your friend?" she suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay&mdash;if I find my friend&mdash;then possibly I may return. Meanwhile, all
+good be with you!"</p>
+
+<p>He turned away, and began to ascend the path indicated across the moor.
+Once he looked back and waved his hand. Miss Tranter, in response, waved
+her piece of knitting. Then she went on clicking her needles rapidly
+through a perfect labyrinth of stitches, her eyes fixed all the while on
+the tall, thin, frail figure which, with the assistance of a stout
+stick, moved slowly along between the nodding daisies.</p>
+
+<p>"He's what they call a mystery," she said to herself. "He's as true-born
+a gentleman as ever lived&mdash;with a gentleman's ways, a gentleman's voice,
+and a gentleman's hands, and yet he's 'on the road' like a tramp! Well!
+there's many ups and downs in life, certainly, and those that's rich
+to-day may be poor to-morrow. It's a queer world&mdash;and God who made it
+only knows what it was made for!"</p>
+
+<p>With that, having seen the last of Helmsley's retreating figure, she
+went indoors, and relieved her feelings by putting Prue through her
+domestic paces in a fashion that considerably flurried that small damsel
+and caused her to wonder, "what 'ad come over Miss Tranter suddint, she
+was that beside 'erself with work and temper!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was pleasant walking across the moor. The July sun was powerful, but
+to ageing men the warmth and vital influences of the orb of day are
+welcome, precious, and salutary. An English summer is seldom or never
+too warm for those who are conscious that but few such summers are left
+to them, and David Helmsley was moved by a devout sense of gratitude
+that on this fair and tranquil morning he was yet able to enjoy the
+lovely and loving beneficence of all beautiful and natural things. The
+scent of the wild thyme growing in prolific patches at his feet,&mdash;the
+more pungent odour of the tall daisies which were of a hardy,
+free-flowering kind,&mdash;the "strong sea-daisies that feast on the
+sun,"&mdash;and the indescribable salty perfume that swept upwards on the
+faint wind from the unseen ocean, just now hidden by projecting shelves
+of broken ground fringed with trees,&mdash;all combined together to refresh
+the air and to make the mere act of breathing a delight. After about
+twenty minutes' walking Helmsley's step grew easier and more
+springy,&mdash;almost he felt young,&mdash;almost he pictured himself living for
+another ten years in health and active mental power. The lassitude and
+<i>ennui</i> inseparable from a life spent for the most part in the business
+centres of London, had rolled away like a noxious mist from his mind,
+and he was well-nigh ready to "begin life again," as he told himself,
+with a smile at his own folly.</p>
+
+<p>"No wonder that the old-world philosophers and scientists sought for the
+<i>elixir vit&aelig;</i>!" he thought. "No wonder they felt that the usual tenure
+is too short for all that a man might accomplish, did he live well and
+wisely enough to do justice to all the powers with which nature has
+endowed him. I am myself inclined to think that the 'Tree of Life'
+exists,&mdash;perhaps its leaves are the 'leaves of the Daura,' for which
+that excellent fellow Matt Peke is looking. Or it may be the 'Secta
+Croa'!"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled,&mdash;and having arrived at the end of the path which he had
+followed from the door of the "Trusty Man," he saw before him a
+descending bank, which sloped into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> highroad, a wide track white
+with thick dust stretching straight away for about a mile and then
+dipping round a broad curve of land, overarched with trees. He sat down
+for a few minutes on the warm grass, giving himself up to the idle
+pleasure of watching the birds skimming through the clear blue sky,&mdash;the
+bees bouncing in and out of the buttercups,&mdash;the varicoloured
+butterflies floating like blown flower-petals on the breeze,&mdash;and he
+heard a distant bell striking the half-hour after eleven. He had noted
+the time when leaving the "Trusty Man," otherwise he would not have
+known it so exactly, having left his watch locked up at home in his
+private desk with other personal trinkets which would have been
+superfluous and troublesome to him on his self-imposed journey. When the
+echo of the bell's one stroke had died away it left a great stillness in
+the air. The heat was increasing as the day veered towards noon, and he
+decided that it would be as well to get on further down the road and
+under the shadow of the trees, which were not so very far off, and which
+looked invitingly cool in their spreading dark soft greenness. So,
+rising from his brief rest, he started again "on the tramp," and soon
+felt the full glare of the sun, and the hot sensation of the dust about
+his feet; but he went on steadily, determining to make light of all the
+inconveniences and difficulties, to which he was entirely unaccustomed,
+but to which he had voluntarily exposed himself. For a considerable time
+he met no living creature; the highroad seemed to be as much his own as
+though it were part of a private park or landed estate belonging to him
+only; and it was not till he had nearly accomplished the distance which
+lay between him and the shelter of the trees, that he met a horse and
+cart slowly jogging along towards the direction from whence he had come.
+The man who drove the vehicle was half-asleep, stupefied, no doubt, by
+the effect of the hot sun following on a possible "glass" at a
+public-house, but Helmsley called to him just for company's sake.</p>
+
+<p>"Hi! Am I going right for Watchett?"</p>
+
+<p>The man opened his drowsing eyes and yawned expansively.</p>
+
+<p>"Watchett? Ay! Williton comes fust."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it far?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nowt's far to your kind!" said the man, flicking his whip. "An' ye'll
+meet a bobby or so on the road!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On he went, and Helmsley without further parley resumed his tramp.
+Presently, reaching the clump of trees he had seen in the distance, he
+moved into their refreshing shade. They were broad-branched elms,
+luxuriantly full of foliage, and the avenue they formed extended for
+about a quarter of a mile. Cool dells and dingles of mossy green sloped
+down on one side of the road, breaking into what are sometimes called
+"coombs" running precipitously towards the sea-coast, and slackening his
+pace a little he paused, looking through a tangle of shrubs and bracken
+at the pale suggestion of a glimmer of blue which he realised was the
+shining of the sunlit ocean. While he thus stood, he fancied he heard a
+little plaintive whine as of an animal in pain. He listened attentively.
+The sound was repeated, and, descending the shelving bank a few steps he
+sought to discover the whereabouts of this piteous cry for help. All at
+once he spied two bright sparkling eyes and a small silvery grey head
+perking up at him through the leaves,&mdash;the head of a tiny Yorkshire
+"toy" terrier. It looked at him with eloquent anxiety, and as he
+approached it, it made an effort to move, but fell back again with a
+faint moan. Gently he picked it up,&mdash;it was a rare and beautiful little
+creature, but one of its silky forepaws had evidently been caught in
+some trap, for it was badly mangled and bleeding. Round its neck was a
+small golden collar, something like a lady's bracelet, bearing the
+inscription: "I am Charlie. Take care of me!" There was no owner's name
+or address, and the entreaty "Take care of me!" had certainly not been
+complied with, or so valuable a pet would not have been left wounded on
+the highroad. While Helmsley was examining it, it ceased whining, and
+gently licked his hand. Seeing a trickling stream of water making its
+way through the moss and ferns close by, he bathed the little dog's
+wounded paw carefully and tied it up with a strip of material torn from
+his own coat sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>"So you want to be taken care of, do you, Charlie!" he said, patting the
+tiny head. "That's what a good many of us want, when we feel hurt and
+broken by the hard ways of the world!" Charlie blinked a dark eye,
+cocked a small soft ear, and ventured on another caress of the kind
+human hand with his warm little tongue. "Well, I won't leave you to
+starve in the woods, or trust you to the tender mercies of the
+police,&mdash;you shall come along with me! And if I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> see any advertisement
+of your loss I'll perhaps take you back to your owner. But in the
+meantime we'll stay together."</p>
+
+<p>Charlie evidently agreed to this proposition, for when Helmsley tucked
+him cosily under his arm, he settled down comfortably as though well
+accustomed to the position. He was certainly nothing of a weight to
+carry, and his new owner was conscious of a certain pleasure in feeling
+the warm, silky little body nestling against his breast. He was not
+quite alone any more,&mdash;this little creature was a companion,&mdash;a
+something to talk to, to caress and to protect. He ascended the bank,
+and regaining the highroad resumed his vagrant way. Noon was now at the
+full, and the sun's heat seemed to create a silence that was both
+oppressive and stifling. He walked slowly, and began to feel that
+perhaps after all he had miscalculated his staying powers, and that the
+burden of old age would, in the end, take vengeance upon him for running
+risks of fatigue and exhaustion which, in his case, were wholly
+unnecessary.</p>
+
+<p>"Yet if I were really poor," he argued with himself, "if I were in very
+truth a tramp, I should have to do exactly what I am doing now. If one
+man can stand 'life on the road,' so can another."</p>
+
+<p>And he would not allow his mind to dwell on the fact that a temperament
+which has become accustomed to every kind of comfort and luxury is
+seldom fitted to endure privation. On he jogged steadily, and by and by
+began to be entertained by his own thoughts as pleasantly as a poet or
+romancist is entertained by the fancies which come and go in the brain
+with all the vividness of dramatic reality. Yet always he found himself
+harking back to what he sometimes called the "incurability" of life.
+Over and over again he asked himself the old eternal question: Why so
+much Product to end in Waste? Why are thousands of millions of worlds,
+swarming with life-organisms, created to revolve in space, if there is
+no other fate for them but final destruction?</p>
+
+<p>"There <i>must</i> be an Afterwards!" he said. "Otherwise Creation would not
+only be a senseless joke, but a wicked one! Nay, it would almost be a
+crime. To cause creatures to be born into existence without their own
+consent, merely to destroy them utterly in a few years and make the fact
+of their having lived purposeless, would be worse than the dreams of
+madmen. For what is the use of bringing human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> creatures into the world
+to suffer pain, sickness, and sorrow, if mere life-torture is all we can
+give them, and death is the only end?"</p>
+
+<p>Here his meditations were broken in upon by the sound of a horse's hoofs
+trotting briskly behind him, and pausing, he saw a neat little cart and
+pony coming along, driven by a buxom-looking woman with a brown sun-hat
+tied on in the old-fashioned manner under her chin.</p>
+
+<p>"Would ye like a lift?" she asked. "It's mighty warm walkin'."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley raised his eyes to the sun-bonnet, and smiled at the cheerful
+freckled face beneath its brim.</p>
+
+<p>"You're very kind&mdash;&mdash;" he began.</p>
+
+<p>"Jump in!" said the woman. "I'm taking cream and cheeses into Watchett,
+but it's a light load, an' Jim an' me can do with ye that far. This is
+Jim."</p>
+
+<p>She flicked the pony's ears with her whip by way of introducing the
+animal, and Helmsley clambered up into the cart beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a nice little dog you've got," she remarked, as Charlie perked
+his small black nose out from under his protector's arm to sniff the
+subtle atmosphere of what was going to happen next. "He's a real
+beauty!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Helmsley, without volunteering any information as to how
+he had found the tiny creature, whom he now had no inclination to part
+with. "He got his paw caught in a trap, so I'm obliged to carry him."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little soul! There's a-many traps all about 'ere, lots o' the land
+bein' private property. Go on, Jim!" And she shook the reins on her
+pony's neck, thereby causing that intelligent animal to start off at a
+pleasantly regular pace. "I allus sez that if the rich ladies and
+gentlemen as eats up every bit o' land in Great Britain could put traps
+in the air to catch the noses of everything but themselves as dares to
+breathe it, they'd do it, singin' glory all the time. For they goes to
+church reg'lar."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, it's a wise thing to be seen <i>looking</i> good in public!" said
+Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>The woman laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right! You can do a lot o' humbuggin' if you're friends with the
+parson, what more often than not humbugs everybody hisself. I'm no
+church-goer, but I turn out the best cheese an' butter in these parts,
+an' I never tells no lies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> nor cheats any one of a penny, so I aint
+worryin' about my soul, seein' it's straight with my neighbours."</p>
+
+<p>"Are there many rich people living about here?" inquired Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"Not enough to do the place real good. The owners of the big houses are
+here to-day and gone to-morrow, and they don't trouble much over their
+tenantry. Still we rub on fairly well. None of us can ever put by for a
+rainy day,&mdash;and some folk as is as hard-working as ever they can be, are
+bound to come on the parish when they can't work no more&mdash;no doubt o'
+that. You're a stranger to these parts?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I've tramped from Bristol."</p>
+
+<p>The woman opened her eyes widely.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a long way! You must be fairly strong for your age. Where are ye
+wantin' to get to?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cornwall."</p>
+
+<p>"My word! You've got a goodish bit to go. All Devon lies before you."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that. But I shall rest here and there, and perhaps get a lift or
+two if I meet any more such kind-hearted folk as yourself."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what we may call a bit o' soft soap," she said, "and I'd advise
+ye to keep that kind o' thing to yourself, old man! It don't go down
+with Meg Ross, I can tell ye!"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you Meg Ross?" he asked, amused at her manner.</p>
+
+<p>"That's me! I'm known all over the countryside for the sharpest tongue
+as ever wagged in a woman's head. So you'd better look out!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not afraid of you!" he said smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you might be if you knew me!" and she whipped up her pony
+smartly. "Howsomever, you're old enough to be past hurtin' or bein'
+hurt."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true!" he responded gently.</p>
+
+<p>She was silent after this, and not till Watchett was reached did she
+again begin conversation. Rattling quickly through the little
+watering-place, which at this hour seemed altogether deserted or asleep,
+she pulled up at an inn in the middle of the principal street.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got an order to deliver here," she said. "What are <i>you</i> going to
+do with yourself?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nothing in particular," he answered, with a smile. "I shall just take
+my little dog to a chemist's and get its paw dressed, and then I shall
+walk on."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you want any dinner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet. I had a good breakfast, I daresay I'll have a glass of milk
+presently."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you come back here in half an hour I can drive you on a little
+further. How would you like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very much! But I'm afraid of troubling you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you won't do that!" said Meg with a defiant air. "No man, young or
+old, has ever troubled <i>me</i>! I'm not married, thank the Lord!"</p>
+
+<p>And jumping from the cart, she began to pull out sundry cans, jars, and
+boxes, while Helmsley standing by with the small Charlie under his arm,
+wished he could help her, but felt sure she would resent assistance even
+if he offered it. Glancing at him, she gave him a kindly nod.</p>
+
+<p>"Off you go with your little dog! You'll find me ready here in half an
+hour."</p>
+
+<p>With that she turned from him into the open doorway of the inn, and
+Helmsley made his way slowly along the silent, sun-baked little street
+till he found a small chemist's shop, where he took his lately found
+canine companion to have its wounded paw examined and attended to. No
+bones were broken, and the chemist, a lean, pale, kindly man, assured
+him that in a few days the little animal would be quite well.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a pretty creature," he said. "And valuable too."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I found it on the highroad," said Helmsley; "and of course if I
+see any advertisement out for it, I'll return it to its owner. But if no
+one claims it I'll keep it."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it fell out of a motor-car," said the chemist. "It looks as if
+it might have belonged to some fine lady who was too wrapped up in
+herself to take proper care of it. There are many of that kind who come
+this way touring through Somerset and Devon."</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay you're right," and Helmsley gently stroked the tiny dog's
+soft silky coat. "Rich women will pay any amount of money for such toy
+creatures out of mere caprice, and will then lose them out of sheer
+laziness, forgetting that they are living beings, with feelings and
+sentiments of trust and affection greater sometimes than our own.
+However, this little chap will be safe with me till he is rightfully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+claimed, if ever that happens. I don't want to steal him; I only want to
+take care of him."</p>
+
+<p>"I should never part with him if I were you," said the chemist. "Those
+who were careless enough to lose him deserve their loss."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley agreed, and left the shop. Finding a confectioner's near by, he
+bought a few biscuits for his new pet, an attention which that small
+animal highly appreciated. "Charlie" was hungry, and cracked and munched
+the biscuits with exceeding relish, his absurd little nose becoming
+quite moist with excitement and appetite. Returning presently to the inn
+where he had left Meg Ross, Helmsley found that lady quite ready to
+start.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, here you are, are you?" she said, smiling pleasantly, "Well, I'm
+just on the move. Jump in!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley hesitated a moment, standing beside the pony-cart.</p>
+
+<p>"May I pay for my ride?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Pay?" Meg stuck her stout arms akimbo, and glanced him all over. "Well,
+I never! How much 'ave ye got?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two or three shillings," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>Meg laughed, showing a very sound row of even white teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"All right! You can keep 'em!" she said. "Mebbe you want 'em. <i>I</i> don't!
+Now don't stand haverin' there,&mdash;get in the cart quick, or Jim'll be
+runnin' away."</p>
+
+<p>Jim showed no sign of this desperate intention, but, on the contrary,
+stood very patiently waiting till his passengers were safely seated,
+when he trotted off at a great pace, with such a clatter of hoofs and
+rattle of wheels as rendered conversation impossible. But Helmsley was
+very content to sit in silence, holding the little dog "Charlie" warmly
+against his breast, and watching the beauties of the scenery expand
+before him like a fairy panorama, ever broadening into fresh glimpses of
+loveliness. It was a very quiet coastline which the windings of the road
+now followed,&mdash;a fair and placid sea shining at wide intervals between a
+lavish flow of equally fair and placid fields. The drive seemed all too
+short, when at the corner of a lane embowered in trees, Meg Ross pulled
+up short.</p>
+
+<p>"The best of friends must part!" she said. "I'm right sorry I can't take
+ye any further. But down 'ere's a farm where I put up for the afternoon
+an' 'elps 'em through with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> their butter-makin', for there's a lot o'
+skeery gals in the fam'ly as thinks more o' doin' their 'air than
+churnin', an' doin' the 'air don't bring no money in, though mebbe it
+might catch a 'usband as wasn't worth 'avin'. An' Jim gets his food 'ere
+too. Howsomever, I'm real put about that I can't drive ye a bit towards
+Cleeve Abbey, for that's rare an' fine at this time o' year,&mdash;but mebbe
+ye're wantin' to push on quickly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I must push on," rejoined Helmsley, as he got out of the cart;
+then, standing in the road, he raised his cap to her. "And I'm very
+grateful to you for helping me along so far, at the hottest time of the
+day too. It's most kind of you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't want any thanks!" said Meg, smiling. "I'm rather sweet on
+old men, seein' old age aint their fault even if trampin' the road is.
+You'd best keep on the straight line now, till you come to Blue Anchor.
+That's a nice little village, and you'll find an inn there where you can
+get a night's lodging cheap. I wouldn't advise you to stay much round
+Cleeve after sundown, for there's a big camp of gypsies about there, an'
+they're a rough lot, pertikly a man they calls Tom o' the Gleam."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I know Tom o' the Gleam," he said. "He's a friend of mine."</p>
+
+<p>Meg Ross opened her round, bright brown eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he? Dear life, if I'd known that, I mightn't 'ave been so ready to
+give you a ride with me!" she said, and laughed. "Not that I'm afraid of
+Tom, though he's a queer customer. I've given a good many glasses of new
+milk to his 'kiddie,' as he calls that little lad of his, so I expect
+I'm fairly in his favour."</p>
+
+<p>"I've never seen his 'kiddie,'" said Helmsley. "What is the boy like?"</p>
+
+<p>"A real fine little chap!" said Meg, with heartiness and feeling. "I'm
+not a crank on children, seein' most o' them's muckers an' trouble from
+mornin' to night, but if it 'ad pleased the Lord as I should wed, I
+shouldn't 'a wished for a better specimen of a babe than Tom's kiddie.
+Pity the mother died!"</p>
+
+<p>"When the child was born?" queried Helmsley gently.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;oh no!"&mdash;and Meg's eyes grew thoughtful. "She got through her
+trouble all right, but 'twas about a year<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> or eighteen months arterwards
+that she took to pinin' like, an' droopin' down just like the poppies
+droops in the corn when the sun's too fierce upon 'em. She used to sit
+by the roadside o' Sundays, with a little red handkerchief tied across
+her shoulders, and all her dark 'air tumblin' about 'er face, an' she
+used to look up with her great big black eyes an' smile at the finicky
+fine church misses as come mincin' an' smirkin' along, an' say: 'Tell
+your fortune, lady?' She was the prettiest creature I ever saw&mdash;not a
+good lass&mdash;no!&mdash;nobody could say she was a good lass, for she went to
+Tom without church or priest, but she loved him an' was faithful. An'
+she just worshipped her baby." Here Meg paused a moment. "Tom was a real
+danger to the country when she died," she presently went on. "He used to
+run about the woods like a madman, calling her to come back to 'im, an'
+threatenin' to murder any one who came nigh 'im;&mdash;then, by and by, he
+took to the kiddie, an' he's steadier now."</p>
+
+<p>There was something in the narration of this little history that touched
+Helmsley too deeply for comment, and he was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!"&mdash;and Meg gave her pony's reins a shake&mdash;"I must be off! Sorry to
+leave ye standin' in the middle o' the road like, but it can't be
+helped. Mind you keep the little dog safe!&mdash;and take a woman's
+advice&mdash;don't walk too far or too fast in one day. Good luck t' ye!"</p>
+
+<p>Another shake of the reins, and "Jim" turned briskly down the lane. Once
+Meg looked back and waved her hand,&mdash;then the green trees closed in upon
+her disappearing vehicle, and Helmsley was again alone, save for
+"Charlie," who, instinctively aware that some friend had left them,
+licked his master's hand confidentially, as much as to say "I am still
+with you." The air was cooler now, and Helmsley walked on with
+comparative ease and pleasure. His thoughts were very busy. He was
+drawing comparisons between the conduct of the poor and the rich to one
+another, greatly to the disadvantage of the latter class.</p>
+
+<p>"If a wealthy man has a carriage," he soliloquised, "how seldom will he
+offer it or think of offering its use to any one of his acquaintances
+who may be less fortunate! How rarely will he even say a kind word to
+any man who is 'down'! Do I not know this myself! I remember well on one
+occasion when I wished to send my carriage for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> use of a poor fellow
+who had once been employed in my office, but who had been compelled to
+give up work, owing to illness, my secretary advised me not to show him
+this mark of sympathy and attention. 'He will only take it as his
+right,' I was assured,&mdash;'these sort of men are always ungrateful.' And I
+listened to my secretary's advice&mdash;more fool I! For it should have been
+nothing to me whether the man was ungrateful or not; the thing was to do
+the good, and let the result be what it might. Now this poor Meg Ross
+has no carriage, but such vehicle as she possesses she shares with one
+whom she imagines to be in need. No other motive has moved her save
+womanly pity for lonely age and infirmity. She has taught me a lesson by
+simply offering a kindness without caring how it might be received or
+rewarded. Is not that a lovely trait in human nature?&mdash;one which I have
+never as yet discovered in what is called 'swagger society'! When I was
+in the hey-dey of my career, and money was pouring in from all my
+business 'deals' like water from a never-ending main, I had a young
+Scotsman for a secretary, as close-fisted a fellow as ever was, who
+managed to lose me the chance of doing a great many kind actions. More
+than that, whenever I was likely to have any real friends whom I could
+confidently trust, and who wanted nothing from me but affection and
+sincerity, he succeeded in shaking off the hold they had upon me. Of
+course I know now why he did this,&mdash;it was in order that he himself
+might have his grip of me more securely, but at that time I was
+unsuspicious, and believed the best of every one. Yes! I honestly
+thought people were honest,&mdash;I trusted their good faith, with the result
+that I found out the utter falsity of their pretensions. And here I
+am,&mdash;old and nearing the end of my tether&mdash;more friendless than when I
+first began to make my fortune, with the certain knowledge that not a
+soul has ever cared or cares for me except for what can be got out of me
+in the way of hard cash! I have met with more real kindness from the
+rough fellows at the 'Trusty Man,' and from the 'Trusty Man's' hostess,
+Miss Tranter, and now from this good woman Meg Ross, than has ever been
+offered to me by those who know I am rich, and who have 'used' me
+accordingly."</p>
+
+<p>Here, coming to a place where two cross-roads met, he paused, looking
+about him. The afternoon was declining,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> and the loveliness of the
+landscape was intensified by a mellow softness in the sunshine, which
+deepened the rich green of the trees and wakened an opaline iridescence
+in the sea. A sign-post on one hand bore the direction "To Cleeve
+Abbey," and the road thus indicated wound upward somewhat steeply,
+disappearing amid luxuriant verdure which everywhere crowned the higher
+summits of the hills. While he yet stood, looking at the exquisitely
+shaded masses of foliage which, like festal garlands, adorned and
+over-hung this ascent, the discordant "hoot" of a motor-horn sounded on
+the stillness, and sheer down the winding way came at a tearing pace the
+motor vehicle itself. It was a large, luxurious car, and pounded along
+with tremendous speed, swerving at the bottom of the declivity with so
+sharp a curve as to threaten an instant overturn, but, escaping this
+imminent peril by almost a hairsbreadth, it dashed onward straight ahead
+in a cloud of dust that for two or three minutes entirely blurred and
+darkened the air. Half-blinded and choked by the rush of its furious
+passage past him, Helmsley could only just barely discern that the car
+was occupied by two men, the one driving, the other sitting beside the
+driver,&mdash;and shading his eyes from the sun, he strove to track its way
+as it flew down the road, but in less than a minute it was out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>"There's not much 'speed limit' in that concern!" he said, half-aloud,
+still gazing after it. "I call such driving recklessly wicked! If I
+could have seen the number of that car, I'd have given information to
+the police. But numbers on motors are no use when such a pace is kept
+up, and the thick dust of a dry summer is whirled up by the wheels. It's
+fortunate the road is clear. Yes, Charlie!"&mdash;this, as he saw his canine
+foundling's head perk out from under his arm, with a little black nose
+all a-quiver with anxiety,&mdash;"it's just as well for you that you've got a
+wounded paw and can't run too far for the present! If you had been in
+the way of that car just now, your little life would have been ended!"</p>
+
+<p>Charlie pricked his pretty ears, and listened, or appeared to listen,
+but had evidently no forebodings about himself or his future. He was
+quite at home, and, after the fashion of dogs, who are often so much
+wiser than men, argued that being safe and comfortable now, there was no
+reason why he should not be safe and comfortable always. And Helmsley<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+presently bent himself to steady walking, and got on well, only pausing
+to get some tea and bread and butter at a cottage by the roadside, where
+a placard on the gate intimated that such refreshments were to be had
+within. Nevertheless, he was a slow pedestrian, and what with lingering
+here and there for brief rests by the way, the sun had sunk fully an
+hour before he managed to reach Blue Anchor, the village of which Meg
+Ross had told him. It was a pretty, peaceful place, set among wide
+stretches of beach, extending for miles along the margin of the waters,
+and the mellow summer twilight showed little white wreaths of foam
+crawling lazily up on the sand in glittering curves that gleamed like
+snow for a moment and then melted softly away into the deepening
+darkness. He stopped at the first ale-house, a low-roofed, cottage-like
+structure embowered in clambering flowers. It had a side entrance which
+led into a big, rambling stableyard, and happening to glance that way he
+perceived a vehicle standing there, which he at once recognised as the
+large luxurious motor-car that had dashed past him at such a tearing
+pace near Cleeve. The inn door was open, and the bar faced the road,
+exhibiting a brave show of glittering brass taps, pewter tankards,
+polished glasses and many-coloured bottles, all these things being
+presided over by a buxom matron, who was not only an agreeable person to
+look at in herself, but who was assisted by two pretty daughters. These
+young women, wearing spotless white cuffs and aprons, dispensed the beer
+to the customers, now and then relieving the monotony of this occupation
+by carrying trays of bread and cheese and meat sandwiches round the wide
+room of which the bar was a part, evidently bent on making the general
+company stay as long as possible, if fascinating manners and smiling
+eyes could work any detaining influence. Helmsley asked for a glass of
+ale and a plate of bread and cheese, and on being supplied with these
+refreshments, sat down at a small table in a corner well removed from
+the light, where he could see without being seen. He did not intend to
+inquire for a night's lodging yet. He wished first to ascertain for
+himself the kind of people who frequented the place. The fear of
+discovery always haunted him, and the sight of that costly motor-car
+standing in the stableyard had caused him to feel a certain misgiving
+lest any one of marked wealth or position should turn out to be its
+owner. In such a case,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> the world being proverbially small, and rich men
+being in the minority, it was just possible that he, David Helmsley,
+even clad as he was in workman's clothes and partially disguised in
+features by the growth of a beard, might be recognised. With this idea,
+he kept himself well back in the shadow, listening attentively to the
+scraps of desultory talk among the dozen or so of men in the room, while
+carefully maintaining an air of such utter fatigue as to appear
+indifferent to all that passed around him. Nobody noticed him, for which
+he was thankful. And presently, when he became accustomed to the various
+contending voices, which in their changing tones of gruff or gentle,
+quick or slow, made a confused din upon his ears, he found out that the
+general conversation was chiefly centred on one subject, that of the
+very motor-car whose occupants he desired to shun.</p>
+
+<p>"Serve 'em right!" growled one man. "Serve 'em right to 'ave broke down!
+'Ope the darned thing's broke altogether!"</p>
+
+<p>"You shouldn't say that,&mdash;'taint Christian," expostulated his neighbour
+at the same table. "Them cars cost a heap o' money, from eight 'undred
+to two thousand pounds, I've 'eerd tell."</p>
+
+<p>"Who cares!" retorted the other. "Them as can pay a fortin on a car to
+swish 'emselves about in, should be made to keep on payin' till they're
+cleaned out o' money for good an' all. The road's a reg'lar hell since
+them engines started along cuttin' everything to pieces. There aint a
+man, woman, nor child what's safe from the moneyed murderers."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh come, I say!" ejaculated a big, burly young fellow in corduroys.
+"Moneyed murderers is going a bit too strong!"</p>
+
+<p>"No 'taint!" said the first man who had spoken. "That's what the
+motor-car folks are&mdash;no more nor less. Only t' other day in Taunton, a
+woman as was the life an' soul of 'er 'usband an' childern, was knocked
+down by a car as big as a railway truck. It just swept 'er off the curb
+like a bundle o' rags. She picked 'erself up again an' walked 'ome,
+tremblin' a little, an' not knowin' rightly what 'ad chanced to 'er, an'
+in less than an hour she was dead. An' what did they say at the inquest?
+Just 'death from shock'&mdash;an' no more. For them as owned the murderin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+car was proprietors o' a big brewery, and the coroner hisself 'ad shares
+in it. That's 'ow justice is done nowadays!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we's an obligin' lot, we poor folks," observed a little man in the
+rough garb of a cattle-driver, drawing his pipe from his mouth as he
+spoke. "We lets the rich ride over us on rubber tyres an' never sez a
+word on our own parts, but trusts to the law for doin' the same to a
+millionaire as 'twould to a beggar,&mdash;but, Lord!&mdash;don't we see every day
+as 'ow the millionaire gets off easy while the beggar goes to prison?
+There used to be justice in old England, but the time for that's gone
+past."</p>
+
+<p>"There's as much justice in England as you'll ever get anywheres else!"
+interrupted the hostess at the bar, nodding cheerfully at the men, and
+smiling,&mdash;"And as for the motor-cars, they bring custom to my house, and
+I don't grumble at anything which does me and mine a good turn. If it
+hadn't been for a break-down in that big motor standing outside in the
+stableyard, I shouldn't have had two gentlemen staying in my best rooms
+to-night. I never find fault with money!"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed and nodded again in the pleasantest manner. A slow smile
+went round among the men,&mdash;it was impossible not to smile in response to
+the gay good-humour expressed on such a beaming countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"One of them's a lord, too," she added. "Quite a young fellow, just come
+into his title, I suppose." And referring to her day-book, she ran her
+plump finger down the various entries. "I've got his name
+here&mdash;Wrotham,&mdash;Lord Reginald Wrotham."</p>
+
+<p>"Wrotham? That aint a name known in these parts," said the man in
+corduroys. "Wheer does 'e come from?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," she replied. "And I don't very much care. It's enough
+for me that he's here and spending money!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where's his chauffy?" inquired a lad, lounging near the bar.</p>
+
+<p>"He hasn't got one. He drives his car himself. He's got a friend with
+him&mdash;a Mr. James Brookfield."</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence. Helmsley drew further back into the corner
+where he sat, and restrained the little dog Charlie from perking its
+inquisitive head out too far,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> lest its beauty should attract
+undesirable attention. His nervous misgivings concerning the owner of
+the motor-car had not been entirely without foundation, for both
+Reginald Wrotham and James Brookfield were well known to him. Wrotham's
+career had been a sufficiently disgraceful one ever since he had entered
+his teens,&mdash;he was a modern degenerate of the worst type, and though his
+coming-of-age and the assumption of his family title had caused certain
+time-servers to enrol themselves among his flatterers and friends, there
+were very few decent houses where so soiled a member of the aristocracy
+as he was could find even a semblance of toleration. James Brookfield
+was a proprietor of newspapers as well as a "something in the City," and
+if Helmsley had been asked to qualify that "something" by a name, he
+would have found a term by no means complimentary to the individual in
+question. Wrotham and Brookfield were always seen together,&mdash;they were
+brothers in every sort of social iniquity and licentiousness, and an
+attempt on Brookfield's part to borrow some thousands of pounds for his
+"lordly" patron from Helmsley, had resulted in the latter giving the
+would-be borrower's go-between such a strong piece of his mind as he was
+not likely to forget. And now Helmsley was naturally annoyed to find
+that these two abandoned rascals were staying at the very inn where he,
+in his character of a penniless wayfarer, had hoped to pass a peaceful
+night; however, he resolved to avoid all danger and embarrassment by
+leaving the place directly he had finished his supper, and going in
+search of some more suitable lodgment. Meanwhile, the hum of
+conversation grew louder around him, and opinion ran high on the subject
+of "the right of the road."</p>
+
+<p>"The roads are made for the people, sure-<i>ly</i>!" said one of a group of
+men standing near the largest table in the room&mdash;"And the people 'as the
+right to 'xpect safety to life an' limb when they uses 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the motors can put forward the same claim," retorted another.
+"Motor folks are people too, an' they can say, if they likes, that if
+roads is made for people, they're made for <i>them</i> as well as t' others,
+and they expects to be safe on 'em with their motors at whatever pace
+they travels."</p>
+
+<p>"Go 'long!" exclaimed the cattle-driver, who had before taken part in
+the discussion&mdash;"Aint we got to take cows<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> an' sheep an' 'osses by the
+road? An' if a car comes along at the rate o' forty or fifty miles an
+hour, what's to be done wi' the animals? An' if they're not to be on the
+road, which way is they to be took?"</p>
+
+<p>"Them motors ought to have roads o' their own like the railways," said a
+quiet-looking grey-haired man, who was the carrier of the district.
+"When the steam-engine was invented it wasn't allowed to go tearin'
+along the public highway. They 'ad to make roads for it, an' lay tracks,
+and they should do the same for motors which is gettin' just as fast an'
+as dangerous as steam-engines."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, an' with makin' new roads an' layin' tracks, spoil the country for
+good an' all!" said the man in corduroys&mdash;"An' alter it so that there
+aint a bit o' peace or comfort left in the land! Level the hills an' cut
+down the trees&mdash;pull up the hedges an' scare away all the singin' birds,
+till the hull place looks like a football field!&mdash;all to please a few
+selfish rich men who'd be better dead than livin'! A fine thing for
+England that would be!"</p>
+
+<p>At that moment, there was the noise of an opening door, and the hostess,
+with an expressive glance at her customers, held up her finger
+warningly.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, please!" she said. "The gentlemen are coming out."</p>
+
+<p>A sudden pause ensued. The men looked round upon one another, half
+sheepishly, half sullenly, and their growling voices subsided into a
+murmur. The hostess settled the bow at her collar more becomingly, and
+her two pretty daughters feigned to be deeply occupied with some drawn
+thread work. David Helmsley, noting everything that was going on from
+his coign of vantage, recognised at once the dissipated,
+effeminate-looking young man, who, stepping out of a private room which
+opened on a corridor apparently leading to the inner part of the house,
+sauntered lazily up to the bar and, resting his arm upon its oaken
+counter, smiled condescendingly, not to say insolently, upon the women
+who stood behind it. There was no mistaking him,&mdash;it was the same
+Reginald Wrotham whose scandals in society had broken his worthy
+father's heart, and who now, succeeding to a hitherto unblemished title,
+was doing his best to load it with dishonour. He was followed by his
+friend Brookfield,&mdash;a heavily-built, lurching sort of man, with a nose
+reddened by strong drink, and small lascivious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> eyes which glittered
+dully in his head like the eyes of poisonous tropical beetle. The hush
+among the "lower" class of company at the inn deepened into the usual
+stupid awe which at times so curiously affects untutored rustics who are
+made conscious of the presence of a "lord." Said a friend of the present
+writer's to a waiter in a country hotel where one of these "lords" was
+staying for a few days: "I want a letter to catch to-night's post, but
+I'm afraid the mail has gone from the hotel. Could you send some one to
+the post-office with it?" "Oh yes, sir!" replied the waiter
+grandiloquently. "The servant of the Lord will take it!" Pitiful beyond
+most piteous things is the grovelling tendency of that section of human
+nature which has not yet been educated sufficiently to lift itself up
+above temporary trappings and ornaments; pitiful it is to see men,
+gifted in intellect, or distinguished for bravery, flinch and cringe
+before one of their own flesh and blood, who, having neither cleverness
+nor courage, but only a Title, presumes upon that foolish appendage so
+far as to consider himself superior to both valour and ability. As well
+might a stuffed boar's head assume a superiority to other comestibles
+because decorated by the cook with a paper frill and bow of ribbon! The
+atmosphere which Lord Reginald Wrotham brought with him into the
+common-room of the bar was redolent of tobacco-smoke and whisky, yet,
+judging from the various propitiatory, timid, anxious, or servile looks
+cast upon him by all and sundry, it might have been fragrant and sacred
+incense wafted from the altars of the goddess Fortune to her waiting
+votaries. Helmsley's spirit rose up in contempt against the effete dandy
+as he watched him leaning carelessly against the counter, twirling his
+thin sandy moustache, and talking to his hostess merely for the sake of
+offensively ogling her two daughters.</p>
+
+<p>"Charming old place you have here!&mdash;charming!" drawled his lordship.
+"Perfect dream! Love to pass all my days in such a delightful spot! 'Pon
+my life! Awful luck for us, the motor breaking down, or we never should
+have stopped at such a jolly place, don't-cher-know. Should we,
+Brookfield?"</p>
+
+<p>Brookfield, gently scratching a pimple on his fat, clean-shaven face,
+smiled knowingly.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Couldn't</i> have stopped!" he declared. "We were doing a record run. But
+we should have missed a great deal,&mdash;a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> great deal!" And he emitted a
+soft chuckle. "Not only the place,&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;!"</p>
+
+<p>He waved his hand explanatorily, with a slight bow, which implied an
+unspoken compliment to the looks of the mistress of the inn and her
+family. One of the young women blushed and peeped slyly up at him. He
+returned the glance with interest.</p>
+
+<p>"May I ask," pursued Lord Wrotham, with an amicable leer, "the names of
+your two daughters, Madam? They've been awfully kind to us
+broken-down-travellers&mdash;should just like to know the difference between
+them. Like two roses on one stalk, don't-cher-know! Can't tell which is
+which!"</p>
+
+<p>The mother of the girls hesitated a moment. She was not quite sure that
+she liked the "tone" of his lordship's speech. Finally she replied
+somewhat stiffly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My eldest daughter is named Elizabeth, my lord, and her sister is
+Grace."</p>
+
+<p>"Elizabeth and Grace! Charming!" murmured Wrotham, leaning a little more
+confidentially over the counter&mdash;"Now which&mdash;which is Grace?"</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a tall, shadowy form darkened the open doorway of the
+inn, and a man entered, carrying in his arms a small oblong bundle
+covered with a piece of rough horse-cloth. Placing his burden down on a
+vacant bench, he pushed his cap from his brows and stared wildly about
+him. Every one looked at him,&mdash;some with recognition, others in
+alarm,&mdash;and Helmsley, compelled as he was to keep himself out of the
+general notice in his corner, almost started to his feet with an
+involuntary cry of amazement. For it was Tom o' the Gleam.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Tom o' the Gleam,&mdash;Tom, with his clothes torn and covered with
+dust,&mdash;Tom, changed suddenly to a haggard and terrible unlikeness of
+himself, his face drawn and withered, its healthy bronze colour whitened
+to a sickly livid hue,&mdash;Tom, with such an expression of dazed and stupid
+horror in his eyes as to give the impression that he was heavily in
+drink, and dangerous.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, mates!" he said thickly&mdash;"A fine night and a clear moon!"</p>
+
+<p>No one answered him. He staggered up to the bar. The hostess looked at
+him severely.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Tom, what's the matter?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>He straightened himself, and, throwing back his shoulders as though
+parrying a blow, forced a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing! A touch of the sun!" A strong shudder ran through his limbs,
+and his teeth chattered,&mdash;then suddenly leaning forward on the counter,
+he whispered: "I'm not drunk, mother!&mdash;for God's sake don't think
+it!&mdash;I'm ill. Don't you see I'm ill?&mdash;I'll be all right in a
+minute,&mdash;give me a drop of brandy!"</p>
+
+<p>She fixed her candid gaze full upon him. She had known him well for
+years, and not only did she know him, but, rough character as he was,
+she liked and respected him. Looking him squarely in the face she saw at
+once that he was speaking the truth. He was not drunk. He was ill,&mdash;very
+ill. The strained anguish on his features proved it.</p>
+
+<p>"Hadn't you better come inside the bar and sit down?" she suggested, in
+a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thanks&mdash;I'd rather not. I'll stand just here."</p>
+
+<p>She gave him the brandy he had asked for. He sipped it slowly, and,
+pushing his cap further off his brows, turned his dark eyes, full of
+smouldering fire, upon Lord Wrotham and his friend, both of whom had
+succeeded in getting up a little conversation with the hostess's younger
+daughter, the girl named Grace. Her sister, Elizabeth, put down her
+needlework, and watched Tom with sudden solicitude. An instinctive
+dislike of Lord Wrotham and his companion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> caused her to avoid looking
+their way, though she heard every word they were saying,&mdash;and her
+interest became centred on the handsome gypsy, whose pallid features and
+terrible expression filled her with a vague alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be awfully jolly of you if you'd come for a spin in my motor,"
+said his lordship, twirling his sandy moustache and conveying a would-be
+amorous twinkle into his small brown-green eyes for the benefit of the
+girl he was ogling. "Beastly bore having a break-down, but it's nothing
+serious&mdash;half a day's work will put it all right, and if you and your
+sister would like a turn before we go on from here, I shall be charmed.
+We can't do the record business now&mdash;not this time,&mdash;so it doesn't
+matter how long we linger in this delightful spot."</p>
+
+<p>"Especially in such delightful company!" added his friend, Brookfield.
+"I'm going to take a photograph of this house to-morrow, and
+perhaps"&mdash;here he smiled complacently&mdash;"perhaps Miss Grace and Miss
+Elizabeth will consent to come into the picture?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ya-as&mdash;ya-as!&mdash;oh do!" drawled Wrotham. "Of course they will! <i>You</i>
+will, I'm sure, Miss Grace! This gentleman, Mr. Brookfield, has got
+nearly all the pictorials under his thumb, and he'll put your portrait
+in them as 'The Beauty of Somerset,' won't you, Brookfield?"</p>
+
+<p>Brookfield laughed, a pleased laugh of conscious power.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I will," he said. "You have only to express the wish and the
+thing is done!"</p>
+
+<p>Wrotham twirled his moustache again.</p>
+
+<p>"Awful fun having a friend on the press, don't-cher-know!" he went on.
+"I get all my lady acquaintances into the papers,&mdash;makes 'em famous in a
+day! The women I like are made to look beautiful, and those I don't like
+are turned into frights&mdash;positive old horrors, give you my life! Easily
+done, you know!&mdash;touch up a negative whichever way you fancy, and there
+you are!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl Grace lifted her eyes,&mdash;very pretty sparkling eyes they
+were,&mdash;and regarded him with a mutinous air of contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be 'awfully' amusing!" she said sarcastically.</p>
+
+<p>"It is!&mdash;give you my life!" And his lordship played with a charm in the
+shape of an enamelled pig which dangled at his watch-chain. "It pleases
+all parties except those whom I want to rub up the wrong way. I've made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+many a woman's hair curl, I can tell you! You'll be my 'Somersetshire
+beauty,' won't you, Miss Grace?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think not!" she replied, with a cool glance. "My hair curls quite
+enough already. I never use tongs!"</p>
+
+<p>Brookfield burst into a laugh, and the laugh was echoed murmurously by
+the other men in the room. Wrotham flushed and bit his lip.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a one&mdash;er for me," he said lazily. "Pretty kitten as you are,
+Miss Grace, you can scratch! That's always the worst of women,&mdash;they've
+got such infernally sharp tongues&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Grace!" interrupted her mother, at this juncture&mdash;"You are wanted in
+the kitchen."</p>
+
+<p>Grace took the maternal hint and retired at once. At that instant Tom o'
+the Gleam stirred slightly from his hitherto rigid attitude. He had only
+taken half his glass of brandy, but that small amount had brought back a
+tinge of colour to his face and deepened the sparkle of fire in his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Good roads for motoring about here!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Wrotham looked up,&mdash;then measuring the great height, muscular
+build, and commanding appearance of the speaker, nodded affably.</p>
+
+<p>"First-rate!" he replied. "We had a splendid run from Cleeve Abbey."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnificent!" echoed Brookfield. "Not half a second's stop all the way.
+We should have been far beyond Minehead by this time, if it hadn't been
+for the break-down. We were racing from London to the Land's End,&mdash;but
+we took a wrong turning just before we came to Cleeve&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Took a wrong turning, did you?" And Tom leaned a little forward as
+though to hear more accurately. His face had grown deadly pale again,
+and he breathed quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. We found ourselves quite close to Cleeve Abbey, but we didn't stop
+to see old ruins this time, you bet! We just tore down the first lane we
+saw running back into the highroad,&mdash;a pretty steep bit of ground
+too&mdash;and, by Jove!&mdash;didn't we whizz round the corner at the bottom! That
+was a near shave, I can tell you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay!" said Tom slowly, listening with an air of profound interest.
+"You've got a smart chauffeur, no doubt!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No chauffeur at all!" declared Brookfield, emphatically. "His lordship
+drives his car himself."</p>
+
+<p>There followed an odd silence. All the customers in the room, drinking
+and eating as many of them were, seemed to be under a dumb spell. Tom o'
+the Gleam's presence was at all times more or less of a terror to the
+timorous, and that he, who as a rule avoided strangers, should on his
+own initiative enter into conversation with the two motorists, was of
+itself a circumstance that awakened considerable wonder and interest.
+David Helmsley, sitting apart in the shadow, could not take his eyes off
+the gypsy's face and figure,&mdash;a kind of fascination impelled him to
+watch with strained attention the dark shape, moulded with such
+herculean symmetry, which seemed to command and subdue the very air that
+gave it force and sustenance.</p>
+
+<p>"His lordship drives his car himself!" echoed Tom, and a curious smile
+parted his lips, showing an almost sinister gleam of white teeth between
+his full black moustache and beard,&mdash;then, bringing his sombre glance to
+bear slowly down on Wrotham's insignificant form, he continued,&mdash;"Are
+you his lordship?"</p>
+
+<p>Wrotham nodded with a careless condescension, and, lighting a cigar,
+began to smoke it.</p>
+
+<p>"And you drive your car yourself!" proceeded Tom,&mdash;"you must have good
+nerve and a keen eye!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well!" And Wrotham laughed airily&mdash;"Pretty much so!&mdash;but I won't
+boast!"</p>
+
+<p>"How many miles an hour?" went on Tom, pursuing his inquiries with an
+almost morbid eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"Forty or fifty, I suppose&mdash;sometimes more. I always run at the highest
+speed. Of course that kind of thing knocks the motor to pieces rather
+soon, but one can always buy another."</p>
+
+<p>"True!" said Tom. "Very true! One can always buy another!" He paused,
+and seemed to collect his thoughts with an effort,&mdash;then noticing the
+half-glass of brandy he had left on the counter, he took it up and drank
+it all off at a gulp. "Have you ever had any accidents on the road?"</p>
+
+<p>"Accidents?" Lord Wrotham put up an eyeglass. "Accidents? What do you
+mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what should I mean except what I say!" And Tom gave a sudden loud
+laugh,&mdash;a laugh which made the hostess at the bar start nervously, while
+many of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> men seated round the various tables exchanged uneasy
+glances. "Accidents are accidents all the world over! Haven't you ever
+been thrown out, upset, shaken in body, broken in bone, or otherwise
+involved in mischief?"</p>
+
+<p>Lord Wrotham smiled, and let his eyeglass fall with a click against his
+top waistcoat button.</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" he said, taking his cigar from his mouth, looking at it, and
+then replacing it with a relish&mdash;"I'm too fond of my own life to run any
+risk of losing it. Other people's lives don't matter so much, but mine
+is precious! Eh, Brookfield?"</p>
+
+<p>Brookfield chuckled himself purple in the face over this pleasantry, and
+declared that his lordship's wit grew sharper with every day of his
+existence. Meanwhile Tom o' the Gleam moved a step or two nearer to
+Wrotham.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a lucky lord!" he said, and again he laughed discordantly. "Very
+lucky! But you don't mean to tell me that while you're pounding along at
+full speed, you've never upset anything in your way?&mdash;never knocked down
+an old man or woman,&mdash;never run over a dog,&mdash;or a child?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, if you mean that kind of thing!" murmured Wrotham, puffing
+placidly at his cigar&mdash;"Of course! That's quite common! We're always
+running over something or other, aren't we, Brookie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Always!" declared that gentleman pleasantly. "Really it's half the
+fun!"</p>
+
+<p>"Positively it is, don't-cher-know!" and his lordship played again with
+his enamelled pig&mdash;"But it's not our fault. If things will get into our
+way, we can't wait till they get out. We're bound to ride over them. Do
+you remember that old hen, Brookie?"</p>
+
+<p>Brookfield spluttered into a laugh, and nodded in the affirmative.</p>
+
+<p>"There it was skipping over the road in front of us in as great a hurry
+as ever hen was," went on Wrotham. "Going back to its family of eggs per
+express waddle! Whiz! Pst&mdash;and all its eggs and waddles were over! By
+Jove, how we screamed! Ha&mdash;ha&mdash;ha!&mdash;he&mdash;he&mdash;he!"</p>
+
+<p>Lord Wrotham's laugh resembled that laugh peculiar to "society"
+folk,&mdash;the laugh civil-sniggering, which is just a tone between the
+sheep's bleat and the peewit's cry. But no one laughed in response, and
+no one spoke. Some heavy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> spell was in the air like a cloud shadowing a
+landscape, and an imaginative onlooker would have been inclined to think
+that this imperceptible mystic darkness had come in with Tom o' the
+Gleam and was centralising itself round him alone. Brookfield, seeing
+that his lordly patron was inclined to talk, and that he was evidently
+anxious to narrate various "car" incidents, similar to the hen episode,
+took up the conversation and led it on.</p>
+
+<p>"It is really quite absurd," he said, "for any one of common sense to
+argue that a motorist can, could, or should pull up every moment for the
+sake of a few stray animals, or even people, when they don't seem to
+know or care where they are going. Now think of that child to-day! What
+an absolute little idiot! Gathering wild thyme and holding it out to the
+car going full speed! No wonder we knocked it over!"</p>
+
+<p>The hostess of the inn looked up quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope it was not hurt?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear no!" answered Lord Wrotham lightly. "It just fell back and
+turned a somersault in the grass,&mdash;evidently enjoying itself. It had a
+narrow escape though!"</p>
+
+<p>Tom o' the Gleam stared fixedly at him. Once or twice he essayed to
+speak, but no sound came from his twitching lips. Presently, with an
+effort, he found his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you&mdash;did you stop the car and go back to see&mdash;to see if&mdash;if it was
+all right?" he asked, in curiously harsh, monotonous accents.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop the car? Go back? By Jove, I should think not indeed! I'd lost too
+much time already through taking a wrong turning. The child was all
+right enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure?" muttered Tom thickly. "Are you&mdash;quite&mdash;sure?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure?" And Wrotham again had recourse to his eyeglass, which he stuck
+in one eye, while he fixed his interlocutor with a supercilious glance.
+"Of course I'm sure! What the devil d' ye take me for? It was a mere
+beggar's brat anyhow&mdash;there are too many of such little wretches running
+loose about the roads&mdash;regular nuisances&mdash;a few might be run over with
+advantage&mdash;Hullo! What now? What's the matter? Keep your distance,
+please!" For Tom suddenly threw up his clenched fists with an
+inarticulate cry of rage, and now leaped towards Wrotham in the attitude
+of a wild beast springing on its prey. "Hands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> off! Hands off, I say!
+Damn you, leave me alone! Brookfield! Here! Some one get a hold of this
+fellow! He's mad!"</p>
+
+<p>But before Brookfield or any other man could move to his assistance, Tom
+had pounced upon him with all the fury of a famished tiger.</p>
+
+<p>"God curse you!" he panted, between the gasps of his labouring
+breath&mdash;"God burn you for ever in Hell!"</p>
+
+<p>Down on the ground he hurled him, clutching him round the neck, and
+choking every attempt at a cry. Then falling himself in all his huge
+height, breadth, and weight, upon Wrotham's prone body he crushed it
+under and held it beneath him, while, with appalling swiftness and
+vehemence, he plunged a drawn claspknife deep in his victim's throat,
+hacking the flesh from left to right, from right to left with reckless
+ferocity, till the blood spurted about him in horrid crimson jets, and
+gushed in a dark pool on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Piercing screams from the women, groans and cries from the men, filled
+the air, and the lately peaceful scene was changed to one of maddening
+confusion. Brookfield rushed wildly through the open door of the inn
+into the village street, yelling: "Help! Help! Murder! Help!" and in
+less than five minutes the place was filled with an excited crowd.
+"Tom!" "Tom o' the Gleam!" ran in frightened whispers from mouth to
+mouth. David Helmsley, giddy with the sudden shock of terror, rose
+shuddering from his place with a vague idea of instant flight in his
+mind, but remained standing inert, half paralysed by sheer panic, while
+several men surrounded Tom, and dragged him forcibly up from the ground
+where he lay, still grasping his murdered man. As they wrenched the
+gypsy's grappling arms away, Wrotham fell back on the floor, stone dead.
+Life had been thrust out of him with the first blow dealt him by Tom's
+claspknife, which had been aimed at his throat as a butcher aims at the
+throat of a swine. His bleeding corpse presented a frightful spectacle,
+the head being nearly severed from the body.</p>
+
+<p>Brookfield, shaking all over, turned his back upon the awful sight, and
+kept on running to and fro and up and down the street, clamouring like a
+madman for the police. Two sturdy constables presently came, their
+appearance restoring something like order. To them Tom o' the Gleam
+advanced, extending his blood-stained hands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I am ready!" he said, in a quiet voice. "I am the murderer!"</p>
+
+<p>They looked at him. Then, by way of precaution, one of them clasped a
+pair of manacles on his wrists. The other, turning his eyes to the
+corpse on the floor, recoiled in horror.</p>
+
+<p>"Throw something over it!" he commanded.</p>
+
+<p>He was obeyed, and the dreadful remains of what had once been human,
+were quickly shrouded from view.</p>
+
+<p>"How did this happen?" was the next question put by the officer of the
+law who had already spoken, opening his notebook.</p>
+
+<p>A chorus of eager tongues answered him, Brookfield's excited explanation
+echoing above them all. His dear friend, his great, noble, good friend
+had been brutally murdered! His friend was Lord Wrotham, of Wrotham
+Hall, Blankshire! A break-down had occurred within half a mile of Blue
+Anchor, and Lord Wrotham had taken rooms at the present inn for the
+night. His lordship had condescended to enter into a friendly
+conversation with the ruffian now under arrest, who, without the
+slightest cause or provocation whatsoever, had suddenly attacked and
+overthrown his lordship, and plunged a knife into his lordship's throat!
+He himself was James Brookfield, proprietor of the <i>Daily Post-Bag</i>, the
+<i>Pictorial Pie</i>, and the <i>Illustrated Invoice</i>, and he should make this
+outrageous, this awful crime a warning to motorists throughout the
+world&mdash;&mdash;!"</p>
+
+<p>"That will do, thank you," said the officer briefly&mdash;then he gave a
+sharp glance around him&mdash;"Where's the landlady?"</p>
+
+<p>She had fled in terror from the scene, and some one went in search of
+her, returning with the poor woman and her two daughters, all of them
+deathly pale and shivering with dread.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be frightened, mother!" said one of the constables kindly&mdash;"No
+harm will come to you. Just tell us what you saw of this affair&mdash;that's
+all."</p>
+
+<p>Whereat the poor hostess, her narrative interrupted by tears, explained
+that Tom o' the Gleam was a frequent customer of hers, and that she had
+never thought badly of him.</p>
+
+<p>"He was a bit excited to-night, but he wasn't drunk," she said. "He told
+me he was ill, and asked for a glass<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> of brandy. He looked as if he were
+in great pain, and I gave him the brandy at once and asked him to step
+inside the bar. But he wouldn't do that,&mdash;he just stood talking with the
+gentlemen about motoring, and then something was said about a child
+being knocked over by the motor,&mdash;and all of a sudden&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here her voice broke, and she sank on a seat half swooning, while
+Elizabeth, her eldest girl, finished the story in low, trembling tones.
+Tom o' the Gleam meanwhile stood rigidly upright and silent. To him the
+chief officer of the law finally turned.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come with us quietly?" he asked, "or do you mean to give us
+trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>Tom lifted his dark eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall give no man any more trouble," he answered. "I shall go nowhere
+save where I am taken. You need fear nothing from me now. But I must
+speak."</p>
+
+<p>The officer frowned warningly.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better not!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I must!" repeated Tom. "You think,&mdash;all of you,&mdash;that I had no
+cause&mdash;no provocation&mdash;to kill the man who lies there"&mdash;and he turned a
+fierce glance upon the covered corpse, from which a dark stream of blood
+was trickling slowly along the floor&mdash;"I swear before God that I <i>had</i>
+cause!&mdash;and that my cause was just! I <i>had</i> provocation!&mdash;the bitterest
+and worst! That man was a murderer as surely as I am. Look yonder!" And
+lifting his manacled hands he extended them towards the bench where lay
+the bundle covered with horse-cloth, which he had carried in his arms
+and set down when he had first entered the inn. "Look, I say!&mdash;and then
+tell me I had no cause!"</p>
+
+<p>With an uneasy glance one of the officers went up to the spot indicated,
+and hurriedly, yet fearfully, lifted the horse-cloth and looked under
+it. Then uttering an exclamation of horror and pity, he drew away the
+covering altogether, and disclosed to view the dead body of a child,&mdash;a
+little curly-headed lad,&mdash;lying as if it were asleep, a smile on its
+pretty mouth, and a bunch of wild thyme clasped in the clenched fingers
+of its small right hand.</p>
+
+<p>"My God! It's Kiddie!"</p>
+
+<p>The exclamation was uttered almost simultaneously by every one in the
+room, and the girl Elizabeth sprang forward.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, not Kiddie!" she cried&mdash;"Oh, surely not Kiddie! Oh, the poor little
+darling!&mdash;the pretty little man!"</p>
+
+<p>And she fell on her knees beside the tiny corpse and gave way to a wild
+fit of weeping.</p>
+
+<p>There was an awful silence, broken only by her sobbing. Men turned away
+and covered their eyes&mdash;Brookfield edged himself stealthily through the
+little crowd and sneaked out into the open air&mdash;and the officers of the
+law stood inactive. Helmsley felt the room whirling about him in a
+sickening blackness, and sat down to steady himself, the stinging tears
+rising involuntarily in his throat and almost choking him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Kiddie!" wailed Elizabeth again, looking up in plaintive
+appeal&mdash;"Oh, mother, mother, see! Grace come here! Kiddie's dead! The
+poor innocent little child!" They came at her call, and knelt with her,
+crying bitterly, and smoothing back with tender hands the thickly
+tangled dark curls of the smiling dead thing, with the fragrance of wild
+thyme clinging about it, as though it were a broken flower torn from the
+woods where it had blossomed. Tom o' the Gleam watched them, and his
+broad chest heaved with a sudden gasping sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"You all know now," he said slowly, staring with strained piteous eyes
+at the little lifeless body&mdash;"you understand,&mdash;the motor killed my
+Kiddie! He was playing on the road&mdash;I was close by among the trees&mdash;I
+saw the cursed car coming full speed downhill&mdash;I rushed to take the boy,
+but was too late&mdash;he cried once&mdash;and then&mdash;silence! All the laughter
+gone out of him&mdash;all the life and love&mdash;&mdash;" He paused with a
+shudder.&mdash;"I carried him all the way, and followed the car," he went
+on&mdash;"I would have followed it to the world's end! I ran by a short cut
+down near the sea,&mdash;and then&mdash;I saw the thing break down. I thanked God
+for that! I tracked the murderers here,&mdash;I meant to kill the man who
+killed my child!&mdash;and I have done it!" He paused again. Then he held out
+his hands and looked at the constable.</p>
+
+<p>"May I&mdash;before I go&mdash;take him in my arms&mdash;and kiss him?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The chief officer nodded. He could not speak, but he unfastened Tom's
+manacles and threw them on the floor. Then Tom himself moved feebly and
+unsteadily to where the women knelt beside his dead child. They rose as
+he approached, but did not turn away.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You have hearts, you women!" he said faintly. "You know what it is to
+love a child! And Kiddie,&mdash;Kiddie was such a happy little fellow!&mdash;so
+strong and hearty!&mdash;so full of life! And now&mdash;now he's stiff and cold!
+Only this morning he was jumping and laughing in my arms&mdash;&mdash;" He broke
+off, trembling violently, then with an effort he raised his head and
+turned his eyes with a wild stare upon all around him. "We are only poor
+folk!" he went on, in a firmer voice. "Only gypsies, tinkers,
+road-menders, labourers, and the like! We cannot fight against the rich
+who ride us down! There's no law for us, because we can't pay for it. We
+can't fee the counsel or dine the judge! The rich can pay. They can
+trample us down under their devilish motor-cars, and obliging juries
+will declare our wrongs and injuries and deaths to be mere 'accident' or
+'misadventure'! But if <i>they</i> can kill, by God!&mdash;so can <i>we</i>! And if the
+law lets them off for murdering our children, we must take the law into
+our own hands and murder <i>them</i> in turn&mdash;ay! even if we swing for it!"</p>
+
+<p>No one spoke. The women still sobbed convulsively, but otherwise there
+was a great silence. Tom o' the Gleam stretched forth his hands with an
+eloquent gesture of passion.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at him lying there!" he cried&mdash;"Only a child&mdash;a little child! So
+pretty and playful!&mdash;all his joy was in the birds and flowers! The
+robins knew him and would perch on his shoulder,&mdash;he would call to the
+cuckoo,&mdash;he would race the swallow,&mdash;he would lie in the grass and sing
+with the skylark and talk to the daisies. He was happy with the simplest
+things&mdash;and when we put him to bed in his little hammock under the
+trees, he would smile up at the stars and say: 'Mother's up there!
+Good-night, mother!' Oh, the lonely trees, and the empty hammock! Oh, my
+lad!&mdash;my little pretty lad! Murdered! Murdered! Gone from me for ever!
+For ever! God! God!"</p>
+
+<p>Reeling heavily forward, he sank in a crouching heap beside the child's
+dead body and snatched it into his embrace, kissing the little cold lips
+and cheeks and eyelids again and again, and pressing it with frantic
+fervour against his breast.</p>
+
+<p>"The dark hour!" he muttered&mdash;"the dark hour! To-day when I came away
+over the moors I felt it creeping upon me! Last night it whispered to
+me, and I felt its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> cold breath hissing against my ears! When I climbed
+down the rocks to the seashore, I heard it wailing in the waves!&mdash;and
+through the hollows of the rocks it shrieked an unknown horror at me!
+Who was it that said to-day&mdash;'He is only a child after all, and he might
+be taken from you'? I remember!&mdash;it was Miss Tranter who spoke&mdash;and she
+was sorry afterwards&mdash;ah, yes!&mdash;she was sorry!&mdash;but it was the spirit of
+the hour that moved her to the utterance of a warning&mdash;she could not
+help herself,&mdash;and I&mdash;I should have been more careful!&mdash;I should not
+have left my little one for a moment,&mdash;but I never thought any harm
+could come to him&mdash;no, never to <i>him</i>! I was always sure God was too
+good for that!"</p>
+
+<p>Moaning drearily, he rocked the dead boy to and fro.</p>
+
+<p>"Kiddie&mdash;my Kiddie!" he murmured&mdash;"Little one with my love's
+eyes!&mdash;heart's darling with my love's face! Don't go to sleep,
+Kiddie!&mdash;not just yet!&mdash;wake up and kiss me once!&mdash;only once again,
+Kiddie!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tom!" sobbed Elizabeth,&mdash;"Oh, poor, poor Tom!"</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of her voice he raised his head and looked up at her. There
+was a strange expression on his face,&mdash;a fixed and terrible stare in his
+eyes. Suddenly he broke into a wild laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha-ha!" he cried. "Poor Tom! Tom o' the Gleam! That's me!&mdash;the me that
+was not always me! Not always me&mdash;no!&mdash;not always Tom o' the Gleam! It
+was a bold life I led in the woods long ago!&mdash;a life full of sunshine
+and laughter&mdash;a life for a man with man's blood in his veins! Away out
+in the land that once was old Provence, we jested and sang the hours
+away,&mdash;the women with their guitars and mandolines&mdash;the men with their
+wild dances and tambourines,&mdash;and love was the keynote of the
+music&mdash;love!&mdash;always love! Love in the sunshine!&mdash;love under the
+moonbeams!&mdash;bright eyes in which to drown one's soul,&mdash;red lips on which
+to crush one's heart!&mdash;Ah, God!&mdash;such days when we were young!</p>
+
+<p>
+'Ah! Craignons de perdre un seul jour,<br />
+De la belle saison de l'amour!'"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>He sang these lines in a rich baritone, clear and thrilling with
+passion, and the men grouped about him, not understanding what he sang,
+glanced at one another with an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> uneasy sense of fear. All at once he
+struggled to his feet without assistance, and stood upright, still
+clasping the body of his child in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come!" he said thickly&mdash;"It's time we were off, Kiddie! We must
+get across the moor and into camp. It's time for all lambs to be in the
+fold;&mdash;time to go to bed, my little lad! Good-night, mates! Good-night!
+I know you all,&mdash;and you all know me&mdash;you like fair play! Fair play all
+round, eh? Not one law for the rich and another for the poor! Even
+justice, boys! Justice! Justice!"</p>
+
+<p>Here his voice broke in a great and awful cry,&mdash;blood sprang from his
+lips&mdash;his face grew darkly purple,&mdash;and like a huge tree snapped asunder
+by a storm, he reeled heavily to the ground. One of the constables
+caught him as he fell.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold up, Tom!" he said tremulously, the thick tears standing in his
+eyes. "Don't give way! Be a man! Hold up! Steady! Here, let me take the
+poor Kiddie!"</p>
+
+<p>For a ghastly pallor was stealing over Tom's features, and his lips were
+widely parted in a gasping struggle for breath.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no!&mdash;don't take my boy!" he muttered feebly. "Let me&mdash;keep
+him&mdash;with me! God is good&mdash;good after all!&mdash;we shall not&mdash;be parted!"</p>
+
+<p>A strong convulsion shook his sinewy frame from head to foot, and he
+writhed in desperate agony. The officer put an arm under his head, and
+made an expressive sign to the awed witnesses of the scene. Helmsley,
+startled at this, came hurriedly forward, trembling and scarcely able to
+speak in the extremity of his fear and pity.</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;what is it?" he stammered. "Not&mdash;not&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Death! That's what it is!" said the officer, gently. "His heart's
+broken!"</p>
+
+<p>One rough fellow here pushed his way to the side of the fallen man,&mdash;it
+was the cattle-driver who had taken part in the previous conversation
+among the customers at the inn before the occurrence of the tragedy. He
+knelt down, sobbing like a child.</p>
+
+<p>"Tom!" he faltered, "Tom, old chap! Hearten up a bit! Don't leave us!
+There's not one of us us'll think ill of ye!&mdash;no, not if the law was to
+shut ye up for life! You was allus good to us poor folk&mdash;an' poor folk
+aint as forgittin' o' kindness as rich. Stay an' help us along,
+Tom!&mdash;you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> was allus brave an' strong an' hearty&mdash;an' there's many of us
+wantin' comfort an' cheer, eh Tom?"</p>
+
+<p>Tom's splendid dark eyes opened, and a smile, very wan and wistful,
+gleamed across his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that you, Jim?" he muttered feebly. "It's all dark and cold!&mdash;I
+can't see!&mdash;there'll be a frost to-night, and the lambs must be watched
+a bit&mdash;I'm afraid I can't help you, Jim&mdash;not to-night! Wanting comfort,
+did you say? Ay!&mdash;plenty wanting that, but I'm past giving it, my boy!
+I'm done."</p>
+
+<p>He drew a struggling breath with pain and difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Jim, I've killed a man!" he went on,
+gaspingly&mdash;"And&mdash;and&mdash;I've no money&mdash;we all share and share alike in
+camp&mdash;it won't be worth any one's while to find excuses for me. They'd
+shut me up in prison if I lived&mdash;but now&mdash;God's my judge! And He's
+merciful&mdash;He's giving me my liberty!"</p>
+
+<p>His eyelids fell wearily, and a shadow, dark at first, and then
+lightening into an ivory pallor, began to cover his features like a fine
+mask, at sight of which the girls, Elizabeth and Grace, with their
+mother, knelt down and hid their faces. Every one in the room knelt too,
+and there was a profound stillness. Tom's breathing grew heavier and
+more laboured,&mdash;once they made an attempt to lift the weight of his
+child's dead body from his breast, but his hands were clenched upon it
+convulsively and they could not loosen his hold. All at once Elizabeth
+lifted her head and prayed aloud&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"O God, have mercy on our poor friend Tom, and help him through the
+Valley of the Shadow! Grant him Thy forgiveness for all his sins, and
+let him find&mdash;&mdash;" here she broke down and sobbed pitifully,&mdash;then
+between her tears she finished her petition&mdash;"Let him find his little
+child with Thee!"</p>
+
+<p>A low and solemn "Amen" was the response to her prayer from all present,
+and suddenly Tom opened his eyes with a surprised bright look.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Kiddie all right?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Tom!" It was Elizabeth who answered, bending over him&mdash;"Kiddie's
+all right! He's fast asleep in your arms."</p>
+
+<p>"So he is!" And the brilliancy in Tom's eyes grew still more radiant,
+while with one hand he caressed the thick<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> dark curls that clustered on
+the head of his dead boy&mdash;"Poor little chap! Tired out, and so am I!
+It's very cold surely!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Tom, it is. Very cold!"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so! I&mdash;I must keep the child warm. They'll be worried in camp
+over all this&mdash;Kiddie never stays out so late. He's such a little
+fellow&mdash;only four!&mdash;and he goes to bed early always. And when&mdash;when he's
+asleep&mdash;why then&mdash;then&mdash;the day's over for me,&mdash;and night begins&mdash;night
+begins!"</p>
+
+<p>The smile lingered on his lips, and settled there at last in coldest
+gravity,&mdash;the fine mask of death covered his features with an
+impenetrable waxen stillness&mdash;all was over! Tom o' the Gleam had gone
+with his slain child, and the victim he had sacrificed to his revenge,
+into the presence of that Supreme Recorder who chronicles all deeds both
+good and evil, and who, in the character of Divine Justice, may,
+perchance, find that the sheer brutal selfishness of the modern social
+world is more utterly to be condemned, and more criminal even than
+murder.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Sick at heart, and utterly overcome by the sudden and awful tragedy to
+which he had been an enforced silent witness, David Helmsley had now but
+one idea, and that was at once to leave the scene of horror which, like
+a ghastly nightmare, scarred his vision and dizzied his brain. Stumbling
+feebly along, and seeming to those who by chance noticed him, no more
+than a poor old tramp terrified out of his wits by the grief and
+confusion which prevailed, he made his way gradually through the crowd
+now pressing closely round the dead, and went forth into the village
+street. He held the little dog Charlie nestled under his coat, where he
+had kept it hidden all the evening,&mdash;the tiny creature was shivering
+violently with that strange consciousness of the atmosphere of death
+which is instinctive to so many animals,&mdash;and a vague wish to soothe its
+fears helped him for the moment to forget his own feelings. He would not
+trust himself to look again at Tom o' the Gleam, stretched lifeless on
+the ground with his slaughtered child clasped in his arms; he could not
+speak to any one of the terrified people. He heard the constables giving
+hurried orders for the removal of the bodies, and he saw two more police
+officers arrive and go into the stableyard of the inn, there to take the
+number of the motor-car and write down the full deposition of that
+potentate of the pictorial press, James Brookfield. And he knew, without
+any explanation, that the whole affair would probably be served up the
+next day in the cheaper newspapers as a "sensational" crime, so worded
+as to lay all the blame on Tom o' the Gleam, and to exonerate the act,
+and deplore the violent death of the "lordly" brute who, out of his
+selfish and wicked recklessness, had snatched away the life of an only
+child from its father without care or compunction. But it was the
+fearful swiftness of the catastrophe that affected Helmsley most,&mdash;that,
+and what seemed to him, the needless cruelty of fate. Only last night he
+had seen Tom o' the Gleam for the first time&mdash;only last night he had
+admired the physical symmetry and grace of the man,&mdash;his handsome head,
+his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> rich voice, and the curious refinement, suggestive of some past
+culture and education, which gave such a charm to his manner,&mdash;only last
+night he had experienced that little proof of human sympathy and
+kindliness which had shown itself in the gift of the few coins which Tom
+had collected and placed on his pillow,&mdash;only last night he had been
+touched by the herculean fellow's tenderness for his little
+"Kiddie,"&mdash;and now,&mdash;within the space of twenty-four hours, both father
+and child had gone out of life at a rush as fierce and relentless as the
+speed of the motor-car which had crushed a world of happiness under its
+merciless wheels. Was it right&mdash;was it just that such things should be?
+Could one believe in the goodness of God, in such a world of wanton
+wickedness? Moving along in a blind haze of bewilderment, Helmsley's
+thoughts were all disordered and his mind in a whirl,&mdash;what
+consciousness he had left to him was centred in an effort to get
+away&mdash;away!&mdash;far away from the scene of murder and death,&mdash;away from the
+scent and trail of blood which seemed to infect and poison the very air!</p>
+
+<p>It was a calm and lovely night. The moon rode high, and there was a soft
+wind blowing in from the sea. Out over the waste of heaving water, where
+the moonbeams turned the small rippling waves to the resemblance of
+netted links of silver or steel, the horizon stretched sharply clear and
+definite, like a line drawn under the finished chapter of vision. There
+was a gentle murmur of the inflowing tide among the loose stones and
+pebbles fringing the beach,&mdash;but to Helmsley's ears it sounded like the
+miserable moaning of a broken heart,&mdash;the wail of a sorrowful spirit in
+torture. He went on and on, with no very distinct idea of where he was
+going,&mdash;he simply continued to walk automatically like one in a dream.
+He did not know the time, but guessed it must be somewhere about
+midnight. The road was quite deserted, and its loneliness was to him, in
+his present over-wrought condition, appalling. Desolation seemed to
+involve the whole earth in gloom,&mdash;the trees stood out in the white
+shine of the moon like dark shrouded ghosts waving their cerements to
+and fro,&mdash;the fields and hills on either side of him were bare and
+solitary, and the gleam of the ocean was cold and cheerless as a "Dead
+Man's Pool." Slowly he plodded along, with a thousand disjointed
+fragments of thought and memory teasing his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> brain, all part and parcel
+of his recent experiences,&mdash;he seemed to have lived through a whole
+history of strange events since the herb-gatherer, Matt Peke, had
+befriended him on the road,&mdash;and the most curious impression of all was
+that he had somehow lost his own identity for ever. It was impossible
+and ridiculous to think of himself as David Helmsley, the
+millionaire,&mdash;there was, there could be no such person! David
+Helmsley,&mdash;the real David Helmsley,&mdash;was very old, very tired, very
+poor,&mdash;there was nothing left for him in this world save death. He had
+no children, no friends,&mdash;no one who cared for him or who wanted to know
+what had become of him. He was absolutely alone,&mdash;and in the hush of the
+summer night he fancied that the very moon looked down upon him with a
+chill stare as though wondering why he burdened the earth with his
+presence when it was surely time for him to die!</p>
+
+<p>It was not till he found that he was leaving the shore line, and that
+one or two gas lamps twinkled faintly ahead of him, that he realized he
+was entering the outskirts of a small town. Pausing a moment, he looked
+about him. A high-walled castle, majestically enthroned on a steep
+wooded height, was the first object that met his view,&mdash;every line of
+its frowning battlements and turrets was seen clearly against the sky as
+though etched out on a dark background with a pencil of light. A
+sign-post at the corner of a winding road gave the direction "To Dunster
+Castle." Reading this by the glimmer of the moon, Helmsley stood
+irresolute for a minute or so, and then resumed his tramp, proceeding
+through the streets of what he knew must be Dunster itself. He had no
+intention of stopping in the town,&mdash;an inward nervousness pushed him on,
+on, in spite of fatigue, and Dunster was not far enough away from Blue
+Anchor to satisfy him. The scene of Tom o' the Gleam's revenge and death
+surrounded him with a horrible environment,&mdash;an atmosphere from which he
+sought to free himself by sheer distance, and he resolved to walk till
+morning rather than remain anywhere near the place which was now
+associated in his mind with one of the darkest episodes of human guilt
+and suffering that he had ever known. Passing by the old inn known as
+"The Luttrell Arms," now fast closed for the night, a policeman on his
+beat stopped in his marching to and fro, and spoke to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Hillo! Which way do you come from?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"From Watchett."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! We've just had news of a murder up at Blue Anchor. Have you heard
+anything of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." And Helmsley looked his questioner squarely in the face. "It's a
+terrible business! But the murderer's caught!"</p>
+
+<p>"Caught is he? Who's got him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Death!" And Helmsley, lifting his cap, stood bareheaded in the
+moonlight. "He'll never escape again!"</p>
+
+<p>The constable looked amazed and a little awed.</p>
+
+<p>"Death? Why, I heard it was that wild gypsy, Tom o' the Gleam&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"So it was,"&mdash;said Helmsley, gently,&mdash;"and Tom o' the Gleam is dead!"</p>
+
+<p>"No! Don't say that!" ejaculated the constable with real concern.
+"There's a lot of good in Tom! I shouldn't like to think he's gone!"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll find it's true," said Helmsley. "And perhaps, when you get all
+the details, you'll think it for the best. Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you staying in Dunster?" queried the officer with a keen glance.</p>
+
+<p>"No. I'm moving on." And Helmsley smiled wearily as he again
+said&mdash;"Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>He walked steadily, though slowly, through the sleeping town, and passed
+out of it. Ascending a winding bit of road he found himself once more in
+the open country, and presently came to a field where part of the fence
+had been broken through by the cattle. Just behind the damaged palings
+there was a covered shed, open in front, with a few bundles of straw
+packed within it. This place suggested itself as a fairly comfortable
+shelter for an hour's rest, and becoming conscious of the intense aching
+of his limbs, he took possession of it, setting the small "Charlie" down
+to gambol on the grass at pleasure. He was far more tired than he knew,
+and remembering the "yerb wine" which Matt Peke had provided him with,
+he took a long draught of it, grateful for its reviving warmth and tonic
+power. Then, half-dreamily, he watched the little dog whom he had
+rescued and befriended, and presently found himself vaguely entertained
+by the graceful antics of the tiny creature which, despite its wounded
+paw, capered limpingly after its own shadow flung by the moonlight on
+the greensward, and attempted in its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> own playful way to attract the
+attention of its new master and wile him away from his mood of utter
+misery. Involuntarily he thought of the frenzied cry of Shakespeare's
+"Lear" over the dead body of Cordelia:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"What! Shall a dog, a horse, a rat, have life<br />
+And thou no breath at all!"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>What curious caprice of destiny was it that saved the life of a dog, yet
+robbed a father of his child? Who could explain it? Why should a happy
+innocent little lad like Tom o' the Gleam's "Kiddie" have been hurled
+out of existence in a moment as it were by the mad speed of a motor's
+wheels,&mdash;and a fragile "toy" terrier, the mere whim of dog-breeders and
+plaything for fanciful women, be plucked from starvation and death as
+though the great forces of creation deemed it more worth cherishing than
+a human being! For the murder of Lord Wrotham, Helmsley found
+excuse,&mdash;for the death of Tom there was ample natural cause,&mdash;but for
+the wanton killing of a little child no reason could justly be assigned.
+Propping his elbows on his knees, and resting his aching head on his
+hands, he thought and thought,&mdash;till Thought became almost as a fire in
+his brain. What was the use of life? he asked himself. What definite
+plan or object could there possibly be in the perpetuation of the human
+race?</p>
+
+<p>
+"To pace the same dull round<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On each recurring day,</span><br />
+For seventy years or more<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till strength and hope decay,&mdash;</span><br />
+To trust,&mdash;and be deceived,&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And standing,&mdash;fear to fall!</span><br />
+To find no resting-place&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Can this be all?</i>"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Beginning with hope and eagerness, and having confidence in the good
+faith of his fellow-men, had he not himself fought a hard fight in the
+world, setting before him a certain goal,&mdash;a goal which he had won and
+passed,&mdash;to what purpose? In youth he had been very poor,&mdash;and poverty
+had served him as a spur to ambition. In middle life he had become one
+of the richest men in the world. He had done all that rich and ambitious
+men set themselves out to do. He might have said with the Preacher:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them,&mdash;I withheld not my
+heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced in all my labour, and this was
+my portion of all my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my
+hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do, and
+behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit
+under the sun."</p>
+
+<p>He had loved,&mdash;or rather, he had imagined he loved,&mdash;he had married, and
+his wife had dishonoured him. Sons had been born to him, who, with their
+mother's treacherous blood in their veins, had brought him to shame by
+their conduct,&mdash;and now all the kith and kin he had sought to surround
+himself with were dead, and he was alone&mdash;as alone as he had ever been
+at the very commencement of his career. Had his long life of toil led
+him only to this? With a sense of dull disappointment, his mind reverted
+to the plan he had half entertained of benefiting Tom o' the Gleam in
+some way and making him happy by prospering the fortunes of the child he
+loved so well,&mdash;though he was fully aware that perhaps he could not have
+done much in that direction, as it was more than likely that Tom would
+have resented the slightest hint of a rich man's patronage. Death,
+however, in its fiercest shape, had now put an abrupt end to any such
+benevolent scheme, whether or not it might have been feasible,&mdash;and,
+absorbed in a kind of lethargic reverie, he again and again asked
+himself what use he was in the world?&mdash;what could he do with the brief
+remaining portion of his life?&mdash;and how he could dispose, to his own
+satisfaction, of the vast wealth which, like a huge golden mill-stone,
+hung round his neck, dragging him down to the grave? Such poor people as
+he had met with during his tramp seemed fairly contented with their lot;
+he, at any rate, had heard no complaints of poverty from them. On the
+contrary, they had shown an independence of thought and freedom of life
+which was wholly incompatible with the mere desire of money. He could
+put a five-pound note in an envelope and post it anonymously to Matt
+Peke at the "Trusty Man" as a slight return for his kindness, but he was
+quite sure that though Matt might be pleased enough with the money he
+would equally be puzzled, and not entirely satisfied in his mind as to
+whether he was doing right to accept and use it. It would probably be
+put in a savings bank for a "rainy day."</p>
+
+<p>"It is the hardest thing in the world to do good with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> money!" he mused,
+sorrowfully. "Of course if I were to say this to the unthinking
+majority, they would gape upon me and exclaim&mdash;'Hard to do good! Why,
+there's nothing so easy! There are thousands of poor,&mdash;there are the
+hospitals&mdash;the churches!' True,&mdash;but the thousands of <i>real</i> poor are
+not so easily found! There are thousands, ay, millions of 'sham' poor.
+But the <i>real</i> poor, who never ask for anything,&mdash;who would not know how
+to write a begging letter, and who would shrink from writing it even if
+they did know&mdash;who starve patiently, suffer uncomplainingly, and die
+resignedly&mdash;these are as difficult to meet with as diamonds in a coal
+mine. As for hospitals, do I not know how many of them pander to the
+barbarous inhumanity of vivisection!&mdash;and have I not experienced to the
+utmost dregs of bitterness, the melting of cash through the hands of
+secretaries and under-secretaries, and general Committee-ism, and Red
+Tape-ism, while every hundred thousand pounds bestowed on these
+necessary institutions turns out in the end to be a mere drop in the sea
+of incessant demand, though the donors may possibly purchase a
+knighthood, a baronetcy, or even a peerage, in return for their gifts!
+And the churches!&mdash;my God!&mdash;as Madame Roland said of Liberty, what
+crimes are committed in Thy Name!"</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at the sky through the square opening of the shed, and saw
+the moon, now changed in appearance and surrounded by a curious luminous
+halo like the nimbus with which painters encircle the head of a saint.
+It was a delicate aureole of prismatic radiance, and seemed to have
+swept suddenly round the silver planet in companionship with a light
+mist from the sea,&mdash;a mist which was now creeping slowly upwards and
+covering the land with a glistening wetness as of dew. A few fleecy
+clouds, pale grey and white, were floating aloft in the western half of
+the heavens, evoked by some magic touch of the wind.</p>
+
+<p>"It will soon be morning,"&mdash;thought Helmsley&mdash;"The sun will rise in its
+same old glorious way&mdash;with as measured and monotonous a circuit as it
+has made from the beginning. The Garden of Eden, the Deluge, the
+building of the Pyramids, the rise and fall of Rome, the conquests of
+Alexander, the death of Socrates, the murder of C&aelig;sar, the crucifixion
+of Christ,&mdash;the sun has shone on all these things of beauty, triumph or
+horror with the same even radiance, always the generator of life and
+fruitfulness, itself indifferent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> as to what becomes of the atoms
+germinated under its prolific heat and vitality. The sun takes no heed
+whether a man dies or lives&mdash;neither does God!"</p>
+
+<p>Yet with this idea came a sudden revulsion. Surely in the history of
+human events, there was ample proof that God, or the invisible Power we
+call by that name, did care? Crime was, and is, always followed by
+punishment, sooner or later. Who ordained,&mdash;who ordains that this shall
+be? Who is it that distinguishes between Right and Wrong, and adjusts
+the balance accordingly? Not Man,&mdash;for Man in a barbarous state is often
+incapable of understanding moral law, till he is trained to it by the
+evolution of his being and the ever-progressive working of the unseen
+spiritual forces. And the first process of his evolution is the
+awakening of conscience, and the struggle to rise from his mere Self to
+a higher ideal of life,&mdash;from material needs to intellectual
+development. Why is he thus invariably moved towards this higher ideal?
+If the instinct were a mistaken one, foredoomed to disappointment, it
+would not be allowed to exist. Nature does not endow us with any sense
+of which we do not stand in need, or any attribute which is useless to
+us in the shaping and unfolding of our destinies. True it is that we see
+many a man and woman who appear to have no souls, but we dare not infer
+from these exceptions that the soul does not exist. Soulless beings
+simply have no need of spirituality, just as the night-owl has no need
+of the sun,&mdash;they are bodies merely, and as bodies perish. As the angel
+said to the prophet Esdras:&mdash;"The Most High hath made this world for
+many, but the world to come for few. I will tell thee a similitude,
+Esdras; As when thou askest the earth, it shall say unto thee that it
+giveth much mould whereof earthern vessels are made, but little dust
+that gold cometh of, even so is the course of this present world!"</p>
+
+<p>Weary of arguing with himself, Helmsley tried to reflect back on certain
+incidents of his youth, which now in his age came out like prominent
+pictures in the gallery of his brain. He remembered the pure and simple
+piety which distinguished his mother, who lived her life out as sweetly
+as a flower blooms,&mdash;thanking God every morning and night for His
+goodness to her, even at times when she was most sorrowful,&mdash;he thought
+of his little sister, dead in the springtime of her girlhood, who never
+had a doubt of the unfailing goodness and beneficence of her Creator,
+and who, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> dying, smiled radiantly, and whispered with her last
+breath, "I wish you would not cry for me, Davie dear!&mdash;the next world is
+so beautiful!" Was this "next world" in her imagination, or was it a
+fact? Materialists would, of course, say it was imagination. But, in the
+light of present-day science and discovery, who can pin one's faith on
+Materialism?</p>
+
+<p>"I have missed the talisman that would have made all the darkness of
+life clear to me," he said at last, half aloud; "and missing it, I have
+missed everything of real value. Pain, loss, old age, and death would
+have been nothing to me, if I had only won that magic glory of the
+world&mdash;Love!"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes again wandered to the sky, and he noticed that the
+grey-and-white clouds in the west were rising still higher in fleecy
+pyramids, and were spreading with a wool-like thickness gradually over
+the whole heavens. The wind, too, had grown stronger, and its sighing
+sound had changed to a more strenuous moaning. The little dog, Charlie,
+tired of its master's gloomy absorption, jumped on his knee, and
+intimated by eloquent looks and wagging tail a readiness to be again
+nestled into some cosy corner. The shed was warm and comfortable, and
+after some brief consideration, he decided to try and sleep for an hour
+or so before again starting on his way. With this object in view, he
+arranged the packages of straw which filled one side of the shed into
+the form of an extemporary couch, which proved comfortable enough when
+he lay down with Charlie curled up beside him. He could not help
+thinking of the previous night, when he had seen the tall figure of Tom
+o' the Gleam approaching his bedside at the "Trusty Man," with the
+little "surprise" gift he had so stealthily laid upon his pillow,&mdash;and
+it was difficult to realise or to believe that the warm, impulsive heart
+had ceased to beat, and that all that splendid manhood was now but
+lifeless clay. He tried not to see the horribly haunting vision of the
+murdered Wrotham, with that terrible gash in his throat, and the blood
+pouring from it,&mdash;he strove to forget the pitiful picture of the little
+dead "Kiddie" in the arms of its maddened and broken-hearted father&mdash;but
+the impression was too recent and too ghastly for forgetfulness.</p>
+
+<p>"And yet with it all," he mused, "Tom o' the Gleam had what I have never
+possessed&mdash;love! And perhaps it is better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> to die&mdash;even in the awful way
+he died&mdash;in the very strength and frenzy of love&mdash;rather than live
+loveless!"</p>
+
+<p>Here Charlie heaved a small sigh, and nestled a soft silky head close
+against his breast. "I love you!" the little creature seemed to say&mdash;"I
+am only a dog&mdash;but I want to comfort you if I can!" And he
+murmured&mdash;"Poor Charlie! Poor wee Charlie!" and, patting the flossy coat
+of his foundling, was conscious of a certain consolation in the mere
+companionship of an animal that trusted to him for protection.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. His brain was somewhat
+confused, and scraps of old songs and verses he had known in boyhood,
+were jumbled together without cause or sequence, varying in their turn
+with the events of his business, his financial "deals" and the general
+results of his life's work. He remembered quite suddenly and for no
+particular reason, a battle he had engaged in with certain directors of
+a company who had attempted to "better" him in a particularly important
+international trade transaction, and he recalled his own sweeping
+victory over them with a curious sense of disgust. What did it
+matter&mdash;now?&mdash;whether he had so many extra millions, or so many more
+degrees of power? Certain lines of Tennyson's seemed to contain greater
+truths than all the money-markets of the world could supply:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"O let the solid earth<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not fail beneath my feet,</span><br />
+Before my life has found<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What some have found so sweet&mdash;</span><br />
+Then let come what come may,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What matter if I go mad,</span><br />
+I shall have had my day!<br />
+<br />
+"Let the sweet heavens endure<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not close and darken above me,</span><br />
+Before I am quite, quite sure<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That there is one to love me;</span><br />
+Then let come what come may<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To a life that has been so sad,</span><br />
+I shall have had my day!"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>He murmured this last verse over and over again till it made mere
+monotony in his mind, and till at last exhausted nature had its way and
+lulled his senses into a profound slumber. Strange to say, as soon as he
+was fast<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> asleep, Charlie woke up. Perking his little ears sharply, he
+sat briskly erect on his tiny haunches, his forepaws well placed on his
+master's breast, his bright eyes watchfully fixed on the opening of the
+shed, and his whole attitude expressing that he considered himself "on
+guard." It was evident that had the least human footfall broken the
+stillness, he would have made the air ring with as much noise as he was
+capable of. He had a vibrating bark of his own, worthy of a much larger
+animal, and he appeared to be anxiously waiting for an opportunity to
+show off this special accomplishment. No such chance, however, offered
+itself; the minutes and hours went by in undisturbed order. Now and then
+a rabbit scampered across the field, or an owl flew through the trees
+with a plaintive cry,&mdash;otherwise, so far as the immediate surroundings
+of the visible land were concerned, everything was perfectly calm. But
+up in the sky there were signs of gathering trouble. The clouds had
+formed into woollier masses,&mdash;their grey had changed to black, their
+white to grey, and the moon, half hidden, appeared to be hurrying
+downward to the west in a flying scud of etheric foam. Some disturbance
+was brewing in the higher altitudes of air, and a low snarling murmur
+from the sea responded to what was, perchance, the outward gust of a
+fire-tempest in the sun. The small Charlie was, no doubt, quite ignorant
+of meteorological portents, nevertheless he kept himself wide awake,
+sniffing at empty space in a highly suspicious manner, his tiny black
+nose moist with aggressive excitement, and his whole miniature being
+prepared to make "much ado about nothing" on the smallest provocation.</p>
+
+<p>The morning broke sullenly, in a dull haze, though here and there pale
+patches of blue, and flushes of rose-pink, showed how fair the day would
+willingly have made itself, had only the elements been propitious.
+Helmsley slept well on through the gradual unfolding of the dawn, and it
+was fully seven o'clock when he awoke with a start, scarcely knowing
+where he was. Charlie hailed his return to consciousness with marked
+enthusiasm, and dropping the sentry "Who goes there?" attitude,
+gambolled about him delightedly. Presently remembering his environment
+and the events which were a part of it, he quickly aroused himself, and
+carefully packing up all the bundles of straw in the shed, exactly as he
+had found them, he again went forth upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> what he was disposed to
+consider now a penitential pilgrimage.</p>
+
+<p>"In old times," he said to himself, as he bathed his face and hands in a
+little running stream by the roadside&mdash;"kings, when they found
+themselves miserable and did not know why they were so, went to the
+church for consolation, and were told by the priests that they had
+sinned&mdash;and that it was their sins that made them wretched. And a
+journey taken with fasting was prescribed&mdash;much in the way that our
+fashionable physicians prescribe change of air, a limited diet and
+plenty of exercise to the luxurious feeders of our social hive. And the
+weary potentates took off their crowns and their royal robes, and
+trudged along as they were told&mdash;became tramps for the nonce, like me.
+But I need no priest to command what I myself ordain!"</p>
+
+<p>He resumed his onward way ploddingly and determinedly, though he was
+beginning to be conscious of an increasing weariness and lassitude which
+seemed to threaten him with a break-down ere long. But he would not
+think of this.</p>
+
+<p>"Other men have no doubt felt just as weak," he thought. "There are many
+on the road as old as I am and even older. I ought to be able to do of
+my own choice what others do from necessity. And if the worst comes to
+the worst, and I am compelled to give up my project, I can always get
+back to London in a few hours!"</p>
+
+<p>He was soon at Minehead, and found that quaint little watering-place
+fully astir; for so far as it could have a "season," that season was now
+on. A considerable number of tourists were about, and coaches and brakes
+were getting ready in the streets for those who were inclined to
+undertake the twenty miles drive from Minehead to Lynton. Seeing a
+baker's shop open he went in and asked the cheery-looking woman behind
+the counter if she would make him a cup of coffee, and let him have a
+saucer of milk for his little dog. She consented willingly, and showed
+him a little inner room, where she spread a clean white cloth on the
+table and asked him to sit down. He looked at her in some surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm only 'on the road,'" he said&mdash;"Don't put yourself out too much for
+me."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll pay for what you've ordered, I suppose?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Certainly!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'll get just what everybody gets for their money,"&mdash;and her
+smile broadened kindly&mdash;"We don't make any difference between poor and
+rich."</p>
+
+<p>She retired, and he dropped into a chair, wearily. "We don't make any
+difference between poor and rich!" said this simple woman. How very
+simple she was! No difference between poor and rich! Where would
+"society" be if this axiom were followed! He almost laughed to think of
+it. A girl came in and brought his coffee with a plate of fresh
+bread-and-butter, a dish of Devonshire cream, a pot of jam, and a small
+round basket full of rosy apples,&mdash;also a saucer of milk which she set
+down on the floor for Charlie, patting him kindly as she did so, with
+many admiring comments on his beauty.</p>
+
+<p>"You've brought me quite a breakfast!" said Helmsley. "How much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sixpence, please."</p>
+
+<p>"Only sixpence?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all. It's a shilling with ham and eggs."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley paid the humble coin demanded, and wondered where the "starving
+poor" came in, at any rate in Somersetshire. Any beggar on the road,
+making sixpence a day, might consider himself well fed with such a meal.
+Just as he drew up his chair to the table, a sudden gust of wind swept
+round the house, shaking the whole building, and apparently hurling the
+weight of its fury on the roof, for it sounded as if a whole stack of
+chimney-pots had fallen.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a squall,"&mdash;said the girl&mdash;"Father said there was a storm coming.
+It often blows pretty hard up this way."</p>
+
+<p>She went out, and left Helmsley to himself. He ate his meal, and fed
+Charlie with as much bread and milk as that canine epicure could
+consume,&mdash;and then sat for a while, listening to the curious hissing of
+the wind, which was like a suppressed angry whisper in his ears.</p>
+
+<p>"It will be rough weather,"&mdash;he thought&mdash;"Now shall I stay in Minehead,
+or go on?"</p>
+
+<p>Somehow, his experience of vagabondage had bred in him a certain
+restlessness, and he did not care to linger in any one place. An
+inexplicable force urged him on. He was conscious that he entertained a
+most foolish, most forlorn secret hope,&mdash;that of finding some yet
+unknown consolation,&mdash;of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> receiving some yet unobtained heavenly
+benediction. And he repeated again the lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"Let the sweet heavens endure,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not close and darken above me,</span><br />
+Before I am quite, quite sure<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That there is one to love me!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Surely a Divine Providence there was who could read his heart's desire,
+and who could see how sincerely in earnest he was to find some channel
+wherein the current of his accumulated wealth might flow after his own
+death, to fruitfulness and blessing for those who truly deserved it.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it so much to ask of destiny&mdash;just one honest heart?" he inwardly
+demanded&mdash;"Is it so large a return to want from the world in which I
+have toiled so long&mdash;just one unselfish love? People would tell me I am
+too old to expect such a thing,&mdash;but I am not seeking the love of a
+lover,&mdash;that I know is impossible. But Love,&mdash;that most god-like of all
+emotions, has many phases, and a merely sexual attraction is the least
+and worst part of the divine passion. There is a higher form,&mdash;one far
+more lasting and perfect, in which Self has very little part,&mdash;and
+though I cannot give it a name, I am certain of its existence!"</p>
+
+<p>Another gust of wind, more furious than the last, whistled overhead and
+through the crannies of the door. He rose, and tucking Charlie warmly
+under his coat as before, he went out, pausing on his way to thank the
+mistress of the little bakery for the excellent meal he had enjoyed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you won't hurt on it," she said, smilingly; "it's plain, but it's
+wholesome. That's all we claim for it. Are you going on far?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'm bound for a pretty long tramp,"&mdash;he replied. "I'm walking to
+find friends in Cornwall."</p>
+
+<p>She opened her eyes in unfeigned wonder and compassion.</p>
+
+<p>"Deary me!" she ejaculated&mdash;"You've a stiff road before you. And to-day
+I'm afraid you'll be in for a storm."</p>
+
+<p>He glanced out through the shop-window.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not raining,"&mdash;he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet,&mdash;but it's blowing hard,"&mdash;she replied&mdash;"And it's like to blow
+harder."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, I must risk it!" And he lifted his cap; "Good-day!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good-day! A safe journey to you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you!"</p>
+
+<p>And, gratefully acknowledging the kindly woman's parting nod and smile,
+he stepped out of the shop into the street. There he found the wind had
+risen indeed. Showers of blinding dust were circling in the air,
+blotting out the view,&mdash;the sky was covered with masses of murky cloud
+drifting against each other in threatening confusion&mdash;and there was a
+dashing sound of the sea on the beach which seemed to be steadily
+increasing in volume and intensity. He paused for a moment under the
+shelter of an arched doorway, to place Charlie more comfortably under
+his arm and button his coat more securely, the while he watched the
+people in the principal thoroughfare struggling with the capricious
+attacks of the blast, which tore their hats off and sent them spinning
+across the road, and played mischievous havoc with women's skirts,
+blowing them up to the knees, and making a great exhibition of feet, few
+of which were worth looking at from any point of beauty or fitness. And
+then, all at once, amid the whirling of the gale, he heard a hoarse
+stentorian shouting&mdash;"Awful Murder! Local Crime! Murder of a Nobleman!
+Murder at Blue Anchor! Latest details!" and he started precipitately
+forward, walking hurriedly along with as much nervous horror as though
+he had been guiltily concerned in the deed with which the town was
+ringing. Two or three boys ran past him, with printed placards in their
+hands, which they waved in front of them, and on which in thick black
+letters could be seen:&mdash;"Murder of Lord Wrotham! Death of the Murderer!
+Appalling Tragedy at Blue Anchor!" And, for a few seconds, amid the
+confusion caused by the wind, and the wild clamour of the news-vendors,
+he felt as if every one were reeling pell-mell around him like persons
+on a ship at sea,&mdash;men with hats blown off,&mdash;women and children running
+aslant against the gale with hair streaming,&mdash;all eager to purchase the
+first papers which contained the account of a tragedy, enacted, as it
+were, at their very doors. Outside a little glass and china shop at the
+top of a rather hilly street a group of workingmen were standing, with
+the papers they had just bought in their hands, and Helmsley, as he
+trudged by, with stooping figure and bent head set against the wind,
+lingered near them a moment to hear them discuss the news.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ah, poor Tom!" exclaimed one&mdash;"Gone at last! I mind me well how he used
+to say he'd die a bad death!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's a bad death?" queried another, gruffly&mdash;"And what's the truth
+about this here business anyhow? Newspapers is allus full o' lies.
+There's a lot about a lord that's killed, but precious little about
+Tom!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's so!" said an old farmer, who with spectacles on was leaning his
+back against the wall of the shop near which they stood, to shelter
+himself a little from the force of the gale, while he read the paper he
+held&mdash;"See here,&mdash;this lord was driving his motor along by Cleeve, and
+ran over Tom's child,&mdash;why, that's the poor Kiddie we used to see Tom
+carrying for miles on his shoulder&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, the poor lamb!" And a commiserating groan ran through the little
+group of attentive listeners.</p>
+
+<p>"And then,"&mdash;continued the farmer&mdash;"from what I can make out of this
+paper, Tom picked up his baby quite dead. Then he started to run all the
+way after the fellow whose motor car had killed it. That's nat'ral
+enough!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it is!" "I'd a' done it myself!" "Damn them motors!" muttered
+the chorus, fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>"If so be the motor 'ad gone on, Tom couldn't never 'ave caught up with
+it, even if he'd run till he dropped," went on the farmer&mdash;"but as luck
+would 'ave it, the thing broke down nigh to Blue Anchor, and Tom got his
+chance. Which he took. And&mdash;he killed this Lord Wrotham, whoever he
+is,&mdash;stuck him in the throat with a knife as though he were a pig!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's horrified silence.</p>
+
+<p>"So he wor!" said one man, emphatically&mdash;"A right-down reg'lar
+road-hog!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then,"&mdash;proceeded the farmer, carefully studying the paper again&mdash;"Tom,
+'avin' done all his best an' worst in this world, gives himself up to
+the police, but just 'afore goin' off, asks if he may kiss his dead
+baby,&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A long pause here ensued. Tears stood in many of the men's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"And," continued the farmer, with a husky and trembling voice&mdash;"he takes
+the child in his arms, an' all sudden like falls down dead. God rest
+him!"</p>
+
+<p>Another pause.</p>
+
+<p>"And what does the paper say about it all?" enquired one of the group.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It says&mdash;wait a minute!&mdash;it says&mdash;'Society will be plunged into
+mourning for Lord Wrotham, who was one of the most promising of our
+younger peers, and whose sporting tendencies made him a great favourite
+in Court circles.'"</p>
+
+<p>"That's a bit o' bunkum paid for by the fam'ly!" said a great hulking
+drayman who had joined the little knot of bystanders, flicking his whip
+as he spoke,&mdash;"Sassiety plunged into mourning for the death of a
+precious raskill, is it? I 'xpect it's often got to mourn that way! Rort
+an' rubbish! Tell ye what!&mdash;Tom o' the Gleam was worth a dozen o' your
+motorin' lords!&mdash;an' the hull countryside through Quantocks, ay, an'
+even across Exmoor, 'ull 'ave tears for 'im an' 'is pretty little Kiddie
+what didn't do no 'arm to anybody more'n a lamb skippin' in the fields.
+Tom worn't known in their blessed 'Court circles,'&mdash;but, by the
+Lord!&mdash;he'd got a grip o' the people's heart about here, an' the people
+don't forget their friends in a hurry! Who the devil cares for Lord
+Wrotham!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who indeed!" murmured the chorus.</p>
+
+<p>"An' who'll say a bad word for Tom o' the Gleam?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody!" "He wor a rare fine chap!" "We'll all miss him!" eagerly
+answered the chorus.</p>
+
+<p>With a curious gesture, half of grief, half of defiance, the drayman
+tore a scrap of black lining from his coat, and tied it to his whip.</p>
+
+<p>"Tom was pretty well known to be a terror to some folk,&mdash;specially liars
+an' raskills,"&mdash;he said&mdash;"An' I aint excusin' murder. But all the same
+I'm in mourning for Tom an' 'is little Kiddie, an' I don't care who
+knows it!"</p>
+
+<p>He went off, and the group dispersed, partly driven asunder by the
+increasing fury of the wind, which was now sweeping through the streets
+in strong, steady gusts, hurling everything before it. But Helmsley set
+his face to the storm and toiled on. He must get out of Minehead. This
+he felt to be imperative. He could not stay in a town which now for many
+days would talk of nothing else but the tragic death of Tom o' the
+Gleam. His nerves were shaken, and he felt himself to be mentally, as
+well as physically, distressed by the strange chance which had
+associated him against his will with such a grim drama of passion and
+revenge. He remembered seeing the fateful motor swing down that
+precipitous road near Cleeve,&mdash;he recalled its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> narrow escape from a
+complete upset at the end of the declivity when it had swerved round the
+corner and rushed on,&mdash;how little he had dreamed that a child's life had
+just been torn away by its reckless wheels!&mdash;and that child the
+all-in-the-world to Tom o' the Gleam! Tom must have tracked the motor by
+following some side-lane or short cut known only to himself, otherwise
+Helmsley thought he would hardly have escaped seeing him. But, in any
+case, the slow and trudging movements of an old man must have lagged
+far, far behind those of the strong, fleet-footed gypsy to whom the
+wildest hills and dales, cliffs and sea caves were all familiar ground.
+Like a voice from the grave, the reply Tom had given to Matt Peke at the
+"Trusty Man," when Matt asked him where he had come from, rang back upon
+his ears&mdash;"From the caves of Cornwall! From picking up drift on the
+shore and tracking seals to their lair in the hollows of the rocks! All
+sport, Matt! I live like a gentleman born, keeping or killing at my
+pleasure!"</p>
+
+<p>Shuddering at this recollection, Helmsley pressed on in the teeth of the
+blast, and a sudden shower of rain scudded by, stinging him in the face
+with the sharpness of needlepoints. The gale was so high, and the blown
+dust so thick on all sides, that he could scarcely see where he was
+going, but his chief effort was to get out of Minehead and away from all
+contact with human beings&mdash;for the time. In this he succeeded very soon.
+Once well beyond the town, he did not pause to make a choice of roads.
+He only sought to avoid the coast line, rightly judging that way to lie
+most open and exposed to the storm,&mdash;moreover the wind swooped in so
+fiercely from the sea, and the rising waves made such a terrific
+roaring, that, for the mere sake of greater quietness, he turned aside
+and followed a path which appeared to lead invitingly into some deep
+hollow of the hills. There seemed a slight chance of the weather
+clearing at noon, for though the wind was so high, the clouds were
+whitening under passing gleams of sunlight, and the scud of rain had
+passed. As he walked further and further he found himself entering a
+deep green valley&mdash;a cleft between high hills,&mdash;and though he had no
+idea which way it led him, he was pleased to have reached a
+comparatively sheltered spot where the force of the hurricane was not so
+fiercely felt, and where the angry argument of the sea was deadened by
+distance. There was a lovely perfume everywhere,&mdash;the dash of rain on
+the herbs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> and field flowers had brought out their scent, and the
+freshness of the stormy atmosphere was bracing and exhilarating. He put
+Charlie down on the grass, and was amused to see how obediently the tiny
+creature trotted after him, close at his heels, in the manner of a
+well-trained, well-taught lady's favourite. There was no danger of
+wheeled or motor traffic in this peaceful little glen, which appeared to
+be used solely by pedestrians. He rather wondered now and then whither
+it led, but was not very greatly concerned on the subject. What pleased
+him most was that he did not see a single human being anywhere or a sign
+of human habitation.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the path began to ascend, and he followed it upward. The climb
+became gradually steep and wearisome, and the track grew smaller, almost
+vanishing altogether among masses of loose stones, which had rolled down
+from the summits of the hills, and he had again to carry Charlie, who
+very strenuously objected to the contact of sharp flints against his
+dainty little feet. The boisterous wind now met him full-faced,&mdash;but,
+struggling against it, he finally reached a wide plateau, commanding a
+view of the surrounding country and the sea. Not a house was in
+sight;&mdash;all around him extended a chain of hills, like a fortress set
+against invading ocean,&mdash;and straight away before his eyes ocean itself
+rose and fell in a chaos of billowy blackness. What a sight it was!
+Here, from this point, he could take some measure and form some idea of
+the storm, which so far from abating as he had imagined it might, when
+passing through the protected seclusion of the valley he had just left,
+was evidently gathering itself together for a still fiercer onslaught.</p>
+
+<p>Breathless with his climbing exertions he stood watching the huge walls
+of water, built up almost solidly as it seemed, by one force and dashed
+down again by another,&mdash;it was as though great mountains lifted
+themselves over each other to peer at the sky and were driven back again
+to shapelessness and destruction. The spectacle was all the more grand
+and impressive to him, because where he now was he could not hear the
+full clamour of the rolling and retreating billows. The thunder of the
+surf was diminished to a sullen moan, which came along with the wind and
+clung to it like a concordant note in music, forming one sustained chord
+of wrath and desolation. Darkening steadily over the sea and densely
+over-spreading the whole sky, there were flying clouds of singular
+shape,&mdash;clouds tossed up into the momentary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> similitude of Titanesque
+human figures with threatening arms outstretched,&mdash;anon, to the filmly
+outlines of fabulous birds swooping downwards with jagged wings and
+ravenous beaks,&mdash;or twisting into columns and pyramids of vapour as
+though the showers of foam flung up by the waves had been caught in
+mid-air and suddenly frozen. Several sea-gulls were flying inland; two
+or three soared right over Helmsley's head with a plaintive cry. He
+turned to watch their graceful flight, and saw another phalanx of clouds
+coming up behind to meet and cope with those already hurrying in with
+the wind from the sea. The darkness of the sky was deepening every
+minute, and he began to feel a little uneasy. He realised that he had
+lost his way, and he looked on all sides for some glimpse of a main
+road, but could see none, and the path he had followed evidently
+terminated at the summit where he stood. To return to the valley he had
+left seemed futile, as it was only a way back to Minehead, which place
+he wished to avoid. There was a small sheep track winding down on the
+other side of the hill, and he thought it possible that this might lead
+to a farm-road, which again might take him out on some more direct
+highway. He therefore started to follow it. He could scarcely walk
+against the wind; it blew with such increasing fury. Charlie shivered
+away from its fierce breath and snuggled his tiny body more warmly under
+his protector's arm, withdrawing himself entirely from view. And now
+with a sudden hissing whirl, down came the rain. The two opposing forces
+of cloud met with a sudden rush, and emptied their pent-up torrents on
+the earth, while a low muttering noise, not of the wind, betokened
+thunder. The prolonged heat of the last month had been very great all
+over the country, and a suppressed volcano was smouldering in the heart
+of the heavens, ready to shoot forth fire. The roaring of the sea grew
+more distinct as Helmsley descended from the height and came nearer to
+the coast line,&mdash;and the mingled scream of the angry surf on the shore
+and the sword-like sweep of the rain, rang in his ears deafeningly, with
+a kind of monotonous horror. His head began to swim, and his eyes were
+half blinded by the sharp showers that whipped his face with blown drops
+as hard and cold as hail. On he went, however, more like a struggling
+dreamer in a dream, than with actual consciousness,&mdash;and darker and
+wilder grew the storm. A forked flash of lightning, running suddenly
+like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> melted lava down the sky, flung half a second's lurid blue glare
+athwart the deepening blackness,&mdash;and in less than two minutes it was
+followed by the first decisive peal of thunder rolling in deep
+reverberations from sea to land, from land to sea again. The war of the
+elements had begun in earnest. Amid their increasing giant wrath,
+Helmsley stumbled almost unseeingly along,&mdash;keeping his head down and
+leaning more heavily than was his usual wont upon the stout ash stick
+which was part of the workman's outfit he had purchased for himself in
+Bristol, and which now served him as his best support. In the gathering
+gloom, with his stooping thin figure, he looked more like a faded leaf
+fluttering in the gale than a man, and he was beginning now to realise
+with keen disappointment that his strength was not equal to the strain
+he had been putting upon it. The weight of his seventy years was
+pressing him down,&mdash;and a sudden thrill of nervous terror ran through
+him lest his whim for wandering should cost him his life.</p>
+
+<p>"And if I were to die of exhaustion out here on the hills, what would be
+said of me?" he thought&mdash;"They would find my body&mdash;perhaps&mdash;after some
+days;&mdash;they would discover the money I carry in my vest lining, and a
+letter to Vesey which would declare my actual identity. Then I should be
+called a fool or a madman&mdash;most probably the latter. No one would
+know,&mdash;no one would guess&mdash;except Vesey&mdash;the real object with which I
+started on this wild goose chase after the impossible. It is a foolish
+quest! Perhaps after all I had better give it up, and return to the old
+wearisome life of luxury,&mdash;the old ways!&mdash;and die in my bed in the usual
+'respectable' style of the rich, with expensive doctors, nurses and
+medicines set in order round me, and all arrangements getting ready for
+a 'first-class funeral'!"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed drearily. Another flash of lightning, followed almost
+instantaneously by a terrific crash of thunder, brought him to a pause.
+He was now at the bottom of the hill which he had ascended from the
+other side, and perceived a distinct and well-trodden path which
+appeared to lead in a circuitous direction towards the sea. Here there
+seemed some chance of getting out of the labyrinth of hills into which
+he had incautiously wandered, and, summoning up his scattered forces, he
+pressed on. The path proved to be an interminable winding way,&mdash;first
+up&mdash;then down,&mdash;now showing glimpses of the raging ocean, now dipping
+over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> bare and desolate lengths of land,&mdash;and presently it turned
+abruptly into a deep thicket of trees. Drenched with rain and tired of
+fighting against the boisterous wind which almost tore his breath away,
+he entered this dark wood with a vague sense of relief,&mdash;it offered some
+sort of shelter, and if the trees attracted the lightning and he were
+struck dead beneath them, what did it matter after all! One way of dying
+was as good (or as bad) as another!</p>
+
+<p>The over-arching boughs dripping with wet, closed over him and drew him,
+as it were, into their dense shadows,&mdash;the wind shrieked after him like
+a scolding fury, but its raging tone grew softer as he penetrated more
+deeply into the sable-green depths of heavily foliaged solitude. His
+weary feet trod gratefully on a thick carpet of pine needles and masses
+of the last year's fallen leaves,&mdash;and a strong sweet scent of mingled
+elderflower and sweetbriar was tossed to him on every gust of rain. Here
+the storm turned itself to music and revelled in a glorious symphony of
+sound.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh ye Winds of God, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for
+ever!</p>
+
+<p>"Oh ye Lightnings and Clouds, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify
+Him for ever!"</p>
+
+<p>In full chords of passionate praise the hurricane swept its grand anthem
+through the rustling, swaying trees, as though these were the strings of
+a giant harp on which some great Archangel played,&mdash;and the dash and
+roar of the sea came with it, rolling in the track of another mighty
+peal of thunder. Helmsley stopped and listened, seized by an
+overpowering enchantment and awe.</p>
+
+<p>"This&mdash;this is Life!" he said, half aloud&mdash;"Our miserable human
+vanities&mdash;our petty schemes&mdash;our poor ambitions&mdash;what are they? Motes in
+a sunbeam!&mdash;gone as soon as realised! But Life,&mdash;the deep,
+self-contained divine Life of Nature&mdash;this is the only life that lives
+for ever, the Immortality of which we are a part!"</p>
+
+<p>A fierce gust of wind here snapped asunder a great branch from a tree,
+and flung it straight across his path. Had he been a few inches nearer,
+it would have probably struck him down with it. Charlie peeped out from
+under his arm with a pitiful little whimper, and Helmsley's heart smote
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor wee Charlie!" he said, fondling the tiny head; "I know what you
+would say to me! You would say that if I want to risk my own life, I
+needn't risk yours! Is that it?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> Well!&mdash;I'll try to get you out of this
+if I can! I wish I I could see some sign of a house anywhere! I'd make
+for it and ask for shelter."</p>
+
+<p>He trudged patiently onwards,&mdash;but he was beginning to feel unsteady in
+his limbs,&mdash;and every now and then he had to stop, overcome by a
+sickening sensation of giddiness. The tempest had now fully developed
+into a heavy thunderstorm, and the lightning quivered and gleamed
+through the trees incessantly, followed by huge claps of thunder which
+clashed down without a second's warning, afterwards rolling away in long
+thudding detonations echoing for miles and miles. It was difficult to
+walk at all in such a storm,&mdash;the youngest and strongest pedestrian
+might have given way under the combined onslaught of rain, wind, and the
+pattering shower of leaves which were literally torn, fresh and green,
+from their parent boughs and cast forth to whirl confusedly amid the
+troubled spaces of the air. And if the young and strong would have found
+it hard to brave such an uproar of the elements, how much harder was it
+for an old man, who, deeming himself stronger than he actually was, and
+buoyed up by sheer nerve and mental obstinacy, had, of his own choice,
+brought himself into this needless plight and danger. For now, in utter
+weariness of body and spirit, Helmsley began to reproach himself
+bitterly for his rashness. A mere caprice of the imagination,&mdash;a fancy
+that, perhaps, among the poor and lowly he might find a love or a
+friendship he had never met with among the rich and powerful, was all
+that had led him forth on this strange journey of which the end could
+but be disappointment and failure;&mdash;and at the present moment he felt so
+thoroughly conscious of his own folly, that he almost resolved on
+abandoning his enterprise as soon as he found himself once more on the
+main road.</p>
+
+<p>"I will take the first vehicle that comes by,"&mdash;he said, "and make for
+the nearest railway station. And I'll end my days with a character for
+being 'hard as nails!'&mdash;that's the only way in which one can win the
+respectful consideration of one's fellows as a thoroughly 'sane and
+sensible' man!"</p>
+
+<p>Just then, the path he was following started sharply up a steep
+acclivity, and there was no other choice left to him but still to
+continue in it, as the trees were closing in blindly intricate tangles
+about him, and the brushwood was becoming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> so thick that he could not
+have possibly forced a passage through it. His footing grew more
+difficult, for now, instead of soft pine-needles and leaves to tread
+upon, there were only loose stones, and the rain was blowing in downward
+squalls that almost by their very fury threw him backward on the ground.
+Up, still up, he went, however, panting painfully as he climbed,&mdash;his
+breath was short and uneasy&mdash;and all his body ached and shivered as with
+strong ague. At last,&mdash;dizzy and half fainting,&mdash;he arrived at the top
+of the tedious and troublesome ascent, and uttered an involuntary cry at
+the scene of beauty and grandeur stretched in front of him. How far he
+had walked he had no idea,&mdash;nor did he know how many hours he had taken
+in walking,&mdash;but he had somehow found his way to the summit of a rocky
+wooded height, from which he could survey the whole troubled expanse of
+wild sky and wilder sea,&mdash;while just below him the hills were split
+asunder into a huge cleft, or "coombe," running straight down to the
+very lip of ocean, with rampant foliage hanging about it on either side
+in lavish garlands of green, and big boulders piled up about it, from
+whose smooth surfaces the rain swept off in sleety sheets, leaving them
+shining like polished silver. What a wild Paradise was here
+disclosed!&mdash;what a matchless picture, called into shape and colour with
+all the forceful ease and perfection of Nature's handiwork! No glimpse
+of human habitation was anywhere visible; man seemed to have found no
+dwelling here; there was nothing&mdash;nothing, but Earth the Beautiful, and
+her Lover the Sea! Over these twain the lightnings leaped, and the
+thunder played in the sanctuary of heaven,&mdash;this hour of storm was all
+their own, and humanity was no more counted in their passionate
+intermingling of life than the insects on a leaf, or the grains of sand
+on the shore. For a moment or two Helmsley's eyes, straining and dim,
+gazed out on the marvellously bewitching landscape thus suddenly
+unrolled before him,&mdash;then all at once a sharp pain running through his
+heart caused him to flinch and tremble. It was a keen stab of anguish,
+as though a knife had been plunged into his body.</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" he muttered&mdash;"What&mdash;what is this?"</p>
+
+<p>Walking feebly to a great stone hard by, he sat down upon it, breathing
+with difficulty. The rain beat full upon him, but he did not heed it; he
+sought to recover from the shock of that horrible pain,&mdash;to overcome the
+creeping sick<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> sensation of numbness which seemed to be slowly freezing
+him to death. With a violent effort he tried to shake the illness
+off;&mdash;he looked up at the sky&mdash;and was met by a blinding flash which
+tore the clouds asunder and revealed a white blaze of palpitating fire
+in the centre of the blackness&mdash;and at this he made some inarticulate
+sound, putting both his hands before his face to hide the angry mass of
+flame. In so doing he let the little Charlie escape, who, finding
+himself out of his warm shelter and on the wet grass, stood amazed, and
+shivering pitifully under the torrents of rain. But Helmsley was not
+conscious of his canine friend's distress. Another pang, cruel and
+prolonged, convulsed him,&mdash;a blood-red mist swam before his eyes, and he
+lost all hold on sense and memory. With a dull groan he fell forward,
+slipping from the stone on which he had been seated, in a helpless heap
+on the ground,&mdash;involuntarily he threw up his arms as a drowning man
+might do among great waves overwhelming him,&mdash;and so went
+down&mdash;down!&mdash;into silence and unconsciousness.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>The storm raged till sunset; and then exhausted by its own stress of
+fury, began to roll away in angry sobs across the sea. The wind sank
+suddenly; the rain as suddenly ceased. A wonderful flush of burning
+orange light cut the sky asunder, spreading gradually upward and paling
+into fairest rose. The sullen clouds caught brightness at their summits,
+and took upon themselves the semblance of Alpine heights touched by the
+mystic glory of the dawn, and a clear silver radiance flashed across the
+ocean for a second and then vanished, as though a flaming torch had just
+flared up to show the troublous heaving of the waters, and had then been
+instantly quenched. As the evening came on the weather steadily
+cleared;&mdash;and presently a pure, calm, dark-blue expanse of ether
+stretched balmily across the whole width of the waves, with the evening
+star&mdash;the Star of Love&mdash;glimmering faintly aloft like a delicate jewel
+hanging on the very heart of the air. Far away down in the depths of the
+"coombe," a church bell rang softly for some holy service,&mdash;and when
+David Helmsley awoke at last from his death-like swoon he found himself
+no longer alone. A woman knelt beside him, supporting him in her
+arms,&mdash;and when he looked up at her wonderingly, he saw two eyes bent
+upon him with such watchful tenderness that in his weak, half-conscious
+state he fancied he must be wandering somewhere through heaven if the
+stars were so near. He tried to speak&mdash;to move,&mdash;but was checked by a
+gentle pressure of the protecting arms about him.</p>
+
+<p>"Better now, dearie?" murmured a low anxious voice. "That's right! Don't
+try to get up just yet&mdash;take time! Let the strength come back to you
+first!"</p>
+
+<p>Who was it&mdash;who could it be, that spoke to him with such affectionate
+solicitude? He gazed and gazed and marvelled,&mdash;but it was too dark to
+see the features of his rescuer. As consciousness grew more vivid, he
+realised that he was leaning against her bosom like a helpless
+child,&mdash;that the wet grass was all about him,&mdash;and that he was
+cold,&mdash;very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> cold, with a coldness as of some enclosing grave. Sense and
+memory returned to him slowly with sharp stabs of physical pain, and
+presently he found utterance.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very kind!" he muttered, feebly&mdash;"I begin to recollect now&mdash;I
+had walked a long way&mdash;and I was caught in the storm&mdash;I felt ill,&mdash;very
+ill!&mdash;I suppose I must have fallen down here&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's it!" said the woman, gently&mdash;"Don't try to think about it!
+You'll be better presently."</p>
+
+<p>He closed his eyes wearily,&mdash;then opened them again, struck by a sudden
+self-reproach and anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"The little dog?" he asked, trembling&mdash;"The little dog I had with
+me&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>He saw, or thought he saw, a smile on the face in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"The little dog's all right,&mdash;don't you worry about him!" said the
+woman&mdash;"He knows how to take care of himself and you too! It was just
+him that brought me along here where I found you. Bless the little soul!
+He made noise enough for six of his size!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley gave a faint sigh of pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little Charlie! Where is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's close by! He was almost drowned with the rain, like a poor
+mouse in a pail of water, but he went on barking all the same! I dried
+him as well as I could in my apron, and then wrapped him up in my
+cloak,&mdash;he's sitting right in it just now watching me."</p>
+
+<p>"If&mdash;if I die,&mdash;please take care of him!" murmured Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, dearie! I'm not going to let you die out here on the
+hills,&mdash;don't think it!" said the woman, cheerily,&mdash;"I want to get you
+up, and take you home with me. The storm's well overpast,&mdash;if you could
+manage to move&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He raised himself a little, and tried to see her more closer.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you live far from here?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Only just on the upper edge of the 'coombe'&mdash;not in the village,"&mdash;she
+answered&mdash;"It's quite a short way, but a bit steep going. If you lean on
+me, I won't let you slip,&mdash;I'm as strong as a man, and as men go
+nowadays, stronger than most!"</p>
+
+<p>He struggled to rise, and she assisted him. By dint of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> sheer mental
+force and determination he got himself on his feet, but his limbs shook
+violently, and his head swam.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid"&mdash;he faltered&mdash;"I'm afraid I am very ill. I shall only be a
+trouble to you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk of trouble? Wait till I fetch the doggie!" And, turning from
+him a moment, she ran to pick up Charlie, who, as she had said, was
+snugly ensconced in the folds of her cloak, which she had put for him
+under the shelter of a projecting boulder,&mdash;"Could you carry him, do you
+think?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded assent, and put the little animal under his coat as before,
+touched almost to weak tears to feel it trying to lick his hand.
+Meanwhile his unknown and scarcely visible protectress put an arm round
+him, holding him up as carefully as though he were a tottering infant.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't hurry&mdash;just take an easy step at a time,"&mdash;she said&mdash;"The moon
+rises a bit late, and we'll have to see our way as best we can with the
+stars." And she gave a glance upward. "That's a bright one just over the
+coombe,&mdash;the girls about here call it 'Light o' Love.'"</p>
+
+<p>Moving stiffly, and with great pain, Helmsley was nevertheless impelled,
+despite his suffering, to look, as she was looking, towards the heavens.
+There he saw the same star that had peered at him through the window of
+his study at Carlton House Terrace,&mdash;the same that had sparkled out in
+the sky the night that he and Matt Peke had trudged the road together,
+and which Matt had described as "the love-star, an' it'll be nowt else
+in these parts till the world-without-end-amen!" And she whose eyes were
+upturned to its silvery glory,&mdash;who was she? His sight was very dim, and
+in the deepening shadows he could only discern a figure of medium
+womanly height,&mdash;an uncovered head with the hair loosely knotted in a
+thick coil at the nape of the neck,&mdash;and the outline of a face which
+might be fair or plain,&mdash;he could not tell. He was conscious of the warm
+strength of the arm that supported him, for when he slipped once or
+twice, he was caught up tenderly, without hurt or haste, and held even
+more securely than before. Gradually, and by halting degrees, he made
+the descent of the hill, and, as his guide helped him carefully over a
+few loose stones in the path, he saw through a dark clump of foliage the
+glimmer of twinkling lights, and heard the rush of water. He paused,
+vaguely bewildered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nearly home now!" said his guide, encouragingly; "Just a few steps more
+and we'll be there. My cottage is the last and the highest in the
+coombe. The other houses are all down closer to the sea."</p>
+
+<p>Still he stood inert.</p>
+
+<p>"The sea!" he echoed, faintly&mdash;"Where is it?"</p>
+
+<p>With her disengaged hand she pointed outwards.</p>
+
+<p>"Yonder! By and by, when the moon comes over the hill, it will be
+shining like a silver field with big daisies blowing and growing all
+over it. That's the way it often looks after a storm. The tops of the
+waves are just like great white flowers."</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at her as she said this, and caught a closer glimpse of her
+face. Some faint mystical light in the sky illumined the outlines of her
+features, and showed him a calm and noble profile, such as may be found
+in early Greek sculpture, and which silently expresses the lines:</p>
+
+<p>
+"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,&mdash;that is all<br />
+Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know!"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>He moved on with a quicker step, touched by a keen sense of expectation.
+Ill as he knew himself to be, he was eager to reach this woman's
+dwelling and to see her more closely. A soft laugh of pleasure broke
+from her lips as he tried to accelerate his pace.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we're getting quite strong and bold now, aren't we!" she exclaimed,
+gaily&mdash;"But take care not to go too fast! There's a rough bit of bog and
+boulder coming."</p>
+
+<p>This was true. They had arrived at the upper edge of a bank overlooking
+a hill stream which was pouring noisily down in a flood made turgid by
+the rain, and the "rough bit of bog and boulder" was a sort of natural
+bridge across the torrent, formed by heaps of earth and rock, out of
+which masses of wet fern and plumy meadow-sweet sprang in tall tufts and
+garlands, which though beautiful to the eyes in day-time, were apt to
+entangle the feet in walking, especially when there was only the
+uncertain glimmer of the stars by which to grope one's way. Helmsley's
+age and over-wrought condition made his movements nervous and faltering
+at this point, and nothing could exceed the firm care and delicate
+solicitude with which his guide helped him over this last difficulty of
+the road. She was indeed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> strong, as she had said,&mdash;she seemed capable
+of lifting him bodily, if need were&mdash;yet she was not a woman of large or
+robust frame. On the contrary, she appeared slightly built, and carried
+herself with that careless grace which betokens perfect form. Once
+safely across the bridge and on the other side of the coombe, she
+pointed to a tiny lattice window with a light behind it which gleamed
+out through the surrounding foliage like a glow-worm in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Here we are at home," she said,&mdash;"Just along this path&mdash;it's quite
+easy!&mdash;now under this tree&mdash;it's a big chestnut,&mdash;you'll love it!&mdash;now
+here's the garden gate&mdash;wait till I lift the latch&mdash;that's right!&mdash;the
+garden's quite small you see,&mdash;it goes straight up to the cottage&mdash;and
+here's the door! Come in!"</p>
+
+<p>As in a dream, Helmsley was dimly conscious of the swishing rustle of
+wet leaves, and the fragrance of mignonette and roses mingling with the
+salty scent of the sea,&mdash;then he found himself in a small, low,
+oak-raftered kitchen, with a wide old-fashioned hearth and ingle-nook,
+warm with the glow of a sparkling fire. A quaintly carved comfortably
+cushioned armchair was set in the corner, and to this his guide
+conducted him, and gently made him sit down.</p>
+
+<p>"Now give me the doggie!" she said, taking that little personage from
+his arms&mdash;"He'll be glad of his supper and a warm bed, poor little soul!
+And so will you!"</p>
+
+<p>With a kindly caress she set Charlie down in front of the hearth, and
+proceeded to shut the cottage door, which had been left open as they
+entered,&mdash;and locking it, dropped an iron bar across it for the night.
+Then she threw off her cloak, and hung it up on a nail in the wall, and
+bending over a lamp which was burning low on the table, turned up its
+wick a little higher. Helmsley watched her in a kind of stupefied
+wonderment. As the lamplight flashed up on her features, he saw that she
+was not a girl, but a woman who seemed to have thought and suffered. Her
+face was pale, and the lines of her mouth were serious, though very
+sweet. He could hardly judge whether she had beauty or not, because he
+saw her at a disadvantage. He was too ill to appreciate details, and he
+could only gaze at her in the dim and troubled weariness of an old and
+helpless man, who for the time being was dependent on any kindly aid
+that might be offered to him. Once or twice the vague<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> idea crossed his
+mind that he would tell her who he was, and assure her that he had
+plenty of money about him to reward her for her care and pains,&mdash;but he
+could not bring himself to the point of this confession. The surprise
+and sweetness of being received thus unquestioningly under the shelter
+of her roof as merely the poor way-worn tramp he seemed to be, were too
+great for him to relinquish. She, meanwhile, having trimmed the lamp,
+hurried into a neighboring room, and came in again with a bundle of
+woollen garments, and a thick flannel dressing gown on her arm.</p>
+
+<p>"This was my father's," she said, as she brought it to him&mdash;"It's soft
+and cosy. Get off your wet clothes and slip into it, while I go and make
+your bed ready."</p>
+
+<p>She spread the dressing gown before the fire to warm it, and was about
+to turn away again, when Helmsley laid a detaining hand on her arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait&mdash;wait!" he said&mdash;"Do you know what you are doing?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now that <i>is</i> a question! Do I seem crazy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Almost you do&mdash;to me!" And stirred into a sudden flicker of animation,
+he held her fast as he spoke&mdash;"Do you live alone here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,&mdash;quite alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Then don't you see how foolish you are? You are taking into your house
+a mere tramp,&mdash;a beggar who is more likely to die than live! Do you
+realise how dangerous this is for you? I may be an escaped convict,&mdash;a
+thief&mdash;even a murderer! You cannot tell!"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled and nodded at him as a nurse might nod and smile at a
+fanciful or querulous patient.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell, certainly, and don't want to know!" she replied&mdash;"I go by
+what I see."</p>
+
+<p>"And what do you see?"</p>
+
+<p>She patted his thin cold hand kindly.</p>
+
+<p>"I see a very old man&mdash;older than my own dear father was when he
+died&mdash;and I know he is too old and feeble to be out at night in the wet
+and stormy weather. I know that he is ill and weak, and suffering from
+exhaustion, and that he must rest and be well nourished for a few days
+till he gets strong again. And I am going to take care of him,"&mdash;here
+she gave a consoling little pressure to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> hand she held. "I am
+indeed! And he must do as he is told, and take off his wet clothes and
+get ready for bed!"</p>
+
+<p>Something in Helmsley's throat tightened like the contraction of a
+rising sob.</p>
+
+<p>"You will risk all this trouble,"&mdash;he faltered&mdash;"for a
+stranger&mdash;who&mdash;who&mdash;cannot repay you&mdash;?&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, now! You mustn't hurt me!" she said, with a touch of reproach in
+her soft tones&mdash;"I don't want to be repaid in any way. You know <span class="smcap">Who</span> it
+was that said 'I was a stranger and ye took me in'? Well, He would wish
+me to take care of you."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke quite simply, without any affectation of religious sentiment.
+Helmsley looked at her steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that why you shelter me?"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled very sweetly, and he saw that her eyes were beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>"That is one reason, certainly!"&mdash;she answered; "But there is
+another,&mdash;quite a selfish one! I loved my father, and when he died, I
+lost everything I cared for in the world. You remind me of him&mdash;just a
+little. Now will you do as I ask you, and take off your wet things?"</p>
+
+<p>He let go her hand gently.</p>
+
+<p>"I will,"&mdash;he said, unsteadily&mdash;for there were tears in his eyes&mdash;"I
+will do anything you wish. Only tell me your name!"</p>
+
+<p>"My name? My name is Mary,&mdash;Mary Deane."</p>
+
+<p>"Mary Deane!" he repeated softly&mdash;and yet again&mdash;"Mary Deane! A pretty
+name! Shall I tell you mine!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not unless you like,"&mdash;she replied, quickly&mdash;"It doesn't matter!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you'd better know it!" he said&mdash;"I'm only old David&mdash;a man 'on the
+road' tramping it to Cornwall."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a long way!" she murmured compassionately, as she took his
+weather-beaten hat and shook the wet from it&mdash;"And why do you want to
+tramp so far, you poor old David?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm looking for a friend,"&mdash;he answered&mdash;"And maybe it's no use
+trying,&mdash;but I should like to find that friend before I die."</p>
+
+<p>"And so you will, I'm sure!" she declared, smiling at him, but with
+something of an anxious expression in her eyes, for Helmsley's face was
+very pinched and pallid, and every now and then he shivered violently as
+with an ague<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> fit&mdash;"But you must pick up your strength first. Then
+you'll get on better and quicker. Now I'm going to leave you while you
+change. You'll find plenty of warm things with the dressing gown."</p>
+
+<p>She went out as before into the next room, and Helmsley managed, though
+with considerable difficulty, to divest himself of his drenched clothes
+and get on the comfortable woollen garments she had put ready for him.
+When he took off his coat and vest, he spread them in front of the fire
+to dry instead of the dressing-gown which he now wore, and as soon as
+she returned he specially pointed out the vest to her.</p>
+
+<p>"I should like you to put that away somewhere in your own safe
+keeping,"&mdash;he said. "It has a few letters and&mdash;and papers in it which I
+value,&mdash;and I don't want any stranger to see them. Will you take care of
+it for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I will! Nobody shall touch it, be sure! Not a soul ever comes
+nigh me unless I ask for company!&mdash;so you can be quite easy in your
+mind. Now I'm going to give you a cup of hot soup, and then you'll go to
+bed, won't you?&mdash;and, please God, you'll be better in the morning!"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded feebly, and forced a smile. He had sunk back in the armchair
+and his eyes were fixed on the warm-hearth, where the tiny dog, Charlie,
+whom he had rescued, and who in turn had rescued him, was curled up and
+snoozing peacefully. Now that the long physical and nervous strain of
+his journey and of his ghastly experience at Blue Anchor was past, he
+felt almost too weak to lift a hand, and the sudden change from the
+fierce buffetings of the storm to the homely tranquillity of this little
+cottage into which he had been welcomed just as though he had every
+right to be there, affected him with a strange sensation which he could
+not analyse. And once he murmured half unconsciously:</p>
+
+<p>"Mary! Mary Deane!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,&mdash;that's me!" she responded cheerfully, coming to his side at
+once&mdash;"I'm here!"</p>
+
+<p>He lifted his head and looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know you are here,&mdash;Mary!" he said, his voice trembling a little
+as he uttered her name&mdash;"And I thank God for sending you to me in time!
+But how&mdash;how was it that you found me?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I was watching the storm,"&mdash;she replied&mdash;"I love wild weather!&mdash;I love
+to hear the wind among the trees and the pouring of the rain! I was
+standing at my door listening to the waves thudding into the hollow of
+the coombe, and all at once I heard the sharp barking of a dog on the
+hill just above here&mdash;and sometimes the bark changed to a pitiful little
+howl, as if the animal were in pain. So I put on my cloak and crossed
+the coombe up the bank&mdash;it's only a few minutes' scramble, though to you
+it seemed ever such a long way to-night,&mdash;and there I saw you lying on
+the grass with the little doggie running round and round you, and making
+all the noise he could to bring help. Wise little beastie!" And she
+stooped to pat the tiny object of her praise, who sighed comfortably and
+stretched his dainty paws out a little more luxuriously&mdash;"If it hadn't
+been for him you might have died!"</p>
+
+<p>He said nothing, but watched her in a kind of morbid fascination as she
+went to the fire and removed a saucepan which she had set there some
+minutes previously. Taking a large old-fashioned Delft bowl from a
+cupboard at one side of the fire-place, she filled it with steaming soup
+which smelt deliciously savoury and appetising, and brought it to him
+with some daintily cut morsels of bread. He was too ill to feel much
+hunger, but to please her, he managed to sip it by slow degrees, talking
+to her between-whiles.</p>
+
+<p>"You say you live alone here,"&mdash;he murmured&mdash;"But are you always alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Always,&mdash;ever since father died."</p>
+
+<p>"How long is that ago?"</p>
+
+<p>"Five years."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not&mdash;you have not been&mdash;married?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"No indeed! I'm an old maid!"</p>
+
+<p>"Old?" And he raised his eyes to her face. "You are not old!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm not young, as young people go,"&mdash;she declared&mdash;"I'm
+thirty-four. I was never married for myself in my youth,&mdash;and I shall
+certainly never be married for my money in my age!" Again her pretty
+laugh rang softly on the silence. "But I'm quite happy, all the same!"</p>
+
+<p>He still looked at her intently,&mdash;and all suddenly it dawned upon him
+that she was a beautiful woman. He saw, as for the first time, the clear
+transparency of her skin, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> soft brilliancy of her eyes, and the
+wonderful masses of her warm bronze brown hair. He noted the perfect
+poise of her figure, clad as it was in a cheap print gown,&mdash;the slimness
+of her waist, the fulness of her bosom, the white roundness of her
+throat. Then he smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"So you are an old maid!" he said&mdash;"That's very strange!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't think so!" and she shook her head deprecatingly&mdash;"Many
+women are old maids by choice as well as by necessity. Marriage isn't
+always bliss, you know! And unless a woman loves a man very very
+much&mdash;so much that she can't possibly live her life without him, she'd
+better keep single. At least that's <i>my</i> opinion. Now Mr. David, you
+must go to bed!"</p>
+
+<p>He rose obediently&mdash;but trembled as he rose, and could scarcely stand
+from sheer weakness. Mary Deane put her arm through his to support him.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid,"&mdash;he faltered&mdash;"I'm afraid I shall be a burden to you! I
+don't think I shall be well enough to start again on my way to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't be allowed to do any such foolish thing!" she answered, with
+quick decision&mdash;"So you can just make up your mind on <i>that</i> score! You
+must stay here as my guest."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a paying one, I fear!" he said, with a pained smile, and a quick
+glance at her.</p>
+
+<p>She gave a slight gesture of gentle reproach.</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't have you on paying terms,"&mdash;she answered; "I don't take in
+lodgers."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but&mdash;how do you live?"</p>
+
+<p>He put the question hesitatingly, yet with keen curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"How do I live? You mean how do I work for a living? I am a lace mender,
+and a bit of a laundress too. I wash fine muslin gowns, and mend and
+clean valuable old lace. It's pretty work and pleasant enough in its
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"Does it pay you well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, quite sufficiently for all my needs. I don't cost much to keep!"
+And she laughed&mdash;"I'm all by myself, and I was never money-hungry! Now
+come!&mdash;you mustn't talk any more. You know who I am and what I am,&mdash;and
+we'll have a good long chat to-morrow. It's bed-time!"</p>
+
+<p>She led him, as though he were a child, into a little room,&mdash;one of the
+quaintest and prettiest he had ever seen,&mdash;with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> a sloping raftered
+ceiling, and one rather wide latticed window set in a deep embrasure and
+curtained with spotless white dimity. Here there was a plain
+old-fashioned oak bedstead, trimmed with the same white hangings, the
+bed itself being covered with a neat quilt of diamond-patterned silk
+patchwork. Everything was delicately clean, and fragrant with the odour
+of dried rose-leaves and lavender,&mdash;and it was with all the zealous care
+of an anxious housewife that Mary Deane assured her "guest" that the
+sheets were well-aired, and that there was not "a speck of damp"
+anywhere. A kind of instinct told him that this dainty little sleeping
+chamber, so fresh and pure, with not even a picture on its white-washed
+walls, and only a plain wooden cross hung up just opposite to the bed,
+must be Mary's own room, and he looked at her questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you sleep yourself?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Upstairs,"&mdash;she answered, at once&mdash;"Just above you. This is a
+two-storied cottage&mdash;quite large really! I have a parlour besides the
+kitchen,&mdash;oh, the parlour's very sweet!&mdash;it has a big window which my
+father built himself, and it looks out on a lovely view of the orchard
+and the stream,&mdash;then I have three more rooms, and a wash-house and
+cellar. It's almost too big a cottage for me, but father loved it, and
+he died here,&mdash;that's why I keep all his things about me and stay on in
+it. He planted all the roses in the orchard,&mdash;and I couldn't leave
+them!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley said nothing in answer to this. She put an armchair for him
+near the bed.</p>
+
+<p>"Now as soon as you're in bed, just call to me and I'll put out the
+light in the kitchen and go to bed myself,"&mdash;she said&mdash;"And I'll take
+the little doggie with me, and make him comfortable for the night. I'm
+leaving you a candle and matches, and if you feel badly at all, there's
+a handbell close by,&mdash;mind you ring it, and I'll come to you at once and
+do all I can for you."</p>
+
+<p>He bent his eyes searchingly upon her in his old suspicious "business"
+way, his fuzzy grey eyebrows almost meeting in the intensity of his
+gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me&mdash;why are you so good to me?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ask nonsense questions, please, Mr. David! Haven't I told you
+already?&mdash;not why I am 'good,' because that's rubbish&mdash;but why I am
+trying to take care of you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;because I am old!" he said, with a sudden pang of
+self-contempt&mdash;"and&mdash;useless!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night!" she answered, cheerfully&mdash;"Call to me when you are ready!"</p>
+
+<p>She was gone before he could speak another word and he heard her talking
+to Charlie in petting playful terms of endearment. Judging from the
+sounds in the kitchen, he concluded, and rightly, that she was getting
+her own supper and that of the dog at the same time. For two or three
+minutes he sat inert, considering his strange and unique position. What
+would this present adventure lead to? Unless his new friend, Mary Deane,
+examined the vest he had asked her to take care of for him, she would
+not discover who he was or from whence he came. Would she examine
+it?&mdash;would she unrip the lining, just out of feminine curiosity, and sew
+it up again, pretending that she had not touched it, after the "usual
+way of women"? No! He was sure,&mdash;absolutely sure&mdash;of her integrity.
+What? In less than an hour's acquaintance with her, would he swear to
+her honesty? Yes, he would! Never could such eyes as hers, so softly,
+darkly blue and steadfast, mirror a falsehood, or deflect the fragment
+of a broken promise! And so, for the time being, in utter fatigue of
+both body and mind, he put away all thought, all care for the future,
+and resigned himself to the circumstances by which he was now
+surrounded. Undressing as quickly as he could in his weak and trembling
+condition, he got into the bed so comfortably prepared for him, and lay
+down in utter lassitude, thankful for rest. After he had lain so for a
+few minutes he called:</p>
+
+<p>"Mary Deane!"</p>
+
+<p>She came at once, and looked in, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"All cosy and comfortable?" she queried&mdash;"That's right!" Then entering
+the room, she showed him the very vest, the possible fate of which he
+had been considering.</p>
+
+<p>"This is quite dry now,"&mdash;she said&mdash;"I've been thinking that perhaps as
+there are letters and papers inside, you'd like to have it near you,&mdash;so
+I'm just going to put it in here&mdash;see?" And she opened a small cupboard
+in the wall close to the bed&mdash;"There! Now I'll lock it up"&mdash;and she
+suited the action to the word&mdash;"Where shall I put the key?"</p>
+
+<p>"Please keep it for me yourself!" he answered, earnestly,&mdash;"It will be
+safest with you!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, perhaps it will,"&mdash;she agreed. "Anyhow no one can get at your
+letters without <i>my</i> consent! Now, are you quite easy?"</p>
+
+<p>And, as she spoke, she came and smoothed the bedclothes over him, and
+patted one of his thin, worn hands which lay, almost unconsciously to
+himself, outside the quilt.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite!" he said, faintly, "God bless you!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you too!" she responded&mdash;"Good-night&mdash;David!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night&mdash;Mary!"</p>
+
+<p>She went away with a light step, softly closing the door behind her.
+Returning to the kitchen she took up the little dog Charlie in her arms,
+and nestled him against her bosom, where he was very well content to be,
+and stood for a moment looking meditatively into the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old man!" she murmured&mdash;"I'm so glad I found him before it was too
+late! He would have died out there on the hills, I'm sure! He's very
+ill&mdash;and so worn out and feeble!"</p>
+
+<p>Involuntarily her glance wandered to a framed photograph which stood on
+the mantelshelf, showing the likeness of a white-haired man standing
+among a group of full-flowering roses, with a smile upon his wrinkled
+face,&mdash;a smile expressing the quaintest and most complete satisfaction,
+as though he sought to illustrate the fact that though he was old, he
+was still a part of the youthful blossoming of the earth in summer-time.</p>
+
+<p>"What would you have done, father dear, if you had been here
+to-night?"&mdash;she queried, addressing the portrait&mdash;"Ah, I need not ask! I
+know! You would have brought your suffering brother home, to share all
+you had;&mdash;you would have said to him 'Rest, and be thankful!' For you
+never turned the needy from your door, my dear old dad!&mdash;never!&mdash;no
+matter how much you were in need yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>She wafted a kiss to the venerable face among the roses,&mdash;and then
+turning, extinguished the lamp on the table. The dying glow of the fire
+shone upon her for a moment, setting a red sparkle in her hair, and a
+silvery one on the silky head of the little dog she carried, and
+outlining her fine profile so that it gleamed with a pure soft pallor
+against the surrounding darkness,&mdash;and with one final look round to see
+that all was clear for the night, she went away noiselessly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> like a
+lovely ghost and disappeared, her step making no sound on the short
+wooden stairs that led to the upper room which she had hastily arranged
+for her own accommodation, in place of the one now occupied by the
+homeless wayfarer she had rescued.</p>
+
+<p>There was no return of the storm. The heavens, with their mighty burden
+of stars, remained clear and tranquil,&mdash;the raging voice of ocean was
+gradually sinking into a gentle crooning song of sweet content,&mdash;and
+within the little cottage complete silence reigned, unbroken save for
+the dash of the stream outside, rushing down through the "coombe" to the
+sea.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>The next morning Helmsley was too ill to move from his bed, or to be
+conscious of his surroundings. And there followed a long period which to
+him was well-nigh a blank. For weeks he lay helpless in the grasp of a
+fever which over and over again threatened to cut the last frail thread
+of his life asunder. Pain tortured every nerve and sinew in his body,
+and there were times of terrible collapse,&mdash;when he was conscious of
+nothing save an intense longing to sink into the grave and have done
+with all the sharp and cruel torment which kept him on the rack of
+existence. In a semi-delirious condition he tossed and moaned the hours
+away, hardly aware of his own identity. In certain brief pauses of the
+nights and days, when pain was momentarily dulled by stupor, he saw, or
+fancied he saw a woman always near him, with anxiety in her eyes and
+words of soothing consolation on her lips;&mdash;and then he found himself
+muttering, "Mary! Mary! God bless you!" over and over again. Once or
+twice he dimly realised that a small dark man came to his bedside and
+felt his pulse and looked at him very doubtfully, and that she, Mary,
+called this personage "doctor," and asked him questions in a whisper.
+But all within his own being was pain and bewilderment,&mdash;sometimes he
+felt as though he were one drop in a burning whirlpool of madness&mdash;and
+sometimes he seemed to himself to be spinning round and round in a haze
+of blinding rain, of which the drops were scalding hot, and heavy as
+lead,&mdash;and occasionally he found that he was trying to get out of bed,
+uttering cries of inexplicable anguish, while at such moments, something
+cool was placed on his forehead, and a gentle arm was passed round him
+till the paroxysm abated, and he fell down again among his pillows
+exhausted. Slowly, and as it were grudgingly, after many days, the
+crisis of the illness passed and ebbed away in dull throbs of
+agony,&mdash;and he sank into a weak lethargy that was almost like the
+comatose condition preceding death. He lay staring at the ceiling for
+hours, heedless as to whether he ever moved or spoke again. Some-one
+came and put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> spoonfuls of liquid nourishment between his lips, and he
+swallowed it mechanically without any sign of conscious appreciation.
+White as white marble, and aged by many years, he remained stretched in
+his rigid corpse-like attitude, his eyes always fixedly upturned, till
+one day he was roused from his deepening torpor by the sound of sobbing.
+With a violent effort he brought his gaze down from the ceiling, and saw
+a figure kneeling by his bed, and a mass of bronze brown hair falling
+over a face concealed by two shapely white hands through which the tears
+were falling. Feebly astonished, he stretched out his thin, trembling
+fingers to touch that wonderful bright mesh of waving tresses, and
+asked&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What is this? Who&mdash;who is crying?"</p>
+
+<p>The hidden face was uplifted, and two soft eyes, wet with weeping,
+looked up hopefully.</p>
+
+<p>"It's Mary!" said a trembling voice&mdash;"You know me, don't you? Oh,
+dearie, if you would but try to rouse yourself, you'd get well even
+now!"</p>
+
+<p>He gazed at her in a kind of childish admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"It's Mary!" he echoed, faintly&mdash;"And who is Mary?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you remember?" And rising from her knees, she dashed away her
+tears and smiled at him&mdash;"Or is it too hard for you to think at all
+about it just now? Didn't I find you out on the hills in the storm, and
+bring you home here?&mdash;and didn't I tell you that my name was Mary?"</p>
+
+<p>He kept his eyes upon her wistful face,&mdash;and presently a wan smile
+crossed his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!&mdash;so you did!" he answered&mdash;"I know you now, Mary! I've been ill,
+haven't I?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded at him&mdash;the tears were still wet on her lashes.</p>
+
+<p>"Very ill!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ill all night, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded again.</p>
+
+<p>"It's morning now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it's morning!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall get up presently,"&mdash;he said, in his old gentle courteous
+way&mdash;"I am sorry to have given you so much trouble! I must not burden
+your hospitality&mdash;your kindness&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His voice trailed away into silence,&mdash;his eyelids drooped&mdash;and fell into
+a sound slumber,&mdash;the first refreshing sleep he had enjoyed for many
+weary nights and days.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mary Deane stood looking at him thoughtfully. The turn had come for the
+better, and she silently thanked God. Night after night, day after day,
+she had nursed him with unwearying patience and devotion, having no
+other help or guidance save her own womanly instinct, and the occasional
+advice of the village doctor, who, however, was not a qualified medical
+man, but merely a herbalist who prepared his own simples. This humble
+Gamaliel diagnosed Helmsley's case as one of rheumatic fever,
+complicated by heart trouble, as well as by the natural weakness of
+decaying vitality. Mary had explained to him Helmsley's presence in her
+cottage by a pious falsehood, which Heaven surely forgave her as soon as
+it was uttered. She had said that he was a friend of her late father's,
+who had sought her out in the hope that she might help him to find some
+light employment in his old age, and that not knowing the country at
+all, he had lost his way across the hills during the blinding fury of
+the storm. This story quickly ran through the little village, of which
+Mary's house was the last, at the summit of the "coombe," and many of
+its inhabitants came to inquire after "Mr. David," while he lay tossing
+and moaning between life and death, most of them seriously commiserating
+Mary herself for the "sight o' trouble" she had been put to,&mdash;"all for a
+trampin' stranger like!"</p>
+
+<p>"Though,"&mdash;observed one rustic sage&mdash;"Bein' a lone woman as y' are, Mis'
+Deane, m'appen if he knew yer father 'twould be pleasant to talk to him
+when 'is 'ed comes clear, if clear it iver do come. For when we've put
+our owd folk under the daisies, it do cheer the 'art a bit to talk of
+'em to those as knew 'em when they was a standin' upright, bold an'
+strong, for all they lays so low till last trumpet."</p>
+
+<p>Mary smiled a grave assent, and with wise tact and careful forethought
+for the comfort and well-being of her unknown guest, quietly accepted
+the position she had brought upon herself as having given shelter and
+lodging to her "father's friend," thus smoothing all difficulties away
+for him, whether he recovered from his illness or not. Had he died, she
+would have borne the expenses of his burial without a word of other
+explanation than that which she had offered by way of appeasing the
+always greedy curiosity of any community of human beings who are
+gathered in one small town or village,&mdash;and if he recovered,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> she was
+prepared to treat him in very truth as her "father's friend."</p>
+
+<p>"For,"&mdash;she argued with herself, quite simply&mdash;"I am sure father would
+have been kind to him, and when once <i>he</i> was kind, it was impossible
+not to be his friend."</p>
+
+<p>And, little by little, Helmsley struggled back to life,&mdash;life that was
+very weak and frail indeed, but still, life that contained the whole
+essence and elixir of being,&mdash;a new and growing interest. Little by
+little his brain cleared and recovered its poise,&mdash;once more he found
+himself thinking of things that had been done, and of things that were
+yet worth doing. Watching Mary Deane as she went softly to and fro in
+constant attendance on his needs, he was divided in his mind between
+admiration, gratitude, and&mdash;a lurking suspicion, of which he was
+ashamed. As a business man, he had been taught to look for interested
+motives lying at the back of every action, bad or good,&mdash;and as his
+health improved, and calm reason again asserted its sway, he found it
+difficult and well-nigh impossible to realise or to believe that this
+woman, to whom he was a perfect stranger, no more than a vagrant on the
+road, could have given him so much of her time, attention, and care,
+unless she had dimly supposed him to be something other than he had
+represented himself. Unable yet to leave his bed, he lay, to all
+appearances, quietly contented, acknowledging her gentle ministrations
+with equally gentle words of thanks, while all the time he was mentally
+tormenting himself with doubts and fears. He knew that during his
+illness he had been delirious,&mdash;surely in that delirium he might have
+raved and talked of many things that would have yielded the entire
+secret of his identity. This thought made him restless,&mdash;and one
+afternoon when Mary came in with the deliciously prepared cup of tea
+which she always gave him about four o'clock, he turned his eyes upon
+her with a sudden keen look which rather startled her by its piercing
+brightness suggesting, as it did, some return of fever.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me,"&mdash;he said&mdash;"Have I been ill long? More than a week?"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"A little more than a week,"&mdash;she answered, gently&mdash;"Don't worry!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not worrying. Please tell me what day it is!"</p>
+
+<p>"What day it is? Well, to-day is Sunday."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Sunday! Yes&mdash;but what is the date of the month?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed softly, patting his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, never mind! What does it matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"It does matter,"&mdash;he protested, with a touch of petulance&mdash;"I know it
+is July, but what time of July?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not July," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not July!"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Nor August!"</p>
+
+<p>He raised himself on his pillow and stared at her in questioning
+amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"Not July? Not August? Then&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>She took his hand between her own kind warm palms, stroking it
+soothingly up and down.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not July, and it's not August!" she repeated, nodding at him as
+though he were a worried and fractious child&mdash;"It's the second week in
+September. There!"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes turned from right to left in utter bewilderment. "But how&mdash;&mdash;"
+he murmured&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Then he suddenly caught her hands in the one she was holding.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to say that I have been ill all those weeks&mdash;a burden upon
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"You've been ill all those weeks&mdash;yes!" she answered "But you haven't
+been a burden. Don't you think it! You've&mdash;you've been a pleasure!" And
+her blue eyes filled with soft tears, which she quickly mastered and
+sent back to the tender source from which they sprang; "You have,
+really!"</p>
+
+<p>He let go her hand and sank back on his pillows with a smothered groan.</p>
+
+<p>"A pleasure!" he muttered&mdash;"I!" And his fuzzy eyebrows met in almost a
+frown as he again looked at her with one of the keen glances which those
+who knew him in business had learned to dread. "Mary Deane, do not tell
+me what is not and what cannot be true! A sick man&mdash;an old man&mdash;can be
+no 'pleasure' to anyone;&mdash;he is nothing but a bore and a trouble, and
+the sooner he dies the better!"</p>
+
+<p>The smiling softness still lingered in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah well!"&mdash;she said&mdash;"You talk like that because you're not strong yet,
+and you just feel a bit cross and worried! You'll be better in another
+few days&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Another few days!" he interrupted her&mdash;"No&mdash;no&mdash;that cannot be&mdash;I must
+be up and tramping it again&mdash;I must not stay on here&mdash;I have already
+stayed too long."</p>
+
+<p>A slight shadow crossed her face, but she was silent. He watched her
+narrowly.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been off my head, haven't I?" he queried, affecting a certain
+brusqueness in his tone&mdash;"Talking a lot of nonsense, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;sometimes,"&mdash;she replied&mdash;"But only when you were <i>very</i> bad."</p>
+
+<p>"And what did I say?"</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated a moment, and he grew impatient.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come!" he demanded, irritably&mdash;"What did I say?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him candidly.</p>
+
+<p>"You talked mostly about 'Tom o' the Gleam,'"&mdash;she answered&mdash;"That was a
+poor gypsy well known in these parts. He had just one little child left
+to him in the world&mdash;its mother was dead. Some rich lord driving a motor
+car down by Cleeve ran over the poor baby and killed it&mdash;and Tom&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Tom tracked the car to Blue Anchor, where he found the man who had run
+over his child and killed <i>him</i>!" said Helmsley, with grim
+satisfaction&mdash;"I saw it done!"</p>
+
+<p>Mary shuddered.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw it done!" repeated Helmsley&mdash;"And I think it was rightly done!
+But&mdash;I saw Tom himself die of grief and madness&mdash;with his dead child in
+his arms&mdash;and <i>that!</i>&mdash;that broke something in my heart and brain and
+made me think God was cruel!"</p>
+
+<p>She bent over him, and arranged his pillows more comfortably.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew Tom,"&mdash;she said, presently, in a soft voice&mdash;"He was a wild
+creature, but very kind and good for all that. Some folks said he had
+been born a gentleman, and that a quarrel with his family had made him
+take to the gypsy life&mdash;but that's only a story. Anyway his little
+child&mdash;'kiddie'&mdash;as it used to be called, was the dearest little fellow
+in the world&mdash;so playful and affectionate!&mdash;I don't wonder Tom went mad
+when his one joy was killed! And you saw it all, you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I saw it all!" And Helmsley, with a faint sigh half closed his
+eyes as he spoke&mdash;"I was tramping from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> Watchett,&mdash;and the motor passed
+me on my way, but I did not see the child run over. I meant to get a
+lodging at Blue Anchor&mdash;and while I was having my supper at the public
+house Tom came in,&mdash;and&mdash;and it was all over in less than fifteen
+minutes! A horrible sight&mdash;a horrible, horrible sight! I see it now!&mdash;I
+shall never forget it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Enough to make you ill, poor dear!" said Mary, gently&mdash;"Don't think of
+it now! Try and sleep a little. You mustn't talk too much. Poor Tom is
+dead and buried now, and his little child with him&mdash;God rest them both!
+It's better he should have died than lived without anyone to love him in
+the world."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true!" And opening his eyes widely again, he gazed full at
+her&mdash;"That's the worst fate of all&mdash;to live in the world without anyone
+to love you! Tell me&mdash;when I was delirious did I only talk of Tom o' the
+Gleam?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's the only person whose name you seemed to have on your
+mind,"&mdash;she answered, smiling a little&mdash;"But you <i>did</i> make a great
+noise about money!"</p>
+
+<p>"Money?" he echoed&mdash;"I&mdash;I made a noise about money?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" And her smile deepened&mdash;"Often at night you quite startled me by
+shouting 'Money! Money!' I'm sure you've wanted it very badly!"</p>
+
+<p>He moved restlessly and avoided her gaze. Presently he asked
+querulously:</p>
+
+<p>"Where is my old vest with all my papers?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's just where I put it the night you came,"&mdash;she answered&mdash;"I haven't
+touched it. Don't you remember you told me to keep the key of the
+cupboard which is right here close to your bed? I've got it quite safe."</p>
+
+<p>He turned his head round on the pillow and looked at her with a sudden
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you! You are very kind to me, Mary! But you must let me work off
+all I owe you as soon as I'm well."</p>
+
+<p>She put one finger meditatively on her lips and surveyed him with a
+whimsically indulgent air.</p>
+
+<p>"Let you work it off? Well, I don't mind that at all! But a minute ago
+you were saying you must get up and go on the tramp again. Now, if you
+want to work for me, you must stay&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I will stay till I have paid you my debt somehow!" he said&mdash;"I'm
+old&mdash;but I can do a few useful things yet."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure you can!" And she nodded cheerfully&mdash;"And you shall! Now rest
+a while, and don't fret!"</p>
+
+<p>She went away from him then to fetch the little dog, Charlie, who, now
+that his master was on the fair road to complete recovery, was always
+brought in to amuse him after tea. Charlie was full of exuberant life,
+and his gambols over the bed where Helmsley lay, his comic interest in
+the feathery end of his own tail, and his general intense delight in the
+fact of his own existence, made him a merry and affectionate little
+playmate. He had taken immensely to his new home, and had attached
+himself to Mary Deane with singular devotion, trotting after her
+everywhere as close to her heels as possible. The fame of his beauty had
+gone through the village, and many a small boy and girl came timidly to
+the cottage door to try and "have a peep" at the smallest dog ever seen
+in the neighbourhood, and certainly the prettiest.</p>
+
+<p>"That little dawg be wurth twenty pun!"&mdash;said one of the rustics to
+Mary, on one occasion when she was sitting in her little garden,
+carefully brushing and combing the silky coat of the little
+"toy"&mdash;"Th'owd man thee's been a' nussin' ought to give 'im to thee as a
+thank-offerin'."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't take him,"&mdash;Mary answered&mdash;"He's perhaps the only friend the
+poor old fellow has got in the world. It would be just selfish of me to
+want him."</p>
+
+<p>And so the time went on till it was past mid-September, and there came a
+day, mild, warm, and full of the soft subdued light of deepening autumn,
+when Mary told her patient that he might get up, and sit in an armchair
+for a few hours in the kitchen. She gave him this news when she brought
+him his breakfast, and added&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I'll wrap you up in father's dressing gown, and you'll be quite cosy
+and safe from chill. And after another week you'll be so strong that
+you'll be able to dress yourself and do without me altogether!"</p>
+
+<p>This phrase struck curiously on his ears. "Do without her altogether!"
+That would be strange indeed&mdash;almost impossible! It was quite early in
+the morning when she thus spoke&mdash;about seven o'clock,&mdash;and he was not to
+get up till noon, "when the air was at its warmest," said Mary&mdash;so he
+lay very quietly, thinking over every detail of the position in which he
+found himself. He was now perfectly aware that it was a position which
+opened up great possibilities.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> His dream,&mdash;the vague indefinable
+longing which possessed him for love&mdash;pure, disinterested, unselfish
+love,&mdash;seemed on the verge of coming true. Yet he would not allow
+himself to hope too much,&mdash;he preferred to look on the darker side of
+probable disillusion. Meanwhile, he was conscious of a sweetness and
+comfort in his life such as he had never yet experienced. His thoughts
+dwelt with secret pleasure on the open frankness and calm beauty of the
+face that had bent over him with the watchfulness of a guardian angel
+through so many days and nights of pain, delirium, and dread of
+death,&mdash;and he noted with critically observant eyes the noiseless
+graceful movement of this humbly-born woman, whose instincts were so
+delicate and tender, whose voice was so gentle, and whose whole bearing
+expressed such unaffected dignity and purity of mind. On this particular
+morning she was busy ironing;&mdash;and she had left the door open between
+his bedroom and the kitchen, so that he might benefit by the inflow of
+fresh air from the garden, the cottage door itself being likewise thrown
+back to allow a full entrance of the invigorating influences of the
+light breeze from the sea and the odours of the flowers. From his bed he
+could see her slim back bent over the fine muslin frills she was
+pressing out with such patient precision, and he caught the glint of the
+sun on the rich twist of her bronze brown hair. Presently he heard some
+one talking to her,&mdash;a woman evidently, whose voice was pitched in a
+plaintive and almost querulous key.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mis' Deane, say 'ow ye will an' what ye will,&mdash;there's a spider
+this very blessed instant a' crawlin' on the bottom of the ironin'
+blanket, which is a sure sign as 'ow yer washin' won't come to no good
+try iver so 'ard, for as we all knows&mdash;'See a spider at morn, An' ye'll
+wish ye wornt born: See a spider at night, An' yer wrongs'll come
+right!'"</p>
+
+<p>Mary laughed; and Helmsley listened with a smile on his own lips. She
+had such a pretty laugh,&mdash;so low and soft and musical.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, never mind the poor spider, Mrs. Twitt!"&mdash;she said&mdash;"Let it climb
+up the ironing blanket if it likes! I see dozens of spiders 'at morn,'
+and I've never in my life wished I wasn't born! Why, if you go out in
+the garden early, you're bound to see spiders!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's true&mdash;that's Testymen true!" And the individual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> addressed as
+Mrs. Twitt, heaved a profound sigh which was loud enough to flutter
+through the open door to Helmsley's ears&mdash;"Which, as I sez to Twitt
+often, shows as 'ow we shouldn't iver tempt Providence. Spiders there
+is, an' spiders there will be 'angin' on boughs an' 'edges, frequent too
+in September, but we aint called upon to look at 'em, only when the
+devil puts 'em out speshul to catch the hi, an' then they means
+mischief. An' that' just what 'as 'appened this present minit, Mis'
+Deane,&mdash;that spider on yer ironin' blanket 'as caught my hi."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so sorry!" said Mary, sweetly&mdash;"But as long as the spider doesn't
+bring <i>you</i> any ill-luck, Mrs. Twitt, I don't mind for myself&mdash;I don't,
+really!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Twitt emitted an odd sound, much like the grunt of a small and
+discontented pig.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a reckless foot as don't mind precipeges,"&mdash;she remarked,
+solemnly&mdash;"'Owsomever, I've given ye fair warnin'. An' 'ow's yer
+father's friend?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's much better,&mdash;quite out of danger now,"&mdash;replied Mary&mdash;"He's going
+to get up to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"David's 'is name, so I 'ears,"&mdash;continued Mrs. Twitt; "I've never
+myself knowed anyone called David, but it's a common name in some parts,
+speshul in Scripter. Is 'e older than yer father would 'a bin if so be
+the Lord 'ad carried 'im upright to this present?"</p>
+
+<p>"He seems a little older than father was when he died,"&mdash;answered Mary,
+in slow, thoughtful accents&mdash;"But perhaps it is only trouble and illness
+that makes him look so. He's very gentle and kind. Indeed,"&mdash;here she
+paused for a second&mdash;then went on&mdash;"I don't know whether it's because
+I've been nursing him so long and have got accustomed to watch him and
+take care of him&mdash;but I've really grown quite fond of him!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Twitt gave a short laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"That's nat'ral, seein' as ye're lone in life without 'usband or
+childer,"&mdash;she said&mdash;"There's a many wimmin as 'ud grow fond of an Aunt
+Sally on a pea-stick if they'd nothin' else to set their 'arts on. An'
+as the old chap was yer father's friend, there's bin a bit o' feelin'
+like in lookin' arter 'im. But I wouldn't take 'im on my back as a
+burgin, Mis' Deane, if I were you. Ye're far better off by yerself with
+the washin' an' lace-mendin' business."</p>
+
+<p>Mary was silent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It's all very well,"&mdash;proceeded Mrs. Twitt&mdash;"for 'im to say 'e knew yer
+father, but arter all <i>that</i> mayn't be true. The Lord knows whether 'e
+aint a 'scaped convick, or a man as is grown 'oary-'edded with 'is own
+wickedness. An' though 'e's feeble now an' wants all ye can give 'im,
+the day may come when, bein' strong again, 'e'll take a knife an' slit
+yer throat. Bein' a tramp like, it 'ud come easy to 'im an' not to be
+blamed, if we may go by what they sez in the 'a'penny noospapers. I mind
+me well on the night o' the storm, the very night ye went out on the
+'ills an' found 'im, I was settin' at my door down shorewards watchin'
+the waves an' hearin' the wind cryin' like a babe for its mother, an' if
+ye'll believe me, there was a sea-gull as came and flopped down on a
+stone just in front o' me!&mdash;a thing no sea-gull ever did to me all the
+time I've lived 'ere, which is thirty years since I married Twitt. There
+it sat, drenched wi' the rain, an' Twitt came out in that slow, silly
+way 'e 'as, an' 'e sez&mdash;'Poor bird! 'Ungry, are ye? an' throws it a
+reg'lar full meal, which, if you believe me, it ate all up as cool as a
+cowcumber. An' then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And then?" queried Mary, with a mirthful quiver in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Then,&mdash;oh, well, then it flew away,"&mdash;and Mrs. Twitt seemed rather
+sorry for this commonplace end to what she imagined was a thrilling
+incident&mdash;"But the way that bird looked at me was somethin' awful! An'
+when I 'eerd as 'ow you'd found a friend o' yer father's a' trampin' an'
+wanderin' an' 'ad took 'im in to board an' lodge on trust, I sez to
+Twitt&mdash;'There you've got the meanin' o' that sea-gull! A stranger in the
+village bringin' no good to the 'and as feeds'im!'"</p>
+
+<p>Mary's laughter rang out now like a little peal of bells.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Mrs. Twitt!" she said&mdash;"I know how good and kind you are&mdash;but you
+mustn't have any of your presentiments about me! I'm sure the poor
+sea-gull meant no harm! And I'm sure that poor old David won't ever hurt
+me&mdash;&mdash;" Here she suddenly gave an exclamation&mdash;"Why, I forgot! The door
+of his room has been open all this time! He must have heard us talking!"</p>
+
+<p>She made a hurried movement, and Helmsley diplomatically closed his
+eyes. She entered, and came softly up to his bedside, and he felt that
+she stood there looking at him intently. He could hardly forbear a
+smile;&mdash;but he managed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> to keep up a very creditable appearance of being
+fast asleep, and she stole away again, drawing the door to behind her.
+Thus, for the time being, he heard no more,&mdash;but he had gathered quite
+enough to know exactly how matters stood with regard to his presence in
+her little home.</p>
+
+<p>"She has given out that I am an old friend of her father's!" he
+mused&mdash;"And she has done that in order to silence both inquiry and
+advice as to the propriety of her having taken me under her shelter and
+protection. Kind heart! Gentle soul! And&mdash;what else did she say? That
+she had 'really grown quite fond' of me! Can I&mdash;dare I&mdash;believe that?
+No!&mdash;it is a mere feminine phrase&mdash;spoken out of compassionate impulse.
+Fond of me! In my apparent condition of utter poverty,&mdash;old, ill and
+useless, who could or would be 'fond' of me!"</p>
+
+<p>Yet he dwelt on the words with a kind of hope that nerved and
+invigorated him, and when at noon Mary came and assisted him to get up
+out of bed, he showed greater evidence of strength than she had imagined
+would be possible. True, his limbs ached sorely, and he was very feeble,
+for even with the aid of a stick and the careful support of her strong
+arm, his movements were tottering and uncertain, and the few steps
+between his bedroom and the kitchen seemed nearly a mile of exhausting
+distance. But the effort to walk did him good, and when he sank into the
+armchair which had been placed ready for him near the fire, he looked up
+with a smile and patted the gentle hand that had guided him along so
+surely and firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm an old bag of bones!" he said&mdash;"Not much good to myself or to any
+one else! You'd better bundle me out on the doorstep!"</p>
+
+<p>For an answer she brought him a little cup of nourishing broth tastily
+prepared and bade him drink it&mdash;"every drop, mind!"&mdash;she told him with a
+little commanding nod. He obeyed her,&mdash;and when he gave her back the cup
+empty he said, with a keen glance:</p>
+
+<p>"So I am your father's friend, am I, Mary?"</p>
+
+<p>The blood rushed to her cheeks in a crimson tide,&mdash;she looked at him
+appealingly, and her lips trembled a little.</p>
+
+<p>"You were so very ill!" she murmured&mdash;"I was afraid you might die,&mdash;and
+I had to send for the only doctor we have in the village&mdash;Mr.
+Bunce,&mdash;the boys call him Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> Dunce, but that's their mischief, for
+he's really quite clever,&mdash;and I was bound to tell him something by way
+of introducing you and making him take care of you&mdash;even&mdash;even if what I
+said wasn't quite true! And&mdash;and&mdash;I made it out to myself this way&mdash;that
+if father had lived he would have done just all he could for you, and
+then you <i>would</i> have been his friend&mdash;you couldn't have helped
+yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>He kept his eyes upon her as she spoke. He liked to see the soft
+flitting of the colour to-and-fro in her face,&mdash;- her skin was so clear
+and transparent,&mdash;a physical reflection, he thought, of the clear
+transparency of her mind.</p>
+
+<p>"And who was your father, Mary?" he asked, gently.</p>
+
+<p>"He was a gardener and florist,"&mdash;she answered, and taking from the
+mantelshelf the photograph of the old man smiling serenely amid a
+collection of dwarf and standard roses, she showed it to him&mdash;"Here he
+is, just as he was taken after an exhibition where he won a prize. He
+was so proud when he heard that the first prize for a dwarf red rose had
+been awarded to James Deane of Barnstaple. My dear old dad! He was a
+good, good man&mdash;he was indeed! He loved the flowers&mdash;he used to say that
+they thought and dreamed and hoped, just as we do&mdash;and that they had
+their wishes and loves and ambitions just as we have. He had a very good
+business once in Barnstaple, and every one respected him, but somehow he
+could not keep up with the demands for new things&mdash;'social sensations in
+the way of flowers,' he used to call them, and he failed at last,
+through no fault of his own. We sold all we had to pay the creditors,
+and then we came away from Barnstaple into Somerset, and took this
+cottage. Father did a little business in the village, and for some of
+the big houses round about,&mdash;not much, of course&mdash;but I was always handy
+with my needle, and by degrees I got a number of customers for
+lace-mending and getting up ladies' fine lawn and muslin gowns. So
+between us we made quite enough to live on&mdash;till he died." Her voice
+sank&mdash;and she paused&mdash;then she added&mdash;"I've lived alone here ever
+since."</p>
+
+<p>He listened attentively.</p>
+
+<p>"And that is all your history, Mary? What of your mother?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Mary's eyes softened and grew wistful.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother died when I was ten,"&mdash;she said&mdash;"But though I was so little, I
+remember her well. She was pretty&mdash;oh,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> so very pretty! Her hair was
+quite gold like the sun,&mdash;and her eyes were blue&mdash;like the sea. Dad
+worshipped her, and he never would say that she was dead. He liked to
+think that she was always with him,&mdash;and I daresay she was. Indeed, I am
+sure she was, if true love can keep souls together."</p>
+
+<p>He was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you tired, David?" she asked, with sudden anxiety,&mdash;"I'm afraid I'm
+talking too much!"</p>
+
+<p>He raised a hand in protest.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no! I&mdash;I love to hear you talk, Mary! You have been so good to
+me&mdash;so more than kind&mdash;that I'd like to know all about you. But I've no
+right to ask you any questions&mdash;you see I'm only an old, poor man, and
+I'm afraid I shall never be able to do much in the way of paying you
+back for all you've done for me. I used to be clever at office
+work&mdash;reading and writing and casting up accounts, but my sight is
+failing and my hands tremble,&mdash;so I'm no good in that line. But whatever
+I <i>can</i> do for you, as soon as I'm able, I will!&mdash;you may depend upon
+that!"</p>
+
+<p>She leaned towards him, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll teach you basket-making,"&mdash;she said&mdash;"Shall I?"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes lit up with a humorous sparkle.</p>
+
+<p>"If I could learn it, should I be useful to you?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course you would! Ever so useful! Useful to me and useful to
+yourself at the same time!" And she clapped her hands with pleasure at
+having thought of something easy upon which he could try his energies;
+"Basket-making pays well here,&mdash;the farmers want baskets for their
+fruit, and the fishermen want baskets for their fish,&mdash;and its really
+quite easy work. As soon as you're a bit stronger, you shall begin&mdash;and
+you'll be able to earn quite a nice little penny!"</p>
+
+<p>He looked stedfastly into her radiant face.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to earn enough to pay you back all the expense you've been put
+to with me,"&mdash;he said, and his voice trembled&mdash;"But your patience and
+goodness&mdash;that&mdash;I can never hope to pay for&mdash;that's heavenly!&mdash;that's
+beyond all money's worth&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He broke off and put his hand over his eyes. Mary feigned not to notice
+his profound emotion, and, taking up a paper parcel on the table, opened
+it, and unrolled a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> long piece of wonderful old lace, yellow with age,
+and fine as a cobweb.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mind my going on with my work?" she asked, cheerily&mdash;"I'm
+mending this for a Queen!" And as he took away his hand from his eyes,
+which were suspiciously moist, and looked at her wonderingly, she nodded
+at him in the most emphatic way. "Yes, truly, David!&mdash;for a Queen! Oh,
+it's not a Queen who is my direct employer&mdash;no Queen ever knows anything
+about me! It's a great firm in London that sends this to me to mend for
+a Queen&mdash;they trust me with it, because they know me. I've had lace
+worth thousands of pounds in my hands,&mdash;this piece is valued at eight
+hundred, apart from its history&mdash;it belonged to Marie Louise, second
+wife of Napoleon the First. It's a lovely bit!&mdash;but there are some cruel
+holes in it. Ah, dear me!" And, sitting down near the door, she bent her
+head closely over the costly fabric&mdash;"Queens don't think of the eyes
+that have gone out in blindness doing this beautiful work!&mdash;or the hands
+that have tired and the hearts that have broken over it! They would
+never run pins into it if they did!"</p>
+
+<p>He watched her sitting as she now was in the sunlight that flooded the
+doorway, and tried to overcome the emotional weakness that moved him to
+stretch out his arms to her as though she were his daughter, to call her
+to his side, and lay his hands on her head in blessing, and to beg her
+to let him stay with her now and always until the end of his days,&mdash;an
+end which he instinctively felt could not be very long in coming. But he
+realised enough of her character to know that were he to give himself
+away, and declare his real identity and position in the world of men,
+she would probably not allow him to remain in her cottage for another
+twenty-four hours. She would look at him with her candid eyes, and
+express her honest regret that he had deceived her, but he was certain
+that she would not accept a penny of payment at his hands for anything
+she had done for him,&mdash;her simple familiar manner and way of speech
+would change&mdash;and he should lose her&mdash;lose her altogether. And he was
+nervously afraid just now to think of what her loss might mean to him.
+He mastered his thoughts by an effort, and presently, forcing a smile,
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"You were ironing lace this morning, instead of mending it, weren't you,
+Mary?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She looked up quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I wasn't ironing lace&mdash;lace must never be ironed, David! It must
+all be pulled out carefully with the fingers, and the pattern must be
+pricked out on a frame or a cushion, with fine steel pins, just as if it
+were in the making. I was ironing a beautiful muslin gown for a lady who
+buys all her washing dresses in Paris. She couldn't get any one in
+England to wash them properly till she found me. She used to send them
+all away to a woman in Brittany before. The French are wonderful
+washers,&mdash;we're not a patch on them over here. So you saw me ironing?"</p>
+
+<p>"I could just catch a glimpse of you at work through the door," he
+answered&mdash;"and I heard you talking as well&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"To Mrs. Twitt? Ah, I thought you did!" And she laughed. "Well, I wish
+you could have seen her, as well as heard her! She is the quaintest old
+soul! She's the wife of a stonemason who lives at the bottom of the
+village, near the shore. Almost everything that happens in the day or
+the night is a sign of good or bad luck with her. I expect it's because
+her husband makes so many tombstones that she gets morbid,&mdash;but, oh
+dear!&mdash;if God managed the world according to Mrs. Twitt's notions, what
+a funny world it would be!"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed again,&mdash;then shook her finger archly at him.</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>pretended</i> to be asleep, then, when I came in to see if you heard
+us talking?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded a smiling assent.</p>
+
+<p>"That was very wrong of you! You should never pretend to be what you are
+not!" He started nervously at this, and to cover his confusion called to
+the little dog, Charlie, who at once jumped up on his knees;&mdash;"You
+shouldn't, really! Should he, Charlie?" Charlie sat upright, and lolled
+a small red tongue out between two rows of tiny white teeth, by way of a
+laugh at the suggestion&mdash;"People&mdash;even dogs&mdash;are always found out when
+they do that!"</p>
+
+<p>"What are those bright flowers out in your garden just beyond the door
+where you are sitting?" Helmsley asked, to change the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Phloxes,"&mdash;she answered&mdash;"I've got all kinds and colours&mdash;crimson,
+white, mauve, pink, and magenta. Those which you can see from where you
+sit are the crimson<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> ones&mdash;father's favourites. I wish you could get out
+and look at the Virginian creeper&mdash;it's lovely just now&mdash;quite a blaze
+of scarlet all over the cottage. And the Michaelmas daisies are coming
+on finely."</p>
+
+<p>"Michaelmas!" he echoed&mdash;"How late in the year it is growing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, that's true!" she replied&mdash;"Michaelmas means that summer's past."</p>
+
+<p>"And it was full summer when I started on my tramp to Cornwall!" he
+murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind thinking about that just now," she said quickly&mdash;"You
+mustn't worry your head. Mr. Bunce says you mustn't on any account worry
+your head."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bunce!" he repeated wearily&mdash;"What does Mr. Bunce care?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bunce <i>does</i> care," averred Mary, warmly&mdash;"Mr. Bunce is a very good
+little man, and he says you are a very gentle patient to deal with. He's
+done all he possibly could for you, and he knows you've got no money to
+pay him, and that I'm a poor woman, too&mdash;but he's been in to see you
+nearly every day&mdash;so you must really think well of Mr. Bunce."</p>
+
+<p>"I do think well of him&mdash;I am most grateful to him," said David
+humbly&mdash;"But all the same it's <i>you</i>, Mary! You even got me the
+attention of Mr. Bunce!"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled happily.</p>
+
+<p>"You're feeling better, David!" she declared&mdash;"There's a nice bright
+sparkle in your eyes! I should think you were quite a cheerful old boy
+when you're well!"</p>
+
+<p>This suggestion amused him, and he laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I have tried to be cheerful in my time,"&mdash;he said&mdash;"though I've not had
+much to be cheerful about."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that doesn't matter!" she replied!&mdash;"Dad used to say that whatever
+little we had to be thankful for, we ought to make the most of it. It's
+easy to be glad when everything is gladness,&mdash;but when you've only got
+just a tiny bit of joy in a whole wilderness of trouble, then we can't
+be too grateful for that tiny bit of joy. At least, so I take it."</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you learn your philosophy, Mary?" he asked, half
+whimsically&mdash;"I mean, who taught you to think?"</p>
+
+<p>She paused in her lace-mending, needle in hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Who taught me to think! Well, I don't know!&mdash;it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> come natural to me.
+But I'm not what is called 'educated' at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I never learnt very much at school. I got the lessons into my head
+as long as I had to patter them off by heart like a parrot,&mdash;but the
+teachers were all so dull and prosy, and never took any real pains to
+explain things to me,&mdash;indeed, now when I come to think of it, I don't
+believe they <i>could</i> explain!&mdash;they needed teaching themselves. Anyhow,
+as soon as I came away I forgot everything but reading and writing and
+sums&mdash;and began to learn all over again with Dad. Dad made me read to
+him every night&mdash;all sorts of books."</p>
+
+<p>"Had you a Free Library at Barnstaple?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know&mdash;I never asked,"&mdash;she said&mdash;"Father hated 'lent' books. He
+had a savings-box&mdash;he used to call it his 'book-box'&mdash;and he would
+always drop in every spare penny he had for books till he'd got a few
+shillings, and then he would buy what he called 'classics.' They're all
+so cheap, you see. And by degrees we got Shakespeare and Carlyle, and
+Emerson and Scott and Dickens, and nearly all the poets; when you go
+into the parlour you'll see quite a nice bookcase there, full of books.
+It's much better to have them like that for one's own, than wait turns
+at a Free Library. I've read all Shakespeare at least twenty times
+over." The garden-gate suddenly clicked open and she turned her head.
+"Here's Mr. Bunce come to see you."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley drew himself up a little in his chair as the village doctor
+entered, and after exchanging a brief "Good-morning!" with Mary,
+approached him. The situation was curious;&mdash;here was he,&mdash;a
+multi-millionaire, who could have paid the greatest specialists in the
+world for their medical skill and attendance,&mdash;under the supervision and
+scrutiny of this simple herbalist, who, standing opposite to him, bent a
+pair of kindly brown eyes enquiringly upon his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Up to-day, are we?" said Mr. Bunce&mdash;"That is well; that's very well!
+Better in ourselves, too, are we? Better in ourselves?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am much better,"&mdash;replied Helmsley&mdash;"Very much better!&mdash;thanks to you
+and Miss Deane. You&mdash;you have both been very good to me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That's well&mdash;that's very well!" And Mr. Bunce appeared to ruminate,
+while Helmsley studied his face and figure with greater appreciation
+than he had yet been able to do. He had often seen this small dark man
+in the pauses of his feverish delirium,&mdash;often he had tried to answer
+his gentle questions,&mdash;often in the dim light of early morning or late
+evening he had sought to discern his features, and yet could make
+nothing clear as to their actual form, save that their expression was
+kind. Now, as it seemed for the first time, he saw Mr. Bunce as he
+was,&mdash;small and wiry, with a thin, clean-shaven face, deeply furrowed,
+broad brows, and a pleasant look,&mdash;the eyes especially, deep sunk in the
+head though they were, had a steady tenderness in them such as one sees
+in the eyes of a brave St. Bernard dog who has saved many lives.</p>
+
+<p>"We must,"&mdash;said Mr. Bunce, after a long pause&mdash;"be careful. We have got
+out of bed, but we must not walk much. The heart is weak&mdash;we must avoid
+any strain upon it. We must sit quiet."</p>
+
+<p>Mary was listening attentively, and nodded her agreement to this
+pronouncement.</p>
+
+<p>"We must,"&mdash;proceeded Mr. Bunce, laboriously&mdash;"sit quiet. We may get up
+every day now,&mdash;a little earlier each time, remaining up a little later
+each time,&mdash;but we must sit quiet."</p>
+
+<p>Again Mary nodded gravely. Helmsley looked quickly from one to the
+other. A close observer might have seen the glimmer of a smile through
+his fuzzy grey-white beard,&mdash;for his thoughts were very busy. He saw in
+Bunce another subject whose disinterested honesty might be worth
+dissecting.</p>
+
+<p>"But, doctor&mdash;&mdash;" he began.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bunce raised a hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not 'doctor,' my man!" he said&mdash;"have no degree&mdash;no
+qualification&mdash;no diploma&mdash;no anything whatever but just a little, a
+very little common sense,&mdash;yes! And I am simply Bunce,"&mdash;and here a
+smile spread out all the furrows in his face and lit up his eyes; "Or,
+as the small boys call me, Dunce!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all very well, but you're a doctor to me," said Helmsley&mdash;"And
+you've been as much as any other doctor could possibly be, I'm sure. But
+you tell me I must sit quiet&mdash;I don't see how I can do that. I was on
+the tramp<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> till I broke down,&mdash;and I must go on the tramp again,&mdash;I
+can't be a burden on&mdash;on&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He broke off, unable to find words to express himself. But his inward
+eagerness to test the character and attributes of the two human beings
+who had for the present constituted themselves as his guardians, made
+him tremble violently. And Mr. Bunce looked at him with the scrutinising
+air of a connoisseur in the ailments of all and sundry.</p>
+
+<p>"We are nervous,"&mdash;he pronounced&mdash;"We are highly nervous. And we are
+therefore not sure of ourselves. We must be entirely sure of ourselves,
+unless we again wish to lose ourselves. Now we presume that when 'on the
+tramp' as we put it, we were looking for a friend. Is that not so?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"We were trying to find the house of the late Mr. James Deane?"</p>
+
+<p>Mary uttered a little sound that was half a sob and half a sigh.
+Helmsley glanced at her with a reassuring smile, and then replied
+steadily,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"That was so!"</p>
+
+<p>"Our friend, Mr. Deane, unfortunately died some five years
+since,"&mdash;proceeded Mr. Bunce,&mdash;"And we found his daughter, or rather,
+his daughter found us, instead. This we may put down to an act of
+Providence. Now the only thing we can do under the present circumstances
+is to remain with our late old friend's daughter, till we get well."</p>
+
+<p>"But, doctor,"&mdash;exclaimed Helmsley, determined, if possible, to shake
+something selfish, commercial and commonplace out of this odd little man
+with the faithful canine eyes&mdash;"I can't be a burden on her! I've got no
+money&mdash;I can't pay you for all your care! What you do for me, you do for
+absolutely nothing&mdash;nothing&mdash;nothing! Don't you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>His voice rang out with an almost rasping harshness, and Mr. Bunce
+tapped his own forehead gently, but significantly.</p>
+
+<p>"We worry ourselves,"&mdash;he observed, placidly&mdash;"We imagine what does not
+exist. We think that Bunce is sending in his bill. We should wait till
+the bill comes, should we not, Miss Deane?" He smiled, and Mary gave a
+soft laugh of agreement&mdash;"And while we wait for Bunce's bill, we will
+also wait for Miss Deane's. And, in the meantime, we must sit quiet."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence. Helmsley felt a smarting moisture at the
+back of his eyes. He longed to pour out all his history to these two
+simple unworldly souls,&mdash;to tell them that he was rich,&mdash;rich beyond the
+furthest dreams of their imagining,&mdash;rich enough to weigh down the
+light-hearted contentment of their lives with a burden of gold,&mdash;and
+yet&mdash;yet he knew that if he spoke thus and confessed himself, all the
+sweetness of the friendship which was now so disinterested would be
+embittered and lost. He thought, with a latent self-contempt and
+remorse, of certain moods in which he had sometimes indulged,&mdash;moods in
+which he had cynically presumed that he could buy everything in the
+world for money. Kings, thrones, governments, might be had for money, he
+knew, for he had often purchased their good-will&mdash;but Love was a jewel
+he had never found in any market&mdash;unpurchasable as God! And while he yet
+inwardly mused on his position, Bunce bent over him, and taking his thin
+wrinkled hand, patted it gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye for the present, David!" he said, kindly&mdash;"We are on the
+mend&mdash;we are certainly on the mend! We hope the ways of nature will be
+remedial&mdash;and that we shall pick up our strength before the winter
+fairly sets in&mdash;yes, we hope&mdash;we certainly may hope for that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bunce," said Helmsley, with sudden energy&mdash;"God bless you!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>The time now went on peacefully, one day very much like another, and
+Helmsley steadily improved in health and strength, so far recovering
+some of his old vigour and alertness as to be able to take a slow and
+halting daily walk through the village, which, for present purposes
+shall be called Weircombe. The more he saw of the place, the more he
+loved it, and the more he was enchanted with its picturesque position.
+In itself it was a mere cluster of little houses, dotted about on either
+side of a great cleft in the rocks through which a clear mountain stream
+tumbled to the sea,&mdash;but the houses were covered from basement to roof
+with clambering plants and flowers, especially the wild fuschia, which,
+with one or two later kinds of clematis and "morning glory" convolvolus,
+were still in brilliant bloom when the mellow days of October began to
+close in to the month's end. All the cottages in the "coombe" were
+pretty, but to Helmsley's mind Mary Deane's was the prettiest, perched
+as it was on a height overlooking the whole village and near to the tiny
+church, which crowned the hill with a little tower rising heavenward.
+The view of the ocean from Weircombe was very wide and grand,&mdash;on sunny
+days it was like an endless plain of quivering turquoise-blue, with
+white foam-roses climbing up here and there to fall and vanish
+again,&mdash;and when the wind was high, it was like an onward sweeping array
+of Titanic shapes clothed in silver armour and crested with snowy
+plumes, all rushing in a wild charge against the shore, with such a
+clatter and roar as often echoed for miles inland. To make his way
+gradually down through the one little roughly cobbled street to the very
+edge of the sea, was one of Helmsley's greatest pleasures, and he soon
+got to know most of the Weircombe folk, while they in their turn, grew
+accustomed to seeing him about among them, and treated him with a kindly
+familiarity, almost as if he were one of themselves. And his new lease
+of life was, to himself, singularly happy. He enjoyed every moment of
+it,&mdash;every little incident was a novel experience, and he was never
+tired of studying the different characters he met,&mdash;especially and above
+all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> character of the woman whose house was, for the time being, his
+home, and who treated with him all the care and solicitude that a
+daughter might show to her father. And&mdash;he was learning what might be
+called a trade or a craft,&mdash;which fact interested and amused him. He who
+had moved the great wheel of many trades at a mere touch of his finger,
+was now docilely studying the art of basket-making, and training his
+unaccustomed hands to the bending of withes and osiers,&mdash;he whose
+deftly-laid financial schemes had held the money-markets of the world in
+suspense, was now patiently mastering the technical business of forming
+a "slath," and fathoming the mysteries of "scalluming." Like an obedient
+child at school he implicitly followed the instructions of his teacher,
+Mary, who with the first basket he completed went out and effected a
+sale as she said "for fourpence," though really for twopence.</p>
+
+<p>"And good pay, too!" she said, cheerfully&mdash;"It's not often one gets so
+much for a first make."</p>
+
+<p>"That fourpence is yours," said Helmsley, smiling at her&mdash;"You've the
+right to all my earnings!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked serious.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like me to keep it?" she asked&mdash;"I mean, would it please you
+if I did,&mdash;would you feel more content?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should&mdash;you know I should!" he replied earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, then! I'll check it off your account!" And laughing merrily,
+she patted his head as he sat bending over another specimen of his
+basket manufacture&mdash;"At any rate, you're not getting bald over your
+work, David! I never saw such beautiful white hair as yours!"</p>
+
+<p>He glanced up at her.</p>
+
+<p>"May I say, in answer to that, that I never saw such beautiful brown
+hair as yours?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, you may say it, because I know it's true. My hair is my one
+beauty,&mdash;see!"</p>
+
+<p>And pulling out two small curved combs, she let the whole wealth of her
+tresses unwind and fall. Her hair dropped below her knees in a glorious
+mass of colour like that of a brown autumn leaf with the sun just
+glistening on it. She caught it up in one hand and knotted it all again
+at the back of her head in a minute.</p>
+
+<p>"It's lovely, isn't it?"&mdash;she said, quite simply&mdash;"I should think it
+lovely if I saw it on anybody else's head, or cut<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> off hanging in a
+hair-dresser's shop window. I don't admire it because it's mine, you
+know! I admire it as hair merely."</p>
+
+<p>"Hair merely&mdash;yes, I see!" And he bent and twisted the osiers in his
+hands with a sudden vigour that almost snapped them. He was thinking of
+certain women he had known in London&mdash;women whose tresses, dyed, waved,
+crimped and rolled over fantastically shaped "frames," had moved him to
+positive repulsion,&mdash;so much so that he would rather have touched the
+skin of a dead rat than laid a finger on the tinted stuff called "hair"
+by these feminine hypocrites of fashion. He had so long been accustomed
+to shams that the open sincerity of the Weircombe villagers was almost
+confusing to his mind. Nobody seemed to have anything to conceal.
+Everybody knew, or seemed to know, all about everybody else's business.
+There were no bye-roads or corners in Weircombe. There was only one way
+out,&mdash;to the sea. Height at the one end,&mdash;width and depth at the other.
+It seemed useless to have any secrets. He, David Helmsley, felt himself
+to be singular and apart, in that he had his own hidden mystery. He
+often found himself getting restless under the quiet observation of Mr.
+Bunce's eye, yet Mr. Bunce had no suspicions of him whatever. Mr. Bunce
+merely watched him "professionally," and with the kindest intention. In
+fact, he and Bunce became great friends. Bunce had entirely accepted the
+story he told about himself to the effect that he had once been "in an
+office in the city," and looked upon him as a superannuated bank clerk,
+too old to be kept on in his former line of business. Questions that
+were put to him respecting his "late friend, James Deane," he answered
+with apparent good faith by saying that it was a long time since he had
+seen him, and that it was only as a "last forlorn hope" that he had set
+out to try and find him, "as he had always been helpful to those in
+need." Mary herself wished that this little fiction of her "father's
+friend" should be taken as fact by all the village, and a curious part
+of her character was that she never sought to ask Helmsley privately,
+for her own enlightenment, anything of his history. She seemed content
+to accept him as an old and infirm man, who must be taken care of simply
+because he was old and infirm, without further question or argument.
+Bunce was always very stedfast in his praise of her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"She ought&mdash;yes&mdash;she ought possibly to have married,&mdash;" he said, in his
+slow, reflective way&mdash;"She would have made a good wife, and a still
+better mother. But an all-wise Providence has a remarkable habit&mdash;yes, I
+think we may call it quite a remarkable habit!&mdash;of persuading men
+generally to choose thriftless and flighty women for their wives, and to
+leave the capable ones single. That is so. Or in Miss Deane's case it
+may be an illustration of the statement that 'Mary hath chosen the
+better part.' Certainly when either men or women are happy in a state of
+single blessedness, a reference to the Seventh Chapter of the Epistle of
+St. Paul to the Corinthians, will strengthen their minds and
+considerably assist them to remain in that condition."</p>
+
+<p>Thus Bunce would express himself, with a weighty air as of having given
+some vastly important and legal pronouncement. And when Helmsley
+suggested that it was possible Mary might yet marry, he shook his head
+in a strongly expressed negative.</p>
+
+<p>"No, David&mdash;no!" he said&mdash;"She is what we call&mdash;yes, I think we call
+it&mdash;an old maid. This is not a kind term, perhaps, but it is a true one.
+She is, I believe, in her thirty-fifth year,&mdash;a settled and mature
+woman. No man would take her unless she had a little money&mdash;enough, let
+us say, to help him set up a farm. For if a man takes youth to his
+bosom, he does not always mind poverty,&mdash;but if he cannot have youth he
+always wants money. Always! There is no middle course. Now our good Miss
+Deane will never have any money. And, even if she had, we may take
+it&mdash;yes, I certainly <i>think</i> we may take it&mdash;that she would not care to
+<i>buy</i> a husband. No&mdash;no! Her marrying days are past."</p>
+
+<p>"She is a beautiful woman!" said Helmsley, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"You think so? Well, well, David! We have got used to her in
+Weircombe,&mdash;she seems to be a part of the village. When one is familiar
+with a person, one often fails to perceive the beauty that is apparent
+to a stranger. I believe this to be so&mdash;I believe, in general, we may
+take it to be so."</p>
+
+<p>And such was the impression that most of the Weircombe folks had about
+Mary&mdash;that she was just "a part of the village." During his slow
+ramblings about the little sequestered place, Helmsley talked to many of
+the cottagers, who all treated him with that good-humour and tolerance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+which they considered due to his age and feebleness. Young men gave him
+a ready hand if they saw him inclined to falter or to stumble over rough
+places in the stony street,&mdash;little children ran up to him with the
+flowers they had gathered on the hills, or the shells they had collected
+from the drift on the shore&mdash;women smiled at him from their open doors
+and windows&mdash;girls called to him the "Good morning!" or
+"Good-night!"&mdash;and by and by he was almost affectionately known as "Old
+David, who makes baskets up at Miss Deane's." One of his favourite
+haunts was the very end of the "coombe," which,&mdash;sharply cutting down to
+the shore,&mdash;seemed there to have split asunder with volcanic force,
+hurling itself apart to right and left in two great castellated rocks,
+which were piled up, fortress-like, to an altitude of about four hundred
+or more feet, and looked sheer down over the sea. When the tide was high
+the waves rushed swirlingly round the base of these natural towers,
+forming a deep blackish-purple pool in which the wash to and fro of pale
+rose and deep magenta seaweed, flecked with trails of pale grassy green,
+were like the colours of a stormy sunset reflected in a prism. The
+sounds made here by the inflowing and outgoing of the waves were
+curiously musical,&mdash;like the thudding of a great organ, with harp
+melodies floating above the stronger bass, while every now and then a
+sweet sonorous call, like that of a silver trumpet, swung from the
+cavernous depths into clear space and echoed high up in the air, dying
+lingeringly away across the hills. Near this split of the "coombe" stood
+the very last house at the bottom of the village, built of white stone
+and neatly thatched, with a garden running to the edge of the mountain
+stream, which at this point rattled its way down to the sea with that
+usual tendency to haste exhibited by everything in life and nature when
+coming to an end. A small square board nailed above the door bore the
+inscription legibly painted in plain black letters:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">ABEL TWITT,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Stone Mason,</span><br />
+N. B. Good Grave-Work Guaranteed.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The author of this device, and the owner of the dwelling, was a round,
+rosy-faced little man, with shrewd sparkling grey eyes, a pleasant
+smile, and a very sociable manner. He was the great "gossip" of the
+place; no old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> woman at a wash-tub or behind a tea-tray ever wagged her
+tongue more persistently over the concerns of he and she and you and
+they, than Abel Twitt. He had a leisurely way of talking,&mdash;a "slow and
+silly way" his wife called it,&mdash;but he managed to convey a good deal of
+information concerning everybody and everything, whether right or wrong,
+in a very few sentences. He was renowned in the village for his
+wonderful ability in the composition of epitaphs, and by some of his
+friends he was called "Weircombe's Pote Lorit." One of his most
+celebrated couplets was the following:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"<i>This Life while I lived it, was Painful and seldom Victorious,<br />
+I trust in the Lord that the next will be Pleasant and Glorious!</i>"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Everybody said that no one but Abel Twitt could have thought of such
+grand words and good rhymes. Abel himself was not altogether without a
+certain gentle consciousness that in this particular effort he had done
+well. But he had no literary vanity.</p>
+
+<p>"It comes nat'ral to me,"&mdash;he modestly declared&mdash;"It's a God's gift
+which I takes thankful without pride."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley had become very intimate with both Mr. and Mrs. Twitt. In his
+every-day ramble down to the ocean end of the "coombe" he often took a
+rest of ten minutes or a quarter of an hour at Twitt's house before
+climbing up the stony street again to Mary Deane's cottage, and Mrs.
+Twitt, in her turn, was a constant caller on Mary, to whom she brought
+all the news of the village, all the latest remedies for every sort of
+ailment, and all the oddest superstitions and omens which she could
+either remember or invent concerning every incident that had occurred to
+her or to her neighbours within the last twenty-four hours. There was no
+real morbidity of character in Mrs. Twitt; she only had that peculiar
+turn of mind which is found quite as frequently in the educated as in
+the ignorant, and which perceives a divine or a devilish meaning in
+almost every trifling occurrence of daily life. A pin on the ground
+which was not picked up at the very instant it was perceived, meant
+terrible ill-luck to Mrs. Twitt,&mdash;if a cat sneezed, it was a sign that
+there was going to be sickness in the village,&mdash;and she always carried
+in her pocket "a bit of coffin" to keep away the cramp. She also had a
+limitless faith in the power of cursing, and she believed most
+implicitly in the fiendish abilities of a certain person, (whether male
+or female, she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> did not explain) whose address she gave vaguely as, "out
+on the hills," and who, if requested, and paid for the trouble, would
+put a stick into the ground, muttering a mysterious malison on any man
+or woman you chose to name as an enemy, with the pronounced guarantee:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"As this stick rotteth to decay,<br />
+So shall (Mr, Miss or Mrs So-and-so) rot away!"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>But with the exception of these little weaknesses, Mrs. Twitt was a good
+sort of motherly old body, warm-hearted and cheerful, too, despite her
+belief in omens. She had taken quite a liking to "old David" as she
+called him, and used to watch his thin frail figure, now since his
+illness sadly bent, jogging slowly down the street towards the sea, with
+much kindly solicitude. For despite Mr. Bunce's recommendation that he
+should "sit quiet," Helmsley could not bring himself to the passively
+restful condition of weak and resigned old age. He had too much on his
+mind for that. He worked patiently every morning at basket-making, in
+which he was quickly becoming an adept; but in the afternoon he grew
+restless, and Mary, seeing it was better for him to walk as long as
+walking was possible to him, let him go out when he fancied it, though
+always with a little anxiety for him lest he should meet with some
+accident. In this anxiety, however, all the neighbours took a share, so
+that he was well watched, and more carefully guarded than he knew, on
+his way down to the shore and back again, Abel Twitt himself often
+giving him an arm on the upward climb home.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have to do some of that for me soon!" said Helmsley on one of
+these occasions, pointing up with his stick at the board over Twitt's
+door, which said "Good Grave-Work Guaranteed:"</p>
+
+<p>Twitt rolled his eyes slowly up in the direction indicated, smiled, and
+rolled them down again.</p>
+
+<p>"So I will,&mdash;so I will!" he replied cheerfully&mdash;"An I'll charge ye
+nothin' either. I'll make ye as pretty a little stone as iver ye
+saw&mdash;what'll last too!&mdash;ay, last till th' Almighty comes a' tearin' down
+in clouds o' glory. A stone well bedded in, ye unnerstan'?&mdash;one as'll
+stay upright&mdash;no slop work. An' if ye can't think of a hepitaph for
+yerself I'll write one for ye&mdash;there now! Bible texes is goin' out o'
+fashion&mdash;it's best to 'ave somethin' orig'nal&mdash;an' for originality<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> I
+don't think I can be beat in these parts. I'll do ye yer hepitaph with
+pleasure!"</p>
+
+<p>"That will be kind!" And Helmsley smiled a little sadly&mdash;"What will you
+say of me when I'm gone?"</p>
+
+<p>Twitt looked at him thoughtfully, with his head very much on one side.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, ye see, I don't know yer history,"&mdash;he said&mdash;"But I considers ye
+'armless an' unfortunate. I'd 'ave to make it out in my own mind like.
+Now Timbs, the grocer an' 'aberdashery man, when 'is wife died, he
+wouldn't let me 'ave my own way about the moniment at all. 'Put 'er
+down,' sez 'e&mdash;'Put 'er down as the Dearly-Beloved Wife of Samuel
+Timbs.' 'Now, Timbs,' sez I&mdash;'don't ye go foolin' with 'ell-fire! Ye
+know she wor'nt yer Dearly Beloved, forbye that she used to throw wet
+dish-clouts at yer 'ed, screechin' at ye for all she was wuth, an' there
+ain't no Dearly Beloved in that. Why do ye want to put a lie on a stone
+for the Lord to read?' But 'e was as obst'nate as pigs. 'Dish-clouts or
+no dish-clouts,' sez 'e, 'I'll 'ave 'er fixed up proper as my
+Dearly-Beloved Wife for sight o' parson an' neighbours.' 'Ah, Sam!' sez
+I&mdash;'I've got ye! It's for parson an' neighbours ye want the hepitaph,
+an' not for the Lord at all! Well, I'll do it if so be yer wish it, but
+I won't take the 'sponsibility of it at the Day o' Judgment.' 'I don't
+want ye to'&mdash;sez 'e, quite peart. 'I'll take it myself.' An' if ye'll
+believe me, David, 'e sits down an' writes me what 'e calls a 'Memo' of
+what 'e wants put on the grave stone, an' it's the biggest whopper I've
+iver seen out o' the noospapers. I've got it 'ere&mdash;" And, referring to a
+much worn and battered old leather pocket-book, Twitt drew from it a
+soiled piece of paper, and read as follows&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Here lies</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">All that is Mortal</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 7em;">of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">CATHERINE TIMBS</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Dearly Beloved Wife</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 7em;">of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Samuel Timbs of Weircombe.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">She Died</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">At the Early Age of Forty-Nine</span><br />
+Full of Virtues and Excellencies<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which those who knew Her</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">Deeply Deplore</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 7em;">and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">NOW is in Heaven.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And the only true thing about that hepitaph,"&mdash;continued Twitt, folding
+up the paper again and returning it to its former receptacle,&mdash;"is the
+words 'Here Lies.'"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley laughed, and Twitt laughed with him.</p>
+
+<p>"Some folks 'as the curiousest ways o' wantin' theirselves remembered
+arter they're gone"&mdash;he went on&mdash;"An' others seems as if they don't care
+for no mem'ry at all 'cept in the 'arts o' their friends. Now there was
+Tom o' the Gleam, a kind o' gypsy rover in these parts, 'im as murdered
+a lord down at Blue Anchor this very year's July&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley drew a quick breath.</p>
+
+<p>"I know!" he said&mdash;"I was there!"</p>
+
+<p>"So I've 'eerd say,"&mdash;responded Twitt sympathetically&mdash;"An' an awsome
+sight it must a' bin for ye! Mary Deane told us as 'ow ye'd bin ravin'
+about Tom&mdash;an' m'appen likely it give ye a turn towards yer long
+sickness."</p>
+
+<p>"I was there,"&mdash;said Helmsley, shuddering at the recollection&mdash;"I had
+stopped on the road to try and get a cheap night's lodging at the very
+inn where the murder took place&mdash;but&mdash;but there were two murders that
+day, and the <i>first</i> one was the worst!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I said at the time, an' that's what I've allus
+thought!"&mdash;declared Twitt&mdash;"Why that little 'Kiddie' child o' Tom's was
+the playfullest, prettiest little rogue ye'd see in a hundred mile or
+more! 'Oldin' out a posy o' flowers to a motor-car, poor little
+innercent! It might as well 'ave 'eld out flowers to the devil!&mdash;though
+my own opinion is as the devil 'imself wouldn't 'a ridden down a child.
+But a motorin' lord o' these days is neither man nor beast nor
+devil,&mdash;'e's a somethin' altogether <i>on</i>human&mdash;<i>on</i>human out an' out,&mdash;a
+thing wi' goggles over his eyes an' no 'art in his body, which we aint
+iver seen in this poor old world afore. Thanks be to the Lord no motors
+can ever come into Weircombe,&mdash;they tears round an' round by another
+road, an' we neither sees, 'ears, nor smells 'em, for which I often sez
+to my wife&mdash;'O be joyful in the Lord all ye lands; serve the Lord with
+gladness an' come before His presence with a song!' An' she ups an'
+sez&mdash;'Don't be blaspheemous, Twitt,&mdash;I'll tell parson'&mdash;an' I sez&mdash;'Tell
+'im, old 'ooman, if ye likes!' An' when she tells 'im, 'e smiles nice
+an' kind, an' sez&mdash;'It's quite lawful, Mrs. Twitt, to quote Scriptural
+thanksgiving on all <i>necessary</i> occasions!' E's a good little chap, our
+parson, but 'e's that weak on his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> chest an' ailing that 'e's goin' away
+this year to Madeira for rest and warm&mdash;an' a blessid old Timp'rance
+raskill's coming to take dooty in 'is place. Ah!&mdash;none of us Weircombe
+folk 'ill be very reg'lar church-goers while Mr. Arbroath's here."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley started slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Arbroath? I've seen that man."</p>
+
+<p>'Ave ye? Well, ye 'aven't seen no beauty!" And Twitt gave vent to a
+chuckling laugh&mdash;"'E'll be startin' 'is 'Igh Jink purcessions an'
+vestiments in our plain little church up yonder, an' by the Lord, 'e'll
+'ave to purcess an' vestiment by 'isself, for Weircombe wont 'elp 'im.
+We aint none of us 'Igh Jink folks."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that your name for High Church?" asked Helmsley, amused.</p>
+
+<p>"It is so, an' a very good name it be," declared Twitt, stoutly&mdash;"For if
+all the bobbins' an' scrapins' an' crosses an' banners aint a sort o'
+jinkin' Lord Mayor's show, then what be they? It's fair oaffish to bob
+to the east as them 'Igh Jinkers does, for we aint never told in the
+Gospels that th' Almighty 'olds that partikler quarter o' the wind as a
+place o' residence. The Lord's everywhere,&mdash;east, west, north,
+south,&mdash;why he's with us at this very minute!"&mdash;and Twitt raised his
+eyes piously to the heavens&mdash;"He's 'elpin' you an' me to draw the breath
+through our lungs&mdash;for if He didn't 'elp, we couldn't do it, that's
+certain. An' if He makes the sun to rise in the east, He makes it to
+sink in the west, an' there's no choice either way, an' we sez our
+prayers simple both times o' day, not to the sun at all, but to the
+Maker o' the sun, an' of everything else as we sees. No, no!&mdash;no 'Igh
+Jinks for me!&mdash;I don't want to bow to no East when I sees the Lord's no
+more east than He's west, an' no more in either place than He is here,
+close to me an' doin' more for me than I could iver do for myself. 'Igh
+Jinks is unchristin,&mdash;as unchristin as cremation, an' nothin's more
+unchristin than that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what makes you think so?" asked Helmsley, surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"What makes me think so?" And Twitt drew himself up with a kind of
+reproachful dignity&mdash;"Now, old David, don't go for to say as <i>you</i> don't
+think so too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cremation unchristian? Well, I can't say I've ever thought of it in
+that light,&mdash;it's supposed to be the cleanest way of getting rid of the
+dead&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Gettin' rid of the dead!"&mdash;echoed Twitt, almost scornfully&mdash;"That's
+what ye can never do! They'se everywhere, all about us, if we only had
+strong eyes enough to see 'em. An' cremation aint Christin. I'll tell ye
+for why,"&mdash;here he bent forward and tapped his two middle fingers slowly
+on Helmsley's chest to give weight to his words&mdash;"Look y'ere! Supposin'
+our Lord's body 'ad been cremated, where would us all a' bin? Where
+would a' bin our 'sure an' certain 'ope' o' the resurrection?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley was quite taken aback by this sudden proposition, which
+presented cremation in an entirely new light. But a moment's thought
+restored to him his old love of argument, and he at once replied:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it would have been just the same as it is now, surely! If Christ
+was divine, he could have risen from burnt ashes as well as from a
+tomb."</p>
+
+<p>"Out of a hurn?" demanded Twitt, persistently&mdash;"If our Lord's body 'ad
+bin burnt an' put in a hurn, an' the hurn 'ad bin took into the 'ouse o'
+Pontis Pilate, an' sealed, an' <i>kept till now</i>? Eh? What d'ye say to
+that? I tell ye, David, there wouldn't a bin no savin' grace o'
+Christ'anity at all! An' that's why I sez cremation is unchristin,&mdash;it's
+blaspheemous an' 'eethen. For our Lord plainly said to 'is disciples
+arter he came out o' the tomb&mdash;'Behold my hands and my feet,&mdash;handle me
+and see,'&mdash;an' to the doubtin' Thomas He said&mdash;'Reach hither thy hand
+and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless but believing.' David,
+you mark my words!&mdash;them as 'as their bodies burnt in crematorums is
+just as dirty in their souls as they can be, an' they 'opes to burn all
+the blackness o' theirselves into nothingness an' never to rise no more,
+'cos they'se afraid! They don't want to be laid in good old mother
+earth, which is the warm forcin' place o' the Lord for raisin' up 'uman
+souls as He raises up the blossoms in spring, an' all other things which
+do give Him grateful praise an' thanksgivin'! They gits theirselves
+burnt to ashes 'cos they don't <i>want</i> to be raised up,&mdash;they'se never
+praised the Lord 'ere, an' they wouldn't know 'ow to do it <i>there</i>! But,
+mercy me!" concluded Twitt ruminatingly,&mdash;"I've seen orful queer things
+bred out of ashes!&mdash;beetles an' sich like reptiles,&mdash;an' I wouldn't much
+care to see the spechul stock as raises itself from the burnt bits of a
+liar!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley hardly knew whether to smile or to look serious,&mdash;such quaint
+propositions as this old stonemason put forward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> on the subject of
+cremation were utterly novel to his experience. And while he yet stood
+under the little porch of Twitt's cottage, there came shivering up
+through the quiet autumnal air a slow thud of breaking waves.</p>
+
+<p>"Tide's comin' in,"&mdash;said Twitt, after listening a minute or two&mdash;"An'
+that minds me o' what I was goin' to tell ye about Tom o' the Gleam.
+After the inkwist, the gypsies came forward an' claimed the bodies o'
+Tom an' 'is Kiddie,&mdash;an' they was buried accordin' to Tom's own wish,
+which it seems 'e'd told one of 'is gypsy pals to see as was carried out
+whenever an' wheresoever 'e died. An' what sort of a buryin'd'ye think
+'e 'ad?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley shook his head in an expressed inability to imagine.</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas out there,"&mdash;and Twitt pointed with one hand to the shining
+expanse of the ocean&mdash;"The gypsies put 'im an' is Kiddie in a basket
+coffin which they made theirselves, an' covered it all over wi' garlands
+o' flowers an' green boughs, an' then fastened four great lumps o' lead
+to the four corners, an' rowed it out in a boat to about four or five
+miles from the shore, right near to the place where the moon at full
+'makes a hole in the middle o' the sea,' as the children sez, and there
+they dropped it into the water. Then they sang a funeral song&mdash;an' by
+the Lord!&mdash;the sound o' that song crept into yer veins an' made yer
+blood run cold!&mdash;'twas enough to break a man's 'art, let alone a
+woman's, to 'ear them gypsy voices all in a chorus wailin' a farewell to
+the man an' the child in the sea,&mdash;an' the song floated up an' about,
+'ere an' there an' everywhere, all over the land from Cleeve Abbey
+onnards, an' at Blue Anchor, so they sez, it was so awsome an' eerie
+that the people got out o' their beds, shiverin', an' opened their
+windows to listen, an' when they listened they all fell a cryin' like
+children. An' it's no wonder the inn where poor Tom did his bad deed and
+died his bad death, is shut up for good, an' the people as kept it gone
+away&mdash;no one couldn't stay there arter that. Ay, ay!" and Twitt sighed
+profoundly&mdash;"Poor wild ne'er-do-weel Tom! He lies deep down enough now
+with the waves flowin' over 'im an' 'is little 'Kiddie' clasped tight in
+'is arms. For they never separated 'em,&mdash;death 'ad locked 'em up too
+fast together for that. An' they're sleepin' peaceful,&mdash;an' there
+they'll sleep till&mdash;till 'the sea gives up its dead.'"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley could not speak,&mdash;he was too deeply moved.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> The sound of the
+in-coming tide grew fuller and more sonorous, and Twitt presently turned
+to look critically at the heaving waters.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a cry in the sea to-day,"&mdash;he said,&mdash;"M'appen it'll be rough
+to-night."</p>
+
+<p>They were silent again, till presently Helmsley roused himself from the
+brief melancholy abstraction into which he had been plunged by the story
+of Tom o' the Gleam's funeral.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I'll go down on the shore for a bit,"&mdash;he said; "I like to get
+as close to the waves as I can when they're rolling in."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't get too close,"&mdash;said Twitt, kindly&mdash;"We'll be havin' ye
+washed away if ye don't take care! There's onny an hour to tea-time, an'
+Mary Deane's a punctooal 'ooman!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not keep her waiting&mdash;never fear!" and Helmsley smiled as he
+said good-day, and jogged slowly along his favourite accustomed path to
+the beach. The way though rough, was not very steep, and it was becoming
+quite easy and familiar to him. He soon found himself on the firm brown
+sand sprinkled with a fringe of seaweed and shells, and further adorned
+in various places with great rough boulders, picturesquely set up on
+end, like the naturally hewn memorials of great heroes passed away.
+Here, the ground being level, he could walk more quickly and with
+greater comfort than in the one little precipitous street of Weircombe,
+and he paced up and down, looking at the rising and falling hollows of
+the sea with wistful eyes that in their growing age and dimness had an
+intensely pathetic expression,&mdash;the expression one sometimes sees in the
+eyes of a dog who knows that its master is leaving it for an indefinite
+period.</p>
+
+<p>"What a strange chaos of brain must be that of the suicide!" he
+thought&mdash;"Who, that can breathe the fresh air and watch the lights and
+shadows in the sky and on the waves, would really wish to leave the
+world, unless the mind had completely lost its balance! We have never
+seen anything more beautiful than this planet upon which we are
+born,&mdash;though there is a sub-consciousness in us which prophesies of yet
+greater beauty awaiting higher vision. The subconscious self! That is
+the scientist's new name for the Soul,&mdash;but the Soul is a better term.
+Now my subconscious self&mdash;my Soul,&mdash;is lamenting the fact that it must
+leave life when it has just begun to learn how to live! I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> should like
+to be here and see what Mary will do when&mdash;when I am gone! Yet how do I
+know but that in very truth I shall be here?&mdash;or in some way be made
+aware of her actions? She has a character such as I never thought to
+find in any mortal woman,&mdash;strong, pure, tender,&mdash;and sincere!&mdash;ah, that
+sincerity of hers is like the very sunlight!&mdash;so bright and warm, and
+clean of all ulterior motive! And measured by a worldly estimate
+only&mdash;what is she? The daughter of a humble florist,&mdash;herself a mere
+mender of lace, and laundress of fine ladies' linen! And her sweet and
+honest eyes have never looked upon that rag-fair of nonsense we call
+'society';&mdash;she never thinks of riches;&mdash;and yet she has refined and
+artistic taste enough to love the lace she mends, just for pure
+admiration of its beauty,&mdash;not because she herself desires to wear it,
+but because it represents the work and lives of others, and because it
+is in itself a miracle of design. I wonder if she ever notices how
+closely I watch her! I could draw from memory the shapely outline of her
+hand,&mdash;a white, smooth, well-kept hand, never allowed to remain soiled
+by all her various forms of domestic labour,&mdash;an expressive hand,
+indicating health and sanity, with that deep curve at the wrist, and the
+delicately shaped fingers which hold the needle so lightly and guide it
+so deftly through the intricacies of the riven lace, weaving a web of
+such fairy-like stitches that the original texture seems never to have
+been broken. I have sat quiet for an hour or more studying her when she
+has thought me asleep in my chair by the fire,&mdash;and I have fancied that
+my life is something like the damaged fabric she is so carefully
+repairing,&mdash;holes and rents everywhere,&mdash;all the symmetry of design
+dropping to pieces,&mdash;the little garlands of roses and laurels snapped
+asunder,&mdash;and she, with her beautiful white hands is gently drawing the
+threads together and mending it,&mdash;for what purpose?&mdash;to what end?"</p>
+
+<p>And here the involuntary action of some little brain-cell gave him the
+memory of certain lines in Browning's "Rabbi Ben Ezra":&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">"Therefore I summon age</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">To grant youth's heritage</span><br />
+Life's struggle having so far reached its term;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thence shall I pass, approved</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">A man, for aye removed</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>From the developed brute; a god, though in the germ.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And I shall thereupon</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Take rest ere I be gone</span><br />
+Once more on my adventures brave and new&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Fearless&mdash;and unperplexed</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">When I wage battle next,</span><br />
+What weapons to select, what armour to indue!"<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>He turned his eyes again to the sea just as a lovely light, pale golden
+and clear as topaz, opened suddenly in the sky, shedding a shower of
+luminant reflections on the waves. He drew a deep breath, and
+unconsciously straightened himself.</p>
+
+<p>"When death comes it shall find me ready!" he said, half aloud;&mdash;and
+then stood, confronting the ethereal glory. The waves rolled in slowly
+and majestically one after the other, and broke at his feet in long
+wreaths of creamy foam,&mdash;and presently one or two light gusts of a
+rather chill wind warned him that he had best be returning homeward.
+While he yet hesitated, a leaf of paper blew towards him, and danced
+about like a large erratic butterfly, finally dropping just where the
+stick on which he leaned made a hole in the sand. He stooped and picked
+it up. It was covered with fine small handwriting, and before he could
+make any attempt to read it, a man sprang up from behind one of the
+rocky boulders close by, and hurried forward, raising his cap as he
+came.</p>
+
+<p>"That's mine!" he said, quickly, with a pleasant smile&mdash;"It's a loose
+page from my notebook. Thank-you so much for saving it!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley gave him the paper at once, with a courteous inclination of the
+head.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been scribbling down here all day,"&mdash;proceeded the new comer&mdash;"And
+there's not been much wind till now. But"&mdash;and he glanced up and about
+him critically; "I think we shall have a puff of sou'wester to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley looked at him with interest. He was a man of distinctive
+appearance,&mdash;tall, well-knit, and muscular, with a fine intellectual
+face and keen clear grey eyes. Not a very young man;&mdash;he seemed about
+thirty-eight or forty, perhaps more, for his dark hair was fairly
+sprinkled with silver. But his manner was irresistibly bright and
+genial, and it was impossible to meet his frank, open, almost boyish
+gaze, without a desire to know more of him, and an inclination to like
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you make the seashore your study?" asked Helmsley,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> with a slight
+gesture towards the notebook into which the stranger was now carefully
+putting the strayed leaflet.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty much so!" and he laughed&mdash;"I've only got one room to live
+in&mdash;and it has to serve for both sleeping and eating&mdash;so I come out here
+to breathe and expand a bit." He paused, and then added gently&mdash;"May I
+give you my arm up to Miss Deane's cottage?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how do you know I live there?" and Helmsley smiled as he put the
+question.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, all the village knows that!&mdash;and though I'm quite new to the
+village&mdash;I've only been here a week&mdash;I know it too. You're old David,
+the basket-maker, aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." And Helmsley nodded emphatically&mdash;"That's me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then I know all about you! My name's Angus Reay. I'm a Scotchman,&mdash;I
+am, or rather, I <i>was</i> a journalist, and as poor as Job! That's <i>me</i>!
+Come along!"</p>
+
+<p>The cheery magnetism of his voice and look attracted Helmsley, and
+almost before he knew it he was leaning on this new friend's arm,
+chatting with him concerning the village, the scenery, and the weather,
+in the easiest way possible.</p>
+
+<p>"I came on here from Minehead,"&mdash;said Reay&mdash;"That was too expensive a
+place for me!" And a bright smile flashed from lips to eyes with an
+irresistible sunny effect; "I've got just twenty pounds in the world,
+and I must make it last me a year. For room, food, fuel, clothes, drink
+and smoke! I've promptly cut off the last two!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you're none the worse for it, I daresay!" rejoined Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit! A good deal the better. In Fleet Street the men drank and
+smoked pretty heavily, and I had to drink and smoke with them, if I
+wanted to keep in with the lot. I did want to keep in with them, and yet
+I didn't. It was a case of 'needs must when the devil drives!'"</p>
+
+<p>"You say you were a journalist. Aren't you one now?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I'm 'kicked off'!" And Reay threw back his head and laughed
+joyously. "'Off you go!' said my editor, one fine morning, after I had
+slaved away for him for nearly two years&mdash;'We don't want any canting
+truth-tellers here!' Now mind that stone! You nearly slipped. Hold my
+arm tighter!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley did as he was told, quite meekly, looking up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> with a good deal
+of curiosity at this tall athletic creature, with the handsome head and
+masterful manner. Reay caught his enquiring glance and laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>"You look as if you wanted to know more about me, old David!" he said
+gaily&mdash;"So you shall! I've nothing to conceal! As I tell you I was
+'kicked off' out of journalism&mdash;my fault being that I published a
+leaderette exposing a mean 'deal' on the part of a certain city
+plutocrat. I didn't know the rascal had shares in the paper. But he
+<i>had</i>&mdash;under an 'alias.' And he made the devil's own row about it with
+the editor, who nearly died of it, being inclined to apoplexy&mdash;and
+between the two of them I was 'dropped.' Then the word ran along the
+press wires that I was an 'unsafe' man. I could not get any post worth
+having&mdash;I had saved just twenty pounds&mdash;so I took it all and walked away
+from London&mdash;literally <i>walked</i> away! I haven't spent a penny in other
+locomotion than my own legs since I left Fleet Street."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley listened with eager interest. Here was a man who had done the
+very thing which he himself had started to do;&mdash;"tramped" the road.
+But&mdash;with what a difference! Full manhood, physical strength, and
+activity on the one side,&mdash;decaying power, feebleness of limb and
+weariness on the other. They had entered the village street by this
+time, and were slowly walking up it together.</p>
+
+<p>"You see,"&mdash;went on Reay,&mdash;"of course I could have taken the train&mdash;but
+twenty pounds is only twenty pounds&mdash;and it must last me twelve solid
+months. By that time I shall have finished my work."</p>
+
+<p>"And what's that?" asked Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a book. A novel. And"&mdash;here he set his teeth hard&mdash;"I intend that
+it shall make me&mdash;famous!"</p>
+
+<p>"The intention is good,"&mdash;said Helmsley, slowly&mdash;"But&mdash;there are so many
+novels!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, there are not!" declared Reay, decisively&mdash;"There are plenty of
+rag-books <i>called</i> novels&mdash;but they are not real 'novels.' There's
+nothing 'new' in them. There's no touch of real, suffering, palpitating
+humanity in them! The humanity of to-day is infinitely more complex than
+it was in the days of Scott or Dickens, but there's no Scott or Dickens
+to epitomise its character or delineate its temperament. I want to be
+the twentieth century Scott and Dickens rolled into one stupendous
+literary Titan!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>His mellow laughter was hearty and robust. Helmsley caught its infection
+and laughed too.</p>
+
+<p>"But why,"&mdash;he asked&mdash;"do you want to write a novel? Why not write a
+real <i>book</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you call a real book, old David?" demanded Reay, looking down
+upon him with a sudden piercing glance.</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley was for a moment confused. He was thinking of such books as
+Carlyle's "Past and Present"&mdash;Emerson's "Essays" and the works of
+Ruskin. But he remembered in good time that for an old "basket-maker" to
+be familiar with such literary masterpieces might seem strange to a
+wide-awake "journalist," therefore he checked himself in time.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know! I believe I was thinking of 'Pilgrim's Progress'!" he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"'Pilgrim's Progress'? Ah! A fine book&mdash;a grand book! Twelve years and a
+half of imprisonment in Bedford Jail turned Bunyan out immortal! And
+here am I&mdash;<i>not</i> in jail&mdash;but free to roam where I choose,&mdash;with twenty
+pounds! By Jove! I ought to be greater than Bunyan! Now 'Pilgrim's
+Progress' was a 'novel,' if you like!"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought,"&mdash;submitted Helmsley, with the well-assumed air of a man who
+was not very conversant with literature&mdash;"that it was a religious book?"</p>
+
+<p>"So it is. A religious novel. And a splendid one! But humanity's gone
+past that now&mdash;it wants a wider view&mdash;a bigger, broader outlook. Do you
+know&mdash;" and here he stopped in the middle of the rugged winding street,
+and looked earnestly at his companion&mdash;"do you know what I see men doing
+at the present day?&mdash;I see them rushing towards the verge&mdash;the very
+extreme edge of what they imagine to be the Actual&mdash;and from that edge
+getting ready to plunge&mdash;into Nothingness!"</p>
+
+<p>Something thrilling in his voice touched a responsive chord in
+Helmsley's own heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;that is where we all tend!" he said, with a quick sigh&mdash;"That is
+where <i>I</i> am tending!&mdash;where <i>you</i>, in your time, must also
+tend&mdash;nothingness&mdash;or death!"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" said Reay, almost loudly&mdash;"That's not true! That's just what I
+deny! For me there is no 'Nothingness'&mdash;no 'death'! Space is full of
+creative organisms. Dissolution means re-birth. It is all
+life&mdash;life:&mdash;glorious life! We live&mdash;we have always lived&mdash;we <i>shall</i>
+always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> live!" He paused, flushing a little as though half ashamed of
+his own enthusiasm&mdash;then, dropping his voice to its normal tone he
+said&mdash;"You've got me on my hobby horse&mdash;I must come off it, or I shall
+gallop too far! We're just at the top of the street now. Shall I leave
+you here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Please come on to the cottage,"&mdash;said Helmsley&mdash;"I'm sure Mary&mdash;Miss
+Deane&mdash;will give you a cup of tea."</p>
+
+<p>Angus Reay smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't allow myself that luxury,"&mdash;he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not when you're invited to share it with others?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, in that way I do&mdash;but I'm not overburdened with friends just
+now. A man must have more than twenty pounds to be 'asked out'
+anywhere!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, <i>I</i> ask you out!"&mdash;said Helmsley, smiling&mdash;"Or rather, I ask you
+<i>in</i>. I'm sure Miss Deane will be glad to talk to you. She is very fond
+of books."</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen her just once in the village,"&mdash;remarked Reay&mdash;"She seems to
+be very much respected here. And what a beautiful woman she is!"</p>
+
+<p>"You think so?" and Helmsley's eyes lighted with pleasure&mdash;"Well, I
+think so, too&mdash;but they tell me that it's only because I'm old, and apt
+to see everyone beautiful who is kind to me. There's a good deal in
+that!&mdash;there's certainly a good deal in that!"</p>
+
+<p>They could now see the garden gate of Mary's cottage through the boughs
+of the great chestnut tree, which at this season was nearly stripped of
+all its leaves, and which stood like a lonely forest king with some
+scanty red and yellow rags of woodland royalty about him, in solitary
+grandeur at the bending summit of the hill. And while they were yet
+walking the few steps which remained of the intervening distance, Mary
+herself came out to the gate, and, leaning one arm lightly across it,
+watched them approaching. She wore a pale lilac print gown, high to the
+neck and tidily finished off by a plain little muslin collar fastened
+with a coquettish knot of black velvet,&mdash;her head was uncovered, and the
+fitful gleams of the sinking sun shed a russet glow on her shining hair
+and reddened the pale clear transparency of her skin. In that restful
+waiting attitude, with a smile on her face, she made a perfect picture,
+and Helmsley stole a side-glance at his companion, to see if he seemed
+to be in any way impressed by her appearance. Angus Reay was certainly
+looking at her, but what he thought could hardly be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> guessed by his
+outward expression. They reached the gate, and she opened it.</p>
+
+<p>"I was getting anxious about you, David!"&mdash;she said; "you aren't quite
+strong enough to be out in such a cold wind." Then she turned her eyes
+enquiringly on Reay, who lifted his cap while Helmsley explained his
+presence.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a gentleman who is staying in the village&mdash;Mr. Reay,"&mdash;he
+said&mdash;"He's been very kind in helping me up the hill&mdash;and I said you
+would give him a cup of tea."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course!"&mdash;and Mary smiled&mdash;"Please come in, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>She led the way, and in another few minutes, all three of them were
+seated in her little kitchen round the table and Mary was busy pouring
+out the tea and dispensing the usual good things that are always found
+in the simplest Somersetshire cottage,&mdash;cream, preserved fruit, scones,
+home-made bread and fresh butter.</p>
+
+<p>"So you met David on the seashore?" she said, turning her soft dark-blue
+eyes enquiringly on Reay, while gently checking with one hand the
+excited gambols of Charlie, who, as an epicurean dog, always gave
+himself up to the wildest enthusiasms at tea-time, owing to his
+partiality for a small saucer of cream which came to him at that
+hour&mdash;"I sometimes think he must expect to pick up a fortune down among
+the shells and seaweed, he's so fond of walking about there!"&mdash;And she
+smiled as she put Helmsley's cup of tea before him, and gently patted
+his wrinkled hand in the caressing fashion a daughter might show to a
+father whose health gave cause for anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, <i>I</i> certainly don't go down to the shore in any such
+expectation!" said Reay, laughing&mdash;"Fortunes are not so easily picked
+up, are they, David?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed!" replied Helmsley, and his old eyes sparkled up humorously
+under their cavernous brows; "fortunes take some time to make, and one
+doesn't meet millionaires every day!"</p>
+
+<p>"Millionaires!" exclaimed Reay&mdash;"Don't speak of them! I hate them!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley looked at him stedfastly.</p>
+
+<p>"It's best not to hate anybody,"&mdash;he said&mdash;"Millionaires are often the
+loneliest and most miserable of men."</p>
+
+<p>"They deserve to be!" declared Reay, hotly&mdash;"It isn't right&mdash;it isn't
+just that two or three, or let us say four or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> five men should be able
+to control the money-markets of the world. They generally get their
+wealth through some unscrupulous 'deal,' or through 'sweating' labour. I
+hate all 'cornering' systems. I believe in having enough to live upon,
+but not too much."</p>
+
+<p>"It depends on what you call enough,"&mdash;said Helmsley, slowly&mdash;"We're
+told that some people never know when they <i>have</i> enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Why <i>this</i> is enough!" said Reay, looking admiringly round the little
+kitchen in which they sat&mdash;"This sweet little cottage with this oak
+raftered ceiling, and all the dear old-fashioned crockery, and the
+ingle-nook over there,&mdash;who on earth wants more?"</p>
+
+<p>Mary laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear me!" she murmured, gently&mdash;"You praise it too much!&mdash;it's only
+a very poor place, sir,&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He interrupted her, the colour rushing to his brows.</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't!"</p>
+
+<p>She glanced at him in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't&mdash;what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't call me 'sir'! I'm only a poor chap,&mdash;my father was a shepherd,
+and I began life as a cowherd&mdash;I don't want any titles of courtesy."</p>
+
+<p>She still kept her eyes upon him thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"But you're a gentleman, aren't you?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so!" And he laughed. "Just as David is! But we neither of us
+wish the fact emphasised, do we, David? It goes without saying!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled. This Angus Reay was a man after his own heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it does!"&mdash;he said&mdash;"In the way you look at it! But you
+should tell Miss Deane all about yourself&mdash;she'll be interested."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you really care to hear?" enquired Reay, suddenly, turning his
+clear grey eyes full on Mary's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Why certainly I should!" she answered, frankly meeting his glance,&mdash;and
+then, from some sudden and inexplicable embarrassment, she blushed
+crimson, and her eyelids fell. And Reay thought what a clear, healthy
+skin she had, and how warmly the blood flowed under it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, after tea I'll hold forth!" he said&mdash;"But there isn't much to
+tell. Such as there is, you shall know, for I've no mysteries about me.
+Some fellows love a mystery&mdash;I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> cannot bear it! Everything must be fair,
+open and above board with me,&mdash;else I can't breathe! Pouf!" And he
+expanded his broad chest and took a great gulp of air in as he spoke&mdash;"I
+hate a man who tries to hide his own identity, don't you, David?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;yes&mdash;certainly!" murmured Helmsley, absently, feigning to be
+absorbed in buttering a scone for his own eating&mdash;"It is often very
+awkward&mdash;for the man."</p>
+
+<p>"I always say, and I always will maintain,"&mdash;went on Reay&mdash;"let a man be
+a man&mdash;a something or a nothing. If he is a criminal, let him say he is
+a criminal, and not pretend to be virtuous&mdash;if he is an atheist, let him
+say he is an atheist, and not pretend to be religious&mdash;if he's a beggar
+and can't help himself, let him admit the fact&mdash;if he's a millionaire,
+don't let him skulk round pretending he's as poor as Job&mdash;always let him
+be himself and no other!&mdash;eh?&mdash;what is it, David?"</p>
+
+<p>For Helmsley was looking at him intently with eyes that were almost
+young in their sudden animation and brilliancy.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever meet a millionaire who skulked round pretending he was as
+poor as Job?" he enquired, with a whimsical air&mdash;"<i>I</i> never did!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well no, I never did, either!" And Reay's mellow laughter was so loud
+and long that Mary was quite infected by it, and laughed with him&mdash;"But
+you see millionaires are all marked men. Everybody knows them. Their
+portraits are in all the newspapers&mdash;horrid-looking rascals most of
+them!&mdash;Nature doesn't seem to endow them with handsome features anyway.
+'Keep your gold, and never mind your face,'&mdash;she seems to say&mdash;'<i>I'll</i>
+take care of that!' And she does take care of it! O Lord! The only
+millionaire I ever saw in my life was ugly enough to frighten a baby
+into convulsions!"</p>
+
+<p>"What was his name?" asked Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it wouldn't be fair to tell his name now, after what I've said!"
+laughed Reay&mdash;"Besides, he lives in America, thank God! He's one of the
+few who have spared the old country his patronage!"</p>
+
+<p>Here a diversion was created by the necessity of serving the tiny but
+autocratic Charlie with his usual "dish of cream," of which he partook
+on Mary's knee, while listening (as was evident from the attentive
+cocking of his silky ears) to the various compliments he was accustomed
+to receive on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> his beauty. This business over, they rose from the
+tea-table. The afternoon had darkened into twilight, and the autumnal
+wind was sighing through the crannies of the door. Mary stirred the fire
+into a brighter blaze, and drawing Helmsley's armchair close to its warm
+glow, stood by him till he was comfortably seated&mdash;then she placed
+another chair opposite for Reay, and sat down herself on a low oaken
+settle between the two.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the pleasantest time of the day just now,"&mdash;she said&mdash;"And the
+best time for talking! I love the gloaming. My father loved it too."</p>
+
+<p>"So did <i>my</i> father!" and Reay's eyes softened as he bent them on the
+sparkling fire&mdash;"In winter evenings when the darkness fell down upon our
+wild Highland hills, he would come home to our shieling on the edge of
+the moor, shaking all the freshness of the wind and the scent of the
+dying heather out of his plaid as he threw it from his shoulders,&mdash;and
+he would toss fresh peat on the fire till it blazed red and golden, and
+he would lay his hand on my head and say to me: 'Come awa' bairnie! Now
+for a bogle story in the gloamin'!' Ah, those bogle stories! They are
+answerable for a good deal in my life! They made me want to write bogle
+stories myself!"</p>
+
+<p>"And <i>do</i> you write them?" asked Mary.</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly. Though perhaps all human life is only a bogle tale!
+Invented to amuse the angels!"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled, and taking up a delicate piece of crochet lace, which she
+called her "spare time work," began to ply the glittering needle in and
+out fine intricacies of thread, her shapely hands gleaming like
+alabaster in the fire-light reflections.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now tell us your own bogle tale!" she said&mdash;"And David and I will
+play the angels!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>He watched her working for a few minutes before he spoke again. And
+shading his eyes with one hand from the red glow of the fire, David
+Helmsley watched them both.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's rather cool of me to take up your time talking about my own
+affairs,"&mdash;began Reay, at last&mdash;"But I've been pretty much by myself for
+a good while, and it's pleasant to have a chat with friendly people&mdash;man
+wasn't made to live alone, you know! In fact, neither man nor beast nor
+bird can stand it. Even a sea cormorant croaks to the wind!"</p>
+
+<p>Mary laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"But not for company's sake,"&mdash;she said&mdash;"It croaks when it's hungry."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I've often croaked for that reason!" and Reay pushed from his
+forehead a wayward tuft of hair which threatened to drop over his eye in
+a thick silvery brown curl&mdash;"But it's wonderful how little a fellow can
+live upon in the way of what is called food. I know all sorts of dodges
+wherewith to satisfy the greedy cravings of the vulgar part of me."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley took his hand from his eyes, and fixed a keenly observant look
+upon the speaker. Mary said nothing, but her crochet needle moved more
+slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," went on Reay, "I've always been rather fortunate in having
+had very little to eat."</p>
+
+<p>"You call it 'fortunate'?" queried Helmsley, abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course! I've never had what the doctors call an 'overloaded
+system'&mdash;therefore I've no lading bill to pay. The million or so of
+cells of which I am composed are not at all anxious to throw any extra
+nourishment off,&mdash;sometimes they intimate a strong desire to take some
+extra nourishment in&mdash;but that is an uneducated tendency in them which I
+sternly repress. I tell all those small grovelling cells that extra
+nourishment would not be good for them. And they shrink back from my
+moral reproof ashamed of themselves&mdash;and become wiry instead of fatty.
+Which is as it should be."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You're a queer chap!" said Helmsley, with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Think so? Well, I daresay I am&mdash;all Scotsmen are. There's always the
+buzzing of the bee in our bonnets. I come of an ancient Highland stock
+who were certainly 'queer' as modern ways go,&mdash;for they were famous for
+their pride, and still more famous for their poverty all the way
+through. As far back as I can go in the history of my family, and that's
+a pretty long way, we were always at our wit's end to live. From the
+days of the founder of our house, a glorious old chieftain who used to
+pillage his neighbour chieftain in the usual style of those glorious old
+times, we never had more than just enough for the bare necessities of
+life. My father, as I told you, was a shepherd&mdash;a strong, fine-looking
+man over six feet in height, and as broad-chested as a Hercules&mdash;he
+herded sheep on the mountains for a Glasgow dealer, as low-down a rascal
+as ever lived, a man who, so far as race and lineage went, wasn't fit to
+scrape mud off my father's boots. But we often see gentlemen of birth
+obliged to work for knaves of cash. That was the way it was with my
+father. As soon as I was old enough&mdash;about ten,&mdash;I helped him in his
+work&mdash;I used to tramp backwards and forwards to school in the nearest
+village, but after school hours I got an evening job of a shilling a
+week for bringing home eight Highland bull-heifers from pasture. The man
+who owned them valued them highly, but was afraid of them&mdash;wouldn't go
+near them for his life&mdash;and before I'd been with them a fortnight they
+all knew me. I was only a wee laddie, but they answered to my call like
+friendly dogs rather than the great powerful splendid beasts they were,
+with their rough coats shining like floss silk in the sunset, when I
+went to drive them home, singing as I came. And my father said to me one
+night&mdash;'Laddie, tell me the truth&mdash;are ye ever scared at the bulls!'
+'No, father!' said I&mdash;'It's a bonnie boy I am to the bulls!' And he
+laughed&mdash;by Jove!&mdash;how he laughed! 'Ye're a wee raskell!' he said&mdash;'An'
+as full o' conceit as an egg's full o' meat!' I expect that was true
+too, for I always thought well of myself. You see, if I hadn't thought
+well of myself, no one would ever have thought well of <i>me</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"There's something in that!" said Helmsley, the smile still lingering in
+his eyes&mdash;"Courage and self-reliance have often conquered more than
+eight bulls!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't call it either courage or self-reliance&mdash;it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> just that
+I thought myself of too much importance to be hurt by bulls or anything
+else,"&mdash;and Angus laughed,&mdash;then with a sudden knitting of his brows as
+though his thoughts were making hard knots in his brain, he added&mdash;"Even
+as a laddie I had an idea&mdash;and I have it now&mdash;that there was something
+in me which God had put there for a purpose of His own,&mdash;something that
+he would not and <i>could</i> not destroy till His purpose had been
+fulfilled!"</p>
+
+<p>Mary stopped working and looked at him earnestly. Her breath came and
+went quickly&mdash;her eyes shone dewily like stars in a summer haze,&mdash;she
+was deeply interested.</p>
+
+<p>"That was&mdash;and <i>is</i>&mdash;a conceited notion, of course,"&mdash;went on Angus,
+reflectively&mdash;"And I don't excuse it. But I'm not one of the 'meek who
+shall inherit the earth.' I'm a robustious combustious sort of chap&mdash;if
+a fellow knocks me down, I jump up and give it him back with as jolly
+good interest as I can&mdash;and if anyone plays me a dirty trick I'll move
+all the mental and elemental forces of the universe to expose him.
+That's my way&mdash;unfortunately&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why 'unfortunately'?" asked Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>Reay threw back his head and indulged in one of his mellow peals of
+laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you ask why? Oh David, good old David!&mdash;it's easy to see you don't
+know much of the world! If you did, you'd realise that the best way to
+'get on' in the usual way of worldly progress, is to make up to all
+sorts of social villains and double-dyed millionaire-scoundrels, find
+out all their tricks and their miserable little vices and pamper them,
+David!&mdash;pamper them and flatter them up to the top of their bent till
+you've got them in your power&mdash;and then&mdash;then <i>use</i> them&mdash;use them for
+everything you want. For once you know what blackguards they are,
+they'll give you anything not to tell!"</p>
+
+<p>"I should be sorry to think that's true,"&mdash;murmured Mary.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't think it, then,"&mdash;said Angus&mdash;"You needn't,&mdash;because millionaires
+are not likely to come in your way. Nor in mine&mdash;now. I've cut myself
+adrift from all chance of ever meeting them. But only a year ago I was
+on the road to making a good thing out of one or two of the so-called
+'kings of finance'&mdash;then I suddenly took a 'scunner' as we Scots say, at
+the whole lot, and hated and despised myself for ever so much as
+thinking that it might serve my own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> ends to become their tool. So I
+just cast off ropes like a ship, and steamed out of harbour."</p>
+
+<p>"Into the wide sea!" said Mary, looking at him with a smile that was
+lovely in its radiance and sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>"Into the wide sea&mdash;yes!" he answered&mdash;"And sea that was pretty rough at
+first. But one can get accustomed to anything&mdash;even to the high
+rock-a-bye tossing of great billows that really don't want to put you to
+sleep so much as to knock you to pieces. But I'm galloping along too
+fast. From the time I made friends with young bulls to the time I began
+to scrape acquaintance with newspaper editors is a far cry&mdash;and in the
+interim my father died. I should have told you that I lost my mother
+when I was born&mdash;and I don't think that the great wound her death left
+in my father's heart ever really healed. He never seemed quite at one
+with the things of life&mdash;and his 'bogle tales' of which I was so fond,
+all turned on the spirits of the dead coming again to visit those whom
+they had loved, and from whom they had been taken&mdash;and he used to tell
+them with such passionate conviction that sometimes I trembled and
+wondered if any spirit were standing near us in the light of the peat
+fire, or if the shriek of the wind over our sheiling were the cry of
+some unhappy soul in torment. Well! When his time came, he was not
+allowed to suffer&mdash;one day in a great storm he was struck by lightning
+on the side of the mountain where he was herding in his flocks&mdash;and
+there he was found lying as though he were peacefully asleep. Death must
+have been swift and painless&mdash;and I always thank God for that!" He
+paused a moment&mdash;then went on&mdash;"When I found myself quite alone in the
+world, I hired myself out to a farmer for five years&mdash;and worked
+faithfully for him&mdash;worked so well that he raised my wages and would
+willingly have kept me on&mdash;but I had the 'bogle tales' in my head and
+could not rest. It was in the days before Andrew Carnegie started trying
+to rub out the memory of his 'Homestead' cruelty by planting 'free'
+libraries, (for which taxpayers are rated) all over the country&mdash;and
+pauperising Scottish University education by grants of money&mdash;I suppose
+he is a sort of little Pontiff unto himself, and thinks that money can
+pacify Heaven, and silence the cry of brothers' blood rising from the
+Homestead ground. In my boyhood a Scottish University education had to
+be earned by the would-be student himself&mdash;earned by hard work, hard
+living, patience, perseverance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> and <i>grit</i>. That's the one quality I
+had&mdash;grit&mdash;and it served me well in all I wanted. I entered at St.
+Andrews&mdash;graduated, and came out an M.A. That helped to give me my first
+chance with the press. But I'm sure I'm boring you by all this chatter
+about myself! David, <i>you</i> stop me when you think Miss Deane has had
+enough!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley looked at Mary's figure in its pale lilac gown touched here and
+there by the red sparkle of the fire, and noted the attentive poise of
+her head, and the passive quietude of her generally busy hands which now
+lay in her lap loosely folded over her lace work.</p>
+
+<p>"Have we had enough, Mary, do you think?" he asked, with the glimmering
+of a tender little smile under his white moustache.</p>
+
+<p>She glanced at him quickly in a startled way, as though she had been
+suddenly wakened from a reverie.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no!" she answered&mdash;"I love to hear of a brave man's fight with the
+world&mdash;it's the finest story anyone can listen to."</p>
+
+<p>Reay coloured like a boy.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not a brave man,"&mdash;he said&mdash;"I hope I haven't given you that idea.
+I'm an awful funk at times."</p>
+
+<p>"When are those times?" and Mary smiled demurely, as she put the
+question.</p>
+
+<p>Again the warm blood rushed up to his brows.</p>
+
+<p>"Well,&mdash;please don't laugh! I'm afraid&mdash;horribly afraid&mdash;of women!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley's old eyes sparkled.</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word!" he exclaimed&mdash;"That's a funny thing for you to say!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is, rather,"&mdash;and Angus looked meditatively into the fire&mdash;"It's not
+that I'm bashful, at all&mdash;no&mdash;I'm quite the other way,
+really,&mdash;only&mdash;only&mdash;ever since I was a lad I've made such an ideal of
+woman that I'm afraid of her when I meet her,&mdash;afraid lest she shouldn't
+come up to my ideal, and equally afraid lest I shouldn't come up to
+hers! It's all conceit again! Fear of anything or anybody is always born
+of self-consciousness. But I've been disappointed once&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"In your ideal?" questioned Mary, raising her eyes and letting them rest
+observantly upon his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I'll come to that presently. I was telling you how I graduated at
+St. Andrews, and came out with M.A. tacked to my name, but with no other
+fortune than those two letters.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> I had made a few friends, however, and
+one of them, a worthy old professor, gave me a letter of recommendation
+to a man in Glasgow, who was the proprietor of one of the newspapers
+there. He was a warm-hearted, kindly fellow, and gave me a berth at
+once. It was hard work for little pay, but I got into thorough harness,
+and learnt all the ins and outs of journalism. I can't say that I ever
+admired the general mechanism set up for gulling the public, but I had
+to learn how it was done, and I set myself to master the whole business.
+I had rather a happy time of it in Glasgow, for though it's the
+dirtiest, dingiest and most depressing city in the world, with its
+innumerable drunkards and low Scoto-Irish ne'er-do-weels loafing about
+the streets on Saturday nights, it has one great charm&mdash;you can get away
+from it into some of the loveliest scenery in the world. All my spare
+time was spent in taking the steamer up the Clyde, and sometimes going
+as far as Crinan and beyond it&mdash;or what I loved best of all, taking a
+trip to Arran, and there roaming about the hills to my heart's content.
+Glorious Arran! It was there I first began to feel my wings growing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Was it a pleasant feeling?" enquired Helmsley, jocosely.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;it <i>was</i>!" replied Angus, clenching his right hand and bringing it
+down on his knee with emphasis; "whether they were goose wings or eagle
+wings didn't matter&mdash;the pricking of the budding quills was an <i>alive</i>
+sensation! The mountains, the burns, the glens, all had something to say
+to me&mdash;or I thought they had&mdash;something new, vital and urgent. God
+Himself seemed to have some great command to impose upon me&mdash;and I was
+ready to hear and obey. I began to write&mdash;first verse&mdash;then prose&mdash;and
+by and by I got one or two things accepted here and there&mdash;not very
+much, but still enough to fire me to further endeavours. Then one
+summer, when I was taking a holiday at a little village near Loch
+Lomond, I got the final dig of the spur of fate&mdash;I fell in love."</p>
+
+<p>Mary raised her eyes again and looked at him. A slow smile parted her
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>"And did the girl fall in love with you?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"For a time I believe she did,"&mdash;said Reay, and there was an under-tone
+of whimsical amusement in his voice as he spoke&mdash;"She was spending the
+summer in Scotland with her mother and father, and there wasn't anything
+for her to do. She didn't care for scenery very much&mdash;and I just came
+in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> as a sort of handy man to amuse her. She was a lovely creature in
+her teens,&mdash;I thought she was an angel&mdash;till&mdash;till I found her out."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?" queried Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well, then of course I was disillusioned. When I told her that I
+loved her more than anything else in the world, she laughed ever so
+sweetly, and said, 'I'm sure you do!' But when I asked her if she loved
+<i>me</i>, she laughed again, and said she didn't know what I was talking
+about&mdash;she didn't believe in love. 'What do you believe in?' I asked
+her. And she looked at me in the prettiest and most innocent way
+possible, and said quite calmly and slowly&mdash;'A rich marriage.' And my
+heart gave a great dunt in my side, for I knew it was all over. 'Then
+you won't marry <i>me</i>?'&mdash;I said&mdash;'for I'm only a poor journalist. But I
+mean to be famous some day!' 'Do you?' she said, and again that little
+laugh of hers rippled out like the tinkle of cold water&mdash;'Don't you
+think famous men are very tiresome? And they're always dreadfully poor!'
+Then I took hold of her hands, like the desperate fool I was, and kissed
+them, and said, 'Lucy, wait for me just a few years! Wait for me! You're
+so young'&mdash;for she was only seventeen, and still at school in Brighton
+somewhere&mdash;'You can afford to wait,&mdash;give me a chance!' And she looked
+down at the water&mdash;we were 'on the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond,' as the
+song says&mdash;in quite a picturesque little attitude of reflection, and
+sighed ever so prettily, and said&mdash;'I can't, Angus! You're very nice and
+kind!&mdash;and I like you very much!&mdash;but I am going to marry a
+millionaire!' Now you know why I hate millionaires."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you say her name was Lucy?" asked Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Lucy Sorrel."</p>
+
+<p>A bright flame leaped up in the fire and showed all three faces to one
+another&mdash;Mary's face, with its quietly absorbed expression of attentive
+interest&mdash;Reay's strongly moulded features, just now somewhat sternly
+shadowed by bitter memories&mdash;and Helmsley's thin, worn, delicately
+intellectual countenance, which in the brilliant rosy light flung upon
+it by the fire-glow, was like a fine waxen mask, impenetrable in its
+unmoved austerity and calm. Not so much as the faintest flicker of
+emotion crossed it at the mention of the name of the woman he knew so
+well,&mdash;the surprise he felt inwardly was not apparent outwardly, and he
+heard the remainder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> of Reay's narration with the most perfectly
+controlled imperturbability of demeanour.</p>
+
+<p>"She told me then," proceeded Reay&mdash;"that her parents had spent nearly
+all they had upon her education, in order to fit her for a position as
+the wife of a rich man&mdash;and that she would have to do her best to
+'catch'&mdash;that's the way she put it&mdash;to 'catch' this rich man as soon as
+she got a good opportunity. He was quite an old man, she said&mdash;old
+enough to be her grandfather. And when I asked her how she could
+reconcile it to her conscience to marry such a hoary-headed rascal&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here Helmsley interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p>"Was he a hoary-headed rascal?"</p>
+
+<p>"He must have been," replied Angus, warmly&mdash;"Don't you see he must?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;not exactly!" he submitted, with a gentle air of deference&mdash;"I
+think&mdash;perhaps&mdash;he might deserve a little pity for having to be 'caught'
+as you say just for his money's sake."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit of it!" declared Reay&mdash;"Any old man who would marry a young
+girl like that condemns himself as a villain. An out-an-out,
+golden-dusted villain!"</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>has</i> he married her?" asked Mary.</p>
+
+<p>Angus was rather taken aback at this question,&mdash;and rubbed his forehead
+perplexedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no, he hasn't&mdash;not yet&mdash;not that I know of, and I've watched the
+papers carefully too. Such a marriage couldn't take place without
+columns and columns of twaddle about it&mdash;all the dressmakers who made
+gowns for the bride would want a mention&mdash;and if they paid for it of
+course they'd get it. No&mdash;it hasn't come off yet&mdash;but it will. The
+venerable bridegroom that is to be has just gone abroad somewhere&mdash;so I
+see by one of the 'Society' rags,&mdash;probably to the States to make some
+more 'deals' in cash before his wedding."</p>
+
+<p>"You know his name, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes! Everybody knows it, and knows him too! David Helmsley's too
+rich to hide his light under a bushel! They call him 'King David' in the
+city. Now your name's David&mdash;but, by Jove, what a difference in Davids!"
+And he laughed, adding quickly&mdash;"I prefer the David I see before me now,
+to the David I never saw!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh! You never saw the old rascal then?" murmured Helmsley, putting up
+one hand to stroke his moustache slowly down over the smile which he
+could not repress.</p>
+
+<p>"Never&mdash;and don't want to! If I become famous&mdash;which I <i>will</i> do,"&mdash;and
+here Angus set his teeth hard&mdash;"I'll make my bow at one of Mrs.
+Millionaire Helmsley's receptions one day! And how will she look then!"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say she would look much the same as usual,"&mdash;said Helmsley,
+drily&mdash;"If she is the kind of young woman you describe, she is not
+likely to be overcome by the sight of a merely 'famous' man. You would
+have to be twice or three times as wealthy as herself to move her to any
+sense of respect for you. That is, if we are to judge by what our
+newspapers tell us of 'society' people. The newspapers are all we poor
+folk have got to go by."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I've often thought of that!" and Angus rubbed his forehead again
+in a vigorous way as though he were trying to rub ideas out of it&mdash;"And
+I've pitied the poor folks from the bottom of my heart! They get pretty
+often misled&mdash;and on serious matters too."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we're not all such fools as we seem,"&mdash;said Helmsley&mdash;"We can read
+between the lines as well as anyone&mdash;and we understand pretty clearly
+that it's only money which 'makes' the news. We read of 'society ladies'
+doing this, that and t' other thing, and we laugh at their doings&mdash;and
+when we read of a great lady conducting herself like an outcast, we feel
+a contempt for her such as we never visit on her poor sister of the
+streets. The newspapers may praise these women, but we 'common people'
+estimate them at their true worth&mdash;and that is&mdash;nothing! Now the girl
+you made an ideal of&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She was to be bought and sold,"&mdash;interrupted Reay; "I know that now.
+But I didn't know it then. She looked a sweet innocent angel,&mdash;with a
+pretty face and beautiful eyes&mdash;just the kind of creature we men fall in
+love with at first sight&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The kind of creature who, if you had married her, would have made you
+wretched for life,"&mdash;said Helmsley. "Be thankful you escaped her!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm thankful enough now!" and Reay pushed back his rebellious lock
+of hair again&mdash;"For when one has a great ambition in view, freedom is
+better than love&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley raised his wrinkled, trembling hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No, don't say that!" he murmured, gently&mdash;"Nothing&mdash;nothing in all the
+world is better than love!"</p>
+
+<p>Involuntarily his eyes turned towards Mary with a strange wistfulness.
+There was an unspoken yearning in his face that was almost pain. Her
+quick instinctive sympathy responded to his thought, and rising, she
+went to him on the pretext of re-arranging the cushion in his chair, so
+that he might lean back more comfortably. Then she took his hand and
+patted it kindly.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a sentimental old boy, aren't you, David!" she said,
+playfully&mdash;"You like being taken care of and fussed over! Of course you
+do! Was there ever a man that didn't!"</p>
+
+<p>He was silent, but he pressed her caressing hand gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>"No one has ever taken care of or fussed over <i>me</i>," said Reay&mdash;"I
+should rather like to try the experiment!"</p>
+
+<p>Mary laughed good-humouredly.</p>
+
+<p>"You must find yourself a wife,"&mdash;she said&mdash;"And then you'll see how you
+like it."</p>
+
+<p>"But wives don't make any fuss over their husbands it seems to me,"
+replied Reay&mdash;"At any rate in London, where I have lived for the past
+five years&mdash;husbands seem to be the last persons in the world whom their
+wives consider. I don't think I shall ever marry."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure <i>I</i> shan't,"&mdash;said Mary, smiling&mdash;and as she spoke, she bent
+over the fire, and threw a fresh log of wood on to keep up the bright
+glow which was all that illuminated the room, from which almost every
+pale glimmer of the twilight had now departed&mdash;"I'm an old maid. But I
+was an engaged girl once!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley lifted up his head with sudden and animated interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Were you, Mary?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes!" And the smile deepened round her expressive mouth and played
+softly in her eyes&mdash;"Yes, David, really! I was engaged to a very
+good-looking young man in the electrical engineering business. And I was
+very fond of him. But when my father lost every penny, my good-looking
+young man went too. He said he couldn't possibly marry a girl with
+nothing but the clothes on her back. I cried very much at the time, and
+thought my heart was broken. But&mdash;it wasn't!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I should hope it wouldn't break for such a selfish rascal!" said Reay,
+warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think he was more selfish than most?" queried Mary,
+thoughtfully&mdash;"There's a good many who would do as he did."</p>
+
+<p>A silence followed. She sat down and resumed her work.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you finished your story?" she asked Reay&mdash;"It has interested me so
+much that I'm hoping there's some more to tell."</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke to him he started as if from a dream. He had been watching
+her so earnestly that he had almost forgotten what he had previously
+been talking about. He found himself studying the beautiful outline of
+her figure, and wondering why he had never before seen such gracious
+curves of neck and shoulder, waist and bosom as gave symmetrical
+perfection of shape to this simple woman born of the "common" people.</p>
+
+<p>"More to tell?" he echoed, hastily,&mdash;"Well, there's a little&mdash;but not
+much. My love affair at Loch Lomond did one thing for me,&mdash;it made me
+work hard. I had a sort of desperate idea that I might wrest a fortune
+out of journalism by dint of sheer grinding at it&mdash;but I soon found out
+my mistake there. I toiled away so steadily and got such a firm hold of
+all the affairs of the newspaper office where I was employed, that one
+fine morning I was dismissed. My proprietor, genial and kindly as ever,
+said he found 'no fault'&mdash;but that he wanted 'a change.' I quite
+understood that. The fact is I knew too much&mdash;that's all. I had saved a
+bit, and so, with a few good letters of introduction, went on from
+Glasgow to London. There, in that great black ant-hill full of crawling
+sooty human life, I knocked about for a time from one newspaper office
+to another, doing any sort of work that turned up, just to keep body and
+soul together,&mdash;and at last I got a fairly good berth in the London
+branch of a big press syndicate. It was composed of three or four
+proprietors, ever so many editors, and an army of shareholders
+representing almost every class in Great Britain. Ah, those
+shareholders! There's the whole mischief of the press nowadays!"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it's money again!" said Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it is. Here's how the matter stands. A newspaper syndicate is
+like any other trading company, composed for the sole end and object of
+making as much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> profit out of the public as possible. The lion's portion
+naturally goes to the heads of the concern&mdash;then come the shareholders'
+dividends. The actual workers in the business, such as the 'editors,'
+are paid as little as their self-respect will allow them to take, and as
+for the other fellows <i>under</i> the editors&mdash;well!&mdash;you can just imagine
+they get much less than the little their self-respect would claim, if
+they were not, most of them, so desperately poor, and so anxious for a
+foothold somewhere as to be ready to take anything. I took the first
+chance I could get, and hung on to it, not for the wretched pay, but for
+the experience, and for the insight it gave me into men and things. I
+witnessed the whole business;&mdash;the 'doctoring up' of social
+scandals,&mdash;the tampering with the news in order that certain items might
+not affect certain shares on the Stock Exchange,&mdash;the way 'discussions'
+of the most idiotic kind were started in the office just to fill up
+space, such as what was best to make the hair grow; what a baby ought to
+weigh at six months; what food authors write best on; and whether modern
+girls make as good wives as their mothers did, and so on. These things
+were generally got up by 'the fool of the office' as we called him&mdash;a
+man with a perpetual grin and an undyingly good opinion of himself. He
+was always put into harness when for some state or financial reason the
+actual facts had to be euphonised or even suppressed and the public 'let
+down gently.' For a time I was drafted off on the 'social'
+business&mdash;ugh?&mdash;how I hated it?"</p>
+
+<p>"What did you have to do?" asked Mary, amused.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I had to deal with a motley crowd of court flunkeys, Jews, tailors
+and dressmakers, and fearful-looking women catering for 'fashion,' who
+came with what they called 'news,' which was generally that 'Mrs.
+"Bunny" Bumpkin looked sweet in grey'&mdash;or that 'Miss "Toby" Tosspot was
+among the loveliest of the d&eacute;butantes at Court.' Sometimes a son of
+Israel came along, all in a mortal funk, and said he 'didn't want it
+mentioned' that Mrs. So-and-So had dined with him at a certain public
+restaurant last night. Generally, he was a shareholder, and his orders
+had to be obeyed. The shareholders in fact had most to do with the
+'society' news,&mdash;and they bored me nearly to death. The trifles they
+wanted 'mentioned' were innumerable&mdash;the other trifles they didn't want
+mentioned,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> were quite as endless. One day there was a regular row&mdash;a
+sort of earthquake in the place. Somebody had presumed to mention that
+the beautiful Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup had smoked several cigarettes with
+infinite gusto at a certain garden party,&mdash;now what are you laughing at,
+Miss Deane?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the beautiful Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup!" and Mary's clear laughter
+rippled out in a silvery peal of purest merriment&mdash;"That's not her name
+surely!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, that's not her name!" and Angus laughed too&mdash;"It wouldn't do to
+give her real name!&mdash;but Ketchup's quite as good and high-sounding as
+the one she's got. And as I tell you, the whole 'staff' was convulsed.
+Three shareholders came down post haste to the office&mdash;one at full speed
+in a motor,&mdash;and said how <i>dare</i> I mention Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup at all?
+It was like my presumption to notice that she had smoked! Mrs. Mushroom
+Ketchup's name must be kept out of the papers&mdash;she was a 'lady'! Oh, by
+Jove!&mdash;how I laughed!&mdash;I couldn't help myself! I just roared with
+laughter in the very faces of those shareholders! 'A lady!' said
+I&mdash;'Why, she's&mdash;&mdash; ' But I wasn't allowed to say what she was, for the
+shareholder who had arrived in the motor, fixed a deadly glance upon me
+and said&mdash;'If you value your po-seetion'&mdash;he was a Lowland Scot, with
+the Lowland accent&mdash;'if you value your po-seetion on this paper, you'll
+hold your tongue!' So I did hold my tongue then&mdash;but only because I
+meant to wag it more violently afterwards. I always devote Mrs. Mushroom
+Ketchup to the blue blazes, because I'm sure it was through her I lost
+my post. You see a shareholder in a paper has a good deal of influence,
+especially if he has as much as a hundred thousand shares. You'd be
+surprised if I told you the real names of some of the fellows who
+control newspaper syndicates!&mdash;you wouldn't believe it! Or at any rate,
+if you <i>did</i> believe it, you'd never believe the newspapers!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe them now,"&mdash;said Helmsley&mdash;"They say one thing to-day
+and contradict it to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but that's like all news!" said Mary, placidly&mdash;"Even in our little
+village here, you never know quite what to believe. One morning you are
+told that Mrs. Badge's baby has fallen downstairs and broken its neck,
+and you've scarcely done being sorry for Mrs. Badge, when in comes Mrs.
+Badge herself, baby and all, quite well and smiling,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> and she says she
+'never did hear such tales as there are in Wiercombe'!"</p>
+
+<p>They all laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's the end of my story,"&mdash;said Angus&mdash;"I worked on the
+syndicate for two years, and then was given the sack. The cause of my
+dismissal was, as I told you, that I published a leading article
+exposing a mean and dirty financial trick on the part of a man who
+publicly assumed to be a world's benefactor&mdash;and he turned out to be a
+shareholder in the paper under an 'alias.' There was no hope for me
+after that&mdash;it was a worse affair than that of Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup. So
+I marched out of the office, and out of London&mdash;I meant to make for
+Exmoor, which is wild and solitary, because I thought I might find some
+cheap room in a cottage there, where I might live quietly on almost
+nothing and write my book&mdash;but I stumbled by chance on this place
+instead&mdash;and I rather like being so close to the sea."</p>
+
+<p>"You are writing a book?" said Mary, her eyes resting upon him
+thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I've got a room in the village for half-a-crown a week and 'board
+myself' as the good woman of the house says. And I'm perfectly happy!"</p>
+
+<p>A long pause followed. The fire was dying down from a flame to a dull
+red glow, and a rush of wind against the kitchen window was accompanied
+by the light pattering of rain. Angus Reay rose.</p>
+
+<p>"I must be going,"&mdash;he said&mdash;"I've made you quite a visitation! Old
+David is nearly asleep!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"Not I!" and he smiled&mdash;"I'm very wide awake: I like your story, and I
+like <i>you</i>! Perhaps you'll come in again sometimes and have a chat with
+us?"</p>
+
+<p>Reay glanced enquiringly at Mary, who had also risen from her chair, and
+was now lighting the lamp on the table.</p>
+
+<p>"May I?" he asked hesitatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course!" And her eyes met his with hospitable frankness&mdash;"Come
+whenever you feel lonely!"</p>
+
+<p>"I often do that!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"All the better!&mdash;then we shall often see you!"&mdash;she answered&mdash;"And
+you'll always be welcome!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank-you! I believe you mean it!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mary smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Why of course I do! I'm not a newspaper syndicate!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nor a Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup!" put in Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>Angus threw back his head and gave one of his big joyous laughs.</p>
+
+<p>"No! You're a long way off that!" he said&mdash;"Good-evening, David!"</p>
+
+<p>And going up to the armchair where Helmsley sat he shook hands with him.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-evening, Mr. Reay!" rejoined Helmsley, cheerily; "I'm very glad we
+met this afternoon!"</p>
+
+<p>"So am I!" declared Angus, with energy&mdash;"I don't feel quite so much of a
+solitary bear as I did. I'm in a better temper altogether with the world
+in general!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's right!" said Mary&mdash;"Whatever happens to you it's never the fault
+of the world, remember!&mdash;it's only the trying little ways of the people
+in it!"</p>
+
+<p>She held out her hand in farewell, and he pressed it gently. Then he
+threw on his cap, and she opened her cottage door for him to pass out. A
+soft shower of rain blew full in their faces as they stood on the
+threshold.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll get wet, I'm afraid!" said Mary.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's nothing!" And he buttoned his coat across his chest&mdash;"What's
+that lovely scent in the garden here, just close to the door?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's the old sweetbriar bush,"&mdash;she replied&mdash;"It lasts in leaf till
+nearly Christmas and always smells so delicious. Shall I give you a bit
+of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's too dark to find it now, surely!" said Angus.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! I can feel it!"</p>
+
+<p>And stretching out her white hand into the raining darkness, she brought
+it back holding a delicate spray of odorous leaves.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it sweet?" she said, as she gave it to him.</p>
+
+<p>"It is indeed!" he placed the little sprig in his buttonhole.
+"Thank-you! Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>He lifted his hat and smiled into her eyes&mdash;then walked quickly through
+the tiny garden, opened the gate, shut it carefully behind him, and
+disappeared. Mary listened for a moment to the swish of the falling rain
+among the leaves, and the noise of the tumbling hill-torrent over its
+stony bed. Then she closed and barred the door.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It's going to be a wet night, David!" she said, as she came back
+towards the fire&mdash;"And a bit rough, too, by the sound of the sea."</p>
+
+<p>He did not answer immediately, but watched her attentively as she made
+up the fire, and cleared the table of the tea things, packing up the
+cups and plates and saucers in the neat and noiseless manner which was
+particularly her own, preparatory to carrying them all on a tray out to
+the little scullery adjoining the kitchen, which with its well polished
+saucepans, kettles, and crockery was quite a smart feature of her small
+establishment. Then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of him, Mary?" he asked suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Of Mr. Reay?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated a moment, looking intently at a small crack in one of the
+plates she was putting by.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't know, David!&mdash;it's rather difficult to say on such a
+short acquaintance&mdash;but he seems to me quite a good fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite a good fellow, yes!" repeated Helmsley, nodding gravely&mdash;"That's
+how he seems to me, too."</p>
+
+<p>"I think,"&mdash;went on Mary, slowly&mdash;"that he's a thoroughly manly
+man,&mdash;don't you?" He nodded gravely again, and echoed her words&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A thoroughly manly man!"</p>
+
+<p>"And perhaps," she continued&mdash;"it would be pleasant for you, David, to
+have a chat with him now and then especially in the long winter
+evenings&mdash;wouldn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>She had moved to his side, and now stood looking down upon him with such
+a wistful sweetness of expression, that he was content to merely watch
+her, without answering her question.</p>
+
+<p>"Because those long winter evenings are sometimes very dull, you know!"
+she went on&mdash;"And I'm afraid I'm not very good company when I'm at work
+mending the lace&mdash;I have to take all my stitches so carefully that I
+dare not talk much lest I make a false knot."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> make a false knot!" he said&mdash;"You couldn't do it, if you tried!
+You'll never make a false knot&mdash;never!"&mdash;and his voice sank to an almost
+inaudible murmur&mdash;"Neither in your lace nor in your life!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him a little anxiously.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Are you tired, David?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my dear! Not tired&mdash;only thinking!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you mustn't think too much,"&mdash;she said&mdash;"Thinking is weary work,
+sometimes!"</p>
+
+<p>He raised his eyes and looked at her steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Reay was very frank and open in telling us all about himself,
+wasn't he, Mary?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes!" and she laughed&mdash;"But I think he is one of those men who
+couldn't possibly be anything else but frank and open."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you sometimes wonder,"&mdash;went on Helmsley slowly, keeping his gaze
+fixed on the fire&mdash;"why <i>I</i> haven't told you all about myself?"</p>
+
+<p>She met his eyes with a candid smile.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;I haven't thought about it!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why haven't you thought about it?" he persisted.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed outright.</p>
+
+<p>"Simply because I haven't! That's all!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mary,"&mdash;he said, seriously&mdash;"You know I was not your 'father's friend'!
+You know I never saw your father!"</p>
+
+<p>The smile still lingered in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I know that!"</p>
+
+<p>"And yet you never ask me to give an account of myself!"</p>
+
+<p>She thought he was worrying his mind needlessly, and bending over him
+took his hand in hers.</p>
+
+<p>"No, David, I never ask impertinent questions!" she said&mdash;"I don't want
+to know anything more about you than you choose to tell. You seem to me
+like my dear father&mdash;not quite so strong as he was, perhaps&mdash;but I have
+taken care of you for so many weeks, that I almost feel as if you
+belonged to me! And I want to take care of you still, because I know you
+<i>must</i> be taken care of. And I'm so well accustomed to you now that I
+shouldn't like to lose you, David&mdash;I shouldn't really! Because you've
+been so patient and gentle and grateful for the little I have been able
+to do for you, that I've got fond of you, David! Yes!&mdash;actually fond of
+you! What do you say to that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say to it!" he murmured, pressing the hand he held.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> "I don't know what
+to say to it, Mary!&mdash;except&mdash;God bless you!"</p>
+
+<p>She was silent a minute&mdash;then she went on in a cheerfully rallying
+tone&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"So I don't want to know anything about you, you see! Now, as to Mr.
+Reay&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes!" and Helmsley gave her a quick observant glance which she
+herself did not notice&mdash;"What about Mr. Reay?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well it would be nice if we could cheer him up a little and make him
+bear his poor and lonely life more easily. Wouldn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cheer him up a little and make him bear his poor and lonely life more
+easily!" repeated Helmsley, slowly, "Yes. And do you think we can do
+that, Mary?"</p>
+
+<p>"We can try!" she said, smiling&mdash;"At any rate, while he's living in
+Wiercombe, we can be friendly to him, and give him a bit of dinner now
+and then!"</p>
+
+<p>"So we can!" agreed Helmsley&mdash;"Or rather, so <i>you</i> can!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>We!</i>" corrected Mary&mdash;"<i>You're</i> helping me to keep house now,
+David,&mdash;remember that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why I haven't paid half or a quarter of my debt to you yet!" he
+exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"But you're paying it off every day,"&mdash;she answered; "Don't you fear! I
+mean to have every penny out of you that I can!"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed gaily, and taking up the tray upon which she had packed all
+the tea-things, carried it out of the kitchen. Helmsley heard her
+singing softly to herself in the scullery, as she set to work to wash
+the cups and saucers. And bending his old eyes on the fire, he
+smiled,&mdash;and an indomitable expression of energetic resolve strengthened
+every line of his features.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to have every penny out of me that you can, my dear, do you!"
+he said, softly&mdash;"And so&mdash;if Love can find out the way&mdash;you will!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>The winter now closed in apace,&mdash;and though the foliage all about
+Weircombe was reluctant to fall, and kept its green, russet and gold
+tints well on into December, the high gales which blew in from the sea
+played havoc with the trembling leaves at last and brought them to the
+ground like the painted fragments of Summer's ruined temple. All the
+fishermen's boats were hauled up high and dry, and great stretches of
+coarse net like black webs, were spread out on the beach for drying and
+mending,&mdash;while through the tunnels scooped out of the tall castellated
+rocks which guarded either side of the little port, or "weir," the great
+billows dashed with a thunderous roar of melody, oftentimes throwing
+aloft fountains of spray well-nigh a hundred feet in height&mdash;spray which
+the wild wind caught and blew in pellets of salty foam far up the little
+village street. Helmsley was now kept a prisoner indoors,&mdash;he had not
+sufficient strength to buffet with a gale, or to stand any unusually
+sharp nip of cold,&mdash;so he remained very comfortably by the side of the
+fire, making baskets, which he was now able to turn out quickly with
+quite an admirable finish, owing to the zeal and earnestness with which
+he set himself to the work. Mary's business in the winter months was
+entirely confined to the lace-mending&mdash;she had no fine laundry work to
+do, and her time was passed in such household duties as kept her little
+cottage sweet and clean, in attentive guardianship and care of her
+"father's friend"&mdash;and in the delicate weaving of threads whereby the
+fine fabric which had once perchance been damaged and spoilt by
+flaunting pride, was made whole and beautiful again by simple patience.
+Helmsley was never tired of watching her. Whether she knelt down with a
+pail of suds, and scrubbed her cottage doorstep&mdash;or whether she sat
+quietly opposite to him, with the small "Charlie" snuggled on a rug
+between them, while she mended her lace, his eyes always rested upon her
+with deepening interest and tenderness. And he grew daily more conscious
+of a great peace and happiness&mdash;peace and happiness such as he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>
+never known since his boyhood's days. He, who had found the ways of
+modern society dull to the last point of excruciating boredom, was not
+aware of any monotony in the daily round of the hours, which, laden with
+simple duties and pleasures, came and went softly and slowly like angel
+messengers stepping gently from one heaven to another. The world&mdash;or
+that which is called the world,&mdash;had receded from him altogether. Here,
+where he had found a shelter, there was no talk of finance&mdash;the claims
+of the perpetual "bridge" party had vanished like the misty confusion of
+a bad dream from the brain&mdash;the unutterably vulgar intrigues common to
+the so-called "better" class of twentieth century humanity could not
+intrude any claim on his attention or his time&mdash;the perpetual lending of
+money to perpetually dishonest borrowers was, for the present, a
+finished task&mdash;and he felt himself to be a free man&mdash;far freer than he
+had been for many years. And, to add to the interest of his days, he
+became engrossed in a scheme&mdash;a strange scheme which built itself up in
+his head like a fairy palace, wherein everything beautiful, graceful,
+noble, helpful and precious, found place and position, and grew from
+promise to fulfilment as easily as a perfect rosebud ripens to a perfect
+rose. But he said nothing of his thoughts. He hugged them, as it were,
+to himself, and toyed with them as though they were jewels,&mdash;precious
+jewels selected specially to be set in a crown of inestimable worth.
+Meanwhile his health kept fairly equable, though he was well aware
+within his own consciousness that he did not get stronger. But he was
+strong enough to be merry at times&mdash;and his kindly temper and cheery
+conversation made him a great favourite with the Weircombe folk, who
+were never tired of "looking in" as they termed it, on Mary, and "'avin'
+a bit of a jaw with old David."</p>
+
+<p>Sociable evenings they had too, during that winter&mdash;evenings when Angus
+Reay came in to tea and stayed to supper, and after supper entertained
+them by singing in a deep baritone voice as soft as honey, the old
+Scotch songs now so hopelessly "out of fashion"&mdash;such as "My Nannie
+O"&mdash;"Ae fond kiss"&mdash;and "Highland Mary," in which last exquisite ballad
+he was always at his best. And Mary sang also, accompanying herself on a
+quaint old Hungarian zither, which she said had been left with her
+father as guarantee for ten shillings which he had lent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> to a street
+musician wandering about Barnstaple. The street musician disappeared and
+the ten shillings were never returned, so Mary took possession of the
+zither, and with the aid of a cheap instruction book, managed to learn
+enough of its somewhat puzzling technique to accompany her own voice
+with a few full, rich, plaintive chords. And it was in this fashion that
+Angus heard her first sing what she called "A song of the sea," running
+thus:</p>
+
+<p>
+I heard the sea cry out in the night<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Like a fretful child&mdash;</span><br />
+Moaning under the pale moonlight<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In a passion wild&mdash;</span><br />
+And my heart cried out with the sea, in tears,<br />
+For the sweet lost joys of my vanished years!<br />
+<br />
+I heard the sea laugh out in the noon<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Like a girl at play&mdash;</span><br />
+All forgot was the mournful moon<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In the dawn of day!</span><br />
+And my heart laughed out with the sea, in gladness,<br />
+And I thought no more of bygone sadness.<br />
+<br />
+I think the sea is a part of me<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With its gloom and glory&mdash;</span><br />
+What Has Been, and what yet Shall Be<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Is all its story;</span><br />
+Rise up, O Heart, with the tidal flow,<br />
+And drown the sorrows of Long Ago!<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Something eerie and mystical there was in these words, sung as she sang
+them in a low, soft, contralto, sustained by the pathetic quiver of the
+zither strings throbbing under the pressure of her white fingers, and
+Angus asked her where she had learned the song.</p>
+
+<p>"I found it,"&mdash;she answered, somewhat evasively.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you compose it yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>She flushed a little.</p>
+
+<p>"How can you imagine such a thing?"</p>
+
+<p>He was silent, but "imagined" the more. And after this he began to show
+her certain scenes and passages in the book he was writing, sometimes
+reading them aloud to her with all that eager eloquence which an author
+who loves and feels his work is bound to convey into the pronounced
+expression of it. And she listened, absorbed and often entranced, for
+there was no gain-saying the fact that Angus Reay was a man of genius.
+He was inclined to underrate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> rather than overestimate his own
+abilities, and often showed quite a pathetic mistrust of himself in his
+very best and most original conceptions.</p>
+
+<p>"When I read to you,"&mdash;he said to her, one day&mdash;"You must tell me the
+instant you feel bored. That's a great point! Because if <i>you</i> feel
+bored, other people who read the book will feel bored exactly as you do
+and at the very same passage. And you must criticise me mercilessly!
+Rend me to pieces&mdash;tear my sentences to rags, and pick holes in every
+detail, if you like! That will do me a world of good!"</p>
+
+<p>Mary laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"But why?" she asked, "Why do you want me to be so unkind to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"It won't be unkind,"&mdash;he declared&mdash;"It will be very helpful. And I'll
+tell you why. There's no longer any real 'criticism' of literary work in
+the papers nowadays. There's only extravagant eulogium written up by an
+author's personal friends and wormed somehow into the press&mdash;or equally
+extravagant abuse, written and insinuated in similar fashion by an
+author's personal enemies. Well now, you can't live without having both
+friends and enemies&mdash;you generally have more of the latter than the
+former, particularly if you are successful. There's nothing a lazy man
+won't do to 'down' an industrious one,&mdash;nothing an unknown scrub won't
+attempt in the way of trying to injure a great fame. It's a delightful
+world for that sort of thing!&mdash;so truly 'Christian,' pleasant and
+charitable! But the consequence of all these mean and petty 'personal'
+views of life is, that sound, unbiased, honest literary criticism is a
+dead art. You can't get it anywhere. And yet if you could, there's
+nothing that would be so helpful, or so strengthening to a man's work.
+It would make him put his best foot foremost. I should like to think
+that my book when it comes out, would be 'reviewed' by a man who had no
+prejudices, no 'party' politics, no personal feeling for or against
+me,&mdash;but who simply and solely considered it from an impartial,
+thoughtful, just and generous point of view&mdash;taking it as a piece of
+work done honestly and from a deep sense of conviction. Criticism from
+fellows who just turn over the pages of a book to find fault casually
+wherever they can&mdash;(I've seen them at it in newspaper offices!) or to
+quote unfairly mere scraps of sentences<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> without context,&mdash;or to fly off
+into a whirlwind of personal and scurrilous calumnies against an author
+whom they don't know, and perhaps never will know,&mdash;that sort of thing
+is quite useless to me. It neither encourages nor angers me. It is a
+mere flabby exhibition of incompetency&mdash;much as if a jelly-fish should
+try to fight a sea-gull! Now you,&mdash;if you criticise me,&mdash;your criticism
+will be valuable, because it will be quite honest&mdash;there will be no
+'personal' feeling in it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She raised her eyes to his and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"No?"</p>
+
+<p>Something warm and radiant in her glance flashed into his soul and
+thrilled it strangely. Vaguely startled by an impression which he did
+not try to analyse, he went on hastily&mdash;"No&mdash;because you see you are
+neither my friend nor my enemy, are you?"</p>
+
+<p>She was quite silent.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean,"&mdash;he continued, blundering along somewhat lamely,&mdash;"You don't
+hate me very much, and you don't like me very much. I'm just an ordinary
+man to you. Therefore you're bound to be perfectly impartial, because
+what I do is a matter of 'personal' indifference to you. That's why your
+criticism will be so helpful and valuable."</p>
+
+<p>She bent her head closely over the lace she was mending for a minute or
+two, as though she were making a very intricate knot. Then she looked up
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you wish it, I'll tell you just what I think," she said,
+quietly&mdash;"But you mustn't call it criticism. I'm not clever enough to
+judge a book. I only know what pleases <i>me</i>,&mdash;and what pleases me may
+not please the world. I know very little about authors, and I've taught
+myself all that I do know. I love Shakespeare,&mdash;but I could not explain
+to you why I love him, because I'm not clever enough. I only feel his
+work,&mdash;I feel that it's all right and beautiful and wonderful&mdash;but I
+couldn't criticise it."</p>
+
+<p>"No one can,&mdash;no one should!" said Reay, warmly&mdash;"Shakespeare is above
+all criticism!"</p>
+
+<p>"But is he not always being criticised?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. By little men who cannot understand greatness,"&mdash;he answered&mdash;"It
+gives a kind of 'scholarly importance' to the little men, but it leaves
+the great one unscathed."</p>
+
+<p>This talk led to many others of a similar nature between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> them, and
+Reay's visits to Mary's cottage became more and more frequent. David
+Helmsley, weaving his baskets day by day, began to weave something more
+delicate and uncommon than the withes of willow,&mdash;a weaving which went
+on in his mind far more actively than the twisting and plaiting of the
+osiers in his hands. Sometimes in the evenings, when work was done, and
+he sat in his comfortable easy chair by the fire watching Mary at her
+sewing and Angus talking earnestly to her, he became so absorbed in his
+own thoughts that he scarcely heard their voices, and often when they
+spoke to him, he started from a profound reverie, unconscious of their
+words. But it was not the feebleness or weariness of age that made him
+seem at times indifferent to what was going on around him&mdash;it was the
+intensity and fervour of a great and growing idea of happiness in his
+soul,&mdash;an idea which he cherished so fondly and in such close secrecy,
+as to be almost afraid to whisper it to himself lest by some unhappy
+chance it should elude his grasp and vanish into nothingness.</p>
+
+<p>And so the time went on to Christmas and New Year. Weircombe kept these
+festivals very quietly, yet not without cheerfulness. There was plenty
+of holly about, and the children, plunging into the thick of the woods
+at the summit of the "coombe" found mistletoe enough for the common
+need. The tiny Church was prettily decorated by the rector's wife and
+daughters, assisted by some of the girls of the village, and everybody
+attended service on Christmas morning, not only because it was
+Christmas, but because it was the last time their own parson would
+preach to them, before he went away for three months or more to a warm
+climate for the benefit of his health. But Helmsley did not join the
+little crowd of affectionate parishioners&mdash;he stayed at home while Mary
+went, as she said "to pray for him." He watched her from the open
+cottage door, as she ascended the higher part of the "coombe," dressed
+in a simple stuff gown of darkest blue, with a prim little "old maid's"
+bonnet, as she called it, tied neatly under her rounded white chin&mdash;and
+carrying in her hand a much worn "Book of Common Prayer" which she held
+with a certain delicate reverence not often shown to holy things by the
+church-going women of the time. Weircombe Church had a small but musical
+chime of bells, presented to it by a former rector&mdash;and the silvery
+sweetness of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> peal just now ringing was intensified by the close
+proximity of the mountain stream, which, rendered somewhat turbulent by
+recent rains, swept along in a deep swift current, carrying the melody
+of the chimes along with it down to the sea and across the waves in
+broken pulsation, till they touched with a faint mysterious echo the
+masts of home-returning ships, and brought a smile to the faces of
+sailors on board who, recognising the sound, said "Weircombe bells,
+sure-<i>ly</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley stood listening, lost in meditation. To anyone who could have
+seen him then, a bent frail figure just within the cottage door, with
+his white hair, white beard, and general appearance of gentle and
+resigned old age, he would have seemed nothing more than a venerable
+peasant, quietly satisfied with his simple surroundings, and as far
+apart from every association of wealth, as the daisy in the grass is
+from the star in the sky. Yet, in actual fact, his brain was busy
+weighing millions of money,&mdash;the fate of an accumulated mass of wealth
+hung on the balance of his decision,&mdash;and he was mentally arranging his
+plans with all the clearness, precision and practicality which had
+distinguished him in his biggest financial schemes,&mdash;schemes which had
+from time to time amazed and convulsed the speculating world. A certain
+wistful sadness touched him as he looked on the quiet country landscape
+in the wintry sunlight of this Christmas morn,&mdash;some secret instinctive
+foreboding told him that it might be the last Christmas he should ever
+see. And a sudden wave of regret swept over his soul,&mdash;regret that he
+had not appreciated the sweet things of life more keenly when he had
+been able to enjoy their worth. So many simple joys missed!&mdash;so many
+gracious and helpful sentiments discarded!&mdash;all the best of his years
+given over to eager pursuit of gold,&mdash;not because he cared for gold
+really, but because, owing to a false social system which perverted the
+moral sense, it seemed necessary to happiness. Yet he had proved it to
+be the very last thing that could make a man happy. The more money, the
+less enjoyment of it&mdash;the greater the wealth, the less the content. Was
+this according to law?&mdash;the spiritual law of compensation, which works
+steadily behind every incident which we may elect to call good or evil?
+He thought it must be so. This very festival&mdash;Christmas&mdash;how thoroughly
+he had been accustomed by an effete<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> and degenerate "social set" to
+regard it as a "bore,"&mdash;an exploded superstition&mdash;a saturnalia of beef
+and pudding&mdash;a something which merely served as an excuse for throwing
+away good money on mere stupid sentiment. "Stupid" sentiment? Had he
+ever thought true, tender, homely sentiment "stupid"? Yes,&mdash;perhaps he
+had, when in the bold carelessness of full manhood he had assumed that
+the race was to the swift and the battle to the strong&mdash;but now, when
+the shadows were falling&mdash;when, perhaps, he would never hear the
+Christmas bells again, or be troubled by the "silly superstitions" of
+loving, praying, hoping, believing humanity, he would have given much
+could he have gone back in fancy to every Christmas of his life and seen
+each one spent cheerily amid the warm associations of such "sentiments"
+as make friendship valuable and lasting. He looked up half vaguely at
+the sky, clear blue on this still frosty morning, and was conscious of
+tears that crept smartingly behind his eyes and for a moment dimmed his
+sight. And he murmured dreamily&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"Behold we know not anything;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I can but trust that good shall fall</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">At last&mdash;far off&mdash;at last, to all&mdash;</span><br />
+And every winter change to spring!"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>A tall, athletic figure came between him and the light, and Angus Reay's
+voice addressed him&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, David! A merry Christmas to you! Do you know you are standing
+out in the cold? What would Miss Mary say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Mary" was the compromise Angus hit upon between "Miss Deane" and
+"Mary,"&mdash;considering the first term too formal, and the last too
+familiar.</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Mary has gone to church,"&mdash;he replied&mdash;"I thought you had gone
+too."</p>
+
+<p>Reay gave a slight gesture of mingled regret and annoyance.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;I never go to church,"&mdash;he said&mdash;"But don't you think I despise the
+going. Not I. I wish I could go to church! I'd give anything to go as I
+used to do with my father every Sunday."</p>
+
+<p>"And why can't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because the church is not what it used to be,"&mdash;declared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> Reay&mdash;"Don't
+get me on that argument, David, or I shall never cease talking! Now, see
+here!&mdash;if you stand any longer at that open door you'll get a chill! You
+go inside the house and imitate Charlie's example&mdash;look at him!" And he
+pointed to the tiny toy terrier snuggled up as usual in a ball of silky
+comfort on the warm hearth&mdash;"Small epicure! Come back to your chair,
+David, and sit by the fire&mdash;your hands are quite cold."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley yielded to the persuasion, not because he felt cold, but
+because he was rather inclined to be alone with Reay for a little. They
+entered the house and shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't it look a different place without her!" said Angus, glancing
+round the trim little kitchen&mdash;"As neat as a pin, of course, but all the
+life gone from it."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled, but did not answer. Seating himself in his armchair, he
+spread out his thin old hands to the bright fire, and watched Reay as he
+stood near the hearth, leaning one arm easily against a rough beam which
+ran across the chimney piece.</p>
+
+<p>"She is a wonderful woman!" went on Reay, musingly; "She has a power of
+which she is scarcely conscious."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is that?" asked Helmsley, slowly rubbing his hands with quite
+an abstracted air.</p>
+
+<p>Angus laughed lightly, though a touch of colour reddened his bronzed
+cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"The power that the old alchemists sought and never could find!" he
+answered&mdash;"The touch that transmutes common metals to fine gold, and
+changes the every-day prose of life to poetry."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley went on rubbing his hands slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"It's so extraordinary, don't you think, David,"&mdash;he continued&mdash;"that
+there should be such a woman as Miss Mary alive at all?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley looked up at him questioningly, but said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean,"&mdash;and Angus threw out his hand with an impetuous gesture&mdash;"that
+considering all the abominable, farcical tricks women play nowadays, it
+is simply amazing to find one who is contented with a simple life like
+this, and who manages to make that simple life so gracious and
+beautiful!"</p>
+
+<p>Still Helmsley was silent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Now, just think of that girl I've told you about&mdash;Lucy
+Sorrel,"&mdash;proceeded Angus&mdash;"Nothing would have contented her in all this
+world!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not even her old millionaire?" suggested Helmsley, placidly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, certainly not! Poor old devil! He'll soon find himself put on the
+shelf if he marries her. He won't be able to call his soul his own! If
+he gives her diamonds, she'll want more diamonds&mdash;if he covers her and
+stuffs her with money, she'll never have enough! She'll want all she can
+get out of him while he lives and everything he has ever possessed when
+he's dead."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley rubbed his hands more vigorously together.</p>
+
+<p>"A very nice young lady," he murmured. "Very nice indeed! But if you
+judge her in this way now, why did you ever fall in love with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"She was pretty, David!" and Reay smiled&mdash;"That's all! My passion for
+her was skin-deep! And hers for me didn't even touch the cuticle! She
+was pretty&mdash;as pretty as a wax-doll,&mdash;perfect eyes, perfect hair,
+perfect figure, perfect complexion&mdash;ugh! how I hate perfection!"</p>
+
+<p>And taking up the poker, he gave a vigorous blow to a hard lump of coal
+in the grate, and split it into a blaze.</p>
+
+<p>"I hate perfection!" he resumed&mdash;"Or rather, I hate what passes for
+perfection, for, as a matter of fact, there's nothing perfect. And I
+specially and emphatically hate the woman that considers herself a
+'beauty,' that gets herself photographed as a 'beauty,' that the press
+reporter speaks of as a 'beauty,'&mdash;and that affronts you with her
+'beauty' whenever you look at her, as though she were some sort of
+first-class goods for sale. Now Miss Mary is a beautiful woman&mdash;and she
+doesn't seem to know it."</p>
+
+<p>"Her time for vanity is past,"&mdash;said Helmsley, sententiously&mdash;"She is an
+old maid."</p>
+
+<p>"Old maid be shot!" exclaimed Angus, impetuously&mdash;"By Jove! Any man
+might be proud to marry her!"</p>
+
+<p>A keen, sharp glance, as incisive as any that ever flashed up and down
+the lines of a business ledger, gleamed from under Helmsley's fuzzy
+brows.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Would I marry her?" And Angus reddened suddenly like a boy&mdash;"Dear old
+David, bless you! That's just what I want you to help me to do!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For a moment such a great wave of triumph swept over Helmsley's soul
+that he could not speak. But he mastered his emotion by an effort.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid,"&mdash;he said&mdash;"I'm afraid I should be no use to you in such a
+business,&mdash;you'd much better speak to her yourself&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course I mean to speak to her myself,"&mdash;interrupted Reay,
+warmly&mdash;"Don't be dense, David! You don't suppose I want <i>you</i> to speak
+for me, do you? Not a bit of it! Only before I speak, I do wish you
+could find out whether she likes me a little&mdash;because&mdash;because&mdash;I'm
+afraid she doesn't look upon me at all in <i>that</i> light&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"In what light?" queried Helmsley, gently.</p>
+
+<p>"As a lover,"&mdash;replied Angus&mdash;"She's given up thinking of lovers."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley leaned back in his chair, and clasping his hands together so
+that the tips of his fingers met, looked over them in almost the same
+meditative businesslike way as he had looked at Lucy Sorrel when he had
+questioned her as to her ideas of her future.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, naturally she has,"&mdash;he answered&mdash;"Lovers have given up thinking
+of <i>her</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope they have!" said Angus, fervently&mdash;"I hope I have no rivals! For
+my love for her is a jealous love, David! I must be all in all to her,
+or nothing! I must be the very breath of her breath, the life of her
+life! I must!&mdash;or I am no use to her. And I want to be of use. I want to
+work for her, to look upon her as the central point of all my
+actions&mdash;the very core of ambition and endeavour,&mdash;so that everything I
+do may be well done enough to meet with her praise. If she does not like
+it, it will be worthless. For her soul is as pure as the sunlight and as
+full of great depths as the sea! Simplest and sweetest of women as she
+is, she has enough of God in her to make a man live up to the best that
+is in him!"</p>
+
+<p>His voice thrilled with passion as he spoke&mdash;and Helmsley felt a strange
+contraction at his heart&mdash;a pang of sharp memory, desire and regret all
+in one, which moved him to a sense of yearning for this love which he
+had never known&mdash;this divine and wonderful emotion whose power could so
+transform a man as to make him seem a very king among men. For so Angus
+Reay looked just now, with his eyes flashing unutterable tenderness, and
+his whole aspect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> expressive of a great hope born of a great ideal. But
+he restrained the feeling that threatened to over-master him, and merely
+said very quietly, and with a smile&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I see you are very much in love with her, Mr. Reay!"</p>
+
+<p>"In love?" Angus laughed&mdash;"No, my dear old David! I'm not a bit 'in
+love.' I love her! That's love with a difference. But you know how it is
+with me. I haven't a penny in the world but just what I told you must
+last me for a year&mdash;and I don't know when I shall make any more. So that
+I wouldn't be such a cad as to speak to her about it yet. But&mdash;if I
+could only get a little hope,&mdash;if I could just find out whether she
+liked me a little, that would give me more energy in my work, don't you
+see? And that's where you could help me, David!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled ever so slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me how,"&mdash;he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you might talk to her sometimes and ask her if she ever thinks of
+getting married&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I have done that,"&mdash;interrupted Helmsley&mdash;"and she has always said
+'No.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind what she <i>has</i> said&mdash;ask her again, David,"&mdash;persisted
+Angus&mdash;"And then lead her on little by little to talk about me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lead her on to talk about you&mdash;yes!" and Helmsley nodded his head
+sagaciously.</p>
+
+<p>"David, my dear old man, you <i>will</i> interrupt me,"&mdash;and Angus laughed
+like a boy&mdash;"Lead her on, I say,&mdash;and find out whether she likes me ever
+so little&mdash;and then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And then?" queried Helmsley, his old eyes beginning to sparkle&mdash;"Must I
+sing your praises to her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sing my praises! No, by Jove!&mdash;there's nothing to praise in me. I don't
+want you to say a word, David. Let <i>her</i> speak&mdash;hear what <i>she</i>
+says&mdash;and then&mdash;and then tell <i>me</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then tell <i>you</i>&mdash;yes&mdash;yes, I see!" And Helmsley nodded again in a
+fashion that was somewhat trying to Reay's patience. "But, suppose she
+finds fault with you, and says you are not at all the style of man she
+likes&mdash;what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then,"&mdash;said Reay, gloomily&mdash;"my book will never be finished!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, dear!" Helmsley raised his hands with a very well acted gesture
+of timid concern&mdash;"So bad as all that!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"So bad as all that!" echoed Reay, with a quick sigh; "Or rather so good
+as all that. I don't know how it has happened, David, but she has quite
+suddenly become the very life of my work. I don't think I could get on
+with a single page of it, if I didn't feel that I could go to her and
+ask her what she thinks of it."</p>
+
+<p>"But,"&mdash;said Helmsley, in a gentle, argumentative way&mdash;"all this is very
+strange! She is not an educated woman."</p>
+
+<p>Reay laughed lightly.</p>
+
+<p>"No? What do you call an educated woman, David?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley thought a moment. The situation was a little difficult, for he
+had to be careful not to say too much.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I mean,"&mdash;he said, at last&mdash;"She is not a lady."</p>
+
+<p>Reay's eyes flashed sudden indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a lady!" he ejaculated&mdash;"Good God! Who is a lady then?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley glanced at him covertly. How fine the man looked, with his
+tall, upright figure, strong, thoughtful face, and air of absolute
+determination!</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid,"&mdash;he murmured, humbly&mdash;"I'm afraid I don't know how to
+express myself,&mdash;but what I want to say is that she is not what the
+world would call a lady,&mdash;just a simple lace-mender,&mdash;real 'ladies'
+would not ask her to their houses, or make a friend of her, perhaps&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She's a simple lace-mender,&mdash;I was a common cowherd,"&mdash;said Angus,
+grimly&mdash;"Do you think those whom the world calls 'ladies' would make a
+friend of <i>me</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a man&mdash;and to women it doesn't matter what a man <i>was</i>, so long
+as he <i>is</i> something. You were a cowherd, as you say&mdash;but you educated
+yourself at a University and got a degree. In that way you've raised
+yourself to the rank of a gentleman&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I was always that,"&mdash;declared Angus, boldly, "even as a cowherd! Your
+arguments won't hold with me, David! A gentleman is not made by a frock
+coat and top hat. And a lady is not a lady because she wears fine
+clothes and speaks one or two foreign languages very badly. For that's
+about all a 'lady's' education amounts to nowadays. According to
+Victorian annals, 'ladies' used to be fairly accomplished&mdash;they played
+and sang music well, and knew that it was necessary to keep up
+intelligent conversation and maintain graceful manners&mdash;but they've gone
+back to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> sheer barbarism in the frantic ugliness of their performances
+at hockey&mdash;and they've taken to the repulsive vices of Charles the
+Second's time in gambling and other immoralities. No, David! I don't
+take kindly to the 'ladies' who disport themselves under the benevolent
+dispensation of King Edward the Seventh."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley was silent. After a pause, Reay went on&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You see, David, I'm a poor chap&mdash;poorer than Mary is. If I could get a
+hundred, or say, two hundred pounds for my book when it is finished, I
+could ask her to marry me then, because I could bring that money to her
+and do something to keep up the home. I never want anything sweeter or
+prettier than this little cottage to live in. If she would let me share
+it with her as her husband, we should live a perfectly happy life&mdash;a
+life that thousands would envy us! That is, of course, if she loved me."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay!&mdash;that's a very important 'if,'" said Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it is. That's why I want you to help me to find out her mind,
+David&mdash;will you? Because, if you should discover that I am objectionable
+to her in any way, it would be better for me, I think, to go straight
+away from Weircombe, and fight my trouble out by myself. Then, you see,
+she would never know that I wanted to bother her with my life-long
+presence. Because she's very happy as she is,&mdash;her face has all the
+lovely beauty of perfect content&mdash;and I'd rather do anything than
+trouble her peace."</p>
+
+<p>There followed a pause. The fire crackled and burned with a warm
+Christmas glow, and Charlie, uncurling his soft silky body, stretched
+out each one of his tiny paws separately, with slow movements expressive
+of intense comfort. If ever that little dog had known what it was to lie
+in the lap of luxury amid aristocratic surroundings, it was certain that
+he was conscious of being as well off in a poor cottage as in a palace
+of a king. And after a minute or two, Helmsley raised himself in his
+chair and held out his hand to Angus Reay, who grasped it warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do my best,"&mdash;he said, quietly&mdash;"I know what you mean&mdash;and I think
+your feeling does you honour. Of course you know I'm only a kind of
+stranger here&mdash;just a poor old lonely man, very dependent on Miss Deane
+for her care of me, and trying my best to show that I'm not ungrateful
+to her for all her goodness&mdash;and I mustn't presume too far&mdash;but&mdash;I'll do
+my best. And I hope&mdash;I hope<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> all will be well!" He paused&mdash;and pressed
+Reay's hand again&mdash;then glanced up at the quaint sheep-faced clock that
+ticked monotonously against the kitchen wall. "She will be coming back
+from church directly,"&mdash;he continued&mdash;"Won't you go and meet her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I?" And Reay's face brightened.</p>
+
+<p>"Do!"</p>
+
+<p>Another moment, and Helmsley was alone&mdash;save for the silent company of
+the little dog stretched out upon the hearth. And he lost himself in a
+profound reverie, the while he built a castle in the air of his own
+designing, in which Self had no part. How many airy fabrics of beauty
+and joy had he not raised one after the other in his mind, only to see
+them crumble into dust!&mdash;but this one, as he planned it in his thoughts,
+nobly uplifted above all petty limits, with all the light of a broad
+beneficence shining upon it, and a grand obliteration of his own
+personality serving as the very cornerstone of its foundation, seemed
+likely to be something resembling the house spoken of by Christ, which
+was built upon a rock&mdash;against which neither winds, nor rains, nor
+floods could prevail. And when Mary came back from Church, with Reay
+accompanying her, she found him looking very happy. In fact, she told
+him he had quite "a Christmas face."</p>
+
+<p>"What is a Christmas face, Mary?" he asked, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you know? A face that looks glad because other people are
+glad,"&mdash;she replied, simply.</p>
+
+<p>An expressive glance flashed from Reay's eyes,&mdash;a glance which Helmsley
+caught and understood in all its eloquent meaning.</p>
+
+<p>"We had quite a touching little sermon this morning," she went on,
+untying her bonnet strings, and taking off that unassuming
+head-gear&mdash;"It was just a homely simple, kind talk. Our parson's sorry
+to be going away, but he hopes to be back with us at the beginning of
+April, fit and well again. He's looking badly, poor soul! I felt a bit
+like crying when he wished us all a bright Christmas and happy New Year,
+and said he hoped God would allow him to see us all again."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is going to take charge of the parish in his absence?" asked Reay.</p>
+
+<p>"A Mr. Arbroath. He isn't a very popular man in these parts, and I can't
+think why he has volunteered to come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> here, seeing he's got several
+parishes of his own on the other side of Dunster to attend to. But I'm
+told he also wants a change&mdash;so he's got some one to take his duties,
+and he is coming along to us. Of course, it's well known that he likes
+to try a new parish whenever he can."</p>
+
+<p>"Has he any reason for that special taste?" enquired Reay.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes!" answered Mary, quietly&mdash;"He's a great High Churchman, and he
+wants to introduce Mass vestments and the confessional whenever he can.
+Some people say that he receives an annual payment from Rome for doing
+this kind of work."</p>
+
+<p>"Another form of the Papal secret service!" commented Reay, drily&mdash;"I
+understand! I've seen enough of it!"</p>
+
+<p>Mary had taken a clean tablecloth from an oaken press, and was spreading
+it out for dinner.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she said, smilingly, "he won't find it very advantageous to him
+to take the duties here. For every man and woman in the village intends
+to keep away from Church altogether if he does not give us our services
+exactly as we have always been accustomed to them. And it won't be
+pleasant for him to read prayers and preach to empty seats, will it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Scarcely!"</p>
+
+<p>And Angus, standing near the fire, bent his brows with meditative
+sternness on the glowing flames. Then suddenly addressing Helmsley, he
+said&mdash;"You asked me a while ago, David, why I didn't go to Church. I
+told you I wished I could go, as I used to do with my father every
+Sunday. For, when I was a boy, our Sundays were real devotional
+days&mdash;our preachers <i>felt</i> what they preached, and when they told us to
+worship the great Creator 'in spirit and in truth,' we knew they were in
+earnest about it. Now, religion is made a mere 'party' system&mdash;a form of
+struggle as to which sect can get the most money for its own purposes.
+Christ,&mdash;the grand, patient, long-suffering Ideal of all goodness, is
+gone from it! How can He remain with it while it is such a Sham! Our
+bishops in England truckle to Rome&mdash;and, Rome itself is employing every
+possible means to tamper with the integrity of the British constitution.
+The spies and emissaries of Rome are everywhere&mdash;both in our so-called
+'national' Church and in our most distinctly <i>un</i>-national Press!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Helmsley listened with keen interest. As a man of business, education,
+observation, and discernment, he knew that what Reay said was true,&mdash;but
+in his assumed r&ocirc;le of a poor and superannuated old office clerk, who
+had been turned adrift from work by reason of age and infirmities, he
+had always to be on his guard against expressing his opinion too openly
+or frankly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know much about the newspapers,"&mdash;he said, mildly&mdash;"I read
+those I can get, just for the news&mdash;but there isn't much news, it
+appears to me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And what there is may be contradicted in an hour's time,"&mdash;said
+Angus&mdash;"I tell you, David, when I started working in journalism, I
+thought it was the finest profession going. It seemed to me to have all
+the responsibilities of the world on its back. I considered it a force
+with which to educate, help, and refine all peoples, and all classes.
+But I found it was only a money speculation after all. How much profit
+could be made out of it? That was the chief point of action. That was
+the mainspring of every political discussion&mdash;and in election times, one
+side had orders to abuse the other, merely to keep up the popular
+excitement. By Jove! I should like to take a select body of electors
+'behind the scenes' of a newspaper office and show them how the whole
+business is run!"</p>
+
+<p>"You know too much, evidently!" said Mary smiling&mdash;"I don't wonder you
+were dismissed!"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed&mdash;then as suddenly frowned.</p>
+
+<p>"I swear as I stand here," he said emphatically, "that the press is not
+serving the people well! Do you know&mdash;no, of course you don't!&mdash;but I
+can tell you for a fact that a short time ago an offer was made from
+America through certain financial powers in the city, to buy up several
+of the London dailies, and run them on American lines!<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Germany had a
+finger in the pie, too, through her German Jews!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley looked at his indignant face with a slight imperceptible smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" he said, with a purposely miscomprehending air.</p>
+
+<p>"Well! You say 'Well,' David, as if such a proposition contained nothing
+remarkable. That's because you don't understand! Imagine for a moment
+the British Press being run by America!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>Helmsley
+stroked his beard thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>can't</i> imagine it,"&mdash;he said.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;of course you can't! But a few rascally city financiers <i>could</i>
+imagine it, and more than that, were prepared to carry the thing
+through. Then, the British people would have been led, guided, advised,
+and controlled by a Yankee syndicate! And the worst of it is that this
+same British people would have been kept in ignorance of the 'deal.'
+They would actually have been paying their pennies to keep up the shares
+of a gang of unscrupulous rascals whose sole end and object was to get
+the British press into their power! Think of it!"</p>
+
+<p>"But did they succeed?" asked Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"No, they didn't. Somebody somewhere had a conscience. Somebody
+somewhere refused to 'swop' the nation's much boasted 'liberty of the
+press' for so much cash down. I believe the 'Times' is backed by the
+Rothschilds, and managed by American advertisers&mdash;I don't know whether
+it is so or not&mdash;but I <i>do</i> know that the public ought to be put on
+their guard. If I were a powerful man and a powerful speaker I would
+call mass meetings everywhere, and urge the people not to purchase a
+single newspaper till each one published in its columns a full and
+honest list of the shareholders concerned in it. Then the public would
+have a chance of seeing where they are. At present they <i>don't</i> know
+where they are."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you know very well where <i>you</i> are!" said Mary, interrupting him
+at this juncture&mdash;"You are in my house,&mdash;it's Christmas Day, and
+dinner's ready!"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed, and they all three sat down to table. It had been arranged
+for fully a week before that Angus should share his Christmas dinner
+with Mary and "old David"&mdash;and a very pleasant and merry meal they made
+of it. And in the afternoon and evening some of the villagers came in to
+gossip&mdash;and there was singing of songs, and one or two bashful attempts
+on the part of certain gawky lads to kiss equally gawky girls under the
+mistletoe. And Mary, as hostess of the haphazard little party, did her
+best to promote kindly feeling among them all, effacing herself so
+utterly, and playing the "old maid" with such sweet and placid
+loveliness that Angus became restless, and was moved by a feverish
+desire to possess himself of one of the little green twigs with white
+berries, which,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> looking so innocent, were apparently so provocative,
+and to try its effect by holding it suddenly above the glorious masses
+of her brown hair, which shone with the soft and shimmering hue of
+evening sunlight. But he dared not. Kissing under the mistletoe was all
+very well for boys and girls&mdash;but for a mature bachelor of thirty-nine
+and an "old maid" of thirty-five, these uncouth and calf-like
+gambollings lacked dignity. Moreover, when he looked at Mary's pure
+profile&mdash;the beautifully shaped eyes, classic mouth, and exquisite line
+of neck and shoulder, the very idea of touching those lips with a kiss
+given in mere lightness, seemed fraught with impertinence and
+irreverence. If ever he kissed Mary, he thought,&mdash;and then all the
+powers of his mind galloped off like wild horses let loose on a
+sun-baked ranch&mdash;if ever he kissed Mary! What a dream!&mdash;what a boldness
+unprecedented! But again&mdash;if ever he kissed her, it must be with the
+kiss of a lover, for whom such a token of endearment was the sign of a
+sacred betrothal. And he became so lost and abstracted in his musings
+that he almost forgot the simple village merriment around him, and only
+came back to himself a little when the party broke up altogether, and he
+himself had to say "good-night," and go with the rest. Mary, while
+giving him her hand in farewell, looked at him with a sisterly
+solicitude.</p>
+
+<p>"You're tired, Mr. Reay,"&mdash;she said&mdash;"I'm afraid we've been too noisy
+for you, haven't we? But one can't keep boys and girls quiet!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want them kept quiet,"&mdash;said Reay, holding her hand very
+hard&mdash;"And I'm not tired. I've only been thinking."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Of your book?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Of my book."</p>
+
+<p>He went then, and came no more to the cottage till a week later when it
+was New Year's Eve. This they celebrated very quietly&mdash;just they three
+alone. Mary thought it somewhat imprudent for "old David" to sit up till
+midnight in order to hear the bells "ring out the Old, ring in the
+New"&mdash;but he showed a sudden vigorous resolution about it which was not
+to be gainsaid.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me have my way, my dear,"&mdash;he implored her&mdash;"I may never see
+another New Year!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, David!" she said cheerily&mdash;"You will see many and many a one,
+please God!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Please God, I shall!" he answered, quietly&mdash;"But if it should not
+please God&mdash;then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There!&mdash;you want to stay up, and you shall stay up!" she declared,
+smiling&mdash;"After all, as Mr. Reay is with us, the time won't perhaps seem
+so long for you."</p>
+
+<p>"But for you,"&mdash;put in Angus&mdash;"it will seem very long won't it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I always sit up for the coming-in of the New Year,"&mdash;she
+replied&mdash;"Father used to do it, and I like to keep up all father's ways.
+Only I thought David might feel too tired. You must sing to us, Mr.
+Reay, to pass the hours away."</p>
+
+<p>"And so must you!" he replied.</p>
+
+<p>And she did sing that night as she had never sung to them before, with a
+fuller voice and more passion than she had hitherto shown,&mdash;one little
+wild ballad in particular taking Reay's fancy so much that he asked her
+to sing it more than once. The song contained just three six-line
+stanzas, having little merit save in their suggestiveness.</p>
+
+<p>
+Oh love, my love! I have giv'n you my heart<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like a rose full-blown,</span><br />
+With crimson petals trembling apart&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It is all your own&mdash;</span><br />
+What will you do with it. Dearest,&mdash;say?<br />
+Keep it for ever or throw it away?<br />
+<br />
+Oh love, my love! I have giv'n you my life,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like a ring of gold;</span><br />
+Symbol of peace in a world of strife,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To have and to hold.</span><br />
+What will you do with it, Dearest,&mdash;say?<br />
+Treasure it always, or throw it away?<br />
+<br />
+Oh love, my love! Have all your will&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I am yours to the end;</span><br />
+Be false or faithful&mdash;comfort or kill,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Be lover or friend,&mdash;</span><br />
+Where gifts are given they must remain,<br />
+I never shall ask for them back again!<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know that you have a very beautiful voice, Miss Mary?" said
+Angus, after hearing this for the second time.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't think so at all,"&mdash;she answered, quickly; "Father used to
+like to hear me sing&mdash;but I can only just give ballads their meaning,
+and pronounce the words carefully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> so the people may know what I am
+trying to sing about. I've no real voice."</p>
+
+<p>"You have!" And Angus turned to Helmsley for his opinion&mdash;"Hasn't she,
+David?"</p>
+
+<p>"Her voice is the sweetest <i>I</i> ever heard,"&mdash;replied Helmsley&mdash;"But then
+I'm not much of a judge."</p>
+
+<p>And his thoughts went roving back to certain entertainments in London
+which he had given for the benefit of his wealthy friends, when he had
+paid as much as five or six hundred guineas in fees to famous opera
+singers, that they might shriek or warble, as their respective talents
+dictated, to crowds of indifferent loungers in his rooms, who cared no
+more for music than they did for religion. He almost smiled as he
+recalled those nights, and contrasted them with this New Year's evening,
+when seated in an humble cottage, he had for his companions only a
+lowly-born poor woman, and an equally lowly-born poor man, both of whom
+evinced finer education, better manners, greater pride of spirit, and
+more resolute independence than nine-tenths of the "society" people who
+had fawned upon him and flattered him, simply because they knew he was a
+millionaire. And the charm of his present position was that these two,
+poor, lowly-born people were under the impression that even in their
+poverty and humility they were better off than he was, and that because
+fortune had been, as they considered, kind to them, they were bound to
+treat him in a way that should not remind him of his dependent and
+defenceless condition. It was impossible to imagine greater satisfaction
+than that which he enjoyed in the contemplation of his own actual
+situation as compared with that which he had impressed upon the minds of
+these two friends of his who had given him their friendship trustingly
+and frankly for himself alone. And he listened placidly, with folded
+hands and half shut eyes, while Angus, at Mary's request, trolled forth
+"The Standard on the Braes o' Mar" and "Sound the pibroch,"&mdash;varying
+those warlike ditties with "Jock o' Hazledean," and "Will ye no come
+back again,"&mdash;till all suddenly Mary rose from her chair, and with her
+finger to her lips said "Hark!" The church-bells were ringing out the
+Old Year, and glancing at the clock, they saw it wanted but ten minutes
+to midnight. Softly Mary stepped to the cottage door and opened it. The
+chime swung melodiously in, and Angus Reay went<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> to the threshold, and
+stood beside Mary, listening. Had they glanced back that instant they
+would have seen Helmsley looking at them both, with an intensity of
+yearning in his pale face and sad old eyes that was pitiful and earnest
+beyond all expression&mdash;they would have seen his lips move, as he
+murmured&mdash;"God grant that I may make their lives beautiful! God give me
+this peace of mind before I die! God bless them!" But they were absorbed
+in listening&mdash;and presently with a deep clang the bells ceased. Mary
+turned her head.</p>
+
+<p>"The Old Year's out, David!"</p>
+
+<p>Then she went to him and knelt down beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"It's been a kind old year!"&mdash;she said&mdash;"It brought you to me to take
+care of, and <i>me</i> to you to take care of you&mdash;didn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>He laid one hand on hers, tremblingly, but was silent. She turned up her
+kind, sweet face to his.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not tired, are you?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"No, my dear, no!"</p>
+
+<p>A rush and a clang of melody swept suddenly through the open door&mdash;the
+bells had begun again.</p>
+
+<p>"A Happy New Year, Miss Mary!" said Angus, looking towards her from
+where he stood on the threshold&mdash;"And to you, David!"</p>
+
+<p>With an irrepressible movement of tenderness Helmsley raised his
+trembling hands and laid them gently on Mary's head.</p>
+
+<p>"Take an old man's blessing, my dear!" he said, softly, "And from a most
+grateful heart!"</p>
+
+<p>She caught his hands as he lifted them again from her brow, and kissed
+them. There were tears in her eyes, but she brushed them quickly away.</p>
+
+<p>"You talk just like father!" she said, smiling&mdash;"He was always grateful
+for nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>And rising from her kneeling attitude by Helmsley's chair, she went
+again towards the open cottage door, holding out her two hands to Reay.
+Looking at her as she approached he seemed to see in her some gracious
+angel, advancing with all the best possibilities of life for him in her
+sole power and gift.</p>
+
+<p>"A Happy New Year, Mr. Reay! And success to the book!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He clasped the hands she extended.</p>
+
+<p>"If you wish success for it, success is bound to come!" he answered in a
+low voice&mdash;"I believe in your good influence!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him, and whatever answer rose to her lips was suddenly
+silenced by the eloquence of his eyes. She coloured hotly, and then grew
+very pale. They both stood on the threshold of the open door, silent and
+strangely embarrassed, while the bells swung and clanged musically
+through the frosty air, and the long low swish of the sea swept up like
+a harmonious bass set to the silvery voice of the chimes. They little
+guessed with what passionate hope, yearning, and affection, Helmsley
+watched them standing there!&mdash;they little knew that on them the last
+ambition of his life was set!&mdash;and that any discovery of sham or
+falsehood in their natures would make cruel havoc of his dearest dreams!
+They waited, looking out on the dark quiet space, and listening to the
+rush of the stream till the clamour of the bells ceased again, and
+sounded no more. In the deep stillness that followed Angus said softly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There's not a leaf left on the old sweetbriar bush now!"</p>
+
+<p>"No,"&mdash;answered Mary, in the same soft tone&mdash;"But it will be the first
+thing to bud with the spring."</p>
+
+<p>"I've kept the little sprig you gave me,"&mdash;he added, apparently by way
+of a casual after-thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you?"</p>
+
+<p>Silence fell again&mdash;and not another word passed between them save a
+gentle "Good-night" when, the New Year having fully come in, they
+parted.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>The dreariest season of the year had now set in, but frost and cold were
+very seldom felt severely in Weircombe. The little village lay in a deep
+warm hollow, and was thoroughly protected at the back by the hills,
+while in the front its shores were washed by the sea, which had a
+warming as well as bracing effect on the atmosphere. To invalids
+requiring an equable temperature, it would have been a far more ideal
+winter resort than any corner of the much-vaunted Riviera, except indeed
+for the fact that feeding and gambling dens were not among its
+attractions. To "society" people it would have proved insufferably dull,
+because society people, lacking intelligence to do anything themselves,
+always want everything done for them. Weircombe folk would not have
+understood that method of living. To them it seemed proper and
+reasonable that men, and women too, should work for what they ate. The
+theory that only a few chosen persons, not by any means estimable either
+as to their characters or their abilities, should eat what others were
+starved for, would not have appealed to them. They were a small and
+unimportant community, but their ideas of justice and principles of
+conduct were very firmly established. They lived on the lines laid down
+by their forefathers, and held that a simple faith in God, coupled with
+honest hard labour, was sufficient to make life well worth living. And,
+on the whole they were made of that robust human material of which in
+the days gone by there was enough to compose and consolidate the
+greatness of Britain. They were kindly of heart, but plain in
+speech,&mdash;and their remarks on current events, persons and things, would
+have astonished and perhaps edified many a press man had he been among
+them, when on Saturday nights they "dropped in" at the one little
+public-house of the village, and argued politics and religion till
+closing-time. Angus Reay soon became a favourite with them all, though
+at first they had looked upon him with a little distrust as a "gentleman
+<i>tow</i>-rist"; but when he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> mixed with them freely and familiarly,
+making no secret of the fact that he was poor, and that he was
+endeavouring to earn a livelihood like all the rest of them, only in a
+different way, they abandoned all reserve, and treated him as one of
+themselves. Moreover, when it was understood that "Mis' Deane," whose
+reputation stood very high in the village, considered him not unworthy
+of her friendship, he rose up several degrees in the popular estimation,
+and many a time those who were the self-elected wits and wise-acres of
+the place, would "look in" as they termed it, at Mary's cottage, and
+pass the evening talking with him and with "old David," who, if he did
+not say much, listened the more. Mr. Bunce, the doctor, and Mr. Twitt,
+the stonemason, were in particular profoundly impressed when they knew
+that Reay had worked for two years on a London newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye must 'ave a ter'uble knowledge of the world, Mister!" said Twitt,
+thoughtfully&mdash;"Just ter'uble!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I should assume it must be so,"&mdash;murmured Bunce&mdash;"I should think
+it could hardly fail to be so?"</p>
+
+<p>Reay gave a short laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't know!" he said&mdash;"You may call it a knowledge of the world
+if you like&mdash;I call it an unpleasant glimpse into the shady side of
+life. I'd rather walk in the sunshine."</p>
+
+<p>"And what would you call the sunshine, sir?" asked Bunce, with his head
+very much on one side like a meditative bird.</p>
+
+<p>Honesty, truth, belief in God, belief in good!"&mdash;answered Angus, with
+some passion&mdash;"Not perpetual scheming, suspicion of motives, personal
+slander, and pettiness&mdash;O Lord!&mdash;such pettiness as can hardly be
+believed! Journalism is the most educational force in the world, but its
+power is being put to wrong uses."</p>
+
+<p>"Well,&mdash;said Twitt, slowly&mdash;"I aint so blind but I can see through a
+wall when there's a chink in it. An' when I gets my 'Daily' down from
+Lunnun, an' sees harf a page given up to a kind o' poster about Pills,
+an' another harf a page praisin' up somethin' about Tonics, I often sez
+to myself: 'Look 'ere, Twitt! What are ye payin' yer pennies out for?
+For a Patent Pill or for News? For a Nervy Tonic or for the latest
+pol'tics?' An' myself&mdash;me&mdash;Twitt&mdash;answers an' sez&mdash;'Why ye're payin' for
+news an' pol'tics,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> of course!' Well then, I sez, 'Twitt, ye aint
+gettin' nothin' o' the sort!' An' t' other day, blow'd if I didn't see
+in my paper a long piece about ''Ow to be Beautiful'&mdash;an' that 'adn't
+nothin' to do wi' me nor no man, but was just mere gabble for fool
+women. ''Ow to be Beautiful,' aint news o' the world!"</p>
+
+<p>"No,"&mdash;said Reay&mdash;"You're not intended to know the news of the world.
+News, real news, is the property of the Stock Exchange. It's chiefly
+intended for company gambling purposes. The People are not expected to
+know much about it. Modern Journalism seeks to play Pope and assert the
+doctrine of infallibility. What It does not authorise, isn't supposed to
+exist."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that truly so?" asked Bunce, solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>"Most assuredly!"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to say,"&mdash;said Helmsley, breaking in upon the conversation,
+and speaking in quiet unconcerned tones&mdash;"that the actual national
+affairs of the world are not told to the people as they should be, but
+are jealously guarded by a few whose private interests are at stake?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I certainly do mean that."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you did. You see," went on Helmsley&mdash;"when I was in regular
+office work in London, I used to hear a good deal concerning the
+business schemes of this, that and the other great house in the
+city,&mdash;and I often wondered what the people would say if they ever came
+to know!"</p>
+
+<p>"Came to know what?" said Mr. Bunce, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the names of the principal shareholders in the newspapers,"&mdash;said
+Reay, placidly&mdash;"<i>That</i> might possibly open their eyes to the way their
+opinions are manufactured for them! There's very little 'liberty of the
+press' in Great Britain nowadays. The press is the property of a few
+rich men."</p>
+
+<p>Mary, who was working very intently on a broad length of old lace she
+was mending, looked up at him&mdash;her eyes were brilliant and her cheeks
+softly flushed.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you will be brave enough to say that some day right out to the
+people as you say it to us,"&mdash;she observed.</p>
+
+<p>"I will! Never fear about that! If I <i>am</i> ever anything&mdash;if I ever <i>can</i>
+be anything&mdash;I will do my level best to save my nation from being
+swallowed up by a horde of German-American Jews!" said Reay, hotly&mdash;"I
+would rather suffer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> anything myself than see the dear old country
+brought to shame."</p>
+
+<p>"Right, very right!" said Mr. Bunce, approvingly&mdash;"And many&mdash;yes, I
+think we may certainly say many,&mdash;are of your spirit,&mdash;what do you
+think, David?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley had raised himself in his chair, and was looking wonderfully
+alert. The conversation interested him.</p>
+
+<p>"I quite agree,"&mdash;he said&mdash;"But Mr. Reay must remember that if he should
+ever want to make a clean sweep of German-American Jews and speculators
+as he says, and expose the way they tamper with British interests, he
+would require a great deal of money. A <i>very</i> great deal of money!" he
+repeated, slowly,&mdash;"Now I wonder, Mr. Reay, what you would do with a
+million?&mdash;two millions?&mdash;three millions?&mdash;four millions?"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Stop, stop, old David!"&mdash;interrupted Twitt, suddenly holding up his
+hand&mdash;"Ye takes my breath away!"</p>
+
+<p>They all laughed, Reay's hearty tones ringing above the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I should know what to do with them!"&mdash;he said; "but I wouldn't
+spend them on my own selfish pleasures&mdash;that I swear! For one thing, I'd
+run a daily newspaper on <i>honest</i> lines&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It wouldn't sell!" observed Helmsley, drily.</p>
+
+<p>"It would&mdash;it <i>should</i>!" declared Reay&mdash;"And I'd tell the people the
+truth of things,&mdash;I'd expose every financial fraud I could find&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And you'd live in the law-courts, I fear!" said Mr. Bunce, gravely
+shaking his head&mdash;"We may be perfectly certain, I think&mdash;may we not,
+David?&mdash;that the law-courts would be Mr. Reay's permanent address?"</p>
+
+<p>They laughed again, and the conversation turned to other topics, though
+its tenor was not forgotten by anyone, least of all by Helmsley, who sat
+very silent for a long time afterwards, thinking deeply, and seeing in
+his thoughts various channels of usefulness to the world and the world's
+progress, which he had missed, but which others after him would find.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Weircombe suffered a kind of moral convulsion in the advent of
+the Reverend Mr. Arbroath, who arrived to "take duty" in the absence of
+its legitimate pastor. He descended upon the tiny place like an embodied
+black whirlwind, bringing his wife with him, a lady whose facial
+lineaments bore the strangest and most remarkable resemblance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> to those
+of a china cat; not a natural cat, because there is something soft and
+appealing about a real "pussy,"&mdash;whereas Mrs. Arbroath's countenance was
+cold and hard and shiny, like porcelain, and her smile was precisely
+that of the immovable and ruthless-looking animal designed long ago by
+old-time potters and named "Cheshire." Her eyes were similar to the eyes
+of that malevolent china creature&mdash;and when she spoke, her voice had the
+shrill tone which was but a few notes off the actual "<i>me-iau</i>" of an
+angry "Tom." Within a few days after their arrival, every cottage in the
+"coombe" had been "visited," and both Mr. and Mrs. Arbroath had made up
+their minds as to the neglected, wholly unspiritual and unregenerate
+nature of the little flock whom they had offered, for sake of their own
+health and advantage, to tend. The villagers had received them civilly,
+but without enthusiasm. When tackled on the subject of their religious
+opinions, most of them declined to answer, except Mr. Twitt, who, fixing
+a filmy eye sternly on the plain and gloomy face of Mr. Arbroath, said
+emphatically:</p>
+
+<p>"We aint no 'Igh Jinks!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, my man?" demanded Arbroath, with a dark smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean what I sez"&mdash;rejoined Twitt&mdash;"I've been stonemason 'ere goin' on
+now for thirty odd years an' it's allus been the same 'ere&mdash;no 'Igh
+Jinks. Purcessin an' vestiments"&mdash;here Twitt spread out a broad dirty
+thumb and dumped it down with each word into the palm of his other
+hand&mdash;"candles, crosses, bobbins an' bowins&mdash;them's what we calls 'Igh
+Jinks, an' I make so bold as to say that if ye gets 'em up 'ere, Mr.
+Arbroath, ye'll be mighty sorry for yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall conduct the services as I please!" said Arbroath. "You take too
+much upon yourself to speak to me in such a fashion! You should mind
+your own business!"</p>
+
+<p>"So should you, Mister, so should you!" And Twitt chuckled
+contentedly&mdash;"An' if ye <i>don't</i> mind it, there's those 'ere as'll <i>make</i>
+ye!"</p>
+
+<p>Arbroath departed in a huff, and the very next Sunday announced that
+"Matins" would be held at seven o'clock daily in the Church, and
+"Evensong" at six in the afternoon. Needless to say, the announcement
+was made in vain. Day after day passed, and no one attended. Smarting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>
+with rage, Arbroath sought to "work up" the village to a proper "'Igh
+Jink" pitch&mdash;but his efforts were wasted. And a visit to Mary Deane's
+cottage did not sweeten his temper, for the moment he caught sight of
+Helmsley sitting in his usual corner by the fire, he recognised him as
+the "old tramp" he had interviewed in the common room of the "Trusty
+Man."</p>
+
+<p>"How did <i>you</i> come here?" he demanded, abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley, who happened to be at work basket-making, looked up, but made
+no reply. Whereupon Arbroath turned upon Mary&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Is this man a relative of yours?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Mary had risen from her chair out of ordinary civility as the clergyman
+entered, and now replied quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Then what is he doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can see what he is doing,"&mdash;she answered, with a slight smile&mdash;"He
+is making baskets."</p>
+
+<p>"He is a tramp!" said Arbroath, pointing an inflexible finger at him&mdash;"I
+saw him last summer smoking and drinking with a gang of low ruffians at
+a roadside inn called 'The Trusty Man'!" And he advanced a step towards
+Helmsley&mdash;"Didn't I see you there?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley looked straight at him.</p>
+
+<p>"You did."</p>
+
+<p>"You told me you were tramping to Cornwall."</p>
+
+<p>"So I was."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what are you doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Earning a living."</p>
+
+<p>Arbroath turned sharply on Mary.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that true?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it is true,"&mdash;she replied&mdash;"Why should he tell you a lie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does he lodge with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Arbroath paused a moment, his little brown eyes sparkling vindictively.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you had better be careful he does not rob you!" he said. "For I
+can prove that he seemed to be very good friends with that notorious
+rascal Tom o' the Gleam who murdered a nobleman at Blue Anchor last
+summer, and who would have hung for his crime if he had not fortunately
+saved the expense of a rope by dying."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Helmsley, bending over his basket-weaving, suddenly straightened himself
+and looked the clergyman full in the face.</p>
+
+<p>"I never knew Tom o' the Gleam till that night on which you saw me at
+'The Trusty Man,'" he said&mdash;"But I know he had terrible provocation for
+the murder he committed. I saw that murder done!"</p>
+
+<p>"You saw it done!" exclaimed Arbroath&mdash;"And you are here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I not be here?" demanded Helmsley&mdash;"Would you have expected
+me to stay <i>there</i>? I was only one of many witnesses to that terrible
+deed of vengeance&mdash;but, as God lives, it was a just vengeance!"</p>
+
+<p>"Just? You call murder just!" and Arbroath gave a gesture of scorn and
+horror&mdash;"And you,"&mdash;he continued, turning to Mary indignantly&mdash;"can
+allow a ruffian like this to live in your house?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is no ruffian,"&mdash;said Mary steadily,&mdash;"Nor was Tom o' the Gleam a
+ruffian either. He was well-known in these parts for many and many a
+deed of kindness. The real ruffian was the man who killed his little
+child. Indeed I think he was the chief murderer."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you do, do you?" and Mr. Arbroath frowned heavily&mdash;"And you call
+yourself a respectable woman?"</p>
+
+<p>Mary smiled, and resuming her seat, bent her head intently over her lace
+work.</p>
+
+<p>Arbroath stood irresolute, gazing at her. He was a sensual man, and her
+physical beauty annoyed him. He would have liked to sit down alone with
+her and take her hand in his own and talk to her about her "soul" while
+gloating over her body. But in the "old tramp's" presence there was
+nothing to be done. So he assumed a high moral tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Accidents will happen,"&mdash;he said, sententiously&mdash;"If a child gets into
+the way of a motor going at full speed, it is bound to be
+unfortunate&mdash;for the child. But Lord Wrotham was a rich man&mdash;and no
+doubt he would have paid a handsome sum down in compensation&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Compensation!" And Helmsley suddenly stood up, drawing his frail thin
+figure erect&mdash;"Compensation! Money! Money for a child's life&mdash;money for
+a child's love! Are you a minister of Christ, that you can talk of such
+a thing as possible? What is all the wealth of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> world compared to
+the life of one beloved human creature! Reverend sir, I am an old poor
+man,&mdash;a tramp as you say, consorting with rogues and ruffians&mdash;but were
+I as rich as the richest millionaire that ever 'sweated' honest labour,
+I would rather shoot myself than offer money compensation to a father
+for the loss of a child whom my selfish pleasure had slain!"</p>
+
+<p>He trembled from head to foot with the force of his own eloquence, and
+Arbroath stared at him dumb-foundered.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a preacher,"&mdash;went on Helmsley&mdash;"You are a teacher of the
+Gospel. Do you find anything in the New Testament that gives men licence
+to ride rough-shod over the hearts and emotions of their fellow-men? Do
+you find there that selfishness is praised or callousness condoned? In
+those sacred pages are we told that a sparrow's life is valueless, or a
+child's prayer despised? Sir, if you are a Christian, teach Christianity
+as Christ taught it&mdash;<i>honestly</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Arbroath turned livid.</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you&mdash;!" he began&mdash;when Mary quietly rose.</p>
+
+<p>"I would advise you to be going, sir,"&mdash;she said, quite
+courteously&mdash;"The old man is not very strong, and he has a trouble of
+the heart. It is little use for persons to argue who feel so
+differently. We poor folk do not understand the ways of the gentry."</p>
+
+<p>And she held open the door of her cottage for him to pass out. He
+pressed his slouch-hat more heavily over his eyes, and glared at her
+from under the shadow of its brim.</p>
+
+<p>"You are harbouring a dangerous customer in your house!" he said&mdash;"A
+dangerous customer! It will be my duty to warn the parish against him!"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very welcome to do so, sir! Good-morning!"</p>
+
+<p>And as he tramped away through her tiny garden, she quickly shut and
+barred the door after him, and hurried to Helmsley in some anxiety, for
+he looked very pale, and his breath came and went somewhat rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>"David dear, why did you excite yourself so much over that man!" she
+said, kneeling beside him as he sank back exhausted in his chair&mdash;"Was
+it worth while?"</p>
+
+<p>He patted her head with a tremulous hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not!" And he smiled&mdash;"Perhaps not, Mary! But the cold-blooded
+way in which he said that a money compensation might have been offered
+to poor Tom o' the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> Gleam for his little child's life&mdash;my God! As if any
+sort of money could compare with love!"</p>
+
+<p>He stroked her hair gently, and went on murmuring to himself&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"As if all the gold in the world could make up for the loss of one
+loving heart!"</p>
+
+<p>Mary was silent. She saw that he was greatly agitated, and thought it
+better to let him speak out his whole mind rather than suppress his
+feelings.</p>
+
+<p>"What can a man do with wealth!" he went on, speaking more to himself
+than to her&mdash;"He can buy everything that is to be bought, certainly&mdash;but
+if he has no one to share his goods with him, what then? Eh, Mary? What
+then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why then he'd be a very miserable man, David!" she answered,
+smiling&mdash;"He'd wish he were poor, with some one to love him!"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her, and his sunken eyes flashed with quite an eager light.</p>
+
+<p>"That's true!" he said&mdash;"He'd wish he were poor with some one to love
+him! Mary, you've been so kind to me&mdash;promise me one thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" and she patted his hand soothingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Just this&mdash;if I die on your hands don't let that man Arbroath bury me!
+I think my very bones would split at the sound of his rasping voice!"</p>
+
+<p>Mary laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you worry about that!" she said&mdash;"Mr. Arbroath won't have the
+chance to bury you, David! Besides, he never takes the burials of the
+very poor folk even in his own parishes. He wrote a letter in one of the
+countryside papers not very long ago, to complain of the smallness of
+the burial fees, and said it wasn't worth his while to bury paupers!"
+And she laughed again. "Poor, bitter-hearted man! He must be very
+wretched in himself to be so cantankerous to others."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't let him bury <i>me</i>!" said Helmsley&mdash;"That's all I ask. I'd
+much rather Twitt dug a hole in the seashore and put my body into it
+himself, without any prayers at all, than have a prayer croaked over me
+by that clerical raven! Remember that!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll remember!" And Mary's face beamed with kindly tolerance and
+good-humour&mdash;"But you're really quite an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> angry old boy to-day, David! I
+never saw you in such a temper!"</p>
+
+<p>Her playful tone brought a smile to his face at last.</p>
+
+<p>"It was that horrible suggestion of money compensation for a child's
+life that angered me,"&mdash;he said, half apologetically&mdash;"The notion that
+pounds, shillings and pence could pay for the loss of love, got on my
+nerves. Why, love is the only good thing in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>She had been half kneeling by his chair&mdash;but she now rose slowly, and
+stretched her arms out with a little gesture of sudden weariness.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so, David?" and she sighed, almost unconsciously to
+herself&mdash;"I'm not so sure!"</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at her in sudden uneasiness. Was she too going to say, like
+Lucy Sorrel, that she did not believe in love? He thought of Angus Reay,
+and wondered. She caught his look and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not so sure!" she repeated&mdash;"There's a great deal talked about
+love,&mdash;but it often seems as if there was more talk than deed. At least
+there is in what is generally called 'love.' I know there's a very real
+and beautiful love, like that which I had for my father, and which he
+had for me,&mdash;that was as near being perfect as anything could be in this
+world. But the love I had for the young man to whom I was once engaged
+was quite a different thing altogether."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it was!" said Helmsley&mdash;"And quite naturally, too. You loved
+your father as a daughter loves&mdash;and I suppose you loved the young man
+as a sweetheart loves&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sweetheart is a very pretty word,"&mdash;she answered, the smile still
+lingering about her lips&mdash;"It's quite old-fashioned too, and I love
+old-fashioned things. But I don't think I loved the young man exactly as
+a 'sweetheart.' It all came about in a very haphazard way. He took a
+fancy to me, and we used to go long walks together. He hadn't very much
+to say for himself&mdash;he smoked most of the time. But he was honest and
+respectable&mdash;and I got rather fond of him&mdash;so that when he asked me to
+marry him, I thought it would perhaps please father to see me provided
+for&mdash;and I said yes, without thinking very much about it. Then, when
+father failed in business and my man threw me over, I fretted a bit just
+for a day or two&mdash;mostly I think because we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> couldn't go any more Sunday
+walks together. I was in the early twenties, but now I'm getting on in
+the thirties. I know I didn't understand a bit about real love then. It
+was just fancy and the habit of seeing the one young man oftener than
+others. And, of course, that isn't love."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley listened to her every word, keenly interested. Surely, if he
+guided the conversation skilfully enough, he might now gain some useful
+hints which would speed the cause of Angus Reay?</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;of course that isn't love,"&mdash;he echoed&mdash;"But what do you take to
+<i>be</i> love?&mdash;Can you tell me?"</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes filled with a dreamy light, and her lips quivered a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Can I tell you? Not very well, perhaps&mdash;but I'll try. Of course it's
+all over for me now&mdash;and I can only just picture what I think it ought
+to be. I never had it. I mean I never had that kind of love I have
+dreamed about, and it seems silly for an old maid to even talk of such a
+thing. But love to my mind ought to be the everything of life! If I
+loved a man&mdash;&mdash;" Here she suddenly paused, and a wave of colour flushed
+her cheeks. Helmsley never took his eyes off her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" he said, tentatively&mdash;"Well!&mdash;go on&mdash;if you loved a man?&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If I loved a man, David,"&mdash;she continued, slowly, clasping her hands
+meditatively behind her back, and looking thoughtfully into the glowing
+centre of the fire&mdash;"I should love him so completely that I should never
+think of anything in which he had not the first and greatest share. I
+should see his kind looks in every ray of sunshine&mdash;I should hear his
+loving voice in every note of music,&mdash;if I were to read a book alone, I
+should wonder which sentence in it would please <i>him</i> the most&mdash;if I
+plucked a flower, I should ask myself if he would like me to wear it,&mdash;I
+should live <i>through</i> him and <i>for</i> him&mdash;he would be my very eyes and
+heart and soul! The hours would seem empty without him&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She broke off with a little sob, and her eyes brimmed over with tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Why Mary! Mary, my dear!" murmured Helmsley, stretching out his hand to
+touch her&mdash;"Don't cry!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not crying, David!" and a rainbow smile lighted her face&mdash;"I'm only
+just&mdash;<i>feeling</i>! It's like when I read a little verse of poetry that is
+very sad and sweet, I get tears<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> into my eyes&mdash;and when I talk about
+love&mdash;especially now that I shall never know what it is, something rises
+in my throat and chokes me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But you do know what it is,"&mdash;said Helmsley, powerfully moved by the
+touching simplicity of her confession of loneliness&mdash;"There isn't a more
+loving heart than yours in the world, I'm sure!"</p>
+
+<p>She came and knelt down again beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, I've a loving heart!" she said&mdash;"But that's just the worst of
+it! I can love, but no one loves or ever will love me&mdash;now. I'm past the
+age for it. No woman over thirty can expect to be loved by a lover, you
+know! Romance is all over&mdash;and one 'settles down,' as they say. I've
+never quite 'settled'&mdash;there's always something restless in me. You're
+such a dear old man, David, and so kind!&mdash;I can speak to you just as if
+you were my father&mdash;and I daresay you will not think it very wrong or
+selfish of me if I say I have longed to be loved sometimes! More than
+that, I've wished it had pleased God to send me a husband and
+children&mdash;I should have dearly liked to hold a baby in my arms, and
+soothe its little cries, and make it grow up to be happy and good, and a
+blessing to every one. Some women don't care for children&mdash;but I should
+have loved mine!"</p>
+
+<p>She paused a moment, and Helmsley took her hand, and silently pressed it
+in his own.</p>
+
+<p>"However,"&mdash;she went on, more lightly&mdash;"it's no good grieving over what
+cannot be helped. No man has ever really loved me&mdash;because, of course,
+the one I was engaged to wouldn't have thrown me over just because I was
+poor if he had cared very much about me. And I shall be thirty-five this
+year&mdash;so I must&mdash;I really <i>must</i>"&mdash;and she gave herself an admonitory
+little shake&mdash;"settle down! After all there are worse things in life
+than being an old maid. I don't mind it&mdash;it's only sometimes when I feel
+inclined to grizzle, that I think to myself what a lot of love I've got
+in my heart&mdash;all wasted!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wasted?" echoed Helmsley, gently&mdash;"Do you think love is ever wasted?"</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes grew serious and dreamy.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't"&mdash;she answered&mdash;"When I begin to
+like a person very much I often pull myself back and say 'Take care!
+Perhaps he doesn't like <i>you!</i>'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh! The person must be a 'he' then!" said Helmsley, smiling a little.</p>
+
+<p>She coloured.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no&mdash;not exactly!&mdash;but I mean,&mdash;now, for instance,"&mdash;and she spoke
+rapidly as though to cover some deeper feeling&mdash;"I like <i>you</i> very
+much&mdash;indeed I'm fond of you, David!&mdash;I've got to know you so well, and
+to understand all your ways&mdash;but I can't be sure that you like <i>me</i> as
+much as I like <i>you</i>, can I?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her kind and noble face with eyes full of tenderness and
+gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>"If you can be sure of anything, you can be sure of that!"&mdash;he said&mdash;"To
+say I 'like' you would be a poor way of expressing myself. I owe my very
+life to you&mdash;and though I am only an old poor man, I would say I loved
+you if I dared!"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled&mdash;and her whole face shone with the reflected sunshine of her
+soul.</p>
+
+<p>"Say it, David dear! Do say it! I should like to hear it!"</p>
+
+<p>He drew the hand he held to his lips, and gently kissed it.</p>
+
+<p>"I love you, Mary!" he said&mdash;"As a father loves a daughter I love you,
+and bless you! You have been a good angel to me&mdash;and I only wish I were
+not so old and weak and dependent on your care. I can do nothing to show
+my affection for you&mdash;I'm only a burden upon your hands&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She laid her fingers lightly across his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Sh-sh!" she said&mdash;"That's foolish talk, and I won't listen to it! I'm
+glad you're fond of me&mdash;it makes life so much pleasanter. Do you know, I
+sometimes think God must have sent you to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you? Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I used to fret a little at being so much alone,&mdash;the days seemed
+so long, and it was hard to have to work only for one's wretched self,
+and see nothing in the future but just the same old round&mdash;and I missed
+my father always. I never could get accustomed to his empty chair. Then
+when I found you on the hills, lost and solitary, and ill, and brought
+you home to nurse and take care of, all the vacancy seemed filled&mdash;and I
+was quite glad to have some one to work for. I've been ever so much
+happier since you've been with me. We'll be like father and daughter to
+the end, won't we?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She put one arm about him coaxingly. He did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't go away from me now,&mdash;will you, David?" she urged&mdash;"Even when
+you've paid me back all you owe me as you wish by your own earnings, you
+won't go away?"</p>
+
+<p>He lifted his head and looked at her as she bent over him.</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't ask me to promise anything,"&mdash;he said, "I will stay with
+you&mdash;as long as I can!"</p>
+
+<p>She withdrew her arm from about him, and stood for a moment irresolute.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;I shall be very miserable if you do go,"&mdash;she said&mdash;"And I'm sure
+no one will take more care of you than I will!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure of that, too, Mary!" and a smile that was almost youthful in
+its tenderness brightened his worn features&mdash;"I've never been so well
+taken care of in all my life before! Mr. Reay thinks I am a very lucky
+old fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Reay!" She echoed the name&mdash;and then, stooping abruptly towards the
+fire, began to make it up afresh. Helmsley watched her intently.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you like Mr. Reay?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She turned a smiling face round upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course I like him!" she answered&mdash;"I think everyone in
+Weircombe likes him."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if he'll ever marry?" pursued Helmsley, with a meditative air.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I wonder! I hope if he does, he'll find some dear sweet little girl
+who will really love him and be proud of him! For he's going to be a
+great man, David!&mdash;a great and famous man some day!"</p>
+
+<p>"You think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure of it!"</p>
+
+<p>And she lifted her head proudly, while her blue eyes shone with
+enthusiastic fervour. Helmsley made a mental note of her expression, and
+wondered how he could proceed.</p>
+
+<p>"And you'd like him to marry some 'dear sweet little girl'"&mdash;he went on,
+reflectively&mdash;"I'll tell him that you said so!"</p>
+
+<p>She was silent, carefully piling one or two small logs on the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear sweet little girls are generally uncommonly vain of themselves,"
+resumed Helmsley&mdash;"And in the strength of their dearness and sweetness
+they sometimes fail to appreciate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> love when they get it. Now Mr. Reay
+would love very deeply, I should imagine&mdash;and I don't think he could
+bear to be played with or slighted."</p>
+
+<p>"But who would play with or slight such love as his?" asked Mary, with a
+warm flush on her face&mdash;"No woman that knew anything of his heart would
+wilfully throw it away!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley stroked his beard thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"That story of his about a girl named Lucy Sorrel,"&mdash;he began.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she was wicked&mdash;downright wicked!" declared Mary, with some
+passion&mdash;"Any girl who would plan and scheme to marry an old man for his
+money must be a worthless creature. I wish I had been in that Lucy
+Sorrel's place!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! And what would you have done?" enquired Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if I had been a pretty girl, in my teens, and I had been
+fortunate enough to win the heart of a splendid fellow like Angus
+Reay,"&mdash;said Mary, "I would have thanked God, as Shakespeare tells us to
+do, for a good man's love! And I would have waited for him years, if he
+had wished me to! I would have helped him all I could, and cheered him
+and encouraged him in every way I could think of&mdash;and when he had won
+his fame, I should have been prouder than a queen! Yes, I should!&mdash;I
+think any girl would have been lucky indeed to get such a man to care
+for her as Angus Reay!"</p>
+
+<p>Thus spake Mary, with sparkling eyes and heaving bosom&mdash;and Helmsley
+heard her, showing no sign of any especial interest, the while he went
+on meditatively stroking his beard.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pity,"&mdash;he said, after a discreet pause&mdash;"that you are not a
+few years younger, Mary! You might have loved him yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Her face grew suddenly scarlet, and she seemed about to utter an
+exclamation, but she repressed it. The colour faded from her cheeks as
+rapidly as it had flushed them, leaving her very pale.</p>
+
+<p>"So I might!" she answered quietly,&mdash;and she smiled; "Indeed I think it
+would have been very likely! But that sort of thing is all over for me."</p>
+
+<p>She turned away, and began busying herself with some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> of her household
+duties. Helmsley judged that he had said enough&mdash;and quietly exulted in
+his own mind at the discovery which he was confident he had made. All
+seemed clear and open sailing for Angus Reay&mdash;if&mdash;if she could be
+persuaded that it was for herself and herself alone that he loved her.</p>
+
+<p>"Now if she were a rich woman, she would never believe in his love!" he
+thought&mdash;"There again comes in the curse of money! Suppose she were
+wealthy as women in her rank of life would consider it&mdash;suppose that she
+had a prosperous farm, and a reliable income of so much per annum, she
+would never flatter herself that a man loved her for her own good and
+beautiful self&mdash;especially a man in the situation of Reay, with only
+twenty pounds in the world to last him a year, and nothing beyond it
+save the dream of fame! She would think&mdash;and naturally too&mdash;that he
+sought to strengthen and improve his prospects by marrying a woman of
+some 'substance' as they call it. And even as it is the whole business
+requires careful handling. I myself must be on my guard. But I think I
+may give hope to Reay!&mdash;indeed I shall try and urge him to speak to her
+as soon as possible&mdash;before fortune comes to either of them! Love in its
+purest and most unselfish form, is such a rare blessing&mdash;such a glorious
+Angel of the kingdom of Heaven, that we should not hesitate to give it
+welcome, or delay in offering it reverence! It is all that makes life
+worth living&mdash;God knows how fully I have proved it!"</p>
+
+<p>And that night in the quiet darkness of his own little room, he folded
+his worn hands and prayed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh God, before whom I appear as a wasted life, spent with toil in
+getting what is not worth the gaining, and that only seems as dross in
+Thy sight!&mdash;Give me sufficient time and strength to show my gratefulness
+to Thee for Thy mercy in permitting me to know the sweetness of Love at
+last, and in teaching me to understand, through Thy guidance, that those
+who may seem to us the unconsidered and lowly in this world, are often
+to be counted among Thy dearest creatures! Grant me but this, O God, and
+death when it comes, shall find me ready and resigned to Thy Will!"</p>
+
+<p>Thus he murmured half aloud,&mdash;and in the wonderful restfulness which he
+obtained by the mere utterance of his thoughts to the Divine Source of
+all good, closed his eyes with a sense of abiding joy, and slept
+peacefully.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_1_1">Footnote 1</a>: A fact.<br /><br /></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>And now by slow and beautiful degrees the cold and naked young year grew
+warm, and expanded from weeping, shivering infancy into the delighted
+consciousness of happy childhood. The first snowdrops, the earliest
+aconites, perked up their pretty heads in Mary's cottage garden, and
+throughout all nature there came that inexplicable, indefinite, soft
+pulsation of new life and new love which we call the spring. Tiny buds,
+rosy and shining with sap, began to gleam like rough jewels on every
+twig and tree&mdash;a colony of rooks which had abode in the elms surrounding
+Weircombe Church, started to make great ado about their housekeeping,
+and kept up as much jabber as though they were inaugurating an Irish
+night in the House of Commons,&mdash;and, over a more or less tranquil sea,
+the gulls poised lightly on the heaving waters in restful attitudes, as
+though conscious that the stress of winter was past. To look at
+Weircombe village as it lay peacefully aslant down the rocky "coombe,"
+no one would have thought it likely to be a scene of silent, but none
+the less violent, internal feud; yet such nevertheless was the case, and
+all the trouble had arisen since the first Sunday of the first month of
+the Reverend Mr. Arbroath's "taking duty" in the parish. On that day six
+small choirboys had appeared in the Church, together with a tall lanky
+youth in a black gown and white surplice&mdash;and to the stupefied amazement
+of the congregation, the lanky youth had carried a gilt cross round the
+Church, followed by Arbroath himself and the six little boys, all
+chanting in a manner such as the Weircombe folk had never heard before.
+It was a deeply resented innovation, especially as the six little boys
+and the lanky cross-bearer, as well as the cross itself, had been
+mysteriously "hired" from somewhere by Mr. Arbroath, and were altogether
+strange to the village. Common civility, as well as deeply rooted
+notions of "decency and order," kept the parishioners in their seats
+during what they termed the "play-acting" which took place on this
+occasion, but when they left the Church and went their several ways,
+they all resolved on the course they meant to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> adopt with the undesired
+introduction of "'Igh Jinks" for the future. And from that date
+henceforward not one of the community attended Church. Sunday after
+Sunday, the bells rang in vain. Mr. Arbroath conducted the service
+solely for Mrs. Arbroath and for one ancient villager who acted the
+double part of sexton and verger, and whose duties therefore compelled
+him to remain attached to the sacred edifice. And the people read their
+morning prayers in their own houses every Sunday, and never stirred out
+on that day till after their dinners. In vain did both Mr. and Mrs.
+Arbroath run up and down the little village street, calling at every
+house, coaxing, cajoling, and promising,&mdash;they spoke to deaf ears.
+Nothing they could say or do made amends for the "insult" to which the
+parishioners considered they had been subjected, by the sudden
+appearance of six strange choirboys and the lanky youth in a black gown,
+who had carried a gilt cross round and round the tiny precincts of their
+simple little Church, which,&mdash;until the occurrence of this remarkable
+"mountebank" performance as they called it,&mdash;had been everything to them
+that was sacred in its devout simplicity. Finally, in despair, Mr.
+Arbroath wrote a long letter of complaint to the Bishop of the diocese,
+and after a considerable time of waiting, was informed by the secretary
+of that gentleman that the matter would be enquired into, but that in
+the meantime he had better conduct the Sunday services in the manner to
+which the parishioners had been accustomed. This order Arbroath flatly
+refused to obey, and there ensued a fierce polemical correspondence,
+during which the Church remained, as has been stated, empty of
+worshippers altogether. Casting about for reasons which should prove
+some contumacious spirit to be the leader of this rebellion, Arbroath
+attacked Mary Deane among others, and asked her if she was "a regular
+Communicant." To which she calmly replied&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"And why are you not?" demanded the clergyman imperiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I do not feel like it," she said; "I do not believe in going to
+Communion unless one really feels the spiritual wish and desire."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Then that is to say that you are very seldom conscious of any
+spiritual wish or desire?"</p>
+
+<p>She was silent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry for you!" And Arbroath shook his bullet head dismally. "You
+are one of the unregenerate, and if you do not amend your ways will be
+among the lost&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"'I tell thee, churlish priest, A ministering angel shall my sister be,
+when thou liest howling!'" said Helmsley suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>Arbroath turned upon him sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" he snarled.</p>
+
+<p>"Shakespeare!" and Helmsley smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Shakespeare! Much you know about Shakespeare!" snapped out the
+irritated clergyman. "But atheists and ruffians always quote Shakespeare
+as glibly as they quote the New Testament!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's lucky that atheists and ruffians have got such good authorities to
+quote from," said Helmsley placidly.</p>
+
+<p>Arbroath gave an impatient exclamation, and again addressed Mary.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you come to Church?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She raised her calm blue eyes and regarded him steadfastly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like the way you conduct the service, sir, and I don't take you
+altogether for a Christian."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" And he stared at her so furiously that his little pig eyes grew
+almost large for the moment&mdash;"You don't take me&mdash;<i>me</i>&mdash;for a Christian?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir,&mdash;not altogether. You are too hard and too proud. You are not
+careful of us poor folk, and you don't seem to mind whether you hurt our
+feelings or not. We're only very humble simple people here in Weircombe,
+but we're not accustomed to being ordered about as if we were children,
+or as if our parson was a Romish priest wanting to get us all under his
+thumb. We believe in God with all our hearts and souls, and we love the
+dear gentle Saviour who came to show us how to live and how to die,&mdash;but
+we like to pray as we've always been accustomed to pray, just without
+any show, as our Lord taught us to do, not using any 'vain
+repetitions.'"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley, who was bending some stiff osiers in his hands, paused to
+listen. Arbroath stared gloomily at the noble, thoughtful face on which
+there was just now an inspired expression of honesty and truth which
+almost shamed him.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," went on Mary, speaking very gently and modestly&mdash;"that if we
+read the New Testament, we shall find<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> that our Lord expressly forbade
+all shows and ceremonies,&mdash;and that He very much disliked them. Indeed,
+if we strictly obeyed all His orders, we should never be seen praying in
+public at all! Of course it is pleasant and human for people to meet
+together in some place and worship God&mdash;but I think such a meeting
+should be quite without any ostentation&mdash;and that all our prayers should
+be as simple as possible. Pray excuse me if I speak too boldly&mdash;but that
+is the spirit and feeling of most of the Weircombe folk, and they are
+really very good, honest people."</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Mr. Arbroath stood inert and silent for about two minutes,
+his eyes still fixed upon her,&mdash;then, without a word, he turned on his
+heel and left the cottage. And from that day he did his best to sow
+small seeds of scandal against her,&mdash;scattering half-implied
+innuendoes,&mdash;faint breathings of disparagement, coarse jests as to her
+"old maid" condition, and other mean and petty calumnies, which,
+however, were all so much wasted breath on his part, as the Weircombe
+villagers were as indifferent to his attempted mischief as Mary herself.
+Even with the feline assistance of Mrs. Arbroath, who came readily to
+her husband's aid in his capacity of "downing" a woman, especially as
+that woman was so much better-looking than herself, nothing of any
+importance was accomplished in the way of either shaking Mary's
+established position in the estimation of Weircombe, or of persuading
+the parishioners to a "'Igh Jink" view of religious matters. Indeed, on
+this point they were inflexible, and as Mrs. Twitt remarked on one
+occasion, with a pious rolling-up of the whites of her eyes&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"To see that little black man with the 'igh stomach a-walkin' about this
+village is enough to turn a baby's bottle sour! It don't seem nat'ral
+like&mdash;he's as different from our good old parson as a rat is from a
+bird, an' you'll own, Mis' Deane, as there's a mighty difference between
+they two sorts of insecks. An' that minds me, on the Saturday night
+afore they got the play-actin' on up in the Church, the wick o' my
+candle guttered down in a windin' sheet as long as long, an' I sez to
+Twitt&mdash;'There you are! Our own parson's gone an' died over in Madery,
+an' we'll never 'ave the likes of 'im no more! There's trouble comin'
+for the Church, you mark my words.' An' Twitt, 'e says, 'G'arn, old
+'ooman, it's the draught blowin' in at the door as makes the candle
+gutter,'&mdash;but all the same my words 'as come true!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why no, surely not!" said Mary, "Our parson isn't dead in Madeira at
+all! The Sunday-school mistress had a letter from him only yesterday
+saying how much better he felt, and that he hoped to be home again with
+us very soon."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Twitt pursed her lips and shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"That may be!" she observed&mdash;"I aint a-sayin' nuthin' again it. I sez to
+Twitt, there's trouble comin' for the Church, an' so there is. An' the
+windin' sheet in the candle means a death for somebody somewhere!"</p>
+
+<p>Mary laughed, though her eyes were a little sad and wistful.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course, there's always somebody dying somewhere, they say!"
+And she sighed. "There's a good deal of grief in the world that nobody
+ever sees or hears of."</p>
+
+<p>"True enough, Mis' Deane!&mdash;true enough!" And Mrs. Twitt shook her head
+again&mdash;"But ye're spared a deal o' worrit, seein' ye 'aven't a husband
+nor childer to drive ye silly. When I 'ad my three boys at 'ome I never
+know'd whether I was on my 'ed or my 'eels, they kept up such a racket
+an' torment, but the Lord be thanked they're all out an' doin' for
+theirselves in the world now&mdash;forbye the eldest is thinkin' o' marryin'
+a girl I've never seen, down in Cornwall, which is where 'e be a-workin'
+in tin mines, an' when I 'eerd as 'ow 'e was p'raps a-goin' to tie
+hisself up in the bonds o' matterimony, I stepped out in the garden just
+casual like, an' if you'll believe me, I sees a magpie! Now, Mis' Deane,
+magpies is total strangers on these coasts&mdash;no one as I've ever 'eard
+tell on 'as ever seen one&mdash;an' they's the unlikeliest and unluckiest
+birds to come across as ever the good God created. An' of course I knows
+if my boy marries that gel in Cornwall, it'll be the worst chance and
+change for 'im that 'e's 'ad ever since 'e was born! That magpie comed
+'ere to warn me of it!"</p>
+
+<p>Mary tried to look serious, but Helmsley was listening to the
+conversation, and she caught the mirthful glance of his eyes. So she
+laughed, and taking Mrs. Twitt by the shoulders, kissed her heartily on
+both cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a dear!" she said&mdash;"And I'll believe in the magpie if you want
+me to! But all the same, I don't think any mischief is coming for your
+son or for you. I like to hope that everything happening in this world
+is for the best, and that the good God means kindly to all of us. Don't
+you think that's the right way to live?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It may be the right way to live," replied Mrs. Twitt with a doubtful
+air&mdash;"But there's ter'uble things allus 'appenin', an' I sez if warnings
+is sent to us even out o' the mouths o' babes and sucklings, let's
+accept 'em in good part. An' if so be a magpie is chose by the Lord as a
+messenger we'se fools if we despises the magpie. But that little paunchy
+Arbroath's worse than a whole flock o' magpies comin' together, an' 'e's
+actin' like a pestilence in keepin' decent folk away from their own
+Church. 'Owsomever, Twitt reads prayers every Sunday mornin', an'
+t'other day Mr. Reay came in an' 'eerd 'im. An' Mr. Reay sez&mdash;'Twitt,
+ye're better than any parson I ever 'eerd!' An' I believe 'e is&mdash;'e's
+got real 'art an' feelin' for Scripter texes, an' sez 'em just as solemn
+as though 'e was carvin' 'em on tombstones. It's powerful movin'!"</p>
+
+<p>Mary kept a grave face, but said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"An' last Sunday," went on Mrs. Twitt, encouraged, "Mr. Reay hisself
+read us a chapter o' the New Tesymen, an' 'twas fine! Twitt an' me, we
+felt as if we could 'a served the Lord faithful to the end of the world!
+An' we 'ardly ever feels like that in Church. In Church they reads the
+words so sing-songy like, that, bein' tired, we goes to sleep wi' the
+soothin' drawl. But Mr. Reay, he kep' us wide awake an' starin'! An'
+there's one tex which sticks in my 'ed an' comforts me for myself an'
+for everybody in trouble as I ever 'eerd on&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And what's that, Mrs. Twitt?" asked Helmsley, turning round in his
+chair, that he might see her better.</p>
+
+<p>"It's this, Mister David," and Mrs. Twitt drew a long breath in
+preparation before beginning the quotation,&mdash;"an' it's beautiful! 'If
+the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you.' Now
+if that aint enuff to send us on our way rejoicin', I don't know what
+is! For Lord knows if the dear Christ was hated, we can put up wi' a bit
+o' the hate for ourselves!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause.</p>
+
+<p>"So Mr. Reay reads very well, does he?" asked Mary.</p>
+
+<p>"Fine!" said Mrs. Twitt,&mdash;"'E's a lovely man with a lovely voice! If
+'e'd bin a parson 'e'd 'a drawed thousands to 'ear 'im! 'E wouldn't 'a
+wanted crosses nor candles to show us as 'e was speakin' true. Twitt sez
+to 'im t'other day&mdash;'Why aint you a parson, Mr. Reay?' an' 'e sez, 'Cos
+I'm goin' to be a preacher!' An' we couldn't make this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> out nohow, till
+'e showed us as 'ow 'e was a-goin' to tell people things as they ought
+to know in the book 'e's writin'. An' 'e sez it's the only way, cos the
+parsons is gettin' so uppish, an' the Pope 'as got 'old o' some o' the
+newspapers, so that there aint no truth told nowheres, unless a few
+writers o' books will take 'art o' grace an' speak out. An' 'e sez
+there's a many as 'll do it, an' he tells Twitt&mdash;'Twitt,' sez he, 'Pin
+your faith on brave books! Beware o' newspapers, an' fight off the
+priest! Read brave books&mdash;books that were written centuries ago to teach
+people courage&mdash;an' read brave books that are written now to keep
+courage goin'!' An' we sez, so we will&mdash;for books is cheap enuff, God
+knows!&mdash;an' only t'other day Twitt went over to Minehead an' bought a
+new book by Sir Walter Scott called <i>Guy Mannering</i> for ninepence. It's
+a grand story! an' keeps us alive every evenin'! I'm just mad on that
+old woman in it&mdash;Meg Merrilies&mdash;she knew a good deal as goes on in the
+world, I'll warrant! All about signs an' omens too. It's just fine! I'd
+like to see Sir Walter Scott!"</p>
+
+<p>"He's dead," said Mary, "dead long ago. But he was a good as well as a
+great man."</p>
+
+<p>"'E must 'a bin," agreed Mrs. Twitt; "I'm right sorry 'e's dead. Some
+folks die as is bound to be missed, an' some folks lives on as one 'ud
+be glad to see in their long 'ome peaceful at rest, forbye their bein'
+born so grumblesome like. Twitt 'ud be at 'is best composin' a hepitaph
+for Mr. Arbroath now!"</p>
+
+<p>As she said this the corners of her mouth, which usually drooped in
+somewhat lachrymose lines, went up in a whimsical smile. And feeling
+that she had launched a shaft of witticism which could not fail to reach
+its mark, she trotted off on further gossiping errands bent.</p>
+
+<p>The tenor of her conversation was repeated to Angus Reay that afternoon
+when he arrived, as was often his custom, for what was ostensibly "a
+chat with old David," but what was really a silent, watchful worship of
+Mary.</p>
+
+<p>"She is a dear old soul!" he said, "and Twitt is a rough diamond of
+British honesty. Such men as he keep the old country together and help
+to establish its reputation for integrity. But that man Arbroath ought
+to be kicked out of the Church! In fact, I as good as told him so!"</p>
+
+<p>"You did!" And Helmsley's sunken eyes began to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> sparkle with sudden
+animation. "Upon my word, sir, you are very bold!"</p>
+
+<p>"Bold? Why, what can he do to me?" demanded Angus. "I told him I had
+been for some years on the press, and that I knew the ins and outs of
+the Jesuit propaganda there. I told him he was false to the principles
+under which he had been ordained. I told him that he was assisting to
+introduce the Romish 'secret service' system into Great Britain, and
+that he was, with a shameless disregard of true patriotism, using such
+limited influence as he had to put our beloved free country under the
+tyranny of the Vatican. I said, that if ever I got a hearing with the
+British public, I meant to expose him, and all such similar wolves in
+sheep's clothing as himself."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;what did he say?" asked Mary eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he turned livid, and then told me I was an atheist, adding that
+nearly all writers of books were of the same evil persuasion as myself.
+I said that if I believed that the Maker of Heaven and Earth took any
+pleasure in seeing him perambulate a church with a cross and six
+wretched little boys who didn't understand a bit what they were doing, I
+should be an atheist indeed. I furthermore told him I believed in God,
+who upheld this glorious Universe by the mere expressed power of His
+thought, and I said I believed in Christ, the Teacher who showed to men
+that the only way to obtain immortal life and happiness was by the
+conquest of Self. 'You may call that atheistical if you like,' I
+said,&mdash;'It's a firm faith that will help to keep <i>me</i> straight, and that
+will hold me to the paths of right and truth without any crosses or
+candles.' Then I told him that this little village of Weircombe, in its
+desire for simplicity in forms of devotion, was nearer heaven than he
+was. And&mdash;and I think," concluded Angus, ruffling up his hair with one
+hand, "that's about all I told him!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley gave a low laugh of intense enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>"All!" he echoed, "I should say it was enough!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope it was," said Angus seriously, "I meant it to be." And moving to
+Mary's side, he took up the end of a lace flounce on which she was at
+work. "What a creation in cobwebs!" he exclaimed&mdash;"Who does it belong
+to, Miss Mary?"</p>
+
+<p>"To a very great lady," she replied, working busily with her needle and
+avoiding the glance of his eyes; "her name<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> is often in the papers." And
+she gave it. "No doubt you know her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Know her? Not I!" And he shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. "But she
+is very generally known&mdash;as a thoroughly bad woman! I <i>hate</i> to see you
+working on anything for her!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked up surprised, and the colour came and went in a delicate
+flush on her face.</p>
+
+<p>"False to her husband, false to her children, and false to herself!"
+went on Angus hotly&mdash;"And disloyal to her king! And having turned on her
+own family and her own class, she seeks to truckle to the People under
+pretence of serving <i>them</i>, while all the time her sole object is to
+secure notoriety for herself! She is a shame to England!"</p>
+
+<p>"You speak very hotly, sir!" said Helmsley, slowly. "Are you sure of
+your facts?"</p>
+
+<p>"The facts are not concealed," returned Reay&mdash;"They are public property.
+That no one has the courage to denounce such women&mdash;women who openly
+flaunt their immoralities in our midst&mdash;is a bad sign of the times.
+Women are doing a great deal of mischief just now. Look at them fussing
+about Female Suffrage! Female Suffrage, quotha! Let them govern their
+homes properly, wisely, reasonably, and faithfully, and they will govern
+the nation!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's true!" And Helmsley nodded gravely. "That's very true!"</p>
+
+<p>"A woman who really loves a man," went on Angus, mechanically fingering
+the skeins of lace thread which lay on the table at Mary's side, ready
+for use&mdash;"governs him, unconsciously to herself, by the twin powers of
+sex and instinct. She was intended for his help-mate, to guide him in
+the right way by her finer forces. If she neglects to cultivate these
+finer forces&mdash;if she tramples on her own natural heritage, and seeks to
+'best' him with his own weapons&mdash;she fails&mdash;she must fail&mdash;she deserves
+to fail! But as true wife and true mother, she is supreme!"</p>
+
+<p>"But the ladies are not content with such a limited sphere," began
+Helmsley, with a little smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Limited? Good God!&mdash;where does the limit come in?" demanded Reay. "It
+is because they are not sufficiently educated to understand their own
+privileges that women complain of limitations. An unthinking,
+unreasoning, unintelligent wife and mother is of course no higher than
+any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> other female of the animal species&mdash;but I do not uphold this class.
+I claim that the woman who <i>thinks</i>, and gives her intelligence full
+play&mdash;the woman who is physically sound and morally pure&mdash;the woman who
+devoutly studies the noblest side of life, and tries to bring herself
+into unison with the Divine intention of human progress towards the
+utmost good&mdash;she, as wife and mother, is the angel of the world. She
+<i>is</i> the world!&mdash;she makes it, she rejuvenates it, she gives it
+strength! Why should she condescend to mix with the passing political
+squabbles of her slaves and children?&mdash;for men are no more than her
+slaves and children. Love is her weapon&mdash;one true touch of that, and the
+wildest heart that ever beat in a man's breast is tamed."</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence. Suddenly Mary pushed aside her work, and going to
+the door opened it.</p>
+
+<p>"It's so warm to-day, don't you think?" she asked, passing her hand a
+little wearily across her forehead. "One would think it was almost
+June."</p>
+
+<p>"You are tired, Miss Mary!" said Reay, somewhat anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;I'm not tired&mdash;but"&mdash;here all at once her eyes filled with tears.
+"I've got a bit of a headache," she murmured, forcing a smile&mdash;"I think
+I'll go to my room and rest for half an hour. Good-bye, Mr. Reay!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye&mdash;for the moment!" he answered&mdash;and taking her hand he pressed
+it gently. "I hope the headache will soon pass."</p>
+
+<p>She withdrew her hand from his quickly and left the kitchen. Angus
+watched her go, and when she had disappeared heaved an involuntary but
+most lover-like sigh. Helmsley looked at him with a certain whimsical
+amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>Reay gave himself a kind of impatient shake.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, old David!" he rejoined.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you speak to her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I dare not! I'm too poor!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is she so rich?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's richer than I am."</p>
+
+<p>"It is quite possible," said Helmsley slowly, "that she will always be
+richer than you. Literary men must never expect to be millionaires."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't tell me that&mdash;I know it!" and Angus laughed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> "Besides, I don't
+want to be a millionaire&mdash;wouldn't be one for the world! By the way, you
+remember that man I told you about&mdash;the old chap my first love was going
+to marry&mdash;David Helmsley?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley did not move a muscle.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I remember!" he answered quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the papers say he's dead."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! the papers say he's dead, do they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It appeared that he went abroad last summer,&mdash;it is thought that
+he went to the States on some matters of business&mdash;and has not since
+been heard of."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley kept an immovable face.</p>
+
+<p>"He may possibly have got murdered for his money," went on Angus
+reflectively&mdash;"though I don't see how such an act could benefit the
+murderer. Because his death wouldn't stop the accumulation of his
+millions, which would eventually go to his heir."</p>
+
+<p>"Has he an heir?" enquired Helmsley placidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's sure to have left his vast fortune to somebody," replied Reay.
+"He had two sons, so I was told&mdash;but they're dead. It's possible he may
+have left everything to Lucy Sorrel."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah yes! Quite possible!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," went on Reay, "it's only the newspapers that say he's
+dead&mdash;and there never was a newspaper yet that could give an absolutely
+veracious account of anything. His lawyers&mdash;a famous firm, Vesey and
+Symonds,&mdash;have written a sort of circular letter to the press stating
+that the report of his death is erroneous&mdash;that he is travelling for
+health's sake, and on account of a desire for rest and privacy, does not
+wish his whereabouts to be made publicly known."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew I might trust Vesey!" he thought. Aloud he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I should believe the gentleman's lawyers more than the newspaper
+reporters. Wouldn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. I shouldn't have taken the least interest in the rumour, if
+I hadn't been once upon a time in love with Lucy Sorrel. Because if the
+old man is really dead and has done nothing in the way of providing for
+her, I wonder what she will do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go out charing!" said Helmsley drily. "Many a better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> woman than you
+have described her to be, has had to come to that."</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence. Presently Helmsley spoke again in a quiet voice&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I think, Mr. Reay, you should tell all your mind to Miss Mary."</p>
+
+<p>Angus started nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you, David? Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why?&mdash;well&mdash;because&mdash;" Here Helmsley spoke very gently&mdash;"because I
+believe she loves you!"</p>
+
+<p>The colour kindled in Reay's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, don't fool me, David!" he said&mdash;"you don't know what it would mean
+to me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Fool you!" Helmsley sat upright in his chair and looked at him with an
+earnestness which left no room for doubt. "Do you think I would 'fool'
+you, or any man, on such a matter? Old as I am, and lonely and
+friendless as I <i>was</i>, before I met this dear woman, I know that love is
+the most sacred of all things&mdash;the most valuable of all things&mdash;better
+than gold&mdash;greater than power&mdash;the only treasure we can lay up in heaven
+'where neither moth nor rust do corrupt, and where thieves do not break
+through nor steal!' Do not"&mdash;and here his strong emotion threatened to
+get the better of him&mdash;"do not, sir, think that because I was tramping
+the road in search of a friend to help me, before Miss Mary found me and
+brought me home here and saved my life, God bless her!&mdash;do not think, I
+say, that I have no feeling! I feel very much&mdash;very strongly&mdash;" He broke
+off breathing quickly, and his hands trembled. Reay hastened to his side
+in some alarm, remembering what Mary had told him about the old man's
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear old David, I know!" he said. "Don't worry! I know you feel it
+all&mdash;I'm sure you do! Now, for goodness' sake, don't excite yourself
+like this&mdash;she&mdash;she'll never forgive me!" and he shook up the cushion at
+the back of Helmsley's chair and made him lean upon it. "Only it would
+be such a joy to me&mdash;such a wonder&mdash;such a help&mdash;to know that she really
+loved me!&mdash;<i>loved</i> me, David!&mdash;you understand&mdash;why, I think I could
+conquer the world!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled faintly. He was suffering physical anguish at the
+moment&mdash;the old sharp pain at his heart to which he had become more or
+less wearily accustomed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> had dizzied his senses for a space, but as the
+spasm passed he took Reay's hand and pressed it gently.</p>
+
+<p>"What does the Great Book tell us?" he muttered. "'If a man would give
+all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned!'
+That's true! And I would never 'fool' or mislead you on a matter of such
+life and death to you, Mr. Reay. That's why I tell you to speak to Miss
+Mary as soon as you can find a good opportunity&mdash;for I am sure she loves
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, David?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure!"</p>
+
+<p>Reay stood silent,&mdash;his eyes shining, and "the light that never was on
+sea or land" transfigured his features.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a tap came at the door. A hand, evidently accustomed to
+the outside management of the latch, lifted it, and Mr. Twitt entered,
+his rubicund face one broad smile.</p>
+
+<p>"'Afternoon, David! 'Afternoon, Mister! Wheer's Mis' Deane?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's resting a bit in her room," replied Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well! You can tell 'er the news when she comes in. Mr. Arbroath's
+away for 'is life wi' old Nick in full chase arter 'im! It don't do
+t'ave a fav'rite gel!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley and Reay stared at him, and then at one another.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what's up?" demanded Reay.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nuthin' much!" and Twitt's broad shoulders shook with internal
+laughter. "It's wot 'appens often in the fam'lies o' the haris-to-crazy,
+an' aint taken no notice of, forbye 'tis not so common among poor folk.
+Ye see Mr. Arbroath he&mdash;he&mdash;he&mdash;he&mdash;he&mdash;he&mdash;&mdash;" and here the pronoun
+"he" developed into a long chuckle. "He's got a sweet'art on the sly,
+an'&mdash;an'&mdash;an'&mdash;<i>'is wife's found it out</i>! Ha-ha-ha-he-he-he! 'Is wife's
+found it out! That's the trouble! An' she's gone an' writ to the Bishop
+'erself! Oh lor'! Never trust a woman wi' cat's eyes! She's writ to the
+Bishop, an' gone 'ome in a tearin' fit o' the rantin' 'igh-strikes,&mdash;an'
+Mister Arbroath 'e's follerd 'er, an' left us wi' a curate&mdash;a 'armless
+little chap wi' a bad cold in 'is 'ed, an' a powerful red nose&mdash;but
+'onest an' 'omely like 'is own face. An' 'e'll take the services till
+our own vicar comes 'ome, which'll be, please God, this day fort<i>night</i>.
+But oh lor'!&mdash;to think o' that grey-'aired rascal Arbroath<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> with a
+fav'rite gel on the sly! Ha-ha-ha-he-he-he! We'se be all mortal!" and
+Twitt shook his head with profound solemnity. "Ef I was a-goin' to carve
+a tombstone for that 'oly 'igh Churchman, I'd write on it the old
+'ackneyed sayin', 'Man wants but little 'ere below, Nor wants that
+little long!' Ha-ha-ha-he-he-he!"</p>
+
+<p>His round jolly face beamed with merriment, and Angus Reay caught
+infection from his mirth and laughed heartily.</p>
+
+<p>"Twitt, you're an old rascal!" he exclaimed. "I really believe you enjoy
+showing up Mr. Arbroath's little weaknesses!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not I&mdash;not I, Mister!" protested Twitt, his eyes twinkling. "I sez, be
+fair to all men! I sez, if a parson wants to chuck a gel under the chin,
+let 'im do so by all means, God willin'! But don't let 'im purtend as 'e
+<i>couldn't</i> chuck 'er under the chin for the hull world! Don't let 'im go
+round lookin' as if 'e was vinegar gone bad, an' preach at the parish as
+if we was all mis'able sinners while 'e's the mis'ablest one hisself.
+But old Arbroath&mdash;damme!" and he gave a sounding slap to his leg in
+sheer ecstacy. "Caught in the act by 'is wife! Oh lor', oh lor'! 'Is
+wife! An' <i>aint</i> she a tartar!"</p>
+
+<p>"But how did all this happen?" asked Helmsley, amused.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, this way, David&mdash;quite 'appy an' innocent like, Missis Arbroath,
+she opens a letter from 'ome, which 'avin' glanced at the envelope
+casual-like she thinks was beggin' or mothers' meetin', an' there she
+finds it all out. Vicar's fav'rite gel writin' for money or clothes or
+summat, an' endin' up 'Yer own darlin'!' Ha-ha-ha-he-he-he! Oh Lord!
+There was an earthquake up at the rect'ry this marnin'&mdash;the cook there
+sez she never 'eerd sich a row in all 'er life&mdash;an' Missis Arbroath she
+was a-shriekin' for a divorce at the top of 'er voice! It's a small
+place, Weircombe Rect'ry, an' a woman can't shriek an' 'owl in it
+without bein' 'eerd. So both the cook an' 'ousemaid worn't by no manner
+o' means surprised when Mister Arbroath packed 'is bag an' went off in a
+trap to Minehead&mdash;an' we'll be left with a cheap curate in charge of our
+pore souls! Ha-ha-ha! But 'e's a decent little chap,&mdash;an' there'll be no
+'igh falutin' services with <i>'im</i>, so we can all go to Church next
+Sunday comfortable. An' as for old Arbroath, we'll be seein' big
+'edlines in the papers by and by about 'Scandalous Conduck of a
+Clergyman with 'is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> Fav'rite Gel!'" Here he made an effort to pull a
+grave face, but it was no use,&mdash;his broad smile beamed out once more
+despite himself. "Arter all," he said, chuckling, "the two things does
+fit in nicely together an' nat'ral like&mdash;'Igh Jinks an' a fav'rite gel!"</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible not to derive a sense of fun from his shining eyes and
+beaming countenance, and Angus Reay gave himself up to the enjoyment of
+the moment, and laughed again and again.</p>
+
+<p>"So you think he's gone altogether, eh?" he said, when he could speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, 'e's gone all right!" rejoined Twitt placidly. "A man may do lots
+o' queer things in this world, an' so long as 'is old 'ooman don't find
+'im out, it's pretty fair sailin'; but once a parson's wife gets 'er
+nose on to the parson's fav'rite, then all the fat's bound to be in the
+fire! An' quite right as it should be! I wouldn't bet on the fav'rite
+when it come to a neck-an'-neck race atween the two!"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed again, and they all talked awhile longer on this unexpected
+event, which, to such a village as Weircombe, was one of startling
+importance and excitement, and then, as the afternoon was drawing in and
+Mary did not reappear, Angus Reay took his departure with Twitt, leaving
+Helmsley sitting alone in his chair by the fire. But he did not go
+without a parting word&mdash;a word which was only a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"You think you are <i>sure</i>, David!" he said&mdash;"Sure that she loves me! I
+wish you would make doubly, trebly sure!&mdash;for it seems much too good to
+be true!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled, but made no answer.</p>
+
+<p>When he was left alone in the little kitchen to which he was now so
+accustomed, he sat for a space gazing into the red embers of the fire,
+and thinking deeply. He had attained what he never thought it would be
+possible to attain&mdash;a love which had been bestowed upon him for himself
+alone. He had found what he had judged would be impossible to find&mdash;two
+hearts which, so far as he personally was concerned, were utterly
+uninfluenced by considerations of self-interest. Both Mary Deane and
+Angus Reay looked upon him as a poor, frail old man, entirely
+defenceless and dependent on the kindness and care of such strangers as
+sympathised with his condition. Could they now be suddenly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> told that he
+was the millionaire, David Helmsley, they would certainly never believe
+it. And even if they were with difficulty brought to believe it, they
+would possibly resent the deception he had practised on them. Sometimes
+he asked himself whether it was quite fair or right to so deceive them?
+But then,&mdash;reviewing his whole life, and seeing how at every step of his
+career men, and women too, had flattered him and fawned upon him as well
+as fooled him for mere money's sake,&mdash;he decided that surely he had the
+right at the approaching end of that career to make a fair and free
+trial of the world as to whether any thing or any one purely honest
+could be found in it.</p>
+
+<p>"For it makes me feel more at peace with God," he said&mdash;"to know and to
+realise that there <i>are</i> unselfish loving hearts to be found, if only in
+the very lowliest walks of life! I,&mdash;who have seen Society,&mdash;the modern
+Juggernaut,&mdash;rolling its great wheels recklessly over the hopes and joys
+and confidences of thousands of human beings&mdash;I, who know that even
+kings, who should be above dishonesty, are tainted by their secret
+speculations in the money-markets of the world,&mdash;surely I may be
+permitted to rejoice for my few remaining days in the finding of two
+truthful and simple souls, who have no motive for their kindness to
+me,&mdash;who see nothing in me but age, feebleness and poverty,&mdash;and whom I
+have perhaps been the means, through God's guidance, of bringing
+together. For it was to me that Reay first spoke that day on the
+seashore&mdash;and it was at my request that he first entered Mary's home.
+Can this be the way in which Divine Wisdom has chosen to redeem me?
+I,&mdash;who have never been loved as I would have desired to be loved,&mdash;am I
+now instructed how,&mdash;leaving myself altogether out of the question,&mdash;I
+may prosper the love of others and make two noble lives happy? It may be
+so,&mdash;and that in the foundation of their joy, I shall win my own soul's
+peace! So&mdash;leaving my treasures on earth,&mdash;I shall find my treasure in
+heaven, 'where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do
+not break through nor steal!'"</p>
+
+<p>Still looking at the fire he watched the glowing embers, now reddening,
+now darkening&mdash;or leaping up into sparks of evanescent flame,&mdash;and
+presently stooping, picked up the little dog Charlie from his warm
+corner on the hearth and fondled him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You were the first to love me in my loneliness!" he said, stroking the
+tiny animal's soft ears&mdash;"And,&mdash;to be quite exact,&mdash;I owe my life and
+all my present surroundings to you, Charlie! What shall I leave you in
+my will, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Charlie yawned capaciously, showing very white teeth and a very red
+tongue, and winked one bright eye.</p>
+
+<p>"You're only a dog, Charlie! You've no use for money! You rely entirely
+upon your own attractiveness and the kindness of human nature! And so
+far your confidence has not been misplaced. But your fidelity and
+affection are only additional proofs of the powerlessness of money.
+Money bought you, Charlie, no doubt, in the first place&mdash;but money
+failed to keep you! And now, though by your means Mary found me where I
+lay helpless and unconscious on the hills in the storm, I can neither
+make you richer nor happier, Charlie! You're only a dog!&mdash;and a
+millionaire is no more to you than any other man!"</p>
+
+<p>Charlie yawned comfortably again. He seemed to be perfectly aware that
+his master was talking to him, but what it was about he evidently did
+not know, and still more evidently did not care. He liked to be petted
+and made much of&mdash;and presently curled himself up in a soft silken ball
+on Helmsley's knee, with his little black nose pointed towards the fire,
+and his eyes blinking lazily at the sparkle of the flames. And so Mary
+found them, when at last she came down from her room to prepare supper.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the headache better, my dear?" asked Helmsley, as she entered.</p>
+
+<p>"It's quite gone, David!" she answered cheerily&mdash;"Mending the lace often
+tries one's eyes&mdash;it was nothing but that."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her intently.</p>
+
+<p>"But you've been crying!" he said, with real concern.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, David! Women always cry when they feel like it!"</p>
+
+<p>"But did <i>you</i> feel like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I often do."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>She gave a playful gesture with her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Who can tell! I remember when I was quite a child, I cried when I saw
+the first primrose of the spring after a long winter. I knelt down and
+kissed it, too! That's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> me all over. I'm stupid, David! My heart's too
+big for me&mdash;and there's too much in it that never comes out!"</p>
+
+<p>He took her hand gently.</p>
+
+<p>"All shut up like a volcano, Mary! But the fire is there!"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed, with a touch of embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes! The fire is there! It will take years to cool down!"</p>
+
+<p>"May it never cool down!" said Helmsley&mdash;"I hope it will always burn,
+and make life warm for you! For without the fire that is in <i>your</i>
+heart, my dear, Heaven itself would be cold!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>The scandal affecting the Reverend Mr. Arbroath's reputation which had
+been so graphically related by Twitt, turned out to be true in every
+respect, and though considerable efforts were made to hush it up, the
+outraged feelings of the reverend gentleman's wife were not to be
+silenced. Proceedings for divorce were commenced, and it was understood
+that there would be no defence. In due course the "big 'edlines" which
+announced to the world in general that one of the most imperious "High"
+Anglicans of the Church had not only slipped from moral rectitude, but
+had intensified that sin by his publicly aggressive assumption of
+hypocritical virtue, appeared in the newspapers, and the village of
+Weircombe for about a week was brought into a certain notoriety which
+was distinctly displeasing to itself. The arrival of the "dailies"
+became a terror to it, and a general feeling of devout thankfulness was
+experienced by the whole community, when the rightful spiritual shepherd
+of the little flock returned from his sojourn abroad to take up the
+reigns of government, and restore law and order to his tiny distracted
+commonwealth. Fortunately for the peace of Weircombe, the frantic rush
+of social events, and incidents in which actual "news" of interest has
+no part, is too persistent and overwhelming for any one occurrence out
+of the million to occupy more than a brief passing notice, which is in
+its turn soon forgotten, and the "Scandalous Conduck of a Clergyman," as
+Mr. Twitt had put it, was soon swept aside in other examples of
+"Scandalous Conduck" among all sorts and conditions of men and women,
+which, caught up by flying Rumour with her thousand false and blatant
+tongues, is the sort of useless and pernicious stuff which chiefly keeps
+the modern press alive. Even the fact that the Reverend Mr. Arbroath was
+summarily deprived of his living and informed by the Bishop in the usual
+way, that his services would no longer be required, created very little
+interest. Some months later a small journalistic flourish was heard on
+behalf of the discarded gentleman, upon the occasion of his being
+"received"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> into the Church of Rome, with all his sins forgiven,&mdash;but so
+far as Weircombe was concerned, the story of himself and his "fav'rite"
+was soon forgotten, and his very name ceased to be uttered. The little
+community resumed its normal habit of cheerful attendance at Church
+every Sunday, satisfied to have shown to the ecclesiastical powers that
+be, the fact that "'Igh Jinks" in religion would never be tolerated
+amongst them; and the life of Weircombe went on in the usual placid way,
+divided between work and prayer, and governed by the twin forces of
+peace and contentment.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, the secret spells of Mother Nature were silently at work in
+the development and manifestation of the Spring. The advent of April
+came like a revelation of divine beauty to the little village nestled in
+the "coombe," and garlanded it from summit to base with tangles of
+festal flowers. The little cottage gardens and higher orchards were
+smothered in the snow of plum and cherry-blossom,&mdash;primroses carpeted
+the woods which crowned the heights of the hills, and the long dark
+spikes of bluebells, ready to bud and blossom, thrust themselves through
+the masses of last year's dead leaves, side by side with the uncurling
+fronds of the bracken and fern. Thrushes and blackbirds piped with
+cheerful persistence among the greening boughs of the old chestnut which
+shaded Mary Deane's cottage, and children roaming over the grassy downs
+above the sea, brought news of the skylark's song and the cuckoo's call.
+Many a time in these lovely, fresh and sunny April days Angus Reay would
+persuade Mary away from her lace-mending to take long walks with him
+across the downs, or through the woods&mdash;and on each occasion when they
+started on these rambles together, David Helmsley would sit and watch
+for their return in a curious sort of timorous suspense&mdash;wondering,
+hoping, and fearing,&mdash;eager for the moment when Angus should speak his
+mind to the woman he loved, and yet always afraid lest that woman
+should, out of some super-sensitive feeling, put aside and reject that
+love, even though she might long to accept it. However, day after day
+passed and nothing happened. Either Angus hesitated, or else Mary was
+unapproachable&mdash;and Helmsley worried himself in vain. They, who did not
+know his secret, could not of course imagine the strained condition of
+mind in which their undeclared feelings kept him,&mdash;and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> and he found
+himself more perplexed and anxious over their apparent uncertainty than
+he had ever been over some of his greatest financial schemes. Facts and
+figures can to a certain extent be relied upon, but the fluctuating
+humours and vagaries of a man and woman in love with each other are
+beyond the most precise calculations of the skilled mathematician. For
+it often happens that when they seem to be coldest they are warmest&mdash;and
+cases have been known where they have taken the greatest pains to avoid
+each other at a time when they have most deeply longed to be always
+together. It was during this uncomfortable period of uneasiness and
+hesitation for Helmsley, that Angus and Mary were perhaps most supremely
+happy. Dimly, sweetly conscious that the gate of Heaven was open for
+them and that it was Love, the greatest angel of all God's mighty host,
+that waited for them there, they hovered round and round upon the
+threshold of the glory, eager, yet afraid to enter. Up in the
+primrose-carpeted woods together they talked, like good friends, of a
+thousand things,&mdash;of the weather, of the promise of fruit in the
+orchards, of the possibilities of a good fishing year, and of the
+general beauty of the scenery around Weircombe. Then, of course, there
+was the book which Angus was writing&mdash;a book now nearing completion. It
+was a very useful book, because it gave them a constant and safe topic
+of conversation. Many chapters were read and re-read&mdash;many passages
+written and re-written for Mary's hearing and criticism,&mdash;and it may at
+once be said that what had at first been merely clever, brilliant, and
+intellectual writing, was now becoming not so much a book as an artistic
+creation, through which the blood and colour of human life pulsed and
+flowed, giving it force and vitality. Sometimes they persuaded Helmsley
+to accompany them on some of their shorter rambles,&mdash;but he was not
+strong enough to walk far, and he often left them half-way up the
+"coombe," returning to the cottage alone. Mary had frequently expressed
+a great wish to take him to a favourite haunt of hers, which she called
+the "Giant's Castle"&mdash;but he was unable to make the steep ascent&mdash;so on
+one fine afternoon she took Angus there instead. "The Giant's Castle"
+had no recognised name among the Weircombe villagers save this one which
+Mary had bestowed upon it, and which the children repeated after her so
+often that it seemed highly probable that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> the title would stick to it
+for ever. "Up Giant's Castle way" was quite a familiar direction to any
+one ascending the "coombe," or following the precipitous and narrow path
+which wound along the edge of the cliffs to certain pastures where
+shepherds as well as sheep were in daily danger of landslips, and which
+to the ordinary pedestrian were signalled by a warning board as
+"Dangerous." But "Giant's Castle" itself was merely the larger and
+loftier of the two towering rocks which guarded the sea-front of
+Weircombe village. A tortuous grassy path led up to its very pinnacle,
+and from here, there was an unbroken descent as straight and smooth as a
+well-built wall, of several hundred feet sheer down into the sea, which
+at this point swirled round the rocky base in dark, deep, blackish-green
+eddies, sprinkled with trailing sprays of brown and crimson weed. It was
+a wonderful sight to look down upon this heaving mass of water, if it
+could be done without the head swimming and the eyes growing blind with
+the light of the sky striking sharp against the restless heaving of the
+waves, and Mary was one of the few who could stand fearlessly on almost
+the very brink of the parapet of the "Giant's Castle," and watch the
+sweep of the gulls as they flew under and above her, uttering their
+brief plaintive cries of gladness or anger as the wild wind bore them to
+and fro. When Reay first saw her run eagerly to the very edge, and stand
+there, a light, bold, beautiful figure, with the wind fluttering her
+garments and blowing loose a long rippling tress of her amber-brown
+hair, he could not refrain from an involuntary cry of terror, and an
+equally involuntary rush to her side with his arms outstretched. But as
+she turned her sweet face and grave blue eyes upon him there was
+something in the gentle dignity and purity of her look that held him
+back, abashed, and curiously afraid. She made him feel the power of her
+sex,&mdash;a power invincible when strengthened by modesty and reserve,&mdash;and
+the easy licence which modern women, particularly those of a degraded
+aristocracy, permit to men in both conversation and behaviour nowadays,
+would have found no opportunity of being exercised in her presence. So,
+though his impulse moved him to catch her round the waist and draw her
+with forcible tenderness away from the dizzy eminence on which she
+stood, he dared not presume so far, and merely contented himself with a
+bounding stride which brought him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> to the same point of danger as
+herself, and the breathless exclamation&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Mary! Take care!"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there is nothing to be frightened of!" she said. "Often and often I
+have come here quite alone and looked down upon the sea in all weathers.
+Just after my father's death, this used to be the place I loved best,
+where I could feel that I was all by myself with God, who alone
+understood my sadness. At night, when the moon is at the full, it is
+very beautiful here. One looks down into the water and sees a world of
+waving light, and then, looking up to the sky, there is a heaven of
+stars!&mdash;and all the weary ways of life are forgotten! The angels seem so
+near!"</p>
+
+<p>A silent agreement with this latter statement shone in Reay's eyes as he
+looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>"It's good sometimes to find a woman who still believes in angels," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't <i>you</i> believe in them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Implicitly,&mdash;with all my heart and soul!" And again his eyes were
+eloquent.</p>
+
+<p>A wave of rosy colour flitted over her face, and shading her eyes from
+the strong glare of the sun, she gazed across the sea.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish dear old David could see this glorious sight!" she said. "But
+he's not strong&mdash;and I'm afraid&mdash;I hardly like to think it&mdash;that he's
+weaker than he knows."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old chap!" said Angus, gently. "Any way, you've done all you can
+for him, and he's very grateful. I hope he'll last a few years longer."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so too," she answered quickly. "For I should miss him very much.
+I've grown quite to love him."</p>
+
+<p>"I think he feels that," and Angus seated himself on a jutting crag of
+the "Giant's Castle" and prepared for the utterance of something
+desperate. "Any one would, you know!"</p>
+
+<p>She made no reply. Her gaze was fixed on the furthest silver gleaming
+line of the ocean horizon.</p>
+
+<p>"Any one would be bound to feel it, if you loved&mdash;if you were fond of
+him," he went on in rather a rambling way. "It would make all the
+difference in the world&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She turned towards him quickly with a smile. Her breathing was a little
+hurried.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Shall we go back now?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly!&mdash;if&mdash;if you wish&mdash;but isn't it rather nice up here?" he
+pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll come another day," and she ran lightly down the first half of the
+grassy path which had led them to the summit. "But I mustn't waste any
+more time this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"Why? Any pressing demands for mended lace?" asked Angus, as he followed
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no! Not particularly so. Only when the firm that employs me, sends
+any very specially valuable stuff worth five or six hundred pounds or
+so, I never like to keep it longer that I can help. And the piece I'm at
+work on is valued at a thousand guineas."</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't you like to wear it yourself?" he asked suddenly, with a
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"I? I wouldn't wear it for the world! Do you know, Mr. Reay, that I
+almost hate beautiful lace! I admire the work and design, of course&mdash;no
+one could help that&mdash;but every little flower and leaf in the fabric
+speaks to me of so many tired eyes growing blind over the intricate
+stitches&mdash;so many weary fingers, and so many aching hearts&mdash;all toiling
+for the merest pittance! For it is not the real makers of the lace who
+get good profit by their work, it is the merchants who sell it that have
+all the advantage. If I were a great lady and a rich one, I would refuse
+to buy any lace from the middleman,&mdash;I would seek out the actual poor
+workers, and give them my orders, and see that they were comfortably fed
+and housed as long as they worked for me."</p>
+
+<p>"And it's just ten chances to one whether they would be grateful to
+you&mdash;&mdash;" Angus began. She silenced him by a slight gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"But I shouldn't care whether they were grateful or not," she said. "I
+should be content to know that I had done what was right and just to my
+fellow-creatures."</p>
+
+<p>They had no more talk that day, and Helmsley, eagerly expectant, and
+watching them perhaps more intently than a criminal watches the face of
+a judge, was as usual disappointed. His inward excitement, always
+suppressed, made him somewhat feverish and irritable, and Mary, all
+unconscious of the cause, stayed in to "take care of him" as she said,
+and gave up her afternoon walks with Angus for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> time altogether, which
+made the situation still more perplexing, and to Helmsley almost
+unbearable. Yet there was nothing to be done. He felt it would be unwise
+to speak of the matter in any way to her&mdash;she was a woman who would
+certainly find it difficult to believe that she had won, or could
+possibly win the love of a lover at her age;&mdash;she might even resent
+it,&mdash;no one could tell. And so the days of April paced softly on, in
+bloom and sunlight, till May came in with a blaze of colour and
+radiance, and the last whiff of cold wind blew itself away across the
+sea. The "biting nor'easter," concerning which the comic press gives
+itself up to senseless parrot-talk with each recurrence of the May
+month, no matter how warm and beautiful that month may be, was a "thing
+foregone and clean forgotten,"&mdash;and under the mild and beneficial
+influences of the mingled sea and moorland air, Helmsley gained a
+temporary rush of strength, and felt so much better, that he was able to
+walk down to the shore and back again once or twice a a day, without any
+assistance, scarcely needing even the aid of his stick to lean upon. The
+shore remained his favourite haunt; he was never tired of watching the
+long waves roll in, edged with gleaming ribbons of foam, and roll out
+again, with the musical clatter of drawn pebbles and shells following
+the wake of the backward sweeping ripple,&mdash;and he made friends with many
+of the Weircombe fisherfolk, who were always ready to chat with him
+concerning themselves and the difficulties and dangers of their trade.
+The children, too, were all eager to run after "old David," as they
+called him,&mdash;and many an afternoon he would sit in the sun, with a group
+of these hardy little creatures gathered about him, listening entranced,
+while he told them strange stories of foreign lands and far
+travels,&mdash;travels which men took "in search of gold"&mdash;as he would say,
+with a sad little smile&mdash;"gold, which is not nearly so much use as it
+seems to be."</p>
+
+<p>"But can't us buy everything with plenty of money?" asked a
+seven-year-old urchin, on one of these occasions, looking solemnly up
+into his face with a pair of very round, big brown eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Not everything, my little man," he answered, smoothing the rough locks
+of the small inquirer with a very tender hand. "I could not buy <i>you</i>,
+for instance! Your mother wouldn't sell you!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The child laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! But I didn't mean me!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know you didn't mean me!" and Helmsley smiled. "But suppose some one
+put a thousand golden sovereigns in a bag on one side, and you in your
+rough little torn clothes on the other, and asked your mother which she
+would like best to have&mdash;what do you think she would say?"</p>
+
+<p>"She'd 'ave <i>me</i>!" and a smile of confident satisfaction beamed on the
+grinning little face like a ray of sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she would! The bag of sovereigns would be no use at all
+compared to you. So you see we cannot buy everything with money."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;most things?" queried the boy&mdash;"Eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Most things&mdash;perhaps," Helmsley answered, with a slight sigh. "But
+those 'most things' are not things of much value even when you get them.
+You can never buy love,&mdash;and that is the only real treasure,&mdash;the
+treasure of Heaven!"</p>
+
+<p>The child looked at him, vaguely impressed by his sudden earnestness,
+but scarcely understanding his words.</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't <i>you</i> like a little money?" And the inquisitive young eyes
+fixed themselves on his face with an expression of tenderest pity.
+"You'se a very poor old man!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley laughed, and again patted the little curly head.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;yes&mdash;a very poor old man!" he repeated. "But I don't want any more
+than I've got!"</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon towards mid-May, a strong yet soft sou'wester gale blew
+across Weircombe, bringing with it light showers of rain, which, as they
+fell upon the flowering plants and trees, brought out all the perfume of
+the spring in such rich waves of sweetness, that, though as yet there
+were no roses, and the lilac was only just budding out, the whole
+countryside seemed full of the promised fragrance of the blossoms that
+were yet to be. The wind made scenery in the sky, heaping up snowy
+masses of cloud against the blue in picturesque groups resembling Alpine
+heights, and fantastic palaces of fairyland, and when,&mdash;after a glorious
+day of fresh and invigorating air which swept both sea and hillside, a
+sudden calm came with the approach of sunset, the lovely colours of
+earth and heaven, melting into one another, where so pure and brilliant,
+that Mary, always a lover of Nature, could not resist Angus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> Reay's
+earnest entreaty that she would accompany him to see the splendid
+departure of the orb of day, in all its imperial panoply of royal gold
+and purple.</p>
+
+<p>"It will be a beautiful sunset," he said&mdash;"And from the 'Giant's Castle'
+rock, a sight worth seeing."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley looked at him as he spoke, and looking, smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Do go, my dear," he urged&mdash;"And come back and tell me all about it."</p>
+
+<p>"I really think you want me out of your way, David!" she said
+laughingly. "You seem quite happy when I leave you!"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't get enough fresh air," he answered evasively. "And this is
+just the season of the year when you most need it."</p>
+
+<p>She made no more demur, and putting on the simple straw hat, which,
+plainly trimmed with a soft knot of navy-blue ribbon, was all her summer
+head-gear, she left the house with Reay. After a while, Helmsley also
+went out for his usual lonely ramble on the shore, from whence he could
+see the frowning rampart of the "Giant's Castle" above him, though it
+was impossible to discern any person who might be standing at its
+summit, on account of the perpendicular crags that intervened. From both
+shore and rocky height the scene was magnificent. The sun, dipping
+slowly down towards the sea, shot rays of glory around itself in an
+aureole of gold, which, darting far upwards, and spreading from north to
+south, pierced the drifting masses of floating fleecy cloud like arrows,
+and transfigured their whiteness to splendid hues of fiery rose and
+glowing amethyst, while just between the falling Star of Day and the
+ocean, a rift appeared of smooth and delicate watery green, touched here
+and there with flecks of palest pink and ardent violet. Up on the
+parapet of the "Giant's Castle," all this loyal panoply of festal colour
+was seen at its best, sweeping in widening waves across the whole
+surface of the Heavens; and there was a curious stillness everywhere, as
+though earth itself were conscious of a sudden and intense awe. Standing
+on the dizzy edge of her favourite point of vantage, Mary Deane gazed
+upon the sublime spectacle with eyes so passionately tender in their
+far-away expression, that, to Angus Reay, who watched those eyes with
+much more rapt admiration than he bestowed upon the splendour of the
+sunset, they looked like the eyes of some angel, who, seeing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> heaven all
+at once revealed, recognised her native home, and with the recognition,
+was prepared for immediate flight And on the impulse which gave him this
+fantastic thought, he said softly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go away, Miss Mary! Stay with us&mdash;with me&mdash;as long as you can!"</p>
+
+<p>She turned her head and looked at him, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what do you mean? I'm not going away anywhere&mdash;who told you that I
+was?"</p>
+
+<p>"No one,"&mdash;and Angus drew a little nearer to her&mdash;"But just now you
+seemed so much a part of the sea and the sky, leaning forward and giving
+yourself entirely over to the glory of the moment, that I felt as if you
+might float away from me altogether." Here he paused&mdash;then added in a
+lower tone&mdash;"And I could not bear to lose you!"</p>
+
+<p>She was silent. But her face grew pale, and her lips quivered. He saw
+the tremor pass over her, and inwardly rejoiced,&mdash;his own nerves
+thrilling as he realised that, after all, <i>if</i>&mdash;if she loved him, he was
+the master of her fate.</p>
+
+<p>"We've been such good friends," he went on, dallying with his own desire
+to know the best or worst&mdash;"Haven't we?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, yes!" she answered, somewhat faintly. "And I hope we always
+will be."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so, too!" he answered in quite a matter-of-fact way. "You see
+I'm rather a clumsy chap with women&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,&mdash;I mean I never get on with them quite as well as other fellows do
+somehow&mdash;and&mdash;er&mdash;and&mdash;what I want to say, Miss Mary, is that I've never
+got on with any woman so well as I have with you&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He paused. At no time in his life had he been at such a loss for
+language. His heart was thumping in the most extraordinary fashion, and
+he prodded the end of his walking-stick into the ground with quite a
+ferocious earnestness. She was still looking at him and still smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"And," he went on ramblingly, "that's why I hope we shall always be good
+friends."</p>
+
+<p>As he uttered this perfectly commonplace remark, he cursed himself for a
+fool. "What's the matter with me?" he inwardly demanded. "My tongue
+seems to be tied up!&mdash;or I'm going to have lockjaw! It's awful!
+Something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> better than this has got to come out of me somehow!" And
+acting on a brilliant flash of inspiration which suddenly seemed to have
+illumined his brain, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is, I want to get married. I'm thinking about it."</p>
+
+<p>How quiet she was! She seemed scarcely to breathe.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" and the word, accentuated without surprise and merely as a
+question, was spoken very gently. "I do hope you have found some one who
+loves you with all her heart!"</p>
+
+<p>She turned her head away, and Angus saw, or thought he saw, the bright
+tears brim up from under her lashes and slowly fall. Without another
+instant's pause he rushed upon his destiny, and in that rush grew
+strong.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mary!" he said, and moving to her side he caught her hand in his
+own&mdash;"I dare to think I have found that some one! I believe I have! I
+believe that a woman whom I love with all my heart, loves me in return!
+If I am mistaken, then I've lost the whole world! Tell me, Mary! Am I
+wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>She could not speak,&mdash;the tears were thick in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary&mdash;dear, dearest Mary!" and he pressed the hand he held&mdash;"You know I
+love you!&mdash;you know&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She turned her face towards him&mdash;a pale, wondering face,&mdash;and tried to
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"How do I know?" she murmured tremulously&mdash;"How can I believe? I'm past
+the time for love!"</p>
+
+<p>For all answer he drew her into his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask Love itself about that, Mary!" he said. "Ask my heart, which beats
+for you,&mdash;ask my soul, which longs for you!&mdash;ask me, who worship you,
+you, best and dearest of women, about the time for love! That time for
+us is now, Mary!&mdash;now and always!"</p>
+
+<p>Then came a silence&mdash;that eloquent silence which surpasses all speech.
+Love has no written or spoken language&mdash;it is incommunicable as God. And
+Mary, whose nature was open and pure as the daylight, would not have
+been the woman she was if she could have expressed in words the deep
+tenderness and passion which at that supreme moment silently responded
+to her lover's touch, her lover's embrace. And when,&mdash;lifting her face
+between his two hands, he gazed at it long and earnestly, a smile,
+shining between tears, brightened her sweet eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You are looking at me as if you never saw me before,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> Angus!" she said,
+her voice sinking softly, as she pronounced his name.</p>
+
+<p>"Positively, I don't think I ever have!" he answered "Not as you are
+now, Mary! I have never seen you look so beautiful! I have never seen
+you before as my love! my wife!"</p>
+
+<p>She drew herself a little away from him.</p>
+
+<p>"But, are you sure you are doing right for yourself?" she asked&mdash;"You
+know you could marry anybody&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed, and threw one arm round her waist.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks!&mdash;I don't want to marry 'anybody'&mdash;I want to marry <i>you</i>! The
+question is, will you have me?"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"If I thought it would be for your good&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Stooping quickly he kissed her.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>That's</i> very much for my good!" he declared. "And now that I've told
+you my mind, you must tell me yours. Do you love me, Mary?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid you know that already too well!" she said, with a wistful
+radiance in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't!" he declared&mdash;"I'm not at all sure of you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure of yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mary!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, don't look so reproachful! It's only for you I'm thinking! You see
+I'm nothing but a poor working woman of what is called the lower
+classes&mdash;I'm not young, and I'm not clever. Now you've got genius;
+you'll be a great man some day, quite soon perhaps&mdash;you may even become
+rich as well as famous, and then perhaps you'll be sorry you ever met
+me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"In that case I'll call upon the public hangman and ask him to give me a
+quick despatch," he said promptly; "Though I shouldn't be worth the
+expense of a rope!"</p>
+
+<p>"Angus, you won't be serious!"</p>
+
+<p>"Serious? I never was more serious in my life! And I want my question
+answered."</p>
+
+<p>"What question?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you love me? Yes or no!"</p>
+
+<p>He held her close and looked her full in the face as he made this
+peremptory demand. Her cheeks grew crimson, but she met his searching
+gaze frankly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, though you are a man, you are a spoilt child!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> she said. "You know
+I love you more than I can say!&mdash;and yet you want me to tell you what
+can never be told!"</p>
+
+<p>He caught her to his heart, and kissed her passionately.</p>
+
+<p>"That's enough!" he said&mdash;"For if you love me, Mary, your love is love
+indeed!&mdash;it's no sham; and like all true and heavenly things, it will
+never change. I believe, if I turned out to be an utter wastrel, you'd
+love me still!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I should!" she answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you would!" and he kissed her again. "Mary, <i>my</i> Mary, if
+there were more women like you, there would be more men!&mdash;men in the
+real sense of the word&mdash;manly men, whose love and reverence for women
+would make them better and braver in the battle of life. Do you know, I
+can do anything now, with you to love me! I don't suppose,"&mdash;and here he
+unconsciously squared his shoulders&mdash;"I really don't suppose there is a
+single difficulty in my way that I won't conquer!"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled, leaning against him.</p>
+
+<p>"If you feel like that, I am very happy!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke, she raised her eyes to the sky, and uttered an involuntary
+exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, look!" she cried&mdash;"How glorious!"</p>
+
+<p>The heavens above them were glowing red,&mdash;forming a dome of burning
+rose, deepening in hue towards the sea, where the outer rim of the
+nearly vanished sun was slowly disappearing below the horizon&mdash;and in
+the centre of this ardent glory, a white cloud, shaped like a dove with
+outspread wings, hung almost motionless. The effect was marvellously
+beautiful, and Angus, full of his own joy, was more than ever conscious
+of the deep content of a spirit attuned to the infinite joy of nature.</p>
+
+<p>"It is like the Holy Grail," he said, and, with one arm round the woman
+he loved, he softly quoted the lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail,<br />
+Rose-red, with beatings in it as if alive!"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"That is Tennyson," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;that is Tennyson&mdash;the last great poet England can boast," he
+answered. "The poet who hated hate and loved love."</p>
+
+<p>"All poets are like that," she murmured.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not all, Mary! Some of the modern ones hate love and love hate!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then they are not poets," she said. "They would not see any beauty in
+that lovely sky&mdash;and they would not understand&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Us!" finished Angus. "And I assure you, Mary at the present moment, we
+are worth understanding!"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do we understand ourselves?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we don't! If we did, we should probably be miserable. It's
+just because we are mysterious one to another, that we are so happy. No
+human being should ever try to analyse the fact of existence. It's
+enough that we exist&mdash;and that we love each other. Isn't it, Mary?"</p>
+
+<p>"Enough? It is too much,&mdash;too much happiness altogether for <i>me</i>, at any
+rate," she said. "I can't believe in it yet! I can't really, Angus! Why
+should you love me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, indeed!" And his eyes grew dark and warm with tenderness&mdash;"Why
+should you love <i>me</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, there's so much to love in you!" and she made her heart's
+confession with a perfectly na&iuml;ve candour. "I daresay you don't see it
+yourself, but I do!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I assure you, Mary," he declared, with a whimsical solemnity, "that
+there's ever so much more to love in you! I know you don't see it for
+yourself, but I do!"</p>
+
+<p>Then they laughed together like two children, and all constraint was at
+an end between them. Hand in hand they descended the grassy steep of the
+"Giant's Castle"&mdash;charmed with one another, and at every step of the way
+seeing some new delight which they seemed to have missed before. The
+crimson sunset burned about them like the widening petals of a rose in
+fullest bloom,&mdash;earth caught the fervent glory and reflected it back
+again in many varying tints of brilliant colour, shading from green to
+gold, from pink to amethyst&mdash;and as they walked through the splendid
+vaporous light, it was as though they were a living part of the glory of
+the hour.</p>
+
+<p>"We must tell David," said Mary, as they reached the bottom of the hill.
+"Poor old dear! I think he will be glad."</p>
+
+<p>"I know he will!" and Angus smiled confidently. "He's been waiting for
+this ever since Christmas Day!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mary's eyes opened in wonderment.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever since Christmas Day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I told him then that I loved you, Mary,&mdash;that I wanted to ask you
+to marry me,&mdash;but that I felt I was too poor&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Her hand stole through his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Too poor, Angus! Am I not poor also?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not as poor as I am," he answered, promptly possessing himself of the
+caressing hand. "In fact, you're quite rich compared to me. You've got a
+house, and you've got work, which brings you in enough to live
+upon,&mdash;now I haven't a roof to call my own, and my stock of money is
+rapidly coming to an end. I've nothing to depend upon but my book,&mdash;and
+if I can't sell that when it's finished, where am I? I'm nothing but a
+beggar&mdash;less well off than I was as a wee boy when I herded cattle. And
+I'm not going to marry you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She stopped in her walk and looked at him with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Angus! I thought you were!"</p>
+
+<p>He kissed the hand he held.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't make fun of me, Mary! I won't allow it! I <i>am</i> going to marry
+you!&mdash;but I'm <i>not</i> going to marry you till I've sold my book. I don't
+suppose I'll get more than a hundred pounds for it, but that will do to
+start housekeeping together on. Won't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should think it would indeed!" and she lifted her head with quite a
+proud gesture&mdash;"It will be a fortune!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," he went on, "the cottage is yours, and all that is in it. I
+can't add much to that, because to my mind, it's just perfect. I never
+want any sweeter, prettier little home. But I want to work <i>for</i> you,
+Mary, so that you'll not have to work for yourself, you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded her head gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I understand! You want me to sit with my hands folded in my lap, doing
+nothing at all, and getting lazy and bad-tempered."</p>
+
+<p>"Now you know I don't!" he expostulated.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you do, Angus! If you don't want me to work, you want me to be a
+perfectly useless and tiresome woman! Why, my dearest, now that you love
+me, I should like to work all the harder! If you think the cottage
+pretty, I shall try to make it even prettier. And I don't want to give
+up all my lace-mending. It's just as pleasant and interesting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> as the
+fancy-work which the rich ladies play with You must really let me go on
+working, Angus! I shall be a perfectly unbearable person if you don't!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked so sweetly at him, that as they were at the moment passing
+under the convenient shadow of a tree he took her in his arms and kissed
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"When <i>you</i> become a perfectly unbearable person," he said, "then it
+will be time for another deluge, and a general renovation of human kind.
+You shall work if you like, my Mary, but you shall not work for <i>me</i>.
+See?"</p>
+
+<p>A tender smile lingered in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I see!" and linking her arm through his again, she moved on with him
+over the thyme-scented grass, her dress gently sweeping across the stray
+clusters of golden cowslips that nodded here and there. "<i>I</i> will work
+for myself, <i>you</i> will work for <i>me</i>, and old David will work for both
+of us!"</p>
+
+<p>They laughed joyously.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old David!" said Angus. "He's been wondering why I have not spoken
+to you before,&mdash;he declared he couldn't understand it. But then I wasn't
+quite sure whether you liked me at all&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Weren't you?" and her glance was eloquent.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;and I asked him to find out!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him in a whimsical wonderment.</p>
+
+<p>"You asked him to find out? And did he?"</p>
+
+<p>"He seems to think so. At any rate, he gave me courage to speak."</p>
+
+<p>Mary grew suddenly meditative.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, Angus," she said, "I think old David was sent to me for a
+special purpose. Some great and good influence guided him to me&mdash;I am
+sure of it. You don't know all his history. Shall I tell it to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;do tell me&mdash;but I think I know it. Was he not a former old friend
+of your father's?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;that's a story I had to invent to satisfy the curiosity of the
+villagers. It would never have done to let them know that he was only an
+old tramp whom I found ill and nearly dying out on the hills during a
+great storm we had last summer. There had been heavy thunder and
+lightning all the afternoon, and when the storm ceased I went to my door
+to watch the clearing off of the clouds, and I heard a dog yelping
+pitifully on the hill just above<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> the coombe. I went out to see what was
+the matter, and there I found an old man lying quite unconscious on the
+wet grass, looking as if he were dead, and a little dog&mdash;you know
+Charlie?&mdash;guarding him and barking as loudly as it could. Well, I
+brought him back to life, and took him home and nursed him&mdash;and&mdash;that's
+all. He told me his name was David&mdash;and that he had been 'on the tramp'
+to Cornwall to find a friend. You know the rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Then he is really quite a stranger to you, Mary?" said Angus
+wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite. He never knew my father. But I am sure if Dad had been alive, he
+would have rescued him just as I did, and then he <i>would</i> have been his
+'friend,'&mdash;he could not have helped himself. That's the way I argued it
+out to my own heart and conscience."</p>
+
+<p>Angus looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>"You darling!" he said suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"That doesn't come in!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"It does come in! It comes in everywhere!" he declared. "There's no
+other woman in the world that would have done so much for a poor forlorn
+old tramp like that, adrift on the country roads. And you exposed
+yourself to some risk, too, Mary! He might have been a dangerous
+character!"</p>
+
+<p>"Poor dear, he didn't look it," she said gently&mdash;"and he hasn't proved
+it. Everything has gone well for me since I did my best for him. It was
+even through him that you came to know me, Angus!&mdash;think of that!
+Blessings on the dear old man!&mdash;I'm sure he must be an angel in
+disguise!"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we never know!" he said. "Angels certainly don't come to us with
+all the celestial splendour which is supposed to belong to them&mdash;they
+may perhaps choose the most unlikely way in which to make their errands
+known. I have often&mdash;especially lately&mdash;thought that I have seen an
+angel looking at me out of the eyes of a woman!"</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>will</i> talk poetry!" protested Mary.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not talking it&mdash;I'm living it!" he answered.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing to be said to this. He was an incorrigible lover, and
+remonstrances were in vain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You must not tell David's real history to any of the villagers," said
+Mary presently, as they came in sight of her cottage&mdash;"I wouldn't like
+them to know it."</p>
+
+<p>"They shall never know it so far as I am concerned," he answered. "He's
+been a good friend to me&mdash;and I wouldn't cause him a moment's trouble.
+I'd like to make him happier if I could!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think that's possible,"&mdash;and her eyes were clouded for a moment
+with a shadow of melancholy&mdash;"You see he has no money, except the little
+he earns by basket-making, and he's very far from strong. We must be
+kind to him, Angus, as long as he needs kindness."</p>
+
+<p>Angus agreed, with sundry ways of emphasis that need not here be
+narrated, as they composed a formula which could not be rendered into
+set language. Arriving at the cottage they found the door open, and no
+one in the kitchen,&mdash;but on the table lay two sprigs of sweetbriar.
+Angus caught sight of them at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary! See! Don't you think he knows?"</p>
+
+<p>She stood hesitating, with a lovely wavering colour in her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you remember," he went on, "you gave me a bit of sweetbriar on
+the evening of the first day we ever met?"</p>
+
+<p>"I remember!" and her voice was very soft and tremulous.</p>
+
+<p>"I have that piece of sweetbriar still," he said; "I shall never part
+with it. And old David must have known all about it!"</p>
+
+<p>He took up the little sprays set ready for them, and putting one in his
+own buttonhole, fastened the other in her bodice with a loving,
+lingering touch.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a good emblem," he said, kissing her&mdash;"Sweet Briar&mdash;sweet
+Love!&mdash;not without thorns, which are the safety of the rose!"</p>
+
+<p>A slow step sounded on the garden path, and they saw Helmsley
+approaching, with the tiny "Charlie" running at his heels. Pausing on
+the threshold of the open door, he looked at them with a questioning
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, did you see the sunset?" he asked, "Or only each other?"</p>
+
+<p>Mary ran to him, and impulsively threw her arms about his neck.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh David!" she said. "Dear old David! I am so happy!"</p>
+
+<p>He was silent,&mdash;her gentle embrace almost unmanned him. He stretched out
+a hand to Angus, who grasped it warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"So it's all right!" he said, in a low voice that trembled a little.
+"You've settled it together?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;we've settled it, David!" Angus answered cheerily. "Give us your
+blessing!"</p>
+
+<p>"You have that&mdash;God knows you have that!"&mdash;and as Mary, in her usual
+kindly way, took his hat and stick from him, keeping her arm through his
+as he went to his accustomed chair by the fireside, he glanced at her
+tenderly. "You have it with all my heart and soul, Mr. Reay!&mdash;and as for
+this dear lady who is to be your wife, all I can say is that you have
+won a treasure&mdash;yes, a treasure of goodness and sweetness and patience,
+and most heavenly kindness&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His voice failed him, and the quick tears sprang to Mary's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, David, please stop!" she said, with a look between affection and
+remonstrance. "You are a terrible flatterer! You mustn't spoil me."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing will spoil you!" he answered, quietly. "Nothing could spoil
+you! All the joy in the world, all the prosperity in the world, could
+not change your nature, my dear! Mr. Reay knows that as well as I
+do,&mdash;and I'm sure he thanks God for it! You are all love and gentleness,
+as a woman should be,&mdash;as all women would be if they were wise!"</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment, and then, raising himself a little more uprightly in
+his chair, looked at them both earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"And now that you have made up your minds to share your lives together,"
+he went on, "you must not think that I will be so selfish as to stay on
+here and be a burden to you both. I should like to see you married, but
+after that I will go away&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You will do nothing of the sort!" said Mary, dropping on her knees
+beside him and lifting her serene eyes to his face. "You don't want to
+make us unhappy, do you? This is your home, as long as it is ours,
+remember! We would not have you leave us on any account, would we,
+Angus?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Indeed no!" answered Reay, heartily. "David, what are you talking
+about? Aren't <i>you</i> the cause of my knowing Mary? Didn't <i>you</i> bring me
+to this dear little cottage first of all? Don't I owe all my happiness
+to <i>you</i>? And you talk about going away! It's pretty evident you don't
+know what's good for you! Look here! If I'm good for anything at all,
+I'm good for hard work&mdash;and for that matter I may as well go in for the
+basket-making trade as well as the book-making profession. We've got
+Mary to work for, David!&mdash;and we'll both work for her&mdash;together!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley turned upon him a face in which the expression was difficult to
+define.</p>
+
+<p>"You really mean that?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Really mean it! Of course I do! Why shouldn't I mean it?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence, and Helmsley, looking down on Mary as she
+knelt beside him, laid his hand caressingly on her hair.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," he said gently, "that you are both too kind-hearted and
+impulsive, and that you are undertaking a task which should not be
+imposed upon you. You offer me a continued home with you after your
+marriage&mdash;but who am I that I should accept such generosity from you? I
+am not getting younger. Every day robs me of some strength&mdash;and my
+work&mdash;such work as I can do&mdash;will be of very little use to you. I may
+suffer from illness, which will cause you trouble and expense,&mdash;death is
+closer to me than life&mdash;and why should I die on your hands? It can only
+mean trouble for you if I stay on,&mdash;and though I am grateful to you with
+all my heart&mdash;more grateful than I can say"&mdash;and his voice trembled&mdash;"I
+know I ought to be unselfish,&mdash;and that the truest and best way to thank
+you for all you have done for me is to go away and leave you in peace
+and happiness&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We should not be happy without you, David!" declared Mary. "Can't you,
+won't you understand that we are both fond of you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fond of me!" And he smiled. "Fond of a useless old wreck who can
+scarcely earn a day's wage!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's rather wide of the mark, David!" said Reay. "Mary's not the
+woman&mdash;and I'm sure I'm not the man&mdash;to care for any one on account of
+the money he can make. We like you for yourself,&mdash;so don't spoil this
+happiest day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> of our lives by suggesting any separation between us. Do
+you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hear!"&mdash;and a sudden brightness flashed up in Helmsley's sunken eyes,
+making them look almost young&mdash;"And I understand! I understand that
+though I am poor and old, and a stranger to you,&mdash;you are giving me
+friendship such as rich men often seek for and never find!&mdash;and I will
+try,&mdash;yes, I will try, God helping me,&mdash;to be worthy of your trust! If I
+stay with you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There must be no 'if' in the case, David!" said Mary, smiling up at
+him.</p>
+
+<p>He stroked her bright hair caressingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, I will put it not 'if,' but as long as I stay with you," he
+answered&mdash;"as long as I stay with you, I will do all I can to show you
+how grateful I am to you,&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;I will never give you cause"&mdash;here
+he spoke more slowly, and with deliberate emphasis&mdash;"I will never give
+you cause to regret your confidence in me! I want you both to be
+glad&mdash;not sorry&mdash;that you spared a lonely old man a little of your
+affection!"</p>
+
+<p>"We <i>are</i> glad, David!"&mdash;and Mary, as he lifted his hand from her head,
+caught it and kissed it lightly. "And we shall never be sorry! And here
+is Charlie"&mdash;and she picked up the little dog as she spoke and fondled
+it playfully,&mdash;"wondering why he is not included in the family party!
+For, after all, it is quite your affair, isn't it, Charlie? <i>You</i> were
+the cause of my finding David out on the hills!&mdash;and David was the cause
+of my knowing Angus&mdash;so if it hadn't been for <i>you</i>, nothing would have
+happened at all, Charlie!&mdash;and I should have been a lonely old maid all
+the days of my life! And I can't do anything to show my gratitude to
+you, you quaint wee soul, but give you a saucer of cream!"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed, and springing up, began to prepare the tea. While she was
+moving quickly to and fro on this household business, Helmsley beckoned
+Reay to come closer to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Speak frankly, Mr. Reay!" he said. "As the master of her heart, you are
+the master of her home. I can easily slip away&mdash;and tramping is not such
+hard work in summer time. Shall I go?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you go, I shall start out and bring you back again," replied Reay,
+shaking his head at him determinedly. "You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> won't get so far but that I
+shall be able to catch you up in an hour! Please consider that you
+belong to us,&mdash;and that we have no intention of parting with you!"</p>
+
+<p>Tears rose in Helmsley's eyes, and for a moment he covered them with his
+hand. Angus saw that he was deeply moved, and to avoid noticing him,
+especially as he was somewhat affected himself by the touching
+gratefulness of this apparently poor and lonely old man, went after Mary
+with all the pleasant ease and familiarity of an accepted lover, to help
+her bring in the tea. The tiny "Charlie," meanwhile, sitting on the
+hearth in a vigilantly erect attitude, with quivering nose pointed in a
+creamward direction, waited for the approach of the expected afternoon
+refreshment, trembling from head to tail with nervous excitement. And
+Helmsley, left alone for those few moments, presently mastered the
+strong emotion which made him long to tell his true history to the two
+sincere souls who, out of his whole life's experience, had alone proved
+themselves faithful to the spirit of a friendship wherein the claims of
+cash had no part. Regaining full command of himself, and determining to
+act out the part he had elected to play to whatever end should most
+fittingly arrive,&mdash;an end he could not as yet foresee,&mdash;he sat quietly
+in his chair as usual, gazing into the fire with the meditative patience
+and calm of old age, and silently building up in a waking dream the last
+story of his House of Love,&mdash;which now promised to be like that house
+spoken of in the Divine Parable&mdash;"And the rain descended, and the floods
+came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for
+it was founded upon a rock." For as he knew,&mdash;and as we all must surely
+know,&mdash;the greatest rains and floods and winds of a world of sorrow, are
+powerless to destroy love, if love be true.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Three days later, when the dawn was scarcely declared and the earliest
+notes of the waking birds trembled on the soft air with the faint
+sweetness of a far-off fluty piping, the door of Mary Deane's cottage
+opened stealthily, and David Helmsley, dressed ready for a journey,
+stepped noiselessly out into the little garden. He wore the same
+ordinary workman's outfit in which he had originally started on his
+intended " tramp," including the vest which he had lined with banknotes,
+and which he had not used once since his stay with Mary Deane. For she
+had insisted on his wearing the warmer and softer garments which had
+once belonged to her own father,&mdash;and all these he had now taken off and
+left behind him, carefully folded up on the bed in his room. He had
+examined his money and had found it just as he had placed it,&mdash;even the
+little "surprise packet" which poor Tom o' the Gleam had collected for
+his benefit in the "Trusty Man's" common room, was still in the
+side-pocket where he had himself put it. Unripping a corner of the vest
+lining, he took out two five-pound notes, and with these in a rough
+leather purse for immediate use, and his stout ash stick grasped firmly
+in his hand, he started out to walk to the top of the coombe where he
+knew the path brought him to the verge of the highroad leading to
+Minehead. As he moved almost on tip-toe through Mary's garden, now all
+fragrant with golden wall-flowers, lilac, and mayblossom, he paused a
+moment,&mdash;looking up at the picturesque gabled eaves and latticed
+windows. A sudden sense of loneliness affected him almost to tears. For
+now he had not even the little dog Charlie with him to console him&mdash;that
+canine friend slept in a cushioned basket in Mary's room, and was
+therefore all unaware that his master was leaving him.</p>
+
+<p>"But, please God, I shall come back in a day or two!" he murmured. "
+Please God, I shall see this dear shrine of peace and love again before
+I die! Meanwhile&mdash;good-bye, Mary! Good-bye, dearest and kindest of
+women! God bless you!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He turned away with an effort&mdash;and, lifting the latch of the garden
+gate, opened it and closed it softly behind him. Then he began the
+ascent of the coombe. Not a soul was in sight,&mdash;the actual day had not
+yet begun. The hill torrent flowed along with a subdued purling sound
+over the rough stones and pebbles,&mdash;there had been little rain of late
+and the water was shallow, though clear and bright enough to gleam like
+a wavering silver ribbon in the dimness of the early morning,&mdash;and as he
+followed it upward and finally reached a point from whence the open sea
+was visible he rested a moment, leaning on his stick and looking
+backward on the way he had come. Strangely beautiful and mystical was
+the scene his eyes dwelt upon,&mdash;or rather perhaps it should be said that
+he saw it in a somewhat strange and mystical fashion of his own. There,
+out beyond the furthest edge of land, lay the ocean, shadowed just now
+by a delicate dark grey mist, which, like a veil, covered its placid
+bosom,&mdash;a mist which presently the rising sun would scatter with its
+glorious rays of gold;&mdash;here at his feet nestled Weircombe,&mdash;a cluster
+of simple cottages, sweetly adorned by nature with her fairest
+garlanding of springtime flowers,&mdash;and behind him, just across a length
+of barren moor, was the common highroad leading to the wider, busier
+towns. And he thought as he stood alone,&mdash;a frail and solitary figure,
+gazing dreamily out of himself, as it were, to things altogether beyond
+himself,&mdash;that the dim and shadowy ocean was like the vast Unknown which
+we call Death,&mdash;which we look upon tremblingly,&mdash;afraid of its darkness,
+and unable to realise that the sun of Life will ever rise again to
+pierce its gloom with glory. And the little world&mdash;the only world that
+can be called a world,&mdash;namely, that special corner of the planet which
+holds the hearts that love us&mdash;a world which for him, the
+multi-millionaire, was just a tiny village with one sweet woman living
+in it&mdash;resembled a garland of flowers flung down from the rocks as
+though to soften their ruggedness,&mdash;a garland broken asunder at the
+shoreline, even as all earthly garlands must break and fade at the touch
+of the first cold wave of the Infinite. As for the further road in which
+he was about to turn and go, that, to his fancy, was a nearer similitude
+of an approach to hell than any scene ever portrayed in Dante's <i>Divine
+Comedy</i>. For it led to the crowded haunts of men&mdash;the hives of greedy
+business,&mdash;the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> smoky, suffocating centres where each human unit seeks
+to over-reach and outrival the other&mdash;where there is no time to be
+kind&mdash;no room to be courteous; where the passion for gain and the
+worship of self are so furious and inexhaustible, that all the old fair
+virtues which make nations great and lasting, are trampled down in the
+dust, and jeered at as things contemptible and of no value,&mdash;where, if a
+man is honourable, he is asked "What do you get by it?"&mdash;and where, if a
+woman would remain simple and chaste, she is told she is giving herself
+"no chance." In this whirl of avarice, egotism, and pushfulness,
+Helmsley had lived nearly all his life, always conscious of, and longing
+for, something better&mdash;something truer and more productive of peace and
+lasting good. Almost everything he had touched had turned to
+money,&mdash;while nothing he had ever gained had turned to love. Except
+now&mdash;now when the end was drawing nigh&mdash;when he must soon say farewell
+to the little earth, so replete with natural beauty&mdash;farewell to the
+lovely sky, which whether in storm or calm, ever shows itself as a
+visible reflex of divine majesty and power&mdash;farewell to the sweet birds,
+which for no thanks at all, charm the ear by their tender songs and
+graceful wing&euml;d ways&mdash;farewell to the flowers, which, flourishing in the
+woods and fields without care, lift their cups to the sun, and fill the
+air with fragrance,&mdash;and above all, farewell to the affection which he
+had found so late!&mdash;to the heart whose truth he had tested&mdash;to the woman
+for whose sake, could he in some way have compassed her surer and
+greater happiness, he would gladly have lived half his life over again,
+working with every moment of it to add to her joy. But an instinctive
+premonition warned him that the sands in Time's hour-glass were for him
+running to an end,&mdash;there was no leisure left to him now for any new
+scheme or plan by which he could improve or strengthen that which he had
+already accomplished. He realised this fully, with a passing pang of
+regret which soon tempered itself into patient resignation,&mdash;and as the
+first arrowy beam of the rising sun shot upwards from the east, he
+slowly turned his back on the quiet hamlet where in a few months he had
+found what he had vainly sought for in many long and weary years, and
+plodded steadily across the moor to the highroad. Here he sat down on
+the bank to wait till some conveyance going to Minehead should pass
+by&mdash;for he knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> he had not sufficient strength to walk far. "Tramping
+it" now was for him impossible,&mdash;moreover, his former thirst for
+adventure was satisfied; he had succeeded in his search for "a friend"
+without going so far as Cornwall. There was no longer any cause for him
+to endure unnecessary fatigue&mdash;so he waited patiently, listening to the
+first wild morning carol of a skylark, which, bounding up from its nest
+hard by, darted into the air with quivering wings beating against the
+dispersing vapours of the dawn, and sang aloud in the full rapture of a
+joy made perfect by innocence. And he thought of the lovely lines of
+George Herbert:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean</span><br />
+Are Thy returns! Ev'n as the flowers in Spring,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To which, besides their own demean,</span><br />
+The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Grief melts away</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Like snow in May,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">As if there were no such cold thing.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Who would have thought my shrivell'd heart</span><br />
+Could have recover'd greenness? It was gone<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Quite under ground; as flowers depart</span><br />
+To see their mother-root, when they have blown,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Where they together</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">All the hard weather,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Dead to the world, keep house unknown.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"These are Thy wonders, Lord of power,</span><br />
+Killing and quick'ning, bringing down to Hell<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And up to Heaven in an hour;</span><br />
+Making a chiming of a passing bell.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">We say amiss</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">This or that is;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy Word is all, if we could spell!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"If we could spell!" he murmured, half aloud. "Ay, if we could learn
+even a quarter of the alphabet which would help us to understand the
+meaning of that 'Word!'&mdash;the Word which 'was in the beginning, and the
+word was with God, and the word <i>was</i> God!' Then we should be wise
+indeed with a wisdom that would profit us,&mdash;we should have no fears and
+no forebodings,&mdash;we should know that all is, all <i>must</i> be for the
+best!" And he raised his eyes to the slowly brightening sky. "Yet, after
+all, the attitude of simple faith is the right one for us, if we would
+call ourselves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> children of God&mdash;the faith which affirms&mdash;'Though He
+slay me, yet will I trust in Him!'"</p>
+
+<p>As he thus mused, a golden light began to spread around him,&mdash;the sun
+had risen above the horizon, and its cheerful radiance sparkled on every
+leaf and every blade of grass that bore a drop of dew. The morning mists
+rose hoveringly, paused awhile, and then lightly rolled away, disclosing
+one picture after another of exquisite sylvan beauty,&mdash;every living
+thing took up anew its burden of work and pleasure for the day, and
+"Now" was again declared the acceptable time. To enjoy the moment, and
+to make much of the moment while it lasts, is the very keynote of
+Nature's happiness, and David Helmsley found himself on this particular
+morning more or less in tune with the general sentiment. Certain sad
+thoughts oppressed him from time to time, but they were tempered and
+well-nigh overcome by the secret pleasure he felt within himself at
+having been given the means wherewith to ensure happiness for those whom
+he considered were more deserving of it than himself. And he sat
+patiently watching the landscape grow in glory as the sun rose higher
+and higher, till presently, struck by a sudden fear lest Mary Deane
+should get up earlier than usual, and missing him, should come out to
+seek for him, he left the bank by the roadside, and began to trudge
+slowly along in the direction of Minehead. He had not walked for a much
+longer time than about ten minutes, when he heard the crunching sound of
+heavy wheels behind him, and, looking back, saw a large mill waggon
+piled with sacks of flour and drawn by two sturdy horses, coming
+leisurely along. He waited till it drew near, and then called to the
+waggoner&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Will you give me a lift to Minehead for half a crown?"</p>
+
+<p>The waggoner, stout, red-faced, and jolly-looking, nodded an emphatic
+assent.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd do it for 'arf the money!" he said. "Gi' us yer 'and, old gaffer!"</p>
+
+<p>The "old gaffer" obeyed, and was soon comfortably seated between the
+projecting corners of two flour sacks, which in their way were as
+comfortable as cushions.</p>
+
+<p>"'Old on there," said the waggoner, "an' ye'll be as safe as though ye
+was in Abram's bosom. Not that I knows much about Abram anyway. Wheer
+abouts d'ye want in Minehead?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The railway station."</p>
+
+<p>"Right y' are! That's my ticket too. Tired o' trampin' it, I s'pose,
+aint ye?"</p>
+
+<p>"A bit tired&mdash;yes. I've walked since daybreak."</p>
+
+<p>The waggoner cracked his whip, and the horses plodded on. Their heavy
+hoofs on the dusty road, and the noise made by the grind of the cart
+wheels, checked any attempt at prolonged conversation, for which
+Helmsley was thankful. He considered himself lucky in having met with a
+total stranger, for the name of the owner of the waggon, which was duly
+displayed both on the vehicle itself and the sacks of flour it
+contained, was unknown to him, and the place from which it had come was
+an inland village several miles away from Weircombe. He was therefore
+safe&mdash;so far&mdash;from any chance of recognition. To be driven along in a
+heavy mill cart was a rumblesome, drowsy way of travelling, but it was
+restful, and when Minehead was at last reached, he did not feel himself
+at all tired. The waggoner had to get his cargo of flour off by rail, so
+there was no lingering in the town itself, which was as yet scarcely
+astir. They were in time for the first train going to Exeter, and
+Helmsley, changing one of his five-pound notes at the railway station,
+took a third-class ticket to that place. Then he paid the promised
+half-crown to his friendly driver, with an extra threepence for a
+morning "dram," whereat the waggoner chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>"Thankee! I zee ye be no temp'rance man!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"No. I'm a sober man, not a temperance man!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay! We'd a parzon in these 'ere parts as was temp'rance, but 'e took
+'is zpirits different like! 'E zkorned 'is glass, but 'e loved 'is gel!
+Har&mdash;ar&mdash;ar! Ivir 'eerd o' Parzon Arbroath as woz put out o' the Church
+for 'avin' a fav'rite?"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw something about it in the papers," said Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, 'twoz in the papers. Har&mdash;ar&mdash;ar! 'E woz a temp'rance man. But wot
+I sez is, we'se all a bit o' devil in us, an' we can't be temp'rance
+ivry which way. An' zo, if not the glass, then the gel! Har&mdash;ar&mdash;ar!
+Good-day t' ye, an' thank ye kindly!"</p>
+
+<p>He went off then, and a few minutes later the train came gliding in. The
+whirr and noise of the panting engine confused Helmsley's ears and dazed
+his brain, after his months<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> of seclusion in such a quiet little spot as
+Weircombe,&mdash;and he was seized with quite a nervous terror and doubt as
+to whether he would be able, after all, to undertake the journey he had
+decided upon, alone. But an energetic porter put an end to his
+indecision by opening all the doors of the various compartments in the
+train and banging them to again, whereupon he made up his mind quickly,
+and managed, with some little difficulty, to clamber up the high step of
+a third-class carriage and get in before the aforesaid porter had the
+chance to push him in head foremost. In another few minutes the engine
+whistle set up a deafening scream, and the train ran swiftly out of the
+station. He was off;&mdash;the hills, the sea, were left behind&mdash;and
+Weircombe&mdash;restful, simple little Weircombe, seemed not only miles of
+distance, but ages of time away! Had he ever lived there, he hazily
+wondered? Would he ever go back? Was he "old David the basket-maker," or
+David Helmsley the millionaire? He hardly knew. It did not seem worth
+while to consider the problem of his own identity. One figure alone was
+real,&mdash;one face alone smiled out of the cloudy vista of thoughts and
+memories, with the true glory of an ineffable tenderness&mdash;the sweet,
+pure face of Mary, with her clear and candid eyes lighting every
+expression to new loveliness. On Angus Reay his mind did not dwell so
+much&mdash;Angus was a man&mdash;and as a man he regarded him with warm liking and
+sympathy&mdash;but it was as the future husband and protector of Mary that he
+thought of him most&mdash;as the one out of all the world who would care for
+her, when he, David Helmsley, was no more. Mary was the centre of his
+dreams&mdash;the pivot round which all his last ambitions in this world were
+gathered together in one focus,&mdash;without her there was, there could be
+nothing for him&mdash;nothing to give peace or comfort to his last
+days&mdash;nothing to satisfy him as to the future of all that his life had
+been spent to gain.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime,&mdash;while the train bearing him to Exeter was rushing along
+through wide and ever-varying stretches of fair landscape,&mdash;there was
+amazement and consternation in the little cottage he had left behind
+him. Mary, rising from a sound night's sleep, and coming down to the
+kitchen as usual to light the fire and prepare breakfast, saw a letter
+on the table addressed to her, and opening, it read as follows:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">My dear Mary</span>,&mdash;Do not be anxious this morning when you find that I
+am gone. I shall not be long away. I have an idea of getting some
+work to do, which may be more useful to you and Angus than my poor
+attempts at basket-making. At any rate I feel it would be wrong if
+I did not try to obtain some better paying employment, of a kind
+which I can do at home, so that I may be of greater assistance to
+you both when you marry and begin your double housekeeping. Old
+though I am and ailing, I want to feel less of a burden and more of
+a help. You will not think any the worse of me for wishing this.
+You have been so good and charitable to me in my need, that I
+should not die happy if I, in my turn, did not make an effort to
+give you some substantial proof of gratitude. This is Tuesday
+morning, and I shall hope to be home again with you before Sunday.
+In the meanwhile, do not worry at all about me, for I feel quite
+strong enough to do what I have in my mind. I leave Charlie with
+you. He is safest and happiest in your care. Good-bye for a little
+while, dear, kind friend, and God bless you!</p></div>
+
+<p>
+<span class="smcap">David</span>."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>She read this with amazement and distress, the tears welling up in her
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, David!" she exclaimed. "Poor, poor old man! What will he do all by
+himself, wandering about the country with no money! It's dreadful! How
+could he think of such a thing! He is so weak, too!&mdash;he can't possibly
+get very far!"</p>
+
+<p>Here a sudden thought struck her, and picking up Charlie, who had
+followed her downstairs from her bedroom and was now trotting to and
+fro, sniffing the air in a somewhat disconsolate and dubious manner, she
+ran out of the house bareheaded, and hurried up to the top of the
+"coombe." There she paused, shading her eyes from the sun and looking
+all about her. It was a lovely morning, and the sea, calm and sparkling
+with sunbeams, shone like a blue glass flecked with gold. The sky was
+clear, and the landscape fresh and radiant with the tender green of the
+springtime verdure. But everything was quite solitary. Vainly her glance
+swept from left to right and from right to left again,&mdash;there was no
+figure in sight such as the one she sought and half-expected to
+discover. Putting Charlie down to follow at her heels, she walked
+quickly across the intervening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> breadth of moor to the highroad, and
+there paused, looking up and down its dusty length, hoping against hope
+that she might see David somewhere trudging slowly along on his lonely
+way, but there was not a human creature visible. Charlie, assuming a
+highly vigilant attitude, cocked his tiny ears and sniffed the air
+suspiciously, as though he scented the trail of his lost master, but no
+clue presented itself as likely to serve the purpose of tracking the way
+in which he had gone. Moved by a sudden loneliness and despondency, Mary
+slowly returned to the cottage, carrying the little dog in her arms, and
+was affected to tears again when she entered the kitchen, because it
+looked so empty. The bent figure, the patient aged face, on which for
+her there was ever a smile of grateful tenderness&mdash;these had composed a
+picture by her fireside to which she had grown affectionately
+accustomed,&mdash;and to see it no longer there made her feel almost
+desolate. She lit the fire listlessly and prepared her own breakfast
+without interest&mdash;it was a solitary meal and lacked flavour. She was
+glad when, after breakfast, Angus Reay came in, as was now his custom,
+to say good-morning, and to "gain inspiration,"&mdash;so he told her,&mdash;for
+his day's work. He was no less astonished than herself at David's sudden
+departure.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old chap! I believe he thinks he is in our way, Mary!" he said, as
+he read the letter of explanation which their missing friend had left
+behind him. "And yet he says quite plainly here that he will be back
+before Sunday. Perhaps he will. But where can he have gone to?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not far, surely!" and Mary looked, as she felt, perplexed. "He has no
+money!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a penny?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a penny! He makes me take everything he earns to help pay for his
+keep and as something towards the cost of his illness last year. I don't
+want it&mdash;but it pleases him that I should have it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course&mdash;I understand that,"&mdash;and Angus slipped an arm round her
+waist, while he read the letter through again. "But if he hasn't a
+penny, how can he get along?"</p>
+
+<p>"He must be on the tramp again," said Mary. "But he isn't strong enough
+to tramp. I went up the coombe this morning and right out to the
+highroad, for I thought I might see him and catch up with him&mdash;because I
+know it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> would take him ever so long to walk a mile. But he had gone
+altogether."</p>
+
+<p>Reay stood thinking.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you what, Mary," he said at last, "I'll take a brisk walk down
+the road towards Minehead. I should think that's the only place where
+he'd try for work. I daresay I shall overtake him."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes brightened.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that's quite possible,"&mdash;and she was evidently pleased at the
+suggestion. "He's so old and feeble, and you're so strong and quick on
+your feet&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Quick with my lips, too," said Angus, promptly kissing her. "But I
+shall have to be on my best behaviour now you're all alone in the
+cottage, Mary! David has left you defenceless!"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed, but as she raised her eyes questioningly to his face, grew
+serious.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my Mary! You'll have to stay by your own sweet lonesome! Otherwise
+all the dear, kind, meddlesome old women in the village will talk! Mrs.
+Twitt will lead the chorus, with the best intentions, unless&mdash;and this
+is a dreadful alternative!&mdash;you can persuade her to come up and play
+propriety!"</p>
+
+<p>The puzzled look left her face, and she smiled though a wave of colour
+flushed her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I see what you mean, Angus! But I'm too old to want looking
+after&mdash;I can look after myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you?" And he took her into his arms and held her fast. "And how
+will you do it?"</p>
+
+<p>She was silent a moment, looking into his eyes with a grave and musing
+tenderness. Then she said quietly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"By trusting you, my love, now and always!"</p>
+
+<p>Very gently he released her from his embrace&mdash;very reverently he kissed
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"And you shall never regret your trust, you dear, sweet angel of a
+woman! Be sure of that! Now I'm off to look for David&mdash;I'll try and
+bring him back with me. By the way, Mary, I've told Mr. and Mrs. Twitt
+and good old Bunce that we are engaged&mdash;so the news is now the public
+property of the whole village. In fact, we might just as well have put
+up the banns and secured the parson!"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed his bright, jovial laugh, and throwing on his cap went out,
+striding up the coombe with swift, easy steps,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> whistling joyously "My
+Nannie O" as he made the ascent. Twice he turned to wave his hand to
+Mary who stood watching him from her garden gate, and then he
+disappeared. She waited a moment among all the sweetly perfumed flowers
+in her little garden, looking at the bright glitter of the hill stream
+as it flowed equably by.</p>
+
+<p>"How wonderful it is," she thought, "that God should have been so good
+to me! I have done nothing to deserve any love at all, and yet Angus
+loves me! It seems too beautiful to be real! I am not worthy of such
+happiness! Sometimes I dare not think too much of it lest it should all
+prove to be only a dream! For surely no one in the world could wish for
+a better life than we shall live&mdash;Angus and I&mdash;in this dear little
+cottage together,&mdash;he with his writing, which I know will some day move
+the world,&mdash;and I with my usual work, helping as much as I can to make
+his life sweet to him. For we have the great secret of all joy&mdash;we love
+each other!"</p>
+
+<p>With her eyes full of the dreamy light of inward heart's content, she
+turned and went into the house. The sight of David's empty chair by the
+fire troubled her,&mdash;but she tried to believe that Angus would succeed in
+finding him on the highroad, and in persuading him to return at once.
+Towards noon Mrs. Twitt came in, somewhat out of breath, on account of
+having climbed the village street more rapidly than was her custom on
+such a warm day as it had turned out to be, and straightway began
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Wonders 'ull never cease, Mis' Deane, an' that's a fact!" she said,
+wiping her hot face with the corner of her apron&mdash;"An' while there's
+life there's 'ope! I'd as soon 'a thought o' Weircombe Church walkin'
+down to the shore an' turnin' itself into a fishin' smack, as that you'd
+a' got engaged to be married! I would, an' that's a Gospel truth! Ye
+seemed so steady like an' settled&mdash;lor' a mussy me!" And here, despite
+her effort to look serious, a broad smile got the better of her. "An' a
+fine man too you've got,&mdash;none o' your scallywag weaklings as one sees
+too much of nowadays, but a real upright sort o' chap wi' no nonsense
+about 'im. An' I wishes ye well, Mary, my dear,"&mdash;and the worthy soul
+took Mary's hand in hers and gave her a hearty kiss. "For it's never too
+late to mend, as the Scripter tells us, an' forbye ye're not in yer
+green gooseberry days there's those as thinks ripe fruit better than
+sour-growin' young codlings. An' ye<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> may take 'art o' grace for one
+thing&mdash;them as marries young settles quickly old&mdash;an' to look at the
+skin an' the 'air an' the eyes of ye, you beat ivery gel I've ivir seen
+in the twenties, so there's good preservin' stuff in ye wot'll last. An'
+I bet you're more fond o' the man ye've got late than if ye'd caught 'im
+early!"</p>
+
+<p>Mary laughed, but her eyes were full of wistful tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>"I love him very dearly," she said simply&mdash;"And I know he's a great deal
+too good for me."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Twitt sniffed meaningly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm not in any way sure o' that," she observed. "When a man's too
+good for a woman it's what we may call a Testymen' miracle. For the
+worst wife as ivir lived is never so bad as a bad 'usband. There's a
+suthin' in a man wot's real devil-like when it gits the uppermost of
+'im&mdash;an' 'e's that crafty born that I've known 'im to be singin' hymns
+one hour an' drinkin' 'isself silly the next. 'Owsomever, Mister Reay
+seems a decent chap, forbye 'e do give 'is time to writin' which don't
+appear to make 'is pot boil&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but he will be famous!" interrupted Mary exultantly. "I know he
+will!"</p>
+
+<p>"An' what's the good o' that?" enquired Mrs. Twitt. "If bein' famous is
+bein' printed about in the noospapers, I'd rather do without it if I wos
+'im. Parzon Arbroath got famous that way!" And she chuckled. "But the
+great pint is that you an' 'e is a-goin' to be man an' wife, an' I'm
+right glad to 'ear it, for it's a lonely life ye've been leadin' since
+yer father's death, forbye ye've got a bit o' company in old David. An'
+wot'll ye do with David when you're married?"</p>
+
+<p>"He'll stay on with us, I hope," said Mary. "But this morning he has
+gone away&mdash;and we don't know where he can have gone to."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Twitt raised her eyes and hands in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Gone away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." And Mary showed her the letter Helmsley had written, and
+explained how Angus Reay had started off to walk towards Minehead, in
+the hope of overtaking the wanderer.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I never!" And Mrs. Twitt gave a short gasp of wonder. "Wants to
+find employment, do 'e? The poor old innercent! Why, Twitt would 'a
+given 'im a job in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> the stoneyard if 'e'd 'a known. He'll never find a
+thing to do anywheres on the road at 'is age!"</p>
+
+<p>And the news of David's sudden and lonely departure affected her more
+powerfully than the prospect of Mary's marriage, which had, in the first
+place, occupied all her mental faculties.</p>
+
+<p>"An' that reminds me," she went on, "of 'ow the warnin' came to me
+yesterday when I was a-goin' out to my wash-tub an' I slipt on a bit o'
+potato peelin'. That's allus a sign of a partin' 'twixt friends. Put
+that together with the lump o' clinkers as flew out o' the fire last
+week and split in two in the middle of the kitchen, an' there ye 'ave it
+all writ plain. I sez to Twitt&mdash;'Suthin's goin' to 'appen'&mdash;an' 'e sez
+in 'is fool way&mdash;'G'arn, old woman, suthin's allus a-'appenin'
+somewheres'&mdash;then when Mister Reay looked in all smiles an' sez
+'Good-mornin', Twitt! I'm goin' to marry Miss Mary Deane! Wish us joy!'
+Twitt, 'e up an' sez, 'There's your suthin', old gel! A marriage!' an' I
+sez, 'Not at all, Twitt&mdash;not at all, Mister Reay, if I may make so bold,
+but slippin' on peel don't mean marriage, nor yet clinkers, though two
+spoons in a saucer does convey 'ints o' the same, an' two spoons was in
+Twitt's saucer only this very mornin'. Which I wishes both man an' woman
+as runs the risk everlastin' joy!' An' Twitt, as is allus puttin' in 'is
+word where 'taint wanted, sez, 'Don't talk about everlastin' joy,
+mother, 'tis like a hepitaph'&mdash;which I answers quick an' sez, 'Your mind
+may run on hepitaphs, Twitt, seein' 'tis your livin', but mine don't do
+no such thing, an' when I sez everlastin' joy for man an' wife, I means
+it.' An' then Mister Reay comes an' pats me on the shoulder cosy like
+an' sez, 'Right you are, Mrs. Twitt!' an' 'e walks off laughin', an'
+Twitt 'e laughs too an' sez, 'Good luck to the bridegroom an' the
+bride,' which I aint denyin', but there was still the thought o' the
+potato peel an' the clinker, an' it's come clear to-day now I've 'eerd
+as 'ow poor old David's gone!" She paused to take breath, and shook her
+head solemnly. "It's my opinion 'e'll never come back no more!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't say that!" exclaimed Mary, distressed. "Don't even think it!"</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Twitt was not to be shaken in her pronouncement.</p>
+
+<p>"'E'll never come back no more!" she said. "An' the children on the
+shore 'ull miss 'im badly, for 'e was a reg'lar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> Father Christmas to
+'em, not givin' presents by any manner o' means, 'avin' none to give,
+but tellin' 'em stories as kep' 'em quiet an' out of 'arms way for
+'ours,&mdash;an' mendin' their toys an' throwin' their balls an' spinnin'
+their tops like the 'armless old soul 'e was! I'm right sorry 'e's gone!
+Weircombe 'll miss 'im for sartin sure!"</p>
+
+<p>And this was the general feeling of the whole village when the
+unexpected departure of "old David" became known. Angus Reay, returning
+in the afternoon, reported that he had walked half the way, and had
+driven the other half with a man who had given him a lift in his trap,
+right into Minehead, but had seen and heard nothing of the missing waif
+and stray. Coming back to Weircombe with the carrier's cart, he had
+questioned the carrier as to whether he had seen the old man anywhere
+along the road, but this inquiry likewise met with failure.</p>
+
+<p>"So the only thing to do, Mary," said Angus, finally, "is to believe his
+own written word,&mdash;that he will be back with us before Sunday. I don't
+think he means to leave you altogether in such an abrupt way,&mdash;that
+would be churlish and ungrateful&mdash;and I'm sure he is neither."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's anything but churlish!" she answered quickly. "He has always
+been most thoughtful and kind to me; and as for gratitude!&mdash;why, the
+poor old dear makes too much of it altogether&mdash;one would think I had
+given him a fortune instead of just taking common human care of him. I
+expect he must have worked in some very superior house of business, for
+though he's so poor, he has all the ways of a gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>"What are the ways of a gentleman, my Mary?" demanded Angus, gaily. "Do
+you know? I mean, do you know what they are nowadays? To stick a cigar
+in one's mouth and smoke it all the time a woman is present&mdash;to keep
+one's hat on before her, and to talk to her in such a loose, free and
+easy fashion as might bring one's grandmother out of her grave and make
+her venerable hair curl! Those are the 'ways' of certain present-time
+'gentlemen' who keep all the restaurants and music-halls of London
+going&mdash;and I don't rank good old David with these. I know what <i>you</i>
+mean&mdash;you mean that he has all the fine feeling, delicacy and courtesy
+of a gentleman, as 'gentlemen' used to be before our press was degraded
+to its present level by certain clowns and jesters who make it their
+business to jeer at every "gentlemanly"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> feeling that ever inspired
+humanity&mdash;yes, I understand! He is a gentleman of the old
+school,&mdash;well,&mdash;I think he is&mdash;and I think he would always be that, if
+he tramped the road till he died. He must have seen better days."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, I'm sure of that!" said Mary. "So many really capable men get
+turned out of work because they are old&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's one advantage about my profession," interrupted Angus.
+"No one can turn <i>me</i> out of literature either for young or old age, if
+I choose to make a name in it! Think of that, my Mary! The glorious
+independence of it! An author is a law unto himself, and if he succeeds,
+he is the master of his own fate. Publishers are his humble
+servants&mdash;waiting eagerly to snatch up his work that they may get all
+they can for themselves out of it,&mdash;and the public&mdash;the great public
+which, apart from all 'interested' critical bias, delivers its own
+verdict, is always ready to hearken and to applaud the writer of its
+choice. There is no more splendid and enviable life!&mdash;if I could only
+make a hundred pounds a year by it, I would rather be an author than a
+king! For if one has something in one's soul to say&mdash;something that is
+vital, true, and human as well as divine, the whole world will pause to
+listen. Yes, Mary! In all its toil and stress, its scheming for
+self-advantage, its political changes, its little temporary passing
+shows of empires and monarchies, the world will stop to hear what the
+Thinker and the Writer tells it! The words of old Socrates still ring
+down the ages&mdash;the thoughts of Shakespeare are still the basis of
+English literature!&mdash;what a grand life it is to be among the least of
+one of the writing band! I tell you, Mary, that even if I fail, I shall
+be proud to have at any rate <i>tried</i> to succeed!"</p>
+
+<p>"You will not fail!" she said, her eyes glowing with enthusiasm. "I
+shall see you win your triumph!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if I cannot conquer everything with you by my side, I shall be
+but a poor and worthless devil!" he answered. "And now I must be off and
+endeavour to make up for my lost time this morning, running after David!
+Poor old chap! Don't worry about him, Mary. I think you may take his
+word for it that he means to be back before Sunday."</p>
+
+<p>He left her then, and all the day and all the evening too she spent the
+time alone. It would have been impossible to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> her to express in words
+how greatly she missed the companionship of the gentle old man who had
+so long been the object of her care. There was a sense of desolate
+emptiness in the little cottage such as had not so deeply affected her
+for years&mdash;not indeed since the first months following immediately on
+her own father's death. That Angus Reay kept away was, she knew, care
+for her on his part. Solitary woman as she was, the villagers, like all
+people who live in very small, mentally restricted country places, would
+have idly gossiped away her reputation had she received her lover into
+her house alone. So she passed a very dismal time all by herself; and
+closing up the house early, took little Charlie in her arms and went to
+bed, where, much to her own abashment, she cried herself to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, David himself, for whom she fretted, had arrived in Exeter.
+The journey had fatigued him considerably, though he had been able to
+get fairly good food and a glass of wine at one of the junctions where
+he had changed <i>en route</i>. On leaving the Exeter railway station, he
+made his way towards the Cathedral, and happening to chance on a very
+small and unpretending "Temperance Hotel" in a side street, where a
+placard intimating that "Good Accommodation for Travellers" might be had
+within, he entered and asked for a bedroom. He obtained it at once, for
+his appearance was by no means against him, being that of a respectable
+old working man who was prepared to pay his way in a humble, but
+perfectly honest fashion. As soon as he had secured his room, which was
+a curious little three-cornered apartment, partially obscured by the
+shadows of the many buttresses of the Cathedral, his next care was to go
+out into the High Street and provide himself with a good stock of
+writing materials. These obtained, he returned to his temporary lodging,
+where, after supper, he went to bed early in order to rise early. With
+the morning light he was up and dressed, eager to be at work,&mdash;an inrush
+of his old business energy came back on him,&mdash;his brain was clear, his
+mental force keen and active. There happened to be an old-fashioned oak
+table in his room, and drawing this to the window, he sat down to write
+the document which his solicitor and friend, Sir Francis Vesey, had so
+often urged him to prepare&mdash;his Will. He knew what a number of legal
+technicalities might, or could be involved in this business, and was
+therefore careful to make it as short, clear, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> concise as possible,
+leaving no chance anywhere open of doubt or discussion. And with a firm,
+unwavering pen, in his own particularly distinct and characteristic
+caligraphy, he disposed of everything of which he died possessed
+"absolutely and without any conditions whatsoever" to Mary Deane,
+spinster, at present residing in Weircombe, Somerset, adding the hope
+that she would, if she saw fit to do so, carry out certain requests of
+his, the testator's, as conveyed privately to her in a letter
+accompanying the Will. All the morning long he sat thoughtfully
+considering and weighing each word he used&mdash;till at last, when the
+document was finished to his satisfaction, he folded it up, and putting
+it in his pocket, started out to get his midday meal and find a lawyer's
+office. He was somewhat surprised at his own alertness and vigour as he
+walked through the streets of Exeter on this quest;&mdash;excitement buoyed
+him up to such a degree that be was not conscious of the slightest
+fatigue or lassitude&mdash;he felt almost young. He took his lunch at a small
+restaurant where he saw city clerks and others of that type going in,
+and afterwards, strolling up a dull little street which ended in a <i>cul
+de sac</i>, he spied a dingy archway, offering itself as an approach to a
+flight of equally dingy stairs. Here a brass plate, winking at the
+passer-by, stated that "Rowden and Owlett, Solicitors," would be found
+on the first floor. Helmsley paused, considering a moment&mdash;then, making
+up his mind that "Rowden and Owlett" would suit his purpose as well as
+any other equally unknown firm, he slowly climbed the steep and unwashed
+stair. Opening the first door at the top of the flight, he saw a small
+boy leaning both arms across a large desk, and watching the gyrations of
+two white mice in a revolving cage.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!" said the boy sharply, "what d' ye want?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see Mr. Rowden or Mr. Owlett," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Right y' are!" and the boy promptly seized the cage containing the
+white mice and hid it in a cupboard. "You're our first caller to-day.
+Mr. Rowden's gone to Dawlish,&mdash;but Mr. Owlett's in. Wait a minute."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley obeyed, sitting down in a chair near the door, and smiling to
+himself at the evidences of slack business which the offices of Messrs.
+Rowden and Owlett presented. In about five minutes the boy returned, and
+gave him a confidential nod.</p>
+
+<p>"You can go in now," he said; "Mr. Owlett was taking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> his after-dinner
+snooze, but he's jumped up at once, and he's washed his hands and face,
+so he's quite ready for business. This way, please!"</p>
+
+<p>He beckoned with a rather dirty finger, and Helmsley followed him into a
+small apartment where Mr. Owlett, a comfortably stout, middle-aged
+gentleman, sat at a large bureau covered with papers, pretending to
+read. He looked up as his hoped-for client entered, and flushed redly in
+the face with suppressed vexation as he saw that it was only a working
+man after all&mdash;"Some fellow wanting a debt collected," he decided,
+pushing away his papers with a rather irritated movement. However, in
+times when legal work was so scarce, it did not serve any good purpose
+to show anger, so, smoothing his ruffled brow, he forced a reluctantly
+condescending smile, as his office-boy, having ushered in the visitor,
+left the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Good afternoon, my man!" he said, with a patronising air. "What can I
+do for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, not so very much, sir," and Helmsley took off his hat
+deferentially, standing in an attitude of humility. "It's only a matter
+of making my Will,&mdash;I've written it out myself, and if you would be so
+good as to see whether it is all in order, I'm prepared to pay you for
+your trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, certainly, certainly!" Here Mr. Owlett took off his spectacles and
+polished them. "I suppose you know it's not always a wise thing to draw
+up your own Will yourself? You should always let a lawyer draw it up for
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, I've heard that," answered Helmsley, with an air of
+respectful attention&mdash;"And that's why I've brought the paper to you, for
+if there's anything wrong with it, you can put it right, or draw it up
+again if you think proper. Only I'd rather not be put to more expense
+than I can help."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so!" And the worthy solicitor sighed, as he realised that there
+were no "pickings" to be made out of his present visitor&mdash;"Have you
+brought the document with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir!" Helmsley fumbled in his pocket, and drew out the paper with
+a well-assumed air of hesitation; "I'm leaving everything I've got to a
+woman who has been like a daughter to me in my old age&mdash;my wife and
+children are dead&mdash;and I've no one that has any blood claim on me&mdash;so I
+think the best thing I can do is to give everything I've got to the one
+that's been kind to me in my need."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Very right&mdash;very proper!" murmured Mr. Owlett, as he took the offered
+document from Helmsley's hand and opened it&mdash;"Um&mdash;um!&mdash;let me see!&mdash;--"
+Here he read aloud&mdash;"I, David
+Helmsley,&mdash;um&mdash;um!&mdash;Helmsley&mdash;Helmsley!&mdash;that's a name that I seem to
+have heard somewhere!&mdash;David Helmsley!&mdash;yes!&mdash;why that's the name of a
+multi-millionaire!&mdash;ha-ha-ha! A multi-millionaire! That's curious! Do
+you know, my man, that your name is the same as that of one of the
+richest men in the world?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley permitted himself to smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, sir? You don't say so!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes!" And Mr. Owlett fixed his spectacles on his nose and beamed
+at his humble client through them condescendingly&mdash;"One of the richest
+men in the world!" And he smacked his lips as though he had just
+swallowed a savoury morsel&mdash;"Amazing! Now if you were he, your Will
+would be a world's affair&mdash;a positively world's affair!"</p>
+
+<p>"Would it indeed?" And again Helmsley smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody would talk of it," proceeded Owlett, lost in rapturous
+musing&mdash;"The disposal of a rich man's millions is always a most
+interesting subject of conversation! And you actually didn't know you
+had such a rich namesake?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, I did not."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah well! I suppose you live in the country, and people in the country
+seldom hear of the names that are famous in towns. Now let me consider
+this Will again&mdash;'I, David Helmsley, being in sound health of mind and
+body, thanks be to God, do make this to be my Last Will and Testament,
+revoking all former Wills, Codicils and Testamentary Dispositions. First
+I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping and
+believing, through the merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour, to be made
+partaker of life everlasting'&mdash;Dear me, dear me!" and Mr. Owlett took
+off his spectacles. "You must be a very old-fashioned man! This sort of
+thing is not at all necessary nowadays!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not necessary, perhaps," said Helmsley gently&mdash;"But there is no harm in
+putting it in, sir, I hope?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there's no harm! It doesn't affect the Will itself, of
+course,&mdash;but&mdash;but&mdash;it's odd&mdash;it's unusual! You see nobody minds what
+becomes of your Soul, or your Body either&mdash;the only question of
+importance to any one is what is to be done with your Money!"</p>
+
+<p>"I see!" And Helmsley nodded his head and spoke with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> perfect
+mildness&mdash;"But I'm an old man, and I've lived long enough to be fonder
+of old-fashioned ways than new, and I should like, if you please, to let
+it be known that I died a Christian, which is, to me, not a member of
+any particular church or chapel, but just a Christian&mdash;a man who
+faithfully believes in the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ."</p>
+
+<p>The attorney stared at him astonished, and moved by a curious sense of
+shame. There was something both pathetic and dignified in the aspect of
+this frail old "working man," who stood before him so respectfully with
+his venerable white hair uncovered, and his eyes full of an earnest
+resolution which was not to be gainsaid. Coughing a cough of nervous
+embarrassment, he again glanced at the document before him.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," he said&mdash;"if you wish it, there is not the slightest
+objection to your making this&mdash;this public statement as to your
+religious convictions. It does not affect the disposal of your worldly
+goods in any way. It used&mdash;yes, it used to be quite the ordinary way of
+beginning a Last Will and Testament&mdash;but we have got beyond any special
+commendation of our souls to God, you know&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, I quite understand that," rejoined Helmsley. "Present-day
+people like to think that God takes no interest whatever in His own
+creation. It's a more comfortable doctrine to believe that He is
+indifferent rather than observant. But, so far as I'm concerned, I don't
+go with the time."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I see you don't," and Mr. Owlett bent his attention anew on the
+Will&mdash;"And the religious preliminary being quite unimportant, you shall
+have it your own way. Apart from that, you've drawn it up quite
+correctly, and in very good form. I suppose you understand that you have
+in this Will left 'everything' to the named legatee, Mary Deane,
+spinster, that is to say, excluding no item whatsoever? That she becomes
+the possessor, in fact, of your whole estate?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley bent his head in assent.</p>
+
+<p>"That is what I wish, sir, and I hope I have made it clear."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you have made it quite clear. There is no room for discussion on
+any point. You wish us to witness your signature?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you please, sir."</p>
+
+<p>And he advanced to the bureau ready to sign. Mr. Owlett rang a bell
+sharply twice. An angular man with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> youngish face and a very elderly
+manner answered the summons.</p>
+
+<p>"My confidential clerk," said Owlett, briefly introducing him. "Here,
+Prindle! I want you to be witness with me to this gentleman's Will."</p>
+
+<p>Prindle bowed, and passed his hand across his mouth to hide a smile.
+Prindle was secretly amused to think that a working man had anything to
+leave worth the trouble of making a Will at all. Mr. Owlett dipped a pen
+in ink, and handed it to his client. Whereat, Helmsley wrote his
+signature in a clear, bold, unfaltering hand. Mr. Owlett appended his
+own name, and then Prindle stepped up to sign. As he saw the signature
+"David Helmsley," he paused and seemed astonished. Mr. Owlett gave a
+short laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"We know that name, don't we, Prindle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, I should say all the world knew it!" replied Prindle.</p>
+
+<p>"All the world&mdash;yes!&mdash;all except our friend here," said Owlett, nodding
+towards Helmsley. "You didn't know, my man, did you, that there was a
+multi-millionaire existing of the same name as yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, I did not!" answered Helmsley. "I hope he's made his Will!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope he has!" laughed the attorney. "There'll be a big haul for the
+Crown if he hasn't!"</p>
+
+<p>Prindle, meanwhile, was slowly writing "James George Prindle, Clerk to
+the aforesaid Robert Owlett" underneath his legal employer's signature.</p>
+
+<p>"I should suggest," said Mr. Owlett, addressing David, jocosely, "that
+you go and make yourself known to the rich Mr. Helmsley as a namesake of
+his!"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you, sir? And why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he might be interested. Men as rich as he is always want a new
+'sensation' to amuse them. And he might, for all you know, make you a
+handsome present, or leave you a little legacy!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled&mdash;he very nearly laughed. But he carefully guarded his
+equanimity.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you for the hint, sir! I'll try and see him some day!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hear he's dead," said Prindle, finishing the signing of his name and
+laying down his pen. "It was in the papers some time back."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But it was contradicted," said Owlett quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but I think it was true all the same," and Prindle shook his head
+obstinately. "The papers ought to know."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, they ought to know, but in nine cases out of ten they <i>don't</i>
+know," declared Owlett. "And if you contradict their lies, they're so
+savage at being put in the wrong that they'll blazon the lies all the
+more rather than confess them. That will do, Prindle! You can go."</p>
+
+<p>Prindle, aware that his employer was not a man to be argued with, at
+once retired, and Owlett, folding up the Will, handed it to Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," he said, "I suppose you want to take it with you?
+You can leave it with us if you like."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, but I'd rather have it about me," Helmsley answered. "You
+see I'm old and not very strong, and I might die at any time. I'd like
+to keep my Will on my own person."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, take care of it, that's all," said the solicitor, smiling at what
+he thought his client's rustic <i>na&iuml;vet&eacute;</i>. "No matter how little you've
+got to leave, it's just as well it should go where you want it to go
+without trouble or difficulty. And there's generally a quarrel over
+every Will."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope there's no chance of any quarrel over mine," said Helmsley, with
+a touch of anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no! Not the least in the world! Even if you were as great a
+millionaire as the man who happens to bear the same name as yourself,
+the Will would hold good."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you!" And Helmsley placed on the lawyer's desk more than his
+rightful fee, which that respectable personage accepted without any
+hesitation. "I'm very much obliged to you. Good afternoon!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good afternoon!" And Mr. Owlett leaned back in his chair, blandly
+surveying his visitor. "I suppose you quite understand that, having made
+your legatee, Mary Deane, your sole executrix likewise, you give her
+absolute control?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, I quite understand that!" answered Helmsley. "That is what I
+wish her to have&mdash;the free and absolute control of all I die possessed
+of."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you may be quite easy in your mind," said the lawyer. "You have
+made that perfectly clear."</p>
+
+<p>Whereat Helmsley again said "Good afternoon," and again Mr. Owlett
+briefly responded, sweeping the money his client had paid him off his
+desk, and pocketing the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> with that resigned air of injured virtue
+which was his natural expression whenever he thought of how little good
+hard cash a country solicitor could make in the space of twenty-four
+hours. Helmsley, on leaving the office, returned at once to his lodging
+under the shadow of the Cathedral and resumed his own work, which was
+that of writing several letters to various persons connected with his
+financial affairs, showing to each and all what a grip he held, even in
+absence, on the various turns of the wheel of fortune, and dating all
+his communications from Exeter, "at which interesting old town I am
+making a brief stay," he wrote, for the satisfaction of such curiosity
+as his correspondents might evince, as well as for the silencing of all
+rumours respecting his supposed death. Last of all he wrote to Sir
+Francis Vesey, as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">My dear Vesey</span>,&mdash;On this day, in the good old city of Exeter, I
+have done what you so often have asked me to do. I have made my
+Will. It is drawn up entirely in my own handwriting, and has been
+duly declared correct and valid by a legal firm here, Messrs.
+Rowden and Owlett. Mr. Owlett and Mr. Owlett's clerk were good
+enough to witness my signature. I wish you to consider this
+communication made to you in the most absolute confidence, and as I
+carry the said document, namely my 'Last Will and Testament,' upon
+my person, it will not reach your hands till I am no more. Then I
+trust you will see the business through without unnecessary trouble
+or worry to the person who, by my desire, will inherit all I have
+to leave.</p>
+
+<p>"I have spent nearly a year of almost perfect happiness away from
+London and all the haunts of London men, and I have found what I
+sought, but what you probably doubted I could ever find&mdash;Love! The
+treasures of earth I possess and have seldom enjoyed&mdash;but the
+treasure of Heaven,&mdash;that pure, disinterested, tender affection,
+which bears the stress of poverty, sickness, and all other kindred
+ills,&mdash;I never had till now. And now the restless craving of my
+soul is pacified. I am happy,&mdash;moreover, I am perfectly at ease as
+regards the disposal of my wealth when I am gone. I know you will
+be glad to hear this, and that you will see that my last wishes and
+instructions are faithfully carried out in every respect&mdash;that is,
+if I should die before I see you again, which I hope may not be the
+case.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"It is my present intention to return to London shortly, and tell
+you personally the story of such adventures as have chanced to me
+since I left Carlton House Terrace last July, but 'man proposes,
+and God disposes,' and one can be certain of nothing. I need not
+ask you to keep all my affairs going as if I myself were on the
+scene of action, and also to inform the servants of my household to
+prepare for my return, as I may be back in town any day. I must
+thank you for your prompt and businesslike denial of the report of
+my death, which I understand has been circulated by the press. I am
+well&mdash;as well as a man of my age can expect to be, save for a
+troublesome heart-weakness, which threatens a brief and easy ending
+to my career. But for this, I should esteem myself stronger than
+some men who are still young. And one of the strongest feelings in
+me at the present moment (apart altogether from the deep affection
+and devout gratitude I have towards the one who under my Will is to
+inherit all I have spent my life to gain) is my friendship for you,
+my dear Vesey,&mdash;a friendship cemented by the experience of years,
+and which I trust may always be unbroken, even remaining in your
+mind as an unspoilt memory after I am gone where all who are weary,
+long, yet fear to go! Nevertheless, my faith is firm that the
+seeming darkness of death will prove but the veil which hides the
+light of a more perfect life, and I have learned, through the
+purity of a great and unselfish human love, to believe in the truth
+of the Love Divine.&mdash;Your friend always,</p></div>
+
+<p>
+<span class="smcap">David Helmsley</span>."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>This letter finished, he went out and posted it with all the others he
+had written, and then passed the evening in listening to the organist
+practising grave anthems and voluntaries in the Cathedral. Every little
+item he could think of in his business affairs was carefully gone over
+during the three days he spent in Exeter,&mdash;nothing was left undone that
+could be so arranged as to leave his worldly concerns in perfect and
+unquestionable order&mdash;and when, as "Mr. David," he paid his last daily
+score at the little Temperance hotel where he had stayed since the
+Tuesday night, and started by the early train of Saturday morning on his
+return to Minehead, he was at peace with himself and all men. True it
+was that the making of his will had brought home to him the fact that it
+was not the same thing as when, being in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> prime of life, he had made
+it in favour of his two sons, who were now dead,&mdash;it was really and
+truly a final winding-up of his temporal interests, and an admitted
+approach to the verge of the Eternal,&mdash;but he was not depressed by this
+consciousness. On the contrary, a happy sense of perfect calm pervaded
+his whole being, and as the train bore him swiftly through the quiet,
+lovely land back to Minehead, that sea-washed portal to the little
+village paradise which held the good angel of his life, he silently
+thanked God that he had done the work which he had started out to do,
+and that he had been spared to return and look again into the beloved
+face of the one woman in all the world who had given him a true
+affection without any "motive," or hope of reward. And he murmured again
+his favourite lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"Let the sweet heavens endure,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not close nor darken above me,</span><br />
+Before I am quite, quite sure<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That there is one to love me!</span><br />
+Then let come what come may,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To a life that has been so sad,</span><br />
+I shall have had my day!"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"That is true!" he said&mdash;"And being 'quite, quite sure' beyond all
+doubt, that I have found 'one to love me' whose love is of the truest,
+holiest and purest, what more can I ask of Divine goodness!"</p>
+
+<p>And his face was full of the light of a heart's content and peace, as
+the dimpled hill coast of Somerset came into view, and the warm spring
+sunshine danced upon the sea.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Arriving at Minehead, Helmsley passed out of the station unnoticed by
+any one, and made his way easily through the sunny little town. He was
+soon able to secure a "lift" towards Weircombe in a baker's cart going
+half the way; the rest of the distance he judged he could very well
+manage to walk, albeit slowly. A fluttering sense of happiness, like the
+scarcely suppressed excitement of a boy going home from school for the
+holidays, made him feel almost agile on his feet,&mdash;if he had only had a
+trifle more strength he thought he could have run the length of every
+mile stretching between him and the dear cottage in the coombe, which
+had now become the central interest of his life. The air was so pure,
+the sun so bright&mdash;the spring foliage was so fresh and green, the birds
+sang so joyously&mdash;all nature seemed to be in such perfect tune with the
+deep ease and satisfaction of his own soul, that every breath he took
+was more or less of a thanksgiving to God for having been spared to
+enjoy the beauty of such halcyon hours. By the willing away of all his
+millions to one whom he knew to be of a pure, noble, and incorruptible
+nature, a great load had been lifted from his mind,&mdash;he had done with
+world's work for ever; and by some inexplicable yet divine compensation
+it seemed as though the true meaning of the life to come had been
+suddenly disclosed to him, and that he was allowed to realise for the
+first time not only the possibility, but the certainty, that Death is
+not an End, but a new Beginning. And he felt himself to be a free
+man,&mdash;free of all earthly confusion and worry&mdash;free to recommence
+another cycle of nobler work in a higher and wider sphere of action, And
+he argued with himself thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A man is born into this world without his own knowledge or consent. Yet
+he finds himself&mdash;also without his own knowledge or consent&mdash;surrounded
+by natural beauty and perfect order&mdash;he finds nothing in the planet
+which can be accounted valueless&mdash;he learns that even a grain of dust
+has its appointed use, and that not a sparrow shall fall to the ground
+without 'Our Father.' Everything is ready to his hand to minister to his
+reasonable wants&mdash;and it is only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> when he misinterprets the mystic
+meaning of life, and puts God aside as an 'unknown quantity,' that
+things go wrong. His mission is that of progress and advancement&mdash;but
+not progress and advancement in base material needs and pleasures,&mdash;the
+progress and advancement required of him is primarily spiritual. For the
+spiritual, or Mind, is the only Real. Matter is merely the husk in which
+the seed of Spirit is enclosed&mdash;and Man's mistake is always that he
+attaches himself to the perishable husk instead of the ever germinating
+seed. He advances, but advances wrongly, and therefore has to go back
+upon his steps. He progresses in what he calls civilisation, which so
+long as it is purely self-aggrandisement, is but a common circle,
+bringing him back in due course to primitive savagery. Now I, for
+example, started in life to make money&mdash;I made it, and it brought me
+power, which I thought progress; but now, at the end of my tether, I see
+plainly that I have done no good in my career save such good as will
+come from my having placed all my foolish gainings under the control of
+a nature simpler and therefore stronger than my own. And I, leaving my
+dross behind me, must go forward and begin again&mdash;spiritually the wiser
+for my experience of this world, which may help me better to understand
+the next."</p>
+
+<p>Thus he mused, as he slowly trudged along under the bright and burning
+sun&mdash;happy enough in his thoughts except that now and then a curious
+touch of foreboding fear came over him as to whether anything ill had
+happened to Mary in his absence.</p>
+
+<p>"For one never knows!"&mdash;and a faint shudder came over him as he
+remembered Tom o' the Gleam, and the cruel, uncalled-for death of his
+child, the only human creature left to him in the world to care for.
+"One can never tell, whether in the scheme of creation there is such a
+being as a devil, who takes joy in running counter to the beneficent
+intentions of the Creator! Light exists&mdash;and Darkness. Good seems
+co-equal with Evil. It is all mystery! Now, suppose Mary were to die?
+Suppose she were, at this very moment, dead?"</p>
+
+<p>Such a horror came over him as this idea presented itself to his mind
+that he trembled from head to foot, and his brain grew dizzy. He had
+walked for a longer time than he knew since the cart in which he had
+ridden part of the way had left him at about four miles away from
+Weircombe, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> he felt that he must sit down on the roadside and rest
+for a bit before going further. How cruel, how fiendish it would be, he
+continued to imagine, if Mary were dead! It would be devil's work!&mdash;and
+he would have no more faith in God! He would have lost his last
+hope,&mdash;and he would fall into the grave a despairing atheist and
+blasphemer! Why, if Mary were dead, then the world was a snare, and
+heaven a delusion!&mdash;truth a trick, and goodness a lie! Then&mdash;was all the
+past, the present, and future hanging for him like a jewel on the finger
+of one woman? He was bound to admit that it was so. He was also bound to
+admit that all the past, present, and future had, for poor Tom o' the
+Gleam, been centred in one little child. And&mdash;God?&mdash;no, not God&mdash;but a
+devil, using as his tools devilish men,&mdash;had killed that child! Then,
+might not that devil kill Mary? His head swam, and a sickening sense of
+bafflement and incompetency came over him. He had made his will,&mdash;that
+was true!&mdash;but who could guarantee that she whom he had chosen as his
+heiress would live to inherit his wealth?</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I did not think of such horrible things!" he said wearily&mdash;"Or I
+wish I could walk faster, and get home&mdash;home to the little cottage
+quickly, and see for myself that she is safe and well!"</p>
+
+<p>Sitting among the long grass and field flowers by the roadside, he
+grasped his stick in one hand and leaned his head upon that support,
+closing his eyes in sheer fatigue and despondency. Suddenly a sound
+startled him, and he struggled to his feet, his eyes shining with an
+intent and eager look. That clear, tender voice!&mdash;that quick, sweet cry!</p>
+
+<p>"David!"</p>
+
+<p>He listened with a vague and dreamy sense of pleasure. The soft patter
+of feet across the grass&mdash;the swish of a dress against the leaves, and
+then&mdash;then&mdash;why, here was Mary herself, one tress of her lovely hair
+tumbling loose in the sun, her eyes bright and her cheeks crimson with
+running.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, David, dear old David! Here you are at last! Why <i>did</i> you go away!
+We have missed you dreadfully! David, you look <i>so</i> tired!&mdash;where have
+you been? Angus and I have been waiting for you ever so long,&mdash;you said
+in your letter you would be back by Sunday, and we thought you would
+likely choose to-day to come&mdash;oh, David?&mdash;you are quite worn out!
+Don't&mdash;don't give way!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For with the longed-for sight of her, the world's multi-millionaire had
+become only a weak, over-wrought old man, and his tired heart had leaped
+in his breast with quite a poor and common human joy which brought the
+tears falling from his eyes despite himself. She was beside him in a
+moment, her arm thrown affectionately about his shoulders, and her sweet
+face turned up close to his, all aglow with sympathy and tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you leave us?" she went on with a gentle playfulness, though
+the tears were in her own eyes. "Whatever made you think of getting work
+out of Weircombe? Oh, you dissatisfied old boy! I thought you were quite
+happy with me!"</p>
+
+<p>He took her hand and held it a moment, then pressed it to his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Happy!" he murmured. "My dear, I was <i>too</i> happy!&mdash;and I felt that I
+owed you too much! I went away for a bit just to see if I could do
+something for you more profitable than basket-making&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Mary nodded her head at him in wise-like fashion, just as if he were a
+spoilt child.</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay you did!" she said, smiling. "And what's the end of it all,
+eh?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her, and in the brightness of her smile, smiled also.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the end of it all is that I've come back to you in exactly the
+same condition in which I went away," he said. "No richer,&mdash;no poorer!
+I've got nothing to do. Nobody wants old people on their hands nowadays.
+It's a rough time of the world!"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll always find the world rough on you if you turn your back on
+those that love you!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>He lifted his head and gazed at her with such a pained and piteous
+appeal, that her heart smote her. He looked so very ill, and his worn
+face with the snow-white hair ruffled about it, was so pallid and thin.</p>
+
+<p>"God forbid that I should do that!" he murmured tremulously. "God
+forbid! Mary, you don't think I would ever do that?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;of course not!" she answered soothingly. "Because you see, you've
+come back again. But if you had gone away altogether&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You'd have thought me an ungrateful, worthless old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> rascal, wouldn't
+you?" And the smile again sparkled in his dim eyes. "And you and Angus
+Reay would have said&mdash;'Well, never mind him! He served one useful
+purpose at any rate&mdash;he brought us together!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, David!" said Mary, holding up a warning finger, "You know we
+shouldn't have talked in such a way of you at all! Even if you had never
+come back, we should always have thought of you kindly&mdash;and I should
+have always loved you and prayed for you!"</p>
+
+<p>He was silent, mentally pulling himself together. Then he put his arm
+gently through hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go home," he said. "I can walk now. Are we far from the coombe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not ten minutes off," she answered, glad to see him more cheerful and
+alert. "By the short cut it's just over the brow of the hill. Will you
+come that way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Any way you like to take me," and leaning on her arm he walked bravely
+on. "Where is Angus?"</p>
+
+<p>"I left him sitting under a tree at the top of the coombe near the
+Church," she replied. "He was busy with his writing, and I told him I
+would just run across the hill and see if you were coming. I had a sort
+of fancy you would be tramping home this morning! And where have you
+been all these days?"</p>
+
+<p>"A good way," he answered evasively. "I'm rather a slow walker."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think you were!" and she laughed good-humouredly. "You must
+have been pretty near us all the while!"</p>
+
+<p>He made no answer, and together they paced slowly across the grass,
+sweet with the mixed perfume of thousands of tiny close-growing herbs
+and flowers which clung in unseen clumps to the soil. All at once the
+quaint little tower of Weircombe Church thrust its ivy-covered summit
+above the edge of the green slope which they were ascending, and another
+few steps showed the glittering reaches of the sunlit sea. Helmsley
+paused, and drew a deep breath.</p>
+
+<p>"I am thankful to see it all again!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>She waited, while leaning heavily on her arm he scanned the whole fair
+landscape with a look of eager love and longing. She saw that he was
+very tired and exhausted, and wondered what he had been doing with
+himself in his days of absence from her care, but she had too much
+delicacy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> and feeling for him to ask him any questions. And she was glad
+when a cheery "Hillo!" echoed over the hill and Angus appeared, striding
+across the grass and waving his cap in quite a jubilant fashion. As soon
+as he saw them plainly he exchanged his stride for a run and came up to
+them in a couple of minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, David!" he exclaimed. "How are you, old boy? Welcome back! So Mary
+is right as usual! She said she was sure you would be home to-day!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley could not speak. He merely returned the pressure of Reay's
+warm, strong hand with all the friendly fervour of which he was capable.
+A glance from Mary's eyes warned Angus that the old man was sorely
+tired&mdash;and he at once offered him his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Lean on me, David," he said. "Strong as bonnie Mary is, I'm just a bit
+stronger. We'll be across the brae in no time! Charlie's at home keeping
+house!"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed, and Helmsley smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor wee Charlie!" he said. "Did he miss me?"</p>
+
+<p>"That he did!" answered Mary. "He's been quite lonesome, and not
+contented at all with only me. Every morning and every night he went
+into your room looking for you, and whined so pitifully at not finding
+you that I had quite a trouble to comfort him."</p>
+
+<p>"More tender-hearted than many a human so-called 'friend'!" murmured
+Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"Why yes, of course!" said Reay. "There's nothing more faithful on earth
+than a faithful dog&mdash;except"&mdash;and he smiled&mdash;"a faithful husband!"</p>
+
+<p>Mary laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Or a faithful wife&mdash;which?" she playfully demanded. "How does the old
+rhyme go&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+'A wife, a dog, and a walnut tree,<br />
+The more you beat 'em, the better they be!'<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Are you going to try that system when we are married, Angus?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed again, and without waiting for an answer, ran on a little in
+front, in order to be first across the natural bridge which separated
+them from the opposite side of the "coombe," and from the spot where the
+big chestnut-tree waved its fan-like green leaves and plumes of pinky<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>
+white blossom over her garden gate. Another few steps made easily with
+the support of Reay's strong arm, and Helmsley found himself again in
+the simple little raftered cottage kitchen, with Charlie tearing madly
+round and round him in ecstasy, uttering short yelps of joy. Something
+struggled in his throat for utterance,&mdash;it seemed ages since he had last
+seen this little abode of peace and sweet content, and a curious
+impression was in his mind of having left one identity here to take up
+another less pleasing one elsewhere. A deep, unspeakable gratitude
+overwhelmed him,&mdash;he felt to the full the sympathetic environment of
+love,&mdash;that indescribable sense of security which satisfies the heart
+when it knows it is "dear to some one else."</p>
+
+<p>
+"If I be dear to some one else,<br />
+Then I should be to myself more dear."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>For there is nothing in the whole strange symphony of human life, with
+its concordances and dissonances, that strikes out such a chord of
+perfect music as the consciousness of love. To feel that there is one at
+least in the world to whom you are more dear than to any other living
+being, is the very centralisation of life and the mainspring of action.
+For that one you will work and plan,&mdash;for that one you will seek to be
+noble and above the average in your motives and character&mdash;for that one
+you will, despite a multitude of drawbacks, agree to live. But without
+this melodious note in the chorus all the singing is in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Led to his accustomed chair by the hearth, Helmsley sank into it
+restfully, and closed his eyes. He was so thoroughly tired out mentally
+and physically with the strain he had put upon himself in undertaking
+his journey, as well as in getting through the business he had set out
+to do, that he was only conscious of a great desire to sleep. So that
+when he shut his eyes for a moment, as he thought, he was quite unaware
+that he fell into a dead faint and so remained for nearly half an hour.
+When he came to himself again, Mary was kneeling beside him with a very
+pale face, and Angus was standing quite close to him, while no less a
+personage than Mr. Bunce was holding his hand and feeling his pulse.</p>
+
+<p>"Better now?" said Mr. Bunce, in a voice of encouraging<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> mildness. "We
+have done too much. We have walked too far. We must rest."</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled&mdash;the little group of three around him looked so
+troubled, while he himself felt nothing unusual.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" he asked. "I'm all right&mdash;quite all right. Only
+just a little tired!"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly!" And Mr. Bunce nodded profoundly. "Just a little tired! We
+have taken a very unnecessary journey away from our friends, and we are
+suffering for it! We must now be very good; we must stay at home and
+keep quiet!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley looked from one to the other questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I'm ill?" he asked. "I'm not, really! I feel very well."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right, David, dear!" said Mary, patting his hand. "But you
+<i>are</i> tired&mdash;you know you are!"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes rested on her fondly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'm tired," he confessed. "But that's nothing." He waited a
+minute, looking at them all. "That's nothing! Is it, Mr. Bunce?"</p>
+
+<p>"When we are young it is nothing," replied Mr. Bunce cautiously. "But
+when we are old, we must be careful!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Shake hands, Bunce!" he said, suiting the action to the word. "I'll
+obey your orders, never fear! I'll sit quiet!"</p>
+
+<p>And he showed so much cheerfulness, and chatted with them all so
+brightly, that, for the time, anxiety was dispelled. Mr. Bunce took his
+departure promptly, only pausing at the garden gate to give a hint to
+Angus Reay.</p>
+
+<p>"He will require the greatest care. Don't alarm Miss Deane&mdash;but his
+heart was always weak, and it has grown perceptibly weaker. He needs
+complete repose."</p>
+
+<p>Angus returned to the cottage somewhat depressed after this, and from
+that moment Helmsley found himself surrounded with evidences of tender
+forethought for his comfort such as no rich man could ever obtain for
+mere cash payment. The finest medical skill and the best trained nursing
+are, we know, to be had for money,&mdash;but the soothing touch of love,&mdash;the
+wordless sympathy which manifests itself in all the looks and movements
+of those by whom a life is really and truly held precious&mdash;these are
+neither to be bought nor sold. And David Helmsley in his assumed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span>
+character of a man too old and too poor to have any so-called "useful"
+friends&mdash;a mere wayfarer on the road apparently without a home, or any
+prospect of obtaining one,&mdash;had, by the simplest, yet strangest chance
+in the world, found an affection such as he had never in his most
+successful and most brilliant days been able to win. He upon whom the
+society women of London and Paris had looked with greedy and speculative
+eyes, wondering how much they could manage to get out of him, was now
+being cared for by one simple-hearted sincere woman, who had no other
+motive for her affectionate solicitude save gentlest compassion and
+kindness;&mdash;he whom crafty kings had invited to dine with them because of
+his enormous wealth, and because is was possible that, for the "honour"
+of sitting at the same table with them he might tide them over a
+financial difficulty, was now tended with more than the duty and
+watchfulness of a son in the person of a poor journalist, kicked out of
+employment for telling the public certain important facts concerning
+financial "deals" on the part of persons of influence&mdash;a journalist, who
+for this very cause was likely never more to be a journalist, but rather
+a fighter against bitter storm and stress, for the fair wind of popular
+favour,&mdash;that being generally the true position of any independent
+author who has something new and out of the common to say to the world.
+Angus Reay, working steadily and hopefully on his gradually diminishing
+little stock of money, with all his energies bent on cutting a diamond
+of success out of the savagely hard rock of human circumstance, was more
+filial in his respect and thought for Helmsley than either of Helmsley's
+own sons had been; while his character was as far above the characters
+of those two ne'er-do-weel sprouts of their mother's treachery as light
+is above darkness. And the multi-millionaire was well content to rest in
+the little cottage where he had found a real home, watching the quiet
+course of events,&mdash;and waiting&mdash;waiting for something which he found
+himself disposed to expect&mdash;a something to which he could not give a
+name.</p>
+
+<p>There was quite a little rejoicing in the village of Weircombe when it
+was known he had returned from his brief wanderings, and there was also
+a good deal of commiseration expressed for him when it was known that he
+was somewhat weakened in physical health by his efforts to find<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> more
+paying work. Many of the children with whom he was a favourite came up
+to see him, bringing little knots of flowers, or curious trophies of
+weed and shells from the seashore&mdash;and now that the weather was settled
+fine and warm, he became accustomed to sit in his chair outside the
+cottage door in the garden, with the old sweetbriar bush shedding
+perfume around him, and a clambering rose breaking into voluptuous
+creamy pink blossom above his head. Here he would pursue his occupation
+of basket-making, and most of the villagers made it their habit to pass
+up and down at least once or twice a day in their turns, to see how he
+fared, or, as they themselves expressed it, "to keep old David going."
+His frail bent figure, his thin, intellectual face, with its composed
+expression of peace and resignation, his soft white hair, and his slow
+yet ever patiently working hands, made up a picture which, set in the
+delicate framework of leaf and blossom, was one to impress the
+imagination and haunt the memory. Mr. and Mrs. Twitt were constant
+visitors, and many were the would-be jocose remarks of the old
+stonemason on David's temporary truancy.</p>
+
+<p>"Wanted more work, did ye?" And thrusting his hands deep in the pockets
+of his corduroys, Twitt looked at him with a whimsical complacency.
+"Well, why didn't ye come down to the stoneyard an' learn 'ow to cut a
+hepitaph? Nice chippy, easy work in its way, an' no 'arm in yer sittin'
+down to it. Why didn't ye, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've never had enough education for such work as that, Mr. Twitt,"
+answered David mildly, with something of a humorous sparkle in his eyes.
+"I'm afraid I should spoil more than I could pay for. You want an
+artist&mdash;not an untrained clumsy old fellow like me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, blow artists!" said Mr. Twitt irreverently. "They talks a lot&mdash;they
+talks yer 'ed off&mdash;but they doos onny 'arf the labour as they spends in
+waggin' their tongues. An' for a hepitaph, they none of 'em aint got an
+idee. It's allus Scripter texes with 'em,&mdash;they aint got no 'riginality.
+Now I'm a reg'lar Scripter reader, an' nowheres do I find it writ as
+we're to use the words o' God Himself to carve on tombstones for our
+speshul convenience, cos we aint no notions o' feelin' an' respect of
+our own. But artists can't think o' nothin', an' I never cares to employ
+'em. Yet for all that there's not a sweeter, pruttier place than our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span>
+little cemetery nowheres in all the world. There aint no tyranny in it,
+an' no pettifoggin' interference. Why, there's places in England where
+ye can't put what ye likes over the grave o' yer dead friends!&mdash;ye've
+got to 'submit' yer idee to the parzon, or wot's worse, the Corporation,
+if ser be yer last go-to-bed place is near a town. There's a town I know
+of," and here Mr. Twitt began to laugh,&mdash;"wheer ye can't 'ave a moniment
+put up to your dead folk without 'subjectin'' the design to the Town
+Council&mdash;an' we all knows the fine taste o' Town Councils! They'se
+'artists,' an' no mistake! I've got the rules of the cemetery of that
+town for my own eddification. They runs like this&mdash;" And drawing a paper
+from his pocket, he read as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'All gravestones, monuments, tombs, tablets, memorials, palisades,
+curbs, and inscriptions shall be subject to the approval of the Town
+Council; and a drawing, showing the form, materials, and dimensions of
+every gravestone, monument, tomb, tablet, memorial, palisades, or curb
+proposed to be erected or fixed, together with a copy of the inscription
+intended to be cut thereon (if any), on the form provided by the Town
+Council, must be left at the office of the Clerk at least ten days
+before the first Tuesday in any month. The Town Council reserve to
+themselves the right to remove or prevent the erection of any monument,
+tomb, tablet, memorial, etc., which shall not have previously received
+their sanction.' There! What d' ye think of that?"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley had listened in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Think? I think it is monstrous!" he said, with some indignation. "Such
+a Town Council as that is a sort of many-headed tyrant, resolved to
+persecute the unhappy townspeople into their very graves!"</p>
+
+<p>"Right y' are!" said Twitt. "But there's a many on 'em! An' ye may thank
+yer stars ye're not anywheres under 'em. Now when <i>you</i> goes the way o'
+all flesh&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He paused, suddenly embarrassed, and conscious that he had perhaps
+touched on a sore subject. But Helmsley reassured him.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Twitt? Don't stop!&mdash;what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then," said Twitt, almost tenderly, "ye'll 'ave our good old
+parzon to see ye properly tucked under a daisy quilt, an' wotever ye
+wants put on yer tomb, or wotever's writ on it, can be yer own desire,
+if ye'll think about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> it afore ye goes. An' there'll be no expense at
+all&mdash;for I tell ye just the truth&mdash;I've grown to like ye that well that
+I'll carve ye the pruttiest little tombstone ye ever seed for nothin'!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I shan't be able to thank you then, Mr. Twitt, so I thank you
+now," he said. "You know a good deed is always rewarded, if not in this
+world, then in the next."</p>
+
+<p>"I b'leeve that," rejoined Twitt; "I b'leeve it true. And though I know
+Mis' Deane is that straight an' 'onest, she'd see ye properly mementoed
+an' paid for, I wouldn't take a penny from 'er&mdash;not on account of a
+kindly old gaffer like yerself. I'd do it all friendly."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you would!" and Helmsley shook his hand heartily; "And of
+course you <i>will</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>This, and many other conversations he had with Twitt and a certain few
+of the villagers, showed him that the little community of Weircombe
+evidently thought of him as being not long for this world. He accepted
+the position quietly, and passed day after day peacefully enough,
+without feeling any particular illness, save a great weakness in his
+limbs. He was in himself particularly happy, for Mary was always with
+him, and Angus passed every evening with them both. Another great
+pleasure, too, he found in the occasional and entirely unobtrusive
+visits of the parson of the little parish&mdash;a weak and ailing man
+physically, but in soul and intellect exceptionally strong. As different
+from the Reverend Mr. Arbroath as an old-time Crusader would be from a
+modern jockey, he recognised the sacred character of his mission as an
+ordained minister of Christ, and performed that mission simply and
+faithfully. He would sit by Helmsley's chair of a summer afternoon and
+talk with him as friend to friend&mdash;it made no difference to him that to
+all appearances the old man was poor and dependent on Mary Deane's
+bounty, and that his former life was, to him, the clergyman, a sealed
+book; he was there to cheer and to comfort, not to inquire, reproach, or
+condemn. He was the cheeriest of companions, and the most hopeful of
+believers.</p>
+
+<p>"If all clergymen were like you, sir," said Helmsley to him one day,
+"there would be no atheists!"</p>
+
+<p>The good man reddened at the compliment, as though he had been accused
+of a crime.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You think too kindly of my efforts," he said gently. "I only speak to
+you as I would wish others to speak to me."</p>
+
+<p>"'For this is the Law and the Prophets!'" murmured Helmsley. "Sir, will
+you tell me one thing&mdash;are there many poor people in Weircombe?"</p>
+
+<p>The clergyman looked a trifle surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes, to tell the exact truth, they are all poor people in
+Weircombe," he answered. "You see, it is really only a little fishing
+village. The rich people's places are situated all about it, here and
+there at various miles of distance, but no one with money lives in
+Weircombe itself."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet every one seems happy," said Helmsley thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, every one not only seems, but <i>is</i> happy!" and the clergyman
+smiled. "They have the ordinary troubles that fall to the common lot, of
+course&mdash;but they are none of them discontented. There's very little
+drunkenness, and as a consequence, very little quarrelling. They are a
+good set of people&mdash;typically English of England!"</p>
+
+<p>"If some millionaire were to leave every man, woman, and child a
+thousand or more pounds apiece, I wonder what would happen?" suggested
+Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"Their joy would be turned to misery!" said the clergyman&mdash;"and their
+little heaven would become a hell! Fortunately for them, such a disaster
+is not likely to happen!"</p>
+
+<p>Helmsley was silent; and after his kindly visitor had left him that day
+sat for a long time absorbed in thought, his hands resting idly on the
+osiers which he was gradually becoming too weak to bend.</p>
+
+<p>It was now wearing on towards the middle of June, and on one fine
+morning when Mary was carefully spreading out on a mending-frame a
+wonderful old flounce of priceless <i>point d'Alen&ccedil;on</i> lace, preparatory
+to examining the numerous repairs it needed, Helmsley turned towards her
+abruptly with the question&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"When are you and Angus going to be married, my dear?"</p>
+
+<p>Mary smiled, and the soft colour flew over her face at the suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, not for a long time yet, David!" she replied. "Angus has not yet
+finished his book,&mdash;and even when it is all done, he has to get it
+published. He won't have the banns put up till the book is accepted."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Won't he?" And Helmsley's eyes grew very wistful. "Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's for quite a good reason, after all," she said. "He wants to
+feel perfectly independent. You see, if he could get even a hundred
+pounds down for his book he would be richer than I am, and it would be
+all right. He'd never marry me with nothing at all of his own."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet <i>you</i> would marry him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not sure that I would," and she lifted her hand with a prettily
+proud gesture. "You see, David, I really love him! And my love is too
+strong and deep for me to be so selfish as to wish to drag him down. I
+wouldn't have him lower his own self-respect for the world!"</p>
+
+<p>"Love is greater than self-respect!" said Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, David! You know better than that! There's no love <i>without</i>
+self-respect&mdash;no real love, I mean. There are certain kinds of stupid
+fancies called love&mdash;but they've no 'wear' in them!" and she laughed.
+"They wouldn't last a month, let alone a lifetime!"</p>
+
+<p>He sighed a little, and his lips trembled nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid, my dear,&mdash;I'm afraid I shall not live to see you married!"
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>She left her lace frame and came to his side.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say that, David! You mustn't think it for a moment. You're much
+better than you were&mdash;even Mr. Bunce says so!"</p>
+
+<p>"Even Mr. Bunce!" And he took her hand in his own and studied its smooth
+whiteness and beautiful shape attentively&mdash;anon he patted it tenderly.
+"You have a pretty hand, Mary! It's a rare beauty!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it?" And she looked at her rosy palm meditatively. "I've never
+thought much about it&mdash;but I've noticed that Angus and you both have
+nice hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Especially Angus!" said Helmsley, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>Her face reflected the smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Especially Angus!"</p>
+
+<p>After this little conversation Helmsley was very quiet and thoughtful.
+Often indeed he sat with eyes closed, pretending to sleep, in order
+inwardly to meditate on the plans he had most at heart. He saw no reason
+to alter them,&mdash;though the idea presented itself once or twice as to
+whether he should not reveal his actual identity to the clergyman who
+visited him so often, and who was, apart from his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> sacred calling, not
+only a thinking, feeling, humane creature, but a very perfect gentleman.
+But on due reflection he saw that this might possibly lead to awkward
+complications, so he still resolved to pursue the safer policy of
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>One evening, when Angus Reay had come in as usual to sit awhile and chat
+with him before he went to bed, he could hardly control a slight nervous
+start when Reay observed casually&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, David, that old millionaire I told you about, Helmsley,
+isn't dead after all!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;isn't he?" And Helmsley feigned to be affected with a troublesome
+cough which necessitated his looking away for a minute. "Has he turned
+up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;he's turned up. That is to say, that he's expected back in town
+for the 'season,' as the Cooing Column of the paper says."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what's the Cooing Column?" asked Mary, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"The fashionable intelligence corner," answered Angus, joining in her
+laughter. "I call it the Cooing Column, because it's the place where all
+the doves of society, soiled and clean, get their little grain of
+personal advertisement. They pay for it, of course. There it is that the
+disreputable Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup gets it announced that she wore a
+collar of diamonds at the Opera, and there the battered, dissipated Lord
+'Jimmy' Jenkins has it proudly stated that his yacht is undergoing
+'extensive alterations.' Who in the real work-a-day, sane world cares a
+button whether his lordship Jenkins sails in his yacht or sinks in it!
+And Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup's diamonds are only so much fresh fuel piled
+on the burning anguish of starving and suffering men,&mdash;anguish which
+results in anarchy. Any number of anarchists are bred from the Cooing
+Column!"</p>
+
+<p>"What would you have rich men do?" asked Helmsley suddenly. "If all
+their business turns out much more successfully than they have ever
+expected, and they make millions almost despite their own desire, what
+would you have them do with their wealth?"</p>
+
+<p>Angus thought a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be difficult to advise," he said at last. "For one thing I
+would not have them pauperise two of the finest things in this world and
+the best worth fighting for&mdash;Education and Literature. The man who has
+no struggle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> at all to get himself educated is only half a man. And
+literature which is handed to the people free of cost is shamed by being
+put at a lower level than beer and potatoes, for which every man has to
+<i>pay</i>. Andrew Carnegie I look upon as one of the world's big meddlers. A
+'cute' meddler too, for he takes care to do nothing that hasn't got his
+name tacked on to it. However, I'm in great hopes that his pauperising
+of Scottish University education may in time wear itself out, and that
+Scotsmen will be sufficiently true to the spirit of Robert Burns to
+stick to the business of working and paying for what they get. I hate
+all things that are given <i>gratis</i>. There's always a smack of the
+advertising agent about them. God Himself gives nothing 'free'&mdash;you've
+got to pay with your very life for each gulp of air you breathe,&mdash;and
+rightly too! And if you try to get something out of His creation
+<i>without</i> paying for it, the bill is presented in due course with
+compound interest!"</p>
+
+<p>"I agree with you," said Helmsley. "But what, then, of the poor rich
+men? You don't approve of Carnegie's methods of disbursing wealth. What
+would you suggest?"</p>
+
+<p>"The doing of private good," replied Angus promptly. "Good that is never
+heard of, never talked of, never mentioned in the Cooing Column. A rich
+man could perform acts of the most heavenly and helpful kindness if he
+would only go about personally and privately among the very poor, make
+friends with them, and himself assist them. But he will hardly ever do
+this. Now the millionaire who is going to marry my first love, Lucy
+Sorrel&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>is</i> he going to marry her?" And Helmsley looked up with sudden
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I suppose he is!" And Angus threw back his head and laughed.
+"He's to be back in town for the 'season'&mdash;and you know what the London
+'season' is!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure we don't!" said Mary, with an amused glance. "Tell us!"</p>
+
+<p>"An endless round of lunches, dinners, balls, operas, theatres,
+card-parties, and inane jabber," he answered. "A mixture of various
+kinds of food which people eat recklessly with the natural
+results,&mdash;dyspepsia, inertia, mental vacuity, and general uselessness. A
+few Court 'functions,' some picture shows, and two or three great
+races&mdash;and&mdash;that's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> all. Some unfortunate marriages are usually the
+result of each year's motley."</p>
+
+<p>"And you think the millionaire you speak of will be one of the
+unfortunate ones?" said Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, David, I do! If he's going back to London for the season, Lucy
+Sorrel will never let him out of her sight again! She's made up her mind
+to be a Mrs. Millionaire, and she's not troubled by any
+over-sensitiveness or delicacy of sentiment."</p>
+
+<p>"That I quite believe&mdash;from what you have told me,"&mdash;and Helmsley
+smiled. "But what do the papers&mdash;what does the Cooing Column say?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Cooing Column says that one of the world's greatest millionaires,
+Mr. David Helmsley, who has been abroad for nearly a year for the
+benefit of his health, will return to his mansion in Carlton House
+Terrace this month for the 'season.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all. Mary, my bonnie Mary,"&mdash;and Angus put an arm tenderly round
+the waist of his promised wife&mdash;"Your husband may, perhaps&mdash;only
+perhaps!&mdash;become famous&mdash;but you'll never, never be a Mrs. Millionaire!"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed and blushed as he kissed her.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want ever to be rich," she said. "I'd rather be poor!"</p>
+
+<p>They went out into the little garden then, with their arms
+entwined,&mdash;and Helmsley, seated in his chair under the rose-covered
+porch, watched them half in gladness, half in trouble. Was he doing well
+for them, he wondered? Or ill? Would the possession of wealth disturb
+the idyll of their contented lives, their perfect love? Almost he wished
+that he really were in very truth the forlorn and homeless wayfarer he
+had assumed to be,&mdash;wholly and irrevocably poor!</p>
+
+<p>That night in his little room, when everything was quiet, and Mary was
+soundly sleeping in the attic above him, he rose quietly from his bed,
+and lighting a candle, took pen and ink and made a few additions to the
+letter of instructions which accompanied his will. Some evenings
+previously, when Mary and Angus had gone out for a walk together, he had
+taken the opportunity to disburden his "workman's coat" of all the
+banknotes contained in the lining, and, folding them up in one parcel,
+had put them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> in a sealed envelope, which envelope he marked in a
+certain fashion, enclosing it in the larger envelope which contained his
+will. In the same way he made a small, neatly sealed packet of the
+"collection" made for him at the "Trusty Man" by poor Tom o' the Gleam,
+marking that also. Now, on this particular night, feeling that he had
+done all he could think of to make business matters fairly easy to deal
+with, he packed up everything in one parcel, which he tied with a string
+and sealed securely, addressing it to Sir Francis Vesey. This parcel he
+again enclosed in another, equally tied up and sealed, the outer wrapper
+of which he addressed to one John Bulteel at certain offices in London,
+which were in truth the offices of Vesey and Symonds, Bulteel being
+their confidential clerk. The fact that Angus Reay knew the name of the
+firm which had been mentioned in the papers as connected with the famous
+millionaire, David Helmsley, caused him to avoid inscribing it on the
+packet which would have to be taken to its destination immediately after
+his death. As he had now arranged things, it would be conveyed to the
+office unsuspectingly, and Bulteel, opening the first wrapper, would see
+that the contents were for Sir Francis, and would take them to him at
+once. Locking the packet in the little cupboard in the wall which Mary
+had given him, as she playfully said, "to keep his treasures in"&mdash;he
+threw himself again on his bed, and, thoroughly exhausted, tried to
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"It will be all right, I think!" he murmured to himself, as he closed
+his eyes wearily&mdash;"At any rate, so far as I am concerned, I have done
+with the world! God grant some good may come of my millions after I am
+dead! After I am dead! How strange it sounds! What will it seem like, I
+wonder,&mdash;to be dead?"</p>
+
+<p>And he suddenly thought of a poem he had read some years back,&mdash;one of
+the finest and most daring thoughts ever expressed in verse, from the
+pen of a fine and much neglected poet, Robert Buchanan:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"Master, if there be Doom,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All men are bereaven!</span><br />
+If in the Universe<br />
+One Spirit receive the curse,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alas for Heaven!</span><br />
+If there be Doom for one,<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span>Thou, Master, art undone!<br />
+"Were I a Soul in Heaven,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Afar from pain;&mdash;</span><br />
+Yea, on thy breast of snow,<br />
+At the scream of one below,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I should scream again&mdash;</span><br />
+Art Thou less piteous than<br />
+The conception of a Man?"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, not less piteous!" he murmured&mdash;"But surely infinitely more
+pitiful!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>And now there came a wondrous week of perfect weather. All the lovely
+Somersetshire coast lay under the warmth and brilliance of a dazzling
+sun,&mdash;the sea was smooth,&mdash;and small sailing skiffs danced merrily up
+and down from Minehead to Weircombe and back again with the ease and
+security of seabirds, whose happiest resting-place is on the waves. A
+lovely calm environed the little village,&mdash;it was not a haunt of cheap
+"trippers,"&mdash;and summer-time was not only a working-time, but a playing
+time too with all the inhabitants, both young and old. The shore, with
+its fine golden sand, warm with the warmth of the cloudless sky, was a
+popular resort, and Helmsley, though his physical weakness perceptibly
+increased, was often able to go down there, assisted by Mary and Angus,
+one on each side supporting him and guarding his movements. It pleased
+him to sit under the shelter of the rocks and watch the long shining
+ripples of ocean roll forwards and backwards on the shore in silvery
+lines, edged with delicate, lace-like fringes of foam,&mdash;and the slow,
+monotonous murmur of the gathering and dispersing water soothed his
+nerves and hushed a certain inward fretfulness of spirit which teased
+him now and then, but to which he bravely strove not to give way.
+Sometimes&mdash;but only sometimes&mdash;he felt that it was hard to die. Hard to
+be old just as he was beginning to learn how to live,&mdash;hard to pass out
+of the beauty and wonder of this present life with all its best joys
+scarcely experienced, and exchange the consciousness of what little he
+knew for something concerning which no one could honestly give him any
+authentic information.</p>
+
+<p>"Yet I might have said the same, had I been conscious, before I was
+born!" he thought. "In a former state of existence I might have said,
+'Why send me from this that I know and enjoy, to something which I have
+not seen and therefore cannot believe in?' Perhaps, for all I can tell,
+I did say it. And yet God had His way with me and placed me here&mdash;for
+what? Only to learn a lesson! That is truly all I have done. For the
+making of money is as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> nothing in the sight of Eternal Law,&mdash;it is
+merely man's accumulation of perishable matter, which, like all
+perishable things, is swept away in due course, while he who accumulated
+it is of no more account as a mere corpse than his poverty-stricken
+brother. What a foolish striving it all is! What envyings, spites,
+meannesses and miserable pettinesses arise from this greed of money!
+Yes, I have learned my lesson! I wonder whether I shall now be permitted
+to pass into a higher standard, and begin again!"</p>
+
+<p>These inner musings sometimes comforted and sometimes perplexed him, and
+often he was made suddenly aware of a strange and exhilarating
+impression of returning youthfulness&mdash;a buoyancy of feeling and a
+delightful ease, such as a man in full vigour experiences when, after
+ascending some glorious mountain summit, he sees the panorama of a world
+below him. His brain was very clear and active&mdash;and whenever he chose to
+talk, there were plenty of his humble friends ready to listen. One day
+the morning papers were full of great headlines announcing the
+assassination of one of the world's throned rulers, and the Weircombe
+fishermen, discussing the news, sought the opinion of "old David"
+concerning the matter. "Old David" was, however, somewhat slow to be
+drawn on so questionable a subject, but Angus Reay was not so reticent.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should kings spend money recklessly on their often filthy vices and
+pleasures," he demanded, "while thousands, ay, millions of their
+subjects starve? As long as such a wretched state of things exists, so
+long will there be Anarchy. But I know the head and front of the
+offending! I know the Chief of all the Anarchists!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord bless us!" exclaimed Mrs. Twitt, who happened to be standing by.
+"Ye don't say so! Wot's' 'ee like?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's all shapes and sizes&mdash;all colours too!" laughed Angus. "He's
+simply the Irresponsible Journalist!"</p>
+
+<p>"As you were once!" suggested Helmsley, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I was never 'irresponsible,'" declared Reay, emphatically. "I may
+have been faulty in the following of my profession, but I never wrote a
+line that I thought might cause uneasiness in the minds of the million.
+What I mean is, that the Irresponsible Journalist who gives more
+prominence to the doings of kings and queens and stupid 'society' folk,
+than to the actual work, thought, and progress of the nation at large,
+is making a forcing-bed for the growth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> of Anarchy. Consider the
+feelings of a starving man who reads in a newspaper that certain people
+in London give dinners to their friends at a cost of Two Guineas a head!
+Consider the frenzied passion of a father who sees his children dying of
+want, when he reads that the mistress of a king wears diamonds worth
+forty thousand pounds round her throat! If the balance of material
+things is for the present thus set awry, and such vile and criminal
+anachronisms exist, the proprietors of newspapers should have better
+sense than to flaunt them before the public eye as though they deserved
+admiration. The Anarchist at any rate has an ideal. It may be a mistaken
+ideal, but whatever it is, it is a desperate effort to break down a
+system which anarchists imagine is at the root of all the bribery,
+corruption, flunkeyism and money-grubbing of the world. Moreover, the
+Anarchist carries his own life in his hand, and the risk he runs can
+scarcely be for his pleasure. Yet he braves everything for the 'ideal,'
+which he fancies, if realised, will release others from the yoke of
+injustice and tyranny. Few people have any 'ideals' at all
+nowadays;&mdash;what they want to do is to spend as much as they like, and
+eat as much as they can. And the newspapers that persist in chronicling
+the amount of their expenditure and the extent of their appetites, are
+the real breeders and encouragers of every form of anarchy under the
+sun!"</p>
+
+<p>"You may be right," said Helmsley, slowly. "Indeed I fear you are! If
+one is to judge by old-time records, it was a kinder, simpler world when
+there was no daily press."</p>
+
+<p>"Man is an imitative animal," continued Reay. "The deeds he hears of,
+whether good or bad, he seeks to emulate. In bygone ages crime existed,
+of course, but it was not blazoned in headlines to the public. Good and
+brave deeds were praised and recorded, and as a consequence&mdash;perhaps as
+a result of imitation&mdash;there were many heroes. In our times a good or
+brave deed is squeezed into an obscure paragraph,&mdash;while intellect and
+brilliant talent receive scarcely any acknowledgment&mdash;the silly doings
+of 'society' and the Court are the chief matter,&mdash;hence, possibly, the
+preponderance of dunces and flunkeys, again produced by sheer
+'imitativeness.' Is it pleasant for a man with starvation at his door,
+to read that a king pays two thousand a year to his cook? That same two
+thousand comes out of the pockets of the nation&mdash;and the starving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> man
+thinks some of it ought to fall in <i>his</i> way instead of providing for a
+cooker of royal victuals! There is no end to the mischief generated by
+the publication of such snobbish statements, whether true or false. This
+was the kind of irresponsible talk that set Jean-Jacques Rousseau
+thinking and writing, and kindling the first spark of the fire of the
+French Revolution. 'Royal-Flunkey' methods of journalism provoke deep
+resentment in the public mind,&mdash;for a king after all is only the paid
+servant of the people&mdash;he is not an idol or a deity to which an
+independent nation should for ever crook the knee. And from the
+smouldering anger of the million at what they conceive to be injustice
+and hypocrisy, springs Anarchy."</p>
+
+<p>"All very well said,&mdash;but now suppose you were a wealthy man, what would
+you do with your money?" asked Helmsley.</p>
+
+<p>Angus smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, David!&mdash;I've never realised the position yet. But I
+should try to serve others more than to serve myself."</p>
+
+<p>The conversation ceased then, for Helmsley looked pale and exhausted. He
+had been on the seashore for the greater part of the afternoon, and it
+was now sunset. Yet he was very unwilling to return home, and it was
+only by gentle and oft-repeated persuasion that he at last agreed to
+leave his well-loved haunt, leaning as usual on Mary's arm, with Angus
+walking on the other side. Once or twice as he slowly ascended the
+village street he paused, and looked back at the tranquil loveliness of
+ocean, glimmering as with millions of rubies in the red glow of the
+sinking sun.</p>
+
+<p>"'And there shall be no more sea!'" he quoted, dreamily&mdash;"I should be
+sorry if that were true! One would miss the beautiful sea!&mdash;even in
+heaven!"</p>
+
+<p>He walked very feebly, and Mary exchanged one or two anxious glances
+with Angus. But on reaching the cottage again, his spirits revived.
+Seated in his accustomed chair, he smiled as the little dog, Charlie,
+jumped on his knee, and peered with a comically affectionate gravity
+into his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Asking me how I am, aren't you, Charlie!" he said, cheerfully&mdash;"I'm all
+right, wee man!&mdash;all right!"</p>
+
+<p>Apparently Charlie was not quite sure about it, for he declined to be
+removed from the position he had chosen,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> and snuggling close down on
+his master's lap, curled himself up in a silky ball and went to sleep,
+now and then opening a soft dark eye to show that his slumbers were not
+so profound as they seemed.</p>
+
+<p>That evening when Angus had gone, after saying a prolonged good-night to
+Mary in the little scented garden under the lovely radiance of an almost
+full moon, Helmsley called her to his side.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary!"</p>
+
+<p>She came at once, and put her arm around him. He looked up at her,
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"You think I'm very tired, I know," he said&mdash;"But I'm not. I&mdash;I want to
+say a word to you."</p>
+
+<p>Still keeping her arm round him, she patted his shoulder gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, David! What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is just this. You know I told you I had some papers that I valued,
+locked away in the little cupboard in my room?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I know."</p>
+
+<p>"Well now,&mdash;when&mdash;when I die&mdash;will you promise me to take these papers
+yourself to the address that is written on them? That's all I ask of
+you! Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I will!" she said, readily&mdash;"You know you've kept the key
+yourself since you got well from your bad fever last year&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There is the key," he said, drawing it from his pocket, and holding it
+up to her&mdash;"Take it now!"</p>
+
+<p>"But why now&mdash;&mdash;?" she began.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I wish it!" he answered, with a slight touch of
+obstinacy&mdash;then, smiling rather wistfully, he added, "It will comfort me
+to know you have it in your own possession. And Mary&mdash;promise me that
+you will let no one&mdash;not even Angus&mdash;see or touch these papers!&mdash;that
+you will take the parcel just as you find it, straight to the person to
+whom it is addressed, and deliver it yourself to him! I don't want you
+to <i>swear</i>, but I want you to put your dear kind hand in mine, and say
+'On my word of honour I will not open the packet old David has entrusted
+to me. When he dies I will take it my own self to the person to whom it
+is addressed, and wait till I am told that everything in it has been
+received and understood.' Will you, for my comfort, say these words
+after me, Mary?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Of course I will!"</p>
+
+<p>And placing her hand in his, she repeated it slowly word for word. He
+watched her closely as she spoke, her eyes gazing candidly into his own.
+Then he heaved a deep sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, my dear! That will do. God bless you! And now to bed!"</p>
+
+<p>He rose somewhat unsteadily, and she saw he was very weak.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you feel so well, David?" she asked, anxiously. "Would you like
+me to sit up with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, my dear, no! All I want is a good sleep&mdash;a good long sleep. I'm
+only tired."</p>
+
+<p>She saw him into his room, and, according to her usual custom, put a
+handbell on the small table which was at the side of his bed. Charlie,
+trotting at her heels, suddenly began to whimper. She stooped and picked
+the little creature up in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Mind you ring if you want me," she said to Helmsley then,&mdash;"I'm just
+above you, and I can hear the least sound."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her earnestly. His eyes were almost young in their
+brightness.</p>
+
+<p>"God bless you, Mary!" he said&mdash;"You've been a good angel to me! I never
+quite believed in Heaven, but looking at you I know there is such a
+place&mdash;the place where you were born!"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled&mdash;but her eyes were soft with unshed tears.</p>
+
+<p>"You think too well of me, David," she said. "I'm not an angel&mdash;I wish I
+were! I'm only a very poor, ordinary sort of woman."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you?" he said, and smiled&mdash;"Well, think so, if it pleases you.
+Good-night&mdash;and again God bless you!"</p>
+
+<p>He patted the tiny head of the small Charlie, whom she held nestling
+against her breast.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Charlie!"</p>
+
+<p>The little dog licked his hand and looked at him wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't part with him, Mary!" he said, suddenly&mdash;"Let him always have a
+home with you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, David! You really are tired out and over-melancholy! As if I
+should ever part with him!" And she kissed Charlie's silky head&mdash;"We'll
+all keep together! Good-night, David!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night!" he answered. He watched her as she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> went through the
+doorway, holding the dog in her arms and turning back to smile at him
+over her shoulder&mdash;anon he listened to her footfall ascending the
+stairway to her own room&mdash;then, to her gentle movements to and fro above
+his bed&mdash;till presently all was silent. Silence&mdash;except for the measured
+plash of the sea, which he heard distinctly echoing up through the
+coombe from the shore. A great loneliness environed him&mdash;touched by a
+great awe. He felt himself to be a solitary soul in the midst of some
+vast desert, yet not without the consciousness that a mystic joy, an
+undreamed-of glory, was drawing near that should make that desert
+"blossom like the rose." He moved slowly and feebly to the
+window&mdash;against one-half of the latticed pane leaned a bunch of white
+roses, shining with a soft pearl hue in the light of a lovely moon.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a beautiful world!" he said, half aloud&mdash;"No one in his right
+mind could leave it without some regret!"</p>
+
+<p>Then an inward voice seemed to whisper to him&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You knew nothing of this world you call so beautiful before you entered
+it; may there not be another world still more beautiful of which you
+equally know nothing, but of which you are about to make an experience,
+all life being a process of continuous higher progress?"</p>
+
+<p>And this idea now not only seemed to him possible but almost a
+certainty. For as our last Laureate expresses it:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"Whatever crazy sorrow saith,<br />
+No life that breathes with human breath<br />
+Has ever truly longed for death.<br />
+'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant,<br />
+Oh life, not death, for which we pant&mdash;<br />
+More life, and fuller, that I want!"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>His brain was so active and his memory so clear that he was somewhat
+surprised to feel his body so feeble and aching, when at last he
+undressed, and lay down to sleep. He thought of many things&mdash;of his
+boyhood's home out in Virginia&mdash;of the stress and excitement of his
+business career&mdash;of his extraordinary successes, piled one on the top of
+the other&mdash;and then of the emptiness of it all!</p>
+
+<p>"I should have been happier and wiser," he said, "if I had lived the
+life of a student in some quiet home among the hills&mdash;where I should
+have seen less of men and learned more of God. But it is too late
+now&mdash;too late!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And a curious sorrow and pity moved him for certain men he knew who were
+eating up the best time of their lives in a mad struggle for money,
+losing everything of real value in their scramble for what was, after
+all, so valueless,&mdash;sacrificing peace, honour, love, and a quiet mind,
+for what in the eternal countings is of no more consideration than the
+dust of the highroad. Not what a man <i>has</i>, but what he <i>is</i>,&mdash;this is
+the sole concern of Divine Equity. Earthly ideas of justice are in
+direct opposition to this law, but the finite can never overbalance the
+infinite. We may, if we so please, honour a king as king,&mdash;but with God
+there are no kings. There are only Souls, "made in His image." And
+whosoever defaces that Divine Image, whether he be base-born churl or
+crowned potentate, must answer for the wicked deed. How many of us view
+our social acquaintances from any higher standard than the extent of
+their cash accounts, or the "usefulness" of their influence? Yet the
+inexorable Law works silently on,&mdash;and day after day, century after
+century, shows us the vanity of riches, the fall of pride and power, the
+triumph of genius, the immutability of love! And we are still turning
+over the well-worn pages of the same old school-book which was set
+before Tyre and Sidon, Carthage and Babylon&mdash;the same, the very same,
+with one saving exception&mdash;that a Divine Teacher came to show us how to
+spell it and read it aright&mdash;and He was crucified! Doubtless were He to
+come again and once more try to help us, we should re-enact that
+old-time Jewish murder!</p>
+
+<p>Lying quietly in his bed, Helmsley conversed with his inner self, as it
+were, reasoning with his own human perplexities and gradually
+unravelling them. After all, if his life had been, as he considered,
+only a lesson, was it not good for him that he had learned that lesson?
+A passing memory of Lucy Sorrel flitted across his brain&mdash;and he thought
+how singular it was that chance should have brought him into touch with
+the very man who would have given her that "rose of love" he desired she
+should wear, had she realised the value and beauty of that immortal
+flower. He, David Helmsley, had been apparently led by devious ways, not
+only to find an unselfish love for himself, but also to be the
+instrument of atoning to Angus Reay for his first love-disappointment,
+and uniting him to a woman whose exquisitely tender and faithful nature
+was bound to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> make
+the joy and sanctity of his life. In this, had not
+all things been ordered well? Did it not seem that, notwithstanding his,
+Helmsley's, self-admitted worthlessness, the Divine Power had used him
+for the happiness of others, to serve as a link of love between two
+deserving souls? He began to think that it was not by chance that he had
+been led to wander away from the centre of his business interests, and
+lose himself on the hills above Weircombe. Not accident, but a high
+design had been hidden in this incident&mdash;a design in which Self had been
+transformed to Selflessness, and loneliness to love. "I should like to
+believe in God&mdash;if I could!" This he had said to his friend Vesey, on
+the last night he had seen him. And now&mdash;did he believe? Yes!&mdash;for he
+had benefited by his first experience of what a truly God-like love may
+be&mdash;the love of a perfectly unselfish, tender, devout woman who, for no
+motive at all, but simply out of pure goodness and compassion for sorrow
+and suffering, had rescued one whom she judged to be in need of help. If
+therefore God could make one poor woman so divinely forbearing and
+gentle, it was certain that He, from whom all Love must emanate, was yet
+more merciful than the most merciful woman, as well as stronger than the
+strongest man. And he believed&mdash;believed implicitly;&mdash;lifted to the
+height of a perfect faith by the help of a perfect love. In the mirror
+of one sweet and simple human character he had seen the face of God&mdash;and
+he was of the same mind as the mighty musician who, when he was dying,
+cried out in rapture&mdash;"I believe I am only at the
+Beginning!"<a name="FNanchor_A_2" id="FNanchor_A_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_2" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> He was
+conscious of a strange dual personality,&mdash;some spirit within him
+urgently expressed itself as being young, clamorous, inquisitive, eager,
+and impatient of restraint, while his natural bodily self was so weary
+and feeble that he felt as if he could scarcely move a hand. He listened
+for a little while to the ticking of the clock in the kitchen which was
+next to his room,&mdash;and by and by, being thoroughly drowsy, he sank into
+a heavy slumber. He did not know that Mary, anxious about him, had not
+gone to bed at all, but had resolved to sit up all night in case he
+should call her or want for anything. But the hours wore on peacefully
+for him till the moon began her downward course towards the west, and
+the tide having rolled in to its highest mark, began to ebb and flow out
+again. Then&mdash;all at once&mdash;he awoke&mdash;smitten by
+a shock of pain that seemed to
+crash<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> through his heart
+and send his brain swirling into a blind chaos. Struggling for breath, he sprang up
+in his bed, and instinctively snatched the handbell at his side. He was
+hardly aware of ringing it, so great was his agony&mdash;but presently,
+regaining a glimmering sense of consciousness, he found Mary's arms
+round him, and saw Mary's eyes looking tenderly into his own.</p>
+
+<p>"David, dear David!" And the sweet voice was shaken by tears.
+"David!&mdash;Oh, my poor dear, don't you know me?"</p>
+
+<p>Know her? In the Valley of the Shadow what other Angel could there be so
+faithful or so tender! He sighed, leaning heavily against her bosom.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear&mdash;I know you!" he gasped, faintly. "But&mdash;I am very ill&mdash;dying,
+I think! Open the window&mdash;give me air!"</p>
+
+<p>She laid his head gently back on the pillow, and ran quickly to throw
+open the lattice. In that same moment, the dog Charlie, who had followed
+her downstairs from her room, jumped on the bed, and finding his
+master's hand lying limp and pallid outside the coverlet, fawned upon it
+with a plaintive cry. The cool sea-air rushed in, and Helmsley's sinking
+strength revived. He turned his eyes gratefully towards the stream of
+silvery moonlight that poured through the open casement.</p>
+
+<p>"'Angels ever bright and fair!'" he murmured&mdash;then as Mary came back to
+his side, he smiled vaguely; "I thought I heard my little sister
+singing!"</p>
+
+<p>Slipping her arm again under his head, she carefully administered a dose
+of the cordial which had been made up for him as a calmative against his
+sudden heart attacks.</p>
+
+<p>He swallowed it slowly and with difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm&mdash;I'm all right," he said, feebly. "The pain has gone. I'm sorry to
+have wakened you up, Mary!&mdash;but you're always kind and patient&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His voice broke&mdash;and a grey pallor began to steal almost imperceptibly
+upwards over his wasted features. She watched him, her heart beating
+fast with grief and terror,&mdash;the tears rushing to her eyes in spite of
+her efforts to restrain them. For she saw that he was dying. The
+solemnly musical plash of the sea sounded rhythmically upon the quiet
+air like the soothing murmur of a loving mother's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> lullaby, and the
+radiance of the moonlight flooded the little room with mystical glory.
+In her womanly tenderness she drew him more protectingly into the
+embrace of her kind arm, as though seeking to hold him back from the
+abyss of the Unknown, and held his head close against her breast. He
+opened his eyes and saw her thus bending over him. A smile brightened
+his face&mdash;a smile of youth, and hope, and confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"The end is near, Mary!" he said in a clear, calm voice; "but&mdash;it's not
+difficult! There is no pain. And you are with me. That is enough!&mdash;that
+is more than I ever hoped for!&mdash;more than I deserve! God bless you
+always!"</p>
+
+<p>He shut his eyes again&mdash;but opened them quickly in a sudden struggle for
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>"The papers!" he gasped. "Mary&mdash;Mary&mdash;you won't forget&mdash;your promise!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, David!&mdash;dear David!" she sobbed. "I won't forget!"</p>
+
+<p>The paroxysm passed, and his hand wandered over the coverlet, where it
+encountered the soft, crouching head of the little dog who was lying
+close to him, shivering in every limb.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, here's Charlie!" he whispered, weakly. "Poor wee Charlie! 'Take
+care of me' is written on his collar. Mary will take care of you,
+Charlie!&mdash;good-bye, little man!"</p>
+
+<p>He lay quiet then, but his eyes were wide open, gazing not upward, but
+straight ahead, as though they saw some wondrous vision in the little
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"Strange!&mdash;strange that I did not know all this before!" he
+murmured&mdash;and then was silent, still gazing straight before him. All at
+once a great shudder shook his body&mdash;and his thin features grew suddenly
+pinched and wan.</p>
+
+<p>"It is almost morning!" he said, and his voice was like an echo of
+itself from very far away. "The sun will rise&mdash;but I shall not be here
+to see the sun or you, Mary!" and rallying his fast ebbing strength he
+turned towards her. "Keep your arms about me!&mdash;pray for me!&mdash;God will
+hear you&mdash;God must hear His own! Don't cry, dear! Kiss me!"</p>
+
+<p>She kissed him, clasping his poor frail form to her heart as though he
+were a child, and tenderly smoothing back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> his venerable snow-white
+hair. A slumbrous look of perfect peace softened the piteousness of his
+dying eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"The only treasure!" he murmured, faintly. "The treasure of
+Heaven&mdash;Love! God bless you for giving it to me, Mary!&mdash;good-bye, my
+dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not good-bye, David!" she cried. "No&mdash;not good-bye!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;good-bye!" he said,&mdash;and then, as another strong shudder convulsed
+him, he made a last feeble effort to lay his head against her bosom.
+"Don't let me go, Mary! Hold me!&mdash;closer!&mdash;closer! Your heart is warm,
+ah, so warm, Mary!&mdash;and death is cold&mdash;cold&mdash;&mdash;!"</p>
+
+<p>Another moment&mdash;and the moonlight, streaming through the open window,
+fell on the quiet face of a dead man. Then came silence&mdash;broken only by
+the gentle murmur of the sea, and the sound of a woman's weeping.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_A_2" id="Footnote_A_2"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_A_2">Footnote A</a>: Beethoven.<br /><br /></p>
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Not often is the death of a man, who to all appearances was nothing more
+than a "tramp," attended by any demonstrations of sorrow. There are so
+many "poor" men! The roads are infested with them. It would seem, in
+fact, that they have no business to live at all, especially when they
+are old, and can do little or nothing to earn their bread. Such,
+generally and roughly speaking, is the opinion of the matter-of-fact
+world. Nevertheless, the death of "old David" created quite an
+atmosphere of mourning in Weircombe, though, had it been known that he
+was one of the world's famous millionaires, such kindly regret and
+compassion might have been lacking. As things were, he carried his
+triumph of love to the grave with him. Mary's grief for the loss of the
+gentle old man was deep and genuine, and Angus Reay shared it with her
+to the full.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall miss him so much!" she sobbed, looking at the empty chair,
+which had been that of her own father. "He was always so kind and
+thoughtful for me&mdash;never wishing to give trouble!&mdash;poor dear old
+David!&mdash;and he did so hope to see us married, Angus!&mdash;you know it was
+through him that we knew each other!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know!"&mdash;and Angus, profoundly moved, was not ashamed of the tears in
+his own eyes&mdash;"God bless him! He was a dear, good old fellow! But, Mary,
+you must not fret; he would not like to see your pretty eyes all red
+with weeping. This life was getting very difficult for him,
+remember,&mdash;he endured a good deal of pain. Bunce says he must have
+suffered acutely often without saying a word about it, lest you should
+be anxious. He is at rest now."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he is at rest!"&mdash;and Mary struggled to repress her tears&mdash;"Come
+and see!"</p>
+
+<p>Hand in hand they entered the little room where the dead man lay,
+covered with a snowy sheet, his waxen hands crossed peacefully outside
+it, and delicate clusters of white roses and myrtle laid here and there
+around him. His face was like a fine piece of sculptured marble in its
+still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> repose&mdash;the gravity and grandeur of death had hallowed the worn
+features of old age, and given them a great sweetness and majesty. The
+two lovers stood gazing at the corpse for a moment in silent awe&mdash;then
+Mary whispered softly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"He seems only asleep! And he looks happy."</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>is</i> happy, dear!&mdash;he must be happy!"&mdash;and Angus drew her gently
+away. "Poor and helpless as he was, still he found a friend in you at
+the last, and now all his troubles are over. He has gone to Heaven with
+the help and blessing of your kind and tender heart, my Mary! I am sure
+of that!"</p>
+
+<p>She sighed, and her eyes were clouded with sadness.</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven seems very far away sometimes!" she said. "And&mdash;often I
+wonder&mdash;what <i>is</i> Heaven?"</p>
+
+<p>"Love!" he answered&mdash;"Love made perfect&mdash;Love that knows no change and
+no end! 'Nothing is sweeter than love; nothing stronger, nothing higher,
+nothing broader, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in
+heaven and in earth, for love is born of God, and can rest only in God
+above all things created.'"</p>
+
+<p>He quoted the beautiful words from the <i>Imitation of Christ</i> reverently
+and tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that not true, my Mary?" he said, kissing her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Angus! For <i>us</i> I know it is true!&mdash;I wish it were true for all
+the world!"</p>
+
+<p>And then there came a lovely day, perfectly brilliant and intensely
+calm, on which "old David," was quietly buried in the picturesque little
+churchyard of Weircombe. Mary and Angus together had chosen his
+resting-place, a grassy knoll swept by the delicate shadows of a noble
+beech-tree, and facing the blue expanse of the ocean. Every man who had
+known and talked with him in the village offered to contribute to the
+expenses of his funeral, which, however, were very slight. The good
+Vicar would accept no burial fee, and all who knew the story of the old
+"tramp's" rescue from the storm by Mary Deane, and her gentle care of
+him afterwards, were anxious to prove that they too were not destitute
+of that pure and true charity which "suffereth long and is kind." Had
+David Helmsley been buried as David Helmsley the millionaire, it is more
+than likely that he might not have had one sincere mourner at his grave,
+with the exception of his friend, Sir Francis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> Vesey, and his valet
+Benson. There would have been a few "business" men,&mdash;and some empty
+carriages belonging to fashionable folk sent out of so-called "respect";
+but of the many he had entertained, assisted and benefited, not one
+probably would have taken the trouble to pay him, so much as a last
+honour. As the poor tramping old basket-maker, whose failing strength
+would not allow him to earn much of a living, his simple funeral was
+attended by nearly a whole village,&mdash;honest men who stood respectfully
+bareheaded as the coffin was lowered into the grave&mdash;kind-hearted women
+who wept for "poor lonely soul"&mdash;as they expressed it,&mdash;and little
+children who threw knots of flowers into that mysterious dark hole in
+the ground "where people went to sleep for a little, and then came out
+again as angels"&mdash;as their parents told them. It was a simple ceremony,
+performed in a spirit of perfect piety, and without any hypocrisy or
+formality. And when it was all over, and the villagers had dispersed to
+their homes, Mr. Twitt on his way "down street," as he termed it, from
+the churchyard, paused at Mary Deane's cottage to unburden his mind of a
+weighty resolution.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye see, Mis' Deane, it's like this," he said&mdash;"I as good as promised
+the poor old gaffer as I'd do 'im a tombstone for nuthin', an' I'm 'ere
+to say as I aint a-goin' back on that. But I must take my time on it.
+I'd like to think out a speshul hepitaph&mdash;an' doin' portry takes a bit
+of 'ard brain work. So when the earth's set down on 'is grave a bit, an'
+the daisies is a-growin' on the grass, I'll mebbe 'ave got an idea
+wot'll please ye. 'E aint left any mossel o' paper writ out like, with
+wot 'e'd like put on 'im, I s'pose?"</p>
+
+<p>Mary felt the colour rush to her face.</p>
+
+<p>"N&mdash;no! Not that I know of, Mr. Twitt," she said. "He has left a few
+papers which I promised him I would take to a friend of his, but I
+haven't even looked at them yet, and don't know to whom they are
+addressed. If I find anything I'll let you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, do so!" and Twitt rubbed his chin meditatively. "I wouldn't run
+agin' 'is wishes for anything if ser be I can carry 'em out. I considers
+as 'e wor a very fine sort&mdash;gentle as a lamb, an' grateful for all wot
+was done for 'im, an' I wants to be as friendly to 'im in 'is death as I
+wos in 'is life&mdash;ye understand?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I know&mdash;I quite understand," said Mary. "But there's plenty of
+time&mdash;-"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there's plenty of time!" agreed Twitt. "But, lor,' if you could
+only know what a pain it gives me in the 'ed to work the portry out of
+it, ye wouldn't wonder at my preparin' ye, as 'twere. Onny I wishes ye
+just to understand that it'll all be done for love&mdash;an' no charge."</p>
+
+<p>Mary thanked him smiling, yet with tears in her eyes, and he strolled
+away down the street in his usual slow and somewhat casual manner.</p>
+
+<p>That evening,&mdash;the evening of the day on which all that was mortal of
+"old David" had been committed to the gentle ground, Mary unlocked the
+cupboard of which he had given her the key on the last night of his
+life, and took out the bulky packet it contained. She read the
+superscription with some surprise and uneasiness. It was addressed to a
+Mr. Bulteel, in a certain street near Chancery Lane, London. Now Mary
+had never been to London in her life. The very idea of going to that
+vast unknown metropolis half scared her, and she sat for some minutes,
+with the sealed packet in her lap, quite confused and troubled.</p>
+
+<p>"Yet I made the promise!" she said to herself&mdash;"And I dare not break it!
+I must go. And I must not tell Angus anything about it&mdash;that's the worst
+part of all!"</p>
+
+<p>She gazed wistfully at the packet,&mdash;anon she turned it over and over. It
+was sealed in several places&mdash;but the seal had no graven impress, the
+wax having merely been pressed with the finger.</p>
+
+<p>"I must go!" she repeated. "I'm bound to deliver it myself to the man
+for whom it is intended. But what a journey it will be! To London!"</p>
+
+<p>Absorbed in thought, she started as a tap came at the cottage door,&mdash;and
+rising, she hurriedly put the package out of sight, just as Angus
+entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary," he said, as he came towards her&mdash;"Do you know, I've been
+thinking we had better get quietly married as soon as possible?"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Why? Is the book finished?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't. I wish it was! But it will be finished in another
+month&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then let us wait that other month," she said. "You will be happier, I
+know, if the work is off your mind."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I shall be happier&mdash;but Mary, I can't bear to think of you all
+alone in this little cottage&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She gently interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p>"I was all alone for five years after my father died," she said. "And
+though I was sometimes a little sad, I was not dull, because I always
+had work to do. Dear old David was a good companion, and it was pleasant
+to take care of him&mdash;indeed, this last year has been quite a happy one
+for me, and I shan't find it hard to live alone in the cottage for just
+a month now. Don't worry about me, Angus!"</p>
+
+<p>He stooped and picked up Charlie, who, since his master's death, had
+been very dispirited.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Mary," he said, as he fondled the little dog and stroked its
+silky hair&mdash;"nothing will alter the fact that you are richer than I am.
+You do regular work for which you get regular pay&mdash;now I have no settled
+work at all, and not much chance of pay, even for the book on which I've
+been spending nearly a year of my time. You've got a house which you can
+keep going&mdash;and very soon I shall not be able to afford so much as a
+room!&mdash;think of that! And yet&mdash;I have the impertinence to ask you to
+marry me! Forgive me, dear! It is, as you say, better to wait."</p>
+
+<p>She came and entwined her arms about him.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll wait a month," she said&mdash;"No longer, Angus! By that time, if you
+don't marry me, I shall summons you for breach of promise!"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled&mdash;but he still remained thoughtful.</p>
+
+<p>"Angus!" she said suddenly&mdash;"I want to tell you&mdash;I shall have to go away
+from Weircombe for a day&mdash;perhaps two days."</p>
+
+<p>He looked surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"Go away!" he echoed. "What for? Where to?"</p>
+
+<p>She told him then of "old David's" last request to her, and of the duty
+she had undertaken to perform.</p>
+
+<p>He listened gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"You must do it, of course," he said. "But will you have to travel far?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some distance from Weircombe," she answered, evasively.</p>
+
+<p>"May I not go with you?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"I promised&mdash;&mdash;" she began.</p>
+
+<p>"And you shall not break your word," he said, kissing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> her. "You are so
+true, my Mary, that I wouldn't tempt you to change one word or even half
+a word of what you have said to any one, living or dead. When do you
+want to take this journey?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow, or the next day," she said. "I'll ask Mrs. Twitt to see to
+the house and look after Charlie, and I'll be back again as quickly as I
+can. Because, when I've given the papers over to David's friend, whoever
+he is, I shall have nothing more to do but just come home."</p>
+
+<p>This being settled, it was afterwards determined that the next day but
+one would be the most convenient for her to go, as she could then avail
+herself of the carrier's cart to take her as far as Minehead. But she
+was not allowed to start on her unexpected travels without a burst of
+prophecy from Mrs. Twitt.</p>
+
+<p>"As I've said an' allus thought," said that estimable lady&mdash;"Old David
+'ad suthin' 'idden in 'is 'art wot 'e never giv' away to nobody. Mark my
+words, Mis' Deane!&mdash;'e 'ad a sin or a sorrer at the back of 'im, an'
+whichever it do turn out to be I'm not a-goin' to blame 'im either way,
+for bein' dead 'e's dead, an' them as sez unkind o' the dead is apt to
+be picked morsels for the devil's gridiron. But now that you've got a
+packet to take to old David's friends somewheres, you may take my word
+for 't, Mis' Deane, you'll find out as 'e was wot ye didn't expect. Onny
+last night, as I was a-sittin' afore the kitchen fire, for though bein'
+summer I'm that chilly that I feels the least change in the temper o'
+the sea,&mdash;as I was a-sittin', I say, out jumps a cinder as long as a
+pine cone, red an' glowin' like a candle at the end. An' I stares at the
+thing, an' I sez: 'That's either a purse o' money, or a journey with a
+coffin at the end'&mdash;an' the thing burns an' shines like a reg'lar spark
+of old Nick's cookin' stove, an' though I pokes an' pokes it, it won't
+go out, but lies on the 'erth, frizzlin' all the time. An' I do 'ope,
+Mis' Deane, as now yer goin' off to 'and over old David's effecks to the
+party interested, ye'll come back safe, for the poor old dear 'adn't a
+penny to bless 'isself with, so the cinder must mean the journey, an'
+bein' warned, ye'll guard agin the coffin at the end."</p>
+
+<p>Mary smiled rather sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take care!" she said. "But I don't think anything very serious is
+likely to happen. Poor old David had no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> friends,&mdash;and probably the few
+papers he has left are only for some relative who would not do anything
+for him while he was alive, but who, all the same, has to be told that
+he is dead."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe so!" and Mrs. Twitt nodded her head profoundly&mdash;"But that cinder
+worn't made in the fire for nowt! Such a shape as 'twas don't grow out
+of the flames twice in twenty year!"</p>
+
+<p>And, with the conviction of the village prophetess she assumed to be,
+she was not to be shaken from the idea that strange discoveries were
+pending respecting "old David." Mary herself could not quite get rid of
+a vague misgiving and anxiety, which culminated at last in her
+determination to show Angus Reay the packet left in her charge, in order
+that he might see to whom it was addressed.</p>
+
+<p>"For that can do no harm," she thought&mdash;"I feel that he really ought to
+know that I have to go all the way to London."</p>
+
+<p>Angus, however, on reading the superscription, was fully as perplexed as
+she was. He was familiar with the street near Chancery Lane where the
+mysterious "Mr. Bulteel" lived, but the name of Bulteel as a resident in
+that street was altogether unknown to him. Presently a bright idea
+struck him.</p>
+
+<p>"I have it!" he said. "Look here, Mary, didn't David say he used to be
+employed in office-work?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she answered,&mdash;"He had to give up his situation, so I understand,
+on account of old age."</p>
+
+<p>"Then that makes it clear," Angus declared. "This Mr. Bulteel is
+probably a man who worked with him in the same office&mdash;perhaps the only
+link he had with his past life. I think you'll find that's the way it
+will turn out. But I hate to think of your travelling to London all
+alone!&mdash;for the first time in your life, too!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well, that doesn't matter much!" she said, cheerfully,&mdash;"Now that
+you know where I am going, it's all right. You forget, Angus!&mdash;I'm quite
+old enough to take care of myself. How many times must I remind you that
+you are engaged to be married to an old maid of thirty-five? You treat
+me as if I were quite a young girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"So I do&mdash;and so I will!" and his eyes rested upon her with a proud look
+of admiration. "For you <i>are</i> young, Mary&mdash;young in your heart and soul
+and nature&mdash;younger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> than any so-called young girl I ever met, and
+twenty times more beautiful. So there!"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"You are easily satisfied, Angus," she said&mdash;"But the world will not
+agree with you in your ideas of me. And when you become a famous
+man&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If I become a famous man&mdash;&mdash;" he interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;not 'if'&mdash;I say 'when,'" she repeated. "When you become a famous
+man, people will say, 'what a pity he did not marry some one younger and
+more suited to his position&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She could speak no more, for Angus silenced her with a kiss.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, what a pity it will be!" he echoed. "What a pity! When other men,
+less fortunate, see that I have won a beautiful and loving wife, whose
+heart is all my own,&mdash;who is pure and true as the sun in heaven,&mdash;'what
+a pity,' they will say, 'that we are not so lucky!' That's what the talk
+will be, Mary! For there's no man on earth who does not crave to be
+loved for himself alone&mdash;a selfish wish, perhaps&mdash;but it's implanted in
+every son of Adam. And a man's life is always more or less spoilt by
+lack of the love he needs."</p>
+
+<p>She put her arms round his neck, and her true eyes looked straightly
+into his own.</p>
+
+<p>"Your life will not be spoilt that way, dear!" she said. "Trust me for
+that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do I not know it!" he answered, passionately. "And would I not lose the
+whole world, with all its chances of fame and fortune, rather than lose
+<i>you</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>And in their mutual exchange of tenderness and confidence they forgot
+all save</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"The time and place</span><br />
+And the loved one all together!"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>It was a perfect summer's morning when Mary, for the first time in many
+years, left her little home in Weircombe and started upon a journey she
+had never taken and never had thought of taking&mdash;a journey which, to her
+unsophisticated mind, seemed fraught with strange possibilities of
+difficulty, even of peril. London had loomed upon her horizon through
+the medium of the daily newspaper, as a vast over-populated city where
+(if she might believe the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> press) humanity is more selfish than
+generous, more cruel than kind,&mdash;where bitter poverty and starvation are
+seen side by side with criminal extravagance and luxury,&mdash;and where,
+according to her simple notions, the people were forgetting or had
+forgotten God. It was with a certain lingering and wistful backward look
+that she left her little cottage embowered among roses, and waved
+farewell to Mrs. Twitt, who, standing at the garden gate with Charlie in
+her arms, waved hearty response, cheerfully calling out "Good Luck!"
+after her, and adding the further assurance&mdash;"Ye'll find everything as
+well an' straight as ye left it when ye comes 'ome, please God!"</p>
+
+<p>Angus Reay accompanied her in the carrier's cart to Minehead, and there
+she caught the express to London. On enquiry, she found there was a
+midnight train which would bring her back from the metropolis at about
+nine o'clock the next morning, and she resolved to travel home by it.</p>
+
+<p>"You will be so tired!" said Angus, regretfully. "And yet I would rather
+you did not stay away a moment longer than you can help!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't fear!" and she smiled. "You cannot be a bit more anxious for me
+to come back than I am to come back myself! Good-bye! It's only for a
+day!"</p>
+
+<p>She waved her hand as the train steamed out of the station, and he
+watched her sweet face smiling at him to the very last, when the
+express, gathering speed, rushed away with her and whirled her into the
+far distance. A great depression fell upon his soul,&mdash;all the light
+seemed gone out of the landscape&mdash;all the joy out of his life&mdash;and he
+realised, as it were suddenly, what her love meant to him.</p>
+
+<p>"It is everything!" he said. "I don't believe I could write a line
+without her!&mdash;in fact I know I wouldn't have the heart for it! She is so
+different to every woman I have ever known,&mdash;she seems to make the world
+all warm and kind by just smiling her own bonnie smile!"</p>
+
+<p>And starting off to walk part of the way back to Weircombe, he sang
+softly under his breath as he went a verse of "Annie Laurie"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"Like dew on the gowan lyin'<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is the fa' o' her fairy feet;</span><br />
+And like winds in simmer sighin'<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her voice is low an' sweet</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Her voice is low an' sweet;</span><br />
+An' she's a' the world to me;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An' for bonnie Annie Laurie</span><br />
+I'd lay me doun and dee!"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>And all the beautiful influences of nature,&mdash;the bright sunshine, the
+wealth of June blossom, the clear skies and the singing of birds, seemed
+part of that enchanting old song, expressing the happiness which alone
+is made perfect by love.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, no adventures of a startling or remarkable kind occurred to
+Mary during her rather long and tedious journey. Various passengers got
+into her third-class compartment and got out again, but they were
+somewhat dull and commonplace folk, many of them being of that curiously
+unsociable type of human creature which apparently mistrusts its
+fellows. Contrary to her ingenuous expectation, no one seemed to think a
+journey to London was anything of a unique or thrilling experience. Once
+only, when she was nearing her destination, did she venture to ask a
+fellow-passenger, an elderly man with a kindly face, how she ought to go
+to Chancery Lane. He looked at her with a touch of curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"That's among the hornets' nests," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She raised her pretty eyebrows with a little air of perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>"Hornets' nests?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Where a good many lawyers live, or used to live."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I see!" And she smiled responsively to what he evidently intended
+as a brilliant satirical joke. "But is it easy to get there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite easy. Take a 'bus."</p>
+
+<p>"From the station?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course!"</p>
+
+<p>And he subsided into silence.</p>
+
+<p>She asked no more questions, and on her arrival at Paddington confided
+her anxieties to a friendly porter, who, announcing that he was "from
+Somerset born himself and would see her through," gave her concise
+directions which she attentively followed; with the result that despite
+much bewilderment in getting in and getting out of omnibuses, and
+jostling against more people than she had ever seen in the course of her
+whole life, she found herself at last at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> entrance of a rather
+obscure-looking smutty little passage, guarded by a couple of round
+columns, on which were painted in black letters a considerable number of
+names, among which were those of "Vesey and Symonds." The numeral
+inscribed above the entrance to this passage corresponded to the number
+on the address of the packet which she carried for "Mr. Bulteel"&mdash;but
+though she read all the names on the two columns, "Bulteel" was not
+among them. Nevertheless, she made her way perseveringly into what
+seemed nothing but a little blind alley leading nowhere, and as she did
+so, a small boy came running briskly down a flight of dark stairs, which
+were scarcely visible from the street, and nearly knocked her over.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ullo! Beg pardon 'm! Which office d' ye want?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is there," began Mary, in her gentle voice&mdash;"is there a Mr.
+Bulteel&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bulteel? Yes&mdash;straight up&mdash;second floor&mdash;third door&mdash;Vesey and
+Symonds!"</p>
+
+<p>With these words jerked out of himself at lightning speed, the boy
+rushed past her and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>With a beating heart Mary cautiously climbed the dark staircase which he
+had just descended. When she reached the second floor, she paused. There
+were three doors all facing her,&mdash;on the first one was painted the name
+of "Sir Francis Vesey"&mdash;on the second "Mr. John Symonds"&mdash;and on the
+third "Mr. Bulteel." As soon as she saw this last, she heaved a little
+sigh of relief, and going straight up to it knocked timidly. It was
+opened at once by a young clerk who looked at her questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bulteel?" she asked, hesitatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Have you an appointment?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I am quite a stranger," she said. "I only wish to tell Mr. Bulteel
+of the death of some one he knows."</p>
+
+<p>The clerk glanced at her and seemed dubious.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bulteel is very busy," he began&mdash;"and unless you have an
+appointment&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, please let me see him!" And Mary's eyes almost filled with tears.
+"See!"&mdash;and she held up before him the packet she carried. "I've
+travelled all the way from Weircombe, in Somerset, to bring him this
+from his dead friend, and I promised to give it to him myself. Please,
+please do not turn me away!"</p>
+
+<p>The clerk stared hard at the superscription on the packet,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> as he well
+might. For he had at once recognised the handwriting of David Helmsley.
+But he suppressed every outward sign of surprise, save such as might
+appear in a glance of unconcealed wonder at Mary herself. Then he said
+briefly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Come in!"</p>
+
+<p>She obeyed, and was at once shut in a stuffy cupboard-like room which
+had no other furniture than an office desk and high stool.</p>
+
+<p>"Name, please!" said the clerk.</p>
+
+<p>She looked startled&mdash;then smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"My name? Mary Deane."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss or Mrs.?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Miss,' if you please, sir," she answered, the colour flushing her
+cheeks with confusion at the sharpness of his manner.</p>
+
+<p>The clerk gave her another up-and-down look, and opening a door behind
+his office desk vanished like a conjuror tricking himself through a
+hole.</p>
+
+<p>She waited patiently for a couple of minutes&mdash;and then the clerk came
+back, with traces of excitement in his manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;Mr. Bulteel will see you. This way!"</p>
+
+<p>She followed him with her usual quiet step and composed demeanour, and
+bent her head with a pretty air of respect as she found herself in the
+presence of an elderly man with iron-grey whiskers and a severely
+preoccupied air of business hardening his otherwise rather benevolent
+features. He adjusted his spectacles and looked keenly at her as she
+entered. She spoke at once.</p>
+
+<p>"You are Mr. Bulteel?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then this is for you," she said, approaching him, and handing him the
+packet she had brought. "They are some papers belonging to a poor old
+tramp named David, who lodged in my house for nearly a year&mdash;it will be
+a year come July. He was very weak and feeble and got lost in a storm on
+the hills above Weircombe&mdash;that's where I live&mdash;and I found him lying
+quite unconscious in the wet and cold, and took him home and nursed him.
+He got better and stayed on with me, making baskets for a living&mdash;he was
+too feeble to tramp any more&mdash;but he gave me no trouble, he was such a
+kind, good old man. I was very fond of him. And&mdash;and&mdash;last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> week he
+died"&mdash;here her sweet voice trembled. "He suffered great pain&mdash;but at
+the end he passed away quite peacefully&mdash;in my arms. He was very anxious
+that I should bring his papers to you myself&mdash;and I promised I would
+so&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She paused, a little troubled by his silence. Surely he looked very
+strangely at her.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry," she faltered, nervously&mdash;"if I have brought you any bad
+news;&mdash;poor David seemed to have no friends, but perhaps you were a
+friend to him once and may have a kind recollection of him&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was still quite silent. Slowly he broke the seals of the packet, and
+drawing out a slip of paper which came first to his hand, read what was
+written upon it. Then he rose from his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Kindly wait one moment," he said. "These&mdash;these papers and letters are
+not for me, but&mdash;but for&mdash;for another gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>He hurried out of the room, taking the packet with him, and Mary
+remained alone for nearly a quarter of an hour, vaguely perplexed, and
+wondering how any "other gentleman" could possibly be concerned in the
+matter. Presently Mr. Bulteel returned, in an evident state of
+suppressed agitation.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you please follow me, Miss Deane?" he said, with a singular air of
+deference. "Sir Francis is quite alone and will see you at once."</p>
+
+<p>Mary's blue eyes opened in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Francis&mdash;&mdash;!" she stammered. "I don't quite understand&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"This way," said Mr. Bulteel, escorting her out of his own room along
+the passage to the door which she had before seen labelled with the name
+of "Sir Francis Vesey"&mdash;then catching the startled and appealing glance
+of her eyes, he added kindly: "Don't be alarmed! It's all right!"</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon he opened the door and announced&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Deane, Sir Francis."</p>
+
+<p>Mary looked up, and then curtsied with quite an "out-of-date" air of
+exquisite grace, as she found herself in the presence of a dignified
+white-haired old gentleman, who, standing near a large office desk on
+which the papers she had brought lay open, was wiping his spectacles,
+and looking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> very much as if he had been guilty of the womanish weakness
+of tears. He advanced to meet her.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do!" he said, uttering this commonplace with remarkable
+earnestness, and taking her hand kindly in his own. "You bring me sad
+news&mdash;very sad news! I had not expected the death of my old friend so
+suddenly&mdash;I had hoped to see him again&mdash;yes, I had hoped very much to
+see him again quite soon! And so you were with him at the last?"</p>
+
+<p>Mary looked, as she felt, utterly bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," she murmured&mdash;"I think there must be some mistake,&mdash;the
+papers I brought here were for Mr. Bulteel&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;yes!" said Sir Francis. "That's quite right! Mr. Bulteel is my
+confidential clerk&mdash;and the packet was addressed to him. But a note
+inside requested that Mr. Bulteel should bring all the documents at once
+to me, which he has done. Everything is quite correct&mdash;quite in order.
+But&mdash;I forgot! You do not know! Please sit down&mdash;and I will endeavour to
+explain."</p>
+
+<p>He drew up a chair for her near his desk so that she might lean her arm
+upon it, for she looked frightened. As a matter of fact he was
+frightened himself. Such a task as he had now to perform had never
+before been allotted to him. A letter addressed to him, and enclosed in
+the packet containing Helmsley's Last Will and Testament, had explained
+the whole situation, and had fully described, with simple fidelity, the
+life his old friend had led at Weircombe, and the affectionate care with
+which Mary had tended him,&mdash;while the conclusion of the letter was
+worded in terms of touching farewell. "For," wrote Helmsley, "when you
+read this, I shall be dead and in my quiet grave at Weircombe. Let me
+rest there in peace,&mdash;for though my eyes will no more see the sun,&mdash;or
+the kindness in the eyes of the woman whose unselfish goodness has been
+more than the sunshine to me, I shall&mdash;or so I think and hope&mdash;be
+spiritually conscious that my mortal remains are buried where humble and
+simple folk think well of me. This last letter from my hand to you is
+one not of business so much as friendship&mdash;for I have learned that what
+we call 'business' counts for very little, while the ties of sympathy,
+confidence, and love between human beings are the only forces that
+assist in the betterment of the world. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> so farewell! Let the beloved
+angel who brings you these last messages from me have all honour from
+you for my sake.&mdash;Yours,</p>
+
+<p>
+"<span class="smcap">David Helmsley</span>."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>And now, to Sir Francis Vesey's deep concern, the "beloved angel" thus
+spoken of sat opposite to him, moved by evident alarm,&mdash;her blue eyes
+full of tears, and her face pale and scared. How was he to begin telling
+her what she was bound to know?</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I will&mdash;I must endeavour to explain," he repeated, bending his
+brows upon her and regaining something of his self-control. "You, of
+course, were not aware&mdash;I mean my old friend never told you who he
+really was?"</p>
+
+<p>Her anxious look grew more wistful.</p>
+
+<p>"No, and indeed I never asked," she said. "He was so feeble when I took
+him to my home out of the storm, and for weeks afterwards he was so
+dangerously ill, that I thought questions might worry him. Besides it
+was not my business to bother about where he came from. He was just old
+and poor and friendless&mdash;that was enough for me."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope&mdash;I do very much hope," said Sir Francis gently, "that you will
+not allow yourself to be too much startled&mdash;or&mdash;or overcome by what I
+have to tell you. David&mdash;he said his name was David, did he not?"</p>
+
+<p>She made a sign of assent. A strange terror was creeping upon her, and
+she could not speak.</p>
+
+<p>"David&mdash;yes!&mdash;that was quite right&mdash;David was his name," proceeded Sir
+Francis cautiously. "But he had another name&mdash;a surname which perhaps
+you may, or may not have heard. That name was Helmsley&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She sprang up with a cry, remembering Angus Reay's story about his first
+love, Lucy Sorrel, and her millionaire.</p>
+
+<p>"Helmsley! Not David Helmsley!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,&mdash;David Helmsley! The 'poor old tramp' you sheltered in your
+home,&mdash;the friendless and penniless stranger you cared for so
+unselfishly and tenderly, was one of the richest men in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>She stood amazed,&mdash;stricken as by a lightning shock.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the richest men in the world!" she faltered. "One of the
+richest&mdash;&mdash;" and here, with a little stifled sob, she wrung her hands
+together. "Oh no&mdash;no! That can't be true! He would never have deceived
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Francis felt an uncomfortable tightness in his throat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> The
+situation was embarrassing. He saw at once that she was not so much
+affected by the announcement of the supposed "poor" man's riches, as by
+the overwhelming thought that he could have represented himself to her
+as any other than he truly was.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down again, and let me tell you all," he said gently&mdash;"You will, I
+am sure, forgive him for the part he played when you know his history.
+David Helmsley&mdash;who was my friend as well as my client for more than
+twenty years&mdash;was a fortunate man in the way of material
+prosperity,&mdash;but he was very unfortunate in his experience of human
+nature. His vast wealth made it impossible for him to see much more of
+men and women than was just enough to show him their worst side. He was
+surrounded by people who sought to use him and his great influence for
+their own selfish ends,&mdash;and the emotions and sentiments of life, such
+as love, fidelity, kindness, and integrity, he seldom or never met with
+among either his so-called 'friends' or his acquaintances. His wife was
+false to him, and his two sons brought him nothing but shame and
+dishonour. They all three died&mdash;and then&mdash;then in his old age he found
+himself alone in the world without any one who loved him, or whom he
+loved&mdash;without any one to whom he could confidently leave his enormous
+fortune, knowing it would be wisely and nobly used. When I last saw him
+I urged upon him the necessity of making his Will. He said he could not
+make it, as there was no one living whom he cared to name as his heir.
+Then he left London,&mdash;ostensibly on a journey for his health." Here Sir
+Francis paused, looking anxiously at his listener. She was deadly pale,
+and every now and then her eyes brimmed over with tears. "You can guess
+the rest," he continued,&mdash;"He took no one into his confidence as to his
+intention,&mdash;not even me. I understood he had gone abroad&mdash;till the other
+day&mdash;a short time ago&mdash;when I had a letter from him telling me that he
+was passing through Exeter."</p>
+
+<p>She clasped and unclasped her hands nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! That was where he went when he told me he had gone in search of
+work!" she murmured&mdash;"Oh, David, David!"</p>
+
+<p>"He informed me then," proceeded Sir Francis, "that he had made his
+Will. The Will is here,"&mdash;and he took up a document lying on his
+desk&mdash;"The manner of its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> execution coincides precisely with the letter
+of instructions received, as I say, from Exeter&mdash;of course it will have
+to be formally proved&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her eyes wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it to me?" she said&mdash;"I have nothing to do with it. I have
+brought you the papers&mdash;but I am sorry&mdash;oh, so sorry to hear that he was
+not what he made himself out to be! I cannot think of him in the same
+way&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Francis drew his chair closer to hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible," he said&mdash;"Is it possible, my dear Miss Deane, that you
+do not understand?"</p>
+
+<p>She gazed at him candidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course I understand," she said&mdash;"I understand that he was a
+rich man who played the part of a poor one&mdash;to see if any one would care
+for him just for himself alone&mdash;and&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;did care&mdash;oh, I did
+care!&mdash;and now I feel as if I couldn't care any more&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Her voice broke sobbingly, and Sir Francis Vesey grew desperate.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't cry!" he said&mdash;"Please don't cry! I should not be able to bear
+it! You see I'm a business man"&mdash;here he took off his spectacles and
+rubbed them vigorously&mdash;"and my position is that of the late Mr. David
+Helmsley's solicitor. In that position I am bound to tell you the
+straight truth&mdash;because I'm afraid you don't grasp it at all. It is a
+very overwhelming thing for you,&mdash;but all the same, I am sure, quite
+sure, that my old friend had reason to rely confidently upon your
+strength of character&mdash;as well as upon your affection for him&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She had checked her sobs and was looking at him steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"And, therefore," he proceeded&mdash;"referring again to my own
+position&mdash;that of the late David Helmsley's solicitor, it is my duty to
+inform you that you, Mary Deane, are by his last Will and Testament, the
+late David Helmsley's sole heiress."</p>
+
+<p>She started up in terror.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, no!&mdash;not me!" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything which the late David Helmsley died possessed of, is left to
+you absolutely and unconditionally," went on Sir Francis, speaking with
+slow and deliberate emphasis&mdash;"And&mdash;even as he was one of the richest
+men, so you are now one of the richest women in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>She turned deathly white,&mdash;then suddenly, to his great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> alarm and
+confusion, dropped on her knees before him, clasping her hands in a
+passion of appeal.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't say that, sir!" she exclaimed&mdash;"Please, please don't say it!
+I cannot be rich&mdash;I would not! I should be miserable&mdash;I should indeed!
+Oh, David, dear old David! I'm sure he never wished to make me
+wretched&mdash;he was fond of me&mdash;he was, really! And we were so happy and
+peaceful in the cottage at home! There was so little money, but so much
+love! Don't say I'm rich, sir!&mdash;or, if I am, let me give it all away at
+once! Let me give it to the starving and sick people in this great
+city&mdash;or please give it to them for me,&mdash;but don't, don't say that I
+must keep it myself!&mdash;I could not bear it!&mdash;oh, I could not bear it!
+Help me, oh, do help me to give it all away and let me remain just as I
+am, quite, quite poor!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence, broken only by the roar and din of the
+London city traffic outside, which sounded like the thunder of mighty
+wheels&mdash;the wheels of a rolling world. And then Sir Francis, gently
+taking Mary's hand in his own, raised her from the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear,"&mdash;he said, huskily&mdash;"You must not&mdash;you really must not give
+way! See,"&mdash;and he took up a sealed letter from among the documents on
+the desk, addressed "To Mary"&mdash;and handed it to her&mdash;"my late friend
+asks me in the last written words I have from him to give this to you. I
+will leave you alone to read it. You will be quite private in this
+room&mdash;and no one will enter till you ring. Here is the bell,"&mdash;and he
+indicated it&mdash;"I think&mdash;indeed I am sure, when you understand
+everything, you will accept the great responsibility which will now
+devolve upon you, in as noble a spirit as that in which you accepted the
+care of David Helmsley himself when you thought him no more than what in
+very truth he was&mdash;a lonely-hearted old man, searching for what few of
+us ever find&mdash;an unselfish love!"</p>
+
+<p>He left her then&mdash;and like one in a dream, she opened and read the
+letter he had given her&mdash;a letter as beautiful and wise and tender as
+ever the fondest father could have written to the dearest of daughters.
+Everything was explained in it&mdash;everything made clear; and gradually she
+realised the natural, strong and pardonable craving of the rich, unloved
+man, to seek out for himself some means whereby he might leave all his
+world's gainings to one whose kindness to him had not been measured by
+any knowledge of his wealth, but which had been bestowed upon him solely
+for simple love's sake. Every line Helmsley had written to her in this
+last appeal to her tenderness, came from his very heart, and went to her
+own heart again, moving her to the utmost reverence, pity and affection.
+In his letter he enclosed a paper with a list of bequests which he left
+to her charge.</p>
+
+<p>"I could not name them in my Will,"&mdash;he wrote&mdash;"as this would have
+disclosed my identity&mdash;but you, my dear, will be more exact than the law
+in the payment of what I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> have here set down as just. And, therefore, to
+you I leave this duty."</p>
+
+<p>First among these legacies came one of Ten Thousand Pounds to "my old
+friend Sir Francis Vesey,"&mdash;and then followed a long list of legacies to
+servants, secretaries, and workpeople generally. The sum of Five Hundred
+Pounds was to be paid to Miss Tranter, hostess of "The Trusty
+Man,"&mdash;"for her kindness to me on the one night I passed under her
+hospitable roof,"&mdash;and sums of Two Hundred Pounds each were left to
+"Matthew Peke, Herb Gatherer," and Farmer Joltram, both these personages
+to be found through the aforesaid Miss Tranter. Likewise a sum of Two
+Hundred Pounds was to be paid to one "Meg Ross&mdash;believed to hold a farm
+near Watchett in Somerset." No one that had served the poor "tramp" was
+forgotten by the great millionaire;&mdash;a sum of Five Hundred Pounds was
+left to John Bunce, "with grateful and affectionate thanks for his
+constant care"&mdash;and a final charge to Mary was the placing of Fifty
+Thousand Pounds in trust for the benefit of Weircombe, its Church, and
+its aged poor. The money in bank notes, enclosed with the testator's
+last Will and Testament, was to be given to Mary for her own immediate
+use,&mdash;and then came the following earnest request;&mdash;"I desire that the
+sum of Half-a-crown, made up of coppers and one sixpence, which will be
+found with these effects, shall be enclosed in a casket of gold and
+inscribed with the words 'The "surprise gift" collected by "Tom o' the
+Gleam" for David Helmsley, when as a tramp on the road he seemed to be
+in need of the charity and sympathy of his fellow men and which to him
+was</p>
+
+<p>
+MORE PRECIOUS THAN MANY MILLIONS.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>And I request that the said casket containing these coins may be
+retained by Mary Deane as a valued possession in her family, to be
+handed down as a talisman and cornerstone of fortune for herself and her
+heirs in perpetuity."</p>
+
+<p>Finally the list of bequests ended with one sufficiently unusual to be
+called eccentric. It ran thus:&mdash;"To Angus Reay I leave Mary Deane&mdash;and
+with Her, all that I value, and more than I have ever possessed!"</p>
+
+<p>Gradually, very gradually, Mary, sitting alone in Sir Francis Vesey's
+office, realised the whole position,&mdash;gradually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> the trouble and
+excitation of her mind calmed down, and her naturally even temperament
+reasserted itself. She was rich,&mdash;but though she tried to realise the
+fact, she could not do so, till at last the thought of Angus and how she
+might be able now to help him on with his career, roused a sudden rush
+of energy within her&mdash;which, however, was not by any means actual
+happiness. A great weight seemed to have fallen on her life&mdash;and she was
+bowed down by its heaviness. Kissing David Helmsley's letter, she put it
+in her bosom,&mdash;he had asked that its contents might be held sacred, and
+that no eyes but her own should scan his last words, and to her that
+request of a dead man was more than the command of a living King. The
+list of bequests she held in her hand ready to show Sir Francis Vesey
+when he entered, which he did as soon as she touched the bell. He saw
+that, though very pale, she was now comparatively calm and collected,
+and as she raised her eyes and tried to smile at him, he realised what a
+beautiful woman she was.</p>
+
+<p>"Please forgive me for troubling you so much,"&mdash;she said, gently&mdash;"I am
+very sorry! I understand it all now,&mdash;I have read David's letter,&mdash;I
+shall always call him David, I think!&mdash;and I quite see how it all
+happened. I can't help being sorry&mdash;very sorry, that he has left his
+money to me&mdash;because it will be so difficult to know how to dispose of
+it for the best. But surely a great deal of it will go in these
+legacies,"&mdash;and she handed him the paper she held&mdash;"You see he names you
+first."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Francis stared at the document, fairly startled and overcome by his
+late friend's generosity, as well as by Mary's na&iuml;ve candour.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Miss Deane,"&mdash;he began, with deep embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"You will tell me how to do everything, will you not?" she interrupted
+him, with an air of pathetic entreaty&mdash;"I want to carry out all his
+wishes exactly as if he were beside me, watching me&mdash;I think&mdash;" and her
+voice sank a little&mdash;"he may be here&mdash;with us&mdash;even now!" She paused a
+moment. "And if he is, he knows that I do not want money for myself at
+all&mdash;but that if I can do good with it, for his sake and memory, I will.
+Is it a very great deal?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it a great deal of money, you mean?" he queried.</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I should say that at the very least my late friend's personal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> estate
+must be between six and seven millions of pounds sterling."</p>
+
+<p>She clasped her hands in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! It is terrible!" she said, in a low strained voice&mdash;"Surely God
+never meant one man to have so much money!"</p>
+
+<p>"It was fairly earned,"&mdash;said Sir Francis, quietly&mdash;"David Helmsley, to
+my own knowledge, never wronged or oppressed a single human being on his
+way to his own success. His money is clean! There's no brother's blood
+on the gold&mdash;and no 'sweated' labour at the back of it. That I can vouch
+for&mdash;that I can swear! No curse will rest on the fortune you inherit,
+Miss Deane&mdash;for it was made honestly!"</p>
+
+<p>Tears stood in her eyes, and she wiped them away furtively.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor David!" she murmured&mdash;"Poor lonely old man! With all that wealth
+and no one to care for him! Oh yes, the more I think of it the more I
+understand it! But now there is only one thing for me to do&mdash;I must get
+home as quickly as possible and tell Angus"&mdash;here she pointed to the
+last paragraph in Helmsley's list of bequests&mdash;"You see,"&mdash;she went
+on&mdash;"he leaves Mary Deane&mdash;that's me&mdash;to Angus Reay, 'and with Her all
+that I value.' I am engaged to be married to Mr. Reay&mdash;David wished very
+much to live till our wedding-day&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She broke off, passing her hand across her brow and looking puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Reay is very much to be congratulated!"&mdash;said Sir Francis, gently.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled rather sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm not sure of that," she said&mdash;"He is a very clever man&mdash;he
+writes books, and he will be famous very soon&mdash;while I&mdash;" She paused
+again, then went on, looking very earnestly at Sir Francis&mdash;"May
+I&mdash;would you&mdash;write out something for me that I might sign before I go
+away to-day, to make it sure that if I die, all that I have&mdash;including
+this terrible, terrible fortune&mdash;shall come to Angus Reay? You see
+anything might happen to me&mdash;quite suddenly,&mdash;the very train I am going
+back in to-night might meet with some accident, and I might be
+killed&mdash;and then poor David's money would be lost, and his legacies
+never paid. Don't you see that?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sir Francis certainly saw it, but was not disposed to admit its
+possibility.</p>
+
+<p>"There is really no necessity to anticipate evil," he began.</p>
+
+<p>"There is perhaps no necessity&mdash;but I should like to be sure, quite
+sure, that in case of such evil all was right,"&mdash;she said, with great
+feeling&mdash;"And I know you could do it for me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course, if you insist upon it, I can draw you up a form of Will
+in ten minutes,"&mdash;he said, smiling benevolently&mdash;"Would that satisfy
+you? You have only to sign it, and the thing is done."</p>
+
+<p>It was wonderful to see how she rejoiced at this proposition,&mdash;the eager
+delight with which she contemplated the immediate disposal of the wealth
+she had not as yet touched, to the man she loved best in the world&mdash;and
+the swift change in her manner from depression to joy, when Sir Francis,
+just to put her mind at ease, drafted a concise form of Will for her in
+his own handwriting, in which form she, with the same precision as that
+of David Helmsley, left "everything of which she died possessed,
+absolutely and unconditionally," to her promised husband. With a smile
+on her face and sparkling eyes, she signed this document in the presence
+of two witnesses, clerks of the office called up for the purpose, who,
+if it had been their business to express astonishment, would undoubtedly
+have expressed it then.</p>
+
+<p>"You will keep it here for me, won't you?" she said, when the clerks had
+retired and the business was concluded&mdash;"And I shall feel so much more
+at rest now! For when I have talked it over with Angus I shall realise
+everything more clearly&mdash;he will advise me what to do&mdash;he is so much
+wiser than I am! And you will write to me and tell me all that is
+needful for me to know&mdash;shall I leave this paper?"&mdash;and she held up the
+document in which the list of Helmsley's various legacies was
+written&mdash;"Surely you ought to keep it?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Francis smiled gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I think not!" he said&mdash;"I think I must urge you to retain that paper on
+which my name is so generously remembered, in your own possession, Miss
+Deane. You understand, I suppose, that you are not <i>by the law</i>
+compelled to pay any of these legacies. They are left entirely to your
+own discretion. They merely represent the last purely personal wishes of
+my late friend, David Helmsley, and you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> must yourself decide whether
+you consider it practical to carry them out."</p>
+
+<p>She looked surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"But the personal wishes of the dead are more than any law" she
+exclaimed&mdash;"They are sacred. How could I"&mdash;and moved by a sudden impulse
+she laid her hand appealingly on his arm&mdash;"How could I neglect or fail
+to fulfil any one of them? It would be impossible!</p>
+
+<p>Responding to her earnest look and womanly gentleness, Sir Francis who
+had not forgotten the old courtesies once practised by gentlemen to
+women whom they honoured, raised the hand that rested so lightly on his
+arm, and kissed it.</p>
+
+<p>"I know" he said&mdash;"that it would be impossible for you to do what is not
+right and true and just! And you will need no advice from me save such
+as is purely legal and technical. Let me be your friend in these
+matters&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And in others too,"&mdash;said Mary, sweetly&mdash;"I do hope you will not
+dislike me!"</p>
+
+<p>Dislike her? Well, well! If any mortal man, old or young, could
+"dislike" a woman with a face like hers and eyes so tender, such an one
+would have to be a criminal or a madman! In a little while they fell
+into conversation as naturally as if they had known each other for
+years: Sir Francis listening with profound interest to the story of his
+old friend's last days. And presently, despatching a telegram to his
+wife to say that he was detained in the city by pressing business, he
+took Mary out with him to a quiet little restaurant where he dined with
+her, and finally saw her off from Paddington station by the midnight
+train for Minehead. Nothing would induce her to stay in London,&mdash;her one
+aim and object in life now was to return to Weircombe and explain
+everything to Angus as quickly as possible. And when the train had gone,
+Sir Francis left the platform in a state of profound abstraction, and
+was driven home in his brougham feeling more like a sentimentalist than
+a lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"Extraordinary!" he ejaculated&mdash;"The most extraordinary thing I ever
+heard of in my life? But I knew&mdash;I felt that Helmsley would dispose of
+his wealth in quite an unexpected way! Now I wonder how the man&mdash;Mary
+Deane's lover&mdash;will take it? I wonder! But what a woman she is!&mdash;how
+beautiful!&mdash;how simple and honest&mdash;above<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> all how purely womanly!&mdash;with
+all the sweet grace and gentleness which alone commands, and ever will
+command man's adoration! Helmsley must have been very much at peace and
+happy in his last days! Yes!&mdash;the sorrowful 'king' of many millions must
+have at last found the treasure he sought and which he considered more
+precious than all his money! For Solomon was right: 'If a man would give
+all the substance of his house for love, it would be utterly
+contemned!'"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>At Weircombe next day there was a stiff gale of wind blowing inland, and
+the village, with its garlands and pyramids of summer blossom, was swept
+from end to end by warm, swift, salty gusts, that bent the trees and
+shook the flowers in half savage, half tender sportiveness, while the
+sea, shaping itself by degrees into "wild horses" of blue water bridled
+with foam, raced into the shore with ever-increasing hurry and fury. But
+notwithstanding the strong wind, there was a bright sun, and a dazzling
+blue sky, scattered over with flying masses of cloud, like flocks of
+white birds soaring swiftly to some far-off region of rest. Everything
+in nature looked radiant and beautiful,&mdash;health and joy were exhaled
+from every breath of air&mdash;and yet in one place&mdash;one pretty
+rose-embowered cottage, where, until now, the spirit of content had held
+its happy habitation, a sudden gloom had fallen, and a dark cloud had
+blotted out all the sunshine. Mary's little "home sweet home" had been
+all at once deprived of sweetness,&mdash;and she sat within it like a
+mournful castaway, clinging to the wreck of that which had so long been
+her peace and safety. Tired out by her long night journey and lack of
+sleep, she looked very white and weary and ill&mdash;and Angus Reay, sitting
+opposite to her, looked scarcely less worn and weary than herself. He
+had met her on her return from London at the Minehead station, with all
+the ardour and eagerness of a lover and a boy,&mdash;and he had at once seen
+in her face that something unexpected had happened,&mdash;something that had
+deeply affected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span> her&mdash;though she had told him nothing, till on their
+arrival home at the cottage, she was able to be quite alone with him.
+Then he learned all. Then he knew that "old David" had been no other
+than David Helmsley the millionaire,&mdash;the very man whom his first love,
+Lucy Sorrel, had schemed and hoped to marry. And he realised&mdash;and God
+alone knew with what a passion of despair he realised it!&mdash;that
+Mary&mdash;his bonnie Mary&mdash;his betrothed wife&mdash;had been chosen to inherit
+those very millions which had formerly stood between him and what he had
+then imagined to be his happiness. And listening to the strange story,
+he had sunk deeper and deeper into the Slough of Despond, and now sat
+rigidly silent, with all the light gone out of his features, and all the
+ardour quenched in his eyes. Mary looking at him, and reading every
+expression in that dark beloved face, felt the tears rising thickly in
+her throat, but bravely suppressed them, and tried to smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew you would be sorry when you heard all about it, Angus,"&mdash;she
+said&mdash;"I felt sure you would! I wish it had happened differently&mdash;" Here
+she stopped, and taking up the little dog Charlie, settled him on her
+knee. He was whimpering to be caressed, and she bent over his small
+silky head to hide the burning drops that fell from her eyes despite
+herself. "If it could only be altered!&mdash;but it can't&mdash;and the only thing
+to do is to give the money away to those who need it as quickly as
+possible&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Give it away!" answered Angus, bitterly&mdash;"Good God! Why, to give away
+seven or eight millions of money in the right quarters would occupy one
+man's lifetime!"</p>
+
+<p>His voice was harsh, and his hand clenched itself involuntarily as he
+spoke. She looked at him in a vague fear.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Mary,"&mdash;he said&mdash;"You can't give it away&mdash;not as you imagine.
+Besides,&mdash;there is more than money&mdash;there is the millionaire's
+house&mdash;his priceless pictures, his books&mdash;his yacht&mdash;a thousand and one
+other things that he possessed, and which now belong to you. Oh Mary! I
+wish to God I had never seen him!"</p>
+
+<p>She trembled.</p>
+
+<p>"Then perhaps&mdash;you and I would never have met," she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"Better so!" and rising, he paced restlessly up and down the little
+kitchen&mdash;"Better that I should never have loved you, Mary, than be so
+parted from you! By money, too!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> The last thing that should ever have
+come between us! Money! Curse it! It has ruined my life!"</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her tear-wet eyes to his.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, Angus?" she asked, gently&mdash;"Why do you talk of
+parting? The money makes no difference to our love!"</p>
+
+<p>"No difference? No difference? Oh Mary, don't you see!" and he turned
+upon her a face white and drawn with his inward anguish&mdash;"Do you
+think&mdash;can you imagine that I would marry a woman with millions of
+money&mdash;I&mdash;a poor devil, with nothing in the world to call my own, and no
+means of livelihood save in my brain, which, after all, may turn out to
+be quite of a worthless quality! Do you think I would live on your
+bounty? Do you think I would accept money from you? Surely you know me
+better! Mary, I love you! I love you with my whole heart and soul!&mdash;but
+I love you as the poor working woman whose work I hoped to make easier,
+whose life it was my soul's purpose to make happy&mdash;but,&mdash;you have
+everything you want in the world now!&mdash;and I&mdash;I am no use to you! I can
+do nothing for you&mdash;nothing!&mdash;you are David Helmsley's heiress, and with
+such wealth as he has left you, you might marry a prince of the royal
+blood if you cared&mdash;for princes are to be bought,&mdash;like anything else in
+the world's market! But you are not of the world&mdash;you never were&mdash;and
+now&mdash;now&mdash;the world will take you! The world leaves nothing alone that
+has any gold upon it!"</p>
+
+<p>She listened quietly to his passionate outburst. She was deadly pale,
+and she pressed Charlie close against her bosom,&mdash;the little dog, she
+thought half vaguely, would love her just as well whether she was rich
+or poor.</p>
+
+<p>"How can the world take me, Angus?" she said&mdash;"Am I not yours?&mdash;all
+yours!&mdash;and what has the world to do with me? Do not speak in such a
+strange way&mdash;you hurt me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know I hurt you!" he said, stopping in his restless walk and facing
+her&mdash;"And I know I should always hurt you&mdash;now! If David Helmsley had
+never crossed our path, how happy we might have been&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She raised her hand reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not blame the poor old man, even in a thought, Angus!" she
+said&mdash;"His dream&mdash;his last hope was that we two might be happy! He
+brought us together,&mdash;and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> I am sure, quite sure, that he hoped we would
+do good in the world with the money he has left us&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Us!" interrupted Angus, meaningly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,&mdash;surely us! For am I not to be one with you? Oh Angus, be patient,
+be gentle! Think kindly of him who meant so much kindness to those whom
+he loved in his last days!" She smothered a rising sob, and went on
+entreatingly&mdash;"He has forgotten no one who was friendly to
+him&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;Angus&mdash;remember!&mdash;remember in that paper I have shown to
+you&mdash;that list of bequests, which he has entrusted me to pay, he has
+left me to you, Angus!&mdash;me&mdash;with all I possess&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She broke off, startled by the sorrow in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a legacy I cannot accept!" he said, hoarsely, his voice trembling
+with suppressed emotion&mdash;"I cannot take it&mdash;even though you, the most
+precious part of it, are the dearest thing to me in the world! I cannot!
+This horrible money has parted us, Mary! More than that, it has robbed
+me of my energy for work&mdash;I cannot work without you&mdash;and I must give you
+up! Even if I could curb my pride and sink my independence, and take
+money which I have not earned, I should never be great as a
+writer&mdash;never be famous. For the need of patience and grit would be
+gone&mdash;I should have nothing to work for&mdash;no object in view&mdash;no goal to
+attain. Don't you see how it is with me? And so&mdash;as things have turned
+out&mdash;I must leave Weircombe at once&mdash;I must fight this business through
+by myself&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Angus!" and putting Charlie gently down, she rose from her chair and
+came towards him, trembling&mdash;"Do you mean&mdash;do you really mean that all
+is over between us?&mdash;that you will not marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her straightly.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot!" he said&mdash;"Not if I am true to myself as a man!"</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot be true to <i>me</i>, as a woman?"</p>
+
+<p>He caught her in his arms and held her there.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I can be so true to you, Mary, that as long as I live I shall love
+you! No other woman shall ever rest on my heart&mdash;here&mdash;thus&mdash;as you are
+resting now! I will never kiss another woman's lips as I kiss yours
+now!" And he kissed her again and again&mdash;"But, at the same time, I will
+never live upon your wealth like a beggar on the bounty of a queen! I
+will never accept a penny at your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> hands! I will go away and work&mdash;and
+if possible, will make the fame I have dreamed of&mdash;but I will never
+marry you, Mary&mdash;never! That can never be!" He clasped her more closely
+and tenderly in his arms&mdash;"Don't&mdash;don't cry, dear! You are tired with
+your long journey&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;with all the excitement and trouble. Lie
+down and rest awhile&mdash;and&mdash;don't&mdash;don't worry about me! You deserve your
+fortune&mdash;you will be happy with it by and by, when you find out how much
+it can do for you, and what pleasures you can have with it&mdash;and life
+will be very bright for you&mdash;I'm sure it will! Mary&mdash;don't cling to me,
+darling!&mdash;it&mdash;it unmans me!&mdash;and I must be strong&mdash;strong for your sake
+and my own"&mdash;here he gently detached her arms from about his
+neck&mdash;"Good-bye, dear!&mdash;you must&mdash;you must let me go!&mdash;God bless you!"</p>
+
+<p>As in a dream she felt him put her away from his embrace&mdash;the cottage
+door opened and closed&mdash;he was gone.</p>
+
+<p>Vaguely she looked about her. There was a great sickness at her
+heart&mdash;her eyes ached, and her brain was giddy. She was tired,&mdash;very
+tired&mdash;and hardly knowing what she did, she crept like a beaten and
+wounded animal into the room which had formerly been her own, but which
+she had so long cheerfully resigned for Helmsley's occupation and better
+comfort,&mdash;and there she threw herself upon the bed where he had died,
+and lay for a long time in a kind of waking stupor.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear God, help me!" she prayed&mdash;"Help me to bear it! It is so
+hard&mdash;so hard!&mdash;to have won the greatest joy that life can give&mdash;and
+then&mdash;to lose it all!"</p>
+
+<p>She closed her eyes,&mdash;they were hot and burning, and now no tears
+relieved the pressure on her brain. By and by she fell into a heavy
+slumber. As the afternoon wore slowly away, Mrs. Twitt, on neighbourly
+thoughts intent, came up to the cottage, eager to hear all the news
+concerning "old David"&mdash;but she found the kitchen deserted; and peeping
+into the bedroom adjoining, saw Mary lying there fast asleep, with
+Charlie curled up beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"She's just dead beat and tired out for sure!" and Mrs. Twitt stole
+softly away again on tip-toe. "'Twould be real cruel to wake her. I'll
+put a bit on the kitchen fire to keep it going, and take myself off.
+There's plenty of time to hear all the news to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>So, being left undisturbed, Mary slept on and on&mdash;and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> when she at last
+awoke it was quite dark. Dark save for the glimmer of the moon which
+shone with a white vividness through the lattice window&mdash;shedding on the
+room something of the same ghostly light as on the night when Helmsley
+died. She sat up, pressing her hands to her throbbing temples,&mdash;for a
+moment she hardly knew where she was. Then, with a sudden rush of
+recollection, she realised her surroundings&mdash;and smiled. She was one of
+the richest women in the world!&mdash;and&mdash;without Angus&mdash;one of the poorest!</p>
+
+<p>"But he does not need me so much as I need him!" she said aloud&mdash;"A man
+has so many thing to live for; but a woman has only one&mdash;love!"</p>
+
+<p>She rose from the bed, trembling a little. She thought she saw "old
+David" standing near the door,&mdash;how pale and cold he seemed!&mdash;what a
+sorrow there was in his eyes! She stretched out her arms to the fancied
+phantom.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't,&mdash;don't be unhappy, David dear!" she said&mdash;"You meant all for the
+best&mdash;I know&mdash;I know! But even you, old as you were, tried to find some
+one to care for you&mdash;and you see&mdash;surely in Heaven you see how hard it
+is for me to have found that some one, and then to lose him! But you
+must not grieve!&mdash;it will be all right!"</p>
+
+<p>Mechanically she smoothed her tumbled hair&mdash;and taking up Charlie from
+the bed where he was anxiously watching her, she went into the kitchen.
+A small fire was burning low&mdash;and she lit the lamp and set it on the
+table. A gust of wind rushed round the house, shaking the door and the
+window, then swept away again with a plaintive cry,&mdash;and pausing to
+listen, she heard the low, thunderous boom of the sea. Moving about
+almost automatically, she prepared Charlie's supper and gave it to him,
+and slipping a length of ribbon through his collar, tied him securely to
+a chair. The little animal was intelligent enough to consider this an
+unusual proceeding on her part&mdash;and as a consequence of the impression
+it made upon his canine mind, refused to take his food. She saw
+this&mdash;but made no attempt to coax or persuade him. Opening a drawer in
+her oaken press, she took out pen, ink, and paper, and sitting down at
+the table wrote a letter. It was not a long letter&mdash;for it was finished,
+put in an envelope and sealed in less than ten minutes. Addressing it
+"To Angus"&mdash;she left it close under the lamp where the light might fall
+upon it. Then she looked around<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> her. Everything was very quiet. Charlie
+alone was restless&mdash;and sat on his tiny haunches, trembling nervously,
+refusing to eat, and watching her every movement. She stooped suddenly
+and kissed him&mdash;then without hat or cloak, went out, closing the cottage
+door behind her.</p>
+
+<p>What a night it was! What a scene of wild sky splendour! Overhead the
+moon, now at the full, raced through clouds of pearl-grey, lightening to
+milky whiteness, and the wind played among the trees as though with
+giant hands, bending them to and fro like reeds, and rustling through
+the foliage with a swishing sound like that of falling water. The ripple
+of the hill-torrent was almost inaudible, overwhelmed as it was by the
+roar of the gale and the low thunder of the sea&mdash;and Mary, going swiftly
+up the "coombe" to the churchyard, was caught by the blast like a leaf,
+and blown to and fro, till all her hair came tumbling about her face and
+almost blinded her eyes. But she scarcely heeded this. She was not
+conscious of the weather&mdash;she knew nothing of the hour. She saw the
+moon&mdash;the white, cold moon, staring at her now and then between
+pinnacles of cloud&mdash;and whenever it gleamed whitely upon her path, she
+thought of David Helmsley's dead face&mdash;its still smile&mdash;its peacefully
+closed eyelids. And with that face ever before her, she went to his
+grave. A humble grave&mdash;with the clods of earth still fresh and brown
+upon it&mdash;the chosen grave of "one of the richest men in the world!" She
+repeated this phrase over and over again to herself, not knowing why she
+did so. Then she knelt down and tried to pray, but could find no
+words&mdash;save "O God, bless my dear love, and make him happy!" It was
+foolish to say this so often,&mdash;God would be tired of it, she thought
+dreamily&mdash;but&mdash;after all&mdash;there was nothing else to pray for! She rose,
+and stood a moment&mdash;thinking&mdash;then she said aloud&mdash;"Good-night, David!
+Dear old David, you meant to make me so happy! Good-night! Sleep well!"</p>
+
+<p>Something frightened her at this moment,&mdash;a sound&mdash;or a shadow on the
+grass&mdash;and she uttered a cry of terror. Then, turning, she rushed out of
+the churchyard, and away&mdash;away up the hills, towards the rocks that
+over-hung the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Angus Reay, feverish and miserable, had been shut up in his
+one humble little room for hours, wrestling with himself and trying to
+work out the way in which he could best master and overcome what he
+chose to consider<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> the complete wreck of his life at what had promised
+to be its highest point of happiness. He could not shake himself free of
+the clinging touch of Mary's arms&mdash;her lovely, haunting blue eyes looked
+at him piteously out of the very air. Never had she been to him so
+dear&mdash;so unutterably beloved!&mdash;never had she seemed so beautiful as now
+when he felt that he must resign all claims of love upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"For she will be sought after by many a better man than myself,"&mdash;he
+said&mdash;"Even rich men, who do not need her millions, are likely to admire
+her&mdash;and why should I stand in her way?&mdash;I, who haven't a penny to call
+my own! I should be a coward if I kept her to her promise. For she does
+not know yet&mdash;she does not see what the possession of Helmsley's
+millions will mean to her. And by and bye when she does know she will
+change&mdash;she will be grateful to me for setting her free&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He paused, and the hot tears sprang to his eyes&mdash;"No&mdash;I am wrong!
+Nothing will change Mary! She will always be her sweet self&mdash;pure and
+faithful!&mdash;and she will do all the good with Helmsley's money that he
+believed and hoped she would. But I&mdash;I must leave her to it!"</p>
+
+<p>Then the thought came to him that he had perhaps been rough in speech to
+her that day&mdash;abrupt in parting from her&mdash;even unkind in overwhelming
+her with the force of his abnegation, when she was so tired with her
+journey&mdash;so worn out&mdash;so weary looking. Acting on a sudden impulse, he
+threw on his cap.</p>
+
+<p>"I will go and say good-night to her,"&mdash;he said&mdash;"For the last time!"</p>
+
+<p>He strode swiftly up the village street and saw through the cottage
+window that the lamp was lighted on the table. He knocked at the door,
+but there was no answer save a tiny querulous bark from Charlie. He
+tried the latch; it was unfastened, and he entered. The first object he
+saw was Charlie, tied to a chair, with a small saucer of untasted food
+beside him. The little dog capered to the length of his ribbon, and
+mutely expressed the absence of his kind mistress, while Angus,
+bewildered, looked round the deserted dwelling in amazement. All at once
+his eyes caught sight of the letter addressed to him, and he tore it
+open. It was very brief, and ran thus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"My Dearest,</p>
+
+<p>"When you read this, I shall be gone from you. I am sorry, oh, so
+sorry, about the money&mdash;but it is not my fault that I did not know
+who old David was. I hope now that everything will be right, when I
+am out of the way. I did not tell you&mdash;but before I left London I
+asked the kind gentleman, Sir Francis Vesey, to let me make a will
+in case any accident happened to me on my way home. He arranged it
+all for me very quickly&mdash;so that everything I possess, including
+all the dreadful fortune that has parted you from me,&mdash;now belongs
+to you. And you will be a great and famous man; and I am sure you
+will get on much better without me than with me&mdash;for I am not
+clever, and I should not understand how to live in the world as the
+world likes to live. God bless you, darling! Thank you for loving
+me, who am so unworthy of your love! Be happy! David and I will
+perhaps be able to watch you from 'the other side,' and we shall be
+proud of all you do. For you will spend those terrible millions in
+good deeds that must benefit all the world, I am sure. That is what
+I hoped we might perhaps have done together&mdash;but I see quite
+plainly now that it is best you should be without me. My love, whom
+I love so much more than I have ever dared to, say!&mdash;Good-bye!</p></div>
+
+<p>
+<span class="smcap">Mary</span>."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>With a cry like that of a man in physical torture or despair, Angus
+rushed out of the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary! Mary!" he cried to the tumbling stream and the moonlit sky.
+"Mary!"</p>
+
+<p>He paused. Just then the clock in the little church tower struck ten.
+The village was asleep&mdash;and there was no sound of human life anywhere.
+The faint, subtle scent of sweetbriar stole on the air as he stood in a
+trance of desperate uncertainty&mdash;and as the delicate odour floated by, a
+rush of tears came to his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary!" he called again&mdash;"Mary!"</p>
+
+<p>Then all at once a fearful idea entered his brain that filled him as it
+were with a mad panic. Rushing up the coombe, he sprang across the
+torrent, and raced over the adjoining hill, as though racing for life.
+Soon in front of him towered the "Giant's Castle" Rock, and he ran up
+its steep ascent with an almost crazy speed. At the summit he halted
+abruptly, looking keenly from side to side. Was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span> there any one there?
+No. There seemed to be no one. Chilled with a nameless horror, he stood
+watching&mdash;watching and listening to the crashing noise of the great
+billows as they broke against the rocks below. He raised his eyes to the
+heavens, and saw&mdash;almost unseeingly&mdash;a white cloud break asunder and
+show a dark blue space between,&mdash;just an azure setting for one brilliant
+star that shone out with a sudden flash like a signal. And then&mdash;then he
+caught sight of a dark crouching figure in the corner of the rocky
+platform over-hanging the sea,&mdash;a dear, familiar figure that even while
+he looked, rose up and advanced to the extreme edge with outstretched
+arms,&mdash;its lovely hair loosely flowing and flecked with glints of gold
+by the light of the moon. Nearer, nearer to the very edge of the dizzy
+height it moved&mdash;and Angus, breathless with terror, and fearing to utter
+a sound lest out of sudden alarm it should leap from its footing and be
+lost for ever, crept closer and ever closer. Closer still,&mdash;and he heard
+Mary's sweet voice murmuring plaintively&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I did not love him so dearly! I wish the world were not so
+beautiful! I wish I could stay&mdash;but I must go&mdash;I must go!&mdash;"Here there
+was a little sobbing cry&mdash;"You are so deep and cruel, you sea!&mdash;you have
+drowned so many brave men! You will not be long in drowning poor me,
+will you?&mdash;I don't want to struggle with you! Cover me up quickly&mdash;and
+let me forget&mdash;oh, no, no! Dear God, don't let me forget Angus!&mdash;I want
+to remember him always&mdash;always!"</p>
+
+<p>She swayed towards the brink&mdash;one second more&mdash;and then, with a swift
+strong clasp and passionate cry Angus had caught her in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary! Mary, my love! My wife! Anything but that, Mary! Anything but
+that!"</p>
+
+<p>Heart to heart they stood, their arms entwined, clasping each other in a
+wild passion of tenderness,&mdash;Angus trembling in all his strong frame
+with the excitement and horror of the past moment, and Mary sobbing out
+all her weakness, weariness and gladness on his breast. Above their
+heads the bright star shone, pendant between the snowy wings of the
+dividing cloud, and the sound of the sea was as a sacred psalm of
+jubilation in their ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God I came in time! Thank God I have you safe!" and Angus drew
+her closer and yet closer into his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> fervent embrace&mdash;"Oh Mary, my
+darling!&mdash;sweetest of women! How could you think of leaving me? What
+should I have done without you! Poverty or riches&mdash;either or neither&mdash;I
+care not which! But I cannot lose <i>you</i>, Mary! I cannot let my heavenly
+treasure go! Nothing else matters in all the world&mdash;I only want
+love&mdash;and you!"</p>
+
+<p style="text-align:center"><br />THE END</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes</h3>
+<p>1. Punctuation has been normalized to contemporary standards.</p>
+
+<p>2. "Sorrel" was originally misspelled "Sorrell" on these pages:<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 15: "Mrs. Sorrel would be sorry"<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 15: "Matt Sorrel never did anything"<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 18: "Sorrel, I assure you!"<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 18: "Mrs. Sorrel peered at him"<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 19: "Mrs. Sorrel did not attempt"<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 20: "Mrs. Sorrel visibly swelled"</p>
+
+<p>3. Individual spelling corrections and context:<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 30  pressent -> present ("always been present")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 34  thresold -> threshold ("standing shyly on the thresold")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 44  repudiatel -> repudiated ("firmly repudiated")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 77  temprary -> temporary ("such temporary pleasures")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 82  kitting -> knitting ("went on kitting rapidly")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 85  Brush -> Bush ("and Bill Bush")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 99  her -> he ("And he drew out")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 92  undisguisel -> undisguised ("undisguised admiration")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 116 a -> I ("if I can")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 147 Wothram -> Wrotham ("answered Lord Wrotram")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 157 scared -> scared ("scarred his vision")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 184 sungly -> snugly ("was snugly ensconced")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 190 mintes -> minutes ("A few minutes scramble")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 255 must -> much ("dare not talk much")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 270 acomplished -> accomplished ("fairly accomplished")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 276 gentlemen -> gentleman ("rank of a gentleman")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 335 me -> be ("There must be")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 359 severel -> several ("writing several letters")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 372 childred -> children ("sees his children")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 396 troubed -> troubled ("quite confused and troubled")<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p. 399 addessed -> addressed ("to whom it was addressed")</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Treasure of Heaven, by Marie Corelli
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TREASURE OF HEAVEN ***
+
+***** This file should be named 18449-h.htm or 18449-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/4/4/18449/
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/18449-h/images/illus-cover.jpg b/18449-h/images/illus-cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8a9f001
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18449-h/images/illus-cover.jpg
diff --git a/18449-h/images/illus-fpc.jpg b/18449-h/images/illus-fpc.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..be03a59
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18449-h/images/illus-fpc.jpg
diff --git a/18449.txt b/18449.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cf1201c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18449.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,18734 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Treasure of Heaven, by Marie Corelli
+
+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: The Treasure of Heaven
+       A Romance of Riches
+
+Author: Marie Corelli
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2006 [EBook #18449]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TREASURE OF HEAVEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Illustration: Copyright 1906 By Marie Corelli
+Signature: Marie Corelli
+FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN THIS YEAR BY GABELL, LONDON
+
+
+The Treasure Of Heaven
+
+A Romance Of Riches
+By
+Marie Corelli
+
+AUTHOR OF
+"GOD'S GOOD MAN," "THELMA," "THE SORROWS OF SATAN," "ARDATH,"
+"THE STORY OF A DEAD SELF," "FREE OPINIONS," "TEMPORAL POWER," ETC.
+
+NEW YORK
+DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
+1906
+
+Copyright, 1906, by DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
+Published, August, 1906
+
+To Bertha
+'A faithful friend is better than gold.'
+
+
+Author's Note
+
+By the special request of the Publishers, a portrait of myself, taken in
+the spring of this year, 1906, forms the Frontispiece to the present
+volume. I am somewhat reluctant to see it so placed, because it has
+nothing whatever to do with the story which is told in the following
+pages, beyond being a faithful likeness of the author who is responsible
+for this, and many other previous books which have had the good fortune
+to meet with a friendly reception from the reading public. Moreover, I
+am not quite able to convince myself that my pictured personality can
+have any interest for my readers, as it has always seemed to me that an
+author's real being is more disclosed in his or her work than in any
+portrayed presentment of mere physiognomy.
+
+But--owing to the fact that various gross, and I think I may say
+libellous and fictitious misrepresentations of me have been freely and
+unwarrantably circulated throughout Great Britain, the Colonies, and
+America, by certain "lower" sections of the pictorial press, which, with
+a zeal worthy of a better and kinder cause, have striven by this means
+to alienate my readers from me,--it appears to my Publishers advisable
+that an authentic likeness of myself, as I truly am to-day, should now
+be issued in order to prevent any further misleading of the public by
+fraudulent inventions. The original photograph from which Messrs. Dodd,
+Mead & Co. have reproduced the present photogravure, was taken by Mr. G.
+Gabell of Eccleston Street, London, who, at the time of my submitting
+myself to his camera, was not aware of my identity. I used, for the
+nonce, the name of a lady friend, who arranged that the proofs of the
+portrait should be sent to her at various different addresses,--and it
+was not till this "Romance of Riches" was on the verge of publication
+that I disclosed the real position to the courteous artist himself. That
+I thus elected to be photographed as an unknown rather than a known
+person was in order that no extra pains should be taken on my behalf,
+but that I should be treated just as an ordinary stranger would be
+treated, with no less, but at the same time certainly no more, care.
+
+I may add, in conclusion, for the benefit of those few who may feel any
+further curiosity on the subject, that no portraits resembling me in any
+way are published anywhere, and that invented sketches purporting to
+pass as true likenesses of me, are merely attempts to obtain money from
+the public on false pretences. One picture of me, taken in my own house
+by a friend who is an amateur photographer, was reproduced some time ago
+in the _Strand Magazine_, _The Boudoir_, _Cassell's Magazine_, and _The
+Rapid Review_; but beyond that, and the present one in this volume, no
+photographs of me are on sale in any country, either in shops or on
+postcards. My objection to this sort of "picture popularity" has already
+been publicly stated, and I here repeat and emphasise it. And I venture
+to ask my readers who have so generously encouraged me by their warm and
+constant appreciation of my literary efforts, to try and understand the
+spirit in which the objection is made. It is simply that to myself the
+personal "Self" of me is nothing, and should be, rightly speaking,
+nothing to any one outside the circle of my home and my intimate
+friends; while my work and the keen desire to improve in that work, so
+that by my work alone I may become united in sympathy and love to my
+readers, whoever and wherever they may be, constitutes for me the
+Everything of life.
+
+                                                       MARIE CORELLI
+Stratford-on-Avon
+July, 1906
+
+
+
+
+THE TREASURE OF HEAVEN
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+London,--and a night in June. London, swart and grim, semi-shrouded in a
+warm close mist of mingled human breath and acrid vapour steaming up
+from the clammy crowded streets,--London, with a million twinkling
+lights gleaming sharp upon its native blackness, and looking, to a
+dreamer's eye, like some gigantic Fortress, built line upon line and
+tower upon tower,--with huge ramparts raised about it frowningly as
+though in self-defence against Heaven. Around and above it the deep sky
+swept in a ring of sable blue, wherein thousands of stars were visible,
+encamped after the fashion of a mighty army, with sentinel planets
+taking their turns of duty in the watching of a rebellious world. A
+sulphureous wave of heat half asphyxiated the swarms of people who were
+hurrying to and fro in that restless undetermined way which is such a
+predominating feature of what is called a London "season," and the
+general impression of the weather was, to one and all, conveyed in a
+sense of discomfort and oppression, with a vague struggling expectancy
+of approaching thunder. Few raised their eyes beyond the thick warm haze
+which hung low on the sooty chimney-pots, and trailed sleepily along in
+the arid, dusty parks. Those who by chance looked higher, saw that the
+skies above the city were divinely calm and clear, and that not a cloud
+betokened so much as the shadow of a storm.
+
+The deep bell of Westminster chimed midnight, that hour of picturesque
+ghostly tradition, when simple village maids shudder at the thought of
+traversing a dark lane or passing a churchyard, and when country folks
+of old-fashioned habits and principles are respectably in bed and for
+the most part sleeping. But so far as the fashionable "West End" was
+concerned, it might have been midday. Everybody assuming to be Anybody,
+was in town. The rumble of carriages passing to and fro was
+incessant,--the swift whirr and warning hoot of coming and going motor
+vehicles, the hoarse cries of the newsboys, and the general insect-like
+drone and murmur of feverish human activity were as loud as at any busy
+time of the morning or the afternoon. There had been a Court at
+Buckingham Palace,--and a "special" performance at the Opera,--and on
+account of these two functions, entertainments were going on at almost
+every fashionable house in every fashionable quarter. The public
+restaurants were crammed with luxury-loving men and women,--men and
+women to whom the mere suggestion of a quiet dinner in their own homes
+would have acted as a menace of infinite boredom,--and these gilded and
+refined eating-houses were now beginning to shoot forth their bundles of
+well-dressed, well-fed folk into the many and various conveyances
+waiting to receive them. There was a good deal of needless shouting, and
+much banter between drivers and policemen. Now and again the melancholy
+whine of a beggar's plea struck a discordant note through the
+smooth-toned compliments and farewells of hosts and their departing
+guests. No hint of pause or repose was offered in the ever-changing
+scene of uneasy and impetuous excitation of movement, save where, far up
+in the clear depths of space, the glittering star-battalions of a
+wronged and forgotten God held their steadfast watch and kept their
+hourly chronicle. London with its brilliant "season" seemed the only
+living fact worth recognising; London, with its flaring noisy streets,
+and its hot summer haze interposed like a grey veil between itself and
+the higher vision. Enough for most people it was to see the
+veil,--beyond it the view is always too vast and illimitable for the
+little vanities of ordinary mortal minds.
+
+Amid all the din and turmoil of fashion and folly seeking its own in the
+great English capital at the midnight hour, a certain corner of an
+exclusively fashionable quarter seemed strangely quiet and sequestered,
+and this was the back of one of the row of palace-like dwellings known
+as Carlton House Terrace. Occasionally a silent-wheeled hansom,
+brougham, or flashing motor-car sped swiftly along the Mall, towards
+which the wide stone balcony of the house projected,--or the heavy
+footsteps of a policeman walking on his beat crunched the gravel of the
+path beneath, but the general atmosphere of the place was expressive of
+solitude and even of gloom. The imposing evidences of great wealth,
+written in bold headlines on the massive square architecture of the
+whole block of huge mansions, only intensified the austere sombreness of
+their appearance, and the fringe of sad-looking trees edging the road
+below sent a faint waving shadow in the lamplight against the cold
+walls, as though some shuddering consciousness of happier woodland
+scenes had suddenly moved them to a vain regret. The haze of heat lay
+very thickly here, creeping along with slow stealth like a sluggish
+stream, and a suffocating odour suggestive of some subtle anaesthetic
+weighed the air with a sense of nausea and depression. It was difficult
+to realise that this condition of climate was actually summer in its
+prime--summer with all its glowing abundance of flower and foliage as
+seen in fresh green lanes and country dells,--rather did it seem a dull
+nightmare of what summer might be in a prison among criminals undergoing
+punishment. The house with the wide stone balcony looked particularly
+prison-like, even more so than some of its neighbours, perhaps because
+the greater number of its many windows were shuttered close, and showed
+no sign of life behind their impenetrable blackness. The only strong
+gleam of light radiating from the inner darkness to the outer, streamed
+across the balcony itself, which by means of two glass doors opened
+directly from the room behind it. Here two men sat, or rather half
+reclined in easy-cushioned lounge chairs, their faces turned towards the
+Mall, so that the illumination from the apartment in the background
+created a Rembrandt-like effect in partially concealing the expression
+of the one from the other's observation. Outwardly, and at a first
+causal glance, there was nothing very remarkable about either of them.
+One was old; the other more than middle-aged. Both were in
+evening-dress,--both smoked idly, and apparently not so much for the
+pleasure of smoking as for lack of something better to do, and both
+seemed self-centred and absorbed in thought. They had been conversing
+for some time, but now silence had fallen between them, and neither
+seemed disposed to break the heavy spell. The distant roar of constant
+traffic in the busy thoroughfares of the metropolis sounded in their
+ears like muffled thunder, while every now and again the soft sudden
+echo of dance music, played by a string band in evident attendance at
+some festive function in a house not far away, shivered delicately
+through the mist like a sigh of pleasure. The melancholy tree-tops
+trembled,--a single star struggled above the sultry vapours and shone
+out large and bright as though it were a great signal lamp suddenly lit
+in heaven. The elder of the two men seated on the balcony raised his
+eyes and saw it shining. He moved uneasily,--then lifting himself a
+little in his chair, he spoke as though taking up a dropped thread of
+conversation, with the intention of deliberately continuing it to the
+end. His voice was gentle and mellow, with a touch of that singular
+pathos in its tone which is customary to the Celtic rather than to the
+Saxon vocal cords.
+
+"I have given you my full confidence," he said, "and I have put before
+you the exact sum total of the matter as I see it. You think me
+irrational,--absurd. Good. Then I am content to be irrational and
+absurd. In any case you can scarcely deny that what I have stated is a
+simple fact,--a truth which cannot be denied?"
+
+"It is a truth, certainly," replied his companion, pulling himself
+upright in his chair with a certain vexed vehemence of action and
+flinging away his half-smoked cigar, "but it is one of those unpleasant
+truths which need not be looked at too closely or too often remembered.
+We must all get old--unfortunately,--and we must all die, which in my
+opinion is more unfortunate still. But we need not anticipate such a
+disagreeable business before its time."
+
+"Yet you are always drawing up Last Wills and Testaments," observed the
+other, with a touch of humour in his tone.
+
+"Oh well! That, of course, has to be done. The youngest persons should
+make their wills if they have anything to leave, or else run the risk of
+having all their household goods and other belongings fought for with
+tooth and claw by their 'dearest' relations. Dearest relations are,
+according to my experience, very much like wild cats: give them the
+faintest hope of a legacy, and they scratch and squawl as though it were
+raw meat for which they have been starving. In all my long career as a
+solicitor I never knew one 'dearest relation' who honestly regretted the
+dead."
+
+"There you meet me on the very ground of our previous discussions," said
+the elder man. "It is not the consciousness of old age that troubles me,
+or the inevitable approach of that end which is common to all,--it is
+merely the outlook into the void,--the teasing wonder as to who may step
+into my place when I am gone, and what will be done with the results of
+my life's labour."
+
+He rose as he spoke, and moved towards the balcony's edge, resting one
+hand upon its smooth stone. The change of attitude allowed the light
+from the interior room to play more fully on his features, and showed
+him to be well advanced in age, with a worn, yet strong face and
+deep-set eyes, over which the shelving brows stooped benevolently as
+though to guard the sinking vital fire in the wells of vision below. The
+mouth was concealed by an ashen-grey moustache, while on the forehead
+and at the sides of the temples the hair was perfectly white, though
+still abundant. A certain military precision of manner was attached to
+the whole bearing of the man,--his thin figure was well-built and
+upright, showing no tendency to feebleness,--his shoulders were set
+square, and his head was poised in a manner that might have been called
+uncompromising, if not obstinate. Even the hand that rested on the
+balcony, attenuated and deeply wrinkled as it was, suggested strength in
+its shape and character, and a passing thought of this flitted across
+the mind of his companion who, after a pause, said slowly:--
+
+"I really see no reason why you should brood on such things. What's the
+use? Your health is excellent for your time of life. Your end is not
+imminent. You are voluntarily undergoing a system of self-torture which
+is quite unnecessary. We've known each other for years, yet I hardly
+recognise you in your present humour. I thought you were perfectly
+happy. Surely you ought to be,--you, David Helmsley,--'King' David, as
+you are sometimes called--one of the richest men in the world!"
+
+Helmsley smiled, but with a suspicion of sadness.
+
+"Neither kings nor rich men hold special grants of happiness," he
+answered, quietly: "Your own experience of humanity must have taught you
+that. Personally speaking, I have never been happy since my boyhood.
+This surprises you? I daresay it does. But, my dear Vesey, old friend as
+you are, it sometimes happens that our closest intimates know us least!
+And even the famous firm of Vesey and Symonds, or Symonds and
+Vesey,--for your partner is one with you and you are one with your
+partner,--may, in spite of all their legal wisdom, fail to pierce the
+thick disguises worn by the souls of their clients. The Man in the Iron
+Mask is a familiar figure in the office of his confidential solicitor. I
+repeat, I have never been happy since my boyhood----"
+
+"Your happiness then was a mere matter of youth and animal spirits,"
+interposed Vesey.
+
+"I thought you would say that!"--and again a faint smile illumined
+Helmsley's features. "It is just what every one would say. Yet the young
+are often much more miserable than the old; and while I grant that youth
+may have had something to do with my past joy in life, it was not all.
+No, it certainly was not all. It was simply that I had then what I have
+never had since."
+
+He broke off abruptly. Then stepping back to his chair he resumed his
+former reclining position, leaning his head against the cushions and
+fixing his eyes on the solitary bright star that shone above the mist
+and the trembling trees.
+
+"May I talk out to you?" he inquired suddenly, with a touch of
+whimsicality. "Or are you resolved to preach copybook moralities at me,
+such as 'Be good and you will be happy?'"
+
+Vesey, more ceremoniously known as Sir Francis Vesey, one of the most
+renowned of London's great leading solicitors, looked at him and
+laughed.
+
+"Talk out, my dear fellow, by all means!" he replied. "Especially if it
+will do you any good. But don't ask me to sympathise very deeply with
+the imaginary sorrows of so enormously wealthy a man as you are!"
+
+"I don't expect any sympathy," said Helmsley. "Sympathy is the one thing
+I have never sought, because I know it is not to be obtained, even from
+one's nearest and dearest. Sympathy! Why, no man in the world ever
+really gets it, even from his wife. And no man possessing a spark of
+manliness ever wants it, except--sometimes----"
+
+He hesitated, looking steadily at the star above him,--then went on.
+
+"Except sometimes,--when the power of resistance is weakened--when the
+consciousness is strongly borne in upon us of the unanswerable wisdom of
+Solomon, who wrote--'I hated all my labour which I had taken under the
+sun, because I should leave it to the man that should be after me. And
+who knows whether he shall be a wise man or a fool?'"
+
+Sir Francis Vesey, dimly regretting the half-smoked cigar he had thrown
+away in a moment of impatience, took out a fresh one from his
+pocket-case and lit it.
+
+"Solomon has expressed every disagreeable situation in life with
+remarkable accuracy," he murmured placidly, as he began to puff rings of
+pale smoke into the surrounding yellow haze, "but he was a bit of a
+misanthrope."
+
+"When I was a boy," pursued Helmsley, not heeding his legal friend's
+comment, "I was happy chiefly because I believed. I never doubted any
+stated truth that seemed beautiful enough to be true. I had perfect
+confidence in the goodness of God and the ultimate happiness designed by
+Him for every living creature. Away out in Virginia where I was born,
+before the Southern States were subjected to Yankeedom, it was a
+glorious thing merely to be alive. The clear, pure air, fresh with the
+strong odour of pine and cedar,--the big plantations of cotton and
+corn,--the colours of the autumn woods when the maple trees turned
+scarlet, and the tall sumachs blazed like great fires on the sides of
+the mountains,--the exhilarating climate--the sweetness of the
+south-west wind,--all these influences of nature appealed to my soul and
+kindled a strange restlessness in it which has never been appeased.
+Never!--though I have lived my life almost to its end, and have done all
+those things which most men do who seek to get the utmost satisfaction
+they can out of existence. But I am not satisfied; I have never been
+satisfied."
+
+"And you never will be," declared Sir Francis firmly. "There are some
+people to whom Heaven itself would prove disappointing."
+
+"Well, if Heaven is the kind of place depicted by the clergy, the
+poorest beggar might resent its offered attractions," said Helmsley,
+with a slight, contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. "After a life of
+continuous pain and struggle, the pleasures of singing for ever and ever
+to one's own harp accompaniment are scarcely sufficient compensation."
+
+Vesey laughed cheerfully.
+
+"It's all symbolical," he murmured, puffing away at his cigar, "and
+really very well meant! Positively now, the clergy are capital fellows!
+They do their best,--they keep it up. Give them credit for that at
+least, Helmsley,--they do keep it up!"
+
+Helmsley was silent for a minute or two.
+
+"We are rather wandering from the point," he said at last. "What I know
+of the clergy generally has not taught me to rely upon them for any
+advice in a difficulty, or any help out of trouble. Once--in a moment of
+weakness and irresolution--I asked a celebrated preacher what suggestion
+he could make to a rich man, who, having no heirs, sought a means of
+disposing of his wealth to the best advantage for others after his
+death. His reply----"
+
+"Was the usual thing, of course," interposed Sir Francis blandly. "He
+said, 'Let the rich man leave it all to me, and God will bless him
+abundantly!'"
+
+"Well, yes, it came to that,"--and Helmsley gave a short impatient sigh.
+"He evidently guessed that the rich man implied was myself, for ever
+since I asked him the question, he has kept me regularly supplied with
+books and pamphlets relating to his Church and various missions. I
+daresay he's a very good fellow. But I've no fancy to assist him. He
+works on sectarian lines, and I am of no sect. Though I confess I should
+like to believe in God--- if I could."
+
+Sir Francis, fanning a tiny wreath of cigar smoke away with one hand,
+looked at him curiously, but offered no remark.
+
+"You said I might talk out to you," continued Helmsley--"and it is
+perhaps necessary that I should do so, since you have lately so
+persistently urged upon me the importance of making my will. You are
+perfectly right, of course, and I alone am to blame for the apparently
+stupid hesitation I show in following your advice. But, as I have
+already told you, I have no one in the world who has the least claim
+upon me,--no one to whom I can bequeath, to my own satisfaction, the
+wealth I have earned. I married,--as you know,--and my marriage was
+unhappy. It ended,--and you are aware of all the facts--in the proved
+infidelity of my wife, followed by our separation (effected quietly,
+thanks to you, without the vulgar publicity of the divorce court), and
+then--in her premature death. Notwithstanding all this, I did my best
+for my two sons,--you are a witness to this truth,--and you remember
+that during their lifetime I did make my will,--in their favour. They
+turned out badly; each one ran his own career of folly, vice, and
+riotous dissipation, and both are dead. Thus it happens that here I
+am,--alone at the age of seventy, without any soul to care for me, or
+any creature to whom I can trust my business, or leave my fortune. It
+is not my fault that it is so; it is sheer destiny. How, I ask you, can
+I make any 'Last Will and Testament' under such conditions?"
+
+"If you make no will at all, your property goes to the Crown," said
+Vesey bluntly.
+
+"Naturally. I know that. But one might have a worse heir than the Crown!
+The Crown may be trusted to take proper care of money, and this is more
+than can often be said of one's sons and daughters. I tell you it is all
+as Solomon said--'vanity and vexation of spirit.' The amassing of great
+wealth is not worth the time and trouble involved in the task. One could
+do so much better----"
+
+Here he paused.
+
+"How?" asked Vesey, with a half-smile. "What else is there to be done in
+this world except to get rich in order to live comfortably?"
+
+"I know people who are not rich at all, and who never will be rich, yet
+who live more comfortably than I have ever done," replied
+Helmsley--"that is, if to 'live comfortably' implies to live peacefully,
+happily, and contentedly, taking each day as it comes with gladness as a
+real 'living' time. And by this, I mean 'living,' not with the rush and
+scramble, fret and jar inseparable from money-making, but living just
+for the joy of life. Especially when it is possible to believe that a
+God exists, who designed life, and even death, for the ultimate good of
+every creature. This is what I believed--once--'out in ole Virginny, a
+long time ago!'"
+
+He hummed the last words softly under his breath,--then swept one hand
+across his eyes with a movement of impatience.
+
+"Old men's brains grow addled," he continued. "They become clouded with
+a fog through which only the memories of the past and the days of their
+youth shine clear. Sometimes I talk of Virginia as if I were home-sick
+and wanted to go back to it,--yet I never do. I wouldn't go back to it
+for the world,--not now. I'm not an American, so I can say, without any
+loss of the patriotic sense, that I loathe America. It is a country to
+be used for the making of wealth, but it is not a country to be loved.
+It might have been the most lovable Father-and-Mother-Land on the globe
+if nobler men had lived long enough in it to rescue its people from the
+degrading Dollar-craze. But now, well!--those who make fortunes there
+leave it as soon as they can, shaking its dust off their feet and
+striving to forget that they ever experienced its incalculable greed,
+vice, cunning, and general rascality. There are plenty of decent folk in
+America, of course, just as there are decent folk everywhere, but they
+are in the minority. Even in the Southern States the 'old stock' of men
+is decaying and dying-out, and the taint of commercial vulgarity is
+creeping over the former simplicity of the Virginian homestead. No,--I
+would not go back to the scene of my boyhood, for though I had something
+there once which I have since lost, I am not such a fool as to think I
+should ever find it again."
+
+Here he looked round at his listener with a smile so sudden and sweet as
+to render his sunken features almost youthful.
+
+"I believe I am boring you, Vesey!" he said.
+
+"Not the least in the world,--you never bore me," replied Sir Francis,
+with alacrity. "You are always interesting, even in your most illogical
+humour."
+
+"You consider me illogical?"
+
+"In a way, yes. For instance, you abuse America. Why? Your misguided
+wife was American, certainly, but setting that unfortunate fact aside,
+you made your money in the States. Commercial vulgarity helped you
+along. Therefore be just to commercial vulgarity."
+
+"I hope I am just to it,--I think I am," answered Helmsley slowly; "but
+I never was one with it. I never expected to wring a dollar out of ten
+cents, and never tried. I can at least say that I have made my money
+honestly, and have trampled no man down on the road to fortune. But
+then--I am not a citizen of the 'Great Republic.'"
+
+"You were born in America," said Vesey.
+
+"By accident," replied Helmsley, with a laugh, "and kindly fate favoured
+me by allowing me to see my first daylight in the South rather than in
+the North. But I was never naturalised as an American. My father and
+mother were both English,--they both came from the same little sea-coast
+village in Cornwall. They married very young,--theirs was a romantic
+love-match, and they left England in the hope of bettering their
+fortunes. They settled in Virginia and grew to love it. My father became
+accountant to a large business firm out there, and did fairly well,
+though he never was a rich man in the present-day meaning of the term.
+He had only two children,--myself and my sister, who died at sixteen. I
+was barely twenty when I lost both father and mother and started alone
+to face the world."
+
+"You have faced it very successfully," said Vesey; "and if you would
+only look at things in the right and reasonable way, you have really
+very little to complain of. Your marriage was certainly an unlucky
+one----"
+
+"Do not speak of it!" interrupted Helmsley, hastily. "It is past and
+done with. Wife and children are swept out of my life as though they had
+never been! It is a curious thing, perhaps, but with me a betrayed
+affection does not remain in my memory as affection at all, but only as
+a spurious image of the real virtue, not worth considering or
+regretting. Standing as I do now, on the threshold of the grave, I look
+back,--and in looking back I see none of those who wronged and deceived
+me,--they have disappeared altogether, and their very faces and forms
+are blotted out of my remembrance. So much so, indeed, that I could, if
+I had the chance, begin a new life again and never give a thought to the
+old!"
+
+His eyes flashed a sudden fire under their shelving brows, and his right
+hand clenched itself involuntarily.
+
+"I suppose," he continued, "that a kind of harking back to the memories
+of one's youth is common to all aged persons. With me it has become
+almost morbid, for daily and hourly I see myself as a boy, dreaming away
+the time in the wild garden of our home in Virginia,--watching the
+fireflies light up the darkness of the summer evenings, and listening to
+my sister singing in her soft little voice her favourite melody--'Angels
+ever bright and fair.' As I said to you when we began this talk, I had
+something then which I have never had since. Do you know what it was?"
+
+Sir Francis, here finishing his cigar, threw away its glowing end, and
+shook his head in the negative.
+
+"You will think me as sentimental as I am garrulous," went on Helmsley,
+"when I tell you that it was merely--love!"
+
+Vesey raised himself in his chair and sat upright, opening his eyes in
+astonishment.
+
+"Love!" he echoed. "God bless my soul! I should have thought that you,
+of all men in the world, could have won that easily!"
+
+Helmsley turned towards him with a questioning look.
+
+"Why should I 'of all men in the world' have won it?" he asked.
+"Because I am rich? Rich men are seldom, if ever, loved for
+themselves--only for what they can give to their professing lovers."
+
+His ordinarily soft tone had an accent of bitterness in it, and Sir
+Francis Vesey was silent.
+
+"Had I remained poor,--poor as I was when I first started to make my
+fortune," he went on, "I might possibly have been loved by some woman,
+or some friend, for myself alone. For as a young fellow I was not
+bad-looking, nor had I, so I flatter myself, an unlikable disposition.
+But luck always turned the wheel in my favour, and at thirty-five I was
+a millionaire. Then I 'fell' in love,--and married on the faith of that
+emotion, which is always a mistake. 'Falling in love' is not loving. I
+was in the full flush of my strength and manhood, and was sufficiently
+proud of myself to believe that my wife really cared for me. There I was
+deceived. She cared for my millions. So it chances that the only real
+love I have ever known was the unselfish 'home' affection,--the love of
+my mother and father and sister 'out in ole Virginny,' 'a love so sweet
+it could not last,' as Shelley sings. Though I believe it can and does
+last,--for my soul (or whatever that strange part of me may be which
+thinks beyond the body) is always running back to that love with a full
+sense of certainty that it is still existent."
+
+His voice sank and seemed to fail him for a moment. He looked up at the
+large, bright star shining steadily above him.
+
+"You are silent, Vesey," he said, after a pause, speaking with an effort
+at lightness; "and wisely too, for I know you have nothing to say--that
+is, nothing that could affect the position. And you may well ask, if you
+choose, to what does all this reminiscent old man's prattle tend? Simply
+to this--that you have been urging me for the last six months to make my
+will in order to replace the one which was previously made in favour of
+my sons, and which is now destroyed, owing to their deaths before my
+own,--and I tell you plainly and frankly that I don't know how to make
+it, as there is no one in the world whom I care to name as my heir."
+
+Sir Francis sat gravely ruminating for a moment;--then he said:--
+
+"Why not do as I suggested to you once before--adopt a child? Find some
+promising boy, born of decent, healthy, self-respecting
+parents,--educate him according to your own ideas, and bring him up to
+understand his future responsibilities. How would that suit you?"
+
+"Not at all," replied Helmsley drily. "I _have_ heard of parents willing
+to sell their children, but I should scarcely call them decent or
+self-respecting. I know of one case where a couple of peasants sold
+their son for five pounds in order to get rid of the trouble of rearing
+him. He turned out a famous man,--but though he was, in due course, told
+his history, he never acknowledged the unnatural vendors of his flesh
+and blood as his parents, and quite right too. No,--I have had too much
+experience of life to try such a doubtful business as that of adopting a
+child. The very fact of adoption by so miserably rich a man as myself
+would buy a child's duty and obedience rather than win it. I will have
+no heir at all, unless I can discover one whose love for me is sincerely
+unselfish and far above all considerations of wealth or worldly
+advantage."
+
+"It is rather late in the day, perhaps," said Vesey after a pause,
+speaking hesitatingly, "but--but--you might marry?"
+
+Helmsley laughed loudly and harshly.
+
+"Marry! I! At seventy! My dear Vesey, you are a very old friend, and
+privileged to say what others dare not, or you would offend me. If I had
+ever thought of marrying again I should have done so two or three years
+after my wife's death, when I was in the fifties, and not waited till
+now, when my end, if not actually near, is certainly well in sight.
+Though I daresay there are plenty of women who would marry me--even
+me--at my age,--knowing the extent of my income. But do you think I
+would take one of them, knowing in my heart that it would be a mere
+question of sale and barter? Not I!--I could never consent to sink so
+low in my own estimation of myself. I can honestly say I have never
+wronged any woman. I shall not begin now."
+
+"I don't see why you should take that view of it," murmured Sir Francis
+placidly. "Life is not lived nowadays as it was when you first entered
+upon your career. For one thing, men last longer and don't give up so
+soon. Few consider themselves old at seventy. Why should they? There's a
+learned professor at the Pasteur Institute who declares we ought all to
+live to a hundred and forty. If he's right, you are still quite a young
+man."
+
+Helmsley rose from his chair with a slightly impatient gesture.
+
+"We won't discuss any so-called 'new theories,'" he said. "They are only
+echoes of old fallacies. The professor's statement is merely a modern
+repetition of the ancient belief in the elixir of life. Shall we go in?"
+
+Vesey got up from his lounging position more slowly and stiffly than
+Helmsley had done. Some ten years younger as he was, he was evidently
+less active.
+
+"Well," he said, as he squared his shoulders and drew himself erect, "we
+are no nearer a settlement of what I consider a most urgent and
+important affair than when we began our conversation."
+
+Helmsley shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"When I come back to town, we will go into the question again," he said.
+
+"You are off at the end of the week?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Going abroad?"
+
+"I--I think so."
+
+The answer was given with a slight touch of hesitation.
+
+"Your last 'function' of the season is the dance you are giving
+to-morrow night, I suppose," continued Sir Francis, studying with a
+vague curiosity the spare, slight figure of his companion, who had
+turned from him and, with one foot on the sill of the open French
+window, was just about to enter the room beyond.
+
+"Yes. It is Lucy's birthday."
+
+"Ah! Miss Lucy Sorrel! How old is she?"
+
+"Just twenty-one."
+
+And, as he spoke, Helmsley stepped into the apartment from which the
+window opened out upon the balcony, and waited a moment for Vesey to
+follow.
+
+"She has always been a great favourite of yours," said Vesey, as he
+entered. "Now, why----"
+
+"Why don't I leave her my fortune, you would ask?" interrupted Helmsley,
+with a touch of sarcasm. "Well, first, because she is a woman, and she
+might possibly marry a fool or a wastrel. Secondly, because though I
+have known her ever since she was a child of ten, I have no liking for
+her parents or for any of her family connections. When I first took a
+fancy to her she was playing about on the shore at a little seaside
+place on the Sussex coast,--I thought her a pretty little creature, and
+have made rather a pet of her ever since. But beyond giving her trinkets
+and bon-bons, and offering her such gaieties and amusements as are
+suitable to her age and sex, I have no other intentions concerning her."
+
+Sir Francis took a comprehensive glance round the magnificent
+drawing-room in which he now stood,--a drawing-room more like a royal
+reception-room of the First Empire than a modern apartment in the modern
+house of a merely modern millionaire. Then he chuckled softly to
+himself, and a broad smile spread itself among the furrows of his
+somewhat severely featured countenance.
+
+"Mrs. Sorrel would be sorry if she knew that," he said. "I think--I
+really think, Helmsley, that Mrs. Sorrel believes you are still in the
+matrimonial market!"
+
+Helmsley's deeply sunken eyes flashed out a sudden searchlight of keen
+and quick inquiry, then his brows grew dark with a shadow of scorn.
+
+"Poor Lucy!" he murmured. "She is very unfortunate in her mother, and
+equally so in her father. Matt Sorrel never did anything in his life but
+bet on the Turf and gamble at Monte Carlo, and it's too late for him to
+try his hand at any other sort of business. His daughter is a nice girl
+and a pretty one,--but now that she has grown from a child into a woman
+I shall not be able to do much more for her. She will have to do
+something for herself in finding a good husband."
+
+Sir Francis listened with his head very much on one side. An owl-like
+inscrutability of legal wisdom seemed to have suddenly enveloped him in
+a cloud. Pulling himself out of this misty reverie he said abruptly:--
+
+"Well--good-night! or rather good-morning! It's past one o'clock. Shall
+I see you again before you leave town?"
+
+"Probably. If not, you will hear from me."
+
+"You won't reconsider the advisability of----"
+
+"No, I won't!" And Helmsley smiled. "I'm quite obstinate on that point.
+If I die suddenly, my property goes to the Crown,--if not, why then you
+will in due course receive your instructions."
+
+Vesey studied him with thoughtful attention.
+
+"You're a queer fellow, David!" he said, at last. "But I can't help
+liking you. I only wish you were not quite so--so romantic!"
+
+"Romantic!" Helmsley looked amused. "Romance and I said good-bye to each
+other years ago. I admit that I used to be romantic--but I'm not now."
+
+"You are!" And Sir Francis frowned a legal frown which soon brightened
+into a smile. "A man of your age doesn't want to be loved for himself
+alone unless he's very romantic indeed! And that's what you do
+want!--and that's what I'm afraid you won't get, in your position--not
+as this world goes! Good-night!"
+
+"Good-night!"
+
+They walked out of the drawing-room to the head of the grand staircase,
+and there shook hands and parted, a manservant being in waiting to show
+Sir Francis to the door. But late as the hour was, Helmsley did not
+immediately retire to rest. Long after all his household were in bed and
+sleeping, he sat in the hushed solitude of his library, writing many
+letters. The library was on a line with the drawing-room, and its one
+window, facing the Mall, was thrown open to admit such air as could ooze
+through the stifling heat of the sultry night. Pausing once in the busy
+work of his hand and pen, Helmsley looked up and saw the bright star he
+had watched from the upper balcony, peering in upon him steadily like an
+eye. A weary smile, sadder than scorn, wavered across his features.
+
+"That's Venus," he murmured half aloud. "The Eden star of all very young
+people,--the star of Love!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+On the following evening the cold and frowning aspect of the mansion in
+Carlton House Terrace underwent a sudden transformation. Lights gleamed
+from every window; the strip of garden which extended from the rear of
+the building to the Mall, was covered in by red and white awning, and
+the balcony where the millionaire master of the dwelling had, some few
+hours previously, sat talking with his distinguished legal friend, Sir
+Francis Vesey, was turned into a kind of lady's bower, softly carpeted,
+adorned with palms and hothouse roses, and supplied with cushioned
+chairs for the voluptuous ease of such persons of opposite sexes as
+might find their way to this suggestive "flirtation" corner. The music
+of a renowned orchestra of Hungarian performers flowed out of the open
+doors of the sumptuous ballroom which was one of the many attractions of
+the house, and ran in rhythmic vibrations up the stairs, echoing through
+all the corridors like the sweet calling voices of fabled nymphs and
+sirens, till, floating still higher, it breathed itself out to the
+night,--a night curiously heavy and sombre, with a blackness of sky too
+dense for any glimmer of stars to shine through. The hum of talk, the
+constant ripple of laughter, the rustle of women's silken garments, the
+clatter of plates and glasses in the dining-room, where a costly
+ball-supper awaited its devouring destiny,--the silvery tripping and
+slipping of light dancing feet on a polished floor--all these sounds,
+intermingling with the gliding seductive measure of the various waltzes
+played in quick succession by the band, created a vague impression of
+confusion and restlessness in the brain, and David Helmsley himself, the
+host and entertainer of the assembled guests, watched the brilliant
+scene from the ballroom door with a weary sense of melancholy which he
+knew was unfounded and absurd, yet which he could not resist,--a touch
+of intense and utter loneliness, as though he were a stranger in his own
+home.
+
+"I feel," he mused, "like some very poor old fellow asked in by chance
+for a few minutes, just to see the fun!"
+
+He smiled,--yet was unable to banish his depression. The bare fact of
+the worthlessness of wealth was all at once borne in upon him with
+overpowering weight. This magnificent house which his hard earnings had
+purchased,--this ballroom with its painted panels and sculptured
+friezes, crowded just now with kaleidoscope pictures of men and women
+whirling round and round in a maze of music and movement,--the thousand
+precious and costly things he had gathered about him in his journey
+through life,--must all pass out of his possession in a few brief years,
+and there was not a soul who loved him or whom he loved, to inherit them
+or value them for his sake. A few brief years! And then--darkness. The
+lights gone out,--the music silenced--the dancing done! And the love
+that he had dreamed of when he was a boy--love, strong and great and
+divine enough to outlive death--where was it? A sudden sigh escaped
+him----
+
+"_Dear_ Mr. Helmsley, you look so _very_ tired!" said a woman's purring
+voice at his ear. "_Do_ go and rest in your own room for a few minutes
+before supper! You have been so kind!--Lucy is quite touched and
+overwhelmed by _all_ your goodness to her,--no _lover_ could do more for
+a girl, I'm _sure_! But really you _must_ spare yourself! What _should_
+we do without you!"
+
+"What indeed!" he replied, somewhat drily, as he looked down at the
+speaker, a cumbrous matron attired in an over-frilled and over-flounced
+costume of pale grey, which delicate Quakerish colour rather painfully
+intensified the mottled purplish-red of her face. "But I am not at all
+tired, Mrs. Sorrel, I assure you! Don't trouble yourself about me--I'm
+very well."
+
+"_Are_ you?" And Mrs. Sorrel looked volumes of tenderest insincerity.
+"Ah! But you know we _old_ people _must_ be careful! Young folks can do
+anything and everything--but _we_, at _our_ age, need to be
+_over_-particular!"
+
+"_You_ shouldn't call yourself old, Mrs. Sorrel," said Helmsley, seeing
+that she expected this from him, "you're quite a young woman."
+
+Mrs. Sorrel gave a little deprecatory laugh.
+
+"Oh dear no!" she said, in a tone which meant "Oh dear yes!" "I wasn't
+married at sixteen, you know!"
+
+"No? You surprise me!"
+
+Mrs. Sorrel peered at him from under her fat eyelids with a slightly
+dubious air. She was never quite sure in her own mind as to the way in
+which "old Gold-Dust," as she privately called him, regarded her. An
+aged man, burdened with an excess of wealth, was privileged to have what
+are called "humours," and certainly he sometimes had them. It was
+necessary--or so Mrs. Sorrel thought--to deal with him delicately and
+cautiously--neither with too much levity, nor with an overweighted
+seriousness. One's plan of conduct with a multi-millionaire required to
+be thought out with sedulous care, and entered upon with circumspection.
+And Mrs Sorrel did not attempt even as much as a youthful giggle at
+Helmsley's half-sarcastically implied compliment with its sarcastic
+implication as to the ease with which she supported her years and
+superabundance of flesh tissue. She merely heaved a short sigh.
+
+"I was just one year younger than Lucy is to-day," she said, "and I
+really thought myself quite an _old_ bride! I was a mother at
+twenty-one."
+
+Helmsley found nothing to say in response to this interesting statement,
+particularly as he had often heard it before.
+
+"Who is Lucy dancing with?" he asked irrelevantly, by way of diversion.
+
+"Oh, my _dear_ Mr. Helmsley, who is she _not_ dancing with!" and Mrs.
+Sorrel visibly swelled with maternal pride. "Every young man in the room
+has rushed at her--positively rushed!--and her programme was full five
+minutes after she arrived! Isn't she looking lovely to-night?--a perfect
+sylph! _Do_ tell me you think she is a sylph!"
+
+David's old eyes twinkled.
+
+"I have never seen a sylph, Mrs. Sorrel, so I cannot make the
+comparison," he said; "but Lucy is a very beautiful girl, and I think
+she is looking her best this evening. Her dress becomes her. She ought
+to find a good husband easily."
+
+"She ought,--indeed she ought! But it is very difficult--very, very
+difficult! All the men marry for money nowadays, not for love--ah!--how
+different it was when you and I were young, Mr. Helmsley! Love was
+everything then,--and there was so much romance and poetical sentiment!"
+
+"Romance is a snare, and poetical sentiment a delusion," said Helmsley,
+with sudden harshness. "I proved that in my marriage. I should think you
+had equally proved it in yours!"
+
+Mrs. Sorrel recoiled a little timorously. "Old Gold-Dust" often said
+unpleasant things--truthful, but eminently tactless,--and she felt that
+he was likely to say some of those unpleasant things now. Therefore she
+gave a fluttering gesture of relief and satisfaction as the waltz-music
+just then ceased, and her daughter's figure, tall, slight, and
+marvellously graceful, detached itself from the swaying crowd in the
+ballroom and came towards her.
+
+"Dearest child!" she exclaimed effusively, "are you not _quite_ tired
+out?"
+
+The "dearest child" shrugged her white shoulders and laughed.
+
+"Nothing tires me, mother--you know that!" she answered--then with a
+sudden change from her air of careless indifference to one of coaxing
+softness, she turned to Helmsley.
+
+"_You_ must be tired!" she said. "Why have you been standing so long at
+the ballroom door?"
+
+"I have been watching you, Lucy," he replied gently. "It has been a
+pleasure for me to see you dance. I am too old to dance with you myself,
+otherwise I should grudge all the young men the privilege."
+
+"I will dance with you, if you like," she said, smiling. "There is one
+more set of Lancers before supper. Will you be my partner?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Not even to please you, my child!" and taking her hand he patted it
+kindly. "There is no fool like an old, fool, I know, but I am not quite
+so foolish as that."
+
+"I see nothing at all foolish in it," pouted Lucy. "You are my host, and
+it's my coming-of-age party."
+
+Helmsley laughed.
+
+"So it is! And the festival must not be spoilt by any incongruities. It
+will be quite sufficient honour for me to take you in to supper."
+
+She looked down at the flowers she wore in her bodice, and played with
+their perfumed petals.
+
+"I like you better than any man here," she said suddenly.
+
+A swift shadow crossed his face. Glancing over his shoulder he saw that
+Mrs. Sorrel had moved away. Then the cloud passed from his brow, and the
+thought that for a moment had darkened his mind, yielded to a kinder
+impulse.
+
+"You flatter me, my dear," he said quietly. "But I am such an old friend
+of yours that I can take your compliment in the right spirit without
+having my head turned by it. Indeed, I can hardly believe that it is
+eleven years ago since I saw you playing about on the seashore as a
+child. You seem to have grown up like a magic rose, all at once from a
+tiny bud into a full blossom. Do you remember how I first made your
+acquaintance?"
+
+"As if I should ever forget!" and she raised her lovely, large dark eyes
+to his. "I had been paddling about in the sea, and I had lost my shoes
+and stockings. You found them for me, and you put them on!"
+
+"True!" and he smiled. "You had very wet little feet, all rosy with the
+salt of the sea--and your long hair was blown about in thick curls round
+the brightest, sweetest little face in the world. I thought you were the
+prettiest little girl I had ever seen in my life, and I think just the
+same of you now."
+
+A pale blush flitted over her cheeks, and she dropped him a demure
+curtsy.
+
+"Thank you!" she said. "And if you won't dance the Lancers, which are
+just beginning, will you sit them out with me?"
+
+"Gladly!" and he offered her his arm. "Shall we go up to the
+drawing-room? It is cooler there than here."
+
+She assented, and they slowly mounted the staircase together. Some of
+the evening's guests lounging about in the hall and loitering near the
+ballroom door, watched them go, and exchanged significant glances. One
+tall woman with black eyes and a viperish mouth, who commanded a certain
+exclusive "set" by virtue of being the wife of a dissolute Earl whose
+house was used as a common gambling resort, found out Mrs. Sorrel
+sitting among a group of female gossips in a corner, and laid a
+patronising hand upon her shoulder.
+
+"_Do_ tell me!" she softly breathed. "_Is_ it a case?"
+
+Mrs. Sorrel began to flutter immediately.
+
+"_Dearest_ Lady Larford! What _do_ you mean!"
+
+"Surely you know!" And the wide mouth of her ladyship grew still wider,
+and the black eyes more steely. "Will Lucy get him, do you think?"
+
+Mrs. Sorrel fidgeted uneasily in her chair. Other people were
+listening.
+
+"Really," she mumbled nervously--"really, _dear_ Lady Larford!--you put
+things so _very_ plainly!--I--I cannot say!--you see--he is more like
+her father----"
+
+Lady Larford showed all her white teeth in an expansive grin.
+
+"Oh, that's very safe!" she said. "The 'father' business works very well
+when sufficient cash is put in with it. I know several examples of
+perfect matrimonial bliss between old men and young girls--absolutely
+_perfect_! One is bound to be happy with heaps of money!"
+
+And keeping her teeth still well exposed, Lady Larford glided away, her
+skirts exhaling an odour of civet-cat as she moved. Mrs. Sorrel gazed
+after her helplessly, in a state of worry and confusion, for she
+instinctively felt that her ladyship's pleasure would now be to tell
+everybody whom she knew, that Lucy Sorrel, "the new girl who was
+presented at Court last night," was having a "try" for the Helmsley
+millions; and that if the "try" was not successful, no one living would
+launch more merciless and bitter jests at the failure and defeat of the
+Sorrels than this same titled "leader" of a section of the aristocratic
+gambling set. For there has never been anything born under the sun
+crueller than a twentieth-century woman of fashion to her own
+sex--except perhaps a starving hyaena tearing asunder its living prey.
+
+Meanwhile, David Helmsley and his young companion had reached the
+drawing-room, which they found quite unoccupied. The window-balcony,
+festooned with rose-silk draperies and flowers, and sparkling with tiny
+electric lamps, offered itself as an inviting retreat for a quiet chat,
+and within it they seated themselves, Helmsley rather wearily, and Lucy
+Sorrel with the queenly air and dainty rustle of soft garments habitual
+to the movements of a well-dressed woman.
+
+"I have not thanked you half enough," she began, "for all the delightful
+things you have done for my birthday----"
+
+"Pray spare me!" he interrupted, with a deprecatory gesture--"I would
+rather you said nothing."
+
+"Oh, but I must say something!" she went on. "You are so generous and
+good in yourself that of course you cannot bear to be thanked--I know
+that--but if you will persist in giving so much pleasure to a girl who,
+but for you, would have no pleasure at all in her life, you must expect
+that girl to express her feelings somehow. Now, mustn't you?"
+
+She leaned forward, smiling at him with an arch expression of sweetness
+and confidence. He looked at her attentively, but said nothing.
+
+"When I got your lovely present the first thing this morning," she
+continued, "I could hardly believe my eyes. Such an exquisite
+necklace!--such perfect pearls! Dear Mr. Helmsley, you quite spoil me!
+I'm not worth all the kind thought and trouble you take on my behalf."
+
+Tears started to her eyes, and her lips quivered. Helmsley saw her
+emotion with only a very slight touch of concern. Her tears were merely
+sensitive, he thought, welling up from a young and grateful heart, and
+as the prime cause of that young heart's gratitude he delicately forbore
+to notice them. This chivalrous consideration on his part caused some
+little disappointment to the shedder of the tears, but he could not be
+expected to know that.
+
+"I'm glad you are pleased with my little gift," he said simply, "though
+I'm afraid it is quite a conventional and ordinary one. Pearls and girls
+always go together, in fact as in rhyme. After all, they are the most
+suitable jewels for the young--for they are emblems of everything that
+youth should be--white and pure and innocent."
+
+Her breath came and went quickly.
+
+"Do you think youth is always like that?" she asked.
+
+"Not always,--but surely most often," he answered. "At any rate, I wish
+to believe in the simplicity and goodness of all young things."
+
+She was silent. Helmsley studied her thoughtfully,--even critically. And
+presently he came to the conclusion that as a child she had been much
+prettier than she now was as a woman. Yet her present phase of
+loveliness was of the loveliest type. No fault could be found with the
+perfect oval of her face, her delicate white-rose skin, her small
+seductive mouth, curved in the approved line of the "Cupid's bow," her
+deep, soft, bright eyes, fringed with long-lashes a shade darker than
+the curling waves of her abundant brown hair. But her features in
+childhood had expressed something more than the beauty which had
+developed with the passing of years. A sweet affection, a tender
+earnestness, and an almost heavenly candour had made the attractiveness
+of her earlier age quite irresistible, but now--or so Helmsley
+fancied--that fine and subtle charm had gone. He was half ashamed of
+himself for allowing this thought to enter his mind, and quickly
+dismissing it, he said--
+
+"How did your presentation go off last night? Was it a full Court?"
+
+"I believe so," she replied listlessly, unfurling a painted fan and
+waving it idly to and fro--"I cannot say that I found it very
+interesting. The whole thing bored me dreadfully."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Bored you! Is it possible to be bored at twenty-one?"
+
+"I think every one, young or old, is bored more or less nowadays," she
+said. "Boredom is a kind of microbe in the air. Most society functions
+are deadly dull. And where's the fun of being presented at Court? If a
+woman wears a pretty gown, all the other women try to tread on it and
+tear it off her back if they can. And the Royal people only speak to
+their own special 'set,' and not always the best-looking or
+best-mannered set either."
+
+Helmsley looked amused.
+
+"Well, it's what is called an _entree_ into the world,"--he replied.
+"For my own part, I have never been 'presented,' and never intend to be.
+I see too much of Royalty privately, in the dens of finance."
+
+"Yes--all the kings and princes wanting to borrow money," she said
+quickly and flippantly. "And you must despise the lot. _You_ are a real
+'King,' bigger than any crowned head, because you can do just as you
+like, and you are not the servant of Governments or peoples. I am sure
+you must be the happiest man in the world!"
+
+She plucked off a rose from a flowering rose-tree near her, and began to
+wrench out its petals with a quick, nervous movement. Helmsley watched
+her with a vague sense of annoyance.
+
+"I am no more happy," he said suddenly, "than that rose you are picking
+to pieces, though it has never done you any harm."
+
+She started, and flushed,--then laughed.
+
+"Oh, the poor little rose!" she exclaimed--"I'm sorry! I've had so many
+roses to-day, that I don't think about them. I suppose it's wrong."
+
+"It's not wrong," he answered quietly; "it's merely the fault of those
+who give you more roses than you know how to appreciate."
+
+She looked at him inquiringly, but could not fathom his expression.
+
+"Still," he went on, "I would not have your life deprived of so much as
+one rose. And there is a very special rose that does not grow in earthly
+gardens, which I should like you to find and wear on your heart,
+Lucy,--I hope I shall see you in the happy possession of it before I
+die,--I mean the rose of love."
+
+She lifted her head, and her eyes shone coldly.
+
+"Dear Mr. Helmsley," she said, "I don't believe in love!"
+
+A flash of amazement, almost of anger, illumined his worn features.
+
+"You don't believe in love!" he echoed. "O child, what _do_ you believe
+in, then?"
+
+The passion of his tone moved her to a surprised smile.
+
+"Well, I believe in being happy while you can," she replied tranquilly.
+"And love isn't happiness. All my girl and men friends who are what they
+call 'in love' seem to be thoroughly miserable. Many of them get
+perfectly ill with jealousy, and they never seem to know whether what
+they call their 'love' will last from one day to another. I shouldn't
+care to live at such a high tension of nerves. My own mother and father
+married 'for love,' so I am always told,--and I'm sure a more
+quarrelsome couple never existed. I believe in friendship more than
+love."
+
+As she spoke, Helmsley looked at her steadily, his face darkening with a
+shadow of weary scorn.
+
+"I see!" he murmured coldly. "You do not care to over-fatigue the
+heart's action by unnecessary emotion. Quite right! If we were all as
+wise as you are at your age, we might live much longer than we do. You
+are very sensible, Lucy!--more sensible than I should have thought
+possible for so young a woman."
+
+She gave him a swift, uneasy glance. She was not quite sure of his mood.
+
+"Friendship," he continued, speaking in a slow, meditative tone, "is a
+good thing,--it may be, as you suggest, safer and sweeter than love. But
+even friendship, to be worthy of its name, must be quite unselfish,--and
+unselfishness, in both love and friendship, is rare."
+
+"Very, very rare!" she sighed.
+
+"You will be thinking of marriage _some_ day, if you are not thinking of
+it now," he went on. "Would a husband's friendship--friendship and no
+more--satisfy you?"
+
+She gazed at him candidly.
+
+"I am sure it would!" she said; "I'm not the least bit sentimental."
+
+He regarded her with a grave and musing steadfastness. A very close
+observer might have seen a line of grim satire near the corners of his
+mouth, and a gleam of irritable impatience in his sunken eyes; but these
+signs of inward feeling were not apparent to the girl, who, more than
+usually satisfied with herself and over-conscious of her own beauty,
+considered that she was saying just the very thing that he would expect
+and like her to say.
+
+"You do not crave for love, then?" he queried. "You do not wish to know
+anything of the 'divine rapture falling out of heaven,'--the rapture
+that has inspired all the artists and poets in the world, and that has
+probably had the largest share in making the world's history?"
+
+She gave a little shrug of amused disdain.
+
+"Raptures never last!" and she laughed. "And artists and poets are
+dreadful people! I've seen a few of them, and don't want to see them any
+more. They are always very untidy, and they have the most absurd ideas
+of their own abilities. You can't have them in society, you know!--you
+simply can't! If I had a house of my own I would never have a poet
+inside it."
+
+The grim lines round Helmsley's mouth hardened, and made him look almost
+cruelly saturnine. Yet he murmured under his breath:--
+
+    "'All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
+      Whatever stirs this mortal frame;
+    Are but the ministers of Love,
+      And feed his sacred flame!'"
+
+"What's that?" she asked quickly.
+
+"Poetry!" he answered, "by a man named Coleridge. He is dead now. He
+used to take opium, and he did not understand business matters. He was
+never rich in anything but thoughts."
+
+She smiled brilliantly.
+
+"How silly!" she said.
+
+"Yes, he was very silly," agreed Helmsley, watching her narrowly from
+under his half-closed eyelids. "But most thinkers are silly, even when
+they don't take opium. They believe in Love."
+
+She coloured. She caught the sarcastic inflection in his tone. But she
+was silent.
+
+"Most men who have lived and worked and suffered," he went on, "come to
+know before they die that without a great and true love in their lives,
+their work is wasted, and their sufferings are in vain. But there are
+exceptions, of course. Some get on very well without love at all, and
+perhaps these are the most fortunate."
+
+"I am sure they are!" she said decisively.
+
+He picked up two or three of the rose-petals her restless fingers had
+scattered, and laying them in his palm looked at the curved, pink,
+shell-like shapes abstractedly.
+
+"Well, they are saved a good deal of trouble," he answered quietly.
+"They spare themselves many a healing heart-ache and many purifying
+tears. But when they grow old, and when they find that, after all, the
+happiest folks in the world are still those who love, or who have loved
+and have been loved, even though the loved ones are perhaps no longer
+here, they may--I do not say they will--possibly regret that they never
+experienced that marvellous sense of absorption into another's life of
+which Mrs. Browning writes in her letters to her husband. Do you know
+what she says?"
+
+"I'm afraid I don't!" and she smothered a slight yawn as she spoke. He
+fixed his eyes intently upon her.
+
+"She tells her lover her feeling in these words: '_There is nothing in
+you that does not draw all out of me._' That is the true emotion of
+love,--the one soul must draw all out of the other, and the best of all
+in each."
+
+"But the Brownings were a very funny couple," and the fair Lucy arched
+her graceful throat and settled more becomingly in its place a straying
+curl of her glossy brown hair. "I know an old gentleman who used to see
+them together when they lived in Florence, and _he_ says they were so
+queer-looking that people used to laugh at them. It's all very well to
+love and to be in love, but if you look odd and people laugh at you,
+what's the good of it?"
+
+Helmsley rose from his seat abruptly.
+
+"True!" he exclaimed. "You're right, Lucy! Little girl, you're quite
+right! What's the good of it! Upon my word, you're a most practical
+woman!--you'll make a capital wife for a business man!" Then as the gay
+music of the band below-stairs suddenly ceased, to give place to the
+noise of chattering voices and murmurs of laughter, he glanced at his
+watch.
+
+"Supper-time!" he said. "Let me take you down. And after supper, will
+you give me ten minutes' chat with you alone in the library!"
+
+She looked up eagerly, with a flush of pink in her cheeks.
+
+"Of course I will! With pleasure!"
+
+"Thank you!" And he drew her white-gloved hand through his arm. "I am
+leaving town next week, and I have something important to say to you
+before I go. You will allow me to say it privately?"
+
+She smiled assent, and leaned on his arm with a light, confiding
+pressure, to which he no more responded than if his muscles had been
+rigid iron. Her heart beat quickly with a sense of gratified vanity and
+exultant expectancy,--but his throbbed slowly and heavily, chilled by
+the double frost of age and solitude.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+To see people eating is understood to be a very interesting and
+"brilliant" spectacle, and however insignificant you may be in the
+social world, you get a reflex of its "brilliancy" when you allow people
+in their turn to see you eating likewise. A well-cooked, well-served
+supper is a "function," in which every man and woman who can move a jaw
+takes part, and though in plain parlance there is nothing uglier than
+the act of putting food into one's mouth, we have persuaded ourselves
+that it is a pretty and pleasant performance enough for us to ask our
+friends to see us do it. Byron's idea that human beings should eat
+privately and apart, was not altogether without aesthetic justification,
+though according to medical authority such a procedure would be very
+injurious to health. The slow mastication of a meal in the presence of
+cheerful company is said to promote healthy digestion--moreover, custom
+and habit make even the most incongruous things acceptable, therefore
+the display of tables, crowded with food-stuffs and surrounded by
+eating, drinking, chattering and perspiring men and women, does not
+affect us to any sense of the ridiculous or the unseemly. On the
+contrary, when some of us see such tables, we exclaim "How lovely!" or
+"How delightful!" according to our own pet vocabulary, or to our
+knowledge of the humour of our host or hostess,--or perhaps, if we are
+young cynics, tired of life before we have confronted one of its
+problems, we murmur, "Not so bad!" or "Fairly decent!" when we are
+introduced to the costly and appetising delicacies heaped up round
+masses of flowers and silver for our consideration and entertainment. At
+the supper given by David Helmsley for Lucy Sorrel's twenty-first
+birthday, there was, however, no note of dissatisfaction--the _blase_
+breath of the callow critic emitted no withering blight, and even
+latter-day satirists in their teens, frosted like tender pease-blossom
+before their prime, condescended to approve the lavish generosity,
+combined with the perfect taste, which made the festive scene a glowing
+picture of luxury and elegance. But Helmsley himself, as he led his
+beautiful partner, "the" guest of the evening, to the head of the
+principal table, and took his place beside her, was conscious of no
+personal pleasure, but only of a dreary feeling which seemed lonelier
+than loneliness and more sorrowful than sorrow. The wearied scorn that
+he had lately begun to entertain for himself, his wealth, his business,
+his influence, and all his surroundings, was embittered by a
+disappointment none the less keen because he had dimly foreseen it. The
+child he had petted, the girl he had indulged after the fashion of a
+father who seeks to make the world pleasant to a young life just
+entering it, she, even she, was, or seemed to be, practically as selfish
+as any experienced member of the particular set of schemers and
+intriguers who compose what is sometimes called "society" in the present
+day. He had no wish to judge her harshly, but he was too old and knew
+too much of life to be easily deceived in his estimation of character. A
+very slight hint was sufficient for him. He had seen a great deal of
+Lucy Sorrel as a child--she had always been known as his "little
+favourite"--but since she had attended a fashionable school at Brighton,
+his visits to her home had been less frequent, and he had had very few
+opportunities of becoming acquainted with the gradual development of her
+mental and moral self. During her holidays he had given her as many
+little social pleasures and gaieties as he had considered might be
+acceptable to her taste and age, but on these occasions other persons
+had always been present, and Lucy herself had worn what are called
+"company" manners, which in her case were singularly charming and
+attractive, so much so, indeed, that it would have seemed like heresy to
+question their sincerity. But now--whether it was the slight hint
+dropped by Sir Francis Vesey on the previous night as to Mrs. Sorrel's
+match-making proclivities, or whether it was a scarcely perceptible
+suggestion of something more flippant and assertive than usual in the
+air and bearing of Lucy herself that had awakened his suspicions,--he
+was certainly disposed to doubt, for the first time in all his knowledge
+of her, the candid nature of the girl for whom he had hitherto
+entertained, half-unconsciously, an almost parental affection. He sat by
+her side at supper, seldom speaking, but always closely observant. He
+saw everything; he watched the bright, exulting flash of her eyes as she
+glanced at her various friends, both near her and at a distance, and he
+fancied he detected in their responsive looks a subtle inquiry and
+meaning which he would not allow himself to investigate. And while the
+bubbling talk and laughter eddied round him, he made up his mind to
+combat the lurking distrust that teased his brain, and either to
+disperse it altogether or else confirm it beyond all mere shadowy
+misgiving. Some such thought as this had occurred to him, albeit
+vaguely, when he had, on a sudden unpremeditated impulse, asked Lucy to
+give him a few minutes' private conversation with her after supper, but
+now, what had previously been a mere idea formulated itself into a fixed
+resolve.
+
+"For what, after all, does it matter to me?" he mused. "Why should I
+hesitate to destroy a dream? Why should I care if another rainbow bubble
+of life breaks and disappears? I am too old to have ideals--so most
+people would tell me. And yet--with the grave open and ready to receive
+me,--I still believe that love and truth and purity surely exist in
+women's hearts--if one could only know just where to find the women!"
+
+"Dear King David!" murmured a cooing voice at his ear. "Won't you drink
+my health?"
+
+He started as from a reverie. Lucy Sorrel was bending towards him, her
+face glowing with gratified vanity and self-elation.
+
+"Of course!" he answered, and rising to his feet, he lifted his glass
+full of as yet untasted champagne, at which action on his part the
+murmur of voices suddenly ceased sand all eyes were turned upon him.
+"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, in his soft, tired voice,--"I beg to
+propose the health of Miss Lucy Sorrel! She has lived twenty-one years
+on this interesting old planet of ours, and has found it, so far, not
+altogether without charm. I have had seventy years of it, and strange as
+it may seem to you all, I am able to keep a few of the illusions and
+delusions I had when I was even younger than our charming guest of the
+evening. I still believe in good women! I think I have one sitting at my
+right hand to-night. I take for granted that her nature is as fair as
+her face; and I hope that every recurring anniversary of this day may
+bring her just as much happiness as she deserves. I ask you to drink to
+her health, wealth, and prosperity; and--may she soon find a good
+husband!"
+
+Applause and laughter followed this conventional little speech, and the
+toast was honoured in the usual way, Lucy bowing and smiling her thanks
+to all present. And then there ensued one of those strange
+impressions--one might almost call them telepathic instead of
+atmospheric effects--which, subtly penetrating the air, exerted an
+inexplicable influence on the mind;--the expectancy of some word never
+to be uttered,--the waiting for some incident never to take place.
+People murmured and smiled, and looked and laughed, but there was an
+evident embarrassment among them,--an under-sense of something like
+disappointment. The fortunately commonplace and methodical habits of
+waiters, whose one idea is to keep their patrons busy eating and
+drinking, gradually overcame this insidious restraint, and the supper
+went on gaily till at one o'clock the Hungarian band again began to
+play, and all the young people, eager for their "extras" in the way of
+dances, quickly rose from the various tables and began to crowd out
+towards the ballroom. In the general dispersal, Lucy having left him for
+a partner to whom she had promised the first "extra," Helmsley stopped
+to speak to one or two men well known to him in the business world. He
+was still conversing with these when Mrs. Sorrel, not perceiving him in
+the corner where he stood apart with his friend, trotted past him with
+an agitated step and flushed countenance, and catching her daughter by
+the skirt of her dress as that young lady moved on with the pushing
+throng in front of her, held her back for a second.
+
+"What have you done?" she demanded querulously, in not too soft a tone.
+"Were you careful? Did you manage him properly? What did he say to you?"
+
+Lucy's beautiful face hardened, and her lips met in a thin, decidedly
+bad-tempered line.
+
+"He said nothing to the purpose," she replied coldly. "There was no
+time. But"--and she lowered her voice--"he wants to speak to me alone
+presently. I'm going to him in the library after this dance."
+
+She passed on, and Mrs. Sorrel, heaving a deep sigh, drew out a black
+pocket-fan and fanned herself vigorously. Wreathing her face with social
+smiles, she made her way slowly out of the supper-room, happily unaware
+that Helmsley had been near enough to hear every word that had passed.
+And hearing, he had understood; but he went on talking to his friends
+in the quiet, rather slow way which was habitual to him, and when he
+left them there was nothing about him to indicate that he was in a
+suppressed state of nervous excitement which made him for the moment
+quite forget that he was an old man. Impetuous youth itself never felt a
+keener blaze of vitality in the veins than he did at that moment, but it
+was the withering heat of indignation that warmed him--not the tender
+glow of love. The clarion sweetness of the dance-music, now pealing
+loudly on the air, irritated his nerves,--the lights, the flowers, the
+brilliancy of the whole scene jarred upon his soul,--what was it all but
+sham, he thought!--a show in the mere name of friendship!--an ephemeral
+rose of pleasure with a worm at its core! Impatiently he shook himself
+free of those who sought to detain him and went at once to his
+library,--a sombre, darkly-furnished apartment, large enough to seem
+gloomy by contrast with the gaiety and cheerfulness which were dominant
+throughout the rest of the house that evening. Only two or three shaded
+lamps were lit, and these cast a ghostly flicker on the row of books
+that lined the walls. A few names in raised letters of gold relief upon
+the backs of some of the volumes, asserted themselves, or so he fancied,
+with unaccustomed prominence. "Montaigne," "Seneca," "Rochefoucauld,"
+"Goethe," "Byron," and "The Sonnets of William Shakespeare," stood forth
+from the surrounding darkness as though demanding special notice.
+
+"Voices of the dead!" he murmured half aloud. "I should have learned
+wisdom from you all long ago! What have the great geniuses of the world
+lived for? For what purpose did they use their brains and pens? Simply
+to teach mankind the folly of too much faith! Yet we continue to delude
+ourselves--and the worst of it is that we do it wilfully and knowingly.
+We are perfectly aware that when we trust, we shall be deceived--yet we
+trust on! Even I--old and frail and about to die--cannot rid myself of a
+belief in God, and in the ultimate happiness of each man's destiny. And
+yet, so far as my own experience serves me, I have nothing to go
+upon--absolutely nothing!"
+
+He gave an unconscious gesture--half of scorn, half of despair--and
+paced the room slowly up and down. A life of toil--a life rounding into
+worldly success, but blank of all love and heart's comfort--was this to
+be the only conclusion to his career? Of what use, then, was it to have
+lived at all?
+
+"People talk foolishly of a 'declining birth-rate,'" he went on; "yet
+if, according to the modern scientist, all civilisations are only so
+much output of wasted human energy, doomed to pass into utter oblivion,
+and human beings only live but to die and there an end, of what avail is
+it to be born at all? Surely it is but wanton cruelty to take upon
+ourselves the responsibility of continuing a race whose only
+consummation is rottenness in unremembered graves!"
+
+At that moment the door opened and Lucy Sorrel entered softly, with a
+pretty air of hesitating timidity which became her style of beauty
+excellently well. As he looked up and saw her standing half shyly on the
+threshold, a white, light, radiant figure expressing exquisitely fresh
+youth, grace and--innocence?--yes! surely that wondrous charm which hung
+about her like a delicate atmosphere redolent with the perfume of
+spring, could only be the mystic exhalation of a pure mind adding
+spiritual lustre to the material attraction of a perfect body,--his
+heart misgave him. Already he was full of remorse lest so much as a
+passing thought in his brain might have done her unmerited wrong. He
+advanced to meet her, and his voice was full of kindness as he said:--
+
+"Is your dance quite over, Lucy? Are you sure I am not selfishly
+depriving you of pleasure by asking you to come away from all your young
+friends just to talk to me for a few minutes in this dull room?"
+
+She raised her beautiful eyes confidingly.
+
+"Dear Mr. Helmsley, there can be no greater pleasure for me than to talk
+to you!" she answered sweetly.
+
+His expression changed and hardened. "That's not true," he thought; "and
+_she_ knows it, and _I_ know it." Aloud he said: "Very prettily spoken,
+Lucy! But I am aware of my own tediousness and I won't detain you long.
+Will you sit down?" and he offered her an easy-chair, into which she
+sank with the soft slow grace of a nestling bird. "I only want to say
+just a few words,--such as your father might say to you if he were so
+inclined--about your future."
+
+She gave him a swift glance of keen inquiry.
+
+"My future?" she echoed.
+
+"Yes. Have you thought of it at all yourself?"
+
+She heaved a little sigh, smiled, and shook her head in the negative.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm very silly," she confessed plaintively. "I never think!"
+
+He drew up another armchair and sat down opposite to her.
+
+"Well, try to do so now for five minutes at least," he said, gently. "I
+am going away to-morrow or next day for a considerable time----"
+
+A quick flush flew over her face.
+
+"Going away!" she exclaimed. "But--not far?"
+
+"That depends on my own whim," he replied, watching her attentively. "I
+shall certainly be absent from England for a year, perhaps longer. But,
+Lucy,--you were such a little pet of mine in your childhood that I
+cannot help taking an interest in you now you are grown up. That is, I
+think, quite natural. And I should like to feel that you have some good
+and safe idea of your own happiness in life before I leave you."
+
+She stared,--her face fell.
+
+"I have no ideas at all," she answered after a pause, the corners of her
+red mouth drooping in petulant, spoilt-child fashion, "and if you go
+away I shall have no pleasures either!"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"I'm sorry you take it that way," he said. "But I'm nearing the end of
+my tether, Lucy, and increasing age makes me restless. I want change of
+scene--and change of surroundings. I am thoroughly tired of my present
+condition."
+
+"Tired?" and her eyes expressed whole volumes of amazement. "Not really?
+_You_--tired of your present condition? With all your money?"
+
+"With all my money!" he answered drily, "Money is not the elixir of
+happiness, Lucy, though many people seem to think it is. But I prefer
+not to talk about myself. Let me speak of you. What do you propose to do
+with your life? You will marry, of course?"
+
+"I--I suppose so," she faltered.
+
+"Is there any one you specially favour?--any young fellow who loves you,
+or whom you are inclined to love--and who wants a start in the world? If
+there is, send him to me, and, if he has anything in him, I'll make
+myself answerable for his prosperity."
+
+She looked up with a cold, bright steadfastness.
+
+"There is no one," she said. "Dear Mr. Helmsley, you are very good, but
+I assure you I have never fallen in love in my life. As I told you
+before supper, I don't believe in that kind of nonsense. And I--I want
+nothing. Of course I know my father and mother are poor, and that they
+have kept up a sort of position which ranks them among the 'shabby
+genteel,'--and I suppose if I don't marry quickly I shall have to do
+something for a living----"
+
+She broke off, embarrassed by the keenness of the gaze he fixed upon
+her.
+
+"Many good, many beautiful, many delicate women 'do something,' as you
+put it, for a living," he said slowly. "But the fight is always fierce,
+and the end is sometimes bitter. It is better for a woman that she
+should be safeguarded by a husband's care and tenderness than that she
+should attempt to face the world alone."
+
+A flashing smile dimpled the corners of her mouth.
+
+"Why, yes, I quite agree with you," she retorted playfully. "But if no
+husband come forward, then it cannot be helped!"
+
+He rose, and, pushing away his chair, walked up and down in silence.
+
+She watched him with a sense of growing irritability, and her heart beat
+with uncomfortable quickness. Why did he seem to hesitate so long?
+Presently he stopped in his slow movement to and fro, and stood looking
+down upon her with a fixed intensity which vaguely troubled her.
+
+"It is difficult to advise," he said, "and it is still more difficult to
+control. In your case I have no right to do either. I am an old man, and
+you are a very young woman. You are beginning your life,--I am ending
+mine. Yet, young as you are, you say with apparent sincerity that you do
+not believe in love. Now I, though I have loved and lost, though I have
+loved and have been cruelly deceived in love, still believe that if the
+true, heavenly passion be fully and faithfully experienced, it must
+prove the chief joy, if not the only one, of life. You think otherwise,
+and perhaps you correctly express the opinion of the younger generation
+of men and women. These appear to crowd more emotion and excitement into
+their lives than ever was attained or attainable in the lives of their
+forefathers, but they do not, or so it seems to me, secure for
+themselves as much peace of mind and satisfaction of soul as were the
+inheritance of bygone folk whom we now call 'old-fashioned.' Still, you
+may be right in depreciating the power of love--from your point of view.
+All the same, I should be sorry to see you entering into a loveless
+marriage."
+
+For a moment she was silent, then she suddenly plunged into speech.
+
+"Dear Mr. Helmsley, do you really think all the silly sentiment talked
+and written about love is any good in marriage? We know so much
+nowadays,--and the disillusion of matrimony is so _very_ complete! One
+has only to read the divorce cases in the newspapers to see what
+mistakes people make----"
+
+He winced as though he had been stung.
+
+"Do you read the divorce cases, Lucy?" he asked. "You--a mere girl like
+you?"
+
+She looked surprised at the regret and pain in his tone.
+
+"Why, of course! One _must_ read the papers to keep up with all the
+things that are going on. And the divorce cases have always such
+startling headings,--in such big print!--one is obliged to read
+them--positively obliged!"
+
+She laughed carelessly, and settled herself more cosily in her chair.
+
+"You nearly always find that it is the people who were desperately in
+love with each other before marriage who behave disgracefully and are
+perfectly sick of each other afterwards," she went on. "They wanted
+perpetual poetry and moonlight, and of course they find they can't have
+it. Now, I don't want poetry or moonlight,--I hate both! Poetry makes me
+sleepy, and moonlight gives me neuralgia. I should like a husband who
+would be a _friend_ to me--a real kind friend!--some one who would be
+able to take care of me, and be nice to me always--some one much older
+than myself, who was wise and strong and clever----"
+
+"And rich," said Helmsley quietly. "Don't forget that! Very rich!"
+
+She glanced at him furtively, conscious of a slight nervous qualm. Then,
+rapidly reviewing the situation in her shallow brain, she accepted his
+remark smilingly.
+
+"Oh, well, of course!" she said. "It's not pleasant to live without
+plenty of money."
+
+He turned from her abruptly, and resumed his leisurely walk to and fro,
+much to her inward vexation. He was becoming fidgety, she decided,--old
+people were really very trying! Suddenly, with the air of a man arriving
+at an important decision, he sat down again in the armchair opposite her
+own, and leaning indolently back against the cushion, surveyed her with
+a calm, critical, entirely businesslike manner, much as he would have
+looked at a Jew company-promoter, who sought his aid to float a "bogus"
+scheme.
+
+"It's not pleasant to live without plenty of money, you think," he said,
+repeating her last words slowly. "Well! The pleasantest time of my life
+was when I did not own a penny in the bank, and when I had to be very
+sharp in order to earn enough for my day's dinner. There was a zest, a
+delight, a fine glory in the mere effort to live that brought out the
+strength of every quality I possessed. I learned to know myself, which
+is a farther reaching wisdom than is found in knowing others. I had
+ideals then,--and--old as I am, I have them still."
+
+He paused. She was silent. Her eyes were lowered, and she played idly
+with her painted fan.
+
+"I wonder if it would surprise you," he went on, "to know that I have
+made an ideal of _you_?"
+
+She looked up with a smile.
+
+"Really? Have you? I'm afraid I shall prove a disappointment!"
+
+He did not answer by the obvious compliment which she felt she had a
+right to expect. He kept his gaze fixed steadily on her face, and his
+shaggy eyebrows almost met in the deep hollow which painful thought had
+ploughed along his forehead.
+
+"I have made," he said, "an ideal in my mind of the little child who sat
+on my knee, played with my watch-chain and laughed at me when I called
+her my little sweetheart. She was perfectly candid in her laughter,--she
+knew it was absurd for an old man to have a child as his sweetheart. I
+loved to hear her laugh so,--because she was true to herself, and to her
+right and natural instincts. She was the prettiest and sweetest child I
+ever saw,--full of innocent dreams and harmless gaiety. She began to
+grow up, and I saw less and less of her, till gradually I lost the child
+and found the woman. But I believe in the child's heart still--I think
+that the truth and simplicity of the child's soul are still in the
+womanly nature,--and in that way, Lucy, I yet hold you as an ideal."
+
+Her breath quickened a little.
+
+"You think too kindly of me," she murmured, furling and unfurling her
+fan slowly; "I'm not at all clever."
+
+He gave a slight deprecatory gesture.
+
+"Cleverness is not what I expect or have ever expected of you," he said.
+"You have not as yet had to endure the misrepresentation and wrong which
+frequently make women clever,--the life of solitude and despised dreams
+which moves a woman to put on man's armour and sally forth to fight the
+world and conquer it, or else die in the attempt. How few conquer, and
+how many die, are matters of history. Be glad you are not a clever
+woman, Lucy!--for genius in a woman is the mystic laurel of Apollo
+springing from the soft breast of Daphne. It hurts in the growing, and
+sometimes breaks the heart from which it grows."
+
+She answered nothing. He was talking in a way she did not
+understand,--his allusion to Apollo and Daphne was completely beyond
+her. She smothered a tiny yawn and wondered why he was so tedious.
+Moreover, she was conscious of some slight chagrin, for though she said,
+out of mere social hypocrisy, that she was not clever, she thought
+herself exceptionally so. Why could he not admit her abilities as
+readily as she herself admitted them?
+
+"No, you are not clever," he resumed quietly. "And I am glad you are
+not. You are good and pure and true,--these graces outweigh all
+cleverness."
+
+Her cheeks flushed prettily,--she thought of a girl who had been her
+schoolmate at Brighton, one of the boldest little hussies that ever
+flashed eyes to the light of day, yet who could assume the dainty
+simpering air of maiden--modest perfection at the moment's notice. She
+wished she could do the same, but she had not studied the trick
+carefully enough, and she was afraid to try more of it than just a
+little tremulous smile and a quick downward glance at her fan. Helmsley
+watched her attentively--almost craftily. It did not strain his sense of
+perspicuity over much to see exactly what was going on in her mind. He
+settled himself a little more comfortably in his chair, and pressing the
+tips of his fingers together, looked at her over this pointed rampart
+of polished nails as though she were something altogether curious and
+remarkable.
+
+"The virtues of a woman are her wealth and worth," he said
+sententiously, as though he were quoting a maxim out of a child's
+copybook. "A jewel's price is not so much for its size and weight as for
+its particular lustre. But common commercial people--like myself--even
+if they have the good fortune to find a diamond likely to surpass all
+others in the market, are never content till they have tested it. Every
+Jew bites his coin. And I am something of a Jew. I like to know the
+exact value of what I esteem as precious. And so I test it."
+
+"Yes?" She threw in this interjected query simply because she did not
+know what to say. She thought he was talking very oddly, and wondered
+whether he was quite sane.
+
+"Yes," he echoed; "I test it. And, Lucy, I think so highly of you, and
+esteem you as so very fair a pearl of womanhood, that I am inclined to
+test you just as I would a priceless gem. Do you object?"
+
+She glanced up at him flutteringly, vaguely surprised. The corners of
+his mouth relaxed into the shadow of a smile, and she was reassured.
+
+"Object? Of course not! As if I should object to anything you wish!" she
+said amiably. "But--I don't quite understand----"
+
+"No, possibly not," he interrupted; "I know I have not the art of making
+myself very clear in matters which deeply and personally affect myself.
+I have nerves still, and some remnant of a heart,--these occasionally
+trouble me----"
+
+She leaned forward and put her delicately gloved hand on his.
+
+"Dear King David!" she murmured. "You are always so good!"
+
+He took the little fingers in his own clasp and held them gently.
+
+"I want to ask you a question, Lucy," he said; "and it is a very
+difficult question, because I feel that your answer to it may mean a
+great sorrow for me,--a great disappointment. The question is the 'test'
+I speak of. Shall I put it to you?"
+
+"Please do!" she answered, her heart beginning to beat violently. He
+was coming to the point at last, she thought, and a few words more would
+surely make her the future mistress of the Helmsley millions! "If I can
+answer it I will!"
+
+"Shall I ask you my question, or shall I not?" he went on, gripping her
+hand hard, and half raising himself in his chair as he looked intently
+at her telltale face. "For it means more than you can realise. It is an
+audacious, impudent question, Lucy,--one that no man of my age ought to
+ask any woman,--one that is likely to offend you very much!"
+
+She withdrew her hand from his.
+
+"Offend me?" and her eyes widened with a blank wonder. "What can it be?"
+
+"Ah! What can it be! Think of all the most audacious and impudent things
+a man--an old man--could say to a young woman! Suppose,--it is only
+supposition, remember,--suppose, for instance, I were to ask you to
+marry me?"
+
+A smile, brilliant and exultant, flashed over her features,--she almost
+laughed out her inward joy.
+
+"I should accept you at once!" she said.
+
+With sudden impetuosity he rose, and pushing away his chair, drew
+himself up to his full height, looking down upon her.
+
+"You would!" and his voice was low and tense. "_You!_--you would
+actually marry me?"
+
+She, rising likewise, confronted him in all her fresh and youthful
+beauty, fair and smiling, her bosom heaving and her eyes dilating with
+eagerness.
+
+"I would,--indeed I would!" she averred delightedly. "I would rather
+marry you than any man in the world!"
+
+There was a moment's silence. Then--
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+The simple monosyllabic query completely confused her. It was
+unexpected, and she was at her wit's end how to reply to it. Moreover,
+he kept his eyes so pertinaciously fixed upon her that she felt her
+blood rising to her cheeks and brow in a hot flush of--shame? Oh
+no!--not shame, but merely petulant vexation. The proper way for him to
+behave at this juncture, so she reflected, would be that he should take
+her tenderly in his arms and murmur, after the penny-dreadful style of
+elderly hero, "My darling, my darling! Can you, so young and beautiful,
+really care for an old fogey like me?'" to which she would, of course,
+have replied in the same fashion, and with the most charming
+insincerity--"Dearest! Do not talk of age! You will never be old to my
+fond heart!" But to stand, as he was standing, like a rigid figure of
+bronze, with a hard pale face in which only the eyes seemed living, and
+to merely ask "Why" she would rather marry him than any other man in the
+world, was absurd, to say the least of it, and indeed quite lacking in
+all delicacy of sentiment. She sought about in her mind for some way out
+of the difficulty and could find none. She grew more and more painfully
+crimson, and wished she could cry. A well worked-up passion of tears
+would have come in very usefully just then, but somehow she could not
+turn the passion on. And a horrid sense of incompetency and failure
+began to steal over her--an awful foreboding of defeat. What could she
+do to seize the slippery opportunity and grasp the doubtful prize? How
+could she land the big golden fish which she foolishly fancied she had
+at the end of her line? Never had she felt so helpless or so angry.
+
+"Why?" he repeated--"Why would you marry me? Not for love certainly.
+Even if you believed in love--which you say you do not,--you could not
+at your age love a man at mine. That would be impossible and unnatural.
+I am old enough to be your grandfather. Think again, Lucy! Perhaps you
+spoke hastily--- out of girlish thoughtlessness--or out of kindness and
+a wish to please me,--but do not, in so serious a matter, consider me at
+all. Consider yourself. Consider your own nature and temperament--your
+own life--your own future--your own happiness. Would you, young as you
+are, with all the world before you--would you, if I asked you,
+deliberately and of your own free will, marry me?"
+
+She drew a sharp breath, and hurriedly wondered what was best to do. He
+spoke so strangely!--he looked so oddly! But that might be because he
+was in love with her! Her lips parted,--she faced him straightly,
+lifting her head with a little air of something like defiance.
+
+"I would!--of course I would!" she replied. "Nothing could make me
+happier!"
+
+He gave a kind of gesture with his hands as though he threw aside some
+cherished object.
+
+"So vanishes my last illusion!" he said. "Well! Let it go!"
+
+She gazed at him stupidly. What did he mean? Why did he not now emulate
+the penny-dreadful heroes and say "My darling!" Nothing seemed further
+from his thoughts. His eyes rested upon her with a coldness such as she
+had never seen in them before, and his features hardened.
+
+"I should have known the modern world and modern education better," he
+went on, speaking more to himself than to her. "I have had experience
+enough. I should never have allowed myself to keep even the shred of a
+belief in woman's honesty!"
+
+She started, and flamed into a heat of protest.
+
+"Mr. Helmsley!"
+
+He raised a deprecatory hand.
+
+"Pardon me!" he said wearily--"I am an old man, accustomed to express
+myself bluntly. Even if I vex you, I fear I shall not know how to
+apologise. I had thought----"
+
+He broke off, then with an effort resumed--
+
+"I had thought, Lucy, that you were above all bribery and corruption."
+
+"Bribery?--Corruption?" she stammered, and in a tremor of excitement and
+perturbation her fan dropped from her hands to the floor. He stooped for
+it with the ease and grace of a far younger man, and returned it to her.
+
+"Yes, bribery and corruption," he continued quietly. "The bribery of
+wealth--the corruption of position. These are the sole objects for which
+(if I asked you, which I have not done) you would marry me. For there is
+nothing else I have to offer you. I could not give you the sentiment or
+passion of a husband (if husbands ever have sentiment or passion
+nowadays), because all such feeling is dead in me. I could not be your
+'friend' in marriage--because I should always remember that our
+matrimonial 'friendship' was merely one of cash supply and demand. You
+see I speak very plainly. I am not a polite person--not even a
+Conventional one. I am too old to tell lies. Lying is never a profitable
+business in youth--but in age it is pure waste of time and energy. With
+one foot in the grave it is as well to keep the other from slipping."
+
+He paused. She tried to say something, but could find no suitable words
+with which to answer him. He looked at her steadily, half expecting her
+to speak, and there was both pain and sorrow in the depths of his tired
+eyes.
+
+"I need not prolong this conversation," he said, after a minute's
+silence. "For it must be as embarrassing to you as it is to me. It is
+quite my own fault that I built too many hopes upon you, Lucy! I set you
+up on a pedestal and you have yourself stepped down from it--I have put
+you to the test, and you have failed. I daresay the failure is as much
+the concern of your parents and the way in which they have brought you
+up, as it is of any latent weakness in your own mind and character.
+But,--if, when I suggested such an absurd and unnatural proposition as
+marriage between myself arid you, you had at once, like a true woman,
+gently and firmly repudiated the idea, then----"
+
+"Then--what?" she faltered.
+
+"Why, then I should have made you my sole heiress," he said quietly.
+
+Her eyes opened in blank wonderment and despair. Was it possible! Had
+she been so near her golden El Dorado only to see the shining shores
+receding, and the glittering harbour closed! Oh, it was cruel! Horrible!
+There was a convulsive catch in her throat which she managed to turn
+into the laugh hysterical.
+
+"Really!" she ejaculated, with a poor attempt at flippancy; and, in her
+turn, she asked the question, "Why?"
+
+"Because I should have known you were honest," answered Helmsley, with
+emphasis. "Honest to your womanly instincts, and to the simplest and
+purest part of your nature. I should have proved for myself the fact
+that you refused to sell your beautiful person for gold--that you were
+no slave in the world's auction-mart, but a free, proud, noble-hearted
+English girl who meant to be faithful to all that was highest and best
+in her soul. Ah, Lucy! You are not this little dream-girl of mine! You
+are a very realistic modern woman with whom a man's 'ideal' has nothing
+in common!"
+
+She was silent, half-stifled with rage. He stepped up to her and took
+her hand.
+
+"Good-night, Lucy! Good-bye!"
+
+She wrenched her fingers from his clasp, and a sudden, uncontrollable
+fury possessed her.
+
+"I hate you!" she said between her set teeth. "You are mean! Mean! I
+hate you!"
+
+He stood quite still, gravely irresponsive.
+
+"You have deceived me--cheated me!" she went on, angrily and recklessly.
+"You made me think you wanted to marry me."
+
+The corners of his mouth went up under his ashen-grey moustache in a
+chill smile.
+
+"Pardon me!" he interrupted. "But did I make you think? or did you think
+it of your own accord?"
+
+She plucked at her fan nervously.
+
+"Any girl--I don't care who she is--would accept you if you asked her to
+marry you!" she said hotly. "It would be perfectly idiotic to refuse
+such a rich man, even if he were Methusaleh himself. There's nothing
+wrong or dishonest in taking the chance of having plenty of money, if it
+is offered."
+
+He looked at her, vaguely compassionating her loss of self-control.
+
+"No, there is nothing wrong or dishonest in taking the chance of having
+plenty of money, if such a chance can be had without shame and
+dishonour," he said. "But I, personally, should consider a woman
+hopelessly lost to every sense of self-respect, if at the age of
+twenty-one she consented to marry a man of seventy for the sake of his
+wealth. And I should equally consider the man of seventy a disgrace to
+the name of manhood if he condoned the voluntary sale of such a woman by
+becoming her purchaser."
+
+She lifted her head with a haughty air.
+
+"Then, if you thought these things, you had no right to propose to me!"
+she said passionately.
+
+He was faintly amused.
+
+"I did not propose to you, Lucy," he answered, "and I never intended to
+do so! I merely asked what your answer would be if I did."
+
+"It comes to the same thing!" she muttered.
+
+"Pardon me, not quite! I told you I was putting you to a test. That you
+failed to stand my test is the conclusion of the whole affair. We really
+need say no more about it. The matter is finished."
+
+She bit her lips vexedly, then forced a hard smile.
+
+"It's about time it was finished, I'm sure!" she said carelessly. "I'm
+perfectly tired out!"
+
+"No doubt you are--you must be--I was forgetting how late it is," and
+with ceremonious politeness he opened the door for her to pass. "You
+have had an exhausting evening! Forgive me for any pain or
+vexation--or--or anger I may have caused you--and, good-night, Lucy! God
+bless you!"
+
+He held out his hand. He looked worn and wan, and his face showed
+pitiful marks of fatigue, loneliness, and sorrow, but the girl was too
+much incensed by her own disappointment to forgive him for the
+unexpected trial to which he had submitted her disposition and
+character.
+
+"Good-night!" she said curtly, avoiding his glance. "I suppose
+everybody's gone by this time; mother will be waiting for me."
+
+"Won't you shake hands?" he pleaded gently. "I'm sorry that I expected
+more of you than you could give, Lucy! but I want you to be happy, and I
+think and hope you will be, if you let the best part of you have its
+way. Still, it may happen that I shall never see you again--so let us
+part friends!"
+
+She raised her eyes, hardened now in their expression by intense
+malignity and spite, and fixed them fully upon him.
+
+"I don't want to be friends with you any more!" she said. "You are cruel
+and selfish, and you have treated me abominably! I am sure you will die
+miserably, without a soul to care for you! And I hope--yes, I hope I
+shall never hear of you, never see you any more as long as you live! You
+could never have really had the least bit of affection for me when I was
+a child."
+
+He interrupted her by a quick, stern gesture.
+
+"That child is dead! Do not speak of her!"
+
+Something in his aspect awed her--something of the mute despair and
+solitude of a man who has lost his last hope on earth, shadowed his
+pallid features as with a forecast of approaching dissolution.
+Involuntarily she trembled, and felt cold; her head drooped;--for a
+moment her conscience pricked her, reminding her how she had schemed and
+plotted and planned to become the wife of this sad, frail old man ever
+since she had reached the mature age of sixteen,--for a moment she was
+impelled to make a clean confession of her own egotism, and to ask his
+pardon for having, under the tuition of her mother, made him the
+unconscious pivot of all her worldly ambitions,--then, with a sudden
+impetuous movement, she swept past him without a word, and ran
+downstairs.
+
+There she found half the evening's guests gone, and the other half well
+on the move. Some of these glanced at her inquiringly, with "nods and
+becks and wreathed smiles," but she paid no heed to any of them. Her
+mother came eagerly up to her, anxiety purpling every vein of her
+mottled countenance, but no word did she utter, till, having put on
+their cloaks, the two waited together on the steps of the mansion, with
+flunkeys on either side, for the hired brougham to bowl up in as
+_un_-hired a style as was possible at the price of one guinea for the
+night's outing.
+
+"Where is Mr. Helmsley?" then asked Mrs. Sorrel.
+
+"In his own room, I believe," replied Lucy, frigidly.
+
+"Isn't he coming to see you into the carriage and say good-night?"
+
+"Why should he?" demanded the girl, peremptorily.
+
+Mrs. Sorrel became visibly agitated. She glanced at the impassive
+flunkeys nervously.
+
+"O my dear!" she whimpered softly, "what's the matter? Has anything
+happened?"
+
+At that moment the expected vehicle lumbered up with a very creditable
+clatter of well-assumed importance. The flunkeys relaxed their formal
+attitudes and hastened to assist both mother and daughter into its
+somewhat stuffy recess. Another moment and they were driven off, Lucy
+looking out of the window at the numerous lights which twinkled from
+every story of the stately building they had just left, till the last
+bright point of luminance had vanished. Then the strain on her mind gave
+way--and to Mrs. Sorrel's alarm and amazement, she suddenly burst into a
+stormy passion of tears.
+
+"It's all over!" she sobbed angrily, "all over! I've lost him! I've lost
+everything!"
+
+Mrs. Sorrel gave a kind of weasel cry and clasped her fat hands
+convulsively.
+
+"Oh, you little fool!" she burst out, "what have you done?"
+
+Thus violently adjured, Lucy, with angry gasps of spite and
+disappointment, related in full the maddening, the eccentric, the
+altogether incomprehensible and inexcusable conduct of the famous
+millionaire, "old Gold-dust," towards her beautiful, outraged, and
+injured self. Her mother sat listening in a kind of frozen horror which
+might possibly have become rigid, had it not been for the occasional
+bumping of the hired brougham over ruts and loose stones, which bumping
+shook her superfluous flesh into agitated bosom-waves.
+
+"I ought to have guessed it! I ought to have followed my own instinct!"
+she said, in sepulchral tones. "It came to me like a flash, when I was
+talking to him this evening! I said to myself, 'he is in a moral mood.'
+And he was. Nothing is so hopeless, so dreadful! If I had only thought
+he would carry on that mood with you, I would have warned you! You could
+have held off a little--it would perhaps have been the wiser course."
+
+"I should think it would indeed!" cried Lucy, dabbing her eyes with her
+scented handkerchief; "He would have left me every penny he has in the
+world if I had refused him! He told me so as coolly as possible!"
+
+Mrs. Sorrel sank back with a groan.
+
+"Oh dear, oh dear!" she wailed feebly. "Can nothing be done?"
+
+"Nothing!" And Lucy, now worked up to hysterical pitch, felt as if she
+could break the windows, beat her mother, or do anything else equally
+reckless and irresponsible. "I shall be left to myself now,--he will
+never ask me to his house again, never give me any parties or drives or
+opera-boxes or jewels,--he will never come to see me, and I shall have
+no pleasure at all! I shall sink into a dowdy, frowsy, shabby-genteel
+old maid for the rest of my life! It is _detestable_!" and she uttered a
+suppressed small shriek on the word, "It has been a hateful, abominable
+birthday! Everybody will be laughing at me up their sleeves! Think of
+Lady Larford!"
+
+This suggestion was too dreadful for comment, and Mrs. Sorrel closed her
+eyes, visibly shuddering.
+
+"Who would have thought it possible!" she moaned drearily, "a
+millionaire, with such mad ideas! I _had_ thought him always such a
+sensible man! And he seemed to admire you so much! What will he do with
+all his money?"
+
+The fair Lucy sighed, sobbed, and swallowed her tears into silence. And
+again, like the doubtful refrain of a song in a bad dream, her mother
+moaned and murmured--
+
+"What will he do with all his money!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Two or three days later, Sir Francis Vesey was sitting in his private
+office, a musty den encased within the heart of the city, listening, or
+trying to listen, to the dull clerical monotone of a clerk's dry voice
+detailing the wearisome items of certain legal formulae preliminary to an
+impending case. Sir Francis had yawned capaciously once or twice, and
+had played absently with a large ink-stained paperknife,--signs that his
+mind was wandering somewhat from the point at issue. He was a
+conscientious man, but he was getting old, and the disputations of
+obstinate or foolish clients were becoming troublesome to him. Moreover,
+the case concerning which his clerk was prosing along in the style of a
+chapel demagogue engaged in extemporary prayer, was an extremely
+uninteresting one, and he thought hazily of his lunch. The hour for that
+meal was approaching,--a fact for which he was devoutly thankful. For
+after lunch, he gave himself his own release from work for the rest of
+the day. He left it all to his subordinates, and to his partner Symonds,
+who was some eight or ten years his junior. He glanced at the clock, and
+beat a tattoo with his foot on the floor, conscious of his inward
+impatience with the reiterated "Whereas the said" and "Witnesseth the
+so-and-so," which echoed dully on the otherwise unbroken silence. It was
+a warm, sunshiny morning, but the brightness of the outer air was poorly
+reflected in the stuffy room, which though comfortably and even
+luxuriously furnished, conveyed the usual sense of dismal depression
+common to London precincts of the law. Two or three flies buzzed
+irritably now and then against the smoke-begrimed windowpanes, and the
+clerk's dreary preamble went on and on till Sir Francis closed his eyes
+and wondered whether a small "catnap" would be possible between the
+sections of the seeming interminable document. Suddenly, to his relief,
+there came a sharp tap at the door, and an office boy looked in.
+
+"Mr. Helmsley's man, sir," he announced. "Wants to see you personally."
+
+Sir Francis got up from his chair with alacrity.
+
+"All right! Show him in."
+
+The boy retired, and presently reappearing, ushered in a staid-looking
+personage in black who, saluting Sir Francis respectfully, handed him a
+letter marked "Confidential."
+
+"Nice day, Benson," remarked the lawyer cheerfully, as he took the
+missive. "Is your master quite well?"
+
+"Perfectly well, Sir Francis, thank you," replied Benson. "Leastways he
+was when I saw him off just now."
+
+"Oh! He's gone then?"
+
+"Yes, Sir Francis. He's gone."
+
+Sir Francis broke the seal of the letter,--then bethinking himself of
+"Whereas the said" and "Witnesseth the so-and-so," turned to his worn
+and jaded clerk.
+
+"That will do for the present," he said. "You can go."
+
+With pleasing haste the clerk put together the voluminous folios of blue
+paper from which he had been reading, and quickly made his exit, while
+Sir Francis, still standing, put on his glasses and unfolded the one
+sheet of note-paper on which Helmsley's communication was written.
+Glancing it up and down, he turned it over and over--then addressed
+himself to the attentively waiting Benson.
+
+"So Mr. Helmsley has started on his trip alone?"
+
+"Yes, Sir Francis. Quite alone."
+
+"Did he say where he was going?"
+
+"He booked for Southhampton, sir."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"And," proceeded Benson, "he only took one portmanteau."
+
+"Oh!" again ejaculated the lawyer. And, stroking his bearded chin, he
+thought awhile.
+
+"Are you going to stay at Carlton House Terrace till he comes back?"
+
+"I have a month's holiday, sir. Then I return to my place. The same
+order applies to all the servants, sir."
+
+"I see! Well!"
+
+And then there came a pause.
+
+"I suppose," said Sir Francis, after some minutes' reflection, "I
+suppose you know that during Mr. Helmsley's absence you are to apply to
+me for wages and household expenses--that, in fact, your master has
+placed me in charge of all his affairs?"
+
+"So I have understood, sir," replied Benson, deferentially. "Mr.
+Helmsley called us all into his room last night and told us so."
+
+"Oh, he did, did he? But, of course, as a man of business, he would
+leave nothing incomplete. Now, supposing Mr. Helmsley is away more than
+a month, I will call or send to the house at stated intervals to see how
+things are getting on, and arrange any matters that may need
+arranging"--here he glanced at the letter in his hand--"as your master
+requests. And--if you want anything--or wish to know any news,--you can
+always call here and inquire."
+
+"Thank you, Sir Francis."
+
+"I'm sorry,"--and the lawyer's shrewd yet kindly eyes looked somewhat
+troubled--"I'm very sorry that my old friend hasn't taken you with him,
+Benson."
+
+Benson caught the ring of sympathetic interest in his voice and at once
+responded to it.
+
+"Well, sir, so am I!" he said heartily. "For Mr. Helmsley's over
+seventy, and he isn't as strong as he thinks himself to be by a long
+way. He ought to have some one with him. But he wouldn't hear of my
+going. He can be right down obstinate if he likes, you know, sir, though
+he is one of the best gentlemen to work for that ever lived. But he will
+have his own way, and, bad or good, he takes it."
+
+"Quite true!" murmured Sir Francis meditatively. "Very true!"
+
+A silence fell between them.
+
+"You say he isn't as strong as he thinks himself to be," began Vesey
+again, presently. "Surely he's wonderfully alert and active for his time
+of life?"
+
+"Why, yes, sir, he's active enough, but it's all effort and nerve with
+him now. He makes up his mind like, and determines to be strong, in
+spite of being weak. Only six months ago the doctor told him to be
+careful, as his heart wasn't quite up to the mark."
+
+"Ah!" ejaculated Sir Francis ruefully. "And did the doctor recommend any
+special treatment?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Change of air and complete rest."
+
+The lawyer's countenance cleared.
+
+"Then you may depend upon it that's why he has gone away by himself,
+Benson," he said. "He wants change of air, rest, and different
+surroundings. And as he won't have letters forwarded, and doesn't give
+any future address, I shouldn't wonder if he starts off yachting
+somewhere----"
+
+"Oh, no, sir, I don't think so," interposed Benson, "The yacht's in the
+dry dock, and I know he hasn't given any orders to have her got ready."
+
+"Well, well, if he wants change and rest, he's wise to put a distance
+between himself and his business affairs"--and Sir Francis here looked
+round for his hat and walking-stick. "Take me, for example! Why, I'm a
+different man when I leave this office and go home to lunch! I'm going
+now. I don't think--I really don't think there is any cause for
+uneasiness, Benson. Your master will let us know if there's anything
+wrong with him."
+
+"Oh, yes, sir, he'll be sure to do that. He said he would telegraph for
+me if he wanted me."
+
+"Good! Now, if you get any news of him before I do, or if you are
+anxious that I should attend to any special matter, you'll always find
+me here till one o'clock. You know my private address?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"That's all right. And when I go down to my country place for the
+summer, you can come there whenever your business is urgent. I'll settle
+all expenses with you."
+
+"Thank you, Sir Francis. Good-day!"
+
+"Good-day! A pleasant holiday to you!"
+
+Benson bowed his respectful thanks again, and retired.
+
+Sir Francis Vesey, left alone, took his hat and gazed abstractedly into
+its silk-lined crown before putting it on his head. Then setting it
+aside, he drew Helmsley's letter from his pocket and read it through
+again. It ran as follows:--
+
+    "MY DEAR VESEY,--I had some rather bad news on the night of Miss
+    Lucy Sorrel's birthday party. A certain speculation in which I had
+    an interest has failed, and I have lost on the whole 'gamble.' The
+    matter will not, however, affect my financial position. You have all
+    your instructions in order as given to you when we last met, so I
+    shall leave town with an easy mind. I am likely to be away for some
+    time, and am not yet certain of my destination. Consider me,
+    therefore, for the present as lost. Should I die suddenly, or at
+    sickly leisure, I carry a letter on my person which will be conveyed
+    to you, making you acquainted with the sad (?) event as soon as it
+    occurs. And for all your kindly services in the way of both business
+    and friendship, I owe you a vast debt of thanks, which debt shall be
+    fully and gratefully acknowledged,--_when I make my Will_. I may
+    possibly employ another lawyer than yourself for this purpose. But,
+    for the immediate time, all my affairs are in your hands, as they
+    have been for these twenty years or more. My business goes on as
+    usual, of course; it is a wheel so well accustomed to regular motion
+    that it can very well grind for a while without my personal
+    supervision. And so far as my individual self is concerned, I feel
+    the imperative necessity of rest and freedom. I go to find these,
+    even if I lose myself in the endeavour. So farewell! And as
+    old-fashioned folks used to say--'God be with you!' If there be any
+    meaning in the phrase, it is conveyed to you in all sincerity by
+    your old friend,
+                                                 "DAVID HELMSLEY."
+
+"Cryptic, positively cryptic!" murmured Sir Francis, as he folded up the
+letter and put it by. "There's no clue to anything anywhere. What does
+he mean by a bad speculation?--a loss 'on the whole gamble'? I know--or
+at least I thought I knew--every number on which he had put his money.
+It won't affect his financial position, he says. I should think not! It
+would take a bigger Colossus than that of Rhodes to overshadow Helmsley
+in the market! But he's got some queer notion in his mind,--some scheme
+for finding an heir to his millions,--I'm sure he has! A fit of romance
+has seized him late in life,--he wants to be loved for himself
+alone,--which, of course, at his age, is absurd! No one loves old
+people, except, perhaps (in very rare cases), their children,--if the
+children are not hopelessly given over to self and the hour, which they
+generally are." He sighed, and his brows contracted. He had a
+spendthrift son and a "rapid" daughter, and he knew well enough how
+little he could depend upon them for either affection or respect.
+
+"Old age is regarded as a sort of crime nowadays," he continued,
+apostrophising the dingy walls of his office, as he took his
+walking-stick and prepared to leave the premises--"thanks to the
+donkey-journalism of the period which brays down everything that is not
+like itself--mere froth and scum. And unlike our great classic teachers
+who held that old age was honourable and deserved the highest place in
+the senate, the present generation affects to consider a man well on the
+way to dotage after forty. God bless me!--what fools there are in this
+twentieth century!--what blatant idiots! Imagine national affairs
+carried on in the country by its young men! The Empire would soon became
+a mere football for general kicking! However, there's one thing in this
+Helmsley business that I'm glad of"--and his eyes twinkled--"I believe
+the Sorrels have lost their game! Positively, I think Miss Lucy has
+broken her line, and that the fish has gone _without_ her hook in its
+mouth! Old as he is, David is not too old to outwit a woman! I gave him
+a hint, just the slightest hint in the world,--and I think he's taken
+it. Anyhow, he's gone,--booked for Southampton. And from Southampton a
+man can 'ship himself all aboard of a ship,' like Lord Bateman in the
+ballad, and go anywhere. Anywhere, yes!--but in this case I wonder where
+he will go? Possibly to America--yet no!--I think not!" And Sir Francis,
+descending his office stairs, went out into the broad sunshine which
+flooded the city streets, continuing his inward reverie as he
+walked,--"I think not. From what he said the other night, I fancy not
+even the haunting memory of 'ole Virginny' will draw him back _there_.
+'Consider me as lost,' he says. An odd notion! David Helmsley, one of
+the richest men in the whole of two continents, wishes to lose himself!
+Impossible! He's a marked multi-millionaire,--branded with the golden
+sign of unlimited wealth, and as well known as a London terminus! If he
+were 'lost' to-day, he'd be found to-morrow. As matters stand I daresay
+he'll turn up all fight in a month's time and I need not worry my head
+any more about him!"
+
+With this determination Sir Francis went home to luncheon, and after
+luncheon duly appeared driving in the Park with Lady Vesey, like the
+attentive and obliging husband he ever was, despite the boredom which
+the "Row" and the "Ladies' Mile" invariably inflicted upon him,--yet
+every now and then before him there rose a mental image of his old
+friend "King David,"--grey, sad-eyed, and lonely--flitting past like
+some phantom in a dream, and wandering far away from the crowded vortex
+of London life, where his name was as honey to a swarm of bees, into
+some dim unreachable region of shadow and silence, with the brief
+farewell:
+
+    "Consider me as lost!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Among the many wild and lovely tangles of foliage and flower which
+Nature and her subject man succeed in working out together after
+considerable conflict and argument, one of the most beautiful and
+luxuriant is a Somersetshire lane. Narrow and tortuous, fortified on
+either side with high banks of rough turf, topped by garlands of
+climbing wild-rose, bunches of corn-cockles and tufts of meadow-sweet,
+such a lane in midsummer is one of beauty's ways through the world,--a
+path, which if it lead to no more important goal than a tiny village or
+solitary farm, is, to the dreamer and poet, sufficiently entrancing in
+itself to seem a fairy road to fairyland. Here and there some grand elm
+or beech tree, whose roots have hugged the soil for more than a century,
+spreads out broad protecting branches all a-shimmer with green
+leaves,--between the uneven tufts of grass, the dainty "ragged robin"
+sprays its rose-pink blossoms contrastingly against masses of snowy
+star-wort and wild strawberry,--the hedges lean close together, as
+though accustomed to conceal the shy confidences of young lovers,--and
+from the fields beyond, the glad singing of countless skylarks, soaring
+one after the other into the clear pure air, strikes a wave of repeated
+melody from point to point of the visible sky. All among the delicate or
+deep indentures of the coast, where the ocean creeps softly inland with
+a caressing murmur, or scoops out caverns for itself among the rocks
+with perpetual roar and dash of foam, the glamour of the green
+extends,--the "lane runs down to meet the sea, carrying with it its
+garlands of blossoms, its branches of verdure, and all the odour and
+freshness of the woodlands and meadows, and when at last it drops to a
+conclusion in some little sandy bay or sparkling weir, it leaves an
+impression of melody on the soul like the echo of a sweet song just
+sweetly sung. High up the lanes run;--low down on the shoreline they
+come to an end,--and the wayfarer, pacing along at the summit of their
+devious windings, can hear the plash of the sea below him as he
+walks,--the little tender laughing plash if the winds are calm and the
+day is fair,--the angry thud and boom of the billows if a storm is
+rising. These bye-roads, of which there are so many along the
+Somersetshire coast, are often very lonely,--they are dangerous to
+traffic, as no two ordinary sized vehicles can pass each other
+conveniently within so narrow a compass,--and in summer especially they
+are haunted by gypsies, "pea-pickers," and ill-favoured men and women of
+the "tramp" species, slouching along across country from Bristol to
+Minehead, and so over Countisbury Hill into Devon. One such
+questionable-looking individual there was, who,--in a golden afternoon
+of July, when the sun was beginning to decline towards the west,--paused
+in his slow march through the dust, which even in the greenest of hill
+and woodland ways is bound to accumulate thickly after a fortnight's
+lack of rain,--and with a sigh of fatigue, sat down at the foot of a
+tree to rest. He was an old man, with a thin weary face which was
+rendered more gaunt and haggard-looking by a ragged grey moustache and
+ugly stubble beard of some ten days' growth, and his attire suggested
+that he might possibly be a labourer dismissed from farm work for the
+heinous crime of old age, and therefore "on the tramp" looking out for a
+job. He wore a soft slouched felt hat, very much out of shape and
+weather-stained,--and when he had been seated for a few minutes in a
+kind of apathy of lassitude, he lifted the hat off, passing his hand
+through his abundant rough white hair in a slow tired way, as though by
+this movement he sought to soothe some teasing pain.
+
+"I think," he murmured, addressing himself to a tiny brown bird which
+had alighted on a branch of briar-rose hard by, and was looking at him
+with bold and lively inquisitiveness,--"I think I have managed the whole
+thing very well! I have left no clue anywhere. My portmanteau will tell
+no tales, locked up in the cloak-room at Bristol. If it is ever sold
+with its contents 'to defray expenses,' nothing will be found in it but
+some unmarked clothes. And so far as all those who know me are
+concerned, every trace of me ends at Southampton. Beyond Southampton
+there is a blank, into which David Helmsley, the millionaire, has
+vanished. And David Helmsley, the tramp, sits here in his place!"
+
+The little brown bird preened its wing, and glanced at him sideways
+intelligently, as much as to say: "I quite understand! You have become
+one of us,--a wanderer, taking no thought for the morrow, but letting
+to-morrow take thought for the things of itself. There is a bond of
+sympathy between me, the bird, and you, the man--we are brothers!"
+
+A sudden smile illumined his face. The situation was novel, and to him
+enjoyable. He was greatly fatigued,--he had over-exerted himself during
+the past three or four days, walking much further than he had ever been
+accustomed to, and his limbs ached sorely--nevertheless, with the sense
+of rest and relief from strain, came a certain exhilaration of spirit,
+like the vivacious delight of a boy who has run away from school, and is
+defiantly ready to take all the consequences of his disobedience to the
+rules of discipline and order. For years he had wanted a "new"
+experience of life. No one would give him what he sought. To him the
+"social" round was ever the same dreary, heartless and witless thing, as
+empty under the sway of one king or queen as another, and as utterly
+profitless to peace or happiness as it has always been. The world of
+finance was equally uninteresting so far as he was concerned; he had
+exhausted it, and found it no more than a monotonous grind of gain which
+ended in a loathing of the thing gained. Others might and would consume
+themselves in fevers of avarice, and surfeits of luxury,--but for him
+such temporary pleasures were past. He desired a complete change,--a
+change of surroundings, a change of associations--and for this, what
+could be more excellent or more wholesome than a taste of poverty? In
+his time he had met men who, worn out with the constant fight of the
+body's materialism against the soul's idealism, had turned their backs
+for ever on the world and its glittering shows, and had shut themselves
+up as monks of "enclosed" or "silent" orders,--others he had known, who,
+rushing away from what we call civilisation, had encamped in the
+backwoods of America, or high up among the Rocky Mountains, and had
+lived the lives of primeval savages in their strong craving to assert a
+greater manliness than the streets of cities would allow them to
+enjoy,--and all were moved by the same mainspring of action,--the
+overpowering spiritual demand within themselves which urged them to
+break loose from cowardly conventions and escape from Sham. He could not
+compete with younger men in taking up wild sport and "big game" hunting
+in far lands, in order to give free play to the natural savage
+temperament which lies untamed at the root of every man's individual
+being,--and he had no liking for "monastic" immurements. But he longed
+for liberty,--liberty to go where he liked without his movements being
+watched and commented upon by a degraded "personal" press,--liberty to
+speak as he felt and do as he wished, without being compelled to weigh
+his words, or to consider his actions. Hence--he had decided on his
+present course, though how that course was likely to shape itself in its
+progress he had no very distinct idea. His actual plan was to walk to
+Cornwall, and there find out the native home of his parents, not so much
+for sentiment's sake as for the necessity of having a definite object or
+goal in view. And the reason of his determination to go "on the road,"
+as it were, was simply that he wished to test for himself the actual
+happiness or misery experienced by the very poor as contrasted with the
+supposed joys of the very wealthy. This scheme had been working in his
+brain for the past year or more,--all his business arrangements had been
+made in such a way as to enable him to carry it out satisfactorily to
+himself without taking any one else into his confidence. The only thing
+that might possibly have deterred him from his quixotic undertaking
+would have been the moral triumph of Lucy Sorrel over the temptation he
+had held out to her. Had she been honest to her better womanhood,--had
+she still possessed the "child's heart," with which his remembrance and
+imagination had endowed her, he would have resigned every other thought
+save that of so smoothing the path of life for her that she might tread
+it easily to the end. But now that she had disappointed him, he had, so
+he told himself, done with fine illusions and fair beliefs for ever. And
+he had started on a lonely quest,--a search for something vague and
+intangible, the very nature of which he himself could not tell. Some
+glimmering ghost of a notion lurked in his mind that perhaps, during his
+self-imposed solitary ramblings, he might find some new and unexplored
+channel wherein his vast wealth might flow to good purpose after his
+death, without the trammels of Committee-ism and Red-Tape-ism. But he
+expected and formulated nothing,--he was more or less in a state of
+quiescence, awaiting adventures without either hope or fear. In the
+meantime, here he sat in the shady Somersetshire lane, resting,--the
+multi-millionaire whose very name shook the money-markets of the world,
+but who to all present appearances seemed no more than a tramp, footing
+it wearily along one of the many winding "short cuts" through the
+country between Somerset and Devon, and as unlike the actual self of him
+as known to Lombard Street and the Stock Exchange as a beggar is unlike
+a king.
+
+"After all, it's quite as interesting as 'big game' shooting!" he said,
+the smile still lingering in his eyes. "I am after 'sport,'--in a novel
+fashion! I am on the lookout for new specimens of men and women,--real
+honest ones! I may find them,--I may not,--but the search will surely
+prove at least as instructive and profitable as if one went out to the
+Arctic regions for the purpose of killing innocent polar bears! Change
+and excitement are what every one craves for nowadays--I'm getting as
+much as I want--in my own way!"
+
+He thought over the whole situation, and reviewed with a certain sense
+of interest and amusement his method of action since he left London.
+Benson, his valet, had packed his portmanteau, according to orders, with
+everything that was necessary for a short sea trip, and then had seen
+him off at the station for Southampton,--and to Southampton he had gone.
+Arrived there, he had proceeded to a hotel, where, under an assumed
+name, he had stayed the night. The next day he had left Southampton for
+Salisbury by train, and there staying another night, had left again for
+Bath and Bristol. On the latter journey he had "tipped" the guard
+heavily to keep his first-class compartment reserved to himself. This
+had been done; and the train being an express, stopping at very few
+stations, he had found leisure and opportunity to unpack his portmanteau
+and cut away every mark on his linen and other garments which could give
+the slightest clue to their possessor. When he had removed all possible
+trace of his identity on or in this one piece of luggage, he packed it
+up again, and on reaching Bristol, took it to the station's cloak-room,
+and there deposited it with the stated intention of calling back for it
+at the hour of the next train to London. This done, he stepped forth
+untrammelled, a free man. He had with him five hundred pounds in
+banknotes, and for a day or so was content to remain in Bristol at one
+of the best hotels, under an assumed name as before, while privately
+making such other preparations for his intended long "tramp" as he
+thought necessary. In one of the poorest quarters of the town he
+purchased a few second-hand garments such as might be worn by an
+ordinary day-labourer, saying to the dealer that he wanted to "rig out"
+a man who had just left hospital and who was going in for "field" work.
+The dealer saw nothing either remarkable or suspicious in this seemingly
+benevolent act of a kindly-looking well-dressed old gentleman, and sent
+him the articles he had purchased done up in a neat package and
+addressed to him at his hotel, by the name he had for the time assumed.
+When he left the hotel for good, he did so with nothing more than this
+neat package, which he carried easily in one hand by a loop of string.
+And so he began his journey, walking steadily for two or three
+hours,--then pausing to rest awhile,--and after rest, going on again.
+Once out of Bristol he was glad, and at certain lonely places, when the
+shadows of night fell, he changed all his garments one by one till he
+stood transformed as now he was. The clothes he was compelled to discard
+he got rid of by leaving them in unlikely holes and corners on the
+road,--as for example, at one place he filled the pockets of his good
+broadcloth coat with stones and dropped it into the bottom of an old
+disused well. The curious sense of guilt he felt when he performed this
+innocent act surprised as well as amused him.
+
+"It is exactly as if I had murdered somebody and had sunk a body into
+the well instead of a coat!" he said--"and--perhaps I have! Perhaps I am
+killing my Self,--getting rid of my Self,--which would be a good thing,
+if I could only find Some one or Some thing better than my Self in my
+Self's place!"
+
+When he had finally disposed of every article that could suggest any
+possibility of his ever having been clothed as a gentleman, he unripped
+the lining of his rough "workman's" vest, and made a layer of the
+banknotes he had with him between it and the cloth, stitching it
+securely over and over with coarse needle and thread, being satisfied by
+this arrangement to carry all his immediate cash hidden upon his person,
+while for the daily needs of hunger and thirst he had a few loose
+shillings and coppers in his pocket. He had made up his mind not to
+touch a single one of the banknotes, unless suddenly overtaken by
+accident or illness. When his bit of silver and copper came to an end,
+he meant to beg alms along the road and prove for himself how far it
+was true that human beings were in the main kind and compassionate, and
+ready to assist one another in the battle of life. With these ideas and
+many others in his mind, he started on his "tramp"--and during the first
+two or three days of it suffered acutely. Many years had passed since he
+had been accustomed to long sustained bodily exercise, and he was
+therefore easily fatigued. But by the time he reached the open country
+between the Quantocks and the Brendon Hills, he had got somewhat into
+training, and had begun to feel a greater lightness and ease as well as
+pleasure in walking. He had found it quite easy to live on very simple
+food,--in fact one of the principal charms of the strange "holiday" he
+had planned for his own entertainment was to prove for himself beyond
+all dispute that no very large amount of money is required to sustain a
+man's life and health. New milk and brown bread had kept him going
+bravely every day,--fruit was cheap and so was cheese, and all these
+articles of diet are highly nourishing, so that he had wanted for
+nothing. At night, the weather keeping steadily fine and warm, he had
+slept in the open, choosing some quiet nook in the woodland under a
+tree, or else near a haystack in the fields, and he had benefited
+greatly by thus breathing the pure air during slumber, and getting for
+nothing the "cure" prescribed by certain Artful Dodgers of the medical
+profession who take handfuls of guineas from credulous patients for what
+Mother Nature willingly gives gratis. And he was beginning to understand
+the joys of "loafing,"--so much so indeed that he felt a certain
+sympathy with the lazy varlet who prefers to stroll aimlessly about the
+country begging his bread rather than do a stroke of honest work. The
+freedom of such a life is self-evident,--and freedom is the broadest and
+best way of breathing on earth. To "tramp the road" seems to the
+well-dressed, conventional human being a sorry life; but it may be
+questioned whether, after all, he with his social trammels and household
+cares, is not leading a sorrier one. Never in all his brilliant,
+successful career till now had David Helmsley, that king of modern
+finance, realised so intensely the beauty and peace of being alone with
+Nature,--the joy of feeling the steady pulse of the Spirit of the
+Universe throbbing through one's own veins and arteries,--the quiet yet
+exultant sense of knowing instinctively beyond all formulated theory or
+dogma, that one is a vital part of the immortal Entity, as
+indestructible as Itself. And a great calm was gradually taking
+possession of his soul,--a smoothing of all the waves of his emotional
+and nervous temperament. Under this mystic touch of unseen and
+uncomprehended heavenly tenderness, all sorrows, all disappointments,
+all disillusions sank out of sight as though they had never been. It
+seemed to him that he had put away his former life for ever, and that
+another life had just begun,--and his brain was ready and eager to rid
+itself of old impressions in order to prepare for new. Nothing of much
+moment had occurred to him as yet. A few persons had said "good-day " or
+"good-night" to him in passing,--a farmer had asked him to hold his
+horse for a quarter of an hour, which he had done, and had thereby
+earned threepence,--but he had met with no interesting or exciting
+incidents which could come under the head of "adventures." Nevertheless
+he was gathering fresh experiences,--experiences which all tended to
+show him how the best and brightest part of life is foolishly wasted and
+squandered by the modern world in a mad rush for gain.
+
+"So very little money really suffices for health, contentment, and
+harmless pleasure!" he thought. "The secret of our growing social
+mischief does not lie with the natural order of created things, but
+solely with ourselves. We will not set any reasonable limit to our
+desires. If we would, we might live longer and be far happier!"
+
+He stretched out his limbs easefully, and dropped into a reclining
+posture. The tree he had chosen to rest under was a mighty elm, whose
+broad branches, thick with leaves, formed a deep green canopy through
+which the sunbeams filtered in flecks and darts of gold. A constant
+twittering of birds resounded within this dome of foliage, and a thrush
+whistled melodious phrases from one of the highest boughs. At his feet
+was spread a carpet of long soft moss, interspersed with wild thyme and
+groups of delicate harebells, and the rippling of a tiny stream into a
+hollow cavity of stones made pleasant and soothing music. Charmed with
+the tranquillity and loveliness of his surroundings, he determined to
+stay here for a couple of hours, reading, and perhaps sleeping, before
+resuming his journey. He had in his pocket a shilling edition of Keats's
+poems which he had bought in Bristol by way of a silent companion to his
+thoughts, and he took it out and opened it now, reading and re-reading
+some of the lines most dear and familiar to him, when, as a boy, he had
+elected this poet, so wickedly done to death ere his prime by
+commonplace critics, as one of his chief favourites among the highest
+Singers. And his lips, half-murmuring, followed the verse which tells of
+that
+
+      "untrodden region of the mind,
+    Where branched thoughts, new-grown with pleasant pain,
+      Instead of pines, shall murmur in the wind;
+    Far, far around shall these dark clustered trees,
+      Fledge the wild ridged mountains steep by steep,
+    And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds and bees,
+      The moss-lain Dryads shall be lulled to sleep;
+    And in the midst of this wide quietness,
+      A rosy sanctuary will I dress
+    With the wreathed trellis of a working brain,
+      With buds and bells and stars without a name,
+    With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,
+      Who, breeding flowers, will never breed the same;
+    And there shall be for thee all soft delight,
+      That shadowy thought can win,
+    A bright torch and a casement ope at night,
+      To let the warm Love in!"
+
+A slight sigh escaped him.
+
+"How perfect is that stanza!" he said. "How I used to believe in all it
+suggested! And how, when I was a young man, my heart was like that
+'casement ope at night, to let the warm Love in!' But Love never
+came,--only a spurious will-o'-the-wisp imitation of Love. I wonder if
+many people in this world are not equally deceived with myself in their
+conceptions of this divine passion? All the poets and romancists may be
+wrong,--and Lucy Sorrel, with her hard materialism encasing her youth
+like a suit of steel armour, may be right. Boys and girls 'love,' so
+they say,--men and women 'love' and marry--and with marriage, the
+wondrous light that led them on and dazzled them, seems, in nine cases
+out of ten, to suddenly expire! Taking myself as an example, I cannot
+say that actual marriage made me happy. It was a great disillusion; a
+keen disappointment. The birth of my sons certainly gave me some
+pleasure as well as latent hope, for as little children they were
+lovable and lovely; but as boys--as men--what bitterness they brought
+me! Were they the heirs of Love? Nay!--surely Love never generated such
+callous hearts! They were the double reflex of their mother's nature,
+grasping all and giving nothing. Is there no such virtue on earth as
+pure unselfish Love?--love that gives itself freely, unasked, without
+hope of advantage or reward--and without any personal motive lurking
+behind its offered tenderness?"
+
+He turned over the pages of the book he held, with a vague idea that
+some consoling answer to his thoughts would flash out in a stray line or
+stanza, like a beacon lighting up the darkness of a troubled sea. But no
+such cheering word met his eyes. Keats is essentially the poet of the
+young, and for the old he has no comfort. Sensuous, passionate, and
+almost cloying in the excessive sweetness of his amorous muse, he offers
+no support to the wearied spirit,--no sense of strength or renewal to
+the fagged brain. He does not grapple with the hard problems of life;
+and his mellifluous murmurings of delicious fantasies have no place in
+the poignant griefs and keen regrets of those who have passed the
+meridian of earthly hopes, and who see the shadows of the long night
+closing in. And David Helmsley realised this all suddenly, with
+something of a pang.
+
+"I am too old for Keats," he said in a half-whisper to the leafy
+branches that bowed their weight of soft green shelteringly over him.
+"Too old! Too old for a poet in whose imaginative work I vised to take
+such deep delight. There is something strange in this, for I cherished a
+belief that fine poetry would fit every time and every age, and that no
+matter how heavy the burden of years might be, I should always be able
+to forget myself and my sorrows in a poet's immortal creations. But I
+have left Keats behind me. He was with me in the sunshine,--he does not
+follow me into the shade."
+
+A cloud of melancholy darkened his worn features, and he slowly closed
+the book. He felt that it was from henceforth a sealed letter. For him
+the half-sad, half-scornful musings of Omar Khayyam were more fitting,
+such as the lines that run thus:--
+
+    "Fair wheel of heaven, silvered with many a star,
+    Whose sickly arrows strike us from afar,
+    Never a purpose to my soul was dear,
+    But heaven crashed down my little dream to mar.
+
+    Never a bird within my sad heart sings
+    But heaven a flaming stone of thunder flings;
+    O valiant wheel! O most courageous heaven,
+    To leave me lonely with the broken wings!"
+
+tinging pain, as of tears that rose but would not fall, troubled his
+eyes. He passed his hand across them, and leaned back against the sturdy
+trunk of the elm which served him for the moment as a protecting haven
+of rest. The gentle murmur of the bees among the clover, the soft
+subdued twittering of the birds, and the laughing ripple of the little
+stream hard by, all combined to make one sweet monotone of sound which
+lulled his senses to a drowsiness that gradually deepened into slumber.
+He made a pathetic figure enough, lying fast asleep there among the
+wilderness of green,--a frail and apparently very poor old man, adrift
+and homeless, without a friend in the world. The sun sank, and a crimson
+after-glow spread across the horizon from west to east, the rich colours
+flung up from the centre of the golden orb merging by slow degrees into
+that pure pearl-grey which marks the long and lovely summer twilight of
+English skies. The air was very still, not so much as the rumble of a
+distant cart wheel disturbing the silence. Presently, however, the slow
+shuffle of hesitating footsteps sounded through the muffling thickness
+of the dust, and a man made his appearance on the top of the little
+rising where the lane climbed up into a curve of wild-rose hedge and
+honeysuckle which almost hid the actual road from view. He was not a
+prepossessing object in the landscape; short and squat, unkempt and
+dirty, and clad in rough garments which were almost past hanging
+together, he looked about as uncouth and ugly a customer as one might
+expect to meet anywhere on a lonely road at nightfall. He carried a
+large basket on his back, seemingly full of weeds,--the rope which
+supported it was tied across his chest, and he clasped this rope with
+both hands crossed in the middle, after the fashion of a praying monk.
+Smoking a short black pipe, he trudged along, keeping his eyes fixed on
+the ground with steady and almost surly persistence, till arriving at
+the tree where Helmsley lay, he paused, and lifting his head stared long
+and curiously at the sleeping man. Then, unclasping his hands, he
+lowered his basket to the ground and set it down. Stealthily creeping
+close up to Helmsley's side, he examined the prone figure from head to
+foot with quick and eager scrutiny. Spying the little volume of Keats on
+the grass where it had dropped from the slumberer's relaxed hand, he
+took it up gingerly, turning over its pages with grimy thumb and
+finger.
+
+"Portry!" he ejaculated. "Glory be good to me! 'E's a reg'ler noddy
+none-such! An' measly old enuff to know better!"
+
+He threw the book on the grass again with a sniff of contempt. At that
+moment Helmsley stirred, and opening his eyes fixed them full and
+inquiringly on the lowering face above him.
+
+"'Ullo, gaffer! Woke up, 'ave yer?" said the man gruffly. "Off yer lay?"
+
+Helmsley raised himself on one elbow, looking a trifle dazed.
+
+"Off my what?" he murmured. "I didn't quite hear you----?"
+
+"Oh come, stow that!" said the man. "You dunno what I'm talkin' about;
+that's plain as a pike. _You_ aint used to the road! Where d'ye come
+from?"
+
+"I've walked from Bristol," he answered--"And you're quite right,--I'm
+not used to the road."
+
+The man looked at him and his hard face softened. Pushing back his
+tattered cap from his brows he showed his features more openly, and a
+smile, half shrewd, half kindly, made them suddenly pleasant.
+
+"Av coorse you're not!" he declared. "Glory be good to me! I've tramped
+this bit o' road for years, an' never come across such a poor old
+chuckle-headed gammer as you sleepin' under a tree afore! Readin' portry
+an' droppin' to by-by over it! The larst man as iver I saw a' readin'
+portry was what they called a 'Serious Sunday' man, an' 'e's doin' time
+now in Portland."
+
+Helmsley smiled. He was amused;--his "adventures," he thought, were
+beginning. To be called "a poor old chuckle-headed gammer" was a new and
+almost delightful experience.
+
+"Portland's an oncommon friendly place," went on his uninvited
+companion. "Once they gits ye, they likes ye to stop. 'Taint like the
+fash'nable quality what says to their friends: 'Do-ee come an' stay wi'
+me, loveys!' wishin' all the while as they wouldn't. Portland takes ye
+willin', whether ye likes it or not, an' keeps ye so fond that ye can't
+git away nohow. Oncommon 'ospitable Portland be!"
+
+And he broke into a harsh laugh. Then he glanced at Helmsley again with
+a more confiding and favourable eye.
+
+"Ye seems a 'spectable sort," he said. "What's wrong wi' ye? Out o'
+work?"
+
+Helmsley nodded.
+
+"Turned off, eh? Too old?"
+
+"That's about it!" he answered.
+
+"Well, ye do look a bit of a shivery-shake,--a kind o'
+not-long-for-this-world," said the man. "Howsomiver, we'se be all
+'elpless an' 'omeless soon, for the Lord hisself don't stop a man
+growin' old, an' under the new ways o' the world, it's a reg'lar crime
+to run past forty. I'm sixty, an' I gits my livin' my own way, axin'
+nobody for the kind permission. _That's_ my fortin!"
+
+And he pointed to the basket of weedy stuff which he had just set down.
+Helmsley looked at it with some curiosity.
+
+"What's in it?" he asked.
+
+"What's in it? What's _not_ in it!" And the man gave a gesture of
+mingled pride and defiance. "There's all what the doctors makes their
+guineas out of with their purr-escriptions, for they can't purr-escribe
+no more than is in that there basket without they goes to minerals. An'
+minerals is rank poison to ivery 'uman body. But so far as 'erbs an'
+seeds, an' precious stalks an' flowers is savin' grace for man an'
+beast, Matthew Peke's got 'em all in there. An' Matthew Peke wouldn't be
+the man he is, if he didn't know where to find 'em better'n any livin'
+soul iver born! Ah!--an' there aint a toad in a hole hoppin' out between
+Quantocks an' Cornwall as hasn't seen Matthew Peke gatherin' the
+blessin' an' health o' the fields at rise o' sun an' set o' moon,
+spring, summer, autumn, ay, an' even winter, all the year through!"
+
+Helmsley became interested.
+
+"And you are the man!" he said questioningly--"You are Matthew Peke?"
+
+"I am! An' proud so ter be! An' you--'ave yer got a name for the
+arskin'?"
+
+"Why, certainly!" And Helmsley's pale face flushed. "My name is David."
+
+"Chrisen name? Surname?"
+
+"Both."
+
+Matthew Peke shook his head.
+
+"'Twon't fadge!" he declared. "It don't sound right. It's like th' owld
+Bible an' the Book o' Kings where there's nowt but Jews; an' Jews is
+the devil to pay wheriver you finds 'em!"
+
+"I'm not a Jew," said Helmsley, smiling.
+
+"Mebbe not--mebbe not--but yer name's awsome like it. An' if ye put it
+short, like D. David, that's just Damn David an' nothin' plainer. Aint
+it?"
+
+Helmsley laughed.
+
+"Exactly!" he said--"You're right! Damn David suits me down to the
+ground!"
+
+Peke looked at him dubiously, as one who is not quite sure of his man.
+
+"You're a rum old sort!" he said; "an' I tell ye what it is--you're as
+tired as a dog limpin' on three legs as has nipped his fourth in a
+weasel-trap. Wheer are ye goin' on to?"
+
+"I don't know," answered Helmsley--"I'm a stranger to this part of the
+country. But I mean to tramp it to the nearest village. I slept out in
+the open yesterday,--I think I'd like a shelter over me to-night."
+
+"Got any o' the King's pictures about ye?" asked Peke.
+
+Helmsley looked, as he felt, bewildered.
+
+"The King's pictures?" he echoed--"You mean----?"
+
+"This!" and Peke drew out of his tattered trouser pocket a dim and
+blackened sixpence--"'Ere 'e is, as large as life, a bit bald about the
+top o' 'is blessed old 'ead, Glory be good to 'im, but as useful as if
+all 'is 'air was still a blowin' an' a growin'! Aint that the King's
+picture, D. David? Don't it say 'Edwardus VII. D. G. Britt.,' which
+means Edward the Seventh, thanks be to God Britain? Don't it?"
+
+"It _do_!" replied Helmsley emphatically, taking a fantastic pleasure in
+the bad grammar of his reply. "I've got a few more pictures of the same
+kind," and he took out two or three loose shillings and pennies--"Can we
+get a night's lodging about here for that?"
+
+"Av coorse we can! I'll take ye to a place where ye'll be as welcome as
+the flowers in May with Matt Peke interroducin' of ye. Two o' them
+thank-God Britts in silver will set ye up wi' a plate o' wholesome food
+an' a clean bed at the 'Trusty Man.' It's a pub, but Miss Tranter what
+keeps it is an old maid, an' she's that proud o' the only 'Trusty Man'
+she ever 'ad that she calls it an '_O_tel!"
+
+He grinned good-humouredly at what he considered his own witticism
+concerning the little weakness of Miss Tranter, and proceeded to
+shoulder his basket.
+
+"_You_ aint proud, are ye?" he said, as he turned his ferret-brown eyes
+on Helmsley inquisitively.
+
+Helmsley, who had, quite unconsciously to himself, drawn up his spare
+figure in his old habitual way of standing very erect, with that
+composed air of dignity and resolution which those who knew him
+personally in business were well accustomed to, started at the question.
+
+"Proud!" he exclaimed--"I? What have I to be proud of? I'm the most
+miserable old fellow in the world, my friend! You may take my word for
+that! There's not a soul that cares a button whether I live or die! I'm
+seventy years of age--out of work, and utterly wretched and friendless!
+Why the devil should _I_ be proud?"
+
+"Well, if ye never was proud in yer life, ye can be now," said Peke
+condescendingly, "for I tell ye plain an' true that if Matt Peke walks
+with a tramp on this road, every one round the Quantocks knows as how
+that tramp aint altogether a raskill! I've took ye up on trust as
+'twere, likin' yer face for all that it's thin an' mopish,--an' steppin'
+in wi' me to the 'Trusty Man' will mebbe give ye a character. Anyways,
+I'll do my best for ye!"
+
+"Thank you," said Helmsley simply.
+
+Again Peke looked at him, and again seemed troubled. Then, stuffing his
+pipe full of tobacco, he lit it and stuck it sideways between his teeth.
+
+"Now come along!" he said. "You're main old, but ye must put yer best
+foot foremost all the same. We've more'n an hour's trampin' up hill an'
+down dale, an' the dew's beginnin' to fall. Keep goin' slow an'
+steady--I'll give ye a hand."
+
+For a moment Helmsley hesitated. This shaggy, rough, uncouth
+herb-gatherer evidently regarded him as very feeble and helpless, and,
+out of a latent kindliness of nature, wished to protect him and see him
+to some safe shelter for the night. Nevertheless, he hated the position.
+Old as he knew himself to be, he resented being pitied for his age,
+while his mind was yet so vigorous and his heart felt still so warm and
+young. Yet the commonplace fact remained that he was very tired,--very
+worn out, and conscious that only a good rest would enable him to
+continue his journey with comfort. Moreover, his experiences at the
+"Trusty Man" might prove interesting. It was best to take what came in
+his way, even though some episodes should possibly turn out less
+pleasing than instructive. So putting aside all scruples, he started to
+walk beside his ragged comrade of the road, finding, with some secret
+satisfaction, that after a few paces his own step was light and easy
+compared to the heavy shuffling movement with which Peke steadily
+trudged along. Sweet and pungent odours of the field and woodland
+floated from the basket of herbs as it swung slightly to and fro on its
+bearer's shoulders, and amid the slowly darkening shadows of evening, a
+star of sudden silver brilliance sparkled out in the sky.
+
+"Yon's the first twinkler," said Peke, seeing it at once, though his
+gaze was apparently fixed on the ground. "The love-star's allus up early
+o' nights to give the men an' maids a chance!"
+
+"Yes,--Venus is the evening star just now," rejoined Helmsley,
+half-absently.
+
+"Stow Venus! That's a reg'lar fool's name," said Peke surlily. "Where
+did ye git it from? That aint no Venus,--that's just the love-star, an'
+it'll be nowt else in these parts till the world-without-end-amen!"
+
+Helmsley made no answer. He walked on patiently, his limbs trembling a
+little with fatigue and nervous exhaustion. But Peke's words had started
+the old dream of his life again into being,--the latent hope within him,
+which though often half-killed, was not yet dead, flamed up like newly
+kindled vital fire in his mind,--and he moved as in a dream, his eyes
+fixed on the darkening heavens and the brightening star.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+They plodded on together side by side for some time in unbroken silence.
+At last, after a short but stiff climb up a rough piece of road which
+terminated in an eminence commanding a wide and uninterrupted view of
+the surrounding country, they paused. The sea lay far below them, dimly
+covered by the gathering darkness, and the long swish and roll of the
+tide could be heard sweeping to and from the shore like the grave and
+graduated rhythm of organ music.
+
+"We'd best 'ave a bit of a jabber to keep us goin'," said Peke,
+then--"Jabberin' do pass time, as the wimin can prove t' ye; an' arter
+such a jumblegut lane as this, it'll seem less lonesome. We're off the
+main road to towns an' sich like--this is a bye, an' 'ere it stops.
+We'll 'ave to git over yon stile an' cross the fields--'taint an easy
+nor clean way, but it's the best goin'. We'll see the lights o' the
+'Trusty Man' just over the brow o' the next hill."
+
+Helmsley drew a long breath, and sat down on a stone by the roadside.
+Peke surveyed him critically.
+
+"Poor old gaffer! Knocked all to pieces, aint ye! Not used to the road?
+Glory be good to me! I should think ye wornt! Short in yer wind an' weak
+on yer pins! I'd as soon see my old grandad trampin' it as you. Look
+'ere! Will ye take a dram out o' this 'ere bottle?"
+
+He held up the bottle he spoke of,--it was black, and untemptingly
+dirty. Yet there was such a good-natured expression in the man's eyes,
+and so much honest solicitude written on his rough bearded face, that
+Helmsley felt it would be almost like insulting him to refuse his
+invitation.
+
+"Tell me what's in it first!" he said, smiling.
+
+"'Taint whisky," said Peke. "And 'taint brandy neither. _Nor_ rum. _Nor_
+gin. Nor none o' them vile stuffs which brewers makes as arterwards goes
+to Parl'ment on the profits of 'avin' poisoned their consti_too_ants.
+'Tis nowt but just yerb wine."
+
+"Yerb wine? Wine made of herbs?"
+
+"That's it! 'Erbs or yerbs--I aint pertikler which--I sez both.
+This,"--and he shook the bottle he held vigorously--"is genuine yerb
+wine--an' made as I makes it, what do the Wise One say of it? 'E
+sez:--'It doth strengthen the heart of a man mightily, and refresheth
+the brain; drunk fasting, it braceth up the sinews and maketh the old
+feel young; it is of rare virtue to expel all evil humours, and if
+princes should drink of it oft it would be but an ill service to the
+world, as they might never die!'"
+
+Peke recited these words slowly and laboriously; it was evident that he
+had learned them by heart, and that the effort of remembering them
+correctly was more or less painful to him.
+
+Helmsley laughed, and stretched out his hand.
+
+"Give it over here!" he said. "It's evidently just the stuff for me. How
+much shall I take at one go?"
+
+Peke uncorked the precious fluid with care, smelt it, and nodded
+appreciatively.
+
+"Swill it all if ye like," he remarked graciously. "'Twont hurt ye, an'
+there's more where that came from. It's cheap enuff, too--nature don't
+keep it back from no man. On'y there aint a many got sense enuff to
+thank the Lord when it's offered."
+
+As he thus talked, Helmsley took the bottle from him and tasted its
+contents. The "yerb wine" was delicious. More grateful to his palate
+than Chambertin or Clos Vougeot, it warmed and invigorated him, and he
+took a long draught, Matthew Peke watching him drink it with great
+satisfaction.
+
+"Let the yerbs run through yer veins for two or three minits, an' ye'll
+step across yon fields as light as a bird 'oppin' to its nest," he
+declared. "Talk o' tonics,--there's more tonic in a handful o' green
+stuff growin' as the Lord makes it to grow, than all the
+purr-escriptions what's sent out o' them big 'ouses in 'Arley Street,
+London, where the doctors sits from ten to two like spiders waitin' for
+flies, an' gatherin' in the guineas for lookin' at fools' tongues. Glory
+be good to me! If all the world were as sick as it's silly, there'd be
+nowt wantin' to 't but a grave an' a shovel!"
+
+Helmsley smiled, and taking another pull at the black bottle, declared
+himself much better and ready to go on. He was certainly refreshed, and
+the weary aching of his limbs which had made every step of the road
+painful and difficult to him, was gradually passing off.
+
+"You are very good to me," he said, as he returned the remainder of the
+"yerb wine" to its owner. "I wonder why?"
+
+Peke took a draught of his mixture before replying. Then corking the
+bottle, he thrust it in his pocket.
+
+"Ye wonders why?" And he uttered a sound between a grunt and a
+chuckle--"Ye may do that! I wonders myself!"
+
+And, giving his basket a hitch, he resumed his slow trudging movement
+onward.
+
+"You see," pursued Helmsley, keeping up the pace beside him, and
+beginning to take pleasure in the conversation--"I may be anything or
+anybody----"
+
+"Ye may that," agreed Peke, his eyes fixed as usual on the ground. "Ye
+may be a jail-bird or a missioner,--they'se much of a muchity, an' goes
+on the road lookin' quite simple like, an' the simpler they seems the
+deeper they is. White 'airs an' feeble legs 'elps 'em along
+considerable,--nowt's better stock-in-trade than tremblin' shins. Or ye
+might be a War-office neglect,--ye looks a bit set that way."
+
+"What's a War-office neglect?" asked Helmsley, laughing.
+
+"One o' them totterin' old chaps as was in the Light Brigade," answered
+Peke. "There's no end to 'em. They'se all over every road in the
+country. All of 'em fought wi' Lord Cardigan, an' all o' 'em's driven to
+starve by an ungrateful Gov'ment. They won't be all dead an' gone till a
+hundred years 'as rolled away, an' even then I shouldn't wonder if one
+or two was still left on the tramp a-pipin' his little 'arf-a-league
+onard tale o' woe to the first softy as forgits the date o' the battle."
+Here he gave an inquisitive side-glance at his companion. "But you aint
+quite o' the Balaclava make an' colour. Yer shoulders is millingterry,
+but yer 'ead is business. Ye might be a gentleman if 'twornt for yer
+clothes."
+
+Helmsley heard this definition of himself without flinching.
+
+"I might be a thief," he said--"or an escaped convict. You've been kind
+to me without knowing whether I am one or the other, or both. And I want
+to know why?"
+
+Peke stopped in his walk. They had come to the stile over which the way
+lay across the fields, and he rested himself and his basket for a moment
+against it.
+
+"Why?" he repeated,--then suddenly raising one hand, he whispered,
+"Listen! Listen to the sea!"
+
+The evening had now almost closed in, and all around them the country
+lay dark and solitary, broken here and there by tall groups of trees
+which at night looked like sable plumes, standing stiff and motionless
+in the stirless summer air. Thousands of stars flashed out across this
+blackness, throbbing in their orbits with a quick pulsation as of uneasy
+hearts beating with nameless and ungratified longing. And through the
+tense silence came floating a long, sweet, passionate cry,--a shivering
+moan of pain that touched the edge of joy,--a song without words, of
+pleading and of prayer, as of a lover, who, debarred from the possession
+of the beloved, murmurs his mingled despair and hope to the
+unsubstantial dream of his own tortured soul. The sea was calling to the
+earth,--calling to her in phrases of eloquent and urgent
+music,--caressing her pebbly shores with winding arms of foam, and
+showering kisses of wild spray against her rocky bosom. "If I could come
+to thee! If thou couldst come to me!" was the burden of the waves,--the
+ceaseless craving of the finite for the infinite, which is, and ever
+shall be, the great chorale of life. The shuddering sorrow of that low
+rhythmic boom of the waters rising and falling fathoms deep under cliffs
+which the darkness veiled from view, awoke echoes from the higher hills
+around, and David Helmsley, lifting his eyes to the countless
+planet-worlds sprinkled thick as flowers in the patch of sky immediately
+above him, suddenly realised with a pang how near he was to death,--how
+very near to that final drop into the unknown where the soul of man is
+destined to find All or Nothing! He trembled,--not with fear,--but with
+a kind of anger at himself for having wasted so much of his life. What
+had he done, with all his toil and pains? He had gathered a multitude of
+riches. Well, and then? Then,--why then, and now, he had found riches
+but vain getting. Life and Death were still, as they have always been,
+the two supreme Facts of the universe. Life, as ever, asserted itself
+with an insistence demanding something far more enduring than the mere
+possession of gold, and the power which gold brings. And Death presented
+its unwelcome aspect in the same perpetual way as the Last Recorder who,
+at the end of the day, closes up accounts with a sum-total paid exactly
+in proportion to the work done. No more, and no less. And with Helmsley
+these accounts were reaching a figure against which his whole nature
+fiercely rebelled,--the figure of Nought, showing no value in his life's
+efforts or its results. And the sound of the sea to-night in his ears
+was more full of reproach than peace.
+
+"When the water moans like that," said Peke softly, under his breath,
+"it seems to me as if all the tongues of drowned sailors 'ad got into it
+an' was beggin' of us not to forget 'em lyin' cold among the shells an'
+weed. An' not only the tongues o' them seems a-speakin' an' a-cryin',
+but all the stray bones o' them seems to rattle in the rattle o' the
+foam. It goes through ye sharp, like a knife cuttin' a sour apple; an'
+it's made me wonder many a time why we was all put 'ere to git drowned
+or smashed or choked off or beat down somehows just when we don't expect
+it. Howsomiver, the Wise One sez it's all right!"
+
+"And who is the Wise One?" asked Helmsley, trying to rouse himself from
+the heavy thoughts engendered in his mind by the wail of the sea.
+
+"The Wise One was a man what wrote a book a 'underd years ago about
+'erbs," said Peke. "'_The Way o' Long Life_,' it's called, an' my father
+an' grandfather and great-grandfather afore 'em 'ad the book, an' I've
+got it still, though I shows it to nobody, for nobody but me wouldn't
+unnerstand it. My father taught me my letters from it, an' I could spell
+it out when I was a kid--I've growed up on it, an' it's all I ever
+reads. It's 'ere"--and he touched his ragged vest. "I trusts it to keep
+me goin' 'ale an' 'arty till I'm ninety,--an' that's drawin' it mild,
+for my father lived till a 'underd, an' then on'y went through slippin'
+on a wet stone an' breakin' a bone in 'is back; an' my grandfather saw
+'is larst Christmas at a 'underd an' ten, an' was up to kissin' a wench
+under the mistletoe, 'e was sich a chirpin' old gamecock. 'E didn't look
+no older'n you do now, an' you're a chicken compared to 'im. You've wore
+badly like, not knowin' the use o' yerbs."
+
+"That's it!" said Helmsley, now following his companion over the stile
+and into the dark dewy fields beyond--"I need the advice of the Wise
+One! Has he any remedy for old age, I wonder?"
+
+"Ay, now there ye treads on my fav'rite corn!" and Peke shook his head
+with a curious air of petulance. "That's what I'm a-lookin' for day an'
+night, for the Wise One 'as got a bit in 'is book which 'e's cropped
+out o' another Wise One's savin's,--a chap called Para-Cel-Sus"--and
+Peke pronounced this name in three distinct and well-divided syllables.
+"An this is what it is: 'Take the leaves of the Daura, which prevent
+those who use it from dying for a hundred and twenty years. In the same
+way the flower of the _secta croa_ brings a hundred years to those who
+use it, whether they be of lesser or of longer age.' I've been on the
+'unt for the 'Daura' iver since I was twenty, an' I've arskt ivery
+'yerber I've ivir met for the 'Secta Croa,' an' all I've 'ad sed to me
+is 'Go 'long wi' ye for a loony jackass! There aint no sich thing.' But
+jackass or no, I'm of a mind to think there _is_ such things as both the
+'Daura' an' the 'Secta Croa,' if I on'y knew the English of 'em. An'
+s'posin' I ivir found 'em----"
+
+"You would become that most envied creature of the present age,--a
+millionaire," said Helmsley; "you could command your own terms for the
+wonderful leaves,--you would cease to tramp the road or to gather herbs,
+and you would live in luxury like a king!"
+
+"Not I!"--and Peke gave a grunt of contempt. "Kings aint my notion of
+'appiness nor 'onesty neither. They does things often for which some o'
+the poor 'ud be put in quod, an' no mercy showed 'em, an' yet 'cos
+they're kings they gits off. An' I aint great on millionaires neither.
+They'se mis'able ricketty coves, all gone to pot in their in'ards
+through grubbin' money an' eatin' of it like, till ivery other kind o'
+food chokes 'em. There's a chymist in London what pays me five shillings
+an ounce for a little green yerb I knows on, cos' it's the on'y med'cine
+as keeps a millionaire customer of 'is a-goin'. I finds the yerb, an'
+the chymist gits the credit. I gits five shillin', an' the chymist gits
+a guinea. _That's_ all right! _I_ don't mind! I on'y gathers,--the
+chymist, 'e's got to infuse the yerb, distil an' bottle it. I'm paid my
+price, an 'e's paid 'is. All's fair in love an' war!"
+
+He trudged on, his footsteps now rendered almost noiseless by the thick
+grass on which he trod. The heavy dew sparkled on every blade, and here
+and there the pale green twinkle of a glow-worm shone like a jewel
+dropped from a lady's gown. Helmsley walked beside his companion at an
+even pace,--the "yerb wine" had undoubtedly put strength in him and he
+was almost unconscious of his former excessive fatigue. He was
+interested in Peke's "jabber," and wondered, somewhat enviously, why
+such a man as this, rough, ragged, and uneducated, should seem to
+possess a contentment such as he had never known.
+
+"Millionaires is gin'rally fools," continued Peke; "they buys all they
+wants, an' then they aint got nothin' more to live for. They gits into
+motor-cars an' scours the country, but they never sees it. They never
+'ears the birds singin', an' they misses all the flowers. They never
+smells the vi'lets nor the mayblossom--they on'y gits their own petrol
+stench wi' the flavour o' the dust mixed in. Larst May I was a-walkin'
+in the lanes o' Devon, an' down the 'ill comes a motor-car tearin' an'
+scorchin' for all it was worth, an' bang went somethin' at the bottom o'
+the thing, an' it stops suddint. Out jumps a French chauffy, parlyvooin'
+to hisself, an' out jumps the man what owns it an' takes off his
+goggles. 'This is Devonshire, my man?' sez 'e to me. 'It is,' I sez to
+'im. An' then the cuckoo started callin' away over the trees. 'What's
+that?' sez 'e lookin' startled like. 'That's the cuckoo,' sez I. An' he
+takes off 'is 'at an' rubs 'is 'ead, which was a' fast goin' bald.
+'Dear, dear me!' sez 'e--'I 'aven't 'eard the cuckoo since I was a boy!'
+An' he rubs 'is 'ead again, an' laughs to hisself--'Not since I was a
+boy!' 'e sez. 'An' that's the cuckoo, is it? Dear, dear me!' 'You
+'aven't bin much in the country p'r'aps?' sez I. 'I'm always in the
+country,' 'e sez--'I motor everywhere, but I've missed the cuckoo
+somehow!' An' then the chauffy puts the machine right, an' he jumps in
+an' gives me a shillin'. 'Thank-ye, my man!' sez 'e--'I'm glad you told
+me 'twas a _real_ cuckoo!' Hor--er--hor--er--hor--er!" And Peke gave
+vent to a laugh peculiarly his own. "Mebbe 'e thought I'd got a Swiss
+clock with a sham cuckoo workin' it in my basket! 'I'm glad,' sez 'e,
+'you told me 'twas a _real_ cuckoo!' Hor--er--hor--er--hor--er!"
+
+The odd chuckling sounds of merriment which were slowly jerked forth as
+it were from Peke's husky windpipe, were droll enough in themselves to
+be somewhat infectious, and Helmsley laughed as he had not done for many
+days.
+
+"Ay, there's a mighty sight of tringum-trangums an' nonsense i' the
+world," went on Peke, still occasionally giving vent to a suppressed
+"Hor--er--hor"--"an' any amount o' Tom Conys what don't know a real
+cuckoo from a sham un'. Glory be good to me! Think o' the numskulls as
+goes in for pendlecitis! There's a fine name for ye! Pendlecitis!
+Hor--er--hor! All the fash'nables 'as got it, an' all the doctors 'as
+their knives sharpened an' ready to cut off the remains o' the tail we
+'ad when we was all 'appy apes together! Hor--er--hor! An' the bit o'
+tail 's curled up in our in'ards now where it ain't got no business to
+be. Which shows as 'ow Natur' don't know 'ow to do it, seein' as if we
+'adn't wanted a tail, she'd a' took it sheer off an' not left any
+behind. But the doctors thinks they knows a darn sight better'n Natur',
+an' they'll soon be givin' lessons in the makin' o' man to the Lord
+A'mighty hisself! Hor--er--hor! Pendlecitis! That's a precious monkey's
+tail, that there! In my grandfather's day we didn't 'ear 'bout no
+monkey's tails,--'twas just a chill an' inflammation o' the in'ards, an'
+a few yerbs made into a tea an' drunk 'ot fastin', cured it in
+twenty-four hours. But they've so many new-fangled notions nowadays,
+they've forgot all the old 'uns. There's the cancer illness,--people
+goes off all over the country now from cancer as never used to in my
+father's day, an' why? 'Cos they'se gittin' too wise for Nature's own
+cure. Nobody thinks o' tryin' agrimony,--water agrimony--some calls it
+water hemp an' bastard agrimony--'tis a thing that flowers in this month
+an' the next,--a brown-yellow blossom on a purple stalk, an' ye find it
+in cold places, in ponds an' ditches an' by runnin' waters. Make a drink
+of it, an' it'll mend any cancer, if 'taint too far gone. An' a cancer
+that's outside an' not in, 'ull clean away beautiful wi' the 'elp o' red
+clover. Even the juice o' nettles, which is common enough, drunk three
+times a day will kill any germ o' cancer, while it'll set up the blood
+as fresh an' bright as iver. But who's a-goin' to try common stuff like
+nettles an' clover an' water hemp, when there's doctors sittin' waitin'
+wi' knives an' wantin' money for cuttin' up their patients an' 'urryin'
+'em into kingdom-come afore their time! Glory be good to me! What wi'
+doctors an' 'omes an' nusses, an' all the fuss as a sick man makes about
+hisself in these days, I'd rather be as I am, Matt Peke, a-wanderin' by
+hill an' dale, an' lyin' down peaceful to die under a tree when my times
+comes, than take any part wi' the pulin' cowards as is afraid o' cold
+an' fever an' wet feet an' the like, just as if they was poor little
+shiverin' mice instead o' men. Take 'em all round, the wimin's the
+bravest at bearin' pain,--they'll smile while they'se burnin' so as it
+sha'n't ill-convenience anybody. Wonderful sufferers, is wimin!"
+
+"Yet they are selfish enough sometimes," said Helmsley, quickly.
+
+"Selfish? Wheer was ye born, D. David?" queried Peke--"An' what wimin
+'ave ye know'd? Town or country?"
+
+Helmsley was silent.
+
+"Arsk no questions an' ye'll be told no lies!" commented Peke, with a
+chuckle. "I sees! Ye've bin a gay old chunk in yer time, mebbe! An' it's
+the wimin as goes in for gay old chunks as ye've made all yer larnin of.
+But they ain't wimin--not as the country knows 'em. Country wimin works
+all day an' as often as not dandles a babby all night,--they've not got
+a minnit but what they aint a-troublin' an' a-worryin' 'bout 'usband or
+childer, an' their faces is all writ over wi' the curse o' the garden of
+Eden. Selfish? They aint got the time! Up at cock-crow, scrubbin' the
+floors, washin' the babies, feedin' the fowls or the pigs, peelin' the
+taters, makin' the pot boil, an' tryin' to make out 'ow twelve shillin's
+an' sixpence a week can be made to buy a pound's worth o' food, trapsin'
+to market, an' wonderin' whether the larst born in the cradle aint
+somehow got into the fire while mother's away,--'opin' an' prayin' for
+the Lord's sake as 'usband don't come 'ome blind drunk,--where's the
+room for any selfishness in sich a life as that?--the life lived by
+'undreds o' wimin all over this 'ere blessed free country? Get 'long wi'
+ye, D. David! Old as y' are, ye 'ad a mother in yer time,--an' I'll take
+my Gospel oath there was a bit o' good in 'er!"
+
+Helmsley stopped abruptly in his walk.
+
+"You are right, man!" he said, "And I am wrong! You know women better
+than I do, and--you give me a lesson! One is never too old to
+learn,"--and he smiled a rather pained smile. "But--I have had a bad
+experience!"
+
+"Well, if y'ave 'ad it ivir so bad, yer 'xperience aint every one's,"
+retorted Peke. "If one fly gits into the soup, that don't argify that
+the hull pot 's full of 'em. An' there's more good wimin than
+bad--takin' 'em all round an' includin' 'op pickers, gypsies an' the
+like. Even Miss Tranter aint wantin' in feelin', though she's a bit sour
+like, owin' to 'avin missed a 'usband an' all the savin' worrity
+wear-an-tear a 'usband brings, but she aint arf bad. Yon's the lamp of
+'er 'Trusty Man' now."
+
+A gleam of light, not much larger than the glitter of one of the
+glow-worms in the grass, was just then visible at the end of the long
+field they were traversing.
+
+"That's an old cart-road down there wheer it stands," continued Peke.
+"As bad a road as ivir was made, but it runs straight into Devonshire,
+an' it's a good place for a pub. For many a year 'twornt used, bein' so
+rough an' ready, but now there's such a crowd o' motors tearin, over
+Countisbury 'Ill, the carts takes it, keepin' more to theirselves like,
+an' savin' smashin'. Miss Tranter she knew what she was a-doin' of when
+she got a licence an' opened 'er bizniss. 'Twas a ramshackle old
+farm-'ouse, goin' all to pieces when she bought it an' put up 'er sign
+o' the 'Trusty Man,' an' silly wenches round 'ere do say as 'ow it's
+'aunted, owin' to the man as 'ad it afore Miss Tranter, bein' found dead
+in 'is bed with 'is 'ands a-clutchin' a pack o' cards. An' the ace o'
+spades--that's death--was turned uppermost. So they goes chatterin' an'
+chitterin' as 'ow the old chap 'ad been playin' cards wi' the devil, an'
+got a bad end. But Miss Tranter, she don't listen to maids'
+gabble,--she's doin' well, devil or no devil--an' if any one was to talk
+to 'er 'bout ghosteses an' sich-like, she'd wallop 'em out of 'er bar
+with a broom! Ay, that she would! She's a powerful strong woman Miss
+Tranter, an' many's the larker what's felt 'er 'and on 'is collar
+a-chuckin' 'im out o' the 'Trusty Man' neck an' crop for sayin'
+somethin' what aint ezackly agreeable to 'er feelin's. She don't stand
+no nonsense, an' though she's lib'ral with 'er pennorths an' pints she
+don't wait till a man's full boozed 'fore lockin' up the tap-room. 'Git
+to bed, yer hulkin' fools!' sez she, 'or ye may change my '_O_tel for
+the Sheriff's.' An' they all knuckles down afore 'er as if they was
+childer gettin' spanked by their mother. Ah, she'd 'a made a grand wife
+for a man! 'E wouldn't 'ave 'ad no chance to make a pig of hisself if
+she'd been anywheres round!"
+
+"Perhaps she won't take me in!" suggested Helmsley.
+
+"She will, an' that sartinly!" said Peke. "She'll not refuse bed an'
+board to any friend o' mine."
+
+"Friend!" Helmsley echoed the word wonderingly.
+
+"Ay, friend! Any one's a friend what trusts to ye on the road, aint 'e?
+Leastways that's 'ow I take it."
+
+"As I said before, you are very kind to me," murmured Helmsley; "and I
+have already asked you--Why?"
+
+"There aint no rhyme nor reason in it," answered Peke. "You 'elps a man
+along if ye sees 'e wants 'elpin', sure-_ly_,--that's nat'ral. 'Tis on'y
+them as is born bad as don't 'elp nothin' nor nobody. Ye're old an'
+fagged out, an' yer face speaks a bit o' trouble--that's enuff for me.
+Hi' y' are!--hi' y' are, old 'Trusty Man!'"
+
+And striding across a dry ditch which formed a kind of entrenchment
+between the field and the road, Peke guided his companion round a dark
+corner and brought him in front of a long low building, heavily
+timbered, with queer little lop-sided gable windows set in the slanting,
+red-tiled roof. A sign-board swung over the door and a small lamp fixed
+beneath it showed that it bore the crudely painted portrait of a
+gentleman in an apron, spreading out both hands palms upwards as one who
+has nothing to conceal,--the ideal likeness of the "Trusty Man" himself.
+The door itself stood open, and the sound of male voices evinced the
+presence of customers within. Peke entered without ceremony, beckoning
+Helmsley to follow him, and made straight for the bar, where a tall
+woman with remarkably square shoulders stood severely upright, knitting.
+
+"'Evenin', Miss Tranter!" said Peke, pulling off his tattered cap. "Any
+room for poor lodgers?"
+
+Miss Tranter glanced at him, and then at his companion.
+
+"That depends on the lodgers," she answered curtly.
+
+"That's right! That's quite right, Miss!" said Peke with propitiatory
+deference. "You 'se allus right whatsoever ye does an' sez! But yer
+knows _me_,--yer knows Matt Peke, don't yer?"
+
+Miss Tranter smiled sourly, and her knitting needles glittered like
+crossed knives as she finished a particular row of stitches on which she
+was engaged before condescending to reply. Then she said:--
+
+"Yes, I know _you_ right enough, but I don't know your company. I'm not
+taking up strangers."
+
+"Lord love ye! This aint a stranger!" exclaimed Peke. "This 'ere's old
+David, a friend o' mine as is out o' work through gittin' more years on
+'is back than the British Gov'ment allows, an' 'e's trampin' it to see
+'is relations afore 'e gits put to bed wi' a shovel. 'E's as 'armless as
+they makes 'em, an' I've told 'im as 'ow ye' don't take in nowt but
+'spectable folk. Doant 'ee turn out an old gaffer like 'e be, fagged an'
+footsore, to sleep in open--doant 'ee now, there's a good soul!"
+
+Miss Tranter went on knitting rapidly. Presently she turned her piercing
+gimlet grey eyes on Helmsley.
+
+"Where do you come from, man?" she demanded.
+
+Helmsley lifted his hat with the gentle courtesy habitual to him.
+
+"From Bristol, ma'am."
+
+"Tramping it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To Cornwall."
+
+"That's a long way and a hard road," commented Miss Tranter; "You'll
+never get there!"
+
+Helmsley gave a slight deprecatory gesture, but said nothing.
+
+Miss Tranter eyed him more keenly.
+
+"Are you hungry?"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Not very!"
+
+"That means you're half-starved without knowing it," she said
+decisively. "Go in yonder," and she pointed with one of her knitting
+needles to the room beyond the bar whence the hum of male voices
+proceeded. "I'll send you some hot soup with plenty of stewed meat and
+bread in it. An old man like you wants more than the road food. Take him
+in, Peke!"
+
+"Didn't I tell ye!" ejaculated Peke, triumphantly looking round at
+Helmsley. "She's one that's got 'er 'art in the right place! I say, Miss
+Tranter, beggin' yer parding, my friend aint a sponger, ye know! 'E can
+pay ye a shillin' or two for yer trouble!"
+
+Miss Tranter nodded her head carelessly.
+
+"The food's threepence and the bed fourpence," she said. "Breakfast in
+the morning, threepence,--and twopence for the washing towel. That makes
+a shilling all told. Ale and liquors extra."
+
+With that she turned her back on them, and Peke, pulling Helmsley by the
+arm, took him into the common room of the inn, where there were several
+men seated round a long oak table with "gate-legs" which must have been
+turned by the handicraftsmen of the time of Henry the Seventh. Here
+Peke set down his basket of herbs in a corner, and addressed the company
+generally.
+
+"'Evenin', mates! All well an' 'arty?"
+
+Three or four of the party gave gruff response. The others sat smoking
+silently. One end of the table was unoccupied, and to this Peke drew a
+couple of rush-bottomed chairs with sturdy oak backs, and bade Helmsley
+sit down beside him.
+
+"It be powerful warm to-night!" he said, taking off his cap, and showing
+a disordered head of rough dark hair, sprinkled with grey. "Powerful
+warm it be trampin' the road, from sunrise to sunset, when the dust lies
+thick and 'eavy, an' all the country's dry for a drop o' rain."
+
+"Wal, _you_ aint got no cause to grumble at it," said a fat-faced man in
+very dirty corduroys. "It's _your_ chice, an' _your_ livin'! _You_ likes
+the road, an' _you_ makes your grub on it! 'Taint no use _you_ findin'
+fault with the gettin' o' _your_ victuals!"
+
+"Who's findin' fault, Mister Dubble?" asked Peke soothingly. "I on'y
+said 'twas powerful warm."
+
+"An' no one but a sawny 'xpects it to be powerful cold in July," growled
+Dubble--"though some there is an' some there be what cries fur snow in
+August, but I aint one on 'em."
+
+"No, 'e aint one on 'em," commented a burly farmer, blowing away the
+foam from the brim of a tankard of ale which was set on the table in
+front of him. "'E alluz takes just what cooms along easy loike, do
+Mizter Dubble!"
+
+There followed a silence. It was instinctively felt that the discussion
+was hardly important enough to be continued. Moreover, every man in the
+room was conscious of a stranger's presence, and each one cast a furtive
+glance at Helmsley, who, imitating Peke's example, had taken off his
+hat, and now sat quietly under the flickering light of the oil lamp
+which was suspended from the middle of the ceiling. He himself was
+intensely interested in the turn his wanderings had taken. There was a
+certain excitement in his present position,--he was experiencing the
+"new sensation" he had longed for,--and he realised it with the fullest
+sense of enjoyment. To be one of the richest men in the world, and yet
+to seem so miserably poor and helpless as to be regarded with suspicion
+by such a class of fellows as those among whom he was now seated, was
+decidedly a novel way of acquiring an additional relish for the varying
+chances and changes of life.
+
+"Brought yer father along wi' ye, Matt?" suddenly asked a wizened little
+man of about sixty, with a questioning grin on his hard weather-beaten
+features.
+
+"I aint up to 'awkin' dead bodies out o' their graves yet, Bill Bush,"
+answered Peke. "Unless my old dad's corpsy's turned to yerbs, which is
+more'n likely, I aint got 'im. This 'ere's a friend o' mine,--Mister
+David--e's out o' work through the Lord's speshul dispensation an' rule
+o' natur--gettin' old!"
+
+A laugh went round, but a more favourable impression towards Peke's
+companion was at once created by this introduction.
+
+"Sorry for ye!" said the individual called Bill Bush, nodding
+encouragingly to Helmsley. "I'm a bit that way myself."
+
+He winked, and again the company laughed. Bill was known as one of the
+most daring and desperate poachers in all the countryside, but as yet he
+had never been caught in the act, and he was one of Miss Tranter's
+"respectable" customers. But, truth to tell, Miss Tranter had some very
+odd ideas of her own. One was that rabbits were vermin, and that it was
+of no consequence how or by whom they were killed. Another was that
+"wild game" belonged to everybody, poor and rich. Vainly was it
+explained to her that rich landowners spent no end of money on breeding
+and preserving pheasants, grouse, and the like,--she would hear none of
+it.
+
+"Stuff and nonsense," she said sharply. "The birds breed by themselves
+quite fast enough if let alone,--and the Lord intended them so to do for
+every one's use and eating, not for a few mean and selfish money-grubs
+who'd shoot and sell their own babies if they could get game prices for
+them!"
+
+And she had a certain sympathy with Bill Bush and his nefarious
+proceedings. As long as he succeeded in evading the police, so long
+would he be welcome at the "Trusty Man," but if once he were to be
+clapped into jail the door of his favourite "public" would be closed to
+him. Not that Miss Tranter was a woman who "went back," as the saying
+is, on her friends, but she had to think of her licence, and could not
+afford to run counter to those authorities who had the power to take it
+away from her.
+
+"I'm a-shrivellin' away for want o' suthin' to do," proceeded Bill. "My
+legs aint no show at all to what they once was."
+
+And he looked down at those members complacently. They were encased in
+brown velveteens much the worse for wear, and in shape resembled a
+couple of sticks with a crook at the knees.
+
+"I lost my sitiwation as gamekeeper to 'is Royal 'Ighness the Dook o'
+Duncy through bein' too 'onest," he went on with another wink. "'Orful
+pertikler, the Dook was,--nobuddy was 'llowed to be 'onest wheer '_e_
+was but 'imself! Lord love ye! It don't do to be straight an' square in
+this world!"
+
+Helmsley listened to this bantering talk, saying nothing. He was pale,
+and sat very still, thus giving the impression of being too tired to
+notice what was going on around him. Peke took up the conversation.
+
+"Stow yer gab, Bill!" he said. "When _you_ gits straight an' square,
+it'll be a round 'ole ye'll 'ave to drop into, mark my wurrd! An' no
+Dook o' Duncy 'ull pull ye out! This 'ere old friend o' mine don't
+unnerstand ye wi' yer fustian an' yer galligaskins. 'E's kinder
+eddicated--got a bit o' larnin' as I 'aves myself."
+
+"Eddicated!" echoed Bill. "Eddication's a fine thing, aint it, if it
+brings an old gaffer like 'im to trampin' the road! Seems to me the more
+people's eddicated the less they's able to make a livin'."
+
+"That's true! that's _dorned_ true!" said the man named Dubble, bringing
+his great fist down on the table with a force that made the tankards
+jump. "My darter, she's larned to play the pianner, an' I'm _dorned_ if
+she kin do anythin' else! Just a gillflurt she is, an' as sassy as a
+magpie. That's what eddication 'as made of 'er an' be _dorned_ to 't!"
+
+"'Scuse me," and Bill Bush now addressed himself immediately to
+Helmsley, "_ef_ I may be so bold as to arsk you wheer ye comes from,
+meanin' no 'arm, an' what's yer purfession?"
+
+Helmsley looked up with a friendly smile.
+
+"I've no profession now," he answered at once. "But in my time--before I
+got too old--I did a good deal of office work."
+
+"Office work! In a 'ouse of business, ye means? Readin', 'ritin',
+'rithmetic, an' mebbe sweepin' the floor at odd times an' runnin'
+errands?"
+
+"That's it!" answered Helmsley, still smiling.
+
+"An' they won't 'ave ye no more?"
+
+"I am too old," he answered quietly.
+
+Here Dubble turned slowly round and surveyed him.
+
+"How old be ye?"
+
+"Seventy."
+
+Silence ensued. The men glanced at one another. It was plain that the
+"one touch of nature which makes the whole world kin" was moving them
+all to kindly and compassionate feeling for the age and frail appearance
+of their new companion. What are called "rough" and "coarse" types of
+humanity are seldom without a sense of reverence and even affection for
+old persons. It is only among ultra-selfish and callous communities
+where over-luxurious living has blunted all the finer emotions, that age
+is considered a crime, or what by some individuals is declared worse
+than a crime, a "bore."
+
+At that moment a short girl, with a very red face and round beady eyes,
+came into the room carrying on a tray two quaint old pewter tureens full
+of steaming soup, which emitted very savoury and appetising odours.
+Setting these down before Matt Peke and Helmsley, with two goodly slices
+of bread beside them, she held out her podgy hand.
+
+"Threepence each, please!"
+
+They paid her, Peke adding a halfpenny to his threepence for the girl
+herself, and Helmsley, who judged it safest to imitate Peke's behaviour,
+doing the same. She giggled.
+
+"'Ope you aint deprivin' yourselves!" she said pertly.
+
+"No, my dear, we aint!" retorted Peke. "We can afford to treat ye like
+the gentlemen doos! Buy yerself a ribbin to tie up yer bonnie brown
+'air!"
+
+She giggled again, and waited to see them begin their meal, then, with a
+comprehensive roll of her round eyes upon all the company assembled, she
+retired. The soup she had brought was certainly excellent,--strong,
+invigorating, and tasty enough to have done credit to a rich man's
+table, and Peke nodded over it with mingled surprise and appreciation.
+
+"Miss Tranter knows what's good, she do!" he remarked to Helmsley in a
+low tone. "She's cooked this up speshul! This 'ere broth aint flavoured
+for _me_,--it's for _you_! Glory be good to me if she aint taken a fancy
+ter yer!--shouldn't wonder if ye 'ad the best in the 'ouse!"
+
+Helmsley shook his head demurringly, but said nothing. He knew that in
+the particular position in which he had placed himself, silence was
+safer than speech.
+
+Meanwhile, the short beady-eyed handmaiden returned to her mistress in
+the kitchen, and found that lady gazing abstractedly into the fire.
+
+"They've got their soup," she announced, "an' they're eatin' of it up!"
+
+"Is the old man taking it?" asked Miss Tranter.
+
+"Yes'm. An' 'e seems to want it 'orful bad, 'orful bad 'e do, on'y 'e
+swallers it slower an' more soft like than Matt Peke swallers."
+
+Miss Tranter ceased to stare at the fire, and stared at her domestic
+instead.
+
+"Prue," she said solemnly, "that old man is a gentleman!"
+
+Prue's round eyes opened a little more roundly.
+
+"Lor', Mis' Tranter!"
+
+"He's a gentleman," repeated the hostess of the "Trusty Man" with
+emphasis and decision; "and he's fallen on bad times. He may have to beg
+his bread along the road or earn a shilling here and there as best he
+can, but nothing"--and here Miss Tranter shook her forefinger defiantly
+in the air--"nothing will alter the fact that he's a gentleman!"
+
+Prue squeezed her fat red hands together, breathed hard, and not knowing
+exactly what else to do, grinned. Her mistress looked at her severely.
+
+"You grin like a Cheshire cat," she remarked. "I wish you wouldn't."
+
+Prue at once pursed in her wide mouth to a more serious double line.
+
+"How much did they give you?" pursued Miss Tranter.
+
+"'Apenny each," answered Prue.
+
+"How much have you made for yourself to-day all round!"
+
+"Sevenpence three fardin's," confessed Prue, with an appealing look.
+
+"You know I don't allow you to take tips from my customers," went on
+Miss Tranter. "You must put those three farthings in my poor-box."
+
+"Yes'm!" sighed Prue meekly.
+
+"And then you may keep the sevenpence."
+
+"Oh thank y' 'm! Thank y', Mis' Tranter!" And Prue hugged herself
+ecstatically. "You'se 'orful good to me, you is, Mis' Tranter!"
+
+Miss Tranter stood a moment, an upright inflexible figure, surveying
+her.
+
+"Do you say your prayers every night and morning as I told you to do?"
+
+Prue became abnormally solemn.
+
+"Yes, I allus do, Mis' Tranter, wish I may die right 'ere if I don't!"
+
+"What did I teach you to say to God for the poor travellers who stop at
+the 'Trusty Man'?"
+
+"'That it may please Thee to succour, help and comfort all that are in
+danger, necessity and tribulation, we beseech Thee to hear us Good
+Lord!'" gabbled Prue, shutting her eyes and opening them again with
+great rapidity.
+
+"That's right!" And Miss Tranter bent her head graciously. "I'm glad you
+remember it so well! Be sure you say it to-night. And now you may go,
+Prue."
+
+Prue went accordingly, and Miss Tranter, resuming her knitting, returned
+to the bar, and took up her watchful position opposite the clock, there
+to remain patiently till closing time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+The minutes wore on, and though some of the company at the "Trusty Man"
+went away in due course, others came in to replace them, so that even
+when it was nearing ten o'clock the common room was still fairly full.
+Matt Peke was evidently hail-fellow-well-met with many of the loafers of
+the district, and his desultory talk, with its quaint leaning towards a
+kind of rustic philosophy intermingled with an assumption of profound
+scientific wisdom, appeared to exercise considerable fascination over
+those who had the patience and inclination to listen to it. Helmsley
+accepted a pipe of tobacco offered to him by the surly-looking Dubble
+and smoked peacefully, leaning back in his chair and half closing his
+eyes with a drowsy air, though in truth his senses had never been more
+alert, or his interest more keenly awakened. He gathered from the
+general conversation that Bill Bush was an accustomed night lodger at
+the "Trusty Man," that Dubble had a cottage not far distant, with a
+scolding wife and an uppish daughter, and that it was because she knew
+of his home discomforts that Miss Tranter allowed him to pass many of
+his evenings at her inn, smoking and sipping a mild ale, which without
+fuddling his brains, assisted him in part to forget for a time his
+domestic worries. And he also found out that the sturdy farmer sedately
+sucking his pipe in a corner, and now and then throwing in an unexpected
+and random comment on whatever happened to be the topic of conversation,
+was known as "Feathery" Joltram, though why "Feathery" did not seem very
+clear, unless the term was, as it appeared to be, an adaptation of
+"father" or "feyther" Joltram. Matt Peke explained that old "Feathery"
+was a highly respected character in the "Quantocks," and not only rented
+a large farm, but thoroughly understood the farming business. Moreover,
+that he had succeeded in making himself somewhat of a terror to certain
+timorous time-servers, on account of his heterodox and obstinate
+principles. For example, he had sent his children to school because
+Government compelled him to do so, but when their schooldays were over,
+he had informed them that the sooner they forgot all they had ever
+learned during that period and took to "clean an' 'olesome livin'," the
+better he should be pleased.
+
+"For it's all rort an' rubbish," he declared, in his broad, soft
+dialect. "I dozn't keer a tinker's baad 'apenny whether tha knaw 'ow to
+'rite tha mizchief or to read it, or whether king o' England is eatin'
+'umble pie to the U-nited States top man, or noa,--I keerz nawt aboot
+it, noben way or t'other. My boys 'as got to laarn draawin' crops out o'
+fields,--an' my gels must put 'and to milkin' and skimmin' cream an'
+makin' foinest butter as iver went to market. An' time comin' to wed,
+the boys 'ull take strong dairy wives, an' the gels 'ull pick men as can
+thraw through men's wurrk, or they'ze nay gels nor boys o' mine. Tarlk
+o' Great Britain! Heart alive! Wheer would th' owd country be if 'twere
+left to pulin' booky clerks what thinks they're gemmen, an' what weds
+niminy-piminy shop gels, an' breeds nowt but ricketty babes fit for
+workus' burial! Noa, by the Lord! No school larnin' for me nor mine,
+thank-ee! Why, the marster of the Board School 'ere doant know more
+practical business o' life than a suckin' calf! With a bit o' garden
+ground to 'is cot, e' doant reckon 'ow io till it, an' that's the
+rakelness o' book larnin'. Noa, noa! Th' owd way o' wurrk's the best
+way,--brain, 'ands, feet an' good ztrong body all zet on't, an' no
+meanderin' aff it! Take my wurrd the Lord A'mighty doant 'elp corn to
+grow if there's a whinin' zany ahint the plough!"
+
+With these distinctly "out-of-date" notions, "Feathery" Joltram had also
+set himself doggedly against church-going and church people generally.
+Few dared mention a clergyman in his presence, for his open and
+successful warfare with the minister of his own parish had been going on
+for years and had become well-nigh traditional. Looking at him, however,
+as he sat in his favourite corner of the "Trusty Man's" common room, no
+one would have given him credit for any particular individuality. His
+round red face expressed nothing,--his dull fish-like eyes betrayed no
+intelligence,--he appeared to be nothing more than a particularly large,
+heavy man, wedged in his chair rather than seated in it, and absorbed in
+smoking a long pipe after the fashion of an infant sucking a
+feeding-bottle, with infinite relish that almost suggested gluttony.
+
+The hum of voices grew louder as the hour grew later, and one or two
+rather noisy disputations brought Miss Tranter to the door. A look of
+hers was sufficient to silence all contention, and having bent the
+warning flash of her eyes impressively upon her customers, she retired
+as promptly and silently as she had appeared. Helmsley was just thinking
+that he would slip away and get to bed, when, a firm tread sounded in
+the outer passage, and a tall man, black-haired, black-eyed, and of
+herculean build, suddenly looked in upon the tavern company with a
+familiar nod and smile.
+
+"Hullo, my hearties!" he exclaimed. "Is all tankards drained, or is a
+drop to spare?"
+
+A shout of welcome greeted him:--"Tom!" "Tom o' the Gleam!" "Come in,
+Tom!" "Drinks all round!"--and there followed a general hustle and
+scraping of chairs on the floor,--every one seemed eager to make room
+for the newcomer. Helmsley, startled in a manner by his appearance,
+looked at him with involuntary and undisguised admiration. Such a
+picturesque figure of a man he had seldom or never seen, yet the fellow
+was clad in the roughest, raggedest homespun, the only striking and
+curious note of colour about him being a knitted crimson waistcoat,
+which instead of being buttoned was tied together with two or three tags
+of green ribbon. He stood for a moment watching the men pushing up
+against one another in order to give him a seat at the table, and a
+smile, half-amused, half-ironical, lighted up his sun-browned, handsome
+face.
+
+"Don't put yourselves out, mates!" he said carelessly. "Mind Feathery's
+toes!--if you tread on his corns there'll be the devil to pay! Hullo,
+Matt Peke! How are you?"
+
+Matt rose and shook hands.
+
+"All the better for seein' ye again, Tom," he answered, "Wheer d'ye hail
+from this very present minit?"
+
+"From the caves of Cornwall!" laughed the man. "From picking up drift on
+the shore and tracking seals to their lair in the hollows of the rocks!"
+He laughed again, and his great eyes flashed wildly. "All sport, Matt! I
+live like a gentleman born, keeping or killing at my pleasure!"
+
+Here "Feathery" Joltram looked up and dumbly pointed with the stem of
+his pipe to a chair left vacant near the middle of the table. Tom o' the
+Gleam, by which name he seemed to be known to every one present, sat
+down, and in response to the calls of the company, a wiry pot-boy in
+shirt-sleeves made his appearance with several fresh tankards of ale, it
+now being past the hour for the attendance of that coy handmaiden of the
+"Trusty Man," Miss Prue.
+
+"Any fresh tales to tell, Tom?" inquired Matt Peke then--"Any more
+harum-scarum pranks o' yours on the road?"
+
+Tom drank off a mug of ale before replying, and took a comprehensive
+glance around the room.
+
+"You have a stranger here," he said suddenly, in his deep, thrilling
+voice, "One who is not of our breed,--one who is unfamiliar with our
+ways. Friend or foe?"
+
+"Friend!" declared Peke emphatically, while Bill Bush and one or two of
+the men exchanged significant looks and nudged each other. "Now, Tom,
+none of yer gypsy tantrums! I knows all yer Romany gibberish, an' I
+ain't takin' any. Ye've got a good 'art enough, so don't work yer dander
+up with this 'ere old chap what's a-trampin' it to try and find out all
+that's left o's fam'ly an' friends 'fore turnin' up 'is toes to the
+daisies. 'Is name is David, an' 'e's been kickt out o' office work
+through bein' too old. That's _'is_ ticket!"
+
+Tom o' the Gleam listened to this explanation in silence, playing
+absently with the green tags of ribbon at his waistcoat. Then slowly
+lifting his eyes he fixed them full on Helmsley, who, despite himself,
+felt an instant's confusion at the searching intensity of the man's bold
+bright gaze.
+
+"Old and poor!" he ejaculated. "That's a bad lookout in this world!
+Aren't you tired of living!"
+
+"Nearly," answered Helmsley quietly--"but not quite."
+
+Their looks met, and Tom's dark features relaxed into a smile.
+
+"You're fairly patient!" he said, "for it's hard enough to be poor, but
+it's harder still to be old. If I thought I should live to be as old as
+you are, I'd drown myself in the sea! There's no use in life without
+body's strength and heart's love."
+
+"Ah, tha be graat on the love business, Tom!" chuckled "Feathery"
+Joltram, lifting his massive body with a shake out of the depths of his
+comfortable chair. "Zeems to me tha's zummat like the burd what cozies a
+new mate ivery zummer!"
+
+Tom o' the Gleam laughed, his strong even white teeth shining like a
+row of pearls between his black moustaches and short-cropped beard.
+
+"You're a steady-going man, Feathery," he said, "and I'm a wastrel. But
+I'm ne'er as fickle as you think. I've but one love in the world that's
+left me--my kiddie."
+
+"Ay, an' 'ow's the kiddie?" asked Matt Peke--"Thrivin' as iver?"
+
+"Fine! As strong a little chap as you'll see between Quantocks and
+Land's End. He'll be four come Martinmas."
+
+"Zo agein' quick as that!" commented Joltram with a broad grin. "For
+zure 'e be a man grow'd! Tha'll be puttin' the breechez on 'im an'
+zendin' 'im to the school----"
+
+"Never!" interrupted Tom defiantly. "They'll never catch my kiddie if I
+know it! I want him for myself,--others shall have no part in him. He
+shall grow up wild like a flower of the fields--wild as his mother
+was--wild as the wild roses growing over her grave----"
+
+He broke off suddenly with an impatient gesture.
+
+"Psha! Why do you drag me over the old rough ground talking of Kiddie!"
+he exclaimed, almost angrily. "The child's all right. He's safe in camp
+with the women."
+
+"Anywheres nigh?" asked Bill Bush.
+
+Tom o' the Gleam made no answer, but the fierce look in his eyes showed
+that he was not disposed to be communicative on this point. Just then
+the sound of voices raised in some dispute on the threshold of the
+"Trusty Man," caused all the customers in the common room to pause in
+their talking and drinking, and to glance expressively at one another.
+Miss Tranter's emphatic accents rang out sharply on the silence.
+
+"It wants ten minutes to ten, and I never close till half-past ten," she
+said decisively. "The law does not compel me to do so till eleven, and I
+resent private interference."
+
+"I am aware that you resent any advice offered for your good," was the
+reply, delivered in harsh masculine tones. "You are a singularly
+obstinate woman. But I have my duty to perform, and as minister of this
+parish I shall perform it."
+
+"Mind your own business first!" said Miss Tranter, with evident
+vehemence.
+
+"My business is my duty, and my duty is my business,"--and here the male
+voice grew more rasping and raucous. "I have as much right to use this
+tavern as any one of the misled men who spend their hard earnings here
+and neglect their homes and families for the sake of drink. And as you
+do not close till half-past ten, it is not too late for me to enter."
+
+During this little altercation, the party round the table in the common
+room sat listening intently. Then Dubble, rousing himself from a
+pleasant ale-warm lethargy, broke the spell.
+
+"Dorned if it aint old Arbroath!" he said.
+
+"Ay, ay, 'tis old Arbroath zartin zure!" responded "Feathery" Joltram
+placidly. "Let 'un coom in! Let 'un coom in!"
+
+Tom o' the Gleam gave vent to a loud laugh, and throwing himself back in
+his chair, crossed his long legs and administered a ferocious twirl to
+his moustache, humming carelessly under his breath:--
+
+    "'And they called the parson to marry them,
+      But devil a bit would he--
+    For they were but a pair of dandy prats
+      As couldn't pay devil's fee!'"
+
+Helmsley's curiosity was excited. There was a marked stir of expectation
+among the guests of the "Trusty Man"; they all appeared to be waiting
+for something about to happen of exceptional interest. He glanced
+inquiringly at Peke, who returned the glance by one of warning.
+
+"Best sit quiet a while longer," he said. "They won't break up till
+closin' hour, an' m'appen there'll be a bit o' fun."
+
+"Ay, sit quiet!" said Tom o' the Gleam, catching these words, and
+turning towards Helmsley with a smile--"There's more than enough time
+for tramping. Come! Show me if you can smoke _that_!" "That" was a
+choice Havana cigar which he took out of the pocket of his crimson wool
+waistcoat. "You've smoked one before now, I'll warrant!"
+
+Helmsley met his flashing eyes without wavering.
+
+"I will not say I have not," he answered quietly, accepting and lighting
+the fragrant weed, "but it was long ago!"
+
+"Ay, away in the Long, long ago!" said Tom, still regarding him fixedly,
+but kindly--"where we have all buried such a number of beautiful
+things,--loves and hopes and beliefs, and dreams and fortunes!--all, all
+tucked away under the graveyard grass of the Long Ago!"
+
+Here Miss Tranter's voice was heard again outside, saying acidly:--
+
+"It's clear out and lock up at half-past ten, business or no business,
+duty or no duty. Please remember that!"
+
+"'Ware, mates!" exclaimed Tom,--"Here comes our reverend!"
+
+The door was pushed open as he spoke, and a short, dark man in clerical
+costume walked in with a would-be imposing air of dignity.
+
+"Good-evening, my friends!" he said, without lifting his hat.
+
+There was no response.
+
+He smiled sourly, and surveyed the assembled company with a curious air
+of mingled authority and contempt. He looked more like a petty officer
+of dragoons than a minister of the Christian religion,--one of those
+exacting small military martinets accustomed to brow-beating and
+bullying every subordinate without reason or justice.
+
+"So you're there, are you, Bush!" he continued, with a frowning glance
+levied in the direction of the always suspected but never proved
+poacher,--"I wonder you're not in jail by this time!"
+
+Bill Bush took up his pewter tankard, and affected to drain it to the
+last dregs, but made no reply.
+
+"Is that Mr. Dubble!" pursued the clergyman, shading his eyes with one
+hand from the flickering light of the lamp, and feigning to be doubtful
+of the actual personality of the individual he questioned. "Surely not!
+I should be very much surprised and very sorry to see Mr. Dubble here at
+such a late hour!"
+
+"Would ye now!" said Dubble. "Wal, I'm allus glad to give ye both a
+sorrer an' a surprise together, Mr. Arbroath--darned if I aint!"
+
+"You must be keeping your good wife and daughter up waiting for you,"
+proceeded Arbroath, his iron-grey eyebrows drawing together in an ugly
+line over the bridge of his nose. "Late hours are a mistake, Dubble!"
+
+"So they be, so they be, Mr. Arbroath!" agreed Dubble. "Ef I was oop
+till midnight naggin' away at my good wife an' darter as they nags away
+at me, I'd say my keepin' o' late 'ours was a dorned whoppin' mistake
+an' no doubt o't. But seein' as 'taint arf-past ten yet, an' I aint
+naggin' nobody nor interferin' with my neighbours nohow, I reckon I'm on
+the right side o' the night so fur."
+
+A murmur of approving laughter from all the men about him ratified this
+speech. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath gave a gesture of disdain, and bent
+his lowering looks on Tom o' the Gleam.
+
+"Aren't you wanted by the police?" he suggested sarcastically.
+
+The handsome gypsy glanced him over indifferently.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder!" he retorted. "Perhaps the police want me as much
+as the devil wants _you_!"
+
+Arbroath flushed a dark red, and his lips tightened over his teeth
+vindictively.
+
+"There's a zummat for tha thinkin' on, Pazon Arbroath!" said "Feathery"
+Joltram, suddenly rising from his chair and showing himself in all his
+great height and burly build. "Zummat for a zermon on owd Nick, when
+tha're wantin' to scare the zhoolboys o' Zundays!"
+
+Mr. Arbroath's countenance changed from red to pale.
+
+"I was not aware of your presence, Mr. Joltram," he said stiffly.
+
+"Noa, noa, Pazon, m'appen not, but tha's aweer on it now. Nowt o' me's
+zo zmall as can thraw to heaven through tha straight and narrer way. I'd
+'ave to squeeze for 't!"
+
+He laughed,--a big, slow laugh, husky with good living and good humour.
+Arbroath shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I prefer not to speak to you at all, Mr. Joltram," he said. "When
+people are bound to disagree, as we have disagreed for years, it is best
+to avoid conversation."
+
+"Zed like the Church all over, Pazon!" chuckled the imperturbable
+Joltram. "Zeems as if I 'erd the 'Glory be'! But if tha don't want any
+talk, why does tha coom in 'ere wheer we'se all a-drinkin' steady and
+talkin' 'arty, an' no quarrellin' nor backbitin' of our neighbours? Tha
+wants us to go 'ome,--why doezn't tha go 'ome thysen? Tha's a wife a
+zettin' oop there, an' m'appen she's waitin' with as fine a zermon as
+iver was preached from a temperance cart in a wasterne field!"
+
+He laughed again; Arbroath turned his back upon him in disgust, and
+strode up to the shadowed corner where Helmsley sat watching the little
+scene.
+
+"Now, my man, who are _you_?" demanded the clergyman imperiously. "Where
+do you come from?"
+
+Matt Peke would have spoken, but Helmsley silenced him by a look and
+rose to his feet, standing humbly with bent head before his arrogant
+interlocutor. There were the elements of comedy in the situation, and he
+was inclined to play his part thoroughly.
+
+"From Bristol," he replied.
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"Getting rest, food, and a night's lodging."
+
+"Why do you leave out drink in the list?" sneered Arbroath. "For, of
+course, it's your special craving! Where are you going?"
+
+"To Cornwall."
+
+"Tramping it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Begging, I suppose?"
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"Disgraceful!" And the reverend gentleman snorted offence like a walrus
+rising from deep waters. "Why don't you work?"
+
+"I'm too old."
+
+"Too old! Too lazy you mean! How old are you?"
+
+"Seventy."
+
+Mr. Arbroath paused, slightly disconcerted. He had entered the "Trusty
+Man" in the hope of discovering some or even all of its customers in a
+state of drunkenness. To his disappointment he had found them perfectly
+sober. He had pounced on the stray man whom he saw was a stranger, in
+the expectation of proving him, at least, to be intoxicated. Here again
+he was mistaken. Helmsley's simple straight answers left him no opening
+for attack.
+
+"You'd better make for the nearest workhouse," he said, at last. "Tramps
+are not encouraged on these roads."
+
+"Evidently not!" And Helmsley raised his calm eyes and fixed them on the
+clergyman's lowering countenance with a faintly satiric smile.
+
+"You're not too old to be impudent, I see!" retorted Arbroath, with an
+unpleasant contortion of his features. "I warn you not to come cadging
+about anywhere in this neighbourhood, for if you do I shall give you in
+charge. I have four parishes under my control, and I make it a rule to
+hand all beggars over to the police."
+
+"That's not very good Christianity, is it?" asked Helmsley quietly.
+
+Matt Peke chuckled. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath started indignantly, and
+stared so hard that his rat-brown eyes visibly projected from his head.
+
+"Not very good Christianity!" he echoed. "What--what do you mean? How
+dare you speak to me about Christianity!"
+
+"Ay, 'tis a bit aff!" drawled "Feathery" Joltram, thrusting his great
+hands deep into his capacious trouser-pockets. "'Tis a bit aff to taalk
+to Christian parzon 'bout Christianity, zeein' 'tis the one thing i'
+this warld 'e knaws nawt on!"
+
+Arbroath grew livid, but his inward rage held him speechless.
+
+"That's true!" cried Tom o' the Gleam excitedly--"That's as true as
+there's a God in heaven! I've read all about the Man that was born a
+carpenter in Galilee, and so far as I can understand it, He never had a
+rough word for the worst creatures that crawled, and the worse they
+were, and the more despised and down-trodden, the gentler He was with
+them. That's not the way of the men that call themselves His ministers!"
+
+"I 'eerd once," said Mr. Dubble, rising slowly and laying down his pipe,
+"of a little chap what was makin' a posy for 'is mother's birthday, an'
+passin' the garden o' the rector o' the parish, 'e spied a bunch o' pink
+chestnut bloom 'angin' careless over the 'edge, ready to blow to bits
+wi' the next puff o' wind. The little raskill pulled it down an' put it
+wi' the rest o' the flowers 'e'd got for 'is mother, but the good an'
+lovin' rector seed 'im at it, an' 'ad 'im nabbed as a common thief an'
+sent to prison. 'E wornt but a ten-year-old lad, an' that prison spoilt
+'im for life. 'E wor a fust-class Lord's man as did that for a babby
+boy, an' the hull neighbourhood's powerful obleeged to 'im. So don't
+ye,"--and here he turned his stolid gaze on Helmsley,--"don't ye, for
+all that ye're old, an' poor, an' 'elpless, go cadgin' round this 'ere
+reverend gemmen's property, cos 'e's got a real pityin' Christian 'art
+o's own, an' ye'd be sent to bed wi' the turnkey." Here he paused with a
+comprehensive smile round at the company,--then taking up his hat, he
+put it on. "There's one too many 'ere for pleasantness, an' I'm goin'.
+Good-den, Tom! Good-den, all!"
+
+And out he strode, whistling as he went. With his departure every one
+began to move,--the more quickly as the clock in the bar had struck ten
+a minute or two since. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath stood irresolute for a
+moment, wishing his chief enemy, "Feathery" Joltram, would go. But
+Joltram remained where he was, standing erect, and surveying the scene
+like a heavily caparisoned charger scenting battle.
+
+"Tha's heerd Mizter Dubble's tale afore now, Pazon, hazn't tha?" he
+inquired. "M'appen tha knaw'd the little chap as Christ's man zent to
+prizon thysen?"
+
+Arbroath lifted his head haughtily.
+
+"A theft is a theft," he said, "whether it is committed by a young
+person or an old one, and whether it is for a penny or a hundred pounds
+makes no difference. Thieves of all classes and all ages should be
+punished as such. Those are my opinions."
+
+"They were nowt o' the Lord's opinions," said Joltram, "for He told the
+thief as 'ung beside Him, 'This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise,'
+but He didn't say nowt o' the man as got the thief punished!"
+
+"You twist the Bible to suit your own ends, Mr. Joltram," retorted
+Arbroath contemptuously. "It is the common habit of atheists and
+blasphemers generally."
+
+"Then, by the Lord!" exclaimed the irrepressible "Feathery," "All th'
+atheists an' blasphemers must be a-gathered in the fold o' the Church,
+for if the pazons doan't twist the Bible to suit their own ends, I'm
+blest if I knaw whaat else they does for a decent livin'!"
+
+Just then a puff of fine odour from the Havana cigar which Helmsley was
+enjoying floated under the nostrils of Mr. Arbroath, and added a fresh
+touch of irritation to his temper. He turned at once upon the offending
+smoker.
+
+"So! You pretend to be poor!" he snarled, "And yet you can smoke a cigar
+that must have cost a shilling!"
+
+"It was given to me," replied Helmsley gently.
+
+"Given to you! Bah! Who would give an old tramp a cigar like that?"
+
+"I would!" And Tom o' the Gleam sprang lightly up from his chair, his
+black eyes sparkling with mingled defiance and laughter--"And I did!
+Here!--will you take another?" And he drew out and opened a handsome
+case full of the cigars in question.
+
+"Thank you!" and Arbroath's pallid lips trembled with rage. "I decline
+to share in stolen plunder!"
+
+"Ha--ha--ha! Ha--ha!" laughed Tom hilariously. "Stolen plunder! That's
+good! D'ye think I'd steal when I can buy! Reverend sir, Tom o' the
+Gleam is particular as to what he smokes, and he hasn't travelled all
+over the world for nothing:
+
+    'Qu'en dictes-vous? Faut-il a ce musier,
+    _Il n'est tresor que de vivre a son aise_!'"
+
+Helmsley listened in wonderment. Here was a vagrant of the highroads and
+woods, quoting the refrain of Villon's _Contreditz de Franc-Gontier_,
+and pronouncing the French language with as soft and pure an accent as
+ever came out of Provence. Meanwhile, Mr. Arbroath, paying no attention
+whatever to Tom's outburst, looked at his watch.
+
+"It is now a quarter-past ten," he announced dictatorially; "I should
+advise you all to be going."
+
+"By the law we needn't go till eleven, though Miss Tranter _does_ halve
+it," said Bill Bush sulkily--"and perhaps we won't!"
+
+Mr. Arbroath fixed him with a stern glance.
+
+"Do you know that I am here in the cause of Temperance?" he said.
+
+"Oh, are ye? Then why don't ye call on Squire Evans, as is the brewer
+wi' the big 'ouse yonder?" queried Bill defiantly. "'E's the man to go
+to! Arsk 'im to shut up 'is brewery an' sell no more ale wi' pizon in't
+to the poor! That'll do more for Temp'rance than the early closin' o'
+the 'Trusty Man.'"
+
+"Ye're right enough," said Matt Peke, who had refrained from taking any
+part in the conversation, save by now and then whispering a side comment
+to Helmsley. "There's stuff put i' the beer what the brewers brew, as is
+enough to knock the strongest man silly. I'm just fair tired o' hearin'
+o' Temp'rance this an' Temp'rance that, while 'arf the men as goes to
+Parl'ment takes their livin' out o' the brewin' o' beer an' spiritus
+liquors. An' they bribes their poor silly voters wi' their drink till
+they'se like a flock o' sheep runnin' into wotever field o' politics
+their shepherds drives 'em. The best way to make the temp'rance cause
+pop'lar is to stop big brewin'. Let every ale'ouse 'ave its own
+pertikler brew, an' m'appen we'll git some o' the old-fashioned malt
+an' 'ops agin. That'll be good for the small trader, an' the big brewin'
+companies can take to somethin' 'onester than the pizonin' bizness."
+
+"You are a would-be wise man, and you talk too much, Matthew Peke!"
+observed the Reverend Mr. Arbroath, smiling darkly, and still glancing
+askew at his watch. "I know you of old!"
+
+"Ye knows me an' I knows you," responded Peke placidly. "Yer can't
+interfere wi' me nohow, an' I dessay it riles ye a bit, for ye loves
+interferin' with ivery sort o' folk, as all the parsons do. I b'longs to
+no parish, an' aint under you no more than Tom o' the Gleam be, an' we
+both thanks the Lord for't! An' I'm earnin' a livin' my own way an'
+bein' a benefit to the sick an' sorry, which aint so far from proper
+Christianity. Lor', Parson Arbroath! I wonder ye aint more 'uman like,
+seein' as yer fav'rite gel in the village was arskin' me t'other day if
+I 'adn't any yerb for to make a love-charm. 'Love-charm!' sez I--'what
+does ye want that for, my gel?' An' she up an' she sez--'I'd like to
+make Parson Arbroath eat it!' Hor--er--hor--er--hor--er! 'I'd like to
+make Parson Arbroath eat it!' sez she. An' she's a foine strappin'
+wench, too!--'Ullo, Parson! Goin'?"
+
+The door slammed furiously,--Arbroath had suddenly lost his dignity and
+temper together. Peke's raillery proved too much for him, and amid the
+loud guffaws of "Feathery" Joltram, Bill Bush and the rest, he beat a
+hasty retreat, and they heard his heavy footsteps go hurriedly across
+the passage of the "Trusty Man," and pass out into the road beyond.
+Roars of laughter accompanied his departure, and Peke looked round with
+a smile of triumph.
+
+"It's just like a witch-spell!" he declared. "There's nowt to do but
+whisper, 'Parson's fav'rite!'--an' Parson hisself melts away like a mist
+o' the mornin' or a weasel runnin' into its 'ole! Hor--er, hor--er,
+hor--er!"
+
+And again the laughter pealed out long and loud, "Feathery" Joltram
+bending himself double with merriment, and slapping the sides of his
+huge legs in ecstasy. Miss Tranter hearing the continuous uproar, looked
+in warningly, but there was a glimmering smile on her face.
+
+"We'se goin', Miss Tranter!" announced Bill Bush, his wizened face all
+one broad grin. "We aint the sort to keep you up, never fear! Your worst
+customer's just cleared out!"
+
+"So I see!" replied Miss Tranter calmly,--then, nodding towards
+Helmsley, she said--"Your room's ready."
+
+Helmsley took the hint. He rose from his chair, and held out his hand to
+Peke.
+
+"Good-night!" he said. "You've been very kind to me, and I shan't forget
+it!"
+
+The herb-gatherer looked for a moment at the thin, refined white hand
+extended to him before grasping it in his own horny palm. Then--
+
+"Good-night, old chap!" he responded heartily. "Ef I don't see ye i' the
+mornin' I'll leave ye a bottle o' yerb wine to take along wi' ye
+trampin', for the more ye drinks o't the soberer ye'll be an' the better
+ye'll like it. But ye should give up the idee o' footin' it to Cornwall;
+ye'll never git there without a liftin'."
+
+"I'll have a good try, anyway," rejoined Helmsley. "Good-night!"
+
+He turned towards Tom o' the Gleam.
+
+"Good-night!"
+
+"Good-night!" And Tom's dark eyes glowed upon him with a sombre
+intentness. "You know the old proverb which says, 'It's a long lane
+which has never a turning'?"
+
+Helmsley nodded with a faint smile.
+
+"Your turning's near at hand," said Tom. "Take my word for it!"
+
+"Will it be a pleasant turning?" asked Helmsley, still smiling.
+
+"Pleasant? Ay, and peaceful!" And Tom's mellow voice sank into a softer
+tone. "Peaceful as the strong love of a pure woman, and as sweet with
+contentment as is the summer when the harvest is full! Good-night!"
+
+Helmsley looked at him thoughtfully; there was something poetic and
+fascinating about the man.
+
+"I should like to meet you again," he said impulsively.
+
+"Would you?" Tom o' the Gleam smiled. "So you will, as sure as God's in
+heaven! But how or when, who can tell!" His handsome face clouded
+suddenly,--some dark shadow of pain or perplexity contracted his
+brows,--then he seemed to throw the feeling, whatever it was, aside, and
+his features cleared. "You are bound to meet me," he continued. "I am as
+much a part of this country as the woods and hills,--the Quantocks and
+Brendons know me as well as Exmoor and the Valley of Rocks. But you are
+safe from me and mine! Not one of our tribe will harm you,--you can
+pursue your way in peace--and if any one of us can give you help at any
+time, we will."
+
+"You speak of a community?"
+
+"I speak of a Republic!" answered Tom proudly. "There are thousands of
+men and women in these islands whom no king governs and no law
+controls,--free as the air and independent as the birds! They ask
+nothing at any man's hands--they take and they keep!"
+
+"Like the millionaires!" suggested Bill Bush, with a grin.
+
+"Right you are, Bill!--like the millionaires! None take more than they
+do, and none keep their takings closer!"
+
+"And very miserable they must surely be sometimes, on both their takings
+and their keepings," said Helmsley.
+
+"No doubt of it! There'd be no justice in the mind of God if
+millionaires weren't miserable," declared Tom o' the Gleam. "They've
+more money than they ought to have,--it's only fair they should have
+less happiness. Compensation's a natural law that there's no getting
+away from,--that's why a gypsy's merrier than a king!"
+
+Helmsley smiled assent, and with another friendly good-night all round,
+left the room. Miss Tranter awaited him, candle in hand, and preceding
+him up a short flight of ancient and crooked oaken stairs, showed him a
+small attic room with one narrow bed in it, scrupulously neat and clean.
+
+"You'll be all right here," she said. "There's no lock to your door, but
+you're out of the truck of house work, and no one will come nigh you."
+
+"Thank you, madam,"--and Helmsley bent his head gently, almost
+humbly,--"You are very good to me. I am most grateful!"
+
+"Nonsense!" said Miss Tranter, affecting snappishness. "You pay for a
+bed, and here it is. The lodgers here generally share one room between
+them, but you are an old man and need rest. It's better you should get
+your sleep without any chance of disturbance. Good-night!"
+
+"Good-night!"
+
+She set down the candle by his bedside with a "Mind you put it out!"
+final warning, and descended the stairs to see the rest of her customers
+cleared off the premises, with the exception of Bill Bush, Matt Peke,
+and Tom o' the Gleam, who were her frequent night lodgers. She found
+Tom o' the Gleam standing up and delivering a kind of extemporary
+oration, while his rough cap, under the pilotage of Bill Bush, was being
+passed round the table in the fashion of a collecting plate.
+
+"The smallest contribution thankfully received!" he laughed, as he
+looked and saw her. "Miss Tranter, we're doing a mission! We're
+Salvationists! Now's your chance! Give us a sixpence!"
+
+"What for?" And setting her arms akimbo, the hostess of the "Trusty Man"
+surveyed all her lingering guests with a severe face. "What games are
+you up to now? It's time to clear!"
+
+"So it is, and all the good little boys are going to bed," said Tom.
+"Don't be cross, Mammy! We want to close our subscription list--that's
+all! We've raised a few pennies for the old grandfather upstairs. He'll
+never get to Cornwall, poor chap! He's as white as paper. Office work
+doesn't fit a man of his age for tramping the road. We've collected two
+shillings for him among us,--you give sixpence, and there's half-a-crown
+all told. God bless the total!"
+
+He seized his cap as it was handed back to him, and shook it, to show
+that it was lined with jingling halfpence, and his eyes sparkled like
+those of a child enjoying a bit of mischief.
+
+"Come, Miss Tranter! Help the Gospel mission!"
+
+Her features relaxed into a smile, and feeling in her apron pocket, she
+produced the requested coin.
+
+"There you are!" she said.--"And now you've got it, how are you going to
+give him the money?"
+
+"Never you mind!" and Tom swept all the coins together, and screwed them
+up in a piece of newspaper. "We'll surprise the old man as the angels
+surprise the children!"
+
+Miss Tranter said nothing more, but withdrawing to the passage, stood
+and watched her customers go out of the door of the "Trusty Man," one by
+one. Each great hulking fellow doffed his cap to her and bade her a
+respectful "Good-night" as he passed, "Feathery" Joltram pausing a
+moment to utter an "aside" in her ear.
+
+"'A fixed oop owd Arbroath for zartin zure!"--and here, with a sly wink,
+he gave a forcible nudge to her arm,--"An owd larrupin' fox 'e be!--an'
+Matt Peke giv' 'im the finish wi's fav'rite! Ha--ha--ha! 'A can't abide
+a wurrd o' that long-legged wench! Ha--ha--ha! An' look y'ere, Miss
+Tranter! I'd 'a given a shillin' in Tom's 'at when it went round, but
+I'm thinkin' as zummat in the face o' the owd gaffer up in bed ain't zet
+on beggin', an' m'appen a charity'd 'urt 'is feelin's like the
+poor-'ouse do. But if 'e's wantin' to 'arn a mossel o' victual, I'll
+find 'im a lightsome job on the farm if he'll reckon to walk oop to me
+afore noon to-morrer. Tell 'im' that from farmer Joltram, an' good-night
+t'ye!"
+
+He strode out, and before eleven had struck, the old-fashioned iron bar
+clamped down across the portal, and the inn was closed. Then Miss
+Tranter turned into the bar, and before shutting it up paused, and
+surveyed her three lodgers critically.
+
+"So you pretend to be all miserably poor, and yet you actually collect
+what you call a 'fund' for the old tramp upstairs who's a perfect
+stranger to you!" she said--"Rascals that you are!"
+
+Bill Bush looked sheepish.
+
+"Only halfpence, Miss," he explained. "Poor we be as church mice, an' ye
+knows that, doesn't ye? But we aint gone broken yet, an' Tom 'e started
+the idee o' doin' a good turn for th' old gaffer, for say what ye like
+'e do look a bit feeble for trampin' it."
+
+Miss Tranter sniffed the atmosphere of the bar with a very good
+assumption of lofty indifference.
+
+"_You_ started the idea, did you?" she went on, looking at Tom o' the
+Gleam. "You're a nice sort of ruffian to start any idea at all, aren't
+you? I thought you always took, and never gave!"
+
+He smiled, leaning his handsome head back against the white-washed wall
+of the little entry where he stood, but said nothing. Matt Peke then
+took up the parable.
+
+"Th' old man be mortal weak an' faint for sure," he said. "I come upon
+'im lyin' under a tree wi' a mossel book aside 'im, an' I takes an'
+looks at the book, an' 'twas all portry an' simpleton stuff like, an' 'e
+looked old enough to be my dad, an' tired enough to be fast goin' where
+my dad's gone, so I just took 'im along wi' me, an' giv' 'im my name an'
+purfession, an' 'e did the same, a-tellin' me as 'ow 'is name was D.
+David, an' 'ow 'e 'd lost 'is office work through bein' too old an'
+shaky. 'E's all right,--an office man aint much good on the road, weak
+on 'is pins an' failin' in 'is sight. M'appen the 'arf-crown we've got
+'im 'ull 'elp 'im to a ride part o' the way 'e's goin'."
+
+"Well, don't you men bother about him any more," said Miss Tranter
+decisively. "You get off early in the morning, as usual. _I'll_ look
+after him!"
+
+"Will ye now?" and Peke's rugged features visibly brightened--"That's
+just like ye, Miss! Aint it, Tom? Aint it, Bill?"
+
+Both individuals appealed to agreed that it was "Miss Tranter all over."
+
+"Now off to bed with you!" proceeded that lady peremptorily. "And leave
+your collected 'fund' with me--I'll give it to him."
+
+But Tom o' the Gleam would not hear of this.
+
+"No, Miss Tranter!--with every respect for you, no!" he said gaily.
+"It's not every night we can play angels! I play angel to my kiddie
+sometimes, putting a fairing in his little hammock where he sleeps like
+a bird among the trees all night, but I've never had the chance to do it
+to an old grandad before! Let me have my way!"
+
+And so it chanced that at about half-past eleven, Helmsley, having lain
+down with a deep sense of relief and repose on his clean comfortable
+little bed, was startled out of his first doze by hearing stealthy steps
+approaching his door. His heart began to beat quickly,--a certain vague
+misgiving troubled him,--after all, he thought, had he not been very
+rash to trust himself to the shelter of this strange and lonely inn
+among the wild moors and hills, among unknown men, who, at any rate by
+their rough and uncouth appearance, might be members of a gang of
+thieves? The steps came nearer, and a hand fumbled gently with the door
+handle. In that tense moment of strained listening he was glad to
+remember that when undressing, he had carefully placed his vest, lined
+with the banknotes he carried, under the sheet on which he lay, so that
+in the event of any one coming to search his clothes, nothing would be
+found but a few loose coins in his coat pocket. The fumbling at his door
+continued, and presently it slowly opened, letting in a pale stream of
+moonlight from a lattice window outside. He just saw the massive figure
+of Tom o' the Gleam standing on the threshold, clad in shirt and
+trousers only, and behind him there seemed to be the shadowy outline of
+Matt Peke's broad shoulders and Bill Bush's bullet head. Uncertain what
+to expect, he determined to show no sign of consciousness, and half
+closing his eyes, he breathed heavily and regularly, feigning to be in a
+sound slumber. But a cold chill ran through his veins as Tom o' the
+Gleam slowly and cautiously approached the bed, holding something in his
+right hand, while Matt Peke and Bill Bush tiptoed gently after him
+half-way into the room.
+
+"Poor old gaffer!" he heard Tom whisper--"Looks all ready laid out and
+waiting for the winding!"
+
+And the hand that held the something stole gently and ever gentlier
+towards the pillow. By a supreme effort Helmsley kept quite still. How
+he controlled his nerves he never knew, for to see through his almost
+shut eyelids the dark herculean form of the gypsy bending over him with
+the two other men behind, moved him to a horrible fear. Were they going
+to murder him? If so, what for? To them he was but an old
+tramp,--unless--unless somebody had tracked him from London!--unless
+somebody knew who he really was, and had pointed him out as likely to
+have money about him. These thoughts ran like lightning through his
+brain, making his blood burn and his pulses, tingle almost to the verge
+of a start and cry, when the creeping hand he dreaded quietly laid
+something on his pillow and withdrew itself with delicate precaution.
+
+"He'll be pleased when he wakes," said Tom o' the Gleam, in the mildest
+of whispers, retreating softly from the bedside--"Won't he?"
+
+"Ay, that he will!" responded Peke, under his breath;, "aint 'e sleepin'
+sound?"
+
+"Sound as a babe!"
+
+Slowly and noiselessly they stepped backward,--slowly and noiselessly
+they closed the door, and the faint echo of their stealthy footsteps
+creeping away along the outer passage to another part of the house, was
+hushed at last into silence. After a long pause of intense stillness,
+some clock below stairs struck midnight with a mellow clang, and
+Helmsley opening his eyes, lay waiting till the excited beating of his
+heart subsided, and his quickened breath grew calm. Blaming himself for
+his nervous terrors, he presently rose from his bed, and struck a match
+from the box which Miss Tranter had thoughtfully left beside him, and
+lit his candle. Something had been placed on his pillow, and curiosity
+moved him to examine it. He looked,--but saw nothing save a mere screw
+of soiled newspaper. He took it up wonderingly. It was heavy,--and
+opening it he found it full of pennies, halfpennies, and one odd
+sixpence. A scrap of writing accompanied this collection, roughly
+pencilled thus:--"To help you along the road. From friends at the Trusty
+Man. Good luck!"
+
+For a moment he stood inert, fingering the humble coins,--for a moment
+he could hardly realise that these rough men of doubtful character and
+calling, with whom he had passed one evening, were actually humane
+enough to feel pity for his age, and sympathy for his seeming loneliness
+and poverty, and that they had sufficient heart and generosity to
+deprive themselves of money in order to help one whom they judged to be
+in greater need;--then the pure intention and honest kindness of the
+little "surprise" gift came upon him all at once, and he was not ashamed
+to feel his eyes full of tears.
+
+"God forgive me!" he murmured--"God forgive me that I ever judged the
+poor by the rich!"
+
+With an almost reverential tenderness, he folded the paper and coins
+together, and put the little packet carefully away, determining never to
+part with it.
+
+"For its value outweighs every banknote I ever handled!" he said--"And I
+am prouder of it than of all my millions!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+The light of the next day's sun, beaming with all the heat and
+effulgence of full morning, bathed moor and upland in a wide shower of
+gold, when Miss Tranter, standing on the threshold of her dwelling, and
+shading her eyes with one hand from the dazzling radiance of the skies,
+watched a man's tall figure disappear down the rough and precipitous
+road which led from the higher hills to the seashore. All her night's
+lodgers had left her save one--and he was still soundly sleeping. Bill
+Bush had risen as early as five and stolen away,--Matt Peke had broken
+his fast with a cup of hot milk and a hunch of dry bread, and
+shouldering his basket, had started for Crowcombe, where he had several
+customers for his herbal wares.
+
+"Take care o' the old gaffer I brought along wi' me," had been his
+parting recommendation to the hostess of the "Trusty Man." "Tell 'im
+I've left a bottle o' yerb wine in the bar for 'im. M'appen ye might
+find an odd job or two about th' 'ouse an' garden for 'im, just for
+lettin' 'im rest a while."
+
+Miss Tranter had nodded curtly in response to this suggestion, but had
+promised nothing.
+
+The last to depart from the inn was Tom o' the Gleam. Tom had risen in
+what he called his "dark mood." He had eaten no breakfast, and he
+scarcely spoke at all as he took up his stout ash stick and prepared to
+fare forth upon his way. Miss Tranter was not inquisitive, but she had
+rather a liking for Tom, and his melancholy surliness was not lost upon
+her.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" she asked sharply. "You're like a bear
+with a sore head this morning!"
+
+He looked at her with sombre eyes in which the flame of strongly
+restrained passions feverishly smouldered.
+
+"I don't know what's the matter with me," he answered slowly. "Last
+night I was happy. This morning I am wretched!"
+
+"For no cause?"
+
+"For no cause that I know of,"--and he heaved a sudden sigh. "It is the
+dark spirit--the warning of an evil hour!"
+
+"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Tranter.
+
+He was silent. His mouth compressed itself into a petulant line, like
+that of a chidden child ready to cry.
+
+"I shall be all right when I have kissed the kiddie," he said.
+
+Miss Tranter sniffed and tossed her head.
+
+"You're just a fool over that kiddie," she declared with emphasis,--"You
+make too much of him."
+
+"How can I make too much of my all?" he asked.
+
+Her face softened.
+
+"Well, it's a pity you look at it in that way," she said. "You shouldn't
+set your heart on anything in this world."
+
+"Why not?" he demanded. "Is God a friend that He should grudge us love?"
+
+Her lips trembled a little, but she made no reply.
+
+"What am I to set my heart on?" he continued--"If not on anything in
+this world, what have I got in the next?"
+
+A faint tinge of colour warmed Miss Tranter's sallow cheeks.
+
+"Your wife's in the next," she answered, quietly.
+
+His face changed--his eyes lightened.
+
+"My wife!" he echoed. "Good woman that you are, you know she was never
+my wife! No parson ever mocked us wild birds with his blessing! She was
+my love--my love!--so much more than wife! By Heaven! If prayer and
+fasting would bring me to the world where _she_ is, I'd fast and pray
+till I turned this body of mine to dust and ashes! But my kiddie is all
+I have that's left of her; and shall I not love him, nay, worship him
+for _her_ sake?"
+
+Miss Tranter tried to look severe, but could not,--the strong vehemence
+of the man shook her self-possession.
+
+"Love him, yes!--but don't worship him," she said. "It's a mistake, Tom!
+He's only a child, after all, and he might be taken from you."
+
+"Don't say that!" and Tom suddenly gripped her by the arm. "For God's
+sake don't say that! Don't send me away this morning with those words
+buzzing in my ears!"
+
+Great tears flashed into his eyes,--his face paled and contracted as
+with acutest agony.
+
+"I'm sorry, Tom," faltered Miss Tranter, herself quite overcome by his
+fierce emotion--"I didn't mean----"
+
+"Yes--yes!--that's right! Say you didn't mean it!" muttered Tom, with a
+pained smile--"You didn't----?"
+
+"I didn't mean it!" declared Miss Tranter earnestly. "Upon my word I
+didn't, Tom!"
+
+He loosened his hold of her arm.
+
+"Thank you! God bless you!" and a shudder ran through his massive frame.
+"But it's all one with the dark hour!--all one with the wicked tongue of
+a dream that whispers to me of a coming storm!"
+
+He pulled his rough cap over his brows, and strode forward a step or
+two. Then he suddenly wheeled round again, and doffed the cap to Miss
+Tranter.
+
+"It's unlucky to turn back," he said, "yet I'm doing it,
+because--because--I wouldn't have you think me sullen or ill-tempered
+with _you_! Nor ungrateful. You're a good woman, for all that you're a
+bit rough sometimes. If you want to know where we are, we've camped down
+by Cleeve, and we're on the way to Dunster. I take the short cuts that
+no one else dare venture by--over the cliffs and through the cave-holes
+of the sea. When the old man comes down, tell him I'll have a care of
+him if he passes my way. I like his face! I think he's something more
+than he seems."
+
+"So do I!" agreed Miss Tranter. "I'd almost swear that he's a gentleman,
+fallen on hard times."
+
+"A gentleman!" Tom o' the Gleam laughed disdainfully--"What's that? Only
+a robber grown richer than his neighbours! Better be a plain Man any day
+than your up-to-date 'gentleman'!"
+
+With another laugh he swung away, and Miss Tranter remained, as already
+stated, at the door of the inn for many minutes, watching his easy
+stride over the rough stones and clods of the "by-road" winding down to
+the sea. His figure, though so powerfully built, was singularly graceful
+in movement, and commanded the landscape much as that of some chieftain
+of old might have commanded it in that far back period of time when
+mountain thieves and marauders were the progenitors of all the British
+kings and their attendant nobility.
+
+"I wish I knew that man's real history!" she mused, as he at last
+disappeared from her sight. "The folks about here, such as Mr. Joltram,
+for instance, say he was never born to the gypsy life,--he speaks too
+well, and knows too much. Yet he's wild enough--and--yes!--I'm afraid
+he's bad enough--sometimes--to be anything!"
+
+Her meditations were here interrupted by a touch on her arm, and
+turning, she beheld her round-eyed handmaiden Prue.
+
+"The old man you sez is a gentleman is down, Mis' Tranter!"
+
+Miss Tranter at once stepped indoors and confronted Helmsley, who,
+amazed to find it nearly ten o'clock, now proffered humble excuses to
+his hostess for his late rising. She waived these aside with a
+good-humoured nod and smile.
+
+"That's all right!" she said. "I wanted you to have a good long rest,
+and I'm glad you got it. Were you disturbed at all?"
+
+"Only by kindness," answered Helmsley in a rather tremulous voice. "Some
+one came into my room while I was asleep--and--and--I found a 'surprise
+packet' on my pillow----"
+
+"Yes, I know all about it," interrupted Miss Tranter, with a touch of
+embarrassment--"Tom o' the Gleam did that. He's just gone. He's a rough
+chap, but he's got a heart. He thinks you're not strong enough to tramp
+it to Cornwall. And all those great babies of men put their heads
+together last night after you'd gone upstairs, and clubbed up enough
+among them to give you a ride part of the way----"
+
+"They're very good!" murmured Helmsley. "Why should they trouble about
+an old fellow like me?"
+
+"Oh well!" said Miss Tranter cheerfully, "it's just because you _are_ an
+old fellow, I suppose! You see you might walk to a station to-day, and
+take the train as far as Minehead before starting on the road again.
+Anyhow you've time to think it over. If you'll step into the room
+yonder, I'll send Prue with your breakfast."
+
+She turned her back upon him, and with a shrill call of "Prue! Prue!"
+affected to be too busy to continue the conversation. Helmsley,
+therefore, went as she bade him into the common room, which at this hour
+was quite empty. A neat white cloth was spread at one end of the table,
+and on this was set a brown loaf, a pat of butter, a jug of new milk, a
+basin of sugar, and a brightly polished china cup and saucer. The window
+was open, and the inflow of the pure fresh morning air had done much to
+disperse the odours of stale tobacco and beer that subtly clung to the
+walls as reminders of the drink and smoke of the previous evening.
+
+Just outside, a tangle of climbing roses hung like a delicate pink
+curtain between Helmsley's eyes and the sunshine, while the busy humming
+of bees in and out the fragrant hearts of the flowers, made a musical
+monotony of soothing sound. He sat down and surveyed the simple scene
+with a quiet sense of pleasure. He contrasted it in his memory with the
+weary sameness of the breakfasts served to him in his own palatial
+London residence, when the velvet-footed butler creeping obsequiously
+round the table, uttered his perpetual "Tea or coffee, sir? 'Am or
+tongue? Fish or heggs?" in soft sepulchral tones, as though these
+comestibles had something to do with poison rather than nourishment.
+With disgust at the luxury which engendered such domestic appurtenances,
+he thought of the two tall footmen, whose chief duty towards the serving
+of breakfast appeared to be the taking of covers off dishes and the
+putting them on again, as if six-footed able-bodied manhood were not
+equipped for more muscular work than that!
+
+"We do great wrong," he said to himself--"We who are richer than what
+are called the rich, do infinite wrong to our kind by tolerating so much
+needless waste and useless extravagance. We merely generate mischief for
+ourselves and others. The poor are happier, and far kindlier to each
+other than the moneyed classes, simply because they cannot demand so
+much self-indulgence. The lazy habits of wealthy men and women who
+insist on getting an unnecessary number of paid persons to do for them
+what they could very well do for themselves, are chiefly to blame for
+all our tiresome and ostentatious social conditions. Servants must, of
+course, be had in every well-ordered household--but too many of them
+constitute a veritable hive of discord and worry. Why have huge houses
+at all? Why have enormous domestic retinues? A small house is always
+cosiest, and often prettiest, and the fewer servants, the less trouble.
+Here again comes in the crucial question--Why do we spend all our best
+years of youth, life, and sentiment in making money, when, so far as the
+sweetest and highest things are concerned, money can give so little!"
+
+At that moment, Prue entered with a brightly shining old brown "lustre"
+teapot, and a couple of boiled eggs.
+
+"Mis' Tranter sez you're to eat the eggs cos' they'se new-laid an'
+incloodid in the bill," she announced glibly--"An' 'opes you've got all
+ye want."
+
+Helmsley looked at her kindly.
+
+"You're a smart little girl!" he said. "Beginning to earn your own
+living already, eh?"
+
+"Lor', that aint much!" retorted Prue, putting a knife by the brown
+loaf, and setting the breakfast things even more straightly on the table
+than they originally were. "I lives on nothin' scarcely, though I'm
+turned fifteen an' likes a bit o' fresh pork now an' agen. But I've got
+a brother as is on'y ten, an' when 'e aint at school 'e's earnin' a bit
+by gatherin' mussels on the beach, an' 'e do collect a goodish bit too,
+though 'taint reg'lar biziness, an' 'e gets hisself into such a pickle
+o' salt water as never was. But he brings mother a shillin' or two."
+
+"And who is your mother?" asked Helmsley, drawing up his chair to the
+table and sitting down.
+
+"Misses Clodder, up at Blue-bell Cottage, two miles from 'ere across the
+moor," replied Prue. "She goes out a-charing, but it's 'ard for 'er to
+be doin' chars now--she's gettin' old an' fat--orful fat she be gettin'.
+Dunno what we'll do if she goes on fattenin'."
+
+It was difficult not to laugh at this statement, Prue's eyes were so
+round, her cheeks were so red, and she breathed so spasmodically as she
+spoke. David Helmsley bit his lips to hide a broad smile, and poured out
+his tea.
+
+"Have you no father?"
+
+"No, never 'ad," declared Prue, quite jubilantly. "'E droonk 'isself to
+death an' tumbled over a cliff near 'ere one dark night an' was
+drowned!" This, with the most thrilling emphasis.
+
+"That's very sad! But you can't say you never had a father," persisted
+Helmsley. "You had him before he was drowned?"
+
+"No, I 'adn't," said Prue. "'E never comed 'ome at all. When 'e seed me
+'e didn't know me, 'e was that blind droonk. When my little brother was
+born 'e was 'owlin' wild down Watchet way, an' screechin' to all the
+folks as 'ow the baby wasn't his'n!"
+
+This was a doubtful subject,--a "delicate and burning question," as
+reviewers for the press say when they want to praise some personal
+friend's indecent novel and pass it into decent households,--and
+Helmsley let it drop. He devoted himself to the consideration of his
+breakfast, which was excellent, and found that he had an appetite to
+enjoy it thoroughly.
+
+Prue watched him for a minute or two in silence.
+
+"Ye likes yer food?" she demanded, presently.
+
+"Very much!"
+
+"Thought yer did! I'll tell Mis' Tranter."
+
+With that she retired, and shutting the door behind her left Helmsley to
+himself.
+
+Many and conflicting were the thoughts that chased one another through
+his brain during the quiet half-hour he gave to his morning meal,--a
+whole fund of new suggestions and ideas were being generated in him by
+the various episodes in which he was taking an active yet seemingly
+passive part. He had voluntarily entered into his present circumstances,
+and so far, he had nothing to complain of. He had met with friendliness
+and sympathy from persons who, judged by the world's conventions, were
+of no social account whatever, and he had seen for himself men in a
+condition of extreme poverty, who were nevertheless apparently contented
+with their lot. Of course, as a well-known millionaire, his secretaries
+had always had to deal with endless cases of real or assumed distress,
+more often the latter,--and shoals of begging letters from people
+representing themselves as starving and friendless, formed a large part
+of the daily correspondence with which his house and office were
+besieged,--but he had never come into personal contact with these
+shameless sort of correspondents, shrewdly judging them to be
+undeserving simply by the very fact that they wrote begging letters. He
+knew that no really honest or plucky-spirited man or woman would waste
+so much as a stamp in asking money from a stranger, even if such a
+stranger were twenty times a millionaire. He had given huge sums away to
+charitable institutions anonymously; and he remembered with a thrill of
+pain the "Christian kindness" of some good "Church" people, who, when
+the news accidentally slipped out that he was the donor of a
+particularly munificent gift to a certain hospital, remarked that "no
+doubt Mr. Helmsley had given it anonymously _at first_, in order that it
+might be made public more effectively _afterwards,_ by way of a personal
+_advertisement_!" Such spiteful comment often repeated, had effectually
+checked the outflow of his naturally warm and generous spirit,
+nevertheless he was always ready to relieve any pressing cases of want
+which were proved genuine, and many a wretched family in the East End of
+London had cause to bless him for his timely and ungrudging aid. But
+this present kind of life,--the life of the tramp, the poacher, the
+gypsy, who is content to be "on the road" rather than submit to the
+trammels of custom and ordinance, was new to him and full of charm. He
+took a peculiar pleasure in reflecting as to what he could do to make
+these men, with whom he had casually foregathered, happier? Did it lie
+in his power to give them any greater satisfaction than that which they
+already possessed? He doubted whether a present of money to Matt Peke,
+for instance, would not offend that rustic philosopher, more than it
+would gratify him;--while, as for Tom o' the Gleam, that handsome
+ruffian was more likely to rob a man of gold than accept it as a gift
+from him. Then involuntarily, his thoughts reverted to the "kiddie." He
+recalled the look in Tom's wild eyes, and the almost womanish tremble of
+tenderness in his rough voice, when he had spoken of this little child
+of his on whom he openly admitted he had set all his love.
+
+"I should like," mused Helmsley, "to see that kiddie! Not that I believe
+in the apparent promise of a child's life,--for my own sons taught me
+the folly of indulging in any hopes on that score--and Lucy Sorrel has
+completed the painful lesson. Who would have ever thought that she,--the
+little angel creature who seemed too lovely and innocent for this world
+at ten,--could at twenty have become the extremely commonplace and
+practical woman she is,--practical enough to wish to marry an old man
+for his money! But that talk among the men last night about the 'kiddie'
+touched me somehow,--I fancy it must be a sturdy little lad, with a
+bright face and a will of its own. I might possibly do something for the
+child if,--if its father would let me! And that's very doubtful!
+Besides, should I not be interfering with the wiser and healthier
+dispensations of nature? The 'kiddie' is no doubt perfectly happy in its
+wild state of life,--free to roam the woods and fields, with every
+chance of building up a strong and vigorous constitution in the simple
+open-air existence to which it has been born and bred. All the riches in
+the world could not make health or freedom for it,--and thus again I
+confront myself with my own weary problem--Why have I toiled all my
+life to make money, merely to find money so useless and comfortless at
+the end?"
+
+With a sigh he rose from the table. His simple breakfast was finished,
+and he went to the window to look at the roses that pushed their pretty
+pink faces up to the sun through a lattice-work of green leaves. There
+was a small yard outside, roughly paved with cobbles, but clean, and
+bordered here and there with bright clusters of flowers, and in one
+particularly sunny corner where the warmth from the skies had made the
+cobbles quite hot, a tiny white kitten rolled on its back, making the
+most absurd efforts to catch its own tail between its forepaws,--and a
+promising brood of fowls were clucking contentedly round some scattered
+grain lately flung out from the window of the "Trusty Man's" wash-house
+for their delectation. There was nothing in the scene at all of a
+character to excite envy in the most morbid and dissatisfied mind;--it
+was full of the tamest domesticity, and yet--it was a picture such as
+some thoughtful Dutch artist would have liked to paint as a suggestion
+of rural simplicity and peace.
+
+"But if one only knew the ins and outs of the life here, it might not
+prove so inviting," he thought. "I daresay all the little towns and
+villages in this neighbourhood are full of petty discords, jealousies,
+envyings and spites,--even Prue's mother, Mrs. Clodder, may have, and
+probably has, a neighbour whom she hates, and wishes to get the better
+of, in some way or other, for there is really no such thing as actual
+peace anywhere except--in the grave! And who knows whether we shall even
+find it there! Nothing dies which does not immediately begin to live--in
+another fashion. And every community, whether of insects, birds, wild
+animals, or men and women, is bound to fight for existence,--therefore
+those who cry: 'Peace, peace!' only clamour for a vain thing. The very
+stones and rocks and mountains maintain a perpetual war with destroying
+elements,--they appear immutable things to our short lives, but they
+change in their turn even as we do--they die to live again in other
+forms, even as we do. And what is it all for? What is the sum and
+substance of so much striving--if merest Nothingness is the end?"
+
+He was disturbed from his reverie by the entrance of Miss Tranter. He
+turned round and smiled at her.
+
+"Well!" she said--"Enjoyed your breakfast?"
+
+"Very much indeed, thanks to your kindness!" he replied. "I hardly
+thought I had such a good appetite left to me. I feel quite strong and
+hearty this morning."
+
+"You look twice the man you were last night, certainly,"--and she eyed
+him thoughtfully--"Would you like a job here?"
+
+A flush rose to his brows. He hesitated before replying.
+
+"You'd rather not!" snapped out Miss Tranter--"I can see 'No' in your
+face. Well, please yourself!"
+
+He looked at her. Her lips were compressed in a thin line, and she wore
+a decidedly vexed expression.
+
+"Ah, you think I don't want to work!" he said--"There you're wrong! But
+I haven't many years of life in me,--there's not much time left to do
+what I have to do,--and I must get on."
+
+"Get on, where?"
+
+"To Cornwall."
+
+"Whereabouts in Cornwall?"
+
+"Down by Penzance way."
+
+"You want to start off on the tramp again at once?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"All right, you must do as you like, I suppose,"--and Miss Tranter
+sniffed whole volumes of meaning in one sniff--"But Farmer Joltram told
+me to say that if you wanted a light job up on his place,--that's about
+a mile from here,--- he wouldn't mind giving you a chance. You'd get
+good victuals there, for he feeds his men well. And I don't mind
+trusting you with a bit of gardening--you could make a shilling a day
+easy--so don't say you can't get work. That's the usual whine--but if
+you say it----"
+
+"I shall be a liar!" said Helmsley, his sunken eyes lighting up with a
+twinkle of merriment--"And don't you fear, Miss Tranter,--I _won't_ say
+it! I'm grateful to Mr. Joltram--but I've only one object left to me in
+life, and that is--to get on, and find the person I'm looking for--if I
+can!"
+
+"Oh, you're looking for a person, are you?" queried Miss Tranter, more
+amicably--"Some long-lost relative?"
+
+"No,--not a relative, only--a friend."
+
+"I see!" Miss Tranter smoothed down her neatly fitting plain cotton gown
+with both hands reflectively--"And you'll be all right if you find this
+friend?"
+
+"I shall never want anything any more," he answered, with an
+unconsciously pathetic tremor in his voice--"My dearest wish will be
+granted, and I shall be quite content to die!"
+
+"Well, content or no content, you've got to do it," commented Miss
+Tranter--"And so have I--and so have all of us. Which I think is a pity.
+I shouldn't mind living for ever and ever in this world. It's a very
+comfortable world, though some folks say it isn't. That's mostly liver
+with them though. People who don't over-eat or over-drink themselves,
+and who get plenty of fresh air, are generally fairly pleased with the
+world as they find it. I suppose the friend you're looking for will be
+glad to see you?"
+
+"The friend I'm looking for will certainly be glad to see me," said
+Helmsley, gently--"Glad to see me--glad to help me--glad above all
+things to love me! If this were not so, I should not trouble to search
+for my friend at all."
+
+Miss Tranter fixed her eyes full upon him while he thus spoke. They were
+sharp eyes, and just now they were visibly inquisitive.
+
+"You've not been very long used to tramping," she observed.
+
+"No."
+
+"I expect you've seen better days?"
+
+"Some few, perhaps,"--and he smiled gravely--"But it comes harder to a
+man who has once known comfort to find himself comfortless in his old
+age."
+
+"That's very true! Well!"--and Miss Tranter gave a short sigh--"I'm
+sorry you won't stay on here a bit to pick up your strength--but a
+wilful man must have his way! I hope you'll find your friend!"
+
+"I hope I shall!" said Helmsley earnestly. "And believe me I'm most
+grateful to you----"
+
+"Tut!" and Miss Tranter tossed her head. "What do you want to be
+grateful to me for! You've had food and lodging, and you've paid me for
+it. I've offered you work and you won't take it. That's the long and
+short of it between us."
+
+And thereupon she marched out of the room, her head very high, her
+shoulders very square, and her back very straight. Helmsley watched her
+dignified exit with a curious sense of half-amused contrition.
+
+"What odd creatures some women are!" he thought. "Here's this
+sharp-tongued, warm-hearted hostess of a roadside inn quite angry
+because, apparently, an old tramp won't stay and do incompetent work for
+her! She knows that I should make a mere boggle of her garden,--she is
+equally aware that I could be no use in any way on 'Feathery' Joltram's
+farm--and yet she is thoroughly annoyed and disappointed because I won't
+try to do what she is perfectly confident I can't do, in order that I
+shall rest well and be fed well for one or two days! Really the kindness
+of the poor to one another outvalues all the gifts of the rich to the
+charities they help to support. It is so much more than ordinary
+'charity,' for it goes hand in hand with a touch of personal feeling.
+And that is what few rich men ever get,--except when their pretended
+'friends' think they can make something for themselves out of their
+assumed 'friendship'!"
+
+He put on his hat, and plucked one of the roses clambering in at the
+window to take with him as a remembrance of the "Trusty Man,"--a place
+which he felt would henceforward be a kind of landmark for the rest of
+his life to save him from drowning in utter cynicism, because within its
+walls he had found unselfish compassion for his age and loneliness, and
+disinterested sympathy for his seeming need. Then he went to say
+good-bye to Miss Tranter. She was, as usual, in the bar, standing very
+erect. She had taken up her knitting, and her needles clicked and
+glittered busily.
+
+"Matt Peke left a bottle of his herb wine for you," she said. "There it
+is."
+
+She indicated by a jerk of her head a flat oblong quart flask, neatly
+corked and tied with string, which lay on the counter. It was of a
+conveniently portable shape, and Helmsley slipped it into one of his
+coat pockets with ease.
+
+"Shall you be seeing Peke soon again, Miss Tranter?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know. Maybe so, and maybe not. He's gone on to Crowcombe. I
+daresay he'll come back this way before the end of the month. He's a
+pretty regular customer."
+
+"Then, will you thank him for me, and say that I shall never forget his
+kindness?"
+
+"Never forget is a long time," said Miss Tranter. "Most folks forget
+their friends directly their backs are turned."
+
+"That's true," said Helmsley, gently; "but I shall not. Good-bye!"
+
+"Good-bye!" Miss Tranter paused in her knitting. "Which road are you
+going from here?"
+
+Helmsley thought a moment.
+
+"Perhaps," he said at last, "one of the main roads would be best. I'd
+rather not risk any chance of losing my way."
+
+Miss Tranter stepped out of the bar and came to the open doorway of the
+inn.
+
+"Take that path across the moor," and she pointed with one of her bright
+knitting needles to a narrow beaten track between the tufted grass,
+whitened here and there by clusters of tall daisies, "and follow it as
+straight as you can. It will bring you out on the highroad to Williton
+and Watchett. It's a goodish bit of tramping on a hot day like this, but
+if you keep to it steady you'll be sure to get a lift or so in waggons
+going along to Dunster. And there are plenty of publics about where I
+daresay you'd get a night's sixpenny shelter, though whether any of them
+are as comfortable as the 'Trusty Man,' is open to question."
+
+"I should doubt it very much," said Helmsley, his rare kind smile
+lighting up his whole face. "The 'Trusty Man' thoroughly deserves trust;
+and, if I may say so, its kind hostess commands respect."
+
+He raised his cap with the deferential easy grace which was habitual to
+him, and Miss Tranter's pale cheeks reddened suddenly and violently.
+
+"Oh, I'm only a rough sort!" she said hastily. "But the men like me
+because I don't give them away. I hold that the poor must get a bit of
+attention as well as the rich."
+
+"The poor deserve it more," rejoined Helmsley. "The rich get far too
+much of everything in these days,--they are too much pampered and too
+much flattered. Yet, with it all, I daresay they are often miserable."
+
+"It must be pretty hard to be miserable on twenty or thirty thousand a
+year!" said Miss Tranter.
+
+"You think so? Now, I should say it was very easy. For when one has
+everything, one wants nothing."
+
+"Well, isn't it all right to want nothing?" she queried, looking at him
+inquisitively.
+
+"All right? No!--rather all wrong! For want stimulates the mind and body
+to work, and work generates health and energy,--and energy is the pulse
+of life. Without that pulse, one is a mere husk of a man--as I am!" He
+doffed his cap again. "Thank you for all your friendliness. Good-bye!"
+
+"Good-bye! Perhaps I shall see you again some time this way?"
+
+"Perhaps--but----"
+
+"With your friend?" she suggested.
+
+"Ay--if I find my friend--then possibly I may return. Meanwhile, all
+good be with you!"
+
+He turned away, and began to ascend the path indicated across the moor.
+Once he looked back and waved his hand. Miss Tranter, in response, waved
+her piece of knitting. Then she went on clicking her needles rapidly
+through a perfect labyrinth of stitches, her eyes fixed all the while on
+the tall, thin, frail figure which, with the assistance of a stout
+stick, moved slowly along between the nodding daisies.
+
+"He's what they call a mystery," she said to herself. "He's as true-born
+a gentleman as ever lived--with a gentleman's ways, a gentleman's voice,
+and a gentleman's hands, and yet he's 'on the road' like a tramp! Well!
+there's many ups and downs in life, certainly, and those that's rich
+to-day may be poor to-morrow. It's a queer world--and God who made it
+only knows what it was made for!"
+
+With that, having seen the last of Helmsley's retreating figure, she
+went indoors, and relieved her feelings by putting Prue through her
+domestic paces in a fashion that considerably flurried that small damsel
+and caused her to wonder, "what 'ad come over Miss Tranter suddint, she
+was that beside 'erself with work and temper!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+It was pleasant walking across the moor. The July sun was powerful, but
+to ageing men the warmth and vital influences of the orb of day are
+welcome, precious, and salutary. An English summer is seldom or never
+too warm for those who are conscious that but few such summers are left
+to them, and David Helmsley was moved by a devout sense of gratitude
+that on this fair and tranquil morning he was yet able to enjoy the
+lovely and loving beneficence of all beautiful and natural things. The
+scent of the wild thyme growing in prolific patches at his feet,--the
+more pungent odour of the tall daisies which were of a hardy,
+free-flowering kind,--the "strong sea-daisies that feast on the
+sun,"--and the indescribable salty perfume that swept upwards on the
+faint wind from the unseen ocean, just now hidden by projecting shelves
+of broken ground fringed with trees,--all combined together to refresh
+the air and to make the mere act of breathing a delight. After about
+twenty minutes' walking Helmsley's step grew easier and more
+springy,--almost he felt young,--almost he pictured himself living for
+another ten years in health and active mental power. The lassitude and
+_ennui_ inseparable from a life spent for the most part in the business
+centres of London, had rolled away like a noxious mist from his mind,
+and he was well-nigh ready to "begin life again," as he told himself,
+with a smile at his own folly.
+
+"No wonder that the old-world philosophers and scientists sought for the
+_elixir vitae_!" he thought. "No wonder they felt that the usual tenure
+is too short for all that a man might accomplish, did he live well and
+wisely enough to do justice to all the powers with which nature has
+endowed him. I am myself inclined to think that the 'Tree of Life'
+exists,--perhaps its leaves are the 'leaves of the Daura,' for which
+that excellent fellow Matt Peke is looking. Or it may be the 'Secta
+Croa'!"
+
+He smiled,--and having arrived at the end of the path which he had
+followed from the door of the "Trusty Man," he saw before him a
+descending bank, which sloped into the highroad, a wide track white
+with thick dust stretching straight away for about a mile and then
+dipping round a broad curve of land, overarched with trees. He sat down
+for a few minutes on the warm grass, giving himself up to the idle
+pleasure of watching the birds skimming through the clear blue sky,--the
+bees bouncing in and out of the buttercups,--the varicoloured
+butterflies floating like blown flower-petals on the breeze,--and he
+heard a distant bell striking the half-hour after eleven. He had noted
+the time when leaving the "Trusty Man," otherwise he would not have
+known it so exactly, having left his watch locked up at home in his
+private desk with other personal trinkets which would have been
+superfluous and troublesome to him on his self-imposed journey. When the
+echo of the bell's one stroke had died away it left a great stillness in
+the air. The heat was increasing as the day veered towards noon, and he
+decided that it would be as well to get on further down the road and
+under the shadow of the trees, which were not so very far off, and which
+looked invitingly cool in their spreading dark soft greenness. So,
+rising from his brief rest, he started again "on the tramp," and soon
+felt the full glare of the sun, and the hot sensation of the dust about
+his feet; but he went on steadily, determining to make light of all the
+inconveniences and difficulties, to which he was entirely unaccustomed,
+but to which he had voluntarily exposed himself. For a considerable time
+he met no living creature; the highroad seemed to be as much his own as
+though it were part of a private park or landed estate belonging to him
+only; and it was not till he had nearly accomplished the distance which
+lay between him and the shelter of the trees, that he met a horse and
+cart slowly jogging along towards the direction from whence he had come.
+The man who drove the vehicle was half-asleep, stupefied, no doubt, by
+the effect of the hot sun following on a possible "glass" at a
+public-house, but Helmsley called to him just for company's sake.
+
+"Hi! Am I going right for Watchett?"
+
+The man opened his drowsing eyes and yawned expansively.
+
+"Watchett? Ay! Williton comes fust."
+
+"Is it far?"
+
+"Nowt's far to your kind!" said the man, flicking his whip. "An' ye'll
+meet a bobby or so on the road!"
+
+On he went, and Helmsley without further parley resumed his tramp.
+Presently, reaching the clump of trees he had seen in the distance, he
+moved into their refreshing shade. They were broad-branched elms,
+luxuriantly full of foliage, and the avenue they formed extended for
+about a quarter of a mile. Cool dells and dingles of mossy green sloped
+down on one side of the road, breaking into what are sometimes called
+"coombs" running precipitously towards the sea-coast, and slackening his
+pace a little he paused, looking through a tangle of shrubs and bracken
+at the pale suggestion of a glimmer of blue which he realised was the
+shining of the sunlit ocean. While he thus stood, he fancied he heard a
+little plaintive whine as of an animal in pain. He listened attentively.
+The sound was repeated, and, descending the shelving bank a few steps he
+sought to discover the whereabouts of this piteous cry for help. All at
+once he spied two bright sparkling eyes and a small silvery grey head
+perking up at him through the leaves,--the head of a tiny Yorkshire
+"toy" terrier. It looked at him with eloquent anxiety, and as he
+approached it, it made an effort to move, but fell back again with a
+faint moan. Gently he picked it up,--it was a rare and beautiful little
+creature, but one of its silky forepaws had evidently been caught in
+some trap, for it was badly mangled and bleeding. Round its neck was a
+small golden collar, something like a lady's bracelet, bearing the
+inscription: "I am Charlie. Take care of me!" There was no owner's name
+or address, and the entreaty "Take care of me!" had certainly not been
+complied with, or so valuable a pet would not have been left wounded on
+the highroad. While Helmsley was examining it, it ceased whining, and
+gently licked his hand. Seeing a trickling stream of water making its
+way through the moss and ferns close by, he bathed the little dog's
+wounded paw carefully and tied it up with a strip of material torn from
+his own coat sleeve.
+
+"So you want to be taken care of, do you, Charlie!" he said, patting the
+tiny head. "That's what a good many of us want, when we feel hurt and
+broken by the hard ways of the world!" Charlie blinked a dark eye,
+cocked a small soft ear, and ventured on another caress of the kind
+human hand with his warm little tongue. "Well, I won't leave you to
+starve in the woods, or trust you to the tender mercies of the
+police,--you shall come along with me! And if I see any advertisement
+of your loss I'll perhaps take you back to your owner. But in the
+meantime we'll stay together."
+
+Charlie evidently agreed to this proposition, for when Helmsley tucked
+him cosily under his arm, he settled down comfortably as though well
+accustomed to the position. He was certainly nothing of a weight to
+carry, and his new owner was conscious of a certain pleasure in feeling
+the warm, silky little body nestling against his breast. He was not
+quite alone any more,--this little creature was a companion,--a
+something to talk to, to caress and to protect. He ascended the bank,
+and regaining the highroad resumed his vagrant way. Noon was now at the
+full, and the sun's heat seemed to create a silence that was both
+oppressive and stifling. He walked slowly, and began to feel that
+perhaps after all he had miscalculated his staying powers, and that the
+burden of old age would, in the end, take vengeance upon him for running
+risks of fatigue and exhaustion which, in his case, were wholly
+unnecessary.
+
+"Yet if I were really poor," he argued with himself, "if I were in very
+truth a tramp, I should have to do exactly what I am doing now. If one
+man can stand 'life on the road,' so can another."
+
+And he would not allow his mind to dwell on the fact that a temperament
+which has become accustomed to every kind of comfort and luxury is
+seldom fitted to endure privation. On he jogged steadily, and by and by
+began to be entertained by his own thoughts as pleasantly as a poet or
+romancist is entertained by the fancies which come and go in the brain
+with all the vividness of dramatic reality. Yet always he found himself
+harking back to what he sometimes called the "incurability" of life.
+Over and over again he asked himself the old eternal question: Why so
+much Product to end in Waste? Why are thousands of millions of worlds,
+swarming with life-organisms, created to revolve in space, if there is
+no other fate for them but final destruction?
+
+"There _must_ be an Afterwards!" he said. "Otherwise Creation would not
+only be a senseless joke, but a wicked one! Nay, it would almost be a
+crime. To cause creatures to be born into existence without their own
+consent, merely to destroy them utterly in a few years and make the fact
+of their having lived purposeless, would be worse than the dreams of
+madmen. For what is the use of bringing human creatures into the world
+to suffer pain, sickness, and sorrow, if mere life-torture is all we can
+give them, and death is the only end?"
+
+Here his meditations were broken in upon by the sound of a horse's hoofs
+trotting briskly behind him, and pausing, he saw a neat little cart and
+pony coming along, driven by a buxom-looking woman with a brown sun-hat
+tied on in the old-fashioned manner under her chin.
+
+"Would ye like a lift?" she asked. "It's mighty warm walkin'."
+
+Helmsley raised his eyes to the sun-bonnet, and smiled at the cheerful
+freckled face beneath its brim.
+
+"You're very kind----" he began.
+
+"Jump in!" said the woman. "I'm taking cream and cheeses into Watchett,
+but it's a light load, an' Jim an' me can do with ye that far. This is
+Jim."
+
+She flicked the pony's ears with her whip by way of introducing the
+animal, and Helmsley clambered up into the cart beside her.
+
+"That's a nice little dog you've got," she remarked, as Charlie perked
+his small black nose out from under his protector's arm to sniff the
+subtle atmosphere of what was going to happen next. "He's a real
+beauty!"
+
+"Yes," replied Helmsley, without volunteering any information as to how
+he had found the tiny creature, whom he now had no inclination to part
+with. "He got his paw caught in a trap, so I'm obliged to carry him."
+
+"Poor little soul! There's a-many traps all about 'ere, lots o' the land
+bein' private property. Go on, Jim!" And she shook the reins on her
+pony's neck, thereby causing that intelligent animal to start off at a
+pleasantly regular pace. "I allus sez that if the rich ladies and
+gentlemen as eats up every bit o' land in Great Britain could put traps
+in the air to catch the noses of everything but themselves as dares to
+breathe it, they'd do it, singin' glory all the time. For they goes to
+church reg'lar."
+
+"Ah, it's a wise thing to be seen _looking_ good in public!" said
+Helmsley.
+
+The woman laughed.
+
+"That's right! You can do a lot o' humbuggin' if you're friends with the
+parson, what more often than not humbugs everybody hisself. I'm no
+church-goer, but I turn out the best cheese an' butter in these parts,
+an' I never tells no lies nor cheats any one of a penny, so I aint
+worryin' about my soul, seein' it's straight with my neighbours."
+
+"Are there many rich people living about here?" inquired Helmsley.
+
+"Not enough to do the place real good. The owners of the big houses are
+here to-day and gone to-morrow, and they don't trouble much over their
+tenantry. Still we rub on fairly well. None of us can ever put by for a
+rainy day,--and some folk as is as hard-working as ever they can be, are
+bound to come on the parish when they can't work no more--no doubt o'
+that. You're a stranger to these parts?"
+
+"Yes, I've tramped from Bristol."
+
+The woman opened her eyes widely.
+
+"That's a long way! You must be fairly strong for your age. Where are ye
+wantin' to get to?"
+
+"Cornwall."
+
+"My word! You've got a goodish bit to go. All Devon lies before you."
+
+"I know that. But I shall rest here and there, and perhaps get a lift or
+two if I meet any more such kind-hearted folk as yourself."
+
+She looked at him sharply.
+
+"That's what we may call a bit o' soft soap," she said, "and I'd advise
+ye to keep that kind o' thing to yourself, old man! It don't go down
+with Meg Ross, I can tell ye!"
+
+"Are you Meg Ross?" he asked, amused at her manner.
+
+"That's me! I'm known all over the countryside for the sharpest tongue
+as ever wagged in a woman's head. So you'd better look out!"
+
+"I'm not afraid of you!" he said smiling.
+
+"Well, you might be if you knew me!" and she whipped up her pony
+smartly. "Howsomever, you're old enough to be past hurtin' or bein'
+hurt."
+
+"That's true!" he responded gently.
+
+She was silent after this, and not till Watchett was reached did she
+again begin conversation. Rattling quickly through the little
+watering-place, which at this hour seemed altogether deserted or asleep,
+she pulled up at an inn in the middle of the principal street.
+
+"I've got an order to deliver here," she said. "What are _you_ going to
+do with yourself?"
+
+"Nothing in particular," he answered, with a smile. "I shall just take
+my little dog to a chemist's and get its paw dressed, and then I shall
+walk on."
+
+"Don't you want any dinner?"
+
+"Not yet. I had a good breakfast, I daresay I'll have a glass of milk
+presently."
+
+"Well, if you come back here in half an hour I can drive you on a little
+further. How would you like that?"
+
+"Very much! But I'm afraid of troubling you----"
+
+"Oh, you won't do that!" said Meg with a defiant air. "No man, young or
+old, has ever troubled _me_! I'm not married, thank the Lord!"
+
+And jumping from the cart, she began to pull out sundry cans, jars, and
+boxes, while Helmsley standing by with the small Charlie under his arm,
+wished he could help her, but felt sure she would resent assistance even
+if he offered it. Glancing at him, she gave him a kindly nod.
+
+"Off you go with your little dog! You'll find me ready here in half an
+hour."
+
+With that she turned from him into the open doorway of the inn, and
+Helmsley made his way slowly along the silent, sun-baked little street
+till he found a small chemist's shop, where he took his lately found
+canine companion to have its wounded paw examined and attended to. No
+bones were broken, and the chemist, a lean, pale, kindly man, assured
+him that in a few days the little animal would be quite well.
+
+"It's a pretty creature," he said. "And valuable too."
+
+"Yes. I found it on the highroad," said Helmsley; "and of course if I
+see any advertisement out for it, I'll return it to its owner. But if no
+one claims it I'll keep it."
+
+"Perhaps it fell out of a motor-car," said the chemist. "It looks as if
+it might have belonged to some fine lady who was too wrapped up in
+herself to take proper care of it. There are many of that kind who come
+this way touring through Somerset and Devon."
+
+"I daresay you're right," and Helmsley gently stroked the tiny dog's
+soft silky coat. "Rich women will pay any amount of money for such toy
+creatures out of mere caprice, and will then lose them out of sheer
+laziness, forgetting that they are living beings, with feelings and
+sentiments of trust and affection greater sometimes than our own.
+However, this little chap will be safe with me till he is rightfully
+claimed, if ever that happens. I don't want to steal him; I only want to
+take care of him."
+
+"I should never part with him if I were you," said the chemist. "Those
+who were careless enough to lose him deserve their loss."
+
+Helmsley agreed, and left the shop. Finding a confectioner's near by, he
+bought a few biscuits for his new pet, an attention which that small
+animal highly appreciated. "Charlie" was hungry, and cracked and munched
+the biscuits with exceeding relish, his absurd little nose becoming
+quite moist with excitement and appetite. Returning presently to the inn
+where he had left Meg Ross, Helmsley found that lady quite ready to
+start.
+
+"Oh, here you are, are you?" she said, smiling pleasantly, "Well, I'm
+just on the move. Jump in!"
+
+Helmsley hesitated a moment, standing beside the pony-cart.
+
+"May I pay for my ride?" he said.
+
+"Pay?" Meg stuck her stout arms akimbo, and glanced him all over. "Well,
+I never! How much 'ave ye got?"
+
+"Two or three shillings," he answered.
+
+Meg laughed, showing a very sound row of even white teeth.
+
+"All right! You can keep 'em!" she said. "Mebbe you want 'em. _I_ don't!
+Now don't stand haverin' there,--get in the cart quick, or Jim'll be
+runnin' away."
+
+Jim showed no sign of this desperate intention, but, on the contrary,
+stood very patiently waiting till his passengers were safely seated,
+when he trotted off at a great pace, with such a clatter of hoofs and
+rattle of wheels as rendered conversation impossible. But Helmsley was
+very content to sit in silence, holding the little dog "Charlie" warmly
+against his breast, and watching the beauties of the scenery expand
+before him like a fairy panorama, ever broadening into fresh glimpses of
+loveliness. It was a very quiet coastline which the windings of the road
+now followed,--a fair and placid sea shining at wide intervals between a
+lavish flow of equally fair and placid fields. The drive seemed all too
+short, when at the corner of a lane embowered in trees, Meg Ross pulled
+up short.
+
+"The best of friends must part!" she said. "I'm right sorry I can't take
+ye any further. But down 'ere's a farm where I put up for the afternoon
+an' 'elps 'em through with their butter-makin', for there's a lot o'
+skeery gals in the fam'ly as thinks more o' doin' their 'air than
+churnin', an' doin' the 'air don't bring no money in, though mebbe it
+might catch a 'usband as wasn't worth 'avin'. An' Jim gets his food 'ere
+too. Howsomever, I'm real put about that I can't drive ye a bit towards
+Cleeve Abbey, for that's rare an' fine at this time o' year,--but mebbe
+ye're wantin' to push on quickly?"
+
+"Yes, I must push on," rejoined Helmsley, as he got out of the cart;
+then, standing in the road, he raised his cap to her. "And I'm very
+grateful to you for helping me along so far, at the hottest time of the
+day too. It's most kind of you!"
+
+"Oh, I don't want any thanks!" said Meg, smiling. "I'm rather sweet on
+old men, seein' old age aint their fault even if trampin' the road is.
+You'd best keep on the straight line now, till you come to Blue Anchor.
+That's a nice little village, and you'll find an inn there where you can
+get a night's lodging cheap. I wouldn't advise you to stay much round
+Cleeve after sundown, for there's a big camp of gypsies about there, an'
+they're a rough lot, pertikly a man they calls Tom o' the Gleam."
+
+Helmsley smiled.
+
+"I know Tom o' the Gleam," he said. "He's a friend of mine."
+
+Meg Ross opened her round, bright brown eyes.
+
+"Is he? Dear life, if I'd known that, I mightn't 'ave been so ready to
+give you a ride with me!" she said, and laughed. "Not that I'm afraid of
+Tom, though he's a queer customer. I've given a good many glasses of new
+milk to his 'kiddie,' as he calls that little lad of his, so I expect
+I'm fairly in his favour."
+
+"I've never seen his 'kiddie,'" said Helmsley. "What is the boy like?"
+
+"A real fine little chap!" said Meg, with heartiness and feeling. "I'm
+not a crank on children, seein' most o' them's muckers an' trouble from
+mornin' to night, but if it 'ad pleased the Lord as I should wed, I
+shouldn't 'a wished for a better specimen of a babe than Tom's kiddie.
+Pity the mother died!"
+
+"When the child was born?" queried Helmsley gently.
+
+"No--oh no!"--and Meg's eyes grew thoughtful. "She got through her
+trouble all right, but 'twas about a year or eighteen months arterwards
+that she took to pinin' like, an' droopin' down just like the poppies
+droops in the corn when the sun's too fierce upon 'em. She used to sit
+by the roadside o' Sundays, with a little red handkerchief tied across
+her shoulders, and all her dark 'air tumblin' about 'er face, an' she
+used to look up with her great big black eyes an' smile at the finicky
+fine church misses as come mincin' an' smirkin' along, an' say: 'Tell
+your fortune, lady?' She was the prettiest creature I ever saw--not a
+good lass--no!--nobody could say she was a good lass, for she went to
+Tom without church or priest, but she loved him an' was faithful. An'
+she just worshipped her baby." Here Meg paused a moment. "Tom was a real
+danger to the country when she died," she presently went on. "He used to
+run about the woods like a madman, calling her to come back to 'im, an'
+threatenin' to murder any one who came nigh 'im;--then, by and by, he
+took to the kiddie, an' he's steadier now."
+
+There was something in the narration of this little history that touched
+Helmsley too deeply for comment, and he was silent.
+
+"Well!"--and Meg gave her pony's reins a shake--"I must be off! Sorry to
+leave ye standin' in the middle o' the road like, but it can't be
+helped. Mind you keep the little dog safe!--and take a woman's
+advice--don't walk too far or too fast in one day. Good luck t' ye!"
+
+Another shake of the reins, and "Jim" turned briskly down the lane. Once
+Meg looked back and waved her hand,--then the green trees closed in upon
+her disappearing vehicle, and Helmsley was again alone, save for
+"Charlie," who, instinctively aware that some friend had left them,
+licked his master's hand confidentially, as much as to say "I am still
+with you." The air was cooler now, and Helmsley walked on with
+comparative ease and pleasure. His thoughts were very busy. He was
+drawing comparisons between the conduct of the poor and the rich to one
+another, greatly to the disadvantage of the latter class.
+
+"If a wealthy man has a carriage," he soliloquised, "how seldom will he
+offer it or think of offering its use to any one of his acquaintances
+who may be less fortunate! How rarely will he even say a kind word to
+any man who is 'down'! Do I not know this myself! I remember well on one
+occasion when I wished to send my carriage for the use of a poor fellow
+who had once been employed in my office, but who had been compelled to
+give up work, owing to illness, my secretary advised me not to show him
+this mark of sympathy and attention. 'He will only take it as his
+right,' I was assured,--'these sort of men are always ungrateful.' And I
+listened to my secretary's advice--more fool I! For it should have been
+nothing to me whether the man was ungrateful or not; the thing was to do
+the good, and let the result be what it might. Now this poor Meg Ross
+has no carriage, but such vehicle as she possesses she shares with one
+whom she imagines to be in need. No other motive has moved her save
+womanly pity for lonely age and infirmity. She has taught me a lesson by
+simply offering a kindness without caring how it might be received or
+rewarded. Is not that a lovely trait in human nature?--one which I have
+never as yet discovered in what is called 'swagger society'! When I was
+in the hey-dey of my career, and money was pouring in from all my
+business 'deals' like water from a never-ending main, I had a young
+Scotsman for a secretary, as close-fisted a fellow as ever was, who
+managed to lose me the chance of doing a great many kind actions. More
+than that, whenever I was likely to have any real friends whom I could
+confidently trust, and who wanted nothing from me but affection and
+sincerity, he succeeded in shaking off the hold they had upon me. Of
+course I know now why he did this,--it was in order that he himself
+might have his grip of me more securely, but at that time I was
+unsuspicious, and believed the best of every one. Yes! I honestly
+thought people were honest,--I trusted their good faith, with the result
+that I found out the utter falsity of their pretensions. And here I
+am,--old and nearing the end of my tether--more friendless than when I
+first began to make my fortune, with the certain knowledge that not a
+soul has ever cared or cares for me except for what can be got out of me
+in the way of hard cash! I have met with more real kindness from the
+rough fellows at the 'Trusty Man,' and from the 'Trusty Man's' hostess,
+Miss Tranter, and now from this good woman Meg Ross, than has ever been
+offered to me by those who know I am rich, and who have 'used' me
+accordingly."
+
+Here, coming to a place where two cross-roads met, he paused, looking
+about him. The afternoon was declining, and the loveliness of the
+landscape was intensified by a mellow softness in the sunshine, which
+deepened the rich green of the trees and wakened an opaline iridescence
+in the sea. A sign-post on one hand bore the direction "To Cleeve
+Abbey," and the road thus indicated wound upward somewhat steeply,
+disappearing amid luxuriant verdure which everywhere crowned the higher
+summits of the hills. While he yet stood, looking at the exquisitely
+shaded masses of foliage which, like festal garlands, adorned and
+over-hung this ascent, the discordant "hoot" of a motor-horn sounded on
+the stillness, and sheer down the winding way came at a tearing pace the
+motor vehicle itself. It was a large, luxurious car, and pounded along
+with tremendous speed, swerving at the bottom of the declivity with so
+sharp a curve as to threaten an instant overturn, but, escaping this
+imminent peril by almost a hairsbreadth, it dashed onward straight ahead
+in a cloud of dust that for two or three minutes entirely blurred and
+darkened the air. Half-blinded and choked by the rush of its furious
+passage past him, Helmsley could only just barely discern that the car
+was occupied by two men, the one driving, the other sitting beside the
+driver,--and shading his eyes from the sun, he strove to track its way
+as it flew down the road, but in less than a minute it was out of sight.
+
+"There's not much 'speed limit' in that concern!" he said, half-aloud,
+still gazing after it. "I call such driving recklessly wicked! If I
+could have seen the number of that car, I'd have given information to
+the police. But numbers on motors are no use when such a pace is kept
+up, and the thick dust of a dry summer is whirled up by the wheels. It's
+fortunate the road is clear. Yes, Charlie!"--this, as he saw his canine
+foundling's head perk out from under his arm, with a little black nose
+all a-quiver with anxiety,--"it's just as well for you that you've got a
+wounded paw and can't run too far for the present! If you had been in
+the way of that car just now, your little life would have been ended!"
+
+Charlie pricked his pretty ears, and listened, or appeared to listen,
+but had evidently no forebodings about himself or his future. He was
+quite at home, and, after the fashion of dogs, who are often so much
+wiser than men, argued that being safe and comfortable now, there was no
+reason why he should not be safe and comfortable always. And Helmsley
+presently bent himself to steady walking, and got on well, only pausing
+to get some tea and bread and butter at a cottage by the roadside, where
+a placard on the gate intimated that such refreshments were to be had
+within. Nevertheless, he was a slow pedestrian, and what with lingering
+here and there for brief rests by the way, the sun had sunk fully an
+hour before he managed to reach Blue Anchor, the village of which Meg
+Ross had told him. It was a pretty, peaceful place, set among wide
+stretches of beach, extending for miles along the margin of the waters,
+and the mellow summer twilight showed little white wreaths of foam
+crawling lazily up on the sand in glittering curves that gleamed like
+snow for a moment and then melted softly away into the deepening
+darkness. He stopped at the first ale-house, a low-roofed, cottage-like
+structure embowered in clambering flowers. It had a side entrance which
+led into a big, rambling stableyard, and happening to glance that way he
+perceived a vehicle standing there, which he at once recognised as the
+large luxurious motor-car that had dashed past him at such a tearing
+pace near Cleeve. The inn door was open, and the bar faced the road,
+exhibiting a brave show of glittering brass taps, pewter tankards,
+polished glasses and many-coloured bottles, all these things being
+presided over by a buxom matron, who was not only an agreeable person to
+look at in herself, but who was assisted by two pretty daughters. These
+young women, wearing spotless white cuffs and aprons, dispensed the beer
+to the customers, now and then relieving the monotony of this occupation
+by carrying trays of bread and cheese and meat sandwiches round the wide
+room of which the bar was a part, evidently bent on making the general
+company stay as long as possible, if fascinating manners and smiling
+eyes could work any detaining influence. Helmsley asked for a glass of
+ale and a plate of bread and cheese, and on being supplied with these
+refreshments, sat down at a small table in a corner well removed from
+the light, where he could see without being seen. He did not intend to
+inquire for a night's lodging yet. He wished first to ascertain for
+himself the kind of people who frequented the place. The fear of
+discovery always haunted him, and the sight of that costly motor-car
+standing in the stableyard had caused him to feel a certain misgiving
+lest any one of marked wealth or position should turn out to be its
+owner. In such a case, the world being proverbially small, and rich men
+being in the minority, it was just possible that he, David Helmsley,
+even clad as he was in workman's clothes and partially disguised in
+features by the growth of a beard, might be recognised. With this idea,
+he kept himself well back in the shadow, listening attentively to the
+scraps of desultory talk among the dozen or so of men in the room, while
+carefully maintaining an air of such utter fatigue as to appear
+indifferent to all that passed around him. Nobody noticed him, for which
+he was thankful. And presently, when he became accustomed to the various
+contending voices, which in their changing tones of gruff or gentle,
+quick or slow, made a confused din upon his ears, he found out that the
+general conversation was chiefly centred on one subject, that of the
+very motor-car whose occupants he desired to shun.
+
+"Serve 'em right!" growled one man. "Serve 'em right to 'ave broke down!
+'Ope the darned thing's broke altogether!"
+
+"You shouldn't say that,--'taint Christian," expostulated his neighbour
+at the same table. "Them cars cost a heap o' money, from eight 'undred
+to two thousand pounds, I've 'eerd tell."
+
+"Who cares!" retorted the other. "Them as can pay a fortin on a car to
+swish 'emselves about in, should be made to keep on payin' till they're
+cleaned out o' money for good an' all. The road's a reg'lar hell since
+them engines started along cuttin' everything to pieces. There aint a
+man, woman, nor child what's safe from the moneyed murderers."
+
+"Oh come, I say!" ejaculated a big, burly young fellow in corduroys.
+"Moneyed murderers is going a bit too strong!"
+
+"No 'taint!" said the first man who had spoken. "That's what the
+motor-car folks are--no more nor less. Only t' other day in Taunton, a
+woman as was the life an' soul of 'er 'usband an' childern, was knocked
+down by a car as big as a railway truck. It just swept 'er off the curb
+like a bundle o' rags. She picked 'erself up again an' walked 'ome,
+tremblin' a little, an' not knowin' rightly what 'ad chanced to 'er, an'
+in less than an hour she was dead. An' what did they say at the inquest?
+Just 'death from shock'--an' no more. For them as owned the murderin'
+car was proprietors o' a big brewery, and the coroner hisself 'ad shares
+in it. That's 'ow justice is done nowadays!"
+
+"Yes, we's an obligin' lot, we poor folks," observed a little man in the
+rough garb of a cattle-driver, drawing his pipe from his mouth as he
+spoke. "We lets the rich ride over us on rubber tyres an' never sez a
+word on our own parts, but trusts to the law for doin' the same to a
+millionaire as 'twould to a beggar,--but, Lord!--don't we see every day
+as 'ow the millionaire gets off easy while the beggar goes to prison?
+There used to be justice in old England, but the time for that's gone
+past."
+
+"There's as much justice in England as you'll ever get anywheres else!"
+interrupted the hostess at the bar, nodding cheerfully at the men, and
+smiling,--"And as for the motor-cars, they bring custom to my house, and
+I don't grumble at anything which does me and mine a good turn. If it
+hadn't been for a break-down in that big motor standing outside in the
+stableyard, I shouldn't have had two gentlemen staying in my best rooms
+to-night. I never find fault with money!"
+
+She laughed and nodded again in the pleasantest manner. A slow smile
+went round among the men,--it was impossible not to smile in response to
+the gay good-humour expressed on such a beaming countenance.
+
+"One of them's a lord, too," she added. "Quite a young fellow, just come
+into his title, I suppose." And referring to her day-book, she ran her
+plump finger down the various entries. "I've got his name
+here--Wrotham,--Lord Reginald Wrotham."
+
+"Wrotham? That aint a name known in these parts," said the man in
+corduroys. "Wheer does 'e come from?"
+
+"I don't know," she replied. "And I don't very much care. It's enough
+for me that he's here and spending money!"
+
+"Where's his chauffy?" inquired a lad, lounging near the bar.
+
+"He hasn't got one. He drives his car himself. He's got a friend with
+him--a Mr. James Brookfield."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Helmsley drew further back into the corner
+where he sat, and restrained the little dog Charlie from perking its
+inquisitive head out too far, lest its beauty should attract
+undesirable attention. His nervous misgivings concerning the owner of
+the motor-car had not been entirely without foundation, for both
+Reginald Wrotham and James Brookfield were well known to him. Wrotham's
+career had been a sufficiently disgraceful one ever since he had entered
+his teens,--he was a modern degenerate of the worst type, and though his
+coming-of-age and the assumption of his family title had caused certain
+time-servers to enrol themselves among his flatterers and friends, there
+were very few decent houses where so soiled a member of the aristocracy
+as he was could find even a semblance of toleration. James Brookfield
+was a proprietor of newspapers as well as a "something in the City," and
+if Helmsley had been asked to qualify that "something" by a name, he
+would have found a term by no means complimentary to the individual in
+question. Wrotham and Brookfield were always seen together,--they were
+brothers in every sort of social iniquity and licentiousness, and an
+attempt on Brookfield's part to borrow some thousands of pounds for his
+"lordly" patron from Helmsley, had resulted in the latter giving the
+would-be borrower's go-between such a strong piece of his mind as he was
+not likely to forget. And now Helmsley was naturally annoyed to find
+that these two abandoned rascals were staying at the very inn where he,
+in his character of a penniless wayfarer, had hoped to pass a peaceful
+night; however, he resolved to avoid all danger and embarrassment by
+leaving the place directly he had finished his supper, and going in
+search of some more suitable lodgment. Meanwhile, the hum of
+conversation grew louder around him, and opinion ran high on the subject
+of "the right of the road."
+
+"The roads are made for the people, sure-_ly_!" said one of a group of
+men standing near the largest table in the room--"And the people 'as the
+right to 'xpect safety to life an' limb when they uses 'em."
+
+"Well, the motors can put forward the same claim," retorted another.
+"Motor folks are people too, an' they can say, if they likes, that if
+roads is made for people, they're made for _them_ as well as t' others,
+and they expects to be safe on 'em with their motors at whatever pace
+they travels."
+
+"Go 'long!" exclaimed the cattle-driver, who had before taken part in
+the discussion--"Aint we got to take cows an' sheep an' 'osses by the
+road? An' if a car comes along at the rate o' forty or fifty miles an
+hour, what's to be done wi' the animals? An' if they're not to be on the
+road, which way is they to be took?"
+
+"Them motors ought to have roads o' their own like the railways," said a
+quiet-looking grey-haired man, who was the carrier of the district.
+"When the steam-engine was invented it wasn't allowed to go tearin'
+along the public highway. They 'ad to make roads for it, an' lay tracks,
+and they should do the same for motors which is gettin' just as fast an'
+as dangerous as steam-engines."
+
+"Yes, an' with makin' new roads an' layin' tracks, spoil the country for
+good an' all!" said the man in corduroys--"An' alter it so that there
+aint a bit o' peace or comfort left in the land! Level the hills an' cut
+down the trees--pull up the hedges an' scare away all the singin' birds,
+till the hull place looks like a football field!--all to please a few
+selfish rich men who'd be better dead than livin'! A fine thing for
+England that would be!"
+
+At that moment, there was the noise of an opening door, and the hostess,
+with an expressive glance at her customers, held up her finger
+warningly.
+
+"Hush, please!" she said. "The gentlemen are coming out."
+
+A sudden pause ensued. The men looked round upon one another, half
+sheepishly, half sullenly, and their growling voices subsided into a
+murmur. The hostess settled the bow at her collar more becomingly, and
+her two pretty daughters feigned to be deeply occupied with some drawn
+thread work. David Helmsley, noting everything that was going on from
+his coign of vantage, recognised at once the dissipated,
+effeminate-looking young man, who, stepping out of a private room which
+opened on a corridor apparently leading to the inner part of the house,
+sauntered lazily up to the bar and, resting his arm upon its oaken
+counter, smiled condescendingly, not to say insolently, upon the women
+who stood behind it. There was no mistaking him,--it was the same
+Reginald Wrotham whose scandals in society had broken his worthy
+father's heart, and who now, succeeding to a hitherto unblemished title,
+was doing his best to load it with dishonour. He was followed by his
+friend Brookfield,--a heavily-built, lurching sort of man, with a nose
+reddened by strong drink, and small lascivious eyes which glittered
+dully in his head like the eyes of poisonous tropical beetle. The hush
+among the "lower" class of company at the inn deepened into the usual
+stupid awe which at times so curiously affects untutored rustics who are
+made conscious of the presence of a "lord." Said a friend of the present
+writer's to a waiter in a country hotel where one of these "lords" was
+staying for a few days: "I want a letter to catch to-night's post, but
+I'm afraid the mail has gone from the hotel. Could you send some one to
+the post-office with it?" "Oh yes, sir!" replied the waiter
+grandiloquently. "The servant of the Lord will take it!" Pitiful beyond
+most piteous things is the grovelling tendency of that section of human
+nature which has not yet been educated sufficiently to lift itself up
+above temporary trappings and ornaments; pitiful it is to see men,
+gifted in intellect, or distinguished for bravery, flinch and cringe
+before one of their own flesh and blood, who, having neither cleverness
+nor courage, but only a Title, presumes upon that foolish appendage so
+far as to consider himself superior to both valour and ability. As well
+might a stuffed boar's head assume a superiority to other comestibles
+because decorated by the cook with a paper frill and bow of ribbon! The
+atmosphere which Lord Reginald Wrotham brought with him into the
+common-room of the bar was redolent of tobacco-smoke and whisky, yet,
+judging from the various propitiatory, timid, anxious, or servile looks
+cast upon him by all and sundry, it might have been fragrant and sacred
+incense wafted from the altars of the goddess Fortune to her waiting
+votaries. Helmsley's spirit rose up in contempt against the effete dandy
+as he watched him leaning carelessly against the counter, twirling his
+thin sandy moustache, and talking to his hostess merely for the sake of
+offensively ogling her two daughters.
+
+"Charming old place you have here!--charming!" drawled his lordship.
+"Perfect dream! Love to pass all my days in such a delightful spot! 'Pon
+my life! Awful luck for us, the motor breaking down, or we never should
+have stopped at such a jolly place, don't-cher-know. Should we,
+Brookfield?"
+
+Brookfield, gently scratching a pimple on his fat, clean-shaven face,
+smiled knowingly.
+
+"_Couldn't_ have stopped!" he declared. "We were doing a record run. But
+we should have missed a great deal,--a great deal!" And he emitted a
+soft chuckle. "Not only the place,--but----!"
+
+He waved his hand explanatorily, with a slight bow, which implied an
+unspoken compliment to the looks of the mistress of the inn and her
+family. One of the young women blushed and peeped slyly up at him. He
+returned the glance with interest.
+
+"May I ask," pursued Lord Wrotham, with an amicable leer, "the names of
+your two daughters, Madam? They've been awfully kind to us
+broken-down-travellers--should just like to know the difference between
+them. Like two roses on one stalk, don't-cher-know! Can't tell which is
+which!"
+
+The mother of the girls hesitated a moment. She was not quite sure that
+she liked the "tone" of his lordship's speech. Finally she replied
+somewhat stiffly:--
+
+"My eldest daughter is named Elizabeth, my lord, and her sister is
+Grace."
+
+"Elizabeth and Grace! Charming!" murmured Wrotham, leaning a little more
+confidentially over the counter--"Now which--which is Grace?"
+
+At that moment a tall, shadowy form darkened the open doorway of the
+inn, and a man entered, carrying in his arms a small oblong bundle
+covered with a piece of rough horse-cloth. Placing his burden down on a
+vacant bench, he pushed his cap from his brows and stared wildly about
+him. Every one looked at him,--some with recognition, others in
+alarm,--and Helmsley, compelled as he was to keep himself out of the
+general notice in his corner, almost started to his feet with an
+involuntary cry of amazement. For it was Tom o' the Gleam.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Tom o' the Gleam,--Tom, with his clothes torn and covered with
+dust,--Tom, changed suddenly to a haggard and terrible unlikeness of
+himself, his face drawn and withered, its healthy bronze colour whitened
+to a sickly livid hue,--Tom, with such an expression of dazed and stupid
+horror in his eyes as to give the impression that he was heavily in
+drink, and dangerous.
+
+"Well, mates!" he said thickly--"A fine night and a clear moon!"
+
+No one answered him. He staggered up to the bar. The hostess looked at
+him severely.
+
+"Now, Tom, what's the matter?" she said.
+
+He straightened himself, and, throwing back his shoulders as though
+parrying a blow, forced a smile.
+
+"Nothing! A touch of the sun!" A strong shudder ran through his limbs,
+and his teeth chattered,--then suddenly leaning forward on the counter,
+he whispered: "I'm not drunk, mother!--for God's sake don't think
+it!--I'm ill. Don't you see I'm ill?--I'll be all right in a
+minute,--give me a drop of brandy!"
+
+She fixed her candid gaze full upon him. She had known him well for
+years, and not only did she know him, but, rough character as he was,
+she liked and respected him. Looking him squarely in the face she saw at
+once that he was speaking the truth. He was not drunk. He was ill,--very
+ill. The strained anguish on his features proved it.
+
+"Hadn't you better come inside the bar and sit down?" she suggested, in
+a low tone.
+
+"No, thanks--I'd rather not. I'll stand just here."
+
+She gave him the brandy he had asked for. He sipped it slowly, and,
+pushing his cap further off his brows, turned his dark eyes, full of
+smouldering fire, upon Lord Wrotham and his friend, both of whom had
+succeeded in getting up a little conversation with the hostess's younger
+daughter, the girl named Grace. Her sister, Elizabeth, put down her
+needlework, and watched Tom with sudden solicitude. An instinctive
+dislike of Lord Wrotham and his companion caused her to avoid looking
+their way, though she heard every word they were saying,--and her
+interest became centred on the handsome gypsy, whose pallid features and
+terrible expression filled her with a vague alarm.
+
+"It would be awfully jolly of you if you'd come for a spin in my motor,"
+said his lordship, twirling his sandy moustache and conveying a would-be
+amorous twinkle into his small brown-green eyes for the benefit of the
+girl he was ogling. "Beastly bore having a break-down, but it's nothing
+serious--half a day's work will put it all right, and if you and your
+sister would like a turn before we go on from here, I shall be charmed.
+We can't do the record business now--not this time,--so it doesn't
+matter how long we linger in this delightful spot."
+
+"Especially in such delightful company!" added his friend, Brookfield.
+"I'm going to take a photograph of this house to-morrow, and
+perhaps"--here he smiled complacently--"perhaps Miss Grace and Miss
+Elizabeth will consent to come into the picture?"
+
+"Ya-as--ya-as!--oh do!" drawled Wrotham. "Of course they will! _You_
+will, I'm sure, Miss Grace! This gentleman, Mr. Brookfield, has got
+nearly all the pictorials under his thumb, and he'll put your portrait
+in them as 'The Beauty of Somerset,' won't you, Brookfield?"
+
+Brookfield laughed, a pleased laugh of conscious power.
+
+"Of course I will," he said. "You have only to express the wish and the
+thing is done!"
+
+Wrotham twirled his moustache again.
+
+"Awful fun having a friend on the press, don't-cher-know!" he went on.
+"I get all my lady acquaintances into the papers,--makes 'em famous in a
+day! The women I like are made to look beautiful, and those I don't like
+are turned into frights--positive old horrors, give you my life! Easily
+done, you know!--touch up a negative whichever way you fancy, and there
+you are!"
+
+The girl Grace lifted her eyes,--very pretty sparkling eyes they
+were,--and regarded him with a mutinous air of contempt.
+
+"It must be 'awfully' amusing!" she said sarcastically.
+
+"It is!--give you my life!" And his lordship played with a charm in the
+shape of an enamelled pig which dangled at his watch-chain. "It pleases
+all parties except those whom I want to rub up the wrong way. I've made
+many a woman's hair curl, I can tell you! You'll be my 'Somersetshire
+beauty,' won't you, Miss Grace?"
+
+"I think not!" she replied, with a cool glance. "My hair curls quite
+enough already. I never use tongs!"
+
+Brookfield burst into a laugh, and the laugh was echoed murmurously by
+the other men in the room. Wrotham flushed and bit his lip.
+
+"That's a one--er for me," he said lazily. "Pretty kitten as you are,
+Miss Grace, you can scratch! That's always the worst of women,--they've
+got such infernally sharp tongues----"
+
+"Grace!" interrupted her mother, at this juncture--"You are wanted in
+the kitchen."
+
+Grace took the maternal hint and retired at once. At that instant Tom o'
+the Gleam stirred slightly from his hitherto rigid attitude. He had only
+taken half his glass of brandy, but that small amount had brought back a
+tinge of colour to his face and deepened the sparkle of fire in his
+eyes.
+
+"Good roads for motoring about here!" he said.
+
+Lord Wrotham looked up,--then measuring the great height, muscular
+build, and commanding appearance of the speaker, nodded affably.
+
+"First-rate!" he replied. "We had a splendid run from Cleeve Abbey."
+
+"Magnificent!" echoed Brookfield. "Not half a second's stop all the way.
+We should have been far beyond Minehead by this time, if it hadn't been
+for the break-down. We were racing from London to the Land's End,--but
+we took a wrong turning just before we came to Cleeve----"
+
+"Oh! Took a wrong turning, did you?" And Tom leaned a little forward as
+though to hear more accurately. His face had grown deadly pale again,
+and he breathed quickly.
+
+"Yes. We found ourselves quite close to Cleeve Abbey, but we didn't stop
+to see old ruins this time, you bet! We just tore down the first lane we
+saw running back into the highroad,--a pretty steep bit of ground
+too--and, by Jove!--didn't we whizz round the corner at the bottom! That
+was a near shave, I can tell you!"
+
+"Ay, ay!" said Tom slowly, listening with an air of profound interest.
+"You've got a smart chauffeur, no doubt!"
+
+"No chauffeur at all!" declared Brookfield, emphatically. "His lordship
+drives his car himself."
+
+There followed an odd silence. All the customers in the room, drinking
+and eating as many of them were, seemed to be under a dumb spell. Tom o'
+the Gleam's presence was at all times more or less of a terror to the
+timorous, and that he, who as a rule avoided strangers, should on his
+own initiative enter into conversation with the two motorists, was of
+itself a circumstance that awakened considerable wonder and interest.
+David Helmsley, sitting apart in the shadow, could not take his eyes off
+the gypsy's face and figure,--a kind of fascination impelled him to
+watch with strained attention the dark shape, moulded with such
+herculean symmetry, which seemed to command and subdue the very air that
+gave it force and sustenance.
+
+"His lordship drives his car himself!" echoed Tom, and a curious smile
+parted his lips, showing an almost sinister gleam of white teeth between
+his full black moustache and beard,--then, bringing his sombre glance to
+bear slowly down on Wrotham's insignificant form, he continued,--"Are
+you his lordship?"
+
+Wrotham nodded with a careless condescension, and, lighting a cigar,
+began to smoke it.
+
+"And you drive your car yourself!" proceeded Tom,--"you must have good
+nerve and a keen eye!"
+
+"Oh well!" And Wrotham laughed airily--"Pretty much so!--but I won't
+boast!"
+
+"How many miles an hour?" went on Tom, pursuing his inquiries with an
+almost morbid eagerness.
+
+"Forty or fifty, I suppose--sometimes more. I always run at the highest
+speed. Of course that kind of thing knocks the motor to pieces rather
+soon, but one can always buy another."
+
+"True!" said Tom. "Very true! One can always buy another!" He paused,
+and seemed to collect his thoughts with an effort,--then noticing the
+half-glass of brandy he had left on the counter, he took it up and drank
+it all off at a gulp. "Have you ever had any accidents on the road?"
+
+"Accidents?" Lord Wrotham put up an eyeglass. "Accidents? What do you
+mean?"
+
+"Why, what should I mean except what I say!" And Tom gave a sudden loud
+laugh,--a laugh which made the hostess at the bar start nervously, while
+many of the men seated round the various tables exchanged uneasy
+glances. "Accidents are accidents all the world over! Haven't you ever
+been thrown out, upset, shaken in body, broken in bone, or otherwise
+involved in mischief?"
+
+Lord Wrotham smiled, and let his eyeglass fall with a click against his
+top waistcoat button.
+
+"Never!" he said, taking his cigar from his mouth, looking at it, and
+then replacing it with a relish--"I'm too fond of my own life to run any
+risk of losing it. Other people's lives don't matter so much, but mine
+is precious! Eh, Brookfield?"
+
+Brookfield chuckled himself purple in the face over this pleasantry, and
+declared that his lordship's wit grew sharper with every day of his
+existence. Meanwhile Tom o' the Gleam moved a step or two nearer to
+Wrotham.
+
+"You're a lucky lord!" he said, and again he laughed discordantly. "Very
+lucky! But you don't mean to tell me that while you're pounding along at
+full speed, you've never upset anything in your way?--never knocked down
+an old man or woman,--never run over a dog,--or a child?"
+
+"Oh, well, if you mean that kind of thing!" murmured Wrotham, puffing
+placidly at his cigar--"Of course! That's quite common! We're always
+running over something or other, aren't we, Brookie?"
+
+"Always!" declared that gentleman pleasantly. "Really it's half the
+fun!"
+
+"Positively it is, don't-cher-know!" and his lordship played again with
+his enamelled pig--"But it's not our fault. If things will get into our
+way, we can't wait till they get out. We're bound to ride over them. Do
+you remember that old hen, Brookie?"
+
+Brookfield spluttered into a laugh, and nodded in the affirmative.
+
+"There it was skipping over the road in front of us in as great a hurry
+as ever hen was," went on Wrotham. "Going back to its family of eggs per
+express waddle! Whiz! Pst--and all its eggs and waddles were over! By
+Jove, how we screamed! Ha--ha--ha!--he--he--he!"
+
+Lord Wrotham's laugh resembled that laugh peculiar to "society"
+folk,--the laugh civil-sniggering, which is just a tone between the
+sheep's bleat and the peewit's cry. But no one laughed in response, and
+no one spoke. Some heavy spell was in the air like a cloud shadowing a
+landscape, and an imaginative onlooker would have been inclined to think
+that this imperceptible mystic darkness had come in with Tom o' the
+Gleam and was centralising itself round him alone. Brookfield, seeing
+that his lordly patron was inclined to talk, and that he was evidently
+anxious to narrate various "car" incidents, similar to the hen episode,
+took up the conversation and led it on.
+
+"It is really quite absurd," he said, "for any one of common sense to
+argue that a motorist can, could, or should pull up every moment for the
+sake of a few stray animals, or even people, when they don't seem to
+know or care where they are going. Now think of that child to-day! What
+an absolute little idiot! Gathering wild thyme and holding it out to the
+car going full speed! No wonder we knocked it over!"
+
+The hostess of the inn looked up quickly.
+
+"I hope it was not hurt?" she said.
+
+"Oh dear no!" answered Lord Wrotham lightly. "It just fell back and
+turned a somersault in the grass,--evidently enjoying itself. It had a
+narrow escape though!"
+
+Tom o' the Gleam stared fixedly at him. Once or twice he essayed to
+speak, but no sound came from his twitching lips. Presently, with an
+effort, he found his voice.
+
+"Did you--did you stop the car and go back to see--to see if--if it was
+all right?" he asked, in curiously harsh, monotonous accents.
+
+"Stop the car? Go back? By Jove, I should think not indeed! I'd lost too
+much time already through taking a wrong turning. The child was all
+right enough."
+
+"Are you sure?" muttered Tom thickly. "Are you--quite--sure?"
+
+"Sure?" And Wrotham again had recourse to his eyeglass, which he stuck
+in one eye, while he fixed his interlocutor with a supercilious glance.
+"Of course I'm sure! What the devil d' ye take me for? It was a mere
+beggar's brat anyhow--there are too many of such little wretches running
+loose about the roads--regular nuisances--a few might be run over with
+advantage--Hullo! What now? What's the matter? Keep your distance,
+please!" For Tom suddenly threw up his clenched fists with an
+inarticulate cry of rage, and now leaped towards Wrotham in the attitude
+of a wild beast springing on its prey. "Hands off! Hands off, I say!
+Damn you, leave me alone! Brookfield! Here! Some one get a hold of this
+fellow! He's mad!"
+
+But before Brookfield or any other man could move to his assistance, Tom
+had pounced upon him with all the fury of a famished tiger.
+
+"God curse you!" he panted, between the gasps of his labouring
+breath--"God burn you for ever in Hell!"
+
+Down on the ground he hurled him, clutching him round the neck, and
+choking every attempt at a cry. Then falling himself in all his huge
+height, breadth, and weight, upon Wrotham's prone body he crushed it
+under and held it beneath him, while, with appalling swiftness and
+vehemence, he plunged a drawn claspknife deep in his victim's throat,
+hacking the flesh from left to right, from right to left with reckless
+ferocity, till the blood spurted about him in horrid crimson jets, and
+gushed in a dark pool on the floor.
+
+Piercing screams from the women, groans and cries from the men, filled
+the air, and the lately peaceful scene was changed to one of maddening
+confusion. Brookfield rushed wildly through the open door of the inn
+into the village street, yelling: "Help! Help! Murder! Help!" and in
+less than five minutes the place was filled with an excited crowd.
+"Tom!" "Tom o' the Gleam!" ran in frightened whispers from mouth to
+mouth. David Helmsley, giddy with the sudden shock of terror, rose
+shuddering from his place with a vague idea of instant flight in his
+mind, but remained standing inert, half paralysed by sheer panic, while
+several men surrounded Tom, and dragged him forcibly up from the ground
+where he lay, still grasping his murdered man. As they wrenched the
+gypsy's grappling arms away, Wrotham fell back on the floor, stone dead.
+Life had been thrust out of him with the first blow dealt him by Tom's
+claspknife, which had been aimed at his throat as a butcher aims at the
+throat of a swine. His bleeding corpse presented a frightful spectacle,
+the head being nearly severed from the body.
+
+Brookfield, shaking all over, turned his back upon the awful sight, and
+kept on running to and fro and up and down the street, clamouring like a
+madman for the police. Two sturdy constables presently came, their
+appearance restoring something like order. To them Tom o' the Gleam
+advanced, extending his blood-stained hands.
+
+"I am ready!" he said, in a quiet voice. "I am the murderer!"
+
+They looked at him. Then, by way of precaution, one of them clasped a
+pair of manacles on his wrists. The other, turning his eyes to the
+corpse on the floor, recoiled in horror.
+
+"Throw something over it!" he commanded.
+
+He was obeyed, and the dreadful remains of what had once been human,
+were quickly shrouded from view.
+
+"How did this happen?" was the next question put by the officer of the
+law who had already spoken, opening his notebook.
+
+A chorus of eager tongues answered him, Brookfield's excited explanation
+echoing above them all. His dear friend, his great, noble, good friend
+had been brutally murdered! His friend was Lord Wrotham, of Wrotham
+Hall, Blankshire! A break-down had occurred within half a mile of Blue
+Anchor, and Lord Wrotham had taken rooms at the present inn for the
+night. His lordship had condescended to enter into a friendly
+conversation with the ruffian now under arrest, who, without the
+slightest cause or provocation whatsoever, had suddenly attacked and
+overthrown his lordship, and plunged a knife into his lordship's throat!
+He himself was James Brookfield, proprietor of the _Daily Post-Bag_, the
+_Pictorial Pie_, and the _Illustrated Invoice_, and he should make this
+outrageous, this awful crime a warning to motorists throughout the
+world----!"
+
+"That will do, thank you," said the officer briefly--then he gave a
+sharp glance around him--"Where's the landlady?"
+
+She had fled in terror from the scene, and some one went in search of
+her, returning with the poor woman and her two daughters, all of them
+deathly pale and shivering with dread.
+
+"Don't be frightened, mother!" said one of the constables kindly--"No
+harm will come to you. Just tell us what you saw of this affair--that's
+all."
+
+Whereat the poor hostess, her narrative interrupted by tears, explained
+that Tom o' the Gleam was a frequent customer of hers, and that she had
+never thought badly of him.
+
+"He was a bit excited to-night, but he wasn't drunk," she said. "He told
+me he was ill, and asked for a glass of brandy. He looked as if he were
+in great pain, and I gave him the brandy at once and asked him to step
+inside the bar. But he wouldn't do that,--he just stood talking with the
+gentlemen about motoring, and then something was said about a child
+being knocked over by the motor,--and all of a sudden----"
+
+Here her voice broke, and she sank on a seat half swooning, while
+Elizabeth, her eldest girl, finished the story in low, trembling tones.
+Tom o' the Gleam meanwhile stood rigidly upright and silent. To him the
+chief officer of the law finally turned.
+
+"Will you come with us quietly?" he asked, "or do you mean to give us
+trouble?"
+
+Tom lifted his dark eyes.
+
+"I shall give no man any more trouble," he answered. "I shall go nowhere
+save where I am taken. You need fear nothing from me now. But I must
+speak."
+
+The officer frowned warningly.
+
+"You'd better not!" he said.
+
+"I must!" repeated Tom. "You think,--all of you,--that I had no
+cause--no provocation--to kill the man who lies there"--and he turned a
+fierce glance upon the covered corpse, from which a dark stream of blood
+was trickling slowly along the floor--"I swear before God that I _had_
+cause!--and that my cause was just! I _had_ provocation!--the bitterest
+and worst! That man was a murderer as surely as I am. Look yonder!" And
+lifting his manacled hands he extended them towards the bench where lay
+the bundle covered with horse-cloth, which he had carried in his arms
+and set down when he had first entered the inn. "Look, I say!--and then
+tell me I had no cause!"
+
+With an uneasy glance one of the officers went up to the spot indicated,
+and hurriedly, yet fearfully, lifted the horse-cloth and looked under
+it. Then uttering an exclamation of horror and pity, he drew away the
+covering altogether, and disclosed to view the dead body of a child,--a
+little curly-headed lad,--lying as if it were asleep, a smile on its
+pretty mouth, and a bunch of wild thyme clasped in the clenched fingers
+of its small right hand.
+
+"My God! It's Kiddie!"
+
+The exclamation was uttered almost simultaneously by every one in the
+room, and the girl Elizabeth sprang forward.
+
+"Oh, not Kiddie!" she cried--"Oh, surely not Kiddie! Oh, the poor little
+darling!--the pretty little man!"
+
+And she fell on her knees beside the tiny corpse and gave way to a wild
+fit of weeping.
+
+There was an awful silence, broken only by her sobbing. Men turned away
+and covered their eyes--Brookfield edged himself stealthily through the
+little crowd and sneaked out into the open air--and the officers of the
+law stood inactive. Helmsley felt the room whirling about him in a
+sickening blackness, and sat down to steady himself, the stinging tears
+rising involuntarily in his throat and almost choking him.
+
+"Oh, Kiddie!" wailed Elizabeth again, looking up in plaintive
+appeal--"Oh, mother, mother, see! Grace come here! Kiddie's dead! The
+poor innocent little child!" They came at her call, and knelt with her,
+crying bitterly, and smoothing back with tender hands the thickly
+tangled dark curls of the smiling dead thing, with the fragrance of wild
+thyme clinging about it, as though it were a broken flower torn from the
+woods where it had blossomed. Tom o' the Gleam watched them, and his
+broad chest heaved with a sudden gasping sigh.
+
+"You all know now," he said slowly, staring with strained piteous eyes
+at the little lifeless body--"you understand,--the motor killed my
+Kiddie! He was playing on the road--I was close by among the trees--I
+saw the cursed car coming full speed downhill--I rushed to take the boy,
+but was too late--he cried once--and then--silence! All the laughter
+gone out of him--all the life and love----" He paused with a
+shudder.--"I carried him all the way, and followed the car," he went
+on--"I would have followed it to the world's end! I ran by a short cut
+down near the sea,--and then--I saw the thing break down. I thanked God
+for that! I tracked the murderers here,--I meant to kill the man who
+killed my child!--and I have done it!" He paused again. Then he held out
+his hands and looked at the constable.
+
+"May I--before I go--take him in my arms--and kiss him?" he asked.
+
+The chief officer nodded. He could not speak, but he unfastened Tom's
+manacles and threw them on the floor. Then Tom himself moved feebly and
+unsteadily to where the women knelt beside his dead child. They rose as
+he approached, but did not turn away.
+
+"You have hearts, you women!" he said faintly. "You know what it is to
+love a child! And Kiddie,--Kiddie was such a happy little fellow!--so
+strong and hearty!--so full of life! And now--now he's stiff and cold!
+Only this morning he was jumping and laughing in my arms----" He broke
+off, trembling violently, then with an effort he raised his head and
+turned his eyes with a wild stare upon all around him. "We are only poor
+folk!" he went on, in a firmer voice. "Only gypsies, tinkers,
+road-menders, labourers, and the like! We cannot fight against the rich
+who ride us down! There's no law for us, because we can't pay for it. We
+can't fee the counsel or dine the judge! The rich can pay. They can
+trample us down under their devilish motor-cars, and obliging juries
+will declare our wrongs and injuries and deaths to be mere 'accident' or
+'misadventure'! But if _they_ can kill, by God!--so can _we_! And if the
+law lets them off for murdering our children, we must take the law into
+our own hands and murder _them_ in turn--ay! even if we swing for it!"
+
+No one spoke. The women still sobbed convulsively, but otherwise there
+was a great silence. Tom o' the Gleam stretched forth his hands with an
+eloquent gesture of passion.
+
+"Look at him lying there!" he cried--"Only a child--a little child! So
+pretty and playful!--all his joy was in the birds and flowers! The
+robins knew him and would perch on his shoulder,--he would call to the
+cuckoo,--he would race the swallow,--he would lie in the grass and sing
+with the skylark and talk to the daisies. He was happy with the simplest
+things--and when we put him to bed in his little hammock under the
+trees, he would smile up at the stars and say: 'Mother's up there!
+Good-night, mother!' Oh, the lonely trees, and the empty hammock! Oh, my
+lad!--my little pretty lad! Murdered! Murdered! Gone from me for ever!
+For ever! God! God!"
+
+Reeling heavily forward, he sank in a crouching heap beside the child's
+dead body and snatched it into his embrace, kissing the little cold lips
+and cheeks and eyelids again and again, and pressing it with frantic
+fervour against his breast.
+
+"The dark hour!" he muttered--"the dark hour! To-day when I came away
+over the moors I felt it creeping upon me! Last night it whispered to
+me, and I felt its cold breath hissing against my ears! When I climbed
+down the rocks to the seashore, I heard it wailing in the waves!--and
+through the hollows of the rocks it shrieked an unknown horror at me!
+Who was it that said to-day--'He is only a child after all, and he might
+be taken from you'? I remember!--it was Miss Tranter who spoke--and she
+was sorry afterwards--ah, yes!--she was sorry!--but it was the spirit of
+the hour that moved her to the utterance of a warning--she could not
+help herself,--and I--I should have been more careful!--I should not
+have left my little one for a moment,--but I never thought any harm
+could come to him--no, never to _him_! I was always sure God was too
+good for that!"
+
+Moaning drearily, he rocked the dead boy to and fro.
+
+"Kiddie--my Kiddie!" he murmured--"Little one with my love's
+eyes!--heart's darling with my love's face! Don't go to sleep,
+Kiddie!--not just yet!--wake up and kiss me once!--only once again,
+Kiddie!"
+
+"Oh, Tom!" sobbed Elizabeth,--"Oh, poor, poor Tom!"
+
+At the sound of her voice he raised his head and looked up at her. There
+was a strange expression on his face,--a fixed and terrible stare in his
+eyes. Suddenly he broke into a wild laugh.
+
+"Ha-ha!" he cried. "Poor Tom! Tom o' the Gleam! That's me!--the me that
+was not always me! Not always me--no!--not always Tom o' the Gleam! It
+was a bold life I led in the woods long ago!--a life full of sunshine
+and laughter--a life for a man with man's blood in his veins! Away out
+in the land that once was old Provence, we jested and sang the hours
+away,--the women with their guitars and mandolines--the men with their
+wild dances and tambourines,--and love was the keynote of the
+music--love!--always love! Love in the sunshine!--love under the
+moonbeams!--bright eyes in which to drown one's soul,--red lips on which
+to crush one's heart!--Ah, God!--such days when we were young!
+
+    'Ah! Craignons de perdre un seul jour,
+    De la belle saison de l'amour!'"
+
+He sang these lines in a rich baritone, clear and thrilling with
+passion, and the men grouped about him, not understanding what he sang,
+glanced at one another with an uneasy sense of fear. All at once he
+struggled to his feet without assistance, and stood upright, still
+clasping the body of his child in his arms.
+
+"Come, come!" he said thickly--"It's time we were off, Kiddie! We must
+get across the moor and into camp. It's time for all lambs to be in the
+fold;--time to go to bed, my little lad! Good-night, mates! Good-night!
+I know you all,--and you all know me--you like fair play! Fair play all
+round, eh? Not one law for the rich and another for the poor! Even
+justice, boys! Justice! Justice!"
+
+Here his voice broke in a great and awful cry,--blood sprang from his
+lips--his face grew darkly purple,--and like a huge tree snapped asunder
+by a storm, he reeled heavily to the ground. One of the constables
+caught him as he fell.
+
+"Hold up, Tom!" he said tremulously, the thick tears standing in his
+eyes. "Don't give way! Be a man! Hold up! Steady! Here, let me take the
+poor Kiddie!"
+
+For a ghastly pallor was stealing over Tom's features, and his lips were
+widely parted in a gasping struggle for breath.
+
+"No--no!--don't take my boy!" he muttered feebly. "Let me--keep
+him--with me! God is good--good after all!--we shall not--be parted!"
+
+A strong convulsion shook his sinewy frame from head to foot, and he
+writhed in desperate agony. The officer put an arm under his head, and
+made an expressive sign to the awed witnesses of the scene. Helmsley,
+startled at this, came hurriedly forward, trembling and scarcely able to
+speak in the extremity of his fear and pity.
+
+"What--what is it?" he stammered. "Not--not----?"
+
+"Death! That's what it is!" said the officer, gently. "His heart's
+broken!"
+
+One rough fellow here pushed his way to the side of the fallen man,--it
+was the cattle-driver who had taken part in the previous conversation
+among the customers at the inn before the occurrence of the tragedy. He
+knelt down, sobbing like a child.
+
+"Tom!" he faltered, "Tom, old chap! Hearten up a bit! Don't leave us!
+There's not one of us us'll think ill of ye!--no, not if the law was to
+shut ye up for life! You was allus good to us poor folk--an' poor folk
+aint as forgittin' o' kindness as rich. Stay an' help us along,
+Tom!--you was allus brave an' strong an' hearty--an' there's many of us
+wantin' comfort an' cheer, eh Tom?"
+
+Tom's splendid dark eyes opened, and a smile, very wan and wistful,
+gleamed across his lips.
+
+"Is that you, Jim?" he muttered feebly. "It's all dark and cold!--I
+can't see!--there'll be a frost to-night, and the lambs must be watched
+a bit--I'm afraid I can't help you, Jim--not to-night! Wanting comfort,
+did you say? Ay!--plenty wanting that, but I'm past giving it, my boy!
+I'm done."
+
+He drew a struggling breath with pain and difficulty.
+
+"You see, Jim, I've killed a man!" he went on,
+gaspingly--"And--and--I've no money--we all share and share alike in
+camp--it won't be worth any one's while to find excuses for me. They'd
+shut me up in prison if I lived--but now--God's my judge! And He's
+merciful--He's giving me my liberty!"
+
+His eyelids fell wearily, and a shadow, dark at first, and then
+lightening into an ivory pallor, began to cover his features like a fine
+mask, at sight of which the girls, Elizabeth and Grace, with their
+mother, knelt down and hid their faces. Every one in the room knelt too,
+and there was a profound stillness. Tom's breathing grew heavier and
+more laboured,--once they made an attempt to lift the weight of his
+child's dead body from his breast, but his hands were clenched upon it
+convulsively and they could not loosen his hold. All at once Elizabeth
+lifted her head and prayed aloud--
+
+"O God, have mercy on our poor friend Tom, and help him through the
+Valley of the Shadow! Grant him Thy forgiveness for all his sins, and
+let him find----" here she broke down and sobbed pitifully,--then
+between her tears she finished her petition--"Let him find his little
+child with Thee!"
+
+A low and solemn "Amen" was the response to her prayer from all present,
+and suddenly Tom opened his eyes with a surprised bright look.
+
+"Is Kiddie all right?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, Tom!" It was Elizabeth who answered, bending over him--"Kiddie's
+all right! He's fast asleep in your arms."
+
+"So he is!" And the brilliancy in Tom's eyes grew still more radiant,
+while with one hand he caressed the thick dark curls that clustered on
+the head of his dead boy--"Poor little chap! Tired out, and so am I!
+It's very cold surely!"
+
+"Yes, Tom, it is. Very cold!"
+
+"I thought so! I--I must keep the child warm. They'll be worried in camp
+over all this--Kiddie never stays out so late. He's such a little
+fellow--only four!--and he goes to bed early always. And when--when he's
+asleep--why then--then--the day's over for me,--and night begins--night
+begins!"
+
+The smile lingered on his lips, and settled there at last in coldest
+gravity,--the fine mask of death covered his features with an
+impenetrable waxen stillness--all was over! Tom o' the Gleam had gone
+with his slain child, and the victim he had sacrificed to his revenge,
+into the presence of that Supreme Recorder who chronicles all deeds both
+good and evil, and who, in the character of Divine Justice, may,
+perchance, find that the sheer brutal selfishness of the modern social
+world is more utterly to be condemned, and more criminal even than
+murder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Sick at heart, and utterly overcome by the sudden and awful tragedy to
+which he had been an enforced silent witness, David Helmsley had now but
+one idea, and that was at once to leave the scene of horror which, like
+a ghastly nightmare, scarred his vision and dizzied his brain. Stumbling
+feebly along, and seeming to those who by chance noticed him, no more
+than a poor old tramp terrified out of his wits by the grief and
+confusion which prevailed, he made his way gradually through the crowd
+now pressing closely round the dead, and went forth into the village
+street. He held the little dog Charlie nestled under his coat, where he
+had kept it hidden all the evening,--the tiny creature was shivering
+violently with that strange consciousness of the atmosphere of death
+which is instinctive to so many animals,--and a vague wish to soothe its
+fears helped him for the moment to forget his own feelings. He would not
+trust himself to look again at Tom o' the Gleam, stretched lifeless on
+the ground with his slaughtered child clasped in his arms; he could not
+speak to any one of the terrified people. He heard the constables giving
+hurried orders for the removal of the bodies, and he saw two more police
+officers arrive and go into the stableyard of the inn, there to take the
+number of the motor-car and write down the full deposition of that
+potentate of the pictorial press, James Brookfield. And he knew, without
+any explanation, that the whole affair would probably be served up the
+next day in the cheaper newspapers as a "sensational" crime, so worded
+as to lay all the blame on Tom o' the Gleam, and to exonerate the act,
+and deplore the violent death of the "lordly" brute who, out of his
+selfish and wicked recklessness, had snatched away the life of an only
+child from its father without care or compunction. But it was the
+fearful swiftness of the catastrophe that affected Helmsley most,--that,
+and what seemed to him, the needless cruelty of fate. Only last night he
+had seen Tom o' the Gleam for the first time--only last night he had
+admired the physical symmetry and grace of the man,--his handsome head,
+his rich voice, and the curious refinement, suggestive of some past
+culture and education, which gave such a charm to his manner,--only last
+night he had experienced that little proof of human sympathy and
+kindliness which had shown itself in the gift of the few coins which Tom
+had collected and placed on his pillow,--only last night he had been
+touched by the herculean fellow's tenderness for his little
+"Kiddie,"--and now,--within the space of twenty-four hours, both father
+and child had gone out of life at a rush as fierce and relentless as the
+speed of the motor-car which had crushed a world of happiness under its
+merciless wheels. Was it right--was it just that such things should be?
+Could one believe in the goodness of God, in such a world of wanton
+wickedness? Moving along in a blind haze of bewilderment, Helmsley's
+thoughts were all disordered and his mind in a whirl,--what
+consciousness he had left to him was centred in an effort to get
+away--away!--far away from the scene of murder and death,--away from the
+scent and trail of blood which seemed to infect and poison the very air!
+
+It was a calm and lovely night. The moon rode high, and there was a soft
+wind blowing in from the sea. Out over the waste of heaving water, where
+the moonbeams turned the small rippling waves to the resemblance of
+netted links of silver or steel, the horizon stretched sharply clear and
+definite, like a line drawn under the finished chapter of vision. There
+was a gentle murmur of the inflowing tide among the loose stones and
+pebbles fringing the beach,--but to Helmsley's ears it sounded like the
+miserable moaning of a broken heart,--the wail of a sorrowful spirit in
+torture. He went on and on, with no very distinct idea of where he was
+going,--he simply continued to walk automatically like one in a dream.
+He did not know the time, but guessed it must be somewhere about
+midnight. The road was quite deserted, and its loneliness was to him, in
+his present over-wrought condition, appalling. Desolation seemed to
+involve the whole earth in gloom,--the trees stood out in the white
+shine of the moon like dark shrouded ghosts waving their cerements to
+and fro,--the fields and hills on either side of him were bare and
+solitary, and the gleam of the ocean was cold and cheerless as a "Dead
+Man's Pool." Slowly he plodded along, with a thousand disjointed
+fragments of thought and memory teasing his brain, all part and parcel
+of his recent experiences,--he seemed to have lived through a whole
+history of strange events since the herb-gatherer, Matt Peke, had
+befriended him on the road,--and the most curious impression of all was
+that he had somehow lost his own identity for ever. It was impossible
+and ridiculous to think of himself as David Helmsley, the
+millionaire,--there was, there could be no such person! David
+Helmsley,--the real David Helmsley,--was very old, very tired, very
+poor,--there was nothing left for him in this world save death. He had
+no children, no friends,--no one who cared for him or who wanted to know
+what had become of him. He was absolutely alone,--and in the hush of the
+summer night he fancied that the very moon looked down upon him with a
+chill stare as though wondering why he burdened the earth with his
+presence when it was surely time for him to die!
+
+It was not till he found that he was leaving the shore line, and that
+one or two gas lamps twinkled faintly ahead of him, that he realized he
+was entering the outskirts of a small town. Pausing a moment, he looked
+about him. A high-walled castle, majestically enthroned on a steep
+wooded height, was the first object that met his view,--every line of
+its frowning battlements and turrets was seen clearly against the sky as
+though etched out on a dark background with a pencil of light. A
+sign-post at the corner of a winding road gave the direction "To Dunster
+Castle." Reading this by the glimmer of the moon, Helmsley stood
+irresolute for a minute or so, and then resumed his tramp, proceeding
+through the streets of what he knew must be Dunster itself. He had no
+intention of stopping in the town,--an inward nervousness pushed him on,
+on, in spite of fatigue, and Dunster was not far enough away from Blue
+Anchor to satisfy him. The scene of Tom o' the Gleam's revenge and death
+surrounded him with a horrible environment,--an atmosphere from which he
+sought to free himself by sheer distance, and he resolved to walk till
+morning rather than remain anywhere near the place which was now
+associated in his mind with one of the darkest episodes of human guilt
+and suffering that he had ever known. Passing by the old inn known as
+"The Luttrell Arms," now fast closed for the night, a policeman on his
+beat stopped in his marching to and fro, and spoke to him.
+
+"Hillo! Which way do you come from?"
+
+"From Watchett."
+
+"Oh! We've just had news of a murder up at Blue Anchor. Have you heard
+anything of it?"
+
+"Yes." And Helmsley looked his questioner squarely in the face. "It's a
+terrible business! But the murderer's caught!"
+
+"Caught is he? Who's got him?"
+
+"Death!" And Helmsley, lifting his cap, stood bareheaded in the
+moonlight. "He'll never escape again!"
+
+The constable looked amazed and a little awed.
+
+"Death? Why, I heard it was that wild gypsy, Tom o' the Gleam----"
+
+"So it was,"--said Helmsley, gently,--"and Tom o' the Gleam is dead!"
+
+"No! Don't say that!" ejaculated the constable with real concern.
+"There's a lot of good in Tom! I shouldn't like to think he's gone!"
+
+"You'll find it's true," said Helmsley. "And perhaps, when you get all
+the details, you'll think it for the best. Good-night!"
+
+"Are you staying in Dunster?" queried the officer with a keen glance.
+
+"No. I'm moving on." And Helmsley smiled wearily as he again
+said--"Good-night!"
+
+He walked steadily, though slowly, through the sleeping town, and passed
+out of it. Ascending a winding bit of road he found himself once more in
+the open country, and presently came to a field where part of the fence
+had been broken through by the cattle. Just behind the damaged palings
+there was a covered shed, open in front, with a few bundles of straw
+packed within it. This place suggested itself as a fairly comfortable
+shelter for an hour's rest, and becoming conscious of the intense aching
+of his limbs, he took possession of it, setting the small "Charlie" down
+to gambol on the grass at pleasure. He was far more tired than he knew,
+and remembering the "yerb wine" which Matt Peke had provided him with,
+he took a long draught of it, grateful for its reviving warmth and tonic
+power. Then, half-dreamily, he watched the little dog whom he had
+rescued and befriended, and presently found himself vaguely entertained
+by the graceful antics of the tiny creature which, despite its wounded
+paw, capered limpingly after its own shadow flung by the moonlight on
+the greensward, and attempted in its own playful way to attract the
+attention of its new master and wile him away from his mood of utter
+misery. Involuntarily he thought of the frenzied cry of Shakespeare's
+"Lear" over the dead body of Cordelia:--
+
+    "What! Shall a dog, a horse, a rat, have life
+    And thou no breath at all!"
+
+What curious caprice of destiny was it that saved the life of a dog, yet
+robbed a father of his child? Who could explain it? Why should a happy
+innocent little lad like Tom o' the Gleam's "Kiddie" have been hurled
+out of existence in a moment as it were by the mad speed of a motor's
+wheels,--and a fragile "toy" terrier, the mere whim of dog-breeders and
+plaything for fanciful women, be plucked from starvation and death as
+though the great forces of creation deemed it more worth cherishing than
+a human being! For the murder of Lord Wrotham, Helmsley found
+excuse,--for the death of Tom there was ample natural cause,--but for
+the wanton killing of a little child no reason could justly be assigned.
+Propping his elbows on his knees, and resting his aching head on his
+hands, he thought and thought,--till Thought became almost as a fire in
+his brain. What was the use of life? he asked himself. What definite
+plan or object could there possibly be in the perpetuation of the human
+race?
+
+    "To pace the same dull round
+      On each recurring day,
+    For seventy years or more
+      Till strength and hope decay,--
+    To trust,--and be deceived,--
+      And standing,--fear to fall!
+    To find no resting-place--
+      _Can this be all?_"
+
+Beginning with hope and eagerness, and having confidence in the good
+faith of his fellow-men, had he not himself fought a hard fight in the
+world, setting before him a certain goal,--a goal which he had won and
+passed,--to what purpose? In youth he had been very poor,--and poverty
+had served him as a spur to ambition. In middle life he had become one
+of the richest men in the world. He had done all that rich and ambitious
+men set themselves out to do. He might have said with the Preacher:
+
+"Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them,--I withheld not my
+heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced in all my labour, and this was
+my portion of all my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my
+hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do, and
+behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit
+under the sun."
+
+He had loved,--or rather, he had imagined he loved,--he had married, and
+his wife had dishonoured him. Sons had been born to him, who, with their
+mother's treacherous blood in their veins, had brought him to shame by
+their conduct,--and now all the kith and kin he had sought to surround
+himself with were dead, and he was alone--as alone as he had ever been
+at the very commencement of his career. Had his long life of toil led
+him only to this? With a sense of dull disappointment, his mind reverted
+to the plan he had half entertained of benefiting Tom o' the Gleam in
+some way and making him happy by prospering the fortunes of the child he
+loved so well,--though he was fully aware that perhaps he could not have
+done much in that direction, as it was more than likely that Tom would
+have resented the slightest hint of a rich man's patronage. Death,
+however, in its fiercest shape, had now put an abrupt end to any such
+benevolent scheme, whether or not it might have been feasible,--and,
+absorbed in a kind of lethargic reverie, he again and again asked
+himself what use he was in the world?--what could he do with the brief
+remaining portion of his life?--and how he could dispose, to his own
+satisfaction, of the vast wealth which, like a huge golden mill-stone,
+hung round his neck, dragging him down to the grave? Such poor people as
+he had met with during his tramp seemed fairly contented with their lot;
+he, at any rate, had heard no complaints of poverty from them. On the
+contrary, they had shown an independence of thought and freedom of life
+which was wholly incompatible with the mere desire of money. He could
+put a five-pound note in an envelope and post it anonymously to Matt
+Peke at the "Trusty Man" as a slight return for his kindness, but he was
+quite sure that though Matt might be pleased enough with the money he
+would equally be puzzled, and not entirely satisfied in his mind as to
+whether he was doing right to accept and use it. It would probably be
+put in a savings bank for a "rainy day."
+
+"It is the hardest thing in the world to do good with money!" he mused,
+sorrowfully. "Of course if I were to say this to the unthinking
+majority, they would gape upon me and exclaim--'Hard to do good! Why,
+there's nothing so easy! There are thousands of poor,--there are the
+hospitals--the churches!' True,--but the thousands of _real_ poor are
+not so easily found! There are thousands, ay, millions of 'sham' poor.
+But the _real_ poor, who never ask for anything,--who would not know how
+to write a begging letter, and who would shrink from writing it even if
+they did know--who starve patiently, suffer uncomplainingly, and die
+resignedly--these are as difficult to meet with as diamonds in a coal
+mine. As for hospitals, do I not know how many of them pander to the
+barbarous inhumanity of vivisection!--and have I not experienced to the
+utmost dregs of bitterness, the melting of cash through the hands of
+secretaries and under-secretaries, and general Committee-ism, and Red
+Tape-ism, while every hundred thousand pounds bestowed on these
+necessary institutions turns out in the end to be a mere drop in the sea
+of incessant demand, though the donors may possibly purchase a
+knighthood, a baronetcy, or even a peerage, in return for their gifts!
+And the churches!--my God!--as Madame Roland said of Liberty, what
+crimes are committed in Thy Name!"
+
+He looked up at the sky through the square opening of the shed, and saw
+the moon, now changed in appearance and surrounded by a curious luminous
+halo like the nimbus with which painters encircle the head of a saint.
+It was a delicate aureole of prismatic radiance, and seemed to have
+swept suddenly round the silver planet in companionship with a light
+mist from the sea,--a mist which was now creeping slowly upwards and
+covering the land with a glistening wetness as of dew. A few fleecy
+clouds, pale grey and white, were floating aloft in the western half of
+the heavens, evoked by some magic touch of the wind.
+
+"It will soon be morning,"--thought Helmsley--"The sun will rise in its
+same old glorious way--with as measured and monotonous a circuit as it
+has made from the beginning. The Garden of Eden, the Deluge, the
+building of the Pyramids, the rise and fall of Rome, the conquests of
+Alexander, the death of Socrates, the murder of Caesar, the crucifixion
+of Christ,--the sun has shone on all these things of beauty, triumph or
+horror with the same even radiance, always the generator of life and
+fruitfulness, itself indifferent as to what becomes of the atoms
+germinated under its prolific heat and vitality. The sun takes no heed
+whether a man dies or lives--neither does God!"
+
+Yet with this idea came a sudden revulsion. Surely in the history of
+human events, there was ample proof that God, or the invisible Power we
+call by that name, did care? Crime was, and is, always followed by
+punishment, sooner or later. Who ordained,--who ordains that this shall
+be? Who is it that distinguishes between Right and Wrong, and adjusts
+the balance accordingly? Not Man,--for Man in a barbarous state is often
+incapable of understanding moral law, till he is trained to it by the
+evolution of his being and the ever-progressive working of the unseen
+spiritual forces. And the first process of his evolution is the
+awakening of conscience, and the struggle to rise from his mere Self to
+a higher ideal of life,--from material needs to intellectual
+development. Why is he thus invariably moved towards this higher ideal?
+If the instinct were a mistaken one, foredoomed to disappointment, it
+would not be allowed to exist. Nature does not endow us with any sense
+of which we do not stand in need, or any attribute which is useless to
+us in the shaping and unfolding of our destinies. True it is that we see
+many a man and woman who appear to have no souls, but we dare not infer
+from these exceptions that the soul does not exist. Soulless beings
+simply have no need of spirituality, just as the night-owl has no need
+of the sun,--they are bodies merely, and as bodies perish. As the angel
+said to the prophet Esdras:--"The Most High hath made this world for
+many, but the world to come for few. I will tell thee a similitude,
+Esdras; As when thou askest the earth, it shall say unto thee that it
+giveth much mould whereof earthern vessels are made, but little dust
+that gold cometh of, even so is the course of this present world!"
+
+Weary of arguing with himself, Helmsley tried to reflect back on certain
+incidents of his youth, which now in his age came out like prominent
+pictures in the gallery of his brain. He remembered the pure and simple
+piety which distinguished his mother, who lived her life out as sweetly
+as a flower blooms,--thanking God every morning and night for His
+goodness to her, even at times when she was most sorrowful,--he thought
+of his little sister, dead in the springtime of her girlhood, who never
+had a doubt of the unfailing goodness and beneficence of her Creator,
+and who, when dying, smiled radiantly, and whispered with her last
+breath, "I wish you would not cry for me, Davie dear!--the next world is
+so beautiful!" Was this "next world" in her imagination, or was it a
+fact? Materialists would, of course, say it was imagination. But, in the
+light of present-day science and discovery, who can pin one's faith on
+Materialism?
+
+"I have missed the talisman that would have made all the darkness of
+life clear to me," he said at last, half aloud; "and missing it, I have
+missed everything of real value. Pain, loss, old age, and death would
+have been nothing to me, if I had only won that magic glory of the
+world--Love!"
+
+His eyes again wandered to the sky, and he noticed that the
+grey-and-white clouds in the west were rising still higher in fleecy
+pyramids, and were spreading with a wool-like thickness gradually over
+the whole heavens. The wind, too, had grown stronger, and its sighing
+sound had changed to a more strenuous moaning. The little dog, Charlie,
+tired of its master's gloomy absorption, jumped on his knee, and
+intimated by eloquent looks and wagging tail a readiness to be again
+nestled into some cosy corner. The shed was warm and comfortable, and
+after some brief consideration, he decided to try and sleep for an hour
+or so before again starting on his way. With this object in view, he
+arranged the packages of straw which filled one side of the shed into
+the form of an extemporary couch, which proved comfortable enough when
+he lay down with Charlie curled up beside him. He could not help
+thinking of the previous night, when he had seen the tall figure of Tom
+o' the Gleam approaching his bedside at the "Trusty Man," with the
+little "surprise" gift he had so stealthily laid upon his pillow,--and
+it was difficult to realise or to believe that the warm, impulsive heart
+had ceased to beat, and that all that splendid manhood was now but
+lifeless clay. He tried not to see the horribly haunting vision of the
+murdered Wrotham, with that terrible gash in his throat, and the blood
+pouring from it,--he strove to forget the pitiful picture of the little
+dead "Kiddie" in the arms of its maddened and broken-hearted father--but
+the impression was too recent and too ghastly for forgetfulness.
+
+"And yet with it all," he mused, "Tom o' the Gleam had what I have never
+possessed--love! And perhaps it is better to die--even in the awful way
+he died--in the very strength and frenzy of love--rather than live
+loveless!"
+
+Here Charlie heaved a small sigh, and nestled a soft silky head close
+against his breast. "I love you!" the little creature seemed to say--"I
+am only a dog--but I want to comfort you if I can!" And he
+murmured--"Poor Charlie! Poor wee Charlie!" and, patting the flossy coat
+of his foundling, was conscious of a certain consolation in the mere
+companionship of an animal that trusted to him for protection.
+
+Presently he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. His brain was somewhat
+confused, and scraps of old songs and verses he had known in boyhood,
+were jumbled together without cause or sequence, varying in their turn
+with the events of his business, his financial "deals" and the general
+results of his life's work. He remembered quite suddenly and for no
+particular reason, a battle he had engaged in with certain directors of
+a company who had attempted to "better" him in a particularly important
+international trade transaction, and he recalled his own sweeping
+victory over them with a curious sense of disgust. What did it
+matter--now?--whether he had so many extra millions, or so many more
+degrees of power? Certain lines of Tennyson's seemed to contain greater
+truths than all the money-markets of the world could supply:--
+
+    "O let the solid earth
+      Not fail beneath my feet,
+    Before my life has found
+      What some have found so sweet--
+    Then let come what come may,
+      What matter if I go mad,
+    I shall have had my day!
+
+    "Let the sweet heavens endure
+      Not close and darken above me,
+    Before I am quite, quite sure
+      That there is one to love me;
+    Then let come what come may
+      To a life that has been so sad,
+    I shall have had my day!"
+
+He murmured this last verse over and over again till it made mere
+monotony in his mind, and till at last exhausted nature had its way and
+lulled his senses into a profound slumber. Strange to say, as soon as he
+was fast asleep, Charlie woke up. Perking his little ears sharply, he
+sat briskly erect on his tiny haunches, his forepaws well placed on his
+master's breast, his bright eyes watchfully fixed on the opening of the
+shed, and his whole attitude expressing that he considered himself "on
+guard." It was evident that had the least human footfall broken the
+stillness, he would have made the air ring with as much noise as he was
+capable of. He had a vibrating bark of his own, worthy of a much larger
+animal, and he appeared to be anxiously waiting for an opportunity to
+show off this special accomplishment. No such chance, however, offered
+itself; the minutes and hours went by in undisturbed order. Now and then
+a rabbit scampered across the field, or an owl flew through the trees
+with a plaintive cry,--otherwise, so far as the immediate surroundings
+of the visible land were concerned, everything was perfectly calm. But
+up in the sky there were signs of gathering trouble. The clouds had
+formed into woollier masses,--their grey had changed to black, their
+white to grey, and the moon, half hidden, appeared to be hurrying
+downward to the west in a flying scud of etheric foam. Some disturbance
+was brewing in the higher altitudes of air, and a low snarling murmur
+from the sea responded to what was, perchance, the outward gust of a
+fire-tempest in the sun. The small Charlie was, no doubt, quite ignorant
+of meteorological portents, nevertheless he kept himself wide awake,
+sniffing at empty space in a highly suspicious manner, his tiny black
+nose moist with aggressive excitement, and his whole miniature being
+prepared to make "much ado about nothing" on the smallest provocation.
+
+The morning broke sullenly, in a dull haze, though here and there pale
+patches of blue, and flushes of rose-pink, showed how fair the day would
+willingly have made itself, had only the elements been propitious.
+Helmsley slept well on through the gradual unfolding of the dawn, and it
+was fully seven o'clock when he awoke with a start, scarcely knowing
+where he was. Charlie hailed his return to consciousness with marked
+enthusiasm, and dropping the sentry "Who goes there?" attitude,
+gambolled about him delightedly. Presently remembering his environment
+and the events which were a part of it, he quickly aroused himself, and
+carefully packing up all the bundles of straw in the shed, exactly as he
+had found them, he again went forth upon what he was disposed to
+consider now a penitential pilgrimage.
+
+"In old times," he said to himself, as he bathed his face and hands in a
+little running stream by the roadside--"kings, when they found
+themselves miserable and did not know why they were so, went to the
+church for consolation, and were told by the priests that they had
+sinned--and that it was their sins that made them wretched. And a
+journey taken with fasting was prescribed--much in the way that our
+fashionable physicians prescribe change of air, a limited diet and
+plenty of exercise to the luxurious feeders of our social hive. And the
+weary potentates took off their crowns and their royal robes, and
+trudged along as they were told--became tramps for the nonce, like me.
+But I need no priest to command what I myself ordain!"
+
+He resumed his onward way ploddingly and determinedly, though he was
+beginning to be conscious of an increasing weariness and lassitude which
+seemed to threaten him with a break-down ere long. But he would not
+think of this.
+
+"Other men have no doubt felt just as weak," he thought. "There are many
+on the road as old as I am and even older. I ought to be able to do of
+my own choice what others do from necessity. And if the worst comes to
+the worst, and I am compelled to give up my project, I can always get
+back to London in a few hours!"
+
+He was soon at Minehead, and found that quaint little watering-place
+fully astir; for so far as it could have a "season," that season was now
+on. A considerable number of tourists were about, and coaches and brakes
+were getting ready in the streets for those who were inclined to
+undertake the twenty miles drive from Minehead to Lynton. Seeing a
+baker's shop open he went in and asked the cheery-looking woman behind
+the counter if she would make him a cup of coffee, and let him have a
+saucer of milk for his little dog. She consented willingly, and showed
+him a little inner room, where she spread a clean white cloth on the
+table and asked him to sit down. He looked at her in some surprise.
+
+"I'm only 'on the road,'" he said--"Don't put yourself out too much for
+me."
+
+She smiled.
+
+"You'll pay for what you've ordered, I suppose?"
+
+"Certainly!"
+
+"Then you'll get just what everybody gets for their money,"--and her
+smile broadened kindly--"We don't make any difference between poor and
+rich."
+
+She retired, and he dropped into a chair, wearily. "We don't make any
+difference between poor and rich!" said this simple woman. How very
+simple she was! No difference between poor and rich! Where would
+"society" be if this axiom were followed! He almost laughed to think of
+it. A girl came in and brought his coffee with a plate of fresh
+bread-and-butter, a dish of Devonshire cream, a pot of jam, and a small
+round basket full of rosy apples,--also a saucer of milk which she set
+down on the floor for Charlie, patting him kindly as she did so, with
+many admiring comments on his beauty.
+
+"You've brought me quite a breakfast!" said Helmsley. "How much?"
+
+"Sixpence, please."
+
+"Only sixpence?"
+
+"That's all. It's a shilling with ham and eggs."
+
+Helmsley paid the humble coin demanded, and wondered where the "starving
+poor" came in, at any rate in Somersetshire. Any beggar on the road,
+making sixpence a day, might consider himself well fed with such a meal.
+Just as he drew up his chair to the table, a sudden gust of wind swept
+round the house, shaking the whole building, and apparently hurling the
+weight of its fury on the roof, for it sounded as if a whole stack of
+chimney-pots had fallen.
+
+"It's a squall,"--said the girl--"Father said there was a storm coming.
+It often blows pretty hard up this way."
+
+She went out, and left Helmsley to himself. He ate his meal, and fed
+Charlie with as much bread and milk as that canine epicure could
+consume,--and then sat for a while, listening to the curious hissing of
+the wind, which was like a suppressed angry whisper in his ears.
+
+"It will be rough weather,"--he thought--"Now shall I stay in Minehead,
+or go on?"
+
+Somehow, his experience of vagabondage had bred in him a certain
+restlessness, and he did not care to linger in any one place. An
+inexplicable force urged him on. He was conscious that he entertained a
+most foolish, most forlorn secret hope,--that of finding some yet
+unknown consolation,--of receiving some yet unobtained heavenly
+benediction. And he repeated again the lines:--
+
+    "Let the sweet heavens endure,
+      Not close and darken above me,
+    Before I am quite, quite sure
+      That there is one to love me!"
+
+Surely a Divine Providence there was who could read his heart's desire,
+and who could see how sincerely in earnest he was to find some channel
+wherein the current of his accumulated wealth might flow after his own
+death, to fruitfulness and blessing for those who truly deserved it.
+
+"Is it so much to ask of destiny--just one honest heart?" he inwardly
+demanded--"Is it so large a return to want from the world in which I
+have toiled so long--just one unselfish love? People would tell me I am
+too old to expect such a thing,--but I am not seeking the love of a
+lover,--that I know is impossible. But Love,--that most god-like of all
+emotions, has many phases, and a merely sexual attraction is the least
+and worst part of the divine passion. There is a higher form,--one far
+more lasting and perfect, in which Self has very little part,--and
+though I cannot give it a name, I am certain of its existence!"
+
+Another gust of wind, more furious than the last, whistled overhead and
+through the crannies of the door. He rose, and tucking Charlie warmly
+under his coat as before, he went out, pausing on his way to thank the
+mistress of the little bakery for the excellent meal he had enjoyed.
+
+"Well, you won't hurt on it," she said, smilingly; "it's plain, but it's
+wholesome. That's all we claim for it. Are you going on far?"
+
+"Yes, I'm bound for a pretty long tramp,"--he replied. "I'm walking to
+find friends in Cornwall."
+
+She opened her eyes in unfeigned wonder and compassion.
+
+"Deary me!" she ejaculated--"You've a stiff road before you. And to-day
+I'm afraid you'll be in for a storm."
+
+He glanced out through the shop-window.
+
+"It's not raining,"--he said.
+
+"Not yet,--but it's blowing hard,"--she replied--"And it's like to blow
+harder."
+
+"Never mind, I must risk it!" And he lifted his cap; "Good-day!"
+
+"Good-day! A safe journey to you!"
+
+"Thank you!"
+
+And, gratefully acknowledging the kindly woman's parting nod and smile,
+he stepped out of the shop into the street. There he found the wind had
+risen indeed. Showers of blinding dust were circling in the air,
+blotting out the view,--the sky was covered with masses of murky cloud
+drifting against each other in threatening confusion--and there was a
+dashing sound of the sea on the beach which seemed to be steadily
+increasing in volume and intensity. He paused for a moment under the
+shelter of an arched doorway, to place Charlie more comfortably under
+his arm and button his coat more securely, the while he watched the
+people in the principal thoroughfare struggling with the capricious
+attacks of the blast, which tore their hats off and sent them spinning
+across the road, and played mischievous havoc with women's skirts,
+blowing them up to the knees, and making a great exhibition of feet, few
+of which were worth looking at from any point of beauty or fitness. And
+then, all at once, amid the whirling of the gale, he heard a hoarse
+stentorian shouting--"Awful Murder! Local Crime! Murder of a Nobleman!
+Murder at Blue Anchor! Latest details!" and he started precipitately
+forward, walking hurriedly along with as much nervous horror as though
+he had been guiltily concerned in the deed with which the town was
+ringing. Two or three boys ran past him, with printed placards in their
+hands, which they waved in front of them, and on which in thick black
+letters could be seen:--"Murder of Lord Wrotham! Death of the Murderer!
+Appalling Tragedy at Blue Anchor!" And, for a few seconds, amid the
+confusion caused by the wind, and the wild clamour of the news-vendors,
+he felt as if every one were reeling pell-mell around him like persons
+on a ship at sea,--men with hats blown off,--women and children running
+aslant against the gale with hair streaming,--all eager to purchase the
+first papers which contained the account of a tragedy, enacted, as it
+were, at their very doors. Outside a little glass and china shop at the
+top of a rather hilly street a group of workingmen were standing, with
+the papers they had just bought in their hands, and Helmsley, as he
+trudged by, with stooping figure and bent head set against the wind,
+lingered near them a moment to hear them discuss the news.
+
+"Ah, poor Tom!" exclaimed one--"Gone at last! I mind me well how he used
+to say he'd die a bad death!"
+
+"What's a bad death?" queried another, gruffly--"And what's the truth
+about this here business anyhow? Newspapers is allus full o' lies.
+There's a lot about a lord that's killed, but precious little about
+Tom!"
+
+"That's so!" said an old farmer, who with spectacles on was leaning his
+back against the wall of the shop near which they stood, to shelter
+himself a little from the force of the gale, while he read the paper he
+held--"See here,--this lord was driving his motor along by Cleeve, and
+ran over Tom's child,--why, that's the poor Kiddie we used to see Tom
+carrying for miles on his shoulder----"
+
+"Ah, the poor lamb!" And a commiserating groan ran through the little
+group of attentive listeners.
+
+"And then,"--continued the farmer--"from what I can make out of this
+paper, Tom picked up his baby quite dead. Then he started to run all the
+way after the fellow whose motor car had killed it. That's nat'ral
+enough!"
+
+"Of course it is!" "I'd a' done it myself!" "Damn them motors!" muttered
+the chorus, fiercely.
+
+"If so be the motor 'ad gone on, Tom couldn't never 'ave caught up with
+it, even if he'd run till he dropped," went on the farmer--"but as luck
+would 'ave it, the thing broke down nigh to Blue Anchor, and Tom got his
+chance. Which he took. And--he killed this Lord Wrotham, whoever he
+is,--stuck him in the throat with a knife as though he were a pig!"
+
+There was a moment's horrified silence.
+
+"So he wor!" said one man, emphatically--"A right-down reg'lar
+road-hog!"
+
+"Then,"--proceeded the farmer, carefully studying the paper again--"Tom,
+'avin' done all his best an' worst in this world, gives himself up to
+the police, but just 'afore goin' off, asks if he may kiss his dead
+baby,----"
+
+A long pause here ensued. Tears stood in many of the men's eyes.
+
+"And," continued the farmer, with a husky and trembling voice--"he takes
+the child in his arms, an' all sudden like falls down dead. God rest
+him!"
+
+Another pause.
+
+"And what does the paper say about it all?" enquired one of the group.
+
+"It says--wait a minute!--it says--'Society will be plunged into
+mourning for Lord Wrotham, who was one of the most promising of our
+younger peers, and whose sporting tendencies made him a great favourite
+in Court circles.'"
+
+"That's a bit o' bunkum paid for by the fam'ly!" said a great hulking
+drayman who had joined the little knot of bystanders, flicking his whip
+as he spoke,--"Sassiety plunged into mourning for the death of a
+precious raskill, is it? I 'xpect it's often got to mourn that way! Rort
+an' rubbish! Tell ye what!--Tom o' the Gleam was worth a dozen o' your
+motorin' lords!--an' the hull countryside through Quantocks, ay, an'
+even across Exmoor, 'ull 'ave tears for 'im an' 'is pretty little Kiddie
+what didn't do no 'arm to anybody more'n a lamb skippin' in the fields.
+Tom worn't known in their blessed 'Court circles,'--but, by the
+Lord!--he'd got a grip o' the people's heart about here, an' the people
+don't forget their friends in a hurry! Who the devil cares for Lord
+Wrotham!"
+
+"Who indeed!" murmured the chorus.
+
+"An' who'll say a bad word for Tom o' the Gleam?"
+
+"Nobody!" "He wor a rare fine chap!" "We'll all miss him!" eagerly
+answered the chorus.
+
+With a curious gesture, half of grief, half of defiance, the drayman
+tore a scrap of black lining from his coat, and tied it to his whip.
+
+"Tom was pretty well known to be a terror to some folk,--specially liars
+an' raskills,"--he said--"An' I aint excusin' murder. But all the same
+I'm in mourning for Tom an' 'is little Kiddie, an' I don't care who
+knows it!"
+
+He went off, and the group dispersed, partly driven asunder by the
+increasing fury of the wind, which was now sweeping through the streets
+in strong, steady gusts, hurling everything before it. But Helmsley set
+his face to the storm and toiled on. He must get out of Minehead. This
+he felt to be imperative. He could not stay in a town which now for many
+days would talk of nothing else but the tragic death of Tom o' the
+Gleam. His nerves were shaken, and he felt himself to be mentally, as
+well as physically, distressed by the strange chance which had
+associated him against his will with such a grim drama of passion and
+revenge. He remembered seeing the fateful motor swing down that
+precipitous road near Cleeve,--he recalled its narrow escape from a
+complete upset at the end of the declivity when it had swerved round the
+corner and rushed on,--how little he had dreamed that a child's life had
+just been torn away by its reckless wheels!--and that child the
+all-in-the-world to Tom o' the Gleam! Tom must have tracked the motor by
+following some side-lane or short cut known only to himself, otherwise
+Helmsley thought he would hardly have escaped seeing him. But, in any
+case, the slow and trudging movements of an old man must have lagged
+far, far behind those of the strong, fleet-footed gypsy to whom the
+wildest hills and dales, cliffs and sea caves were all familiar ground.
+Like a voice from the grave, the reply Tom had given to Matt Peke at the
+"Trusty Man," when Matt asked him where he had come from, rang back upon
+his ears--"From the caves of Cornwall! From picking up drift on the
+shore and tracking seals to their lair in the hollows of the rocks! All
+sport, Matt! I live like a gentleman born, keeping or killing at my
+pleasure!"
+
+Shuddering at this recollection, Helmsley pressed on in the teeth of the
+blast, and a sudden shower of rain scudded by, stinging him in the face
+with the sharpness of needlepoints. The gale was so high, and the blown
+dust so thick on all sides, that he could scarcely see where he was
+going, but his chief effort was to get out of Minehead and away from all
+contact with human beings--for the time. In this he succeeded very soon.
+Once well beyond the town, he did not pause to make a choice of roads.
+He only sought to avoid the coast line, rightly judging that way to lie
+most open and exposed to the storm,--moreover the wind swooped in so
+fiercely from the sea, and the rising waves made such a terrific
+roaring, that, for the mere sake of greater quietness, he turned aside
+and followed a path which appeared to lead invitingly into some deep
+hollow of the hills. There seemed a slight chance of the weather
+clearing at noon, for though the wind was so high, the clouds were
+whitening under passing gleams of sunlight, and the scud of rain had
+passed. As he walked further and further he found himself entering a
+deep green valley--a cleft between high hills,--and though he had no
+idea which way it led him, he was pleased to have reached a
+comparatively sheltered spot where the force of the hurricane was not so
+fiercely felt, and where the angry argument of the sea was deadened by
+distance. There was a lovely perfume everywhere,--the dash of rain on
+the herbs and field flowers had brought out their scent, and the
+freshness of the stormy atmosphere was bracing and exhilarating. He put
+Charlie down on the grass, and was amused to see how obediently the tiny
+creature trotted after him, close at his heels, in the manner of a
+well-trained, well-taught lady's favourite. There was no danger of
+wheeled or motor traffic in this peaceful little glen, which appeared to
+be used solely by pedestrians. He rather wondered now and then whither
+it led, but was not very greatly concerned on the subject. What pleased
+him most was that he did not see a single human being anywhere or a sign
+of human habitation.
+
+Presently the path began to ascend, and he followed it upward. The climb
+became gradually steep and wearisome, and the track grew smaller, almost
+vanishing altogether among masses of loose stones, which had rolled down
+from the summits of the hills, and he had again to carry Charlie, who
+very strenuously objected to the contact of sharp flints against his
+dainty little feet. The boisterous wind now met him full-faced,--but,
+struggling against it, he finally reached a wide plateau, commanding a
+view of the surrounding country and the sea. Not a house was in
+sight;--all around him extended a chain of hills, like a fortress set
+against invading ocean,--and straight away before his eyes ocean itself
+rose and fell in a chaos of billowy blackness. What a sight it was!
+Here, from this point, he could take some measure and form some idea of
+the storm, which so far from abating as he had imagined it might, when
+passing through the protected seclusion of the valley he had just left,
+was evidently gathering itself together for a still fiercer onslaught.
+
+Breathless with his climbing exertions he stood watching the huge walls
+of water, built up almost solidly as it seemed, by one force and dashed
+down again by another,--it was as though great mountains lifted
+themselves over each other to peer at the sky and were driven back again
+to shapelessness and destruction. The spectacle was all the more grand
+and impressive to him, because where he now was he could not hear the
+full clamour of the rolling and retreating billows. The thunder of the
+surf was diminished to a sullen moan, which came along with the wind and
+clung to it like a concordant note in music, forming one sustained chord
+of wrath and desolation. Darkening steadily over the sea and densely
+over-spreading the whole sky, there were flying clouds of singular
+shape,--clouds tossed up into the momentary similitude of Titanesque
+human figures with threatening arms outstretched,--anon, to the filmly
+outlines of fabulous birds swooping downwards with jagged wings and
+ravenous beaks,--or twisting into columns and pyramids of vapour as
+though the showers of foam flung up by the waves had been caught in
+mid-air and suddenly frozen. Several sea-gulls were flying inland; two
+or three soared right over Helmsley's head with a plaintive cry. He
+turned to watch their graceful flight, and saw another phalanx of clouds
+coming up behind to meet and cope with those already hurrying in with
+the wind from the sea. The darkness of the sky was deepening every
+minute, and he began to feel a little uneasy. He realised that he had
+lost his way, and he looked on all sides for some glimpse of a main
+road, but could see none, and the path he had followed evidently
+terminated at the summit where he stood. To return to the valley he had
+left seemed futile, as it was only a way back to Minehead, which place
+he wished to avoid. There was a small sheep track winding down on the
+other side of the hill, and he thought it possible that this might lead
+to a farm-road, which again might take him out on some more direct
+highway. He therefore started to follow it. He could scarcely walk
+against the wind; it blew with such increasing fury. Charlie shivered
+away from its fierce breath and snuggled his tiny body more warmly under
+his protector's arm, withdrawing himself entirely from view. And now
+with a sudden hissing whirl, down came the rain. The two opposing forces
+of cloud met with a sudden rush, and emptied their pent-up torrents on
+the earth, while a low muttering noise, not of the wind, betokened
+thunder. The prolonged heat of the last month had been very great all
+over the country, and a suppressed volcano was smouldering in the heart
+of the heavens, ready to shoot forth fire. The roaring of the sea grew
+more distinct as Helmsley descended from the height and came nearer to
+the coast line,--and the mingled scream of the angry surf on the shore
+and the sword-like sweep of the rain, rang in his ears deafeningly, with
+a kind of monotonous horror. His head began to swim, and his eyes were
+half blinded by the sharp showers that whipped his face with blown drops
+as hard and cold as hail. On he went, however, more like a struggling
+dreamer in a dream, than with actual consciousness,--and darker and
+wilder grew the storm. A forked flash of lightning, running suddenly
+like melted lava down the sky, flung half a second's lurid blue glare
+athwart the deepening blackness,--and in less than two minutes it was
+followed by the first decisive peal of thunder rolling in deep
+reverberations from sea to land, from land to sea again. The war of the
+elements had begun in earnest. Amid their increasing giant wrath,
+Helmsley stumbled almost unseeingly along,--keeping his head down and
+leaning more heavily than was his usual wont upon the stout ash stick
+which was part of the workman's outfit he had purchased for himself in
+Bristol, and which now served him as his best support. In the gathering
+gloom, with his stooping thin figure, he looked more like a faded leaf
+fluttering in the gale than a man, and he was beginning now to realise
+with keen disappointment that his strength was not equal to the strain
+he had been putting upon it. The weight of his seventy years was
+pressing him down,--and a sudden thrill of nervous terror ran through
+him lest his whim for wandering should cost him his life.
+
+"And if I were to die of exhaustion out here on the hills, what would be
+said of me?" he thought--"They would find my body--perhaps--after some
+days;--they would discover the money I carry in my vest lining, and a
+letter to Vesey which would declare my actual identity. Then I should be
+called a fool or a madman--most probably the latter. No one would
+know,--no one would guess--except Vesey--the real object with which I
+started on this wild goose chase after the impossible. It is a foolish
+quest! Perhaps after all I had better give it up, and return to the old
+wearisome life of luxury,--the old ways!--and die in my bed in the usual
+'respectable' style of the rich, with expensive doctors, nurses and
+medicines set in order round me, and all arrangements getting ready for
+a 'first-class funeral'!"
+
+He laughed drearily. Another flash of lightning, followed almost
+instantaneously by a terrific crash of thunder, brought him to a pause.
+He was now at the bottom of the hill which he had ascended from the
+other side, and perceived a distinct and well-trodden path which
+appeared to lead in a circuitous direction towards the sea. Here there
+seemed some chance of getting out of the labyrinth of hills into which
+he had incautiously wandered, and, summoning up his scattered forces, he
+pressed on. The path proved to be an interminable winding way,--first
+up--then down,--now showing glimpses of the raging ocean, now dipping
+over bare and desolate lengths of land,--and presently it turned
+abruptly into a deep thicket of trees. Drenched with rain and tired of
+fighting against the boisterous wind which almost tore his breath away,
+he entered this dark wood with a vague sense of relief,--it offered some
+sort of shelter, and if the trees attracted the lightning and he were
+struck dead beneath them, what did it matter after all! One way of dying
+was as good (or as bad) as another!
+
+The over-arching boughs dripping with wet, closed over him and drew him,
+as it were, into their dense shadows,--the wind shrieked after him like
+a scolding fury, but its raging tone grew softer as he penetrated more
+deeply into the sable-green depths of heavily foliaged solitude. His
+weary feet trod gratefully on a thick carpet of pine needles and masses
+of the last year's fallen leaves,--and a strong sweet scent of mingled
+elderflower and sweetbriar was tossed to him on every gust of rain. Here
+the storm turned itself to music and revelled in a glorious symphony of
+sound.
+
+"Oh ye Winds of God, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for
+ever!
+
+"Oh ye Lightnings and Clouds, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify
+Him for ever!"
+
+In full chords of passionate praise the hurricane swept its grand anthem
+through the rustling, swaying trees, as though these were the strings of
+a giant harp on which some great Archangel played,--and the dash and
+roar of the sea came with it, rolling in the track of another mighty
+peal of thunder. Helmsley stopped and listened, seized by an
+overpowering enchantment and awe.
+
+"This--this is Life!" he said, half aloud--"Our miserable human
+vanities--our petty schemes--our poor ambitions--what are they? Motes in
+a sunbeam!--gone as soon as realised! But Life,--the deep,
+self-contained divine Life of Nature--this is the only life that lives
+for ever, the Immortality of which we are a part!"
+
+A fierce gust of wind here snapped asunder a great branch from a tree,
+and flung it straight across his path. Had he been a few inches nearer,
+it would have probably struck him down with it. Charlie peeped out from
+under his arm with a pitiful little whimper, and Helmsley's heart smote
+him.
+
+"Poor wee Charlie!" he said, fondling the tiny head; "I know what you
+would say to me! You would say that if I want to risk my own life, I
+needn't risk yours! Is that it? Well!--I'll try to get you out of this
+if I can! I wish I I could see some sign of a house anywhere! I'd make
+for it and ask for shelter."
+
+He trudged patiently onwards,--but he was beginning to feel unsteady in
+his limbs,--and every now and then he had to stop, overcome by a
+sickening sensation of giddiness. The tempest had now fully developed
+into a heavy thunderstorm, and the lightning quivered and gleamed
+through the trees incessantly, followed by huge claps of thunder which
+clashed down without a second's warning, afterwards rolling away in long
+thudding detonations echoing for miles and miles. It was difficult to
+walk at all in such a storm,--the youngest and strongest pedestrian
+might have given way under the combined onslaught of rain, wind, and the
+pattering shower of leaves which were literally torn, fresh and green,
+from their parent boughs and cast forth to whirl confusedly amid the
+troubled spaces of the air. And if the young and strong would have found
+it hard to brave such an uproar of the elements, how much harder was it
+for an old man, who, deeming himself stronger than he actually was, and
+buoyed up by sheer nerve and mental obstinacy, had, of his own choice,
+brought himself into this needless plight and danger. For now, in utter
+weariness of body and spirit, Helmsley began to reproach himself
+bitterly for his rashness. A mere caprice of the imagination,--a fancy
+that, perhaps, among the poor and lowly he might find a love or a
+friendship he had never met with among the rich and powerful, was all
+that had led him forth on this strange journey of which the end could
+but be disappointment and failure;--and at the present moment he felt so
+thoroughly conscious of his own folly, that he almost resolved on
+abandoning his enterprise as soon as he found himself once more on the
+main road.
+
+"I will take the first vehicle that comes by,"--he said, "and make for
+the nearest railway station. And I'll end my days with a character for
+being 'hard as nails!'--that's the only way in which one can win the
+respectful consideration of one's fellows as a thoroughly 'sane and
+sensible' man!"
+
+Just then, the path he was following started sharply up a steep
+acclivity, and there was no other choice left to him but still to
+continue in it, as the trees were closing in blindly intricate tangles
+about him, and the brushwood was becoming so thick that he could not
+have possibly forced a passage through it. His footing grew more
+difficult, for now, instead of soft pine-needles and leaves to tread
+upon, there were only loose stones, and the rain was blowing in downward
+squalls that almost by their very fury threw him backward on the ground.
+Up, still up, he went, however, panting painfully as he climbed,--his
+breath was short and uneasy--and all his body ached and shivered as with
+strong ague. At last,--dizzy and half fainting,--he arrived at the top
+of the tedious and troublesome ascent, and uttered an involuntary cry at
+the scene of beauty and grandeur stretched in front of him. How far he
+had walked he had no idea,--nor did he know how many hours he had taken
+in walking,--but he had somehow found his way to the summit of a rocky
+wooded height, from which he could survey the whole troubled expanse of
+wild sky and wilder sea,--while just below him the hills were split
+asunder into a huge cleft, or "coombe," running straight down to the
+very lip of ocean, with rampant foliage hanging about it on either side
+in lavish garlands of green, and big boulders piled up about it, from
+whose smooth surfaces the rain swept off in sleety sheets, leaving them
+shining like polished silver. What a wild Paradise was here
+disclosed!--what a matchless picture, called into shape and colour with
+all the forceful ease and perfection of Nature's handiwork! No glimpse
+of human habitation was anywhere visible; man seemed to have found no
+dwelling here; there was nothing--nothing, but Earth the Beautiful, and
+her Lover the Sea! Over these twain the lightnings leaped, and the
+thunder played in the sanctuary of heaven,--this hour of storm was all
+their own, and humanity was no more counted in their passionate
+intermingling of life than the insects on a leaf, or the grains of sand
+on the shore. For a moment or two Helmsley's eyes, straining and dim,
+gazed out on the marvellously bewitching landscape thus suddenly
+unrolled before him,--then all at once a sharp pain running through his
+heart caused him to flinch and tremble. It was a keen stab of anguish,
+as though a knife had been plunged into his body.
+
+"My God!" he muttered--"What--what is this?"
+
+Walking feebly to a great stone hard by, he sat down upon it, breathing
+with difficulty. The rain beat full upon him, but he did not heed it; he
+sought to recover from the shock of that horrible pain,--to overcome the
+creeping sick sensation of numbness which seemed to be slowly freezing
+him to death. With a violent effort he tried to shake the illness
+off;--he looked up at the sky--and was met by a blinding flash which
+tore the clouds asunder and revealed a white blaze of palpitating fire
+in the centre of the blackness--and at this he made some inarticulate
+sound, putting both his hands before his face to hide the angry mass of
+flame. In so doing he let the little Charlie escape, who, finding
+himself out of his warm shelter and on the wet grass, stood amazed, and
+shivering pitifully under the torrents of rain. But Helmsley was not
+conscious of his canine friend's distress. Another pang, cruel and
+prolonged, convulsed him,--a blood-red mist swam before his eyes, and he
+lost all hold on sense and memory. With a dull groan he fell forward,
+slipping from the stone on which he had been seated, in a helpless heap
+on the ground,--involuntarily he threw up his arms as a drowning man
+might do among great waves overwhelming him,--and so went
+down--down!--into silence and unconsciousness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+The storm raged till sunset; and then exhausted by its own stress of
+fury, began to roll away in angry sobs across the sea. The wind sank
+suddenly; the rain as suddenly ceased. A wonderful flush of burning
+orange light cut the sky asunder, spreading gradually upward and paling
+into fairest rose. The sullen clouds caught brightness at their summits,
+and took upon themselves the semblance of Alpine heights touched by the
+mystic glory of the dawn, and a clear silver radiance flashed across the
+ocean for a second and then vanished, as though a flaming torch had just
+flared up to show the troublous heaving of the waters, and had then been
+instantly quenched. As the evening came on the weather steadily
+cleared;--and presently a pure, calm, dark-blue expanse of ether
+stretched balmily across the whole width of the waves, with the evening
+star--the Star of Love--glimmering faintly aloft like a delicate jewel
+hanging on the very heart of the air. Far away down in the depths of the
+"coombe," a church bell rang softly for some holy service,--and when
+David Helmsley awoke at last from his death-like swoon he found himself
+no longer alone. A woman knelt beside him, supporting him in her
+arms,--and when he looked up at her wonderingly, he saw two eyes bent
+upon him with such watchful tenderness that in his weak, half-conscious
+state he fancied he must be wandering somewhere through heaven if the
+stars were so near. He tried to speak--to move,--but was checked by a
+gentle pressure of the protecting arms about him.
+
+"Better now, dearie?" murmured a low anxious voice. "That's right! Don't
+try to get up just yet--take time! Let the strength come back to you
+first!"
+
+Who was it--who could it be, that spoke to him with such affectionate
+solicitude? He gazed and gazed and marvelled,--but it was too dark to
+see the features of his rescuer. As consciousness grew more vivid, he
+realised that he was leaning against her bosom like a helpless
+child,--that the wet grass was all about him,--and that he was
+cold,--very cold, with a coldness as of some enclosing grave. Sense and
+memory returned to him slowly with sharp stabs of physical pain, and
+presently he found utterance.
+
+"You are very kind!" he muttered, feebly--"I begin to recollect now--I
+had walked a long way--and I was caught in the storm--I felt ill,--very
+ill!--I suppose I must have fallen down here----"
+
+"That's it!" said the woman, gently--"Don't try to think about it!
+You'll be better presently."
+
+He closed his eyes wearily,--then opened them again, struck by a sudden
+self-reproach and anxiety.
+
+"The little dog?" he asked, trembling--"The little dog I had with
+me----?"
+
+He saw, or thought he saw, a smile on the face in the darkness.
+
+"The little dog's all right,--don't you worry about him!" said the
+woman--"He knows how to take care of himself and you too! It was just
+him that brought me along here where I found you. Bless the little soul!
+He made noise enough for six of his size!"
+
+Helmsley gave a faint sigh of pleasure.
+
+"Poor little Charlie! Where is he?"
+
+"Oh, he's close by! He was almost drowned with the rain, like a poor
+mouse in a pail of water, but he went on barking all the same! I dried
+him as well as I could in my apron, and then wrapped him up in my
+cloak,--he's sitting right in it just now watching me."
+
+"If--if I die,--please take care of him!" murmured Helmsley.
+
+"Nonsense, dearie! I'm not going to let you die out here on the
+hills,--don't think it!" said the woman, cheerily,--"I want to get you
+up, and take you home with me. The storm's well overpast,--if you could
+manage to move----"
+
+He raised himself a little, and tried to see her more closer.
+
+"Do you live far from here?" he asked.
+
+"Only just on the upper edge of the 'coombe'--not in the village,"--she
+answered--"It's quite a short way, but a bit steep going. If you lean on
+me, I won't let you slip,--I'm as strong as a man, and as men go
+nowadays, stronger than most!"
+
+He struggled to rise, and she assisted him. By dint of sheer mental
+force and determination he got himself on his feet, but his limbs shook
+violently, and his head swam.
+
+"I'm afraid"--he faltered--"I'm afraid I am very ill. I shall only be a
+trouble to you----"
+
+"Don't talk of trouble? Wait till I fetch the doggie!" And, turning from
+him a moment, she ran to pick up Charlie, who, as she had said, was
+snugly ensconced in the folds of her cloak, which she had put for him
+under the shelter of a projecting boulder,--"Could you carry him, do you
+think?"
+
+He nodded assent, and put the little animal under his coat as before,
+touched almost to weak tears to feel it trying to lick his hand.
+Meanwhile his unknown and scarcely visible protectress put an arm round
+him, holding him up as carefully as though he were a tottering infant.
+
+"Don't hurry--just take an easy step at a time,"--she said--"The moon
+rises a bit late, and we'll have to see our way as best we can with the
+stars." And she gave a glance upward. "That's a bright one just over the
+coombe,--the girls about here call it 'Light o' Love.'"
+
+Moving stiffly, and with great pain, Helmsley was nevertheless impelled,
+despite his suffering, to look, as she was looking, towards the heavens.
+There he saw the same star that had peered at him through the window of
+his study at Carlton House Terrace,--the same that had sparkled out in
+the sky the night that he and Matt Peke had trudged the road together,
+and which Matt had described as "the love-star, an' it'll be nowt else
+in these parts till the world-without-end-amen!" And she whose eyes were
+upturned to its silvery glory,--who was she? His sight was very dim, and
+in the deepening shadows he could only discern a figure of medium
+womanly height,--an uncovered head with the hair loosely knotted in a
+thick coil at the nape of the neck,--and the outline of a face which
+might be fair or plain,--he could not tell. He was conscious of the warm
+strength of the arm that supported him, for when he slipped once or
+twice, he was caught up tenderly, without hurt or haste, and held even
+more securely than before. Gradually, and by halting degrees, he made
+the descent of the hill, and, as his guide helped him carefully over a
+few loose stones in the path, he saw through a dark clump of foliage the
+glimmer of twinkling lights, and heard the rush of water. He paused,
+vaguely bewildered.
+
+"Nearly home now!" said his guide, encouragingly; "Just a few steps more
+and we'll be there. My cottage is the last and the highest in the
+coombe. The other houses are all down closer to the sea."
+
+Still he stood inert.
+
+"The sea!" he echoed, faintly--"Where is it?"
+
+With her disengaged hand she pointed outwards.
+
+"Yonder! By and by, when the moon comes over the hill, it will be
+shining like a silver field with big daisies blowing and growing all
+over it. That's the way it often looks after a storm. The tops of the
+waves are just like great white flowers."
+
+He glanced at her as she said this, and caught a closer glimpse of her
+face. Some faint mystical light in the sky illumined the outlines of her
+features, and showed him a calm and noble profile, such as may be found
+in early Greek sculpture, and which silently expresses the lines:
+
+    "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
+    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know!"
+
+He moved on with a quicker step, touched by a keen sense of expectation.
+Ill as he knew himself to be, he was eager to reach this woman's
+dwelling and to see her more closely. A soft laugh of pleasure broke
+from her lips as he tried to accelerate his pace.
+
+"Oh, we're getting quite strong and bold now, aren't we!" she exclaimed,
+gaily--"But take care not to go too fast! There's a rough bit of bog and
+boulder coming."
+
+This was true. They had arrived at the upper edge of a bank overlooking
+a hill stream which was pouring noisily down in a flood made turgid by
+the rain, and the "rough bit of bog and boulder" was a sort of natural
+bridge across the torrent, formed by heaps of earth and rock, out of
+which masses of wet fern and plumy meadow-sweet sprang in tall tufts and
+garlands, which though beautiful to the eyes in day-time, were apt to
+entangle the feet in walking, especially when there was only the
+uncertain glimmer of the stars by which to grope one's way. Helmsley's
+age and over-wrought condition made his movements nervous and faltering
+at this point, and nothing could exceed the firm care and delicate
+solicitude with which his guide helped him over this last difficulty of
+the road. She was indeed strong, as she had said,--she seemed capable
+of lifting him bodily, if need were--yet she was not a woman of large or
+robust frame. On the contrary, she appeared slightly built, and carried
+herself with that careless grace which betokens perfect form. Once
+safely across the bridge and on the other side of the coombe, she
+pointed to a tiny lattice window with a light behind it which gleamed
+out through the surrounding foliage like a glow-worm in the darkness.
+
+"Here we are at home," she said,--"Just along this path--it's quite
+easy!--now under this tree--it's a big chestnut,--you'll love it!--now
+here's the garden gate--wait till I lift the latch--that's right!--the
+garden's quite small you see,--it goes straight up to the cottage--and
+here's the door! Come in!"
+
+As in a dream, Helmsley was dimly conscious of the swishing rustle of
+wet leaves, and the fragrance of mignonette and roses mingling with the
+salty scent of the sea,--then he found himself in a small, low,
+oak-raftered kitchen, with a wide old-fashioned hearth and ingle-nook,
+warm with the glow of a sparkling fire. A quaintly carved comfortably
+cushioned armchair was set in the corner, and to this his guide
+conducted him, and gently made him sit down.
+
+"Now give me the doggie!" she said, taking that little personage from
+his arms--"He'll be glad of his supper and a warm bed, poor little soul!
+And so will you!"
+
+With a kindly caress she set Charlie down in front of the hearth, and
+proceeded to shut the cottage door, which had been left open as they
+entered,--and locking it, dropped an iron bar across it for the night.
+Then she threw off her cloak, and hung it up on a nail in the wall, and
+bending over a lamp which was burning low on the table, turned up its
+wick a little higher. Helmsley watched her in a kind of stupefied
+wonderment. As the lamplight flashed up on her features, he saw that she
+was not a girl, but a woman who seemed to have thought and suffered. Her
+face was pale, and the lines of her mouth were serious, though very
+sweet. He could hardly judge whether she had beauty or not, because he
+saw her at a disadvantage. He was too ill to appreciate details, and he
+could only gaze at her in the dim and troubled weariness of an old and
+helpless man, who for the time being was dependent on any kindly aid
+that might be offered to him. Once or twice the vague idea crossed his
+mind that he would tell her who he was, and assure her that he had
+plenty of money about him to reward her for her care and pains,--but he
+could not bring himself to the point of this confession. The surprise
+and sweetness of being received thus unquestioningly under the shelter
+of her roof as merely the poor way-worn tramp he seemed to be, were too
+great for him to relinquish. She, meanwhile, having trimmed the lamp,
+hurried into a neighboring room, and came in again with a bundle of
+woollen garments, and a thick flannel dressing gown on her arm.
+
+"This was my father's," she said, as she brought it to him--"It's soft
+and cosy. Get off your wet clothes and slip into it, while I go and make
+your bed ready."
+
+She spread the dressing gown before the fire to warm it, and was about
+to turn away again, when Helmsley laid a detaining hand on her arm.
+
+"Wait--wait!" he said--"Do you know what you are doing?"
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Well, now that _is_ a question! Do I seem crazy?"
+
+"Almost you do--to me!" And stirred into a sudden flicker of animation,
+he held her fast as he spoke--"Do you live alone here?"
+
+"Yes,--quite alone."
+
+"Then don't you see how foolish you are? You are taking into your house
+a mere tramp,--a beggar who is more likely to die than live! Do you
+realise how dangerous this is for you? I may be an escaped convict,--a
+thief--even a murderer! You cannot tell!"
+
+She smiled and nodded at him as a nurse might nod and smile at a
+fanciful or querulous patient.
+
+"I can't tell, certainly, and don't want to know!" she replied--"I go by
+what I see."
+
+"And what do you see?"
+
+She patted his thin cold hand kindly.
+
+"I see a very old man--older than my own dear father was when he
+died--and I know he is too old and feeble to be out at night in the wet
+and stormy weather. I know that he is ill and weak, and suffering from
+exhaustion, and that he must rest and be well nourished for a few days
+till he gets strong again. And I am going to take care of him,"--here
+she gave a consoling little pressure to the hand she held. "I am
+indeed! And he must do as he is told, and take off his wet clothes and
+get ready for bed!"
+
+Something in Helmsley's throat tightened like the contraction of a
+rising sob.
+
+"You will risk all this trouble,"--he faltered--"for a
+stranger--who--who--cannot repay you--?----"
+
+"Now, now! You mustn't hurt me!" she said, with a touch of reproach in
+her soft tones--"I don't want to be repaid in any way. You know WHO it
+was that said 'I was a stranger and ye took me in'? Well, He would wish
+me to take care of you."
+
+She spoke quite simply, without any affectation of religious sentiment.
+Helmsley looked at her steadily.
+
+"Is that why you shelter me?"
+
+She smiled very sweetly, and he saw that her eyes were beautiful.
+
+"That is one reason, certainly!"--she answered; "But there is
+another,--quite a selfish one! I loved my father, and when he died, I
+lost everything I cared for in the world. You remind me of him--just a
+little. Now will you do as I ask you, and take off your wet things?"
+
+He let go her hand gently.
+
+"I will,"--he said, unsteadily--for there were tears in his eyes--"I
+will do anything you wish. Only tell me your name!"
+
+"My name? My name is Mary,--Mary Deane."
+
+"Mary Deane!" he repeated softly--and yet again--"Mary Deane! A pretty
+name! Shall I tell you mine!"
+
+"Not unless you like,"--she replied, quickly--"It doesn't matter!"
+
+"Oh, you'd better know it!" he said--"I'm only old David--a man 'on the
+road' tramping it to Cornwall."
+
+"That's a long way!" she murmured compassionately, as she took his
+weather-beaten hat and shook the wet from it--"And why do you want to
+tramp so far, you poor old David?"
+
+"I'm looking for a friend,"--he answered--"And maybe it's no use
+trying,--but I should like to find that friend before I die."
+
+"And so you will, I'm sure!" she declared, smiling at him, but with
+something of an anxious expression in her eyes, for Helmsley's face was
+very pinched and pallid, and every now and then he shivered violently as
+with an ague fit--"But you must pick up your strength first. Then
+you'll get on better and quicker. Now I'm going to leave you while you
+change. You'll find plenty of warm things with the dressing gown."
+
+She went out as before into the next room, and Helmsley managed, though
+with considerable difficulty, to divest himself of his drenched clothes
+and get on the comfortable woollen garments she had put ready for him.
+When he took off his coat and vest, he spread them in front of the fire
+to dry instead of the dressing-gown which he now wore, and as soon as
+she returned he specially pointed out the vest to her.
+
+"I should like you to put that away somewhere in your own safe
+keeping,"--he said. "It has a few letters and--and papers in it which I
+value,--and I don't want any stranger to see them. Will you take care of
+it for me?"
+
+"Of course I will! Nobody shall touch it, be sure! Not a soul ever comes
+nigh me unless I ask for company!--so you can be quite easy in your
+mind. Now I'm going to give you a cup of hot soup, and then you'll go to
+bed, won't you?--and, please God, you'll be better in the morning!"
+
+He nodded feebly, and forced a smile. He had sunk back in the armchair
+and his eyes were fixed on the warm-hearth, where the tiny dog, Charlie,
+whom he had rescued, and who in turn had rescued him, was curled up and
+snoozing peacefully. Now that the long physical and nervous strain of
+his journey and of his ghastly experience at Blue Anchor was past, he
+felt almost too weak to lift a hand, and the sudden change from the
+fierce buffetings of the storm to the homely tranquillity of this little
+cottage into which he had been welcomed just as though he had every
+right to be there, affected him with a strange sensation which he could
+not analyse. And once he murmured half unconsciously:
+
+"Mary! Mary Deane!"
+
+"Yes,--that's me!" she responded cheerfully, coming to his side at
+once--"I'm here!"
+
+He lifted his head and looked at her.
+
+"Yes, I know you are here,--Mary!" he said, his voice trembling a little
+as he uttered her name--"And I thank God for sending you to me in time!
+But how--how was it that you found me?"
+
+"I was watching the storm,"--she replied--"I love wild weather!--I love
+to hear the wind among the trees and the pouring of the rain! I was
+standing at my door listening to the waves thudding into the hollow of
+the coombe, and all at once I heard the sharp barking of a dog on the
+hill just above here--and sometimes the bark changed to a pitiful little
+howl, as if the animal were in pain. So I put on my cloak and crossed
+the coombe up the bank--it's only a few minutes' scramble, though to you
+it seemed ever such a long way to-night,--and there I saw you lying on
+the grass with the little doggie running round and round you, and making
+all the noise he could to bring help. Wise little beastie!" And she
+stooped to pat the tiny object of her praise, who sighed comfortably and
+stretched his dainty paws out a little more luxuriously--"If it hadn't
+been for him you might have died!"
+
+He said nothing, but watched her in a kind of morbid fascination as she
+went to the fire and removed a saucepan which she had set there some
+minutes previously. Taking a large old-fashioned Delft bowl from a
+cupboard at one side of the fire-place, she filled it with steaming soup
+which smelt deliciously savoury and appetising, and brought it to him
+with some daintily cut morsels of bread. He was too ill to feel much
+hunger, but to please her, he managed to sip it by slow degrees, talking
+to her between-whiles.
+
+"You say you live alone here,"--he murmured--"But are you always alone?"
+
+"Always,--ever since father died."
+
+"How long is that ago?"
+
+"Five years."
+
+"You are not--you have not been--married?"
+
+She laughed.
+
+"No indeed! I'm an old maid!"
+
+"Old?" And he raised his eyes to her face. "You are not old!"
+
+"Well, I'm not young, as young people go,"--she declared--"I'm
+thirty-four. I was never married for myself in my youth,--and I shall
+certainly never be married for my money in my age!" Again her pretty
+laugh rang softly on the silence. "But I'm quite happy, all the same!"
+
+He still looked at her intently,--and all suddenly it dawned upon him
+that she was a beautiful woman. He saw, as for the first time, the clear
+transparency of her skin, the soft brilliancy of her eyes, and the
+wonderful masses of her warm bronze brown hair. He noted the perfect
+poise of her figure, clad as it was in a cheap print gown,--the slimness
+of her waist, the fulness of her bosom, the white roundness of her
+throat. Then he smiled.
+
+"So you are an old maid!" he said--"That's very strange!"
+
+"Oh, I don't think so!" and she shook her head deprecatingly--"Many
+women are old maids by choice as well as by necessity. Marriage isn't
+always bliss, you know! And unless a woman loves a man very very
+much--so much that she can't possibly live her life without him, she'd
+better keep single. At least that's _my_ opinion. Now Mr. David, you
+must go to bed!"
+
+He rose obediently--but trembled as he rose, and could scarcely stand
+from sheer weakness. Mary Deane put her arm through his to support him.
+
+"I'm afraid,"--he faltered--"I'm afraid I shall be a burden to you! I
+don't think I shall be well enough to start again on my way to-morrow."
+
+"You won't be allowed to do any such foolish thing!" she answered, with
+quick decision--"So you can just make up your mind on _that_ score! You
+must stay here as my guest."
+
+"Not a paying one, I fear!" he said, with a pained smile, and a quick
+glance at her.
+
+She gave a slight gesture of gentle reproach.
+
+"I wouldn't have you on paying terms,"--she answered; "I don't take in
+lodgers."
+
+"But--but--how do you live?"
+
+He put the question hesitatingly, yet with keen curiosity.
+
+"How do I live? You mean how do I work for a living? I am a lace mender,
+and a bit of a laundress too. I wash fine muslin gowns, and mend and
+clean valuable old lace. It's pretty work and pleasant enough in its
+way."
+
+"Does it pay you well?"
+
+"Oh, quite sufficiently for all my needs. I don't cost much to keep!"
+And she laughed--"I'm all by myself, and I was never money-hungry! Now
+come!--you mustn't talk any more. You know who I am and what I am,--and
+we'll have a good long chat to-morrow. It's bed-time!"
+
+She led him, as though he were a child, into a little room,--one of the
+quaintest and prettiest he had ever seen,--with a sloping raftered
+ceiling, and one rather wide latticed window set in a deep embrasure and
+curtained with spotless white dimity. Here there was a plain
+old-fashioned oak bedstead, trimmed with the same white hangings, the
+bed itself being covered with a neat quilt of diamond-patterned silk
+patchwork. Everything was delicately clean, and fragrant with the odour
+of dried rose-leaves and lavender,--and it was with all the zealous care
+of an anxious housewife that Mary Deane assured her "guest" that the
+sheets were well-aired, and that there was not "a speck of damp"
+anywhere. A kind of instinct told him that this dainty little sleeping
+chamber, so fresh and pure, with not even a picture on its white-washed
+walls, and only a plain wooden cross hung up just opposite to the bed,
+must be Mary's own room, and he looked at her questioningly.
+
+"Where do you sleep yourself?" he asked.
+
+"Upstairs,"--she answered, at once--"Just above you. This is a
+two-storied cottage--quite large really! I have a parlour besides the
+kitchen,--oh, the parlour's very sweet!--it has a big window which my
+father built himself, and it looks out on a lovely view of the orchard
+and the stream,--then I have three more rooms, and a wash-house and
+cellar. It's almost too big a cottage for me, but father loved it, and
+he died here,--that's why I keep all his things about me and stay on in
+it. He planted all the roses in the orchard,--and I couldn't leave
+them!"
+
+Helmsley said nothing in answer to this. She put an armchair for him
+near the bed.
+
+"Now as soon as you're in bed, just call to me and I'll put out the
+light in the kitchen and go to bed myself,"--she said--"And I'll take
+the little doggie with me, and make him comfortable for the night. I'm
+leaving you a candle and matches, and if you feel badly at all, there's
+a handbell close by,--mind you ring it, and I'll come to you at once and
+do all I can for you."
+
+He bent his eyes searchingly upon her in his old suspicious "business"
+way, his fuzzy grey eyebrows almost meeting in the intensity of his
+gaze.
+
+"Tell me--why are you so good to me?" he asked.
+
+She smiled.
+
+"Don't ask nonsense questions, please, Mr. David! Haven't I told you
+already?--not why I am 'good,' because that's rubbish--but why I am
+trying to take care of you?"
+
+"Yes--because I am old!" he said, with a sudden pang of
+self-contempt--"and--useless!"
+
+"Good-night!" she answered, cheerfully--"Call to me when you are ready!"
+
+She was gone before he could speak another word and he heard her talking
+to Charlie in petting playful terms of endearment. Judging from the
+sounds in the kitchen, he concluded, and rightly, that she was getting
+her own supper and that of the dog at the same time. For two or three
+minutes he sat inert, considering his strange and unique position. What
+would this present adventure lead to? Unless his new friend, Mary Deane,
+examined the vest he had asked her to take care of for him, she would
+not discover who he was or from whence he came. Would she examine
+it?--would she unrip the lining, just out of feminine curiosity, and sew
+it up again, pretending that she had not touched it, after the "usual
+way of women"? No! He was sure,--absolutely sure--of her integrity.
+What? In less than an hour's acquaintance with her, would he swear to
+her honesty? Yes, he would! Never could such eyes as hers, so softly,
+darkly blue and steadfast, mirror a falsehood, or deflect the fragment
+of a broken promise! And so, for the time being, in utter fatigue of
+both body and mind, he put away all thought, all care for the future,
+and resigned himself to the circumstances by which he was now
+surrounded. Undressing as quickly as he could in his weak and trembling
+condition, he got into the bed so comfortably prepared for him, and lay
+down in utter lassitude, thankful for rest. After he had lain so for a
+few minutes he called:
+
+"Mary Deane!"
+
+She came at once, and looked in, smiling.
+
+"All cosy and comfortable?" she queried--"That's right!" Then entering
+the room, she showed him the very vest, the possible fate of which he
+had been considering.
+
+"This is quite dry now,"--she said--"I've been thinking that perhaps as
+there are letters and papers inside, you'd like to have it near you,--so
+I'm just going to put it in here--see?" And she opened a small cupboard
+in the wall close to the bed--"There! Now I'll lock it up"--and she
+suited the action to the word--"Where shall I put the key?"
+
+"Please keep it for me yourself!" he answered, earnestly,--"It will be
+safest with you!"
+
+"Well, perhaps it will,"--she agreed. "Anyhow no one can get at your
+letters without _my_ consent! Now, are you quite easy?"
+
+And, as she spoke, she came and smoothed the bedclothes over him, and
+patted one of his thin, worn hands which lay, almost unconsciously to
+himself, outside the quilt.
+
+"Quite!" he said, faintly, "God bless you!"
+
+"And you too!" she responded--"Good-night--David!"
+
+"Good-night--Mary!"
+
+She went away with a light step, softly closing the door behind her.
+Returning to the kitchen she took up the little dog Charlie in her arms,
+and nestled him against her bosom, where he was very well content to be,
+and stood for a moment looking meditatively into the fire.
+
+"Poor old man!" she murmured--"I'm so glad I found him before it was too
+late! He would have died out there on the hills, I'm sure! He's very
+ill--and so worn out and feeble!"
+
+Involuntarily her glance wandered to a framed photograph which stood on
+the mantelshelf, showing the likeness of a white-haired man standing
+among a group of full-flowering roses, with a smile upon his wrinkled
+face,--a smile expressing the quaintest and most complete satisfaction,
+as though he sought to illustrate the fact that though he was old, he
+was still a part of the youthful blossoming of the earth in summer-time.
+
+"What would you have done, father dear, if you had been here
+to-night?"--she queried, addressing the portrait--"Ah, I need not ask! I
+know! You would have brought your suffering brother home, to share all
+you had;--you would have said to him 'Rest, and be thankful!' For you
+never turned the needy from your door, my dear old dad!--never!--no
+matter how much you were in need yourself!"
+
+She wafted a kiss to the venerable face among the roses,--and then
+turning, extinguished the lamp on the table. The dying glow of the fire
+shone upon her for a moment, setting a red sparkle in her hair, and a
+silvery one on the silky head of the little dog she carried, and
+outlining her fine profile so that it gleamed with a pure soft pallor
+against the surrounding darkness,--and with one final look round to see
+that all was clear for the night, she went away noiselessly like a
+lovely ghost and disappeared, her step making no sound on the short
+wooden stairs that led to the upper room which she had hastily arranged
+for her own accommodation, in place of the one now occupied by the
+homeless wayfarer she had rescued.
+
+There was no return of the storm. The heavens, with their mighty burden
+of stars, remained clear and tranquil,--the raging voice of ocean was
+gradually sinking into a gentle crooning song of sweet content,--and
+within the little cottage complete silence reigned, unbroken save for
+the dash of the stream outside, rushing down through the "coombe" to the
+sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+The next morning Helmsley was too ill to move from his bed, or to be
+conscious of his surroundings. And there followed a long period which to
+him was well-nigh a blank. For weeks he lay helpless in the grasp of a
+fever which over and over again threatened to cut the last frail thread
+of his life asunder. Pain tortured every nerve and sinew in his body,
+and there were times of terrible collapse,--when he was conscious of
+nothing save an intense longing to sink into the grave and have done
+with all the sharp and cruel torment which kept him on the rack of
+existence. In a semi-delirious condition he tossed and moaned the hours
+away, hardly aware of his own identity. In certain brief pauses of the
+nights and days, when pain was momentarily dulled by stupor, he saw, or
+fancied he saw a woman always near him, with anxiety in her eyes and
+words of soothing consolation on her lips;--and then he found himself
+muttering, "Mary! Mary! God bless you!" over and over again. Once or
+twice he dimly realised that a small dark man came to his bedside and
+felt his pulse and looked at him very doubtfully, and that she, Mary,
+called this personage "doctor," and asked him questions in a whisper.
+But all within his own being was pain and bewilderment,--sometimes he
+felt as though he were one drop in a burning whirlpool of madness--and
+sometimes he seemed to himself to be spinning round and round in a haze
+of blinding rain, of which the drops were scalding hot, and heavy as
+lead,--and occasionally he found that he was trying to get out of bed,
+uttering cries of inexplicable anguish, while at such moments, something
+cool was placed on his forehead, and a gentle arm was passed round him
+till the paroxysm abated, and he fell down again among his pillows
+exhausted. Slowly, and as it were grudgingly, after many days, the
+crisis of the illness passed and ebbed away in dull throbs of
+agony,--and he sank into a weak lethargy that was almost like the
+comatose condition preceding death. He lay staring at the ceiling for
+hours, heedless as to whether he ever moved or spoke again. Some-one
+came and put spoonfuls of liquid nourishment between his lips, and he
+swallowed it mechanically without any sign of conscious appreciation.
+White as white marble, and aged by many years, he remained stretched in
+his rigid corpse-like attitude, his eyes always fixedly upturned, till
+one day he was roused from his deepening torpor by the sound of sobbing.
+With a violent effort he brought his gaze down from the ceiling, and saw
+a figure kneeling by his bed, and a mass of bronze brown hair falling
+over a face concealed by two shapely white hands through which the tears
+were falling. Feebly astonished, he stretched out his thin, trembling
+fingers to touch that wonderful bright mesh of waving tresses, and
+asked--
+
+"What is this? Who--who is crying?"
+
+The hidden face was uplifted, and two soft eyes, wet with weeping,
+looked up hopefully.
+
+"It's Mary!" said a trembling voice--"You know me, don't you? Oh,
+dearie, if you would but try to rouse yourself, you'd get well even
+now!"
+
+He gazed at her in a kind of childish admiration.
+
+"It's Mary!" he echoed, faintly--"And who is Mary?"
+
+"Don't you remember?" And rising from her knees, she dashed away her
+tears and smiled at him--"Or is it too hard for you to think at all
+about it just now? Didn't I find you out on the hills in the storm, and
+bring you home here?--and didn't I tell you that my name was Mary?"
+
+He kept his eyes upon her wistful face,--and presently a wan smile
+crossed his lips.
+
+"Yes!--so you did!" he answered--"I know you now, Mary! I've been ill,
+haven't I?"
+
+She nodded at him--the tears were still wet on her lashes.
+
+"Very ill!"
+
+"Ill all night, I suppose?"
+
+She nodded again.
+
+"It's morning now?"
+
+"Yes, it's morning!"
+
+"I shall get up presently,"--he said, in his old gentle courteous
+way--"I am sorry to have given you so much trouble! I must not burden
+your hospitality--your kindness----"
+
+His voice trailed away into silence,--his eyelids drooped--and fell into
+a sound slumber,--the first refreshing sleep he had enjoyed for many
+weary nights and days.
+
+Mary Deane stood looking at him thoughtfully. The turn had come for the
+better, and she silently thanked God. Night after night, day after day,
+she had nursed him with unwearying patience and devotion, having no
+other help or guidance save her own womanly instinct, and the occasional
+advice of the village doctor, who, however, was not a qualified medical
+man, but merely a herbalist who prepared his own simples. This humble
+Gamaliel diagnosed Helmsley's case as one of rheumatic fever,
+complicated by heart trouble, as well as by the natural weakness of
+decaying vitality. Mary had explained to him Helmsley's presence in her
+cottage by a pious falsehood, which Heaven surely forgave her as soon as
+it was uttered. She had said that he was a friend of her late father's,
+who had sought her out in the hope that she might help him to find some
+light employment in his old age, and that not knowing the country at
+all, he had lost his way across the hills during the blinding fury of
+the storm. This story quickly ran through the little village, of which
+Mary's house was the last, at the summit of the "coombe," and many of
+its inhabitants came to inquire after "Mr. David," while he lay tossing
+and moaning between life and death, most of them seriously commiserating
+Mary herself for the "sight o' trouble" she had been put to,--"all for a
+trampin' stranger like!"
+
+"Though,"--observed one rustic sage--"Bein' a lone woman as y' are, Mis'
+Deane, m'appen if he knew yer father 'twould be pleasant to talk to him
+when 'is 'ed comes clear, if clear it iver do come. For when we've put
+our owd folk under the daisies, it do cheer the 'art a bit to talk of
+'em to those as knew 'em when they was a standin' upright, bold an'
+strong, for all they lays so low till last trumpet."
+
+Mary smiled a grave assent, and with wise tact and careful forethought
+for the comfort and well-being of her unknown guest, quietly accepted
+the position she had brought upon herself as having given shelter and
+lodging to her "father's friend," thus smoothing all difficulties away
+for him, whether he recovered from his illness or not. Had he died, she
+would have borne the expenses of his burial without a word of other
+explanation than that which she had offered by way of appeasing the
+always greedy curiosity of any community of human beings who are
+gathered in one small town or village,--and if he recovered, she was
+prepared to treat him in very truth as her "father's friend."
+
+"For,"--she argued with herself, quite simply--"I am sure father would
+have been kind to him, and when once _he_ was kind, it was impossible
+not to be his friend."
+
+And, little by little, Helmsley struggled back to life,--life that was
+very weak and frail indeed, but still, life that contained the whole
+essence and elixir of being,--a new and growing interest. Little by
+little his brain cleared and recovered its poise,--once more he found
+himself thinking of things that had been done, and of things that were
+yet worth doing. Watching Mary Deane as she went softly to and fro in
+constant attendance on his needs, he was divided in his mind between
+admiration, gratitude, and--a lurking suspicion, of which he was
+ashamed. As a business man, he had been taught to look for interested
+motives lying at the back of every action, bad or good,--and as his
+health improved, and calm reason again asserted its sway, he found it
+difficult and well-nigh impossible to realise or to believe that this
+woman, to whom he was a perfect stranger, no more than a vagrant on the
+road, could have given him so much of her time, attention, and care,
+unless she had dimly supposed him to be something other than he had
+represented himself. Unable yet to leave his bed, he lay, to all
+appearances, quietly contented, acknowledging her gentle ministrations
+with equally gentle words of thanks, while all the time he was mentally
+tormenting himself with doubts and fears. He knew that during his
+illness he had been delirious,--surely in that delirium he might have
+raved and talked of many things that would have yielded the entire
+secret of his identity. This thought made him restless,--and one
+afternoon when Mary came in with the deliciously prepared cup of tea
+which she always gave him about four o'clock, he turned his eyes upon
+her with a sudden keen look which rather startled her by its piercing
+brightness suggesting, as it did, some return of fever.
+
+"Tell me,"--he said--"Have I been ill long? More than a week?"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"A little more than a week,"--she answered, gently--"Don't worry!"
+
+"I'm not worrying. Please tell me what day it is!"
+
+"What day it is? Well, to-day is Sunday."
+
+"Sunday! Yes--but what is the date of the month?"
+
+She laughed softly, patting his hand.
+
+"Oh, never mind! What does it matter?"
+
+"It does matter,"--he protested, with a touch of petulance--"I know it
+is July, but what time of July?"
+
+She laughed again.
+
+"It's not July," she said.
+
+"Not July!"
+
+"No. Nor August!"
+
+He raised himself on his pillow and stared at her in questioning
+amazement.
+
+"Not July? Not August? Then----?"
+
+She took his hand between her own kind warm palms, stroking it
+soothingly up and down.
+
+"It's not July, and it's not August!" she repeated, nodding at him as
+though he were a worried and fractious child--"It's the second week in
+September. There!"
+
+His eyes turned from right to left in utter bewilderment. "But how----"
+he murmured----
+
+Then he suddenly caught her hands in the one she was holding.
+
+"You mean to say that I have been ill all those weeks--a burden upon
+you?"
+
+"You've been ill all those weeks--yes!" she answered "But you haven't
+been a burden. Don't you think it! You've--you've been a pleasure!" And
+her blue eyes filled with soft tears, which she quickly mastered and
+sent back to the tender source from which they sprang; "You have,
+really!"
+
+He let go her hand and sank back on his pillows with a smothered groan.
+
+"A pleasure!" he muttered--"I!" And his fuzzy eyebrows met in almost a
+frown as he again looked at her with one of the keen glances which those
+who knew him in business had learned to dread. "Mary Deane, do not tell
+me what is not and what cannot be true! A sick man--an old man--can be
+no 'pleasure' to anyone;--he is nothing but a bore and a trouble, and
+the sooner he dies the better!"
+
+The smiling softness still lingered in her eyes.
+
+"Ah well!"--she said--"You talk like that because you're not strong yet,
+and you just feel a bit cross and worried! You'll be better in another
+few days----"
+
+"Another few days!" he interrupted her--"No--no--that cannot be--I must
+be up and tramping it again--I must not stay on here--I have already
+stayed too long."
+
+A slight shadow crossed her face, but she was silent. He watched her
+narrowly.
+
+"I've been off my head, haven't I?" he queried, affecting a certain
+brusqueness in his tone--"Talking a lot of nonsense, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes--sometimes,"--she replied--"But only when you were _very_ bad."
+
+"And what did I say?"
+
+She hesitated a moment, and he grew impatient.
+
+"Come, come!" he demanded, irritably--"What did I say?"
+
+She looked at him candidly.
+
+"You talked mostly about 'Tom o' the Gleam,'"--she answered--"That was a
+poor gypsy well known in these parts. He had just one little child left
+to him in the world--its mother was dead. Some rich lord driving a motor
+car down by Cleeve ran over the poor baby and killed it--and Tom----"
+
+"Tom tracked the car to Blue Anchor, where he found the man who had run
+over his child and killed _him_!" said Helmsley, with grim
+satisfaction--"I saw it done!"
+
+Mary shuddered.
+
+"I saw it done!" repeated Helmsley--"And I think it was rightly done!
+But--I saw Tom himself die of grief and madness--with his dead child in
+his arms--and _that!_--that broke something in my heart and brain and
+made me think God was cruel!"
+
+She bent over him, and arranged his pillows more comfortably.
+
+"I knew Tom,"--she said, presently, in a soft voice--"He was a wild
+creature, but very kind and good for all that. Some folks said he had
+been born a gentleman, and that a quarrel with his family had made him
+take to the gypsy life--but that's only a story. Anyway his little
+child--'kiddie'--as it used to be called, was the dearest little fellow
+in the world--so playful and affectionate!--I don't wonder Tom went mad
+when his one joy was killed! And you saw it all, you say?"
+
+"Yes, I saw it all!" And Helmsley, with a faint sigh half closed his
+eyes as he spoke--"I was tramping from Watchett,--and the motor passed
+me on my way, but I did not see the child run over. I meant to get a
+lodging at Blue Anchor--and while I was having my supper at the public
+house Tom came in,--and--and it was all over in less than fifteen
+minutes! A horrible sight--a horrible, horrible sight! I see it now!--I
+shall never forget it!"
+
+"Enough to make you ill, poor dear!" said Mary, gently--"Don't think of
+it now! Try and sleep a little. You mustn't talk too much. Poor Tom is
+dead and buried now, and his little child with him--God rest them both!
+It's better he should have died than lived without anyone to love him in
+the world."
+
+"That's true!" And opening his eyes widely again, he gazed full at
+her--"That's the worst fate of all--to live in the world without anyone
+to love you! Tell me--when I was delirious did I only talk of Tom o' the
+Gleam?"
+
+"That's the only person whose name you seemed to have on your
+mind,"--she answered, smiling a little--"But you _did_ make a great
+noise about money!"
+
+"Money?" he echoed--"I--I made a noise about money?"
+
+"Yes!" And her smile deepened--"Often at night you quite startled me by
+shouting 'Money! Money!' I'm sure you've wanted it very badly!"
+
+He moved restlessly and avoided her gaze. Presently he asked
+querulously:
+
+"Where is my old vest with all my papers?"
+
+"It's just where I put it the night you came,"--she answered--"I haven't
+touched it. Don't you remember you told me to keep the key of the
+cupboard which is right here close to your bed? I've got it quite safe."
+
+He turned his head round on the pillow and looked at her with a sudden
+smile.
+
+"Thank you! You are very kind to me, Mary! But you must let me work off
+all I owe you as soon as I'm well."
+
+She put one finger meditatively on her lips and surveyed him with a
+whimsically indulgent air.
+
+"Let you work it off? Well, I don't mind that at all! But a minute ago
+you were saying you must get up and go on the tramp again. Now, if you
+want to work for me, you must stay----"
+
+"I will stay till I have paid you my debt somehow!" he said--"I'm
+old--but I can do a few useful things yet."
+
+"I'm sure you can!" And she nodded cheerfully--"And you shall! Now rest
+a while, and don't fret!"
+
+She went away from him then to fetch the little dog, Charlie, who, now
+that his master was on the fair road to complete recovery, was always
+brought in to amuse him after tea. Charlie was full of exuberant life,
+and his gambols over the bed where Helmsley lay, his comic interest in
+the feathery end of his own tail, and his general intense delight in the
+fact of his own existence, made him a merry and affectionate little
+playmate. He had taken immensely to his new home, and had attached
+himself to Mary Deane with singular devotion, trotting after her
+everywhere as close to her heels as possible. The fame of his beauty had
+gone through the village, and many a small boy and girl came timidly to
+the cottage door to try and "have a peep" at the smallest dog ever seen
+in the neighbourhood, and certainly the prettiest.
+
+"That little dawg be wurth twenty pun!"--said one of the rustics to
+Mary, on one occasion when she was sitting in her little garden,
+carefully brushing and combing the silky coat of the little
+"toy"--"Th'owd man thee's been a' nussin' ought to give 'im to thee as a
+thank-offerin'."
+
+"I wouldn't take him,"--Mary answered--"He's perhaps the only friend the
+poor old fellow has got in the world. It would be just selfish of me to
+want him."
+
+And so the time went on till it was past mid-September, and there came a
+day, mild, warm, and full of the soft subdued light of deepening autumn,
+when Mary told her patient that he might get up, and sit in an armchair
+for a few hours in the kitchen. She gave him this news when she brought
+him his breakfast, and added--
+
+"I'll wrap you up in father's dressing gown, and you'll be quite cosy
+and safe from chill. And after another week you'll be so strong that
+you'll be able to dress yourself and do without me altogether!"
+
+This phrase struck curiously on his ears. "Do without her altogether!"
+That would be strange indeed--almost impossible! It was quite early in
+the morning when she thus spoke--about seven o'clock,--and he was not to
+get up till noon, "when the air was at its warmest," said Mary--so he
+lay very quietly, thinking over every detail of the position in which he
+found himself. He was now perfectly aware that it was a position which
+opened up great possibilities. His dream,--the vague indefinable
+longing which possessed him for love--pure, disinterested, unselfish
+love,--seemed on the verge of coming true. Yet he would not allow
+himself to hope too much,--he preferred to look on the darker side of
+probable disillusion. Meanwhile, he was conscious of a sweetness and
+comfort in his life such as he had never yet experienced. His thoughts
+dwelt with secret pleasure on the open frankness and calm beauty of the
+face that had bent over him with the watchfulness of a guardian angel
+through so many days and nights of pain, delirium, and dread of
+death,--and he noted with critically observant eyes the noiseless
+graceful movement of this humbly-born woman, whose instincts were so
+delicate and tender, whose voice was so gentle, and whose whole bearing
+expressed such unaffected dignity and purity of mind. On this particular
+morning she was busy ironing;--and she had left the door open between
+his bedroom and the kitchen, so that he might benefit by the inflow of
+fresh air from the garden, the cottage door itself being likewise thrown
+back to allow a full entrance of the invigorating influences of the
+light breeze from the sea and the odours of the flowers. From his bed he
+could see her slim back bent over the fine muslin frills she was
+pressing out with such patient precision, and he caught the glint of the
+sun on the rich twist of her bronze brown hair. Presently he heard some
+one talking to her,--a woman evidently, whose voice was pitched in a
+plaintive and almost querulous key.
+
+"Well, Mis' Deane, say 'ow ye will an' what ye will,--there's a spider
+this very blessed instant a' crawlin' on the bottom of the ironin'
+blanket, which is a sure sign as 'ow yer washin' won't come to no good
+try iver so 'ard, for as we all knows--'See a spider at morn, An' ye'll
+wish ye wornt born: See a spider at night, An' yer wrongs'll come
+right!'"
+
+Mary laughed; and Helmsley listened with a smile on his own lips. She
+had such a pretty laugh,--so low and soft and musical.
+
+"Oh, never mind the poor spider, Mrs. Twitt!"--she said--"Let it climb
+up the ironing blanket if it likes! I see dozens of spiders 'at morn,'
+and I've never in my life wished I wasn't born! Why, if you go out in
+the garden early, you're bound to see spiders!"
+
+"That's true--that's Testymen true!" And the individual addressed as
+Mrs. Twitt, heaved a profound sigh which was loud enough to flutter
+through the open door to Helmsley's ears--"Which, as I sez to Twitt
+often, shows as 'ow we shouldn't iver tempt Providence. Spiders there
+is, an' spiders there will be 'angin' on boughs an' 'edges, frequent too
+in September, but we aint called upon to look at 'em, only when the
+devil puts 'em out speshul to catch the hi, an' then they means
+mischief. An' that' just what 'as 'appened this present minit, Mis'
+Deane,--that spider on yer ironin' blanket 'as caught my hi."
+
+"I'm so sorry!" said Mary, sweetly--"But as long as the spider doesn't
+bring _you_ any ill-luck, Mrs. Twitt, I don't mind for myself--I don't,
+really!"
+
+Mrs. Twitt emitted an odd sound, much like the grunt of a small and
+discontented pig.
+
+"It's a reckless foot as don't mind precipeges,"--she remarked,
+solemnly--"'Owsomever, I've given ye fair warnin'. An' 'ow's yer
+father's friend?"
+
+"He's much better,--quite out of danger now,"--replied Mary--"He's going
+to get up to-day."
+
+"David's 'is name, so I 'ears,"--continued Mrs. Twitt; "I've never
+myself knowed anyone called David, but it's a common name in some parts,
+speshul in Scripter. Is 'e older than yer father would 'a bin if so be
+the Lord 'ad carried 'im upright to this present?"
+
+"He seems a little older than father was when he died,"--answered Mary,
+in slow, thoughtful accents--"But perhaps it is only trouble and illness
+that makes him look so. He's very gentle and kind. Indeed,"--here she
+paused for a second--then went on--"I don't know whether it's because
+I've been nursing him so long and have got accustomed to watch him and
+take care of him--but I've really grown quite fond of him!"
+
+Mrs. Twitt gave a short laugh.
+
+"That's nat'ral, seein' as ye're lone in life without 'usband or
+childer,"--she said--"There's a many wimmin as 'ud grow fond of an Aunt
+Sally on a pea-stick if they'd nothin' else to set their 'arts on. An'
+as the old chap was yer father's friend, there's bin a bit o' feelin'
+like in lookin' arter 'im. But I wouldn't take 'im on my back as a
+burgin, Mis' Deane, if I were you. Ye're far better off by yerself with
+the washin' an' lace-mendin' business."
+
+Mary was silent.
+
+"It's all very well,"--proceeded Mrs. Twitt--"for 'im to say 'e knew yer
+father, but arter all _that_ mayn't be true. The Lord knows whether 'e
+aint a 'scaped convick, or a man as is grown 'oary-'edded with 'is own
+wickedness. An' though 'e's feeble now an' wants all ye can give 'im,
+the day may come when, bein' strong again, 'e'll take a knife an' slit
+yer throat. Bein' a tramp like, it 'ud come easy to 'im an' not to be
+blamed, if we may go by what they sez in the 'a'penny noospapers. I mind
+me well on the night o' the storm, the very night ye went out on the
+'ills an' found 'im, I was settin' at my door down shorewards watchin'
+the waves an' hearin' the wind cryin' like a babe for its mother, an' if
+ye'll believe me, there was a sea-gull as came and flopped down on a
+stone just in front o' me!--a thing no sea-gull ever did to me all the
+time I've lived 'ere, which is thirty years since I married Twitt. There
+it sat, drenched wi' the rain, an' Twitt came out in that slow, silly
+way 'e 'as, an' 'e sez--'Poor bird! 'Ungry, are ye? an' throws it a
+reg'lar full meal, which, if you believe me, it ate all up as cool as a
+cowcumber. An' then----"
+
+"And then?" queried Mary, with a mirthful quiver in her voice.
+
+"Then,--oh, well, then it flew away,"--and Mrs. Twitt seemed rather
+sorry for this commonplace end to what she imagined was a thrilling
+incident--"But the way that bird looked at me was somethin' awful! An'
+when I 'eerd as 'ow you'd found a friend o' yer father's a' trampin' an'
+wanderin' an' 'ad took 'im in to board an' lodge on trust, I sez to
+Twitt--'There you've got the meanin' o' that sea-gull! A stranger in the
+village bringin' no good to the 'and as feeds'im!'"
+
+Mary's laughter rang out now like a little peal of bells.
+
+"Dear Mrs. Twitt!" she said--"I know how good and kind you are--but you
+mustn't have any of your presentiments about me! I'm sure the poor
+sea-gull meant no harm! And I'm sure that poor old David won't ever hurt
+me----" Here she suddenly gave an exclamation--"Why, I forgot! The door
+of his room has been open all this time! He must have heard us talking!"
+
+She made a hurried movement, and Helmsley diplomatically closed his
+eyes. She entered, and came softly up to his bedside, and he felt that
+she stood there looking at him intently. He could hardly forbear a
+smile;--but he managed to keep up a very creditable appearance of being
+fast asleep, and she stole away again, drawing the door to behind her.
+Thus, for the time being, he heard no more,--but he had gathered quite
+enough to know exactly how matters stood with regard to his presence in
+her little home.
+
+"She has given out that I am an old friend of her father's!" he
+mused--"And she has done that in order to silence both inquiry and
+advice as to the propriety of her having taken me under her shelter and
+protection. Kind heart! Gentle soul! And--what else did she say? That
+she had 'really grown quite fond' of me! Can I--dare I--believe that?
+No!--it is a mere feminine phrase--spoken out of compassionate impulse.
+Fond of me! In my apparent condition of utter poverty,--old, ill and
+useless, who could or would be 'fond' of me!"
+
+Yet he dwelt on the words with a kind of hope that nerved and
+invigorated him, and when at noon Mary came and assisted him to get up
+out of bed, he showed greater evidence of strength than she had imagined
+would be possible. True, his limbs ached sorely, and he was very feeble,
+for even with the aid of a stick and the careful support of her strong
+arm, his movements were tottering and uncertain, and the few steps
+between his bedroom and the kitchen seemed nearly a mile of exhausting
+distance. But the effort to walk did him good, and when he sank into the
+armchair which had been placed ready for him near the fire, he looked up
+with a smile and patted the gentle hand that had guided him along so
+surely and firmly.
+
+"I'm an old bag of bones!" he said--"Not much good to myself or to any
+one else! You'd better bundle me out on the doorstep!"
+
+For an answer she brought him a little cup of nourishing broth tastily
+prepared and bade him drink it--"every drop, mind!"--she told him with a
+little commanding nod. He obeyed her,--and when he gave her back the cup
+empty he said, with a keen glance:
+
+"So I am your father's friend, am I, Mary?"
+
+The blood rushed to her cheeks in a crimson tide,--she looked at him
+appealingly, and her lips trembled a little.
+
+"You were so very ill!" she murmured--"I was afraid you might die,--and
+I had to send for the only doctor we have in the village--Mr.
+Bunce,--the boys call him Mr. Dunce, but that's their mischief, for
+he's really quite clever,--and I was bound to tell him something by way
+of introducing you and making him take care of you--even--even if what I
+said wasn't quite true! And--and--I made it out to myself this way--that
+if father had lived he would have done just all he could for you, and
+then you _would_ have been his friend--you couldn't have helped
+yourself!"
+
+He kept his eyes upon her as she spoke. He liked to see the soft
+flitting of the colour to-and-fro in her face,--- her skin was so clear
+and transparent,--a physical reflection, he thought, of the clear
+transparency of her mind.
+
+"And who was your father, Mary?" he asked, gently.
+
+"He was a gardener and florist,"--she answered, and taking from the
+mantelshelf the photograph of the old man smiling serenely amid a
+collection of dwarf and standard roses, she showed it to him--"Here he
+is, just as he was taken after an exhibition where he won a prize. He
+was so proud when he heard that the first prize for a dwarf red rose had
+been awarded to James Deane of Barnstaple. My dear old dad! He was a
+good, good man--he was indeed! He loved the flowers--he used to say that
+they thought and dreamed and hoped, just as we do--and that they had
+their wishes and loves and ambitions just as we have. He had a very good
+business once in Barnstaple, and every one respected him, but somehow he
+could not keep up with the demands for new things--'social sensations in
+the way of flowers,' he used to call them, and he failed at last,
+through no fault of his own. We sold all we had to pay the creditors,
+and then we came away from Barnstaple into Somerset, and took this
+cottage. Father did a little business in the village, and for some of
+the big houses round about,--not much, of course--but I was always handy
+with my needle, and by degrees I got a number of customers for
+lace-mending and getting up ladies' fine lawn and muslin gowns. So
+between us we made quite enough to live on--till he died." Her voice
+sank--and she paused--then she added--"I've lived alone here ever
+since."
+
+He listened attentively.
+
+"And that is all your history, Mary? What of your mother?" he asked.
+
+Mary's eyes softened and grew wistful.
+
+"Mother died when I was ten,"--she said--"But though I was so little, I
+remember her well. She was pretty--oh, so very pretty! Her hair was
+quite gold like the sun,--and her eyes were blue--like the sea. Dad
+worshipped her, and he never would say that she was dead. He liked to
+think that she was always with him,--and I daresay she was. Indeed, I am
+sure she was, if true love can keep souls together."
+
+He was silent.
+
+"Are you tired, David?" she asked, with sudden anxiety,--"I'm afraid I'm
+talking too much!"
+
+He raised a hand in protest.
+
+"No--no! I--I love to hear you talk, Mary! You have been so good to
+me--so more than kind--that I'd like to know all about you. But I've no
+right to ask you any questions--you see I'm only an old, poor man, and
+I'm afraid I shall never be able to do much in the way of paying you
+back for all you've done for me. I used to be clever at office
+work--reading and writing and casting up accounts, but my sight is
+failing and my hands tremble,--so I'm no good in that line. But whatever
+I _can_ do for you, as soon as I'm able, I will!--you may depend upon
+that!"
+
+She leaned towards him, smiling.
+
+"I'll teach you basket-making,"--she said--"Shall I?"
+
+His eyes lit up with a humorous sparkle.
+
+"If I could learn it, should I be useful to you?" he asked.
+
+"Why, of course you would! Ever so useful! Useful to me and useful to
+yourself at the same time!" And she clapped her hands with pleasure at
+having thought of something easy upon which he could try his energies;
+"Basket-making pays well here,--the farmers want baskets for their
+fruit, and the fishermen want baskets for their fish,--and its really
+quite easy work. As soon as you're a bit stronger, you shall begin--and
+you'll be able to earn quite a nice little penny!"
+
+He looked stedfastly into her radiant face.
+
+"I'd like to earn enough to pay you back all the expense you've been put
+to with me,"--he said, and his voice trembled--"But your patience and
+goodness--that--I can never hope to pay for--that's heavenly!--that's
+beyond all money's worth----"
+
+He broke off and put his hand over his eyes. Mary feigned not to notice
+his profound emotion, and, taking up a paper parcel on the table, opened
+it, and unrolled a long piece of wonderful old lace, yellow with age,
+and fine as a cobweb.
+
+"Do you mind my going on with my work?" she asked, cheerily--"I'm
+mending this for a Queen!" And as he took away his hand from his eyes,
+which were suspiciously moist, and looked at her wonderingly, she nodded
+at him in the most emphatic way. "Yes, truly, David!--for a Queen! Oh,
+it's not a Queen who is my direct employer--no Queen ever knows anything
+about me! It's a great firm in London that sends this to me to mend for
+a Queen--they trust me with it, because they know me. I've had lace
+worth thousands of pounds in my hands,--this piece is valued at eight
+hundred, apart from its history--it belonged to Marie Louise, second
+wife of Napoleon the First. It's a lovely bit!--but there are some cruel
+holes in it. Ah, dear me!" And, sitting down near the door, she bent her
+head closely over the costly fabric--"Queens don't think of the eyes
+that have gone out in blindness doing this beautiful work!--or the hands
+that have tired and the hearts that have broken over it! They would
+never run pins into it if they did!"
+
+He watched her sitting as she now was in the sunlight that flooded the
+doorway, and tried to overcome the emotional weakness that moved him to
+stretch out his arms to her as though she were his daughter, to call her
+to his side, and lay his hands on her head in blessing, and to beg her
+to let him stay with her now and always until the end of his days,--an
+end which he instinctively felt could not be very long in coming. But he
+realised enough of her character to know that were he to give himself
+away, and declare his real identity and position in the world of men,
+she would probably not allow him to remain in her cottage for another
+twenty-four hours. She would look at him with her candid eyes, and
+express her honest regret that he had deceived her, but he was certain
+that she would not accept a penny of payment at his hands for anything
+she had done for him,--her simple familiar manner and way of speech
+would change--and he should lose her--lose her altogether. And he was
+nervously afraid just now to think of what her loss might mean to him.
+He mastered his thoughts by an effort, and presently, forcing a smile,
+said:
+
+"You were ironing lace this morning, instead of mending it, weren't you,
+Mary?"
+
+She looked up quickly.
+
+"No, I wasn't ironing lace--lace must never be ironed, David! It must
+all be pulled out carefully with the fingers, and the pattern must be
+pricked out on a frame or a cushion, with fine steel pins, just as if it
+were in the making. I was ironing a beautiful muslin gown for a lady who
+buys all her washing dresses in Paris. She couldn't get any one in
+England to wash them properly till she found me. She used to send them
+all away to a woman in Brittany before. The French are wonderful
+washers,--we're not a patch on them over here. So you saw me ironing?"
+
+"I could just catch a glimpse of you at work through the door," he
+answered--"and I heard you talking as well----"
+
+"To Mrs. Twitt? Ah, I thought you did!" And she laughed. "Well, I wish
+you could have seen her, as well as heard her! She is the quaintest old
+soul! She's the wife of a stonemason who lives at the bottom of the
+village, near the shore. Almost everything that happens in the day or
+the night is a sign of good or bad luck with her. I expect it's because
+her husband makes so many tombstones that she gets morbid,--but, oh
+dear!--if God managed the world according to Mrs. Twitt's notions, what
+a funny world it would be!"
+
+She laughed again,--then shook her finger archly at him.
+
+"You _pretended_ to be asleep, then, when I came in to see if you heard
+us talking?"
+
+He nodded a smiling assent.
+
+"That was very wrong of you! You should never pretend to be what you are
+not!" He started nervously at this, and to cover his confusion called to
+the little dog, Charlie, who at once jumped up on his knees;--"You
+shouldn't, really! Should he, Charlie?" Charlie sat upright, and lolled
+a small red tongue out between two rows of tiny white teeth, by way of a
+laugh at the suggestion--"People--even dogs--are always found out when
+they do that!"
+
+"What are those bright flowers out in your garden just beyond the door
+where you are sitting?" Helmsley asked, to change the conversation.
+
+"Phloxes,"--she answered--"I've got all kinds and colours--crimson,
+white, mauve, pink, and magenta. Those which you can see from where you
+sit are the crimson ones--father's favourites. I wish you could get out
+and look at the Virginian creeper--it's lovely just now--quite a blaze
+of scarlet all over the cottage. And the Michaelmas daisies are coming
+on finely."
+
+"Michaelmas!" he echoed--"How late in the year it is growing!"
+
+"Ay, that's true!" she replied--"Michaelmas means that summer's past."
+
+"And it was full summer when I started on my tramp to Cornwall!" he
+murmured.
+
+"Never mind thinking about that just now," she said quickly--"You
+mustn't worry your head. Mr. Bunce says you mustn't on any account worry
+your head."
+
+"Mr. Bunce!" he repeated wearily--"What does Mr. Bunce care?"
+
+"Mr. Bunce _does_ care," averred Mary, warmly--"Mr. Bunce is a very good
+little man, and he says you are a very gentle patient to deal with. He's
+done all he possibly could for you, and he knows you've got no money to
+pay him, and that I'm a poor woman, too--but he's been in to see you
+nearly every day--so you must really think well of Mr. Bunce."
+
+"I do think well of him--I am most grateful to him," said David
+humbly--"But all the same it's _you_, Mary! You even got me the
+attention of Mr. Bunce!"
+
+She smiled happily.
+
+"You're feeling better, David!" she declared--"There's a nice bright
+sparkle in your eyes! I should think you were quite a cheerful old boy
+when you're well!"
+
+This suggestion amused him, and he laughed.
+
+"I have tried to be cheerful in my time,"--he said--"though I've not had
+much to be cheerful about."
+
+"Oh, that doesn't matter!" she replied!--"Dad used to say that whatever
+little we had to be thankful for, we ought to make the most of it. It's
+easy to be glad when everything is gladness,--but when you've only got
+just a tiny bit of joy in a whole wilderness of trouble, then we can't
+be too grateful for that tiny bit of joy. At least, so I take it."
+
+"Where did you learn your philosophy, Mary?" he asked, half
+whimsically--"I mean, who taught you to think?"
+
+She paused in her lace-mending, needle in hand.
+
+"Who taught me to think! Well, I don't know!--it come natural to me.
+But I'm not what is called 'educated' at all."
+
+"Are you not?"
+
+"No. I never learnt very much at school. I got the lessons into my head
+as long as I had to patter them off by heart like a parrot,--but the
+teachers were all so dull and prosy, and never took any real pains to
+explain things to me,--indeed, now when I come to think of it, I don't
+believe they _could_ explain!--they needed teaching themselves. Anyhow,
+as soon as I came away I forgot everything but reading and writing and
+sums--and began to learn all over again with Dad. Dad made me read to
+him every night--all sorts of books."
+
+"Had you a Free Library at Barnstaple?"
+
+"I don't know--I never asked,"--she said--"Father hated 'lent' books. He
+had a savings-box--he used to call it his 'book-box'--and he would
+always drop in every spare penny he had for books till he'd got a few
+shillings, and then he would buy what he called 'classics.' They're all
+so cheap, you see. And by degrees we got Shakespeare and Carlyle, and
+Emerson and Scott and Dickens, and nearly all the poets; when you go
+into the parlour you'll see quite a nice bookcase there, full of books.
+It's much better to have them like that for one's own, than wait turns
+at a Free Library. I've read all Shakespeare at least twenty times
+over." The garden-gate suddenly clicked open and she turned her head.
+"Here's Mr. Bunce come to see you."
+
+Helmsley drew himself up a little in his chair as the village doctor
+entered, and after exchanging a brief "Good-morning!" with Mary,
+approached him. The situation was curious;--here was he,--a
+multi-millionaire, who could have paid the greatest specialists in the
+world for their medical skill and attendance,--under the supervision and
+scrutiny of this simple herbalist, who, standing opposite to him, bent a
+pair of kindly brown eyes enquiringly upon his face.
+
+"Up to-day, are we?" said Mr. Bunce--"That is well; that's very well!
+Better in ourselves, too, are we? Better in ourselves?"
+
+"I am much better,"--replied Helmsley--"Very much better!--thanks to you
+and Miss Deane. You--you have both been very good to me."
+
+"That's well--that's very well!" And Mr. Bunce appeared to ruminate,
+while Helmsley studied his face and figure with greater appreciation
+than he had yet been able to do. He had often seen this small dark man
+in the pauses of his feverish delirium,--often he had tried to answer
+his gentle questions,--often in the dim light of early morning or late
+evening he had sought to discern his features, and yet could make
+nothing clear as to their actual form, save that their expression was
+kind. Now, as it seemed for the first time, he saw Mr. Bunce as he
+was,--small and wiry, with a thin, clean-shaven face, deeply furrowed,
+broad brows, and a pleasant look,--the eyes especially, deep sunk in the
+head though they were, had a steady tenderness in them such as one sees
+in the eyes of a brave St. Bernard dog who has saved many lives.
+
+"We must,"--said Mr. Bunce, after a long pause--"be careful. We have got
+out of bed, but we must not walk much. The heart is weak--we must avoid
+any strain upon it. We must sit quiet."
+
+Mary was listening attentively, and nodded her agreement to this
+pronouncement.
+
+"We must,"--proceeded Mr. Bunce, laboriously--"sit quiet. We may get up
+every day now,--a little earlier each time, remaining up a little later
+each time,--but we must sit quiet."
+
+Again Mary nodded gravely. Helmsley looked quickly from one to the
+other. A close observer might have seen the glimmer of a smile through
+his fuzzy grey-white beard,--for his thoughts were very busy. He saw in
+Bunce another subject whose disinterested honesty might be worth
+dissecting.
+
+"But, doctor----" he began.
+
+Mr. Bunce raised a hand.
+
+"I'm not 'doctor,' my man!" he said--"have no degree--no
+qualification--no diploma--no anything whatever but just a little, a
+very little common sense,--yes! And I am simply Bunce,"--and here a
+smile spread out all the furrows in his face and lit up his eyes; "Or,
+as the small boys call me, Dunce!"
+
+"That's all very well, but you're a doctor to me," said Helmsley--"And
+you've been as much as any other doctor could possibly be, I'm sure. But
+you tell me I must sit quiet--I don't see how I can do that. I was on
+the tramp till I broke down,--and I must go on the tramp again,--I
+can't be a burden on--on----"
+
+He broke off, unable to find words to express himself. But his inward
+eagerness to test the character and attributes of the two human beings
+who had for the present constituted themselves as his guardians, made
+him tremble violently. And Mr. Bunce looked at him with the scrutinising
+air of a connoisseur in the ailments of all and sundry.
+
+"We are nervous,"--he pronounced--"We are highly nervous. And we are
+therefore not sure of ourselves. We must be entirely sure of ourselves,
+unless we again wish to lose ourselves. Now we presume that when 'on the
+tramp' as we put it, we were looking for a friend. Is that not so?"
+
+Helmsley nodded.
+
+"We were trying to find the house of the late Mr. James Deane?"
+
+Mary uttered a little sound that was half a sob and half a sigh.
+Helmsley glanced at her with a reassuring smile, and then replied
+steadily,--
+
+"That was so!"
+
+"Our friend, Mr. Deane, unfortunately died some five years
+since,"--proceeded Mr. Bunce,--"And we found his daughter, or rather,
+his daughter found us, instead. This we may put down to an act of
+Providence. Now the only thing we can do under the present circumstances
+is to remain with our late old friend's daughter, till we get well."
+
+"But, doctor,"--exclaimed Helmsley, determined, if possible, to shake
+something selfish, commercial and commonplace out of this odd little man
+with the faithful canine eyes--"I can't be a burden on her! I've got no
+money--I can't pay you for all your care! What you do for me, you do for
+absolutely nothing--nothing--nothing! Don't you understand?"
+
+His voice rang out with an almost rasping harshness, and Mr. Bunce
+tapped his own forehead gently, but significantly.
+
+"We worry ourselves,"--he observed, placidly--"We imagine what does not
+exist. We think that Bunce is sending in his bill. We should wait till
+the bill comes, should we not, Miss Deane?" He smiled, and Mary gave a
+soft laugh of agreement--"And while we wait for Bunce's bill, we will
+also wait for Miss Deane's. And, in the meantime, we must sit quiet."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Helmsley felt a smarting moisture at the
+back of his eyes. He longed to pour out all his history to these two
+simple unworldly souls,--to tell them that he was rich,--rich beyond the
+furthest dreams of their imagining,--rich enough to weigh down the
+light-hearted contentment of their lives with a burden of gold,--and
+yet--yet he knew that if he spoke thus and confessed himself, all the
+sweetness of the friendship which was now so disinterested would be
+embittered and lost. He thought, with a latent self-contempt and
+remorse, of certain moods in which he had sometimes indulged,--moods in
+which he had cynically presumed that he could buy everything in the
+world for money. Kings, thrones, governments, might be had for money, he
+knew, for he had often purchased their good-will--but Love was a jewel
+he had never found in any market--unpurchasable as God! And while he yet
+inwardly mused on his position, Bunce bent over him, and taking his thin
+wrinkled hand, patted it gently.
+
+"Good-bye for the present, David!" he said, kindly--"We are on the
+mend--we are certainly on the mend! We hope the ways of nature will be
+remedial--and that we shall pick up our strength before the winter
+fairly sets in--yes, we hope--we certainly may hope for that----"
+
+"Mr. Bunce," said Helmsley, with sudden energy--"God bless you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+The time now went on peacefully, one day very much like another, and
+Helmsley steadily improved in health and strength, so far recovering
+some of his old vigour and alertness as to be able to take a slow and
+halting daily walk through the village, which, for present purposes
+shall be called Weircombe. The more he saw of the place, the more he
+loved it, and the more he was enchanted with its picturesque position.
+In itself it was a mere cluster of little houses, dotted about on either
+side of a great cleft in the rocks through which a clear mountain stream
+tumbled to the sea,--but the houses were covered from basement to roof
+with clambering plants and flowers, especially the wild fuschia, which,
+with one or two later kinds of clematis and "morning glory" convolvolus,
+were still in brilliant bloom when the mellow days of October began to
+close in to the month's end. All the cottages in the "coombe" were
+pretty, but to Helmsley's mind Mary Deane's was the prettiest, perched
+as it was on a height overlooking the whole village and near to the tiny
+church, which crowned the hill with a little tower rising heavenward.
+The view of the ocean from Weircombe was very wide and grand,--on sunny
+days it was like an endless plain of quivering turquoise-blue, with
+white foam-roses climbing up here and there to fall and vanish
+again,--and when the wind was high, it was like an onward sweeping array
+of Titanic shapes clothed in silver armour and crested with snowy
+plumes, all rushing in a wild charge against the shore, with such a
+clatter and roar as often echoed for miles inland. To make his way
+gradually down through the one little roughly cobbled street to the very
+edge of the sea, was one of Helmsley's greatest pleasures, and he soon
+got to know most of the Weircombe folk, while they in their turn, grew
+accustomed to seeing him about among them, and treated him with a kindly
+familiarity, almost as if he were one of themselves. And his new lease
+of life was, to himself, singularly happy. He enjoyed every moment of
+it,--every little incident was a novel experience, and he was never
+tired of studying the different characters he met,--especially and above
+all the character of the woman whose house was, for the time being, his
+home, and who treated with him all the care and solicitude that a
+daughter might show to her father. And--he was learning what might be
+called a trade or a craft,--which fact interested and amused him. He who
+had moved the great wheel of many trades at a mere touch of his finger,
+was now docilely studying the art of basket-making, and training his
+unaccustomed hands to the bending of withes and osiers,--he whose
+deftly-laid financial schemes had held the money-markets of the world in
+suspense, was now patiently mastering the technical business of forming
+a "slath," and fathoming the mysteries of "scalluming." Like an obedient
+child at school he implicitly followed the instructions of his teacher,
+Mary, who with the first basket he completed went out and effected a
+sale as she said "for fourpence," though really for twopence.
+
+"And good pay, too!" she said, cheerfully--"It's not often one gets so
+much for a first make."
+
+"That fourpence is yours," said Helmsley, smiling at her--"You've the
+right to all my earnings!"
+
+She looked serious.
+
+"Would you like me to keep it?" she asked--"I mean, would it please you
+if I did,--would you feel more content?"
+
+"I should--you know I should!" he replied earnestly.
+
+"All right, then! I'll check it off your account!" And laughing merrily,
+she patted his head as he sat bending over another specimen of his
+basket manufacture--"At any rate, you're not getting bald over your
+work, David! I never saw such beautiful white hair as yours!"
+
+He glanced up at her.
+
+"May I say, in answer to that, that I never saw such beautiful brown
+hair as yours?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Oh, yes, you may say it, because I know it's true. My hair is my one
+beauty,--see!"
+
+And pulling out two small curved combs, she let the whole wealth of her
+tresses unwind and fall. Her hair dropped below her knees in a glorious
+mass of colour like that of a brown autumn leaf with the sun just
+glistening on it. She caught it up in one hand and knotted it all again
+at the back of her head in a minute.
+
+"It's lovely, isn't it?"--she said, quite simply--"I should think it
+lovely if I saw it on anybody else's head, or cut off hanging in a
+hair-dresser's shop window. I don't admire it because it's mine, you
+know! I admire it as hair merely."
+
+"Hair merely--yes, I see!" And he bent and twisted the osiers in his
+hands with a sudden vigour that almost snapped them. He was thinking of
+certain women he had known in London--women whose tresses, dyed, waved,
+crimped and rolled over fantastically shaped "frames," had moved him to
+positive repulsion,--so much so that he would rather have touched the
+skin of a dead rat than laid a finger on the tinted stuff called "hair"
+by these feminine hypocrites of fashion. He had so long been accustomed
+to shams that the open sincerity of the Weircombe villagers was almost
+confusing to his mind. Nobody seemed to have anything to conceal.
+Everybody knew, or seemed to know, all about everybody else's business.
+There were no bye-roads or corners in Weircombe. There was only one way
+out,--to the sea. Height at the one end,--width and depth at the other.
+It seemed useless to have any secrets. He, David Helmsley, felt himself
+to be singular and apart, in that he had his own hidden mystery. He
+often found himself getting restless under the quiet observation of Mr.
+Bunce's eye, yet Mr. Bunce had no suspicions of him whatever. Mr. Bunce
+merely watched him "professionally," and with the kindest intention. In
+fact, he and Bunce became great friends. Bunce had entirely accepted the
+story he told about himself to the effect that he had once been "in an
+office in the city," and looked upon him as a superannuated bank clerk,
+too old to be kept on in his former line of business. Questions that
+were put to him respecting his "late friend, James Deane," he answered
+with apparent good faith by saying that it was a long time since he had
+seen him, and that it was only as a "last forlorn hope" that he had set
+out to try and find him, "as he had always been helpful to those in
+need." Mary herself wished that this little fiction of her "father's
+friend" should be taken as fact by all the village, and a curious part
+of her character was that she never sought to ask Helmsley privately,
+for her own enlightenment, anything of his history. She seemed content
+to accept him as an old and infirm man, who must be taken care of simply
+because he was old and infirm, without further question or argument.
+Bunce was always very stedfast in his praise of her.
+
+"She ought--yes--she ought possibly to have married,--" he said, in his
+slow, reflective way--"She would have made a good wife, and a still
+better mother. But an all-wise Providence has a remarkable habit--yes, I
+think we may call it quite a remarkable habit!--of persuading men
+generally to choose thriftless and flighty women for their wives, and to
+leave the capable ones single. That is so. Or in Miss Deane's case it
+may be an illustration of the statement that 'Mary hath chosen the
+better part.' Certainly when either men or women are happy in a state of
+single blessedness, a reference to the Seventh Chapter of the Epistle of
+St. Paul to the Corinthians, will strengthen their minds and
+considerably assist them to remain in that condition."
+
+Thus Bunce would express himself, with a weighty air as of having given
+some vastly important and legal pronouncement. And when Helmsley
+suggested that it was possible Mary might yet marry, he shook his head
+in a strongly expressed negative.
+
+"No, David--no!" he said--"She is what we call--yes, I think we call
+it--an old maid. This is not a kind term, perhaps, but it is a true one.
+She is, I believe, in her thirty-fifth year,--a settled and mature
+woman. No man would take her unless she had a little money--enough, let
+us say, to help him set up a farm. For if a man takes youth to his
+bosom, he does not always mind poverty,--but if he cannot have youth he
+always wants money. Always! There is no middle course. Now our good Miss
+Deane will never have any money. And, even if she had, we may take
+it--yes, I certainly _think_ we may take it--that she would not care to
+_buy_ a husband. No--no! Her marrying days are past."
+
+"She is a beautiful woman!" said Helmsley, quietly.
+
+"You think so? Well, well, David! We have got used to her in
+Weircombe,--she seems to be a part of the village. When one is familiar
+with a person, one often fails to perceive the beauty that is apparent
+to a stranger. I believe this to be so--I believe, in general, we may
+take it to be so."
+
+And such was the impression that most of the Weircombe folks had about
+Mary--that she was just "a part of the village." During his slow
+ramblings about the little sequestered place, Helmsley talked to many of
+the cottagers, who all treated him with that good-humour and tolerance
+which they considered due to his age and feebleness. Young men gave him
+a ready hand if they saw him inclined to falter or to stumble over rough
+places in the stony street,--little children ran up to him with the
+flowers they had gathered on the hills, or the shells they had collected
+from the drift on the shore--women smiled at him from their open doors
+and windows--girls called to him the "Good morning!" or
+"Good-night!"--and by and by he was almost affectionately known as "Old
+David, who makes baskets up at Miss Deane's." One of his favourite
+haunts was the very end of the "coombe," which,--sharply cutting down to
+the shore,--seemed there to have split asunder with volcanic force,
+hurling itself apart to right and left in two great castellated rocks,
+which were piled up, fortress-like, to an altitude of about four hundred
+or more feet, and looked sheer down over the sea. When the tide was high
+the waves rushed swirlingly round the base of these natural towers,
+forming a deep blackish-purple pool in which the wash to and fro of pale
+rose and deep magenta seaweed, flecked with trails of pale grassy green,
+were like the colours of a stormy sunset reflected in a prism. The
+sounds made here by the inflowing and outgoing of the waves were
+curiously musical,--like the thudding of a great organ, with harp
+melodies floating above the stronger bass, while every now and then a
+sweet sonorous call, like that of a silver trumpet, swung from the
+cavernous depths into clear space and echoed high up in the air, dying
+lingeringly away across the hills. Near this split of the "coombe" stood
+the very last house at the bottom of the village, built of white stone
+and neatly thatched, with a garden running to the edge of the mountain
+stream, which at this point rattled its way down to the sea with that
+usual tendency to haste exhibited by everything in life and nature when
+coming to an end. A small square board nailed above the door bore the
+inscription legibly painted in plain black letters:--
+
+             ABEL TWITT,
+            Stone Mason,
+    N. B. Good Grave-Work Guaranteed.
+
+The author of this device, and the owner of the dwelling, was a round,
+rosy-faced little man, with shrewd sparkling grey eyes, a pleasant
+smile, and a very sociable manner. He was the great "gossip" of the
+place; no old woman at a wash-tub or behind a tea-tray ever wagged her
+tongue more persistently over the concerns of he and she and you and
+they, than Abel Twitt. He had a leisurely way of talking,--a "slow and
+silly way" his wife called it,--but he managed to convey a good deal of
+information concerning everybody and everything, whether right or wrong,
+in a very few sentences. He was renowned in the village for his
+wonderful ability in the composition of epitaphs, and by some of his
+friends he was called "Weircombe's Pote Lorit." One of his most
+celebrated couplets was the following:--
+
+    "_This Life while I lived it, was Painful and seldom Victorious,
+    I trust in the Lord that the next will be Pleasant and Glorious!_"
+
+Everybody said that no one but Abel Twitt could have thought of such
+grand words and good rhymes. Abel himself was not altogether without a
+certain gentle consciousness that in this particular effort he had done
+well. But he had no literary vanity.
+
+"It comes nat'ral to me,"--he modestly declared--"It's a God's gift
+which I takes thankful without pride."
+
+Helmsley had become very intimate with both Mr. and Mrs. Twitt. In his
+every-day ramble down to the ocean end of the "coombe" he often took a
+rest of ten minutes or a quarter of an hour at Twitt's house before
+climbing up the stony street again to Mary Deane's cottage, and Mrs.
+Twitt, in her turn, was a constant caller on Mary, to whom she brought
+all the news of the village, all the latest remedies for every sort of
+ailment, and all the oddest superstitions and omens which she could
+either remember or invent concerning every incident that had occurred to
+her or to her neighbours within the last twenty-four hours. There was no
+real morbidity of character in Mrs. Twitt; she only had that peculiar
+turn of mind which is found quite as frequently in the educated as in
+the ignorant, and which perceives a divine or a devilish meaning in
+almost every trifling occurrence of daily life. A pin on the ground
+which was not picked up at the very instant it was perceived, meant
+terrible ill-luck to Mrs. Twitt,--if a cat sneezed, it was a sign that
+there was going to be sickness in the village,--and she always carried
+in her pocket "a bit of coffin" to keep away the cramp. She also had a
+limitless faith in the power of cursing, and she believed most
+implicitly in the fiendish abilities of a certain person, (whether male
+or female, she did not explain) whose address she gave vaguely as, "out
+on the hills," and who, if requested, and paid for the trouble, would
+put a stick into the ground, muttering a mysterious malison on any man
+or woman you chose to name as an enemy, with the pronounced guarantee:--
+
+    "As this stick rotteth to decay,
+    So shall (Mr, Miss or Mrs So-and-so) rot away!"
+
+But with the exception of these little weaknesses, Mrs. Twitt was a good
+sort of motherly old body, warm-hearted and cheerful, too, despite her
+belief in omens. She had taken quite a liking to "old David" as she
+called him, and used to watch his thin frail figure, now since his
+illness sadly bent, jogging slowly down the street towards the sea, with
+much kindly solicitude. For despite Mr. Bunce's recommendation that he
+should "sit quiet," Helmsley could not bring himself to the passively
+restful condition of weak and resigned old age. He had too much on his
+mind for that. He worked patiently every morning at basket-making, in
+which he was quickly becoming an adept; but in the afternoon he grew
+restless, and Mary, seeing it was better for him to walk as long as
+walking was possible to him, let him go out when he fancied it, though
+always with a little anxiety for him lest he should meet with some
+accident. In this anxiety, however, all the neighbours took a share, so
+that he was well watched, and more carefully guarded than he knew, on
+his way down to the shore and back again, Abel Twitt himself often
+giving him an arm on the upward climb home.
+
+"You'll have to do some of that for me soon!" said Helmsley on one of
+these occasions, pointing up with his stick at the board over Twitt's
+door, which said "Good Grave-Work Guaranteed:"
+
+Twitt rolled his eyes slowly up in the direction indicated, smiled, and
+rolled them down again.
+
+"So I will,--so I will!" he replied cheerfully--"An I'll charge ye
+nothin' either. I'll make ye as pretty a little stone as iver ye
+saw--what'll last too!--ay, last till th' Almighty comes a' tearin' down
+in clouds o' glory. A stone well bedded in, ye unnerstan'?--one as'll
+stay upright--no slop work. An' if ye can't think of a hepitaph for
+yerself I'll write one for ye--there now! Bible texes is goin' out o'
+fashion--it's best to 'ave somethin' orig'nal--an' for originality I
+don't think I can be beat in these parts. I'll do ye yer hepitaph with
+pleasure!"
+
+"That will be kind!" And Helmsley smiled a little sadly--"What will you
+say of me when I'm gone?"
+
+Twitt looked at him thoughtfully, with his head very much on one side.
+
+"Well, ye see, I don't know yer history,"--he said--"But I considers ye
+'armless an' unfortunate. I'd 'ave to make it out in my own mind like.
+Now Timbs, the grocer an' 'aberdashery man, when 'is wife died, he
+wouldn't let me 'ave my own way about the moniment at all. 'Put 'er
+down,' sez 'e--'Put 'er down as the Dearly-Beloved Wife of Samuel
+Timbs.' 'Now, Timbs,' sez I--'don't ye go foolin' with 'ell-fire! Ye
+know she wor'nt yer Dearly Beloved, forbye that she used to throw wet
+dish-clouts at yer 'ed, screechin' at ye for all she was wuth, an' there
+ain't no Dearly Beloved in that. Why do ye want to put a lie on a stone
+for the Lord to read?' But 'e was as obst'nate as pigs. 'Dish-clouts or
+no dish-clouts,' sez 'e, 'I'll 'ave 'er fixed up proper as my
+Dearly-Beloved Wife for sight o' parson an' neighbours.' 'Ah, Sam!' sez
+I--'I've got ye! It's for parson an' neighbours ye want the hepitaph,
+an' not for the Lord at all! Well, I'll do it if so be yer wish it, but
+I won't take the 'sponsibility of it at the Day o' Judgment.' 'I don't
+want ye to'--sez 'e, quite peart. 'I'll take it myself.' An' if ye'll
+believe me, David, 'e sits down an' writes me what 'e calls a 'Memo' of
+what 'e wants put on the grave stone, an' it's the biggest whopper I've
+iver seen out o' the noospapers. I've got it 'ere--" And, referring to a
+much worn and battered old leather pocket-book, Twitt drew from it a
+soiled piece of paper, and read as follows--
+
+              Here lies
+          All that is Mortal
+                  of
+            CATHERINE TIMBS
+        The Dearly Beloved Wife
+                  of
+       Samuel Timbs of Weircombe.
+               She Died
+     At the Early Age of Forty-Nine
+    Full of Virtues and Excellencies
+        Which those who knew Her
+             Deeply Deplore
+                  and
+            NOW is in Heaven.
+
+"And the only true thing about that hepitaph,"--continued Twitt, folding
+up the paper again and returning it to its former receptacle,--"is the
+words 'Here Lies.'"
+
+Helmsley laughed, and Twitt laughed with him.
+
+"Some folks 'as the curiousest ways o' wantin' theirselves remembered
+arter they're gone"--he went on--"An' others seems as if they don't care
+for no mem'ry at all 'cept in the 'arts o' their friends. Now there was
+Tom o' the Gleam, a kind o' gypsy rover in these parts, 'im as murdered
+a lord down at Blue Anchor this very year's July----"
+
+Helmsley drew a quick breath.
+
+"I know!" he said--"I was there!"
+
+"So I've 'eerd say,"--responded Twitt sympathetically--"An' an awsome
+sight it must a' bin for ye! Mary Deane told us as 'ow ye'd bin ravin'
+about Tom--an' m'appen likely it give ye a turn towards yer long
+sickness."
+
+"I was there,"--said Helmsley, shuddering at the recollection--"I had
+stopped on the road to try and get a cheap night's lodging at the very
+inn where the murder took place--but--but there were two murders that
+day, and the _first_ one was the worst!"
+
+"That's what I said at the time, an' that's what I've allus
+thought!"--declared Twitt--"Why that little 'Kiddie' child o' Tom's was
+the playfullest, prettiest little rogue ye'd see in a hundred mile or
+more! 'Oldin' out a posy o' flowers to a motor-car, poor little
+innercent! It might as well 'ave 'eld out flowers to the devil!--though
+my own opinion is as the devil 'imself wouldn't 'a ridden down a child.
+But a motorin' lord o' these days is neither man nor beast nor
+devil,--'e's a somethin' altogether _on_human--_on_human out an' out,--a
+thing wi' goggles over his eyes an' no 'art in his body, which we aint
+iver seen in this poor old world afore. Thanks be to the Lord no motors
+can ever come into Weircombe,--they tears round an' round by another
+road, an' we neither sees, 'ears, nor smells 'em, for which I often sez
+to my wife--'O be joyful in the Lord all ye lands; serve the Lord with
+gladness an' come before His presence with a song!' An' she ups an'
+sez--'Don't be blaspheemous, Twitt,--I'll tell parson'--an' I sez--'Tell
+'im, old 'ooman, if ye likes!' An' when she tells 'im, 'e smiles nice
+an' kind, an' sez--'It's quite lawful, Mrs. Twitt, to quote Scriptural
+thanksgiving on all _necessary_ occasions!' E's a good little chap, our
+parson, but 'e's that weak on his chest an' ailing that 'e's goin' away
+this year to Madeira for rest and warm--an' a blessid old Timp'rance
+raskill's coming to take dooty in 'is place. Ah!--none of us Weircombe
+folk 'ill be very reg'lar church-goers while Mr. Arbroath's here."
+
+Helmsley started slightly.
+
+"Arbroath? I've seen that man."
+
+'Ave ye? Well, ye 'aven't seen no beauty!" And Twitt gave vent to a
+chuckling laugh--"'E'll be startin' 'is 'Igh Jink purcessions an'
+vestiments in our plain little church up yonder, an' by the Lord, 'e'll
+'ave to purcess an' vestiment by 'isself, for Weircombe wont 'elp 'im.
+We aint none of us 'Igh Jink folks."
+
+"Is that your name for High Church?" asked Helmsley, amused.
+
+"It is so, an' a very good name it be," declared Twitt, stoutly--"For if
+all the bobbins' an' scrapins' an' crosses an' banners aint a sort o'
+jinkin' Lord Mayor's show, then what be they? It's fair oaffish to bob
+to the east as them 'Igh Jinkers does, for we aint never told in the
+Gospels that th' Almighty 'olds that partikler quarter o' the wind as a
+place o' residence. The Lord's everywhere,--east, west, north,
+south,--why he's with us at this very minute!"--and Twitt raised his
+eyes piously to the heavens--"He's 'elpin' you an' me to draw the breath
+through our lungs--for if He didn't 'elp, we couldn't do it, that's
+certain. An' if He makes the sun to rise in the east, He makes it to
+sink in the west, an' there's no choice either way, an' we sez our
+prayers simple both times o' day, not to the sun at all, but to the
+Maker o' the sun, an' of everything else as we sees. No, no!--no 'Igh
+Jinks for me!--I don't want to bow to no East when I sees the Lord's no
+more east than He's west, an' no more in either place than He is here,
+close to me an' doin' more for me than I could iver do for myself. 'Igh
+Jinks is unchristin,--as unchristin as cremation, an' nothin's more
+unchristin than that!"
+
+"Why, what makes you think so?" asked Helmsley, surprised.
+
+"What makes me think so?" And Twitt drew himself up with a kind of
+reproachful dignity--"Now, old David, don't go for to say as _you_ don't
+think so too?"
+
+"Cremation unchristian? Well, I can't say I've ever thought of it in
+that light,--it's supposed to be the cleanest way of getting rid of the
+dead----"
+
+"Gettin' rid of the dead!"--echoed Twitt, almost scornfully--"That's
+what ye can never do! They'se everywhere, all about us, if we only had
+strong eyes enough to see 'em. An' cremation aint Christin. I'll tell ye
+for why,"--here he bent forward and tapped his two middle fingers slowly
+on Helmsley's chest to give weight to his words--"Look y'ere! Supposin'
+our Lord's body 'ad been cremated, where would us all a' bin? Where
+would a' bin our 'sure an' certain 'ope' o' the resurrection?"
+
+Helmsley was quite taken aback by this sudden proposition, which
+presented cremation in an entirely new light. But a moment's thought
+restored to him his old love of argument, and he at once replied:--
+
+"Why, it would have been just the same as it is now, surely! If Christ
+was divine, he could have risen from burnt ashes as well as from a
+tomb."
+
+"Out of a hurn?" demanded Twitt, persistently--"If our Lord's body 'ad
+bin burnt an' put in a hurn, an' the hurn 'ad bin took into the 'ouse o'
+Pontis Pilate, an' sealed, an' _kept till now_? Eh? What d'ye say to
+that? I tell ye, David, there wouldn't a bin no savin' grace o'
+Christ'anity at all! An' that's why I sez cremation is unchristin,--it's
+blaspheemous an' 'eethen. For our Lord plainly said to 'is disciples
+arter he came out o' the tomb--'Behold my hands and my feet,--handle me
+and see,'--an' to the doubtin' Thomas He said--'Reach hither thy hand
+and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless but believing.' David,
+you mark my words!--them as 'as their bodies burnt in crematorums is
+just as dirty in their souls as they can be, an' they 'opes to burn all
+the blackness o' theirselves into nothingness an' never to rise no more,
+'cos they'se afraid! They don't want to be laid in good old mother
+earth, which is the warm forcin' place o' the Lord for raisin' up 'uman
+souls as He raises up the blossoms in spring, an' all other things which
+do give Him grateful praise an' thanksgivin'! They gits theirselves
+burnt to ashes 'cos they don't _want_ to be raised up,--they'se never
+praised the Lord 'ere, an' they wouldn't know 'ow to do it _there_! But,
+mercy me!" concluded Twitt ruminatingly,--"I've seen orful queer things
+bred out of ashes!--beetles an' sich like reptiles,--an' I wouldn't much
+care to see the spechul stock as raises itself from the burnt bits of a
+liar!"
+
+Helmsley hardly knew whether to smile or to look serious,--such quaint
+propositions as this old stonemason put forward on the subject of
+cremation were utterly novel to his experience. And while he yet stood
+under the little porch of Twitt's cottage, there came shivering up
+through the quiet autumnal air a slow thud of breaking waves.
+
+"Tide's comin' in,"--said Twitt, after listening a minute or two--"An'
+that minds me o' what I was goin' to tell ye about Tom o' the Gleam.
+After the inkwist, the gypsies came forward an' claimed the bodies o'
+Tom an' 'is Kiddie,--an' they was buried accordin' to Tom's own wish,
+which it seems 'e'd told one of 'is gypsy pals to see as was carried out
+whenever an' wheresoever 'e died. An' what sort of a buryin'd'ye think
+'e 'ad?"
+
+Helmsley shook his head in an expressed inability to imagine.
+
+"'Twas out there,"--and Twitt pointed with one hand to the shining
+expanse of the ocean--"The gypsies put 'im an' is Kiddie in a basket
+coffin which they made theirselves, an' covered it all over wi' garlands
+o' flowers an' green boughs, an' then fastened four great lumps o' lead
+to the four corners, an' rowed it out in a boat to about four or five
+miles from the shore, right near to the place where the moon at full
+'makes a hole in the middle o' the sea,' as the children sez, and there
+they dropped it into the water. Then they sang a funeral song--an' by
+the Lord!--the sound o' that song crept into yer veins an' made yer
+blood run cold!--'twas enough to break a man's 'art, let alone a
+woman's, to 'ear them gypsy voices all in a chorus wailin' a farewell to
+the man an' the child in the sea,--an' the song floated up an' about,
+'ere an' there an' everywhere, all over the land from Cleeve Abbey
+onnards, an' at Blue Anchor, so they sez, it was so awsome an' eerie
+that the people got out o' their beds, shiverin', an' opened their
+windows to listen, an' when they listened they all fell a cryin' like
+children. An' it's no wonder the inn where poor Tom did his bad deed and
+died his bad death, is shut up for good, an' the people as kept it gone
+away--no one couldn't stay there arter that. Ay, ay!" and Twitt sighed
+profoundly--"Poor wild ne'er-do-weel Tom! He lies deep down enough now
+with the waves flowin' over 'im an' 'is little 'Kiddie' clasped tight in
+'is arms. For they never separated 'em,--death 'ad locked 'em up too
+fast together for that. An' they're sleepin' peaceful,--an' there
+they'll sleep till--till 'the sea gives up its dead.'"
+
+Helmsley could not speak,--he was too deeply moved. The sound of the
+in-coming tide grew fuller and more sonorous, and Twitt presently turned
+to look critically at the heaving waters.
+
+"There's a cry in the sea to-day,"--he said,--"M'appen it'll be rough
+to-night."
+
+They were silent again, till presently Helmsley roused himself from the
+brief melancholy abstraction into which he had been plunged by the story
+of Tom o' the Gleam's funeral.
+
+"I think I'll go down on the shore for a bit,"--he said; "I like to get
+as close to the waves as I can when they're rolling in."
+
+"Well, don't get too close,"--said Twitt, kindly--"We'll be havin' ye
+washed away if ye don't take care! There's onny an hour to tea-time, an'
+Mary Deane's a punctooal 'ooman!"
+
+"I shall not keep her waiting--never fear!" and Helmsley smiled as he
+said good-day, and jogged slowly along his favourite accustomed path to
+the beach. The way though rough, was not very steep, and it was becoming
+quite easy and familiar to him. He soon found himself on the firm brown
+sand sprinkled with a fringe of seaweed and shells, and further adorned
+in various places with great rough boulders, picturesquely set up on
+end, like the naturally hewn memorials of great heroes passed away.
+Here, the ground being level, he could walk more quickly and with
+greater comfort than in the one little precipitous street of Weircombe,
+and he paced up and down, looking at the rising and falling hollows of
+the sea with wistful eyes that in their growing age and dimness had an
+intensely pathetic expression,--the expression one sometimes sees in the
+eyes of a dog who knows that its master is leaving it for an indefinite
+period.
+
+"What a strange chaos of brain must be that of the suicide!" he
+thought--"Who, that can breathe the fresh air and watch the lights and
+shadows in the sky and on the waves, would really wish to leave the
+world, unless the mind had completely lost its balance! We have never
+seen anything more beautiful than this planet upon which we are
+born,--though there is a sub-consciousness in us which prophesies of yet
+greater beauty awaiting higher vision. The subconscious self! That is
+the scientist's new name for the Soul,--but the Soul is a better term.
+Now my subconscious self--my Soul,--is lamenting the fact that it must
+leave life when it has just begun to learn how to live! I should like
+to be here and see what Mary will do when--when I am gone! Yet how do I
+know but that in very truth I shall be here?--or in some way be made
+aware of her actions? She has a character such as I never thought to
+find in any mortal woman,--strong, pure, tender,--and sincere!--ah, that
+sincerity of hers is like the very sunlight!--so bright and warm, and
+clean of all ulterior motive! And measured by a worldly estimate
+only--what is she? The daughter of a humble florist,--herself a mere
+mender of lace, and laundress of fine ladies' linen! And her sweet and
+honest eyes have never looked upon that rag-fair of nonsense we call
+'society';--she never thinks of riches;--and yet she has refined and
+artistic taste enough to love the lace she mends, just for pure
+admiration of its beauty,--not because she herself desires to wear it,
+but because it represents the work and lives of others, and because it
+is in itself a miracle of design. I wonder if she ever notices how
+closely I watch her! I could draw from memory the shapely outline of her
+hand,--a white, smooth, well-kept hand, never allowed to remain soiled
+by all her various forms of domestic labour,--an expressive hand,
+indicating health and sanity, with that deep curve at the wrist, and the
+delicately shaped fingers which hold the needle so lightly and guide it
+so deftly through the intricacies of the riven lace, weaving a web of
+such fairy-like stitches that the original texture seems never to have
+been broken. I have sat quiet for an hour or more studying her when she
+has thought me asleep in my chair by the fire,--and I have fancied that
+my life is something like the damaged fabric she is so carefully
+repairing,--holes and rents everywhere,--all the symmetry of design
+dropping to pieces,--the little garlands of roses and laurels snapped
+asunder,--and she, with her beautiful white hands is gently drawing the
+threads together and mending it,--for what purpose?--to what end?"
+
+And here the involuntary action of some little brain-cell gave him the
+memory of certain lines in Browning's "Rabbi Ben Ezra":--
+
+          "Therefore I summon age
+          To grant youth's heritage
+    Life's struggle having so far reached its term;
+          Thence shall I pass, approved
+          A man, for aye removed
+    From the developed brute; a god, though in the germ.
+          And I shall thereupon
+          Take rest ere I be gone
+    Once more on my adventures brave and new--
+          Fearless--and unperplexed
+          When I wage battle next,
+    What weapons to select, what armour to indue!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He turned his eyes again to the sea just as a lovely light, pale golden
+and clear as topaz, opened suddenly in the sky, shedding a shower of
+luminant reflections on the waves. He drew a deep breath, and
+unconsciously straightened himself.
+
+"When death comes it shall find me ready!" he said, half aloud;--and
+then stood, confronting the ethereal glory. The waves rolled in slowly
+and majestically one after the other, and broke at his feet in long
+wreaths of creamy foam,--and presently one or two light gusts of a
+rather chill wind warned him that he had best be returning homeward.
+While he yet hesitated, a leaf of paper blew towards him, and danced
+about like a large erratic butterfly, finally dropping just where the
+stick on which he leaned made a hole in the sand. He stooped and picked
+it up. It was covered with fine small handwriting, and before he could
+make any attempt to read it, a man sprang up from behind one of the
+rocky boulders close by, and hurried forward, raising his cap as he
+came.
+
+"That's mine!" he said, quickly, with a pleasant smile--"It's a loose
+page from my notebook. Thank-you so much for saving it!"
+
+Helmsley gave him the paper at once, with a courteous inclination of the
+head.
+
+"I've been scribbling down here all day,"--proceeded the new comer--"And
+there's not been much wind till now. But"--and he glanced up and about
+him critically; "I think we shall have a puff of sou'wester to-night."
+
+Helmsley looked at him with interest. He was a man of distinctive
+appearance,--tall, well-knit, and muscular, with a fine intellectual
+face and keen clear grey eyes. Not a very young man;--he seemed about
+thirty-eight or forty, perhaps more, for his dark hair was fairly
+sprinkled with silver. But his manner was irresistibly bright and
+genial, and it was impossible to meet his frank, open, almost boyish
+gaze, without a desire to know more of him, and an inclination to like
+him.
+
+"Do you make the seashore your study?" asked Helmsley, with a slight
+gesture towards the notebook into which the stranger was now carefully
+putting the strayed leaflet.
+
+"Pretty much so!" and he laughed--"I've only got one room to live
+in--and it has to serve for both sleeping and eating--so I come out here
+to breathe and expand a bit." He paused, and then added gently--"May I
+give you my arm up to Miss Deane's cottage?"
+
+"Why, how do you know I live there?" and Helmsley smiled as he put the
+question.
+
+"Oh, well, all the village knows that!--and though I'm quite new to the
+village--I've only been here a week--I know it too. You're old David,
+the basket-maker, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes." And Helmsley nodded emphatically--"That's me!"
+
+"Then I know all about you! My name's Angus Reay. I'm a Scotchman,--I
+am, or rather, I _was_ a journalist, and as poor as Job! That's _me_!
+Come along!"
+
+The cheery magnetism of his voice and look attracted Helmsley, and
+almost before he knew it he was leaning on this new friend's arm,
+chatting with him concerning the village, the scenery, and the weather,
+in the easiest way possible.
+
+"I came on here from Minehead,"--said Reay--"That was too expensive a
+place for me!" And a bright smile flashed from lips to eyes with an
+irresistible sunny effect; "I've got just twenty pounds in the world,
+and I must make it last me a year. For room, food, fuel, clothes, drink
+and smoke! I've promptly cut off the last two!"
+
+"And you're none the worse for it, I daresay!" rejoined Helmsley.
+
+"Not a bit! A good deal the better. In Fleet Street the men drank and
+smoked pretty heavily, and I had to drink and smoke with them, if I
+wanted to keep in with the lot. I did want to keep in with them, and yet
+I didn't. It was a case of 'needs must when the devil drives!'"
+
+"You say you were a journalist. Aren't you one now?"
+
+"No. I'm 'kicked off'!" And Reay threw back his head and laughed
+joyously. "'Off you go!' said my editor, one fine morning, after I had
+slaved away for him for nearly two years--'We don't want any canting
+truth-tellers here!' Now mind that stone! You nearly slipped. Hold my
+arm tighter!"
+
+Helmsley did as he was told, quite meekly, looking up with a good deal
+of curiosity at this tall athletic creature, with the handsome head and
+masterful manner. Reay caught his enquiring glance and laughed again.
+
+"You look as if you wanted to know more about me, old David!" he said
+gaily--"So you shall! I've nothing to conceal! As I tell you I was
+'kicked off' out of journalism--my fault being that I published a
+leaderette exposing a mean 'deal' on the part of a certain city
+plutocrat. I didn't know the rascal had shares in the paper. But he
+_had_--under an 'alias.' And he made the devil's own row about it with
+the editor, who nearly died of it, being inclined to apoplexy--and
+between the two of them I was 'dropped.' Then the word ran along the
+press wires that I was an 'unsafe' man. I could not get any post worth
+having--I had saved just twenty pounds--so I took it all and walked away
+from London--literally _walked_ away! I haven't spent a penny in other
+locomotion than my own legs since I left Fleet Street."
+
+Helmsley listened with eager interest. Here was a man who had done the
+very thing which he himself had started to do;--"tramped" the road.
+But--with what a difference! Full manhood, physical strength, and
+activity on the one side,--decaying power, feebleness of limb and
+weariness on the other. They had entered the village street by this
+time, and were slowly walking up it together.
+
+"You see,"--went on Reay,--"of course I could have taken the train--but
+twenty pounds is only twenty pounds--and it must last me twelve solid
+months. By that time I shall have finished my work."
+
+"And what's that?" asked Helmsley.
+
+"It's a book. A novel. And"--here he set his teeth hard--"I intend that
+it shall make me--famous!"
+
+"The intention is good,"--said Helmsley, slowly--"But--there are so many
+novels!"
+
+"No, there are not!" declared Reay, decisively--"There are plenty of
+rag-books _called_ novels--but they are not real 'novels.' There's
+nothing 'new' in them. There's no touch of real, suffering, palpitating
+humanity in them! The humanity of to-day is infinitely more complex than
+it was in the days of Scott or Dickens, but there's no Scott or Dickens
+to epitomise its character or delineate its temperament. I want to be
+the twentieth century Scott and Dickens rolled into one stupendous
+literary Titan!"
+
+His mellow laughter was hearty and robust. Helmsley caught its infection
+and laughed too.
+
+"But why,"--he asked--"do you want to write a novel? Why not write a
+real _book_?"
+
+"What do you call a real book, old David?" demanded Reay, looking down
+upon him with a sudden piercing glance.
+
+Helmsley was for a moment confused. He was thinking of such books as
+Carlyle's "Past and Present"--Emerson's "Essays" and the works of
+Ruskin. But he remembered in good time that for an old "basket-maker" to
+be familiar with such literary masterpieces might seem strange to a
+wide-awake "journalist," therefore he checked himself in time.
+
+"Oh, I don't know! I believe I was thinking of 'Pilgrim's Progress'!" he
+said.
+
+"'Pilgrim's Progress'? Ah! A fine book--a grand book! Twelve years and a
+half of imprisonment in Bedford Jail turned Bunyan out immortal! And
+here am I--_not_ in jail--but free to roam where I choose,--with twenty
+pounds! By Jove! I ought to be greater than Bunyan! Now 'Pilgrim's
+Progress' was a 'novel,' if you like!"
+
+"I thought,"--submitted Helmsley, with the well-assumed air of a man who
+was not very conversant with literature--"that it was a religious book?"
+
+"So it is. A religious novel. And a splendid one! But humanity's gone
+past that now--it wants a wider view--a bigger, broader outlook. Do you
+know--" and here he stopped in the middle of the rugged winding street,
+and looked earnestly at his companion--"do you know what I see men doing
+at the present day?--I see them rushing towards the verge--the very
+extreme edge of what they imagine to be the Actual--and from that edge
+getting ready to plunge--into Nothingness!"
+
+Something thrilling in his voice touched a responsive chord in
+Helmsley's own heart.
+
+"Why--that is where we all tend!" he said, with a quick sigh--"That is
+where _I_ am tending!--where _you_, in your time, must also
+tend--nothingness--or death!"
+
+"No!" said Reay, almost loudly--"That's not true! That's just what I
+deny! For me there is no 'Nothingness'--no 'death'! Space is full of
+creative organisms. Dissolution means re-birth. It is all
+life--life:--glorious life! We live--we have always lived--we _shall_
+always live!" He paused, flushing a little as though half ashamed of
+his own enthusiasm--then, dropping his voice to its normal tone he
+said--"You've got me on my hobby horse--I must come off it, or I shall
+gallop too far! We're just at the top of the street now. Shall I leave
+you here?"
+
+"Please come on to the cottage,"--said Helmsley--"I'm sure Mary--Miss
+Deane--will give you a cup of tea."
+
+Angus Reay smiled.
+
+"I don't allow myself that luxury,"--he said.
+
+"Not when you're invited to share it with others?"
+
+"Oh yes, in that way I do--but I'm not overburdened with friends just
+now. A man must have more than twenty pounds to be 'asked out'
+anywhere!"
+
+"Well, _I_ ask you out!"--said Helmsley, smiling--"Or rather, I ask you
+_in_. I'm sure Miss Deane will be glad to talk to you. She is very fond
+of books."
+
+"I've seen her just once in the village,"--remarked Reay--"She seems to
+be very much respected here. And what a beautiful woman she is!"
+
+"You think so?" and Helmsley's eyes lighted with pleasure--"Well, I
+think so, too--but they tell me that it's only because I'm old, and apt
+to see everyone beautiful who is kind to me. There's a good deal in
+that!--there's certainly a good deal in that!"
+
+They could now see the garden gate of Mary's cottage through the boughs
+of the great chestnut tree, which at this season was nearly stripped of
+all its leaves, and which stood like a lonely forest king with some
+scanty red and yellow rags of woodland royalty about him, in solitary
+grandeur at the bending summit of the hill. And while they were yet
+walking the few steps which remained of the intervening distance, Mary
+herself came out to the gate, and, leaning one arm lightly across it,
+watched them approaching. She wore a pale lilac print gown, high to the
+neck and tidily finished off by a plain little muslin collar fastened
+with a coquettish knot of black velvet,--her head was uncovered, and the
+fitful gleams of the sinking sun shed a russet glow on her shining hair
+and reddened the pale clear transparency of her skin. In that restful
+waiting attitude, with a smile on her face, she made a perfect picture,
+and Helmsley stole a side-glance at his companion, to see if he seemed
+to be in any way impressed by her appearance. Angus Reay was certainly
+looking at her, but what he thought could hardly be guessed by his
+outward expression. They reached the gate, and she opened it.
+
+"I was getting anxious about you, David!"--she said; "you aren't quite
+strong enough to be out in such a cold wind." Then she turned her eyes
+enquiringly on Reay, who lifted his cap while Helmsley explained his
+presence.
+
+"This is a gentleman who is staying in the village--Mr. Reay,"--he
+said--"He's been very kind in helping me up the hill--and I said you
+would give him a cup of tea."
+
+"Why, of course!"--and Mary smiled--"Please come in, sir!"
+
+She led the way, and in another few minutes, all three of them were
+seated in her little kitchen round the table and Mary was busy pouring
+out the tea and dispensing the usual good things that are always found
+in the simplest Somersetshire cottage,--cream, preserved fruit, scones,
+home-made bread and fresh butter.
+
+"So you met David on the seashore?" she said, turning her soft dark-blue
+eyes enquiringly on Reay, while gently checking with one hand the
+excited gambols of Charlie, who, as an epicurean dog, always gave
+himself up to the wildest enthusiasms at tea-time, owing to his
+partiality for a small saucer of cream which came to him at that
+hour--"I sometimes think he must expect to pick up a fortune down among
+the shells and seaweed, he's so fond of walking about there!"--And she
+smiled as she put Helmsley's cup of tea before him, and gently patted
+his wrinkled hand in the caressing fashion a daughter might show to a
+father whose health gave cause for anxiety.
+
+"Well, _I_ certainly don't go down to the shore in any such
+expectation!" said Reay, laughing--"Fortunes are not so easily picked
+up, are they, David?"
+
+"No, indeed!" replied Helmsley, and his old eyes sparkled up humorously
+under their cavernous brows; "fortunes take some time to make, and one
+doesn't meet millionaires every day!"
+
+"Millionaires!" exclaimed Reay--"Don't speak of them! I hate them!"
+
+Helmsley looked at him stedfastly.
+
+"It's best not to hate anybody,"--he said--"Millionaires are often the
+loneliest and most miserable of men."
+
+"They deserve to be!" declared Reay, hotly--"It isn't right--it isn't
+just that two or three, or let us say four or five men should be able
+to control the money-markets of the world. They generally get their
+wealth through some unscrupulous 'deal,' or through 'sweating' labour. I
+hate all 'cornering' systems. I believe in having enough to live upon,
+but not too much."
+
+"It depends on what you call enough,"--said Helmsley, slowly--"We're
+told that some people never know when they _have_ enough."
+
+"Why _this_ is enough!" said Reay, looking admiringly round the little
+kitchen in which they sat--"This sweet little cottage with this oak
+raftered ceiling, and all the dear old-fashioned crockery, and the
+ingle-nook over there,--who on earth wants more?"
+
+Mary laughed.
+
+"Oh dear me!" she murmured, gently--"You praise it too much!--it's only
+a very poor place, sir,----"
+
+He interrupted her, the colour rushing to his brows.
+
+"Please don't!"
+
+She glanced at him in surprise.
+
+"Don't--what?"
+
+"Don't call me 'sir'! I'm only a poor chap,--my father was a shepherd,
+and I began life as a cowherd--I don't want any titles of courtesy."
+
+She still kept her eyes upon him thoughtfully.
+
+"But you're a gentleman, aren't you?" she asked.
+
+"I hope so!" And he laughed. "Just as David is! But we neither of us
+wish the fact emphasised, do we, David? It goes without saying!"
+
+Helmsley smiled. This Angus Reay was a man after his own heart.
+
+"Of course it does!"--he said--"In the way you look at it! But you
+should tell Miss Deane all about yourself--she'll be interested."
+
+"Would you really care to hear?" enquired Reay, suddenly, turning his
+clear grey eyes full on Mary's face.
+
+"Why certainly I should!" she answered, frankly meeting his glance,--and
+then, from some sudden and inexplicable embarrassment, she blushed
+crimson, and her eyelids fell. And Reay thought what a clear, healthy
+skin she had, and how warmly the blood flowed under it.
+
+"Well, after tea I'll hold forth!" he said--"But there isn't much to
+tell. Such as there is, you shall know, for I've no mysteries about me.
+Some fellows love a mystery--I cannot bear it! Everything must be fair,
+open and above board with me,--else I can't breathe! Pouf!" And he
+expanded his broad chest and took a great gulp of air in as he spoke--"I
+hate a man who tries to hide his own identity, don't you, David?"
+
+"Yes--yes--certainly!" murmured Helmsley, absently, feigning to be
+absorbed in buttering a scone for his own eating--"It is often very
+awkward--for the man."
+
+"I always say, and I always will maintain,"--went on Reay--"let a man be
+a man--a something or a nothing. If he is a criminal, let him say he is
+a criminal, and not pretend to be virtuous--if he is an atheist, let him
+say he is an atheist, and not pretend to be religious--if he's a beggar
+and can't help himself, let him admit the fact--if he's a millionaire,
+don't let him skulk round pretending he's as poor as Job--always let him
+be himself and no other!--eh?--what is it, David?"
+
+For Helmsley was looking at him intently with eyes that were almost
+young in their sudden animation and brilliancy.
+
+"Did you ever meet a millionaire who skulked round pretending he was as
+poor as Job?" he enquired, with a whimsical air--"_I_ never did!"
+
+"Well no, I never did, either!" And Reay's mellow laughter was so loud
+and long that Mary was quite infected by it, and laughed with him--"But
+you see millionaires are all marked men. Everybody knows them. Their
+portraits are in all the newspapers--horrid-looking rascals most of
+them!--Nature doesn't seem to endow them with handsome features anyway.
+'Keep your gold, and never mind your face,'--she seems to say--'_I'll_
+take care of that!' And she does take care of it! O Lord! The only
+millionaire I ever saw in my life was ugly enough to frighten a baby
+into convulsions!"
+
+"What was his name?" asked Helmsley.
+
+"Well, it wouldn't be fair to tell his name now, after what I've said!"
+laughed Reay--"Besides, he lives in America, thank God! He's one of the
+few who have spared the old country his patronage!"
+
+Here a diversion was created by the necessity of serving the tiny but
+autocratic Charlie with his usual "dish of cream," of which he partook
+on Mary's knee, while listening (as was evident from the attentive
+cocking of his silky ears) to the various compliments he was accustomed
+to receive on his beauty. This business over, they rose from the
+tea-table. The afternoon had darkened into twilight, and the autumnal
+wind was sighing through the crannies of the door. Mary stirred the fire
+into a brighter blaze, and drawing Helmsley's armchair close to its warm
+glow, stood by him till he was comfortably seated--then she placed
+another chair opposite for Reay, and sat down herself on a low oaken
+settle between the two.
+
+"This is the pleasantest time of the day just now,"--she said--"And the
+best time for talking! I love the gloaming. My father loved it too."
+
+"So did _my_ father!" and Reay's eyes softened as he bent them on the
+sparkling fire--"In winter evenings when the darkness fell down upon our
+wild Highland hills, he would come home to our shieling on the edge of
+the moor, shaking all the freshness of the wind and the scent of the
+dying heather out of his plaid as he threw it from his shoulders,--and
+he would toss fresh peat on the fire till it blazed red and golden, and
+he would lay his hand on my head and say to me: 'Come awa' bairnie! Now
+for a bogle story in the gloamin'!' Ah, those bogle stories! They are
+answerable for a good deal in my life! They made me want to write bogle
+stories myself!"
+
+"And _do_ you write them?" asked Mary.
+
+"Not exactly. Though perhaps all human life is only a bogle tale!
+Invented to amuse the angels!"
+
+She smiled, and taking up a delicate piece of crochet lace, which she
+called her "spare time work," began to ply the glittering needle in and
+out fine intricacies of thread, her shapely hands gleaming like
+alabaster in the fire-light reflections.
+
+"Well, now tell us your own bogle tale!" she said--"And David and I will
+play the angels!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+He watched her working for a few minutes before he spoke again. And
+shading his eyes with one hand from the red glow of the fire, David
+Helmsley watched them both.
+
+"Well, it's rather cool of me to take up your time talking about my own
+affairs,"--began Reay, at last--"But I've been pretty much by myself for
+a good while, and it's pleasant to have a chat with friendly people--man
+wasn't made to live alone, you know! In fact, neither man nor beast nor
+bird can stand it. Even a sea cormorant croaks to the wind!"
+
+Mary laughed.
+
+"But not for company's sake,"--she said--"It croaks when it's hungry."
+
+"Oh, I've often croaked for that reason!" and Reay pushed from his
+forehead a wayward tuft of hair which threatened to drop over his eye in
+a thick silvery brown curl--"But it's wonderful how little a fellow can
+live upon in the way of what is called food. I know all sorts of dodges
+wherewith to satisfy the greedy cravings of the vulgar part of me."
+
+Helmsley took his hand from his eyes, and fixed a keenly observant look
+upon the speaker. Mary said nothing, but her crochet needle moved more
+slowly.
+
+"You see," went on Reay, "I've always been rather fortunate in having
+had very little to eat."
+
+"You call it 'fortunate'?" queried Helmsley, abruptly.
+
+"Why, of course! I've never had what the doctors call an 'overloaded
+system'--therefore I've no lading bill to pay. The million or so of
+cells of which I am composed are not at all anxious to throw any extra
+nourishment off,--sometimes they intimate a strong desire to take some
+extra nourishment in--but that is an uneducated tendency in them which I
+sternly repress. I tell all those small grovelling cells that extra
+nourishment would not be good for them. And they shrink back from my
+moral reproof ashamed of themselves--and become wiry instead of fatty.
+Which is as it should be."
+
+"You're a queer chap!" said Helmsley, with a laugh.
+
+"Think so? Well, I daresay I am--all Scotsmen are. There's always the
+buzzing of the bee in our bonnets. I come of an ancient Highland stock
+who were certainly 'queer' as modern ways go,--for they were famous for
+their pride, and still more famous for their poverty all the way
+through. As far back as I can go in the history of my family, and that's
+a pretty long way, we were always at our wit's end to live. From the
+days of the founder of our house, a glorious old chieftain who used to
+pillage his neighbour chieftain in the usual style of those glorious old
+times, we never had more than just enough for the bare necessities of
+life. My father, as I told you, was a shepherd--a strong, fine-looking
+man over six feet in height, and as broad-chested as a Hercules--he
+herded sheep on the mountains for a Glasgow dealer, as low-down a rascal
+as ever lived, a man who, so far as race and lineage went, wasn't fit to
+scrape mud off my father's boots. But we often see gentlemen of birth
+obliged to work for knaves of cash. That was the way it was with my
+father. As soon as I was old enough--about ten,--I helped him in his
+work--I used to tramp backwards and forwards to school in the nearest
+village, but after school hours I got an evening job of a shilling a
+week for bringing home eight Highland bull-heifers from pasture. The man
+who owned them valued them highly, but was afraid of them--wouldn't go
+near them for his life--and before I'd been with them a fortnight they
+all knew me. I was only a wee laddie, but they answered to my call like
+friendly dogs rather than the great powerful splendid beasts they were,
+with their rough coats shining like floss silk in the sunset, when I
+went to drive them home, singing as I came. And my father said to me one
+night--'Laddie, tell me the truth--are ye ever scared at the bulls!'
+'No, father!' said I--'It's a bonnie boy I am to the bulls!' And he
+laughed--by Jove!--how he laughed! 'Ye're a wee raskell!' he said--'An'
+as full o' conceit as an egg's full o' meat!' I expect that was true
+too, for I always thought well of myself. You see, if I hadn't thought
+well of myself, no one would ever have thought well of _me_!"
+
+"There's something in that!" said Helmsley, the smile still lingering in
+his eyes--"Courage and self-reliance have often conquered more than
+eight bulls!"
+
+"Oh, I don't call it either courage or self-reliance--it was just that
+I thought myself of too much importance to be hurt by bulls or anything
+else,"--and Angus laughed,--then with a sudden knitting of his brows as
+though his thoughts were making hard knots in his brain, he added--"Even
+as a laddie I had an idea--and I have it now--that there was something
+in me which God had put there for a purpose of His own,--something that
+he would not and _could_ not destroy till His purpose had been
+fulfilled!"
+
+Mary stopped working and looked at him earnestly. Her breath came and
+went quickly--her eyes shone dewily like stars in a summer haze,--she
+was deeply interested.
+
+"That was--and _is_--a conceited notion, of course,"--went on Angus,
+reflectively--"And I don't excuse it. But I'm not one of the 'meek who
+shall inherit the earth.' I'm a robustious combustious sort of chap--if
+a fellow knocks me down, I jump up and give it him back with as jolly
+good interest as I can--and if anyone plays me a dirty trick I'll move
+all the mental and elemental forces of the universe to expose him.
+That's my way--unfortunately----"
+
+"Why 'unfortunately'?" asked Helmsley.
+
+Reay threw back his head and indulged in one of his mellow peals of
+laughter.
+
+"Can you ask why? Oh David, good old David!--it's easy to see you don't
+know much of the world! If you did, you'd realise that the best way to
+'get on' in the usual way of worldly progress, is to make up to all
+sorts of social villains and double-dyed millionaire-scoundrels, find
+out all their tricks and their miserable little vices and pamper them,
+David!--pamper them and flatter them up to the top of their bent till
+you've got them in your power--and then--then _use_ them--use them for
+everything you want. For once you know what blackguards they are,
+they'll give you anything not to tell!"
+
+"I should be sorry to think that's true,"--murmured Mary.
+
+"Don't think it, then,"--said Angus--"You needn't,--because millionaires
+are not likely to come in your way. Nor in mine--now. I've cut myself
+adrift from all chance of ever meeting them. But only a year ago I was
+on the road to making a good thing out of one or two of the so-called
+'kings of finance'--then I suddenly took a 'scunner' as we Scots say, at
+the whole lot, and hated and despised myself for ever so much as
+thinking that it might serve my own ends to become their tool. So I
+just cast off ropes like a ship, and steamed out of harbour."
+
+"Into the wide sea!" said Mary, looking at him with a smile that was
+lovely in its radiance and sympathy.
+
+"Into the wide sea--yes!" he answered--"And sea that was pretty rough at
+first. But one can get accustomed to anything--even to the high
+rock-a-bye tossing of great billows that really don't want to put you to
+sleep so much as to knock you to pieces. But I'm galloping along too
+fast. From the time I made friends with young bulls to the time I began
+to scrape acquaintance with newspaper editors is a far cry--and in the
+interim my father died. I should have told you that I lost my mother
+when I was born--and I don't think that the great wound her death left
+in my father's heart ever really healed. He never seemed quite at one
+with the things of life--and his 'bogle tales' of which I was so fond,
+all turned on the spirits of the dead coming again to visit those whom
+they had loved, and from whom they had been taken--and he used to tell
+them with such passionate conviction that sometimes I trembled and
+wondered if any spirit were standing near us in the light of the peat
+fire, or if the shriek of the wind over our sheiling were the cry of
+some unhappy soul in torment. Well! When his time came, he was not
+allowed to suffer--one day in a great storm he was struck by lightning
+on the side of the mountain where he was herding in his flocks--and
+there he was found lying as though he were peacefully asleep. Death must
+have been swift and painless--and I always thank God for that!" He
+paused a moment--then went on--"When I found myself quite alone in the
+world, I hired myself out to a farmer for five years--and worked
+faithfully for him--worked so well that he raised my wages and would
+willingly have kept me on--but I had the 'bogle tales' in my head and
+could not rest. It was in the days before Andrew Carnegie started trying
+to rub out the memory of his 'Homestead' cruelty by planting 'free'
+libraries, (for which taxpayers are rated) all over the country--and
+pauperising Scottish University education by grants of money--I suppose
+he is a sort of little Pontiff unto himself, and thinks that money can
+pacify Heaven, and silence the cry of brothers' blood rising from the
+Homestead ground. In my boyhood a Scottish University education had to
+be earned by the would-be student himself--earned by hard work, hard
+living, patience, perseverance and _grit_. That's the one quality I
+had--grit--and it served me well in all I wanted. I entered at St.
+Andrews--graduated, and came out an M.A. That helped to give me my first
+chance with the press. But I'm sure I'm boring you by all this chatter
+about myself! David, _you_ stop me when you think Miss Deane has had
+enough!"
+
+Helmsley looked at Mary's figure in its pale lilac gown touched here and
+there by the red sparkle of the fire, and noted the attentive poise of
+her head, and the passive quietude of her generally busy hands which now
+lay in her lap loosely folded over her lace work.
+
+"Have we had enough, Mary, do you think?" he asked, with the glimmering
+of a tender little smile under his white moustache.
+
+She glanced at him quickly in a startled way, as though she had been
+suddenly wakened from a reverie.
+
+"Oh no!" she answered--"I love to hear of a brave man's fight with the
+world--it's the finest story anyone can listen to."
+
+Reay coloured like a boy.
+
+"I'm not a brave man,"--he said--"I hope I haven't given you that idea.
+I'm an awful funk at times."
+
+"When are those times?" and Mary smiled demurely, as she put the
+question.
+
+Again the warm blood rushed up to his brows.
+
+"Well,--please don't laugh! I'm afraid--horribly afraid--of women!"
+
+Helmsley's old eyes sparkled.
+
+"Upon my word!" he exclaimed--"That's a funny thing for you to say!"
+
+"It is, rather,"--and Angus looked meditatively into the fire--"It's not
+that I'm bashful, at all--no--I'm quite the other way,
+really,--only--only--ever since I was a lad I've made such an ideal of
+woman that I'm afraid of her when I meet her,--afraid lest she shouldn't
+come up to my ideal, and equally afraid lest I shouldn't come up to
+hers! It's all conceit again! Fear of anything or anybody is always born
+of self-consciousness. But I've been disappointed once----"
+
+"In your ideal?" questioned Mary, raising her eyes and letting them rest
+observantly upon his face.
+
+"Yes. I'll come to that presently. I was telling you how I graduated at
+St. Andrews, and came out with M.A. tacked to my name, but with no other
+fortune than those two letters. I had made a few friends, however, and
+one of them, a worthy old professor, gave me a letter of recommendation
+to a man in Glasgow, who was the proprietor of one of the newspapers
+there. He was a warm-hearted, kindly fellow, and gave me a berth at
+once. It was hard work for little pay, but I got into thorough harness,
+and learnt all the ins and outs of journalism. I can't say that I ever
+admired the general mechanism set up for gulling the public, but I had
+to learn how it was done, and I set myself to master the whole business.
+I had rather a happy time of it in Glasgow, for though it's the
+dirtiest, dingiest and most depressing city in the world, with its
+innumerable drunkards and low Scoto-Irish ne'er-do-weels loafing about
+the streets on Saturday nights, it has one great charm--you can get away
+from it into some of the loveliest scenery in the world. All my spare
+time was spent in taking the steamer up the Clyde, and sometimes going
+as far as Crinan and beyond it--or what I loved best of all, taking a
+trip to Arran, and there roaming about the hills to my heart's content.
+Glorious Arran! It was there I first began to feel my wings growing!"
+
+"Was it a pleasant feeling?" enquired Helmsley, jocosely.
+
+"Yes--it _was_!" replied Angus, clenching his right hand and bringing it
+down on his knee with emphasis; "whether they were goose wings or eagle
+wings didn't matter--the pricking of the budding quills was an _alive_
+sensation! The mountains, the burns, the glens, all had something to say
+to me--or I thought they had--something new, vital and urgent. God
+Himself seemed to have some great command to impose upon me--and I was
+ready to hear and obey. I began to write--first verse--then prose--and
+by and by I got one or two things accepted here and there--not very
+much, but still enough to fire me to further endeavours. Then one
+summer, when I was taking a holiday at a little village near Loch
+Lomond, I got the final dig of the spur of fate--I fell in love."
+
+Mary raised her eyes again and looked at him. A slow smile parted her
+lips.
+
+"And did the girl fall in love with you?" she asked.
+
+"For a time I believe she did,"--said Reay, and there was an under-tone
+of whimsical amusement in his voice as he spoke--"She was spending the
+summer in Scotland with her mother and father, and there wasn't anything
+for her to do. She didn't care for scenery very much--and I just came
+in as a sort of handy man to amuse her. She was a lovely creature in
+her teens,--I thought she was an angel--till--till I found her out."
+
+"And then?" queried Helmsley.
+
+"Oh well, then of course I was disillusioned. When I told her that I
+loved her more than anything else in the world, she laughed ever so
+sweetly, and said, 'I'm sure you do!' But when I asked her if she loved
+_me_, she laughed again, and said she didn't know what I was talking
+about--she didn't believe in love. 'What do you believe in?' I asked
+her. And she looked at me in the prettiest and most innocent way
+possible, and said quite calmly and slowly--'A rich marriage.' And my
+heart gave a great dunt in my side, for I knew it was all over. 'Then
+you won't marry _me_?'--I said--'for I'm only a poor journalist. But I
+mean to be famous some day!' 'Do you?' she said, and again that little
+laugh of hers rippled out like the tinkle of cold water--'Don't you
+think famous men are very tiresome? And they're always dreadfully poor!'
+Then I took hold of her hands, like the desperate fool I was, and kissed
+them, and said, 'Lucy, wait for me just a few years! Wait for me! You're
+so young'--for she was only seventeen, and still at school in Brighton
+somewhere--'You can afford to wait,--give me a chance!' And she looked
+down at the water--we were 'on the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond,' as the
+song says--in quite a picturesque little attitude of reflection, and
+sighed ever so prettily, and said--'I can't, Angus! You're very nice and
+kind!--and I like you very much!--but I am going to marry a
+millionaire!' Now you know why I hate millionaires."
+
+"Did you say her name was Lucy?" asked Helmsley.
+
+"Yes. Lucy Sorrel."
+
+A bright flame leaped up in the fire and showed all three faces to one
+another--Mary's face, with its quietly absorbed expression of attentive
+interest--Reay's strongly moulded features, just now somewhat sternly
+shadowed by bitter memories--and Helmsley's thin, worn, delicately
+intellectual countenance, which in the brilliant rosy light flung upon
+it by the fire-glow, was like a fine waxen mask, impenetrable in its
+unmoved austerity and calm. Not so much as the faintest flicker of
+emotion crossed it at the mention of the name of the woman he knew so
+well,--the surprise he felt inwardly was not apparent outwardly, and he
+heard the remainder of Reay's narration with the most perfectly
+controlled imperturbability of demeanour.
+
+"She told me then," proceeded Reay--"that her parents had spent nearly
+all they had upon her education, in order to fit her for a position as
+the wife of a rich man--and that she would have to do her best to
+'catch'--that's the way she put it--to 'catch' this rich man as soon as
+she got a good opportunity. He was quite an old man, she said--old
+enough to be her grandfather. And when I asked her how she could
+reconcile it to her conscience to marry such a hoary-headed rascal----"
+
+Here Helmsley interrupted him.
+
+"Was he a hoary-headed rascal?"
+
+"He must have been," replied Angus, warmly--"Don't you see he must?"
+
+Helmsley smiled.
+
+"Well--not exactly!" he submitted, with a gentle air of deference--"I
+think--perhaps--he might deserve a little pity for having to be 'caught'
+as you say just for his money's sake."
+
+"Not a bit of it!" declared Reay--"Any old man who would marry a young
+girl like that condemns himself as a villain. An out-an-out,
+golden-dusted villain!"
+
+"But _has_ he married her?" asked Mary.
+
+Angus was rather taken aback at this question,--and rubbed his forehead
+perplexedly.
+
+"Well, no, he hasn't--not yet--not that I know of, and I've watched the
+papers carefully too. Such a marriage couldn't take place without
+columns and columns of twaddle about it--all the dressmakers who made
+gowns for the bride would want a mention--and if they paid for it of
+course they'd get it. No--it hasn't come off yet--but it will. The
+venerable bridegroom that is to be has just gone abroad somewhere--so I
+see by one of the 'Society' rags,--probably to the States to make some
+more 'deals' in cash before his wedding."
+
+"You know his name, then?"
+
+"Oh yes! Everybody knows it, and knows him too! David Helmsley's too
+rich to hide his light under a bushel! They call him 'King David' in the
+city. Now your name's David--but, by Jove, what a difference in Davids!"
+And he laughed, adding quickly--"I prefer the David I see before me now,
+to the David I never saw!"
+
+"Oh! You never saw the old rascal then?" murmured Helmsley, putting up
+one hand to stroke his moustache slowly down over the smile which he
+could not repress.
+
+"Never--and don't want to! If I become famous--which I _will_ do,"--and
+here Angus set his teeth hard--"I'll make my bow at one of Mrs.
+Millionaire Helmsley's receptions one day! And how will she look then!"
+
+"I should say she would look much the same as usual,"--said Helmsley,
+drily--"If she is the kind of young woman you describe, she is not
+likely to be overcome by the sight of a merely 'famous' man. You would
+have to be twice or three times as wealthy as herself to move her to any
+sense of respect for you. That is, if we are to judge by what our
+newspapers tell us of 'society' people. The newspapers are all we poor
+folk have got to go by."
+
+"Yes--I've often thought of that!" and Angus rubbed his forehead again
+in a vigorous way as though he were trying to rub ideas out of it--"And
+I've pitied the poor folks from the bottom of my heart! They get pretty
+often misled--and on serious matters too."
+
+"Oh, we're not all such fools as we seem,"--said Helmsley--"We can read
+between the lines as well as anyone--and we understand pretty clearly
+that it's only money which 'makes' the news. We read of 'society ladies'
+doing this, that and t' other thing, and we laugh at their doings--and
+when we read of a great lady conducting herself like an outcast, we feel
+a contempt for her such as we never visit on her poor sister of the
+streets. The newspapers may praise these women, but we 'common people'
+estimate them at their true worth--and that is--nothing! Now the girl
+you made an ideal of----"
+
+"She was to be bought and sold,"--interrupted Reay; "I know that now.
+But I didn't know it then. She looked a sweet innocent angel,--with a
+pretty face and beautiful eyes--just the kind of creature we men fall in
+love with at first sight----"
+
+"The kind of creature who, if you had married her, would have made you
+wretched for life,"--said Helmsley. "Be thankful you escaped her!"
+
+"Oh, I'm thankful enough now!" and Reay pushed back his rebellious lock
+of hair again--"For when one has a great ambition in view, freedom is
+better than love----"
+
+Helmsley raised his wrinkled, trembling hand.
+
+"No, don't say that!" he murmured, gently--"Nothing--nothing in all the
+world is better than love!"
+
+Involuntarily his eyes turned towards Mary with a strange wistfulness.
+There was an unspoken yearning in his face that was almost pain. Her
+quick instinctive sympathy responded to his thought, and rising, she
+went to him on the pretext of re-arranging the cushion in his chair, so
+that he might lean back more comfortably. Then she took his hand and
+patted it kindly.
+
+"You're a sentimental old boy, aren't you, David!" she said,
+playfully--"You like being taken care of and fussed over! Of course you
+do! Was there ever a man that didn't!"
+
+He was silent, but he pressed her caressing hand gratefully.
+
+"No one has ever taken care of or fussed over _me_," said Reay--"I
+should rather like to try the experiment!"
+
+Mary laughed good-humouredly.
+
+"You must find yourself a wife,"--she said--"And then you'll see how you
+like it."
+
+"But wives don't make any fuss over their husbands it seems to me,"
+replied Reay--"At any rate in London, where I have lived for the past
+five years--husbands seem to be the last persons in the world whom their
+wives consider. I don't think I shall ever marry."
+
+"I'm sure _I_ shan't,"--said Mary, smiling--and as she spoke, she bent
+over the fire, and threw a fresh log of wood on to keep up the bright
+glow which was all that illuminated the room, from which almost every
+pale glimmer of the twilight had now departed--"I'm an old maid. But I
+was an engaged girl once!"
+
+Helmsley lifted up his head with sudden and animated interest.
+
+"Were you, Mary?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" And the smile deepened round her expressive mouth and played
+softly in her eyes--"Yes, David, really! I was engaged to a very
+good-looking young man in the electrical engineering business. And I was
+very fond of him. But when my father lost every penny, my good-looking
+young man went too. He said he couldn't possibly marry a girl with
+nothing but the clothes on her back. I cried very much at the time, and
+thought my heart was broken. But--it wasn't!"
+
+"I should hope it wouldn't break for such a selfish rascal!" said Reay,
+warmly.
+
+"Do you think he was more selfish than most?" queried Mary,
+thoughtfully--"There's a good many who would do as he did."
+
+A silence followed. She sat down and resumed her work.
+
+"Have you finished your story?" she asked Reay--"It has interested me so
+much that I'm hoping there's some more to tell."
+
+As she spoke to him he started as if from a dream. He had been watching
+her so earnestly that he had almost forgotten what he had previously
+been talking about. He found himself studying the beautiful outline of
+her figure, and wondering why he had never before seen such gracious
+curves of neck and shoulder, waist and bosom as gave symmetrical
+perfection of shape to this simple woman born of the "common" people.
+
+"More to tell?" he echoed, hastily,--"Well, there's a little--but not
+much. My love affair at Loch Lomond did one thing for me,--it made me
+work hard. I had a sort of desperate idea that I might wrest a fortune
+out of journalism by dint of sheer grinding at it--but I soon found out
+my mistake there. I toiled away so steadily and got such a firm hold of
+all the affairs of the newspaper office where I was employed, that one
+fine morning I was dismissed. My proprietor, genial and kindly as ever,
+said he found 'no fault'--but that he wanted 'a change.' I quite
+understood that. The fact is I knew too much--that's all. I had saved a
+bit, and so, with a few good letters of introduction, went on from
+Glasgow to London. There, in that great black ant-hill full of crawling
+sooty human life, I knocked about for a time from one newspaper office
+to another, doing any sort of work that turned up, just to keep body and
+soul together,--and at last I got a fairly good berth in the London
+branch of a big press syndicate. It was composed of three or four
+proprietors, ever so many editors, and an army of shareholders
+representing almost every class in Great Britain. Ah, those
+shareholders! There's the whole mischief of the press nowadays!"
+
+"I suppose it's money again!" said Helmsley.
+
+"Of course it is. Here's how the matter stands. A newspaper syndicate is
+like any other trading company, composed for the sole end and object of
+making as much profit out of the public as possible. The lion's portion
+naturally goes to the heads of the concern--then come the shareholders'
+dividends. The actual workers in the business, such as the 'editors,'
+are paid as little as their self-respect will allow them to take, and as
+for the other fellows _under_ the editors--well!--you can just imagine
+they get much less than the little their self-respect would claim, if
+they were not, most of them, so desperately poor, and so anxious for a
+foothold somewhere as to be ready to take anything. I took the first
+chance I could get, and hung on to it, not for the wretched pay, but for
+the experience, and for the insight it gave me into men and things. I
+witnessed the whole business;--the 'doctoring up' of social
+scandals,--the tampering with the news in order that certain items might
+not affect certain shares on the Stock Exchange,--the way 'discussions'
+of the most idiotic kind were started in the office just to fill up
+space, such as what was best to make the hair grow; what a baby ought to
+weigh at six months; what food authors write best on; and whether modern
+girls make as good wives as their mothers did, and so on. These things
+were generally got up by 'the fool of the office' as we called him--a
+man with a perpetual grin and an undyingly good opinion of himself. He
+was always put into harness when for some state or financial reason the
+actual facts had to be euphonised or even suppressed and the public 'let
+down gently.' For a time I was drafted off on the 'social'
+business--ugh?--how I hated it?"
+
+"What did you have to do?" asked Mary, amused.
+
+"Oh, I had to deal with a motley crowd of court flunkeys, Jews, tailors
+and dressmakers, and fearful-looking women catering for 'fashion,' who
+came with what they called 'news,' which was generally that 'Mrs.
+"Bunny" Bumpkin looked sweet in grey'--or that 'Miss "Toby" Tosspot was
+among the loveliest of the debutantes at Court.' Sometimes a son of
+Israel came along, all in a mortal funk, and said he 'didn't want it
+mentioned' that Mrs. So-and-So had dined with him at a certain public
+restaurant last night. Generally, he was a shareholder, and his orders
+had to be obeyed. The shareholders in fact had most to do with the
+'society' news,--and they bored me nearly to death. The trifles they
+wanted 'mentioned' were innumerable--the other trifles they didn't want
+mentioned, were quite as endless. One day there was a regular row--a
+sort of earthquake in the place. Somebody had presumed to mention that
+the beautiful Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup had smoked several cigarettes with
+infinite gusto at a certain garden party,--now what are you laughing at,
+Miss Deane?"
+
+"At the beautiful Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup!" and Mary's clear laughter
+rippled out in a silvery peal of purest merriment--"That's not her name
+surely!"
+
+"Oh no, that's not her name!" and Angus laughed too--"It wouldn't do to
+give her real name!--but Ketchup's quite as good and high-sounding as
+the one she's got. And as I tell you, the whole 'staff' was convulsed.
+Three shareholders came down post haste to the office--one at full speed
+in a motor,--and said how _dare_ I mention Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup at all?
+It was like my presumption to notice that she had smoked! Mrs. Mushroom
+Ketchup's name must be kept out of the papers--she was a 'lady'! Oh, by
+Jove!--how I laughed!--I couldn't help myself! I just roared with
+laughter in the very faces of those shareholders! 'A lady!' said
+I--'Why, she's---- ' But I wasn't allowed to say what she was, for the
+shareholder who had arrived in the motor, fixed a deadly glance upon me
+and said--'If you value your po-seetion'--he was a Lowland Scot, with
+the Lowland accent--'if you value your po-seetion on this paper, you'll
+hold your tongue!' So I did hold my tongue then--but only because I
+meant to wag it more violently afterwards. I always devote Mrs. Mushroom
+Ketchup to the blue blazes, because I'm sure it was through her I lost
+my post. You see a shareholder in a paper has a good deal of influence,
+especially if he has as much as a hundred thousand shares. You'd be
+surprised if I told you the real names of some of the fellows who
+control newspaper syndicates!--you wouldn't believe it! Or at any rate,
+if you _did_ believe it, you'd never believe the newspapers!"
+
+"I don't believe them now,"--said Helmsley--"They say one thing to-day
+and contradict it to-morrow."
+
+"Oh, but that's like all news!" said Mary, placidly--"Even in our little
+village here, you never know quite what to believe. One morning you are
+told that Mrs. Badge's baby has fallen downstairs and broken its neck,
+and you've scarcely done being sorry for Mrs. Badge, when in comes Mrs.
+Badge herself, baby and all, quite well and smiling, and she says she
+'never did hear such tales as there are in Wiercombe'!"
+
+They all laughed.
+
+"Well, there's the end of my story,"--said Angus--"I worked on the
+syndicate for two years, and then was given the sack. The cause of my
+dismissal was, as I told you, that I published a leading article
+exposing a mean and dirty financial trick on the part of a man who
+publicly assumed to be a world's benefactor--and he turned out to be a
+shareholder in the paper under an 'alias.' There was no hope for me
+after that--it was a worse affair than that of Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup. So
+I marched out of the office, and out of London--I meant to make for
+Exmoor, which is wild and solitary, because I thought I might find some
+cheap room in a cottage there, where I might live quietly on almost
+nothing and write my book--but I stumbled by chance on this place
+instead--and I rather like being so close to the sea."
+
+"You are writing a book?" said Mary, her eyes resting upon him
+thoughtfully.
+
+"Yes. I've got a room in the village for half-a-crown a week and 'board
+myself' as the good woman of the house says. And I'm perfectly happy!"
+
+A long pause followed. The fire was dying down from a flame to a dull
+red glow, and a rush of wind against the kitchen window was accompanied
+by the light pattering of rain. Angus Reay rose.
+
+"I must be going,"--he said--"I've made you quite a visitation! Old
+David is nearly asleep!"
+
+Helmsley looked up.
+
+"Not I!" and he smiled--"I'm very wide awake: I like your story, and I
+like _you_! Perhaps you'll come in again sometimes and have a chat with
+us?"
+
+Reay glanced enquiringly at Mary, who had also risen from her chair, and
+was now lighting the lamp on the table.
+
+"May I?" he asked hesitatingly.
+
+"Why, of course!" And her eyes met his with hospitable frankness--"Come
+whenever you feel lonely!"
+
+"I often do that!" he said.
+
+"All the better!--then we shall often see you!"--she answered--"And
+you'll always be welcome!"
+
+"Thank-you! I believe you mean it!"
+
+Mary smiled.
+
+"Why of course I do! I'm not a newspaper syndicate!"
+
+"Nor a Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup!" put in Helmsley.
+
+Angus threw back his head and gave one of his big joyous laughs.
+
+"No! You're a long way off that!" he said--"Good-evening, David!"
+
+And going up to the armchair where Helmsley sat he shook hands with him.
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Reay!" rejoined Helmsley, cheerily; "I'm very glad we
+met this afternoon!"
+
+"So am I!" declared Angus, with energy--"I don't feel quite so much of a
+solitary bear as I did. I'm in a better temper altogether with the world
+in general!"
+
+"That's right!" said Mary--"Whatever happens to you it's never the fault
+of the world, remember!--it's only the trying little ways of the people
+in it!"
+
+She held out her hand in farewell, and he pressed it gently. Then he
+threw on his cap, and she opened her cottage door for him to pass out. A
+soft shower of rain blew full in their faces as they stood on the
+threshold.
+
+"You'll get wet, I'm afraid!" said Mary.
+
+"Oh, that's nothing!" And he buttoned his coat across his chest--"What's
+that lovely scent in the garden here, just close to the door?"
+
+"It's the old sweetbriar bush,"--she replied--"It lasts in leaf till
+nearly Christmas and always smells so delicious. Shall I give you a bit
+of it?"
+
+"It's too dark to find it now, surely!" said Angus.
+
+"Oh, no! I can feel it!"
+
+And stretching out her white hand into the raining darkness, she brought
+it back holding a delicate spray of odorous leaves.
+
+"Isn't it sweet?" she said, as she gave it to him.
+
+"It is indeed!" he placed the little sprig in his buttonhole.
+"Thank-you! Good-night!"
+
+"Good-night!"
+
+He lifted his hat and smiled into her eyes--then walked quickly through
+the tiny garden, opened the gate, shut it carefully behind him, and
+disappeared. Mary listened for a moment to the swish of the falling rain
+among the leaves, and the noise of the tumbling hill-torrent over its
+stony bed. Then she closed and barred the door.
+
+"It's going to be a wet night, David!" she said, as she came back
+towards the fire--"And a bit rough, too, by the sound of the sea."
+
+He did not answer immediately, but watched her attentively as she made
+up the fire, and cleared the table of the tea things, packing up the
+cups and plates and saucers in the neat and noiseless manner which was
+particularly her own, preparatory to carrying them all on a tray out to
+the little scullery adjoining the kitchen, which with its well polished
+saucepans, kettles, and crockery was quite a smart feature of her small
+establishment. Then--
+
+"What do you think of him, Mary?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"Of Mr. Reay?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She hesitated a moment, looking intently at a small crack in one of the
+plates she was putting by.
+
+"Well, I don't know, David!--it's rather difficult to say on such a
+short acquaintance--but he seems to me quite a good fellow."
+
+"Quite a good fellow, yes!" repeated Helmsley, nodding gravely--"That's
+how he seems to me, too."
+
+"I think,"--went on Mary, slowly--"that he's a thoroughly manly
+man,--don't you?" He nodded gravely again, and echoed her words----
+
+"A thoroughly manly man!"
+
+"And perhaps," she continued--"it would be pleasant for you, David, to
+have a chat with him now and then especially in the long winter
+evenings--wouldn't it?"
+
+She had moved to his side, and now stood looking down upon him with such
+a wistful sweetness of expression, that he was content to merely watch
+her, without answering her question.
+
+"Because those long winter evenings are sometimes very dull, you know!"
+she went on--"And I'm afraid I'm not very good company when I'm at work
+mending the lace--I have to take all my stitches so carefully that I
+dare not talk much lest I make a false knot."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"_You_ make a false knot!" he said--"You couldn't do it, if you tried!
+You'll never make a false knot--never!"--and his voice sank to an almost
+inaudible murmur--"Neither in your lace nor in your life!"
+
+She looked at him a little anxiously.
+
+"Are you tired, David?"
+
+"No, my dear! Not tired--only thinking!"
+
+"Well, you mustn't think too much,"--she said--"Thinking is weary work,
+sometimes!"
+
+He raised his eyes and looked at her steadily.
+
+"Mr. Reay was very frank and open in telling us all about himself,
+wasn't he, Mary?"
+
+"Oh yes!" and she laughed--"But I think he is one of those men who
+couldn't possibly be anything else but frank and open."
+
+"Oh, you do?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Don't you sometimes wonder,"--went on Helmsley slowly, keeping his gaze
+fixed on the fire--"why _I_ haven't told you all about myself?"
+
+She met his eyes with a candid smile.
+
+"No--I haven't thought about it!" she said.
+
+"Why haven't you thought about it?" he persisted.
+
+She laughed outright.
+
+"Simply because I haven't! That's all!"
+
+"Mary,"--he said, seriously--"You know I was not your 'father's friend'!
+You know I never saw your father!"
+
+The smile still lingered in her eyes.
+
+"Yes--I know that!"
+
+"And yet you never ask me to give an account of myself!"
+
+She thought he was worrying his mind needlessly, and bending over him
+took his hand in hers.
+
+"No, David, I never ask impertinent questions!" she said--"I don't want
+to know anything more about you than you choose to tell. You seem to me
+like my dear father--not quite so strong as he was, perhaps--but I have
+taken care of you for so many weeks, that I almost feel as if you
+belonged to me! And I want to take care of you still, because I know you
+_must_ be taken care of. And I'm so well accustomed to you now that I
+shouldn't like to lose you, David--I shouldn't really! Because you've
+been so patient and gentle and grateful for the little I have been able
+to do for you, that I've got fond of you, David! Yes!--actually fond of
+you! What do you say to that?"
+
+"Say to it!" he murmured, pressing the hand he held. "I don't know what
+to say to it, Mary!--except--God bless you!"
+
+She was silent a minute--then she went on in a cheerfully rallying
+tone--
+
+"So I don't want to know anything about you, you see! Now, as to Mr.
+Reay----"
+
+"Ah, yes!" and Helmsley gave her a quick observant glance which she
+herself did not notice--"What about Mr. Reay?"
+
+"Well it would be nice if we could cheer him up a little and make him
+bear his poor and lonely life more easily. Wouldn't it?"
+
+"Cheer him up a little and make him bear his poor and lonely life more
+easily!" repeated Helmsley, slowly, "Yes. And do you think we can do
+that, Mary?"
+
+"We can try!" she said, smiling--"At any rate, while he's living in
+Wiercombe, we can be friendly to him, and give him a bit of dinner now
+and then!"
+
+"So we can!" agreed Helmsley--"Or rather, so _you_ can!"
+
+"_We!_" corrected Mary--"_You're_ helping me to keep house now,
+David,--remember that!"
+
+"Why I haven't paid half or a quarter of my debt to you yet!" he
+exclaimed.
+
+"But you're paying it off every day,"--she answered; "Don't you fear! I
+mean to have every penny out of you that I can!"
+
+She laughed gaily, and taking up the tray upon which she had packed all
+the tea-things, carried it out of the kitchen. Helmsley heard her
+singing softly to herself in the scullery, as she set to work to wash
+the cups and saucers. And bending his old eyes on the fire, he
+smiled,--and an indomitable expression of energetic resolve strengthened
+every line of his features.
+
+"You mean to have every penny out of me that you can, my dear, do you!"
+he said, softly--"And so--if Love can find out the way--you will!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+The winter now closed in apace,--and though the foliage all about
+Weircombe was reluctant to fall, and kept its green, russet and gold
+tints well on into December, the high gales which blew in from the sea
+played havoc with the trembling leaves at last and brought them to the
+ground like the painted fragments of Summer's ruined temple. All the
+fishermen's boats were hauled up high and dry, and great stretches of
+coarse net like black webs, were spread out on the beach for drying and
+mending,--while through the tunnels scooped out of the tall castellated
+rocks which guarded either side of the little port, or "weir," the great
+billows dashed with a thunderous roar of melody, oftentimes throwing
+aloft fountains of spray well-nigh a hundred feet in height--spray which
+the wild wind caught and blew in pellets of salty foam far up the little
+village street. Helmsley was now kept a prisoner indoors,--he had not
+sufficient strength to buffet with a gale, or to stand any unusually
+sharp nip of cold,--so he remained very comfortably by the side of the
+fire, making baskets, which he was now able to turn out quickly with
+quite an admirable finish, owing to the zeal and earnestness with which
+he set himself to the work. Mary's business in the winter months was
+entirely confined to the lace-mending--she had no fine laundry work to
+do, and her time was passed in such household duties as kept her little
+cottage sweet and clean, in attentive guardianship and care of her
+"father's friend"--and in the delicate weaving of threads whereby the
+fine fabric which had once perchance been damaged and spoilt by
+flaunting pride, was made whole and beautiful again by simple patience.
+Helmsley was never tired of watching her. Whether she knelt down with a
+pail of suds, and scrubbed her cottage doorstep--or whether she sat
+quietly opposite to him, with the small "Charlie" snuggled on a rug
+between them, while she mended her lace, his eyes always rested upon her
+with deepening interest and tenderness. And he grew daily more conscious
+of a great peace and happiness--peace and happiness such as he had
+never known since his boyhood's days. He, who had found the ways of
+modern society dull to the last point of excruciating boredom, was not
+aware of any monotony in the daily round of the hours, which, laden with
+simple duties and pleasures, came and went softly and slowly like angel
+messengers stepping gently from one heaven to another. The world--or
+that which is called the world,--had receded from him altogether. Here,
+where he had found a shelter, there was no talk of finance--the claims
+of the perpetual "bridge" party had vanished like the misty confusion of
+a bad dream from the brain--the unutterably vulgar intrigues common to
+the so-called "better" class of twentieth century humanity could not
+intrude any claim on his attention or his time--the perpetual lending of
+money to perpetually dishonest borrowers was, for the present, a
+finished task--and he felt himself to be a free man--far freer than he
+had been for many years. And, to add to the interest of his days, he
+became engrossed in a scheme--a strange scheme which built itself up in
+his head like a fairy palace, wherein everything beautiful, graceful,
+noble, helpful and precious, found place and position, and grew from
+promise to fulfilment as easily as a perfect rosebud ripens to a perfect
+rose. But he said nothing of his thoughts. He hugged them, as it were,
+to himself, and toyed with them as though they were jewels,--precious
+jewels selected specially to be set in a crown of inestimable worth.
+Meanwhile his health kept fairly equable, though he was well aware
+within his own consciousness that he did not get stronger. But he was
+strong enough to be merry at times--and his kindly temper and cheery
+conversation made him a great favourite with the Weircombe folk, who
+were never tired of "looking in" as they termed it, on Mary, and "'avin'
+a bit of a jaw with old David."
+
+Sociable evenings they had too, during that winter--evenings when Angus
+Reay came in to tea and stayed to supper, and after supper entertained
+them by singing in a deep baritone voice as soft as honey, the old
+Scotch songs now so hopelessly "out of fashion"--such as "My Nannie
+O"--"Ae fond kiss"--and "Highland Mary," in which last exquisite ballad
+he was always at his best. And Mary sang also, accompanying herself on a
+quaint old Hungarian zither, which she said had been left with her
+father as guarantee for ten shillings which he had lent to a street
+musician wandering about Barnstaple. The street musician disappeared and
+the ten shillings were never returned, so Mary took possession of the
+zither, and with the aid of a cheap instruction book, managed to learn
+enough of its somewhat puzzling technique to accompany her own voice
+with a few full, rich, plaintive chords. And it was in this fashion that
+Angus heard her first sing what she called "A song of the sea," running
+thus:
+
+    I heard the sea cry out in the night
+        Like a fretful child--
+    Moaning under the pale moonlight
+        In a passion wild--
+    And my heart cried out with the sea, in tears,
+    For the sweet lost joys of my vanished years!
+
+    I heard the sea laugh out in the noon
+        Like a girl at play--
+    All forgot was the mournful moon
+        In the dawn of day!
+    And my heart laughed out with the sea, in gladness,
+    And I thought no more of bygone sadness.
+
+    I think the sea is a part of me
+        With its gloom and glory--
+    What Has Been, and what yet Shall Be
+        Is all its story;
+    Rise up, O Heart, with the tidal flow,
+    And drown the sorrows of Long Ago!
+
+Something eerie and mystical there was in these words, sung as she sang
+them in a low, soft, contralto, sustained by the pathetic quiver of the
+zither strings throbbing under the pressure of her white fingers, and
+Angus asked her where she had learned the song.
+
+"I found it,"--she answered, somewhat evasively.
+
+"Did you compose it yourself?"
+
+She flushed a little.
+
+"How can you imagine such a thing?"
+
+He was silent, but "imagined" the more. And after this he began to show
+her certain scenes and passages in the book he was writing, sometimes
+reading them aloud to her with all that eager eloquence which an author
+who loves and feels his work is bound to convey into the pronounced
+expression of it. And she listened, absorbed and often entranced, for
+there was no gain-saying the fact that Angus Reay was a man of genius.
+He was inclined to underrate rather than overestimate his own
+abilities, and often showed quite a pathetic mistrust of himself in his
+very best and most original conceptions.
+
+"When I read to you,"--he said to her, one day--"You must tell me the
+instant you feel bored. That's a great point! Because if _you_ feel
+bored, other people who read the book will feel bored exactly as you do
+and at the very same passage. And you must criticise me mercilessly!
+Rend me to pieces--tear my sentences to rags, and pick holes in every
+detail, if you like! That will do me a world of good!"
+
+Mary laughed.
+
+"But why?" she asked, "Why do you want me to be so unkind to you?"
+
+"It won't be unkind,"--he declared--"It will be very helpful. And I'll
+tell you why. There's no longer any real 'criticism' of literary work in
+the papers nowadays. There's only extravagant eulogium written up by an
+author's personal friends and wormed somehow into the press--or equally
+extravagant abuse, written and insinuated in similar fashion by an
+author's personal enemies. Well now, you can't live without having both
+friends and enemies--you generally have more of the latter than the
+former, particularly if you are successful. There's nothing a lazy man
+won't do to 'down' an industrious one,--nothing an unknown scrub won't
+attempt in the way of trying to injure a great fame. It's a delightful
+world for that sort of thing!--so truly 'Christian,' pleasant and
+charitable! But the consequence of all these mean and petty 'personal'
+views of life is, that sound, unbiased, honest literary criticism is a
+dead art. You can't get it anywhere. And yet if you could, there's
+nothing that would be so helpful, or so strengthening to a man's work.
+It would make him put his best foot foremost. I should like to think
+that my book when it comes out, would be 'reviewed' by a man who had no
+prejudices, no 'party' politics, no personal feeling for or against
+me,--but who simply and solely considered it from an impartial,
+thoughtful, just and generous point of view--taking it as a piece of
+work done honestly and from a deep sense of conviction. Criticism from
+fellows who just turn over the pages of a book to find fault casually
+wherever they can--(I've seen them at it in newspaper offices!) or to
+quote unfairly mere scraps of sentences without context,--or to fly off
+into a whirlwind of personal and scurrilous calumnies against an author
+whom they don't know, and perhaps never will know,--that sort of thing
+is quite useless to me. It neither encourages nor angers me. It is a
+mere flabby exhibition of incompetency--much as if a jelly-fish should
+try to fight a sea-gull! Now you,--if you criticise me,--your criticism
+will be valuable, because it will be quite honest--there will be no
+'personal' feeling in it----"
+
+She raised her eyes to his and smiled.
+
+"No?"
+
+Something warm and radiant in her glance flashed into his soul and
+thrilled it strangely. Vaguely startled by an impression which he did
+not try to analyse, he went on hastily--"No--because you see you are
+neither my friend nor my enemy, are you?"
+
+She was quite silent.
+
+"I mean,"--he continued, blundering along somewhat lamely,--"You don't
+hate me very much, and you don't like me very much. I'm just an ordinary
+man to you. Therefore you're bound to be perfectly impartial, because
+what I do is a matter of 'personal' indifference to you. That's why your
+criticism will be so helpful and valuable."
+
+She bent her head closely over the lace she was mending for a minute or
+two, as though she were making a very intricate knot. Then she looked up
+again.
+
+"Well, if you wish it, I'll tell you just what I think," she said,
+quietly--"But you mustn't call it criticism. I'm not clever enough to
+judge a book. I only know what pleases _me_,--and what pleases me may
+not please the world. I know very little about authors, and I've taught
+myself all that I do know. I love Shakespeare,--but I could not explain
+to you why I love him, because I'm not clever enough. I only feel his
+work,--I feel that it's all right and beautiful and wonderful--but I
+couldn't criticise it."
+
+"No one can,--no one should!" said Reay, warmly--"Shakespeare is above
+all criticism!"
+
+"But is he not always being criticised?" she asked.
+
+"Yes. By little men who cannot understand greatness,"--he answered--"It
+gives a kind of 'scholarly importance' to the little men, but it leaves
+the great one unscathed."
+
+This talk led to many others of a similar nature between them, and
+Reay's visits to Mary's cottage became more and more frequent. David
+Helmsley, weaving his baskets day by day, began to weave something more
+delicate and uncommon than the withes of willow,--a weaving which went
+on in his mind far more actively than the twisting and plaiting of the
+osiers in his hands. Sometimes in the evenings, when work was done, and
+he sat in his comfortable easy chair by the fire watching Mary at her
+sewing and Angus talking earnestly to her, he became so absorbed in his
+own thoughts that he scarcely heard their voices, and often when they
+spoke to him, he started from a profound reverie, unconscious of their
+words. But it was not the feebleness or weariness of age that made him
+seem at times indifferent to what was going on around him--it was the
+intensity and fervour of a great and growing idea of happiness in his
+soul,--an idea which he cherished so fondly and in such close secrecy,
+as to be almost afraid to whisper it to himself lest by some unhappy
+chance it should elude his grasp and vanish into nothingness.
+
+And so the time went on to Christmas and New Year. Weircombe kept these
+festivals very quietly, yet not without cheerfulness. There was plenty
+of holly about, and the children, plunging into the thick of the woods
+at the summit of the "coombe" found mistletoe enough for the common
+need. The tiny Church was prettily decorated by the rector's wife and
+daughters, assisted by some of the girls of the village, and everybody
+attended service on Christmas morning, not only because it was
+Christmas, but because it was the last time their own parson would
+preach to them, before he went away for three months or more to a warm
+climate for the benefit of his health. But Helmsley did not join the
+little crowd of affectionate parishioners--he stayed at home while Mary
+went, as she said "to pray for him." He watched her from the open
+cottage door, as she ascended the higher part of the "coombe," dressed
+in a simple stuff gown of darkest blue, with a prim little "old maid's"
+bonnet, as she called it, tied neatly under her rounded white chin--and
+carrying in her hand a much worn "Book of Common Prayer" which she held
+with a certain delicate reverence not often shown to holy things by the
+church-going women of the time. Weircombe Church had a small but musical
+chime of bells, presented to it by a former rector--and the silvery
+sweetness of the peal just now ringing was intensified by the close
+proximity of the mountain stream, which, rendered somewhat turbulent by
+recent rains, swept along in a deep swift current, carrying the melody
+of the chimes along with it down to the sea and across the waves in
+broken pulsation, till they touched with a faint mysterious echo the
+masts of home-returning ships, and brought a smile to the faces of
+sailors on board who, recognising the sound, said "Weircombe bells,
+sure-_ly_!"
+
+Helmsley stood listening, lost in meditation. To anyone who could have
+seen him then, a bent frail figure just within the cottage door, with
+his white hair, white beard, and general appearance of gentle and
+resigned old age, he would have seemed nothing more than a venerable
+peasant, quietly satisfied with his simple surroundings, and as far
+apart from every association of wealth, as the daisy in the grass is
+from the star in the sky. Yet, in actual fact, his brain was busy
+weighing millions of money,--the fate of an accumulated mass of wealth
+hung on the balance of his decision,--and he was mentally arranging his
+plans with all the clearness, precision and practicality which had
+distinguished him in his biggest financial schemes,--schemes which had
+from time to time amazed and convulsed the speculating world. A certain
+wistful sadness touched him as he looked on the quiet country landscape
+in the wintry sunlight of this Christmas morn,--some secret instinctive
+foreboding told him that it might be the last Christmas he should ever
+see. And a sudden wave of regret swept over his soul,--regret that he
+had not appreciated the sweet things of life more keenly when he had
+been able to enjoy their worth. So many simple joys missed!--so many
+gracious and helpful sentiments discarded!--all the best of his years
+given over to eager pursuit of gold,--not because he cared for gold
+really, but because, owing to a false social system which perverted the
+moral sense, it seemed necessary to happiness. Yet he had proved it to
+be the very last thing that could make a man happy. The more money, the
+less enjoyment of it--the greater the wealth, the less the content. Was
+this according to law?--the spiritual law of compensation, which works
+steadily behind every incident which we may elect to call good or evil?
+He thought it must be so. This very festival--Christmas--how thoroughly
+he had been accustomed by an effete and degenerate "social set" to
+regard it as a "bore,"--an exploded superstition--a saturnalia of beef
+and pudding--a something which merely served as an excuse for throwing
+away good money on mere stupid sentiment. "Stupid" sentiment? Had he
+ever thought true, tender, homely sentiment "stupid"? Yes,--perhaps he
+had, when in the bold carelessness of full manhood he had assumed that
+the race was to the swift and the battle to the strong--but now, when
+the shadows were falling--when, perhaps, he would never hear the
+Christmas bells again, or be troubled by the "silly superstitions" of
+loving, praying, hoping, believing humanity, he would have given much
+could he have gone back in fancy to every Christmas of his life and seen
+each one spent cheerily amid the warm associations of such "sentiments"
+as make friendship valuable and lasting. He looked up half vaguely at
+the sky, clear blue on this still frosty morning, and was conscious of
+tears that crept smartingly behind his eyes and for a moment dimmed his
+sight. And he murmured dreamily--
+
+    "Behold we know not anything;
+      I can but trust that good shall fall
+        At last--far off--at last, to all--
+    And every winter change to spring!"
+
+A tall, athletic figure came between him and the light, and Angus Reay's
+voice addressed him--
+
+"Hullo, David! A merry Christmas to you! Do you know you are standing
+out in the cold? What would Miss Mary say?"
+
+"Miss Mary" was the compromise Angus hit upon between "Miss Deane" and
+"Mary,"--considering the first term too formal, and the last too
+familiar.
+
+Helmsley smiled.
+
+"Miss Mary has gone to church,"--he replied--"I thought you had gone
+too."
+
+Reay gave a slight gesture of mingled regret and annoyance.
+
+"No--I never go to church,"--he said--"But don't you think I despise the
+going. Not I. I wish I could go to church! I'd give anything to go as I
+used to do with my father every Sunday."
+
+"And why can't you?"
+
+"Because the church is not what it used to be,"--declared Reay--"Don't
+get me on that argument, David, or I shall never cease talking! Now, see
+here!--if you stand any longer at that open door you'll get a chill! You
+go inside the house and imitate Charlie's example--look at him!" And he
+pointed to the tiny toy terrier snuggled up as usual in a ball of silky
+comfort on the warm hearth--"Small epicure! Come back to your chair,
+David, and sit by the fire--your hands are quite cold."
+
+Helmsley yielded to the persuasion, not because he felt cold, but
+because he was rather inclined to be alone with Reay for a little. They
+entered the house and shut the door.
+
+"Doesn't it look a different place without her!" said Angus, glancing
+round the trim little kitchen--"As neat as a pin, of course, but all the
+life gone from it."
+
+Helmsley smiled, but did not answer. Seating himself in his armchair, he
+spread out his thin old hands to the bright fire, and watched Reay as he
+stood near the hearth, leaning one arm easily against a rough beam which
+ran across the chimney piece.
+
+"She is a wonderful woman!" went on Reay, musingly; "She has a power of
+which she is scarcely conscious."
+
+"And what is that?" asked Helmsley, slowly rubbing his hands with quite
+an abstracted air.
+
+Angus laughed lightly, though a touch of colour reddened his bronzed
+cheeks.
+
+"The power that the old alchemists sought and never could find!" he
+answered--"The touch that transmutes common metals to fine gold, and
+changes the every-day prose of life to poetry."
+
+Helmsley went on rubbing his hands slowly.
+
+"It's so extraordinary, don't you think, David,"--he continued--"that
+there should be such a woman as Miss Mary alive at all?"
+
+Helmsley looked up at him questioningly, but said nothing.
+
+"I mean,"--and Angus threw out his hand with an impetuous gesture--"that
+considering all the abominable, farcical tricks women play nowadays, it
+is simply amazing to find one who is contented with a simple life like
+this, and who manages to make that simple life so gracious and
+beautiful!"
+
+Still Helmsley was silent.
+
+"Now, just think of that girl I've told you about--Lucy
+Sorrel,"--proceeded Angus--"Nothing would have contented her in all this
+world!"
+
+"Not even her old millionaire?" suggested Helmsley, placidly.
+
+"No, certainly not! Poor old devil! He'll soon find himself put on the
+shelf if he marries her. He won't be able to call his soul his own! If
+he gives her diamonds, she'll want more diamonds--if he covers her and
+stuffs her with money, she'll never have enough! She'll want all she can
+get out of him while he lives and everything he has ever possessed when
+he's dead."
+
+Helmsley rubbed his hands more vigorously together.
+
+"A very nice young lady," he murmured. "Very nice indeed! But if you
+judge her in this way now, why did you ever fall in love with her?"
+
+"She was pretty, David!" and Reay smiled--"That's all! My passion for
+her was skin-deep! And hers for me didn't even touch the cuticle! She
+was pretty--as pretty as a wax-doll,--perfect eyes, perfect hair,
+perfect figure, perfect complexion--ugh! how I hate perfection!"
+
+And taking up the poker, he gave a vigorous blow to a hard lump of coal
+in the grate, and split it into a blaze.
+
+"I hate perfection!" he resumed--"Or rather, I hate what passes for
+perfection, for, as a matter of fact, there's nothing perfect. And I
+specially and emphatically hate the woman that considers herself a
+'beauty,' that gets herself photographed as a 'beauty,' that the press
+reporter speaks of as a 'beauty,'--and that affronts you with her
+'beauty' whenever you look at her, as though she were some sort of
+first-class goods for sale. Now Miss Mary is a beautiful woman--and she
+doesn't seem to know it."
+
+"Her time for vanity is past,"--said Helmsley, sententiously--"She is an
+old maid."
+
+"Old maid be shot!" exclaimed Angus, impetuously--"By Jove! Any man
+might be proud to marry her!"
+
+A keen, sharp glance, as incisive as any that ever flashed up and down
+the lines of a business ledger, gleamed from under Helmsley's fuzzy
+brows.
+
+"Would you?" he asked.
+
+"Would I marry her?" And Angus reddened suddenly like a boy--"Dear old
+David, bless you! That's just what I want you to help me to do!"
+
+For a moment such a great wave of triumph swept over Helmsley's soul
+that he could not speak. But he mastered his emotion by an effort.
+
+"I'm afraid,"--he said--"I'm afraid I should be no use to you in such a
+business,--you'd much better speak to her yourself--"
+
+"Why, of course I mean to speak to her myself,"--interrupted Reay,
+warmly--"Don't be dense, David! You don't suppose I want _you_ to speak
+for me, do you? Not a bit of it! Only before I speak, I do wish you
+could find out whether she likes me a little--because--because--I'm
+afraid she doesn't look upon me at all in _that_ light----"
+
+"In what light?" queried Helmsley, gently.
+
+"As a lover,"--replied Angus--"She's given up thinking of lovers."
+
+Helmsley leaned back in his chair, and clasping his hands together so
+that the tips of his fingers met, looked over them in almost the same
+meditative businesslike way as he had looked at Lucy Sorrel when he had
+questioned her as to her ideas of her future.
+
+"Well, naturally she has,"--he answered--"Lovers have given up thinking
+of _her_!"
+
+"I hope they have!" said Angus, fervently--"I hope I have no rivals! For
+my love for her is a jealous love, David! I must be all in all to her,
+or nothing! I must be the very breath of her breath, the life of her
+life! I must!--or I am no use to her. And I want to be of use. I want to
+work for her, to look upon her as the central point of all my
+actions--the very core of ambition and endeavour,--so that everything I
+do may be well done enough to meet with her praise. If she does not like
+it, it will be worthless. For her soul is as pure as the sunlight and as
+full of great depths as the sea! Simplest and sweetest of women as she
+is, she has enough of God in her to make a man live up to the best that
+is in him!"
+
+His voice thrilled with passion as he spoke--and Helmsley felt a strange
+contraction at his heart--a pang of sharp memory, desire and regret all
+in one, which moved him to a sense of yearning for this love which he
+had never known--this divine and wonderful emotion whose power could so
+transform a man as to make him seem a very king among men. For so Angus
+Reay looked just now, with his eyes flashing unutterable tenderness, and
+his whole aspect expressive of a great hope born of a great ideal. But
+he restrained the feeling that threatened to over-master him, and merely
+said very quietly, and with a smile--
+
+"I see you are very much in love with her, Mr. Reay!"
+
+"In love?" Angus laughed--"No, my dear old David! I'm not a bit 'in
+love.' I love her! That's love with a difference. But you know how it is
+with me. I haven't a penny in the world but just what I told you must
+last me for a year--and I don't know when I shall make any more. So that
+I wouldn't be such a cad as to speak to her about it yet. But--if I
+could only get a little hope,--if I could just find out whether she
+liked me a little, that would give me more energy in my work, don't you
+see? And that's where you could help me, David!"
+
+Helmsley smiled ever so slightly.
+
+"Tell me how,"--he said.
+
+"Well, you might talk to her sometimes and ask her if she ever thinks of
+getting married--"
+
+"I have done that,"--interrupted Helmsley--"and she has always said
+'No.'"
+
+"Never mind what she _has_ said--ask her again, David,"--persisted
+Angus--"And then lead her on little by little to talk about me--"
+
+"Lead her on to talk about you--yes!" and Helmsley nodded his head
+sagaciously.
+
+"David, my dear old man, you _will_ interrupt me,"--and Angus laughed
+like a boy--"Lead her on, I say,--and find out whether she likes me ever
+so little--and then----"
+
+"And then?" queried Helmsley, his old eyes beginning to sparkle--"Must I
+sing your praises to her?"
+
+"Sing my praises! No, by Jove!--there's nothing to praise in me. I don't
+want you to say a word, David. Let _her_ speak--hear what _she_
+says--and then--and then tell _me_!"
+
+"Then tell _you_--yes--yes, I see!" And Helmsley nodded again in a
+fashion that was somewhat trying to Reay's patience. "But, suppose she
+finds fault with you, and says you are not at all the style of man she
+likes--what then?"
+
+"Then,"--said Reay, gloomily--"my book will never be finished!"
+
+"Dear, dear!" Helmsley raised his hands with a very well acted gesture
+of timid concern--"So bad as all that!"
+
+"So bad as all that!" echoed Reay, with a quick sigh; "Or rather so good
+as all that. I don't know how it has happened, David, but she has quite
+suddenly become the very life of my work. I don't think I could get on
+with a single page of it, if I didn't feel that I could go to her and
+ask her what she thinks of it."
+
+"But,"--said Helmsley, in a gentle, argumentative way--"all this is very
+strange! She is not an educated woman."
+
+Reay laughed lightly.
+
+"No? What do you call an educated woman, David?"
+
+Helmsley thought a moment. The situation was a little difficult, for he
+had to be careful not to say too much.
+
+"Well, I mean,"--he said, at last--"She is not a lady."
+
+Reay's eyes flashed sudden indignation.
+
+"Not a lady!" he ejaculated--"Good God! Who is a lady then?"
+
+Helmsley glanced at him covertly. How fine the man looked, with his
+tall, upright figure, strong, thoughtful face, and air of absolute
+determination!
+
+"I'm afraid,"--he murmured, humbly--"I'm afraid I don't know how to
+express myself,--but what I want to say is that she is not what the
+world would call a lady,--just a simple lace-mender,--real 'ladies'
+would not ask her to their houses, or make a friend of her, perhaps--"
+
+"She's a simple lace-mender,--I was a common cowherd,"--said Angus,
+grimly--"Do you think those whom the world calls 'ladies' would make a
+friend of _me_?"
+
+Helmsley smiled.
+
+"You're a man--and to women it doesn't matter what a man _was_, so long
+as he _is_ something. You were a cowherd, as you say--but you educated
+yourself at a University and got a degree. In that way you've raised
+yourself to the rank of a gentleman--"
+
+"I was always that,"--declared Angus, boldly, "even as a cowherd! Your
+arguments won't hold with me, David! A gentleman is not made by a frock
+coat and top hat. And a lady is not a lady because she wears fine
+clothes and speaks one or two foreign languages very badly. For that's
+about all a 'lady's' education amounts to nowadays. According to
+Victorian annals, 'ladies' used to be fairly accomplished--they played
+and sang music well, and knew that it was necessary to keep up
+intelligent conversation and maintain graceful manners--but they've gone
+back to sheer barbarism in the frantic ugliness of their performances
+at hockey--and they've taken to the repulsive vices of Charles the
+Second's time in gambling and other immoralities. No, David! I don't
+take kindly to the 'ladies' who disport themselves under the benevolent
+dispensation of King Edward the Seventh."
+
+Helmsley was silent. After a pause, Reay went on--
+
+"You see, David, I'm a poor chap--poorer than Mary is. If I could get a
+hundred, or say, two hundred pounds for my book when it is finished, I
+could ask her to marry me then, because I could bring that money to her
+and do something to keep up the home. I never want anything sweeter or
+prettier than this little cottage to live in. If she would let me share
+it with her as her husband, we should live a perfectly happy life--a
+life that thousands would envy us! That is, of course, if she loved me."
+
+"Ay!--that's a very important 'if,'" said Helmsley.
+
+"I know it is. That's why I want you to help me to find out her mind,
+David--will you? Because, if you should discover that I am objectionable
+to her in any way, it would be better for me, I think, to go straight
+away from Weircombe, and fight my trouble out by myself. Then, you see,
+she would never know that I wanted to bother her with my life-long
+presence. Because she's very happy as she is,--her face has all the
+lovely beauty of perfect content--and I'd rather do anything than
+trouble her peace."
+
+There followed a pause. The fire crackled and burned with a warm
+Christmas glow, and Charlie, uncurling his soft silky body, stretched
+out each one of his tiny paws separately, with slow movements expressive
+of intense comfort. If ever that little dog had known what it was to lie
+in the lap of luxury amid aristocratic surroundings, it was certain that
+he was conscious of being as well off in a poor cottage as in a palace
+of a king. And after a minute or two, Helmsley raised himself in his
+chair and held out his hand to Angus Reay, who grasped it warmly.
+
+"I'll do my best,"--he said, quietly--"I know what you mean--and I think
+your feeling does you honour. Of course you know I'm only a kind of
+stranger here--just a poor old lonely man, very dependent on Miss Deane
+for her care of me, and trying my best to show that I'm not ungrateful
+to her for all her goodness--and I mustn't presume too far--but--I'll do
+my best. And I hope--I hope all will be well!" He paused--and pressed
+Reay's hand again--then glanced up at the quaint sheep-faced clock that
+ticked monotonously against the kitchen wall. "She will be coming back
+from church directly,"--he continued--"Won't you go and meet her?"
+
+"Shall I?" And Reay's face brightened.
+
+"Do!"
+
+Another moment, and Helmsley was alone--save for the silent company of
+the little dog stretched out upon the hearth. And he lost himself in a
+profound reverie, the while he built a castle in the air of his own
+designing, in which Self had no part. How many airy fabrics of beauty
+and joy had he not raised one after the other in his mind, only to see
+them crumble into dust!--but this one, as he planned it in his thoughts,
+nobly uplifted above all petty limits, with all the light of a broad
+beneficence shining upon it, and a grand obliteration of his own
+personality serving as the very cornerstone of its foundation, seemed
+likely to be something resembling the house spoken of by Christ, which
+was built upon a rock--against which neither winds, nor rains, nor
+floods could prevail. And when Mary came back from Church, with Reay
+accompanying her, she found him looking very happy. In fact, she told
+him he had quite "a Christmas face."
+
+"What is a Christmas face, Mary?" he asked, smiling.
+
+"Don't you know? A face that looks glad because other people are
+glad,"--she replied, simply.
+
+An expressive glance flashed from Reay's eyes,--a glance which Helmsley
+caught and understood in all its eloquent meaning.
+
+"We had quite a touching little sermon this morning," she went on,
+untying her bonnet strings, and taking off that unassuming
+head-gear--"It was just a homely simple, kind talk. Our parson's sorry
+to be going away, but he hopes to be back with us at the beginning of
+April, fit and well again. He's looking badly, poor soul! I felt a bit
+like crying when he wished us all a bright Christmas and happy New Year,
+and said he hoped God would allow him to see us all again."
+
+"Who is going to take charge of the parish in his absence?" asked Reay.
+
+"A Mr. Arbroath. He isn't a very popular man in these parts, and I can't
+think why he has volunteered to come here, seeing he's got several
+parishes of his own on the other side of Dunster to attend to. But I'm
+told he also wants a change--so he's got some one to take his duties,
+and he is coming along to us. Of course, it's well known that he likes
+to try a new parish whenever he can."
+
+"Has he any reason for that special taste?" enquired Reay.
+
+"Oh yes!" answered Mary, quietly--"He's a great High Churchman, and he
+wants to introduce Mass vestments and the confessional whenever he can.
+Some people say that he receives an annual payment from Rome for doing
+this kind of work."
+
+"Another form of the Papal secret service!" commented Reay, drily--"I
+understand! I've seen enough of it!"
+
+Mary had taken a clean tablecloth from an oaken press, and was spreading
+it out for dinner.
+
+"Well," she said, smilingly, "he won't find it very advantageous to him
+to take the duties here. For every man and woman in the village intends
+to keep away from Church altogether if he does not give us our services
+exactly as we have always been accustomed to them. And it won't be
+pleasant for him to read prayers and preach to empty seats, will it?"
+
+"Scarcely!"
+
+And Angus, standing near the fire, bent his brows with meditative
+sternness on the glowing flames. Then suddenly addressing Helmsley, he
+said--"You asked me a while ago, David, why I didn't go to Church. I
+told you I wished I could go, as I used to do with my father every
+Sunday. For, when I was a boy, our Sundays were real devotional
+days--our preachers _felt_ what they preached, and when they told us to
+worship the great Creator 'in spirit and in truth,' we knew they were in
+earnest about it. Now, religion is made a mere 'party' system--a form of
+struggle as to which sect can get the most money for its own purposes.
+Christ,--the grand, patient, long-suffering Ideal of all goodness, is
+gone from it! How can He remain with it while it is such a Sham! Our
+bishops in England truckle to Rome--and, Rome itself is employing every
+possible means to tamper with the integrity of the British constitution.
+The spies and emissaries of Rome are everywhere--both in our so-called
+'national' Church and in our most distinctly _un_-national Press!"
+
+Helmsley listened with keen interest. As a man of business, education,
+observation, and discernment, he knew that what Reay said was true,--but
+in his assumed role of a poor and superannuated old office clerk, who
+had been turned adrift from work by reason of age and infirmities, he
+had always to be on his guard against expressing his opinion too openly
+or frankly.
+
+"I don't know much about the newspapers,"--he said, mildly--"I read
+those I can get, just for the news--but there isn't much news, it
+appears to me----"
+
+"And what there is may be contradicted in an hour's time,"--said
+Angus--"I tell you, David, when I started working in journalism, I
+thought it was the finest profession going. It seemed to me to have all
+the responsibilities of the world on its back. I considered it a force
+with which to educate, help, and refine all peoples, and all classes.
+But I found it was only a money speculation after all. How much profit
+could be made out of it? That was the chief point of action. That was
+the mainspring of every political discussion--and in election times, one
+side had orders to abuse the other, merely to keep up the popular
+excitement. By Jove! I should like to take a select body of electors
+'behind the scenes' of a newspaper office and show them how the whole
+business is run!"
+
+"You know too much, evidently!" said Mary smiling--"I don't wonder you
+were dismissed!"
+
+He laughed--then as suddenly frowned.
+
+"I swear as I stand here," he said emphatically, "that the press is not
+serving the people well! Do you know--no, of course you don't!--but I
+can tell you for a fact that a short time ago an offer was made from
+America through certain financial powers in the city, to buy up several
+of the London dailies, and run them on American lines![1] Germany had a
+finger in the pie, too, through her German Jews!"
+
+Helmsley looked at his indignant face with a slight imperceptible smile.
+
+"Well!" he said, with a purposely miscomprehending air.
+
+"Well! You say 'Well,' David, as if such a proposition contained nothing
+remarkable. That's because you don't understand! Imagine for a moment
+the British Press being run by America!"
+
+Helmsley stroked his beard thoughtfully.
+
+"I _can't_ imagine it,"--he said.
+
+"No--of course you can't! But a few rascally city financiers _could_
+imagine it, and more than that, were prepared to carry the thing
+through. Then, the British people would have been led, guided, advised,
+and controlled by a Yankee syndicate! And the worst of it is that this
+same British people would have been kept in ignorance of the 'deal.'
+They would actually have been paying their pennies to keep up the shares
+of a gang of unscrupulous rascals whose sole end and object was to get
+the British press into their power! Think of it!"
+
+"But did they succeed?" asked Helmsley.
+
+"No, they didn't. Somebody somewhere had a conscience. Somebody
+somewhere refused to 'swop' the nation's much boasted 'liberty of the
+press' for so much cash down. I believe the 'Times' is backed by the
+Rothschilds, and managed by American advertisers--I don't know whether
+it is so or not--but I _do_ know that the public ought to be put on
+their guard. If I were a powerful man and a powerful speaker I would
+call mass meetings everywhere, and urge the people not to purchase a
+single newspaper till each one published in its columns a full and
+honest list of the shareholders concerned in it. Then the public would
+have a chance of seeing where they are. At present they _don't_ know
+where they are."
+
+"Well, you know very well where _you_ are!" said Mary, interrupting him
+at this juncture--"You are in my house,--it's Christmas Day, and
+dinner's ready!"
+
+He laughed, and they all three sat down to table. It had been arranged
+for fully a week before that Angus should share his Christmas dinner
+with Mary and "old David"--and a very pleasant and merry meal they made
+of it. And in the afternoon and evening some of the villagers came in to
+gossip--and there was singing of songs, and one or two bashful attempts
+on the part of certain gawky lads to kiss equally gawky girls under the
+mistletoe. And Mary, as hostess of the haphazard little party, did her
+best to promote kindly feeling among them all, effacing herself so
+utterly, and playing the "old maid" with such sweet and placid
+loveliness that Angus became restless, and was moved by a feverish
+desire to possess himself of one of the little green twigs with white
+berries, which, looking so innocent, were apparently so provocative,
+and to try its effect by holding it suddenly above the glorious masses
+of her brown hair, which shone with the soft and shimmering hue of
+evening sunlight. But he dared not. Kissing under the mistletoe was all
+very well for boys and girls--but for a mature bachelor of thirty-nine
+and an "old maid" of thirty-five, these uncouth and calf-like
+gambollings lacked dignity. Moreover, when he looked at Mary's pure
+profile--the beautifully shaped eyes, classic mouth, and exquisite line
+of neck and shoulder, the very idea of touching those lips with a kiss
+given in mere lightness, seemed fraught with impertinence and
+irreverence. If ever he kissed Mary, he thought,--and then all the
+powers of his mind galloped off like wild horses let loose on a
+sun-baked ranch--if ever he kissed Mary! What a dream!--what a boldness
+unprecedented! But again--if ever he kissed her, it must be with the
+kiss of a lover, for whom such a token of endearment was the sign of a
+sacred betrothal. And he became so lost and abstracted in his musings
+that he almost forgot the simple village merriment around him, and only
+came back to himself a little when the party broke up altogether, and he
+himself had to say "good-night," and go with the rest. Mary, while
+giving him her hand in farewell, looked at him with a sisterly
+solicitude.
+
+"You're tired, Mr. Reay,"--she said--"I'm afraid we've been too noisy
+for you, haven't we? But one can't keep boys and girls quiet!"
+
+"I don't want them kept quiet,"--said Reay, holding her hand very
+hard--"And I'm not tired. I've only been thinking."
+
+"Ah! Of your book?"
+
+"Yes. Of my book."
+
+He went then, and came no more to the cottage till a week later when it
+was New Year's Eve. This they celebrated very quietly--just they three
+alone. Mary thought it somewhat imprudent for "old David" to sit up till
+midnight in order to hear the bells "ring out the Old, ring in the
+New"--but he showed a sudden vigorous resolution about it which was not
+to be gainsaid.
+
+"Let me have my way, my dear,"--he implored her--"I may never see
+another New Year!"
+
+"Nonsense, David!" she said cheerily--"You will see many and many a one,
+please God!"
+
+"Please God, I shall!" he answered, quietly--"But if it should not
+please God--then--"
+
+"There!--you want to stay up, and you shall stay up!" she declared,
+smiling--"After all, as Mr. Reay is with us, the time won't perhaps seem
+so long for you."
+
+"But for you,"--put in Angus--"it will seem very long won't it!"
+
+"Oh, I always sit up for the coming-in of the New Year,"--she
+replied--"Father used to do it, and I like to keep up all father's ways.
+Only I thought David might feel too tired. You must sing to us, Mr.
+Reay, to pass the hours away."
+
+"And so must you!" he replied.
+
+And she did sing that night as she had never sung to them before, with a
+fuller voice and more passion than she had hitherto shown,--one little
+wild ballad in particular taking Reay's fancy so much that he asked her
+to sing it more than once. The song contained just three six-line
+stanzas, having little merit save in their suggestiveness.
+
+    Oh love, my love! I have giv'n you my heart
+      Like a rose full-blown,
+    With crimson petals trembling apart--
+      It is all your own--
+    What will you do with it. Dearest,--say?
+    Keep it for ever or throw it away?
+
+    Oh love, my love! I have giv'n you my life,
+      Like a ring of gold;
+    Symbol of peace in a world of strife,
+      To have and to hold.
+    What will you do with it, Dearest,--say?
+    Treasure it always, or throw it away?
+
+    Oh love, my love! Have all your will--
+      I am yours to the end;
+    Be false or faithful--comfort or kill,
+      Be lover or friend,--
+    Where gifts are given they must remain,
+    I never shall ask for them back again!
+
+"Do you know that you have a very beautiful voice, Miss Mary?" said
+Angus, after hearing this for the second time.
+
+"Oh, I don't think so at all,"--she answered, quickly; "Father used to
+like to hear me sing--but I can only just give ballads their meaning,
+and pronounce the words carefully so the people may know what I am
+trying to sing about. I've no real voice."
+
+"You have!" And Angus turned to Helmsley for his opinion--"Hasn't she,
+David?"
+
+"Her voice is the sweetest _I_ ever heard,"--replied Helmsley--"But then
+I'm not much of a judge."
+
+And his thoughts went roving back to certain entertainments in London
+which he had given for the benefit of his wealthy friends, when he had
+paid as much as five or six hundred guineas in fees to famous opera
+singers, that they might shriek or warble, as their respective talents
+dictated, to crowds of indifferent loungers in his rooms, who cared no
+more for music than they did for religion. He almost smiled as he
+recalled those nights, and contrasted them with this New Year's evening,
+when seated in an humble cottage, he had for his companions only a
+lowly-born poor woman, and an equally lowly-born poor man, both of whom
+evinced finer education, better manners, greater pride of spirit, and
+more resolute independence than nine-tenths of the "society" people who
+had fawned upon him and flattered him, simply because they knew he was a
+millionaire. And the charm of his present position was that these two,
+poor, lowly-born people were under the impression that even in their
+poverty and humility they were better off than he was, and that because
+fortune had been, as they considered, kind to them, they were bound to
+treat him in a way that should not remind him of his dependent and
+defenceless condition. It was impossible to imagine greater satisfaction
+than that which he enjoyed in the contemplation of his own actual
+situation as compared with that which he had impressed upon the minds of
+these two friends of his who had given him their friendship trustingly
+and frankly for himself alone. And he listened placidly, with folded
+hands and half shut eyes, while Angus, at Mary's request, trolled forth
+"The Standard on the Braes o' Mar" and "Sound the pibroch,"--varying
+those warlike ditties with "Jock o' Hazledean," and "Will ye no come
+back again,"--till all suddenly Mary rose from her chair, and with her
+finger to her lips said "Hark!" The church-bells were ringing out the
+Old Year, and glancing at the clock, they saw it wanted but ten minutes
+to midnight. Softly Mary stepped to the cottage door and opened it. The
+chime swung melodiously in, and Angus Reay went to the threshold, and
+stood beside Mary, listening. Had they glanced back that instant they
+would have seen Helmsley looking at them both, with an intensity of
+yearning in his pale face and sad old eyes that was pitiful and earnest
+beyond all expression--they would have seen his lips move, as he
+murmured--"God grant that I may make their lives beautiful! God give me
+this peace of mind before I die! God bless them!" But they were absorbed
+in listening--and presently with a deep clang the bells ceased. Mary
+turned her head.
+
+"The Old Year's out, David!"
+
+Then she went to him and knelt down beside him.
+
+"It's been a kind old year!"--she said--"It brought you to me to take
+care of, and _me_ to you to take care of you--didn't it?"
+
+He laid one hand on hers, tremblingly, but was silent. She turned up her
+kind, sweet face to his.
+
+"You're not tired, are you?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"No, my dear, no!"
+
+A rush and a clang of melody swept suddenly through the open door--the
+bells had begun again.
+
+"A Happy New Year, Miss Mary!" said Angus, looking towards her from
+where he stood on the threshold--"And to you, David!"
+
+With an irrepressible movement of tenderness Helmsley raised his
+trembling hands and laid them gently on Mary's head.
+
+"Take an old man's blessing, my dear!" he said, softly, "And from a most
+grateful heart!"
+
+She caught his hands as he lifted them again from her brow, and kissed
+them. There were tears in her eyes, but she brushed them quickly away.
+
+"You talk just like father!" she said, smiling--"He was always grateful
+for nothing!"
+
+And rising from her kneeling attitude by Helmsley's chair, she went
+again towards the open cottage door, holding out her two hands to Reay.
+Looking at her as she approached he seemed to see in her some gracious
+angel, advancing with all the best possibilities of life for him in her
+sole power and gift.
+
+"A Happy New Year, Mr. Reay! And success to the book!"
+
+He clasped the hands she extended.
+
+"If you wish success for it, success is bound to come!" he answered in a
+low voice--"I believe in your good influence!"
+
+She looked at him, and whatever answer rose to her lips was suddenly
+silenced by the eloquence of his eyes. She coloured hotly, and then grew
+very pale. They both stood on the threshold of the open door, silent and
+strangely embarrassed, while the bells swung and clanged musically
+through the frosty air, and the long low swish of the sea swept up like
+a harmonious bass set to the silvery voice of the chimes. They little
+guessed with what passionate hope, yearning, and affection, Helmsley
+watched them standing there!--they little knew that on them the last
+ambition of his life was set!--and that any discovery of sham or
+falsehood in their natures would make cruel havoc of his dearest dreams!
+They waited, looking out on the dark quiet space, and listening to the
+rush of the stream till the clamour of the bells ceased again, and
+sounded no more. In the deep stillness that followed Angus said softly--
+
+"There's not a leaf left on the old sweetbriar bush now!"
+
+"No,"--answered Mary, in the same soft tone--"But it will be the first
+thing to bud with the spring."
+
+"I've kept the little sprig you gave me,"--he added, apparently by way
+of a casual after-thought.
+
+"Have you?"
+
+Silence fell again--and not another word passed between them save a
+gentle "Good-night" when, the New Year having fully come in, they
+parted.
+
+[Footnote 1: A fact.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+The dreariest season of the year had now set in, but frost and cold were
+very seldom felt severely in Weircombe. The little village lay in a deep
+warm hollow, and was thoroughly protected at the back by the hills,
+while in the front its shores were washed by the sea, which had a
+warming as well as bracing effect on the atmosphere. To invalids
+requiring an equable temperature, it would have been a far more ideal
+winter resort than any corner of the much-vaunted Riviera, except indeed
+for the fact that feeding and gambling dens were not among its
+attractions. To "society" people it would have proved insufferably dull,
+because society people, lacking intelligence to do anything themselves,
+always want everything done for them. Weircombe folk would not have
+understood that method of living. To them it seemed proper and
+reasonable that men, and women too, should work for what they ate. The
+theory that only a few chosen persons, not by any means estimable either
+as to their characters or their abilities, should eat what others were
+starved for, would not have appealed to them. They were a small and
+unimportant community, but their ideas of justice and principles of
+conduct were very firmly established. They lived on the lines laid down
+by their forefathers, and held that a simple faith in God, coupled with
+honest hard labour, was sufficient to make life well worth living. And,
+on the whole they were made of that robust human material of which in
+the days gone by there was enough to compose and consolidate the
+greatness of Britain. They were kindly of heart, but plain in
+speech,--and their remarks on current events, persons and things, would
+have astonished and perhaps edified many a press man had he been among
+them, when on Saturday nights they "dropped in" at the one little
+public-house of the village, and argued politics and religion till
+closing-time. Angus Reay soon became a favourite with them all, though
+at first they had looked upon him with a little distrust as a "gentleman
+_tow_-rist"; but when he had mixed with them freely and familiarly,
+making no secret of the fact that he was poor, and that he was
+endeavouring to earn a livelihood like all the rest of them, only in a
+different way, they abandoned all reserve, and treated him as one of
+themselves. Moreover, when it was understood that "Mis' Deane," whose
+reputation stood very high in the village, considered him not unworthy
+of her friendship, he rose up several degrees in the popular estimation,
+and many a time those who were the self-elected wits and wise-acres of
+the place, would "look in" as they termed it, at Mary's cottage, and
+pass the evening talking with him and with "old David," who, if he did
+not say much, listened the more. Mr. Bunce, the doctor, and Mr. Twitt,
+the stonemason, were in particular profoundly impressed when they knew
+that Reay had worked for two years on a London newspaper.
+
+"Ye must 'ave a ter'uble knowledge of the world, Mister!" said Twitt,
+thoughtfully--"Just ter'uble!"
+
+"Yes, I should assume it must be so,"--murmured Bunce--"I should think
+it could hardly fail to be so?"
+
+Reay gave a short laugh.
+
+"Well, I don't know!" he said--"You may call it a knowledge of the world
+if you like--I call it an unpleasant glimpse into the shady side of
+life. I'd rather walk in the sunshine."
+
+"And what would you call the sunshine, sir?" asked Bunce, with his head
+very much on one side like a meditative bird.
+
+Honesty, truth, belief in God, belief in good!"--answered Angus, with
+some passion--"Not perpetual scheming, suspicion of motives, personal
+slander, and pettiness--O Lord!--such pettiness as can hardly be
+believed! Journalism is the most educational force in the world, but its
+power is being put to wrong uses."
+
+"Well,--said Twitt, slowly--"I aint so blind but I can see through a
+wall when there's a chink in it. An' when I gets my 'Daily' down from
+Lunnun, an' sees harf a page given up to a kind o' poster about Pills,
+an' another harf a page praisin' up somethin' about Tonics, I often sez
+to myself: 'Look 'ere, Twitt! What are ye payin' yer pennies out for?
+For a Patent Pill or for News? For a Nervy Tonic or for the latest
+pol'tics?' An' myself--me--Twitt--answers an' sez--'Why ye're payin' for
+news an' pol'tics, of course!' Well then, I sez, 'Twitt, ye aint
+gettin' nothin' o' the sort!' An' t' other day, blow'd if I didn't see
+in my paper a long piece about ''Ow to be Beautiful'--an' that 'adn't
+nothin' to do wi' me nor no man, but was just mere gabble for fool
+women. ''Ow to be Beautiful,' aint news o' the world!"
+
+"No,"--said Reay--"You're not intended to know the news of the world.
+News, real news, is the property of the Stock Exchange. It's chiefly
+intended for company gambling purposes. The People are not expected to
+know much about it. Modern Journalism seeks to play Pope and assert the
+doctrine of infallibility. What It does not authorise, isn't supposed to
+exist."
+
+"Is that truly so?" asked Bunce, solemnly.
+
+"Most assuredly!"
+
+"You mean to say,"--said Helmsley, breaking in upon the conversation,
+and speaking in quiet unconcerned tones--"that the actual national
+affairs of the world are not told to the people as they should be, but
+are jealously guarded by a few whose private interests are at stake?"
+
+"Yes. I certainly do mean that."
+
+"I thought you did. You see," went on Helmsley--"when I was in regular
+office work in London, I used to hear a good deal concerning the
+business schemes of this, that and the other great house in the
+city,--and I often wondered what the people would say if they ever came
+to know!"
+
+"Came to know what?" said Mr. Bunce, anxiously.
+
+"Why, the names of the principal shareholders in the newspapers,"--said
+Reay, placidly--"_That_ might possibly open their eyes to the way their
+opinions are manufactured for them! There's very little 'liberty of the
+press' in Great Britain nowadays. The press is the property of a few
+rich men."
+
+Mary, who was working very intently on a broad length of old lace she
+was mending, looked up at him--her eyes were brilliant and her cheeks
+softly flushed.
+
+"I hope you will be brave enough to say that some day right out to the
+people as you say it to us,"--she observed.
+
+"I will! Never fear about that! If I _am_ ever anything--if I ever _can_
+be anything--I will do my level best to save my nation from being
+swallowed up by a horde of German-American Jews!" said Reay, hotly--"I
+would rather suffer anything myself than see the dear old country
+brought to shame."
+
+"Right, very right!" said Mr. Bunce, approvingly--"And many--yes, I
+think we may certainly say many,--are of your spirit,--what do you
+think, David?"
+
+Helmsley had raised himself in his chair, and was looking wonderfully
+alert. The conversation interested him.
+
+"I quite agree,"--he said--"But Mr. Reay must remember that if he should
+ever want to make a clean sweep of German-American Jews and speculators
+as he says, and expose the way they tamper with British interests, he
+would require a great deal of money. A _very_ great deal of money!" he
+repeated, slowly,--"Now I wonder, Mr. Reay, what you would do with a
+million?--two millions?--three millions?--four millions?"--
+
+"Stop, stop, old David!"--interrupted Twitt, suddenly holding up his
+hand--"Ye takes my breath away!"
+
+They all laughed, Reay's hearty tones ringing above the rest.
+
+"Oh, I should know what to do with them!"--he said; "but I wouldn't
+spend them on my own selfish pleasures--that I swear! For one thing, I'd
+run a daily newspaper on _honest_ lines----"
+
+"It wouldn't sell!" observed Helmsley, drily.
+
+"It would--it _should_!" declared Reay--"And I'd tell the people the
+truth of things,--I'd expose every financial fraud I could find----"
+
+"And you'd live in the law-courts, I fear!" said Mr. Bunce, gravely
+shaking his head--"We may be perfectly certain, I think--may we not,
+David?--that the law-courts would be Mr. Reay's permanent address?"
+
+They laughed again, and the conversation turned to other topics, though
+its tenor was not forgotten by anyone, least of all by Helmsley, who sat
+very silent for a long time afterwards, thinking deeply, and seeing in
+his thoughts various channels of usefulness to the world and the world's
+progress, which he had missed, but which others after him would find.
+
+Meanwhile Weircombe suffered a kind of moral convulsion in the advent of
+the Reverend Mr. Arbroath, who arrived to "take duty" in the absence of
+its legitimate pastor. He descended upon the tiny place like an embodied
+black whirlwind, bringing his wife with him, a lady whose facial
+lineaments bore the strangest and most remarkable resemblance to those
+of a china cat; not a natural cat, because there is something soft and
+appealing about a real "pussy,"--whereas Mrs. Arbroath's countenance was
+cold and hard and shiny, like porcelain, and her smile was precisely
+that of the immovable and ruthless-looking animal designed long ago by
+old-time potters and named "Cheshire." Her eyes were similar to the eyes
+of that malevolent china creature--and when she spoke, her voice had the
+shrill tone which was but a few notes off the actual "_me-iau_" of an
+angry "Tom." Within a few days after their arrival, every cottage in the
+"coombe" had been "visited," and both Mr. and Mrs. Arbroath had made up
+their minds as to the neglected, wholly unspiritual and unregenerate
+nature of the little flock whom they had offered, for sake of their own
+health and advantage, to tend. The villagers had received them civilly,
+but without enthusiasm. When tackled on the subject of their religious
+opinions, most of them declined to answer, except Mr. Twitt, who, fixing
+a filmy eye sternly on the plain and gloomy face of Mr. Arbroath, said
+emphatically:
+
+"We aint no 'Igh Jinks!"
+
+"What do you mean, my man?" demanded Arbroath, with a dark smile.
+
+"I mean what I sez"--rejoined Twitt--"I've been stonemason 'ere goin' on
+now for thirty odd years an' it's allus been the same 'ere--no 'Igh
+Jinks. Purcessin an' vestiments"--here Twitt spread out a broad dirty
+thumb and dumped it down with each word into the palm of his other
+hand--"candles, crosses, bobbins an' bowins--them's what we calls 'Igh
+Jinks, an' I make so bold as to say that if ye gets 'em up 'ere, Mr.
+Arbroath, ye'll be mighty sorry for yourself!"
+
+"I shall conduct the services as I please!" said Arbroath. "You take too
+much upon yourself to speak to me in such a fashion! You should mind
+your own business!"
+
+"So should you, Mister, so should you!" And Twitt chuckled
+contentedly--"An' if ye _don't_ mind it, there's those 'ere as'll _make_
+ye!"
+
+Arbroath departed in a huff, and the very next Sunday announced that
+"Matins" would be held at seven o'clock daily in the Church, and
+"Evensong" at six in the afternoon. Needless to say, the announcement
+was made in vain. Day after day passed, and no one attended. Smarting
+with rage, Arbroath sought to "work up" the village to a proper "'Igh
+Jink" pitch--but his efforts were wasted. And a visit to Mary Deane's
+cottage did not sweeten his temper, for the moment he caught sight of
+Helmsley sitting in his usual corner by the fire, he recognised him as
+the "old tramp" he had interviewed in the common room of the "Trusty
+Man."
+
+"How did _you_ come here?" he demanded, abruptly.
+
+Helmsley, who happened to be at work basket-making, looked up, but made
+no reply. Whereupon Arbroath turned upon Mary--
+
+"Is this man a relative of yours?" he asked.
+
+Mary had risen from her chair out of ordinary civility as the clergyman
+entered, and now replied quietly.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Oh! Then what is he doing here?"
+
+"You can see what he is doing,"--she answered, with a slight smile--"He
+is making baskets."
+
+"He is a tramp!" said Arbroath, pointing an inflexible finger at him--"I
+saw him last summer smoking and drinking with a gang of low ruffians at
+a roadside inn called 'The Trusty Man'!" And he advanced a step towards
+Helmsley--"Didn't I see you there?"
+
+Helmsley looked straight at him.
+
+"You did."
+
+"You told me you were tramping to Cornwall."
+
+"So I was."
+
+"Then what are you doing here?"
+
+"Earning a living."
+
+Arbroath turned sharply on Mary.
+
+"Is that true?"
+
+"Of course it is true,"--she replied--"Why should he tell you a lie?"
+
+"Does he lodge with you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Arbroath paused a moment, his little brown eyes sparkling vindictively.
+
+"Well, you had better be careful he does not rob you!" he said. "For I
+can prove that he seemed to be very good friends with that notorious
+rascal Tom o' the Gleam who murdered a nobleman at Blue Anchor last
+summer, and who would have hung for his crime if he had not fortunately
+saved the expense of a rope by dying."
+
+Helmsley, bending over his basket-weaving, suddenly straightened himself
+and looked the clergyman full in the face.
+
+"I never knew Tom o' the Gleam till that night on which you saw me at
+'The Trusty Man,'" he said--"But I know he had terrible provocation for
+the murder he committed. I saw that murder done!"
+
+"You saw it done!" exclaimed Arbroath--"And you are here?"
+
+"Why should I not be here?" demanded Helmsley--"Would you have expected
+me to stay _there_? I was only one of many witnesses to that terrible
+deed of vengeance--but, as God lives, it was a just vengeance!"
+
+"Just? You call murder just!" and Arbroath gave a gesture of scorn and
+horror--"And you,"--he continued, turning to Mary indignantly--"can
+allow a ruffian like this to live in your house?"
+
+"He is no ruffian,"--said Mary steadily,--"Nor was Tom o' the Gleam a
+ruffian either. He was well-known in these parts for many and many a
+deed of kindness. The real ruffian was the man who killed his little
+child. Indeed I think he was the chief murderer."
+
+"Oh, you do, do you?" and Mr. Arbroath frowned heavily--"And you call
+yourself a respectable woman?"
+
+Mary smiled, and resuming her seat, bent her head intently over her lace
+work.
+
+Arbroath stood irresolute, gazing at her. He was a sensual man, and her
+physical beauty annoyed him. He would have liked to sit down alone with
+her and take her hand in his own and talk to her about her "soul" while
+gloating over her body. But in the "old tramp's" presence there was
+nothing to be done. So he assumed a high moral tone.
+
+"Accidents will happen,"--he said, sententiously--"If a child gets into
+the way of a motor going at full speed, it is bound to be
+unfortunate--for the child. But Lord Wrotham was a rich man--and no
+doubt he would have paid a handsome sum down in compensation----"
+
+"Compensation!" And Helmsley suddenly stood up, drawing his frail thin
+figure erect--"Compensation! Money! Money for a child's life--money for
+a child's love! Are you a minister of Christ, that you can talk of such
+a thing as possible? What is all the wealth of the world compared to
+the life of one beloved human creature! Reverend sir, I am an old poor
+man,--a tramp as you say, consorting with rogues and ruffians--but were
+I as rich as the richest millionaire that ever 'sweated' honest labour,
+I would rather shoot myself than offer money compensation to a father
+for the loss of a child whom my selfish pleasure had slain!"
+
+He trembled from head to foot with the force of his own eloquence, and
+Arbroath stared at him dumb-foundered.
+
+"You are a preacher,"--went on Helmsley--"You are a teacher of the
+Gospel. Do you find anything in the New Testament that gives men licence
+to ride rough-shod over the hearts and emotions of their fellow-men? Do
+you find there that selfishness is praised or callousness condoned? In
+those sacred pages are we told that a sparrow's life is valueless, or a
+child's prayer despised? Sir, if you are a Christian, teach Christianity
+as Christ taught it--_honestly_!"
+
+Arbroath turned livid.
+
+"How dare you--!" he began--when Mary quietly rose.
+
+"I would advise you to be going, sir,"--she said, quite
+courteously--"The old man is not very strong, and he has a trouble of
+the heart. It is little use for persons to argue who feel so
+differently. We poor folk do not understand the ways of the gentry."
+
+And she held open the door of her cottage for him to pass out. He
+pressed his slouch-hat more heavily over his eyes, and glared at her
+from under the shadow of its brim.
+
+"You are harbouring a dangerous customer in your house!" he said--"A
+dangerous customer! It will be my duty to warn the parish against him!"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"You are very welcome to do so, sir! Good-morning!"
+
+And as he tramped away through her tiny garden, she quickly shut and
+barred the door after him, and hurried to Helmsley in some anxiety, for
+he looked very pale, and his breath came and went somewhat rapidly.
+
+"David dear, why did you excite yourself so much over that man!" she
+said, kneeling beside him as he sank back exhausted in his chair--"Was
+it worth while?"
+
+He patted her head with a tremulous hand.
+
+"Perhaps not!" And he smiled--"Perhaps not, Mary! But the cold-blooded
+way in which he said that a money compensation might have been offered
+to poor Tom o' the Gleam for his little child's life--my God! As if any
+sort of money could compare with love!"
+
+He stroked her hair gently, and went on murmuring to himself--
+
+"As if all the gold in the world could make up for the loss of one
+loving heart!"
+
+Mary was silent. She saw that he was greatly agitated, and thought it
+better to let him speak out his whole mind rather than suppress his
+feelings.
+
+"What can a man do with wealth!" he went on, speaking more to himself
+than to her--"He can buy everything that is to be bought, certainly--but
+if he has no one to share his goods with him, what then? Eh, Mary? What
+then?"
+
+"Why then he'd be a very miserable man, David!" she answered,
+smiling--"He'd wish he were poor, with some one to love him!"
+
+He looked at her, and his sunken eyes flashed with quite an eager light.
+
+"That's true!" he said--"He'd wish he were poor with some one to love
+him! Mary, you've been so kind to me--promise me one thing!"
+
+"What's that?" and she patted his hand soothingly.
+
+"Just this--if I die on your hands don't let that man Arbroath bury me!
+I think my very bones would split at the sound of his rasping voice!"
+
+Mary laughed.
+
+"Don't you worry about that!" she said--"Mr. Arbroath won't have the
+chance to bury you, David! Besides, he never takes the burials of the
+very poor folk even in his own parishes. He wrote a letter in one of the
+countryside papers not very long ago, to complain of the smallness of
+the burial fees, and said it wasn't worth his while to bury paupers!"
+And she laughed again. "Poor, bitter-hearted man! He must be very
+wretched in himself to be so cantankerous to others."
+
+"Well, don't let him bury _me_!" said Helmsley--"That's all I ask. I'd
+much rather Twitt dug a hole in the seashore and put my body into it
+himself, without any prayers at all, than have a prayer croaked over me
+by that clerical raven! Remember that!"
+
+"I'll remember!" And Mary's face beamed with kindly tolerance and
+good-humour--"But you're really quite an angry old boy to-day, David! I
+never saw you in such a temper!"
+
+Her playful tone brought a smile to his face at last.
+
+"It was that horrible suggestion of money compensation for a child's
+life that angered me,"--he said, half apologetically--"The notion that
+pounds, shillings and pence could pay for the loss of love, got on my
+nerves. Why, love is the only good thing in the world!"
+
+She had been half kneeling by his chair--but she now rose slowly, and
+stretched her arms out with a little gesture of sudden weariness.
+
+"Do you think so, David?" and she sighed, almost unconsciously to
+herself--"I'm not so sure!"
+
+He glanced at her in sudden uneasiness. Was she too going to say, like
+Lucy Sorrel, that she did not believe in love? He thought of Angus Reay,
+and wondered. She caught his look and smiled.
+
+"I'm not so sure!" she repeated--"There's a great deal talked about
+love,--but it often seems as if there was more talk than deed. At least
+there is in what is generally called 'love.' I know there's a very real
+and beautiful love, like that which I had for my father, and which he
+had for me,--that was as near being perfect as anything could be in this
+world. But the love I had for the young man to whom I was once engaged
+was quite a different thing altogether."
+
+"Of course it was!" said Helmsley--"And quite naturally, too. You loved
+your father as a daughter loves--and I suppose you loved the young man
+as a sweetheart loves--eh?"
+
+"Sweetheart is a very pretty word,"--she answered, the smile still
+lingering about her lips--"It's quite old-fashioned too, and I love
+old-fashioned things. But I don't think I loved the young man exactly as
+a 'sweetheart.' It all came about in a very haphazard way. He took a
+fancy to me, and we used to go long walks together. He hadn't very much
+to say for himself--he smoked most of the time. But he was honest and
+respectable--and I got rather fond of him--so that when he asked me to
+marry him, I thought it would perhaps please father to see me provided
+for--and I said yes, without thinking very much about it. Then, when
+father failed in business and my man threw me over, I fretted a bit just
+for a day or two--mostly I think because we couldn't go any more Sunday
+walks together. I was in the early twenties, but now I'm getting on in
+the thirties. I know I didn't understand a bit about real love then. It
+was just fancy and the habit of seeing the one young man oftener than
+others. And, of course, that isn't love."
+
+Helmsley listened to her every word, keenly interested. Surely, if he
+guided the conversation skilfully enough, he might now gain some useful
+hints which would speed the cause of Angus Reay?
+
+"No--of course that isn't love,"--he echoed--"But what do you take to
+_be_ love?--Can you tell me?"
+
+Her eyes filled with a dreamy light, and her lips quivered a little.
+
+"Can I tell you? Not very well, perhaps--but I'll try. Of course it's
+all over for me now--and I can only just picture what I think it ought
+to be. I never had it. I mean I never had that kind of love I have
+dreamed about, and it seems silly for an old maid to even talk of such a
+thing. But love to my mind ought to be the everything of life! If I
+loved a man----" Here she suddenly paused, and a wave of colour flushed
+her cheeks. Helmsley never took his eyes off her face.
+
+"Yes?" he said, tentatively--"Well!--go on--if you loved a man?----"
+
+"If I loved a man, David,"--she continued, slowly, clasping her hands
+meditatively behind her back, and looking thoughtfully into the glowing
+centre of the fire--"I should love him so completely that I should never
+think of anything in which he had not the first and greatest share. I
+should see his kind looks in every ray of sunshine--I should hear his
+loving voice in every note of music,--if I were to read a book alone, I
+should wonder which sentence in it would please _him_ the most--if I
+plucked a flower, I should ask myself if he would like me to wear it,--I
+should live _through_ him and _for_ him--he would be my very eyes and
+heart and soul! The hours would seem empty without him----"
+
+She broke off with a little sob, and her eyes brimmed over with tears.
+
+"Why Mary! Mary, my dear!" murmured Helmsley, stretching out his hand to
+touch her--"Don't cry!"
+
+"I'm not crying, David!" and a rainbow smile lighted her face--"I'm only
+just--_feeling_! It's like when I read a little verse of poetry that is
+very sad and sweet, I get tears into my eyes--and when I talk about
+love--especially now that I shall never know what it is, something rises
+in my throat and chokes me----"
+
+"But you do know what it is,"--said Helmsley, powerfully moved by the
+touching simplicity of her confession of loneliness--"There isn't a more
+loving heart than yours in the world, I'm sure!"
+
+She came and knelt down again beside him.
+
+"Oh yes, I've a loving heart!" she said--"But that's just the worst of
+it! I can love, but no one loves or ever will love me--now. I'm past the
+age for it. No woman over thirty can expect to be loved by a lover, you
+know! Romance is all over--and one 'settles down,' as they say. I've
+never quite 'settled'--there's always something restless in me. You're
+such a dear old man, David, and so kind!--I can speak to you just as if
+you were my father--and I daresay you will not think it very wrong or
+selfish of me if I say I have longed to be loved sometimes! More than
+that, I've wished it had pleased God to send me a husband and
+children--I should have dearly liked to hold a baby in my arms, and
+soothe its little cries, and make it grow up to be happy and good, and a
+blessing to every one. Some women don't care for children--but I should
+have loved mine!"
+
+She paused a moment, and Helmsley took her hand, and silently pressed it
+in his own.
+
+"However,"--she went on, more lightly--"it's no good grieving over what
+cannot be helped. No man has ever really loved me--because, of course,
+the one I was engaged to wouldn't have thrown me over just because I was
+poor if he had cared very much about me. And I shall be thirty-five this
+year--so I must--I really _must_"--and she gave herself an admonitory
+little shake--"settle down! After all there are worse things in life
+than being an old maid. I don't mind it--it's only sometimes when I feel
+inclined to grizzle, that I think to myself what a lot of love I've got
+in my heart--all wasted!"
+
+"Wasted?" echoed Helmsley, gently--"Do you think love is ever wasted?"
+
+Her eyes grew serious and dreamy.
+
+"Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't"--she answered--"When I begin to
+like a person very much I often pull myself back and say 'Take care!
+Perhaps he doesn't like _you!_'"
+
+"Oh! The person must be a 'he' then!" said Helmsley, smiling a little.
+
+She coloured.
+
+"Oh no--not exactly!--but I mean,--now, for instance,"--and she spoke
+rapidly as though to cover some deeper feeling--"I like _you_ very
+much--indeed I'm fond of you, David!--I've got to know you so well, and
+to understand all your ways--but I can't be sure that you like _me_ as
+much as I like _you_, can I?"
+
+He looked at her kind and noble face with eyes full of tenderness and
+gratitude.
+
+"If you can be sure of anything, you can be sure of that!"--he said--"To
+say I 'like' you would be a poor way of expressing myself. I owe my very
+life to you--and though I am only an old poor man, I would say I loved
+you if I dared!"
+
+She smiled--and her whole face shone with the reflected sunshine of her
+soul.
+
+"Say it, David dear! Do say it! I should like to hear it!"
+
+He drew the hand he held to his lips, and gently kissed it.
+
+"I love you, Mary!" he said--"As a father loves a daughter I love you,
+and bless you! You have been a good angel to me--and I only wish I were
+not so old and weak and dependent on your care. I can do nothing to show
+my affection for you--I'm only a burden upon your hands----"
+
+She laid her fingers lightly across his lips.
+
+"Sh-sh!" she said--"That's foolish talk, and I won't listen to it! I'm
+glad you're fond of me--it makes life so much pleasanter. Do you know, I
+sometimes think God must have sent you to me?"
+
+"Do you? Why?"
+
+"Well, I used to fret a little at being so much alone,--the days seemed
+so long, and it was hard to have to work only for one's wretched self,
+and see nothing in the future but just the same old round--and I missed
+my father always. I never could get accustomed to his empty chair. Then
+when I found you on the hills, lost and solitary, and ill, and brought
+you home to nurse and take care of, all the vacancy seemed filled--and I
+was quite glad to have some one to work for. I've been ever so much
+happier since you've been with me. We'll be like father and daughter to
+the end, won't we?"
+
+She put one arm about him coaxingly. He did not answer.
+
+"You won't go away from me now,--will you, David?" she urged--"Even when
+you've paid me back all you owe me as you wish by your own earnings, you
+won't go away?"
+
+He lifted his head and looked at her as she bent over him.
+
+"You mustn't ask me to promise anything,"--he said, "I will stay with
+you--as long as I can!"
+
+She withdrew her arm from about him, and stood for a moment irresolute.
+
+"Well--I shall be very miserable if you do go,"--she said--"And I'm sure
+no one will take more care of you than I will!"
+
+"I'm sure of that, too, Mary!" and a smile that was almost youthful in
+its tenderness brightened his worn features--"I've never been so well
+taken care of in all my life before! Mr. Reay thinks I am a very lucky
+old fellow."
+
+"Mr. Reay!" She echoed the name--and then, stooping abruptly towards the
+fire, began to make it up afresh. Helmsley watched her intently.
+
+"Don't you like Mr. Reay?" he asked.
+
+She turned a smiling face round upon him.
+
+"Why, of course I like him!" she answered--"I think everyone in
+Weircombe likes him."
+
+"I wonder if he'll ever marry?" pursued Helmsley, with a meditative air.
+
+"Ah, I wonder! I hope if he does, he'll find some dear sweet little girl
+who will really love him and be proud of him! For he's going to be a
+great man, David!--a great and famous man some day!"
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"I'm sure of it!"
+
+And she lifted her head proudly, while her blue eyes shone with
+enthusiastic fervour. Helmsley made a mental note of her expression, and
+wondered how he could proceed.
+
+"And you'd like him to marry some 'dear sweet little girl'"--he went on,
+reflectively--"I'll tell him that you said so!"
+
+She was silent, carefully piling one or two small logs on the fire.
+
+"Dear sweet little girls are generally uncommonly vain of themselves,"
+resumed Helmsley--"And in the strength of their dearness and sweetness
+they sometimes fail to appreciate love when they get it. Now Mr. Reay
+would love very deeply, I should imagine--and I don't think he could
+bear to be played with or slighted."
+
+"But who would play with or slight such love as his?" asked Mary, with a
+warm flush on her face--"No woman that knew anything of his heart would
+wilfully throw it away!"
+
+Helmsley stroked his beard thoughtfully.
+
+"That story of his about a girl named Lucy Sorrel,"--he began.
+
+"Oh, she was wicked--downright wicked!" declared Mary, with some
+passion--"Any girl who would plan and scheme to marry an old man for his
+money must be a worthless creature. I wish I had been in that Lucy
+Sorrel's place!"
+
+"Ah! And what would you have done?" enquired Helmsley.
+
+"Well, if I had been a pretty girl, in my teens, and I had been
+fortunate enough to win the heart of a splendid fellow like Angus
+Reay,"--said Mary, "I would have thanked God, as Shakespeare tells us to
+do, for a good man's love! And I would have waited for him years, if he
+had wished me to! I would have helped him all I could, and cheered him
+and encouraged him in every way I could think of--and when he had won
+his fame, I should have been prouder than a queen! Yes, I should!--I
+think any girl would have been lucky indeed to get such a man to care
+for her as Angus Reay!"
+
+Thus spake Mary, with sparkling eyes and heaving bosom--and Helmsley
+heard her, showing no sign of any especial interest, the while he went
+on meditatively stroking his beard.
+
+"It is a pity,"--he said, after a discreet pause--"that you are not a
+few years younger, Mary! You might have loved him yourself."
+
+Her face grew suddenly scarlet, and she seemed about to utter an
+exclamation, but she repressed it. The colour faded from her cheeks as
+rapidly as it had flushed them, leaving her very pale.
+
+"So I might!" she answered quietly,--and she smiled; "Indeed I think it
+would have been very likely! But that sort of thing is all over for me."
+
+She turned away, and began busying herself with some of her household
+duties. Helmsley judged that he had said enough--and quietly exulted in
+his own mind at the discovery which he was confident he had made. All
+seemed clear and open sailing for Angus Reay--if--if she could be
+persuaded that it was for herself and herself alone that he loved her.
+
+"Now if she were a rich woman, she would never believe in his love!" he
+thought--"There again comes in the curse of money! Suppose she were
+wealthy as women in her rank of life would consider it--suppose that she
+had a prosperous farm, and a reliable income of so much per annum, she
+would never flatter herself that a man loved her for her own good and
+beautiful self--especially a man in the situation of Reay, with only
+twenty pounds in the world to last him a year, and nothing beyond it
+save the dream of fame! She would think--and naturally too--that he
+sought to strengthen and improve his prospects by marrying a woman of
+some 'substance' as they call it. And even as it is the whole business
+requires careful handling. I myself must be on my guard. But I think I
+may give hope to Reay!--indeed I shall try and urge him to speak to her
+as soon as possible--before fortune comes to either of them! Love in its
+purest and most unselfish form, is such a rare blessing--such a glorious
+Angel of the kingdom of Heaven, that we should not hesitate to give it
+welcome, or delay in offering it reverence! It is all that makes life
+worth living--God knows how fully I have proved it!"
+
+And that night in the quiet darkness of his own little room, he folded
+his worn hands and prayed--
+
+"Oh God, before whom I appear as a wasted life, spent with toil in
+getting what is not worth the gaining, and that only seems as dross in
+Thy sight!--Give me sufficient time and strength to show my gratefulness
+to Thee for Thy mercy in permitting me to know the sweetness of Love at
+last, and in teaching me to understand, through Thy guidance, that those
+who may seem to us the unconsidered and lowly in this world, are often
+to be counted among Thy dearest creatures! Grant me but this, O God, and
+death when it comes, shall find me ready and resigned to Thy Will!"
+
+Thus he murmured half aloud,--and in the wonderful restfulness which he
+obtained by the mere utterance of his thoughts to the Divine Source of
+all good, closed his eyes with a sense of abiding joy, and slept
+peacefully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+And now by slow and beautiful degrees the cold and naked young year grew
+warm, and expanded from weeping, shivering infancy into the delighted
+consciousness of happy childhood. The first snowdrops, the earliest
+aconites, perked up their pretty heads in Mary's cottage garden, and
+throughout all nature there came that inexplicable, indefinite, soft
+pulsation of new life and new love which we call the spring. Tiny buds,
+rosy and shining with sap, began to gleam like rough jewels on every
+twig and tree--a colony of rooks which had abode in the elms surrounding
+Weircombe Church, started to make great ado about their housekeeping,
+and kept up as much jabber as though they were inaugurating an Irish
+night in the House of Commons,--and, over a more or less tranquil sea,
+the gulls poised lightly on the heaving waters in restful attitudes, as
+though conscious that the stress of winter was past. To look at
+Weircombe village as it lay peacefully aslant down the rocky "coombe,"
+no one would have thought it likely to be a scene of silent, but none
+the less violent, internal feud; yet such nevertheless was the case, and
+all the trouble had arisen since the first Sunday of the first month of
+the Reverend Mr. Arbroath's "taking duty" in the parish. On that day six
+small choirboys had appeared in the Church, together with a tall lanky
+youth in a black gown and white surplice--and to the stupefied amazement
+of the congregation, the lanky youth had carried a gilt cross round the
+Church, followed by Arbroath himself and the six little boys, all
+chanting in a manner such as the Weircombe folk had never heard before.
+It was a deeply resented innovation, especially as the six little boys
+and the lanky cross-bearer, as well as the cross itself, had been
+mysteriously "hired" from somewhere by Mr. Arbroath, and were altogether
+strange to the village. Common civility, as well as deeply rooted
+notions of "decency and order," kept the parishioners in their seats
+during what they termed the "play-acting" which took place on this
+occasion, but when they left the Church and went their several ways,
+they all resolved on the course they meant to adopt with the undesired
+introduction of "'Igh Jinks" for the future. And from that date
+henceforward not one of the community attended Church. Sunday after
+Sunday, the bells rang in vain. Mr. Arbroath conducted the service
+solely for Mrs. Arbroath and for one ancient villager who acted the
+double part of sexton and verger, and whose duties therefore compelled
+him to remain attached to the sacred edifice. And the people read their
+morning prayers in their own houses every Sunday, and never stirred out
+on that day till after their dinners. In vain did both Mr. and Mrs.
+Arbroath run up and down the little village street, calling at every
+house, coaxing, cajoling, and promising,--they spoke to deaf ears.
+Nothing they could say or do made amends for the "insult" to which the
+parishioners considered they had been subjected, by the sudden
+appearance of six strange choirboys and the lanky youth in a black gown,
+who had carried a gilt cross round and round the tiny precincts of their
+simple little Church, which,--until the occurrence of this remarkable
+"mountebank" performance as they called it,--had been everything to them
+that was sacred in its devout simplicity. Finally, in despair, Mr.
+Arbroath wrote a long letter of complaint to the Bishop of the diocese,
+and after a considerable time of waiting, was informed by the secretary
+of that gentleman that the matter would be enquired into, but that in
+the meantime he had better conduct the Sunday services in the manner to
+which the parishioners had been accustomed. This order Arbroath flatly
+refused to obey, and there ensued a fierce polemical correspondence,
+during which the Church remained, as has been stated, empty of
+worshippers altogether. Casting about for reasons which should prove
+some contumacious spirit to be the leader of this rebellion, Arbroath
+attacked Mary Deane among others, and asked her if she was "a regular
+Communicant." To which she calmly replied--
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"And why are you not?" demanded the clergyman imperiously.
+
+"Because I do not feel like it," she said; "I do not believe in going to
+Communion unless one really feels the spiritual wish and desire."
+
+"Oh! Then that is to say that you are very seldom conscious of any
+spiritual wish or desire?"
+
+She was silent.
+
+"I am sorry for you!" And Arbroath shook his bullet head dismally. "You
+are one of the unregenerate, and if you do not amend your ways will be
+among the lost----"
+
+"'I tell thee, churlish priest, A ministering angel shall my sister be,
+when thou liest howling!'" said Helmsley suddenly.
+
+Arbroath turned upon him sharply.
+
+"What's that?" he snarled.
+
+"Shakespeare!" and Helmsley smiled.
+
+"Shakespeare! Much you know about Shakespeare!" snapped out the
+irritated clergyman. "But atheists and ruffians always quote Shakespeare
+as glibly as they quote the New Testament!"
+
+"It's lucky that atheists and ruffians have got such good authorities to
+quote from," said Helmsley placidly.
+
+Arbroath gave an impatient exclamation, and again addressed Mary.
+
+"Why don't you come to Church?" he asked.
+
+She raised her calm blue eyes and regarded him steadfastly.
+
+"I don't like the way you conduct the service, sir, and I don't take you
+altogether for a Christian."
+
+"What!" And he stared at her so furiously that his little pig eyes grew
+almost large for the moment--"You don't take me--_me_--for a Christian?"
+
+"No, sir,--not altogether. You are too hard and too proud. You are not
+careful of us poor folk, and you don't seem to mind whether you hurt our
+feelings or not. We're only very humble simple people here in Weircombe,
+but we're not accustomed to being ordered about as if we were children,
+or as if our parson was a Romish priest wanting to get us all under his
+thumb. We believe in God with all our hearts and souls, and we love the
+dear gentle Saviour who came to show us how to live and how to die,--but
+we like to pray as we've always been accustomed to pray, just without
+any show, as our Lord taught us to do, not using any 'vain
+repetitions.'"
+
+Helmsley, who was bending some stiff osiers in his hands, paused to
+listen. Arbroath stared gloomily at the noble, thoughtful face on which
+there was just now an inspired expression of honesty and truth which
+almost shamed him.
+
+"I think," went on Mary, speaking very gently and modestly--"that if we
+read the New Testament, we shall find that our Lord expressly forbade
+all shows and ceremonies,--and that He very much disliked them. Indeed,
+if we strictly obeyed all His orders, we should never be seen praying in
+public at all! Of course it is pleasant and human for people to meet
+together in some place and worship God--but I think such a meeting
+should be quite without any ostentation--and that all our prayers should
+be as simple as possible. Pray excuse me if I speak too boldly--but that
+is the spirit and feeling of most of the Weircombe folk, and they are
+really very good, honest people."
+
+The Reverend Mr. Arbroath stood inert and silent for about two minutes,
+his eyes still fixed upon her,--then, without a word, he turned on his
+heel and left the cottage. And from that day he did his best to sow
+small seeds of scandal against her,--scattering half-implied
+innuendoes,--faint breathings of disparagement, coarse jests as to her
+"old maid" condition, and other mean and petty calumnies, which,
+however, were all so much wasted breath on his part, as the Weircombe
+villagers were as indifferent to his attempted mischief as Mary herself.
+Even with the feline assistance of Mrs. Arbroath, who came readily to
+her husband's aid in his capacity of "downing" a woman, especially as
+that woman was so much better-looking than herself, nothing of any
+importance was accomplished in the way of either shaking Mary's
+established position in the estimation of Weircombe, or of persuading
+the parishioners to a "'Igh Jink" view of religious matters. Indeed, on
+this point they were inflexible, and as Mrs. Twitt remarked on one
+occasion, with a pious rolling-up of the whites of her eyes--
+
+"To see that little black man with the 'igh stomach a-walkin' about this
+village is enough to turn a baby's bottle sour! It don't seem nat'ral
+like--he's as different from our good old parson as a rat is from a
+bird, an' you'll own, Mis' Deane, as there's a mighty difference between
+they two sorts of insecks. An' that minds me, on the Saturday night
+afore they got the play-actin' on up in the Church, the wick o' my
+candle guttered down in a windin' sheet as long as long, an' I sez to
+Twitt--'There you are! Our own parson's gone an' died over in Madery,
+an' we'll never 'ave the likes of 'im no more! There's trouble comin'
+for the Church, you mark my words.' An' Twitt, 'e says, 'G'arn, old
+'ooman, it's the draught blowin' in at the door as makes the candle
+gutter,'--but all the same my words 'as come true!"
+
+"Why no, surely not!" said Mary, "Our parson isn't dead in Madeira at
+all! The Sunday-school mistress had a letter from him only yesterday
+saying how much better he felt, and that he hoped to be home again with
+us very soon."
+
+Mrs. Twitt pursed her lips and shook her head.
+
+"That may be!" she observed--"I aint a-sayin' nuthin' again it. I sez to
+Twitt, there's trouble comin' for the Church, an' so there is. An' the
+windin' sheet in the candle means a death for somebody somewhere!"
+
+Mary laughed, though her eyes were a little sad and wistful.
+
+"Well, of course, there's always somebody dying somewhere, they say!"
+And she sighed. "There's a good deal of grief in the world that nobody
+ever sees or hears of."
+
+"True enough, Mis' Deane!--true enough!" And Mrs. Twitt shook her head
+again--"But ye're spared a deal o' worrit, seein' ye 'aven't a husband
+nor childer to drive ye silly. When I 'ad my three boys at 'ome I never
+know'd whether I was on my 'ed or my 'eels, they kept up such a racket
+an' torment, but the Lord be thanked they're all out an' doin' for
+theirselves in the world now--forbye the eldest is thinkin' o' marryin'
+a girl I've never seen, down in Cornwall, which is where 'e be a-workin'
+in tin mines, an' when I 'eerd as 'ow 'e was p'raps a-goin' to tie
+hisself up in the bonds o' matterimony, I stepped out in the garden just
+casual like, an' if you'll believe me, I sees a magpie! Now, Mis' Deane,
+magpies is total strangers on these coasts--no one as I've ever 'eard
+tell on 'as ever seen one--an' they's the unlikeliest and unluckiest
+birds to come across as ever the good God created. An' of course I knows
+if my boy marries that gel in Cornwall, it'll be the worst chance and
+change for 'im that 'e's 'ad ever since 'e was born! That magpie comed
+'ere to warn me of it!"
+
+Mary tried to look serious, but Helmsley was listening to the
+conversation, and she caught the mirthful glance of his eyes. So she
+laughed, and taking Mrs. Twitt by the shoulders, kissed her heartily on
+both cheeks.
+
+"You're a dear!" she said--"And I'll believe in the magpie if you want
+me to! But all the same, I don't think any mischief is coming for your
+son or for you. I like to hope that everything happening in this world
+is for the best, and that the good God means kindly to all of us. Don't
+you think that's the right way to live?"
+
+"It may be the right way to live," replied Mrs. Twitt with a doubtful
+air--"But there's ter'uble things allus 'appenin', an' I sez if warnings
+is sent to us even out o' the mouths o' babes and sucklings, let's
+accept 'em in good part. An' if so be a magpie is chose by the Lord as a
+messenger we'se fools if we despises the magpie. But that little paunchy
+Arbroath's worse than a whole flock o' magpies comin' together, an' 'e's
+actin' like a pestilence in keepin' decent folk away from their own
+Church. 'Owsomever, Twitt reads prayers every Sunday mornin', an'
+t'other day Mr. Reay came in an' 'eerd 'im. An' Mr. Reay sez--'Twitt,
+ye're better than any parson I ever 'eerd!' An' I believe 'e is--'e's
+got real 'art an' feelin' for Scripter texes, an' sez 'em just as solemn
+as though 'e was carvin' 'em on tombstones. It's powerful movin'!"
+
+Mary kept a grave face, but said nothing.
+
+"An' last Sunday," went on Mrs. Twitt, encouraged, "Mr. Reay hisself
+read us a chapter o' the New Tesymen, an' 'twas fine! Twitt an' me, we
+felt as if we could 'a served the Lord faithful to the end of the world!
+An' we 'ardly ever feels like that in Church. In Church they reads the
+words so sing-songy like, that, bein' tired, we goes to sleep wi' the
+soothin' drawl. But Mr. Reay, he kep' us wide awake an' starin'! An'
+there's one tex which sticks in my 'ed an' comforts me for myself an'
+for everybody in trouble as I ever 'eerd on----"
+
+"And what's that, Mrs. Twitt?" asked Helmsley, turning round in his
+chair, that he might see her better.
+
+"It's this, Mister David," and Mrs. Twitt drew a long breath in
+preparation before beginning the quotation,--"an' it's beautiful! 'If
+the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you.' Now
+if that aint enuff to send us on our way rejoicin', I don't know what
+is! For Lord knows if the dear Christ was hated, we can put up wi' a bit
+o' the hate for ourselves!"
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"So Mr. Reay reads very well, does he?" asked Mary.
+
+"Fine!" said Mrs. Twitt,--"'E's a lovely man with a lovely voice! If
+'e'd bin a parson 'e'd 'a drawed thousands to 'ear 'im! 'E wouldn't 'a
+wanted crosses nor candles to show us as 'e was speakin' true. Twitt sez
+to 'im t'other day--'Why aint you a parson, Mr. Reay?' an' 'e sez, 'Cos
+I'm goin' to be a preacher!' An' we couldn't make this out nohow, till
+'e showed us as 'ow 'e was a-goin' to tell people things as they ought
+to know in the book 'e's writin'. An' 'e sez it's the only way, cos the
+parsons is gettin' so uppish, an' the Pope 'as got 'old o' some o' the
+newspapers, so that there aint no truth told nowheres, unless a few
+writers o' books will take 'art o' grace an' speak out. An' 'e sez
+there's a many as 'll do it, an' he tells Twitt--'Twitt,' sez he, 'Pin
+your faith on brave books! Beware o' newspapers, an' fight off the
+priest! Read brave books--books that were written centuries ago to teach
+people courage--an' read brave books that are written now to keep
+courage goin'!' An' we sez, so we will--for books is cheap enuff, God
+knows!--an' only t'other day Twitt went over to Minehead an' bought a
+new book by Sir Walter Scott called _Guy Mannering_ for ninepence. It's
+a grand story! an' keeps us alive every evenin'! I'm just mad on that
+old woman in it--Meg Merrilies--she knew a good deal as goes on in the
+world, I'll warrant! All about signs an' omens too. It's just fine! I'd
+like to see Sir Walter Scott!"
+
+"He's dead," said Mary, "dead long ago. But he was a good as well as a
+great man."
+
+"'E must 'a bin," agreed Mrs. Twitt; "I'm right sorry 'e's dead. Some
+folks die as is bound to be missed, an' some folks lives on as one 'ud
+be glad to see in their long 'ome peaceful at rest, forbye their bein'
+born so grumblesome like. Twitt 'ud be at 'is best composin' a hepitaph
+for Mr. Arbroath now!"
+
+As she said this the corners of her mouth, which usually drooped in
+somewhat lachrymose lines, went up in a whimsical smile. And feeling
+that she had launched a shaft of witticism which could not fail to reach
+its mark, she trotted off on further gossiping errands bent.
+
+The tenor of her conversation was repeated to Angus Reay that afternoon
+when he arrived, as was often his custom, for what was ostensibly "a
+chat with old David," but what was really a silent, watchful worship of
+Mary.
+
+"She is a dear old soul!" he said, "and Twitt is a rough diamond of
+British honesty. Such men as he keep the old country together and help
+to establish its reputation for integrity. But that man Arbroath ought
+to be kicked out of the Church! In fact, I as good as told him so!"
+
+"You did!" And Helmsley's sunken eyes began to sparkle with sudden
+animation. "Upon my word, sir, you are very bold!"
+
+"Bold? Why, what can he do to me?" demanded Angus. "I told him I had
+been for some years on the press, and that I knew the ins and outs of
+the Jesuit propaganda there. I told him he was false to the principles
+under which he had been ordained. I told him that he was assisting to
+introduce the Romish 'secret service' system into Great Britain, and
+that he was, with a shameless disregard of true patriotism, using such
+limited influence as he had to put our beloved free country under the
+tyranny of the Vatican. I said, that if ever I got a hearing with the
+British public, I meant to expose him, and all such similar wolves in
+sheep's clothing as himself."
+
+"But--what did he say?" asked Mary eagerly.
+
+"Oh, he turned livid, and then told me I was an atheist, adding that
+nearly all writers of books were of the same evil persuasion as myself.
+I said that if I believed that the Maker of Heaven and Earth took any
+pleasure in seeing him perambulate a church with a cross and six
+wretched little boys who didn't understand a bit what they were doing, I
+should be an atheist indeed. I furthermore told him I believed in God,
+who upheld this glorious Universe by the mere expressed power of His
+thought, and I said I believed in Christ, the Teacher who showed to men
+that the only way to obtain immortal life and happiness was by the
+conquest of Self. 'You may call that atheistical if you like,' I
+said,--'It's a firm faith that will help to keep _me_ straight, and that
+will hold me to the paths of right and truth without any crosses or
+candles.' Then I told him that this little village of Weircombe, in its
+desire for simplicity in forms of devotion, was nearer heaven than he
+was. And--and I think," concluded Angus, ruffling up his hair with one
+hand, "that's about all I told him!"
+
+Helmsley gave a low laugh of intense enjoyment.
+
+"All!" he echoed, "I should say it was enough!"
+
+"I hope it was," said Angus seriously, "I meant it to be." And moving to
+Mary's side, he took up the end of a lace flounce on which she was at
+work. "What a creation in cobwebs!" he exclaimed--"Who does it belong
+to, Miss Mary?"
+
+"To a very great lady," she replied, working busily with her needle and
+avoiding the glance of his eyes; "her name is often in the papers." And
+she gave it. "No doubt you know her?"
+
+"Know her? Not I!" And he shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. "But she
+is very generally known--as a thoroughly bad woman! I _hate_ to see you
+working on anything for her!"
+
+She looked up surprised, and the colour came and went in a delicate
+flush on her face.
+
+"False to her husband, false to her children, and false to herself!"
+went on Angus hotly--"And disloyal to her king! And having turned on her
+own family and her own class, she seeks to truckle to the People under
+pretence of serving _them_, while all the time her sole object is to
+secure notoriety for herself! She is a shame to England!"
+
+"You speak very hotly, sir!" said Helmsley, slowly. "Are you sure of
+your facts?"
+
+"The facts are not concealed," returned Reay--"They are public property.
+That no one has the courage to denounce such women--women who openly
+flaunt their immoralities in our midst--is a bad sign of the times.
+Women are doing a great deal of mischief just now. Look at them fussing
+about Female Suffrage! Female Suffrage, quotha! Let them govern their
+homes properly, wisely, reasonably, and faithfully, and they will govern
+the nation!"
+
+"That's true!" And Helmsley nodded gravely. "That's very true!"
+
+"A woman who really loves a man," went on Angus, mechanically fingering
+the skeins of lace thread which lay on the table at Mary's side, ready
+for use--"governs him, unconsciously to herself, by the twin powers of
+sex and instinct. She was intended for his help-mate, to guide him in
+the right way by her finer forces. If she neglects to cultivate these
+finer forces--if she tramples on her own natural heritage, and seeks to
+'best' him with his own weapons--she fails--she must fail--she deserves
+to fail! But as true wife and true mother, she is supreme!"
+
+"But the ladies are not content with such a limited sphere," began
+Helmsley, with a little smile.
+
+"Limited? Good God!--where does the limit come in?" demanded Reay. "It
+is because they are not sufficiently educated to understand their own
+privileges that women complain of limitations. An unthinking,
+unreasoning, unintelligent wife and mother is of course no higher than
+any other female of the animal species--but I do not uphold this class.
+I claim that the woman who _thinks_, and gives her intelligence full
+play--the woman who is physically sound and morally pure--the woman who
+devoutly studies the noblest side of life, and tries to bring herself
+into unison with the Divine intention of human progress towards the
+utmost good--she, as wife and mother, is the angel of the world. She
+_is_ the world!--she makes it, she rejuvenates it, she gives it
+strength! Why should she condescend to mix with the passing political
+squabbles of her slaves and children?--for men are no more than her
+slaves and children. Love is her weapon--one true touch of that, and the
+wildest heart that ever beat in a man's breast is tamed."
+
+There was a silence. Suddenly Mary pushed aside her work, and going to
+the door opened it.
+
+"It's so warm to-day, don't you think?" she asked, passing her hand a
+little wearily across her forehead. "One would think it was almost
+June."
+
+"You are tired, Miss Mary!" said Reay, somewhat anxiously.
+
+"No--I'm not tired--but"--here all at once her eyes filled with tears.
+"I've got a bit of a headache," she murmured, forcing a smile--"I think
+I'll go to my room and rest for half an hour. Good-bye, Mr. Reay!"
+
+"Good-bye--for the moment!" he answered--and taking her hand he pressed
+it gently. "I hope the headache will soon pass."
+
+She withdrew her hand from his quickly and left the kitchen. Angus
+watched her go, and when she had disappeared heaved an involuntary but
+most lover-like sigh. Helmsley looked at him with a certain whimsical
+amusement.
+
+"Well!" he said.
+
+Reay gave himself a kind of impatient shake.
+
+"Well, old David!" he rejoined.
+
+"Why don't you speak to her?"
+
+"I dare not! I'm too poor!"
+
+"Is she so rich?"
+
+"She's richer than I am."
+
+"It is quite possible," said Helmsley slowly, "that she will always be
+richer than you. Literary men must never expect to be millionaires."
+
+"Don't tell me that--I know it!" and Angus laughed. "Besides, I don't
+want to be a millionaire--wouldn't be one for the world! By the way, you
+remember that man I told you about--the old chap my first love was going
+to marry--David Helmsley?"
+
+Helmsley did not move a muscle.
+
+"Yes--I remember!" he answered quietly.
+
+"Well, the papers say he's dead."
+
+"Oh! the papers say he's dead, do they?"
+
+"Yes. It appeared that he went abroad last summer,--it is thought that
+he went to the States on some matters of business--and has not since
+been heard of."
+
+Helmsley kept an immovable face.
+
+"He may possibly have got murdered for his money," went on Angus
+reflectively--"though I don't see how such an act could benefit the
+murderer. Because his death wouldn't stop the accumulation of his
+millions, which would eventually go to his heir."
+
+"Has he an heir?" enquired Helmsley placidly.
+
+"Oh, he's sure to have left his vast fortune to somebody," replied Reay.
+"He had two sons, so I was told--but they're dead. It's possible he may
+have left everything to Lucy Sorrel."
+
+"Ah yes! Quite possible!"
+
+"Of course," went on Reay, "it's only the newspapers that say he's
+dead--and there never was a newspaper yet that could give an absolutely
+veracious account of anything. His lawyers--a famous firm, Vesey and
+Symonds,--have written a sort of circular letter to the press stating
+that the report of his death is erroneous--that he is travelling for
+health's sake, and on account of a desire for rest and privacy, does not
+wish his whereabouts to be made publicly known."
+
+Helmsley smiled.
+
+"I knew I might trust Vesey!" he thought. Aloud he said--
+
+"Well, I should believe the gentleman's lawyers more than the newspaper
+reporters. Wouldn't you?"
+
+"Of course. I shouldn't have taken the least interest in the rumour, if
+I hadn't been once upon a time in love with Lucy Sorrel. Because if the
+old man is really dead and has done nothing in the way of providing for
+her, I wonder what she will do?"
+
+"Go out charing!" said Helmsley drily. "Many a better woman than you
+have described her to be, has had to come to that."
+
+There was a silence. Presently Helmsley spoke again in a quiet voice--
+
+"I think, Mr. Reay, you should tell all your mind to Miss Mary."
+
+Angus started nervously.
+
+"Do you, David? Why?"
+
+"Why?--well--because--" Here Helmsley spoke very gently--"because I
+believe she loves you!"
+
+The colour kindled in Reay's face.
+
+"Ah, don't fool me, David!" he said--"you don't know what it would mean
+to me----"
+
+"Fool you!" Helmsley sat upright in his chair and looked at him with an
+earnestness which left no room for doubt. "Do you think I would 'fool'
+you, or any man, on such a matter? Old as I am, and lonely and
+friendless as I _was_, before I met this dear woman, I know that love is
+the most sacred of all things--the most valuable of all things--better
+than gold--greater than power--the only treasure we can lay up in heaven
+'where neither moth nor rust do corrupt, and where thieves do not break
+through nor steal!' Do not"--and here his strong emotion threatened to
+get the better of him--"do not, sir, think that because I was tramping
+the road in search of a friend to help me, before Miss Mary found me and
+brought me home here and saved my life, God bless her!--do not think, I
+say, that I have no feeling! I feel very much--very strongly--" He broke
+off breathing quickly, and his hands trembled. Reay hastened to his side
+in some alarm, remembering what Mary had told him about the old man's
+heart.
+
+"Dear old David, I know!" he said. "Don't worry! I know you feel it
+all--I'm sure you do! Now, for goodness' sake, don't excite yourself
+like this--she--she'll never forgive me!" and he shook up the cushion at
+the back of Helmsley's chair and made him lean upon it. "Only it would
+be such a joy to me--such a wonder--such a help--to know that she really
+loved me!--_loved_ me, David!--you understand--why, I think I could
+conquer the world!"
+
+Helmsley smiled faintly. He was suffering physical anguish at the
+moment--the old sharp pain at his heart to which he had become more or
+less wearily accustomed, had dizzied his senses for a space, but as the
+spasm passed he took Reay's hand and pressed it gently.
+
+"What does the Great Book tell us?" he muttered. "'If a man would give
+all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned!'
+That's true! And I would never 'fool' or mislead you on a matter of such
+life and death to you, Mr. Reay. That's why I tell you to speak to Miss
+Mary as soon as you can find a good opportunity--for I am sure she loves
+you!"
+
+"Sure, David?"
+
+"Sure!"
+
+Reay stood silent,--his eyes shining, and "the light that never was on
+sea or land" transfigured his features.
+
+At that moment a tap came at the door. A hand, evidently accustomed to
+the outside management of the latch, lifted it, and Mr. Twitt entered,
+his rubicund face one broad smile.
+
+"'Afternoon, David! 'Afternoon, Mister! Wheer's Mis' Deane?"
+
+"She's resting a bit in her room," replied Helmsley.
+
+"Ah, well! You can tell 'er the news when she comes in. Mr. Arbroath's
+away for 'is life wi' old Nick in full chase arter 'im! It don't do
+t'ave a fav'rite gel!"
+
+Helmsley and Reay stared at him, and then at one another.
+
+"Why, what's up?" demanded Reay.
+
+"Oh, nuthin' much!" and Twitt's broad shoulders shook with internal
+laughter. "It's wot 'appens often in the fam'lies o' the haris-to-crazy,
+an' aint taken no notice of, forbye 'tis not so common among poor folk.
+Ye see Mr. Arbroath he--he--he--he--he--he----" and here the pronoun
+"he" developed into a long chuckle. "He's got a sweet'art on the sly,
+an'--an'--an'--_'is wife's found it out_! Ha-ha-ha-he-he-he! 'Is wife's
+found it out! That's the trouble! An' she's gone an' writ to the Bishop
+'erself! Oh lor'! Never trust a woman wi' cat's eyes! She's writ to the
+Bishop, an' gone 'ome in a tearin' fit o' the rantin' 'igh-strikes,--an'
+Mister Arbroath 'e's follerd 'er, an' left us wi' a curate--a 'armless
+little chap wi' a bad cold in 'is 'ed, an' a powerful red nose--but
+'onest an' 'omely like 'is own face. An' 'e'll take the services till
+our own vicar comes 'ome, which'll be, please God, this day fort_night_.
+But oh lor'!--to think o' that grey-'aired rascal Arbroath with a
+fav'rite gel on the sly! Ha-ha-ha-he-he-he! We'se be all mortal!" and
+Twitt shook his head with profound solemnity. "Ef I was a-goin' to carve
+a tombstone for that 'oly 'igh Churchman, I'd write on it the old
+'ackneyed sayin', 'Man wants but little 'ere below, Nor wants that
+little long!' Ha-ha-ha-he-he-he!"
+
+His round jolly face beamed with merriment, and Angus Reay caught
+infection from his mirth and laughed heartily.
+
+"Twitt, you're an old rascal!" he exclaimed. "I really believe you enjoy
+showing up Mr. Arbroath's little weaknesses!"
+
+"Not I--not I, Mister!" protested Twitt, his eyes twinkling. "I sez, be
+fair to all men! I sez, if a parson wants to chuck a gel under the chin,
+let 'im do so by all means, God willin'! But don't let 'im purtend as 'e
+_couldn't_ chuck 'er under the chin for the hull world! Don't let 'im go
+round lookin' as if 'e was vinegar gone bad, an' preach at the parish as
+if we was all mis'able sinners while 'e's the mis'ablest one hisself.
+But old Arbroath--damme!" and he gave a sounding slap to his leg in
+sheer ecstacy. "Caught in the act by 'is wife! Oh lor', oh lor'! 'Is
+wife! An' _aint_ she a tartar!"
+
+"But how did all this happen?" asked Helmsley, amused.
+
+"Why, this way, David--quite 'appy an' innocent like, Missis Arbroath,
+she opens a letter from 'ome, which 'avin' glanced at the envelope
+casual-like she thinks was beggin' or mothers' meetin', an' there she
+finds it all out. Vicar's fav'rite gel writin' for money or clothes or
+summat, an' endin' up 'Yer own darlin'!' Ha-ha-ha-he-he-he! Oh Lord!
+There was an earthquake up at the rect'ry this marnin'--the cook there
+sez she never 'eerd sich a row in all 'er life--an' Missis Arbroath she
+was a-shriekin' for a divorce at the top of 'er voice! It's a small
+place, Weircombe Rect'ry, an' a woman can't shriek an' 'owl in it
+without bein' 'eerd. So both the cook an' 'ousemaid worn't by no manner
+o' means surprised when Mister Arbroath packed 'is bag an' went off in a
+trap to Minehead--an' we'll be left with a cheap curate in charge of our
+pore souls! Ha-ha-ha! But 'e's a decent little chap,--an' there'll be no
+'igh falutin' services with _'im_, so we can all go to Church next
+Sunday comfortable. An' as for old Arbroath, we'll be seein' big
+'edlines in the papers by and by about 'Scandalous Conduck of a
+Clergyman with 'is Fav'rite Gel!'" Here he made an effort to pull a
+grave face, but it was no use,--his broad smile beamed out once more
+despite himself. "Arter all," he said, chuckling, "the two things does
+fit in nicely together an' nat'ral like--'Igh Jinks an' a fav'rite gel!"
+
+It was impossible not to derive a sense of fun from his shining eyes and
+beaming countenance, and Angus Reay gave himself up to the enjoyment of
+the moment, and laughed again and again.
+
+"So you think he's gone altogether, eh?" he said, when he could speak.
+
+"Oh, 'e's gone all right!" rejoined Twitt placidly. "A man may do lots
+o' queer things in this world, an' so long as 'is old 'ooman don't find
+'im out, it's pretty fair sailin'; but once a parson's wife gets 'er
+nose on to the parson's fav'rite, then all the fat's bound to be in the
+fire! An' quite right as it should be! I wouldn't bet on the fav'rite
+when it come to a neck-an'-neck race atween the two!"
+
+He laughed again, and they all talked awhile longer on this unexpected
+event, which, to such a village as Weircombe, was one of startling
+importance and excitement, and then, as the afternoon was drawing in and
+Mary did not reappear, Angus Reay took his departure with Twitt, leaving
+Helmsley sitting alone in his chair by the fire. But he did not go
+without a parting word--a word which was only a whisper.
+
+"You think you are _sure_, David!" he said--"Sure that she loves me! I
+wish you would make doubly, trebly sure!--for it seems much too good to
+be true!"
+
+Helmsley smiled, but made no answer.
+
+When he was left alone in the little kitchen to which he was now so
+accustomed, he sat for a space gazing into the red embers of the fire,
+and thinking deeply. He had attained what he never thought it would be
+possible to attain--a love which had been bestowed upon him for himself
+alone. He had found what he had judged would be impossible to find--two
+hearts which, so far as he personally was concerned, were utterly
+uninfluenced by considerations of self-interest. Both Mary Deane and
+Angus Reay looked upon him as a poor, frail old man, entirely
+defenceless and dependent on the kindness and care of such strangers as
+sympathised with his condition. Could they now be suddenly told that he
+was the millionaire, David Helmsley, they would certainly never believe
+it. And even if they were with difficulty brought to believe it, they
+would possibly resent the deception he had practised on them. Sometimes
+he asked himself whether it was quite fair or right to so deceive them?
+But then,--reviewing his whole life, and seeing how at every step of his
+career men, and women too, had flattered him and fawned upon him as well
+as fooled him for mere money's sake,--he decided that surely he had the
+right at the approaching end of that career to make a fair and free
+trial of the world as to whether any thing or any one purely honest
+could be found in it.
+
+"For it makes me feel more at peace with God," he said--"to know and to
+realise that there _are_ unselfish loving hearts to be found, if only in
+the very lowliest walks of life! I,--who have seen Society,--the modern
+Juggernaut,--rolling its great wheels recklessly over the hopes and joys
+and confidences of thousands of human beings--I, who know that even
+kings, who should be above dishonesty, are tainted by their secret
+speculations in the money-markets of the world,--surely I may be
+permitted to rejoice for my few remaining days in the finding of two
+truthful and simple souls, who have no motive for their kindness to
+me,--who see nothing in me but age, feebleness and poverty,--and whom I
+have perhaps been the means, through God's guidance, of bringing
+together. For it was to me that Reay first spoke that day on the
+seashore--and it was at my request that he first entered Mary's home.
+Can this be the way in which Divine Wisdom has chosen to redeem me?
+I,--who have never been loved as I would have desired to be loved,--am I
+now instructed how,--leaving myself altogether out of the question,--I
+may prosper the love of others and make two noble lives happy? It may be
+so,--and that in the foundation of their joy, I shall win my own soul's
+peace! So--leaving my treasures on earth,--I shall find my treasure in
+heaven, 'where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do
+not break through nor steal!'"
+
+Still looking at the fire he watched the glowing embers, now reddening,
+now darkening--or leaping up into sparks of evanescent flame,--and
+presently stooping, picked up the little dog Charlie from his warm
+corner on the hearth and fondled him.
+
+"You were the first to love me in my loneliness!" he said, stroking the
+tiny animal's soft ears--"And,--to be quite exact,--I owe my life and
+all my present surroundings to you, Charlie! What shall I leave you in
+my will, eh?"
+
+Charlie yawned capaciously, showing very white teeth and a very red
+tongue, and winked one bright eye.
+
+"You're only a dog, Charlie! You've no use for money! You rely entirely
+upon your own attractiveness and the kindness of human nature! And so
+far your confidence has not been misplaced. But your fidelity and
+affection are only additional proofs of the powerlessness of money.
+Money bought you, Charlie, no doubt, in the first place--but money
+failed to keep you! And now, though by your means Mary found me where I
+lay helpless and unconscious on the hills in the storm, I can neither
+make you richer nor happier, Charlie! You're only a dog!--and a
+millionaire is no more to you than any other man!"
+
+Charlie yawned comfortably again. He seemed to be perfectly aware that
+his master was talking to him, but what it was about he evidently did
+not know, and still more evidently did not care. He liked to be petted
+and made much of--and presently curled himself up in a soft silken ball
+on Helmsley's knee, with his little black nose pointed towards the fire,
+and his eyes blinking lazily at the sparkle of the flames. And so Mary
+found them, when at last she came down from her room to prepare supper.
+
+"Is the headache better, my dear?" asked Helmsley, as she entered.
+
+"It's quite gone, David!" she answered cheerily--"Mending the lace often
+tries one's eyes--it was nothing but that."
+
+He looked at her intently.
+
+"But you've been crying!" he said, with real concern.
+
+"Oh, David! Women always cry when they feel like it!"
+
+"But did _you_ feel like it?"
+
+"Yes. I often do."
+
+"Why?"
+
+She gave a playful gesture with her hands.
+
+"Who can tell! I remember when I was quite a child, I cried when I saw
+the first primrose of the spring after a long winter. I knelt down and
+kissed it, too! That's me all over. I'm stupid, David! My heart's too
+big for me--and there's too much in it that never comes out!"
+
+He took her hand gently.
+
+"All shut up like a volcano, Mary! But the fire is there!"
+
+She laughed, with a touch of embarrassment.
+
+"Oh yes! The fire is there! It will take years to cool down!"
+
+"May it never cool down!" said Helmsley--"I hope it will always burn,
+and make life warm for you! For without the fire that is in _your_
+heart, my dear, Heaven itself would be cold!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+The scandal affecting the Reverend Mr. Arbroath's reputation which had
+been so graphically related by Twitt, turned out to be true in every
+respect, and though considerable efforts were made to hush it up, the
+outraged feelings of the reverend gentleman's wife were not to be
+silenced. Proceedings for divorce were commenced, and it was understood
+that there would be no defence. In due course the "big 'edlines" which
+announced to the world in general that one of the most imperious "High"
+Anglicans of the Church had not only slipped from moral rectitude, but
+had intensified that sin by his publicly aggressive assumption of
+hypocritical virtue, appeared in the newspapers, and the village of
+Weircombe for about a week was brought into a certain notoriety which
+was distinctly displeasing to itself. The arrival of the "dailies"
+became a terror to it, and a general feeling of devout thankfulness was
+experienced by the whole community, when the rightful spiritual shepherd
+of the little flock returned from his sojourn abroad to take up the
+reigns of government, and restore law and order to his tiny distracted
+commonwealth. Fortunately for the peace of Weircombe, the frantic rush
+of social events, and incidents in which actual "news" of interest has
+no part, is too persistent and overwhelming for any one occurrence out
+of the million to occupy more than a brief passing notice, which is in
+its turn soon forgotten, and the "Scandalous Conduck of a Clergyman," as
+Mr. Twitt had put it, was soon swept aside in other examples of
+"Scandalous Conduck" among all sorts and conditions of men and women,
+which, caught up by flying Rumour with her thousand false and blatant
+tongues, is the sort of useless and pernicious stuff which chiefly keeps
+the modern press alive. Even the fact that the Reverend Mr. Arbroath was
+summarily deprived of his living and informed by the Bishop in the usual
+way, that his services would no longer be required, created very little
+interest. Some months later a small journalistic flourish was heard on
+behalf of the discarded gentleman, upon the occasion of his being
+"received" into the Church of Rome, with all his sins forgiven,--but so
+far as Weircombe was concerned, the story of himself and his "fav'rite"
+was soon forgotten, and his very name ceased to be uttered. The little
+community resumed its normal habit of cheerful attendance at Church
+every Sunday, satisfied to have shown to the ecclesiastical powers that
+be, the fact that "'Igh Jinks" in religion would never be tolerated
+amongst them; and the life of Weircombe went on in the usual placid way,
+divided between work and prayer, and governed by the twin forces of
+peace and contentment.
+
+Meantime, the secret spells of Mother Nature were silently at work in
+the development and manifestation of the Spring. The advent of April
+came like a revelation of divine beauty to the little village nestled in
+the "coombe," and garlanded it from summit to base with tangles of
+festal flowers. The little cottage gardens and higher orchards were
+smothered in the snow of plum and cherry-blossom,--primroses carpeted
+the woods which crowned the heights of the hills, and the long dark
+spikes of bluebells, ready to bud and blossom, thrust themselves through
+the masses of last year's dead leaves, side by side with the uncurling
+fronds of the bracken and fern. Thrushes and blackbirds piped with
+cheerful persistence among the greening boughs of the old chestnut which
+shaded Mary Deane's cottage, and children roaming over the grassy downs
+above the sea, brought news of the skylark's song and the cuckoo's call.
+Many a time in these lovely, fresh and sunny April days Angus Reay would
+persuade Mary away from her lace-mending to take long walks with him
+across the downs, or through the woods--and on each occasion when they
+started on these rambles together, David Helmsley would sit and watch
+for their return in a curious sort of timorous suspense--wondering,
+hoping, and fearing,--eager for the moment when Angus should speak his
+mind to the woman he loved, and yet always afraid lest that woman
+should, out of some super-sensitive feeling, put aside and reject that
+love, even though she might long to accept it. However, day after day
+passed and nothing happened. Either Angus hesitated, or else Mary was
+unapproachable--and Helmsley worried himself in vain. They, who did not
+know his secret, could not of course imagine the strained condition of
+mind in which their undeclared feelings kept him,--and and he found
+himself more perplexed and anxious over their apparent uncertainty than
+he had ever been over some of his greatest financial schemes. Facts and
+figures can to a certain extent be relied upon, but the fluctuating
+humours and vagaries of a man and woman in love with each other are
+beyond the most precise calculations of the skilled mathematician. For
+it often happens that when they seem to be coldest they are warmest--and
+cases have been known where they have taken the greatest pains to avoid
+each other at a time when they have most deeply longed to be always
+together. It was during this uncomfortable period of uneasiness and
+hesitation for Helmsley, that Angus and Mary were perhaps most supremely
+happy. Dimly, sweetly conscious that the gate of Heaven was open for
+them and that it was Love, the greatest angel of all God's mighty host,
+that waited for them there, they hovered round and round upon the
+threshold of the glory, eager, yet afraid to enter. Up in the
+primrose-carpeted woods together they talked, like good friends, of a
+thousand things,--of the weather, of the promise of fruit in the
+orchards, of the possibilities of a good fishing year, and of the
+general beauty of the scenery around Weircombe. Then, of course, there
+was the book which Angus was writing--a book now nearing completion. It
+was a very useful book, because it gave them a constant and safe topic
+of conversation. Many chapters were read and re-read--many passages
+written and re-written for Mary's hearing and criticism,--and it may at
+once be said that what had at first been merely clever, brilliant, and
+intellectual writing, was now becoming not so much a book as an artistic
+creation, through which the blood and colour of human life pulsed and
+flowed, giving it force and vitality. Sometimes they persuaded Helmsley
+to accompany them on some of their shorter rambles,--but he was not
+strong enough to walk far, and he often left them half-way up the
+"coombe," returning to the cottage alone. Mary had frequently expressed
+a great wish to take him to a favourite haunt of hers, which she called
+the "Giant's Castle"--but he was unable to make the steep ascent--so on
+one fine afternoon she took Angus there instead. "The Giant's Castle"
+had no recognised name among the Weircombe villagers save this one which
+Mary had bestowed upon it, and which the children repeated after her so
+often that it seemed highly probable that the title would stick to it
+for ever. "Up Giant's Castle way" was quite a familiar direction to any
+one ascending the "coombe," or following the precipitous and narrow path
+which wound along the edge of the cliffs to certain pastures where
+shepherds as well as sheep were in daily danger of landslips, and which
+to the ordinary pedestrian were signalled by a warning board as
+"Dangerous." But "Giant's Castle" itself was merely the larger and
+loftier of the two towering rocks which guarded the sea-front of
+Weircombe village. A tortuous grassy path led up to its very pinnacle,
+and from here, there was an unbroken descent as straight and smooth as a
+well-built wall, of several hundred feet sheer down into the sea, which
+at this point swirled round the rocky base in dark, deep, blackish-green
+eddies, sprinkled with trailing sprays of brown and crimson weed. It was
+a wonderful sight to look down upon this heaving mass of water, if it
+could be done without the head swimming and the eyes growing blind with
+the light of the sky striking sharp against the restless heaving of the
+waves, and Mary was one of the few who could stand fearlessly on almost
+the very brink of the parapet of the "Giant's Castle," and watch the
+sweep of the gulls as they flew under and above her, uttering their
+brief plaintive cries of gladness or anger as the wild wind bore them to
+and fro. When Reay first saw her run eagerly to the very edge, and stand
+there, a light, bold, beautiful figure, with the wind fluttering her
+garments and blowing loose a long rippling tress of her amber-brown
+hair, he could not refrain from an involuntary cry of terror, and an
+equally involuntary rush to her side with his arms outstretched. But as
+she turned her sweet face and grave blue eyes upon him there was
+something in the gentle dignity and purity of her look that held him
+back, abashed, and curiously afraid. She made him feel the power of her
+sex,--a power invincible when strengthened by modesty and reserve,--and
+the easy licence which modern women, particularly those of a degraded
+aristocracy, permit to men in both conversation and behaviour nowadays,
+would have found no opportunity of being exercised in her presence. So,
+though his impulse moved him to catch her round the waist and draw her
+with forcible tenderness away from the dizzy eminence on which she
+stood, he dared not presume so far, and merely contented himself with a
+bounding stride which brought him to the same point of danger as
+herself, and the breathless exclamation--
+
+"Miss Mary! Take care!"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"Oh, there is nothing to be frightened of!" she said. "Often and often I
+have come here quite alone and looked down upon the sea in all weathers.
+Just after my father's death, this used to be the place I loved best,
+where I could feel that I was all by myself with God, who alone
+understood my sadness. At night, when the moon is at the full, it is
+very beautiful here. One looks down into the water and sees a world of
+waving light, and then, looking up to the sky, there is a heaven of
+stars!--and all the weary ways of life are forgotten! The angels seem so
+near!"
+
+A silent agreement with this latter statement shone in Reay's eyes as he
+looked at her.
+
+"It's good sometimes to find a woman who still believes in angels," he
+said.
+
+"Don't _you_ believe in them?"
+
+"Implicitly,--with all my heart and soul!" And again his eyes were
+eloquent.
+
+A wave of rosy colour flitted over her face, and shading her eyes from
+the strong glare of the sun, she gazed across the sea.
+
+"I wish dear old David could see this glorious sight!" she said. "But
+he's not strong--and I'm afraid--I hardly like to think it--that he's
+weaker than he knows."
+
+"Poor old chap!" said Angus, gently. "Any way, you've done all you can
+for him, and he's very grateful. I hope he'll last a few years longer."
+
+"I hope so too," she answered quickly. "For I should miss him very much.
+I've grown quite to love him."
+
+"I think he feels that," and Angus seated himself on a jutting crag of
+the "Giant's Castle" and prepared for the utterance of something
+desperate. "Any one would, you know!"
+
+She made no reply. Her gaze was fixed on the furthest silver gleaming
+line of the ocean horizon.
+
+"Any one would be bound to feel it, if you loved--if you were fond of
+him," he went on in rather a rambling way. "It would make all the
+difference in the world----"
+
+She turned towards him quickly with a smile. Her breathing was a little
+hurried.
+
+"Shall we go back now?" she said.
+
+"Certainly!--if--if you wish--but isn't it rather nice up here?" he
+pleaded.
+
+"We'll come another day," and she ran lightly down the first half of the
+grassy path which had led them to the summit. "But I mustn't waste any
+more time this afternoon."
+
+"Why? Any pressing demands for mended lace?" asked Angus, as he followed
+her.
+
+"Oh no! Not particularly so. Only when the firm that employs me, sends
+any very specially valuable stuff worth five or six hundred pounds or
+so, I never like to keep it longer that I can help. And the piece I'm at
+work on is valued at a thousand guineas."
+
+"Wouldn't you like to wear it yourself?" he asked suddenly, with a
+laugh.
+
+"I? I wouldn't wear it for the world! Do you know, Mr. Reay, that I
+almost hate beautiful lace! I admire the work and design, of course--no
+one could help that--but every little flower and leaf in the fabric
+speaks to me of so many tired eyes growing blind over the intricate
+stitches--so many weary fingers, and so many aching hearts--all toiling
+for the merest pittance! For it is not the real makers of the lace who
+get good profit by their work, it is the merchants who sell it that have
+all the advantage. If I were a great lady and a rich one, I would refuse
+to buy any lace from the middleman,--I would seek out the actual poor
+workers, and give them my orders, and see that they were comfortably fed
+and housed as long as they worked for me."
+
+"And it's just ten chances to one whether they would be grateful to
+you----" Angus began. She silenced him by a slight gesture.
+
+"But I shouldn't care whether they were grateful or not," she said. "I
+should be content to know that I had done what was right and just to my
+fellow-creatures."
+
+They had no more talk that day, and Helmsley, eagerly expectant, and
+watching them perhaps more intently than a criminal watches the face of
+a judge, was as usual disappointed. His inward excitement, always
+suppressed, made him somewhat feverish and irritable, and Mary, all
+unconscious of the cause, stayed in to "take care of him" as she said,
+and gave up her afternoon walks with Angus for a time altogether, which
+made the situation still more perplexing, and to Helmsley almost
+unbearable. Yet there was nothing to be done. He felt it would be unwise
+to speak of the matter in any way to her--she was a woman who would
+certainly find it difficult to believe that she had won, or could
+possibly win the love of a lover at her age;--she might even resent
+it,--no one could tell. And so the days of April paced softly on, in
+bloom and sunlight, till May came in with a blaze of colour and
+radiance, and the last whiff of cold wind blew itself away across the
+sea. The "biting nor'easter," concerning which the comic press gives
+itself up to senseless parrot-talk with each recurrence of the May
+month, no matter how warm and beautiful that month may be, was a "thing
+foregone and clean forgotten,"--and under the mild and beneficial
+influences of the mingled sea and moorland air, Helmsley gained a
+temporary rush of strength, and felt so much better, that he was able to
+walk down to the shore and back again once or twice a a day, without any
+assistance, scarcely needing even the aid of his stick to lean upon. The
+shore remained his favourite haunt; he was never tired of watching the
+long waves roll in, edged with gleaming ribbons of foam, and roll out
+again, with the musical clatter of drawn pebbles and shells following
+the wake of the backward sweeping ripple,--and he made friends with many
+of the Weircombe fisherfolk, who were always ready to chat with him
+concerning themselves and the difficulties and dangers of their trade.
+The children, too, were all eager to run after "old David," as they
+called him,--and many an afternoon he would sit in the sun, with a group
+of these hardy little creatures gathered about him, listening entranced,
+while he told them strange stories of foreign lands and far
+travels,--travels which men took "in search of gold"--as he would say,
+with a sad little smile--"gold, which is not nearly so much use as it
+seems to be."
+
+"But can't us buy everything with plenty of money?" asked a
+seven-year-old urchin, on one of these occasions, looking solemnly up
+into his face with a pair of very round, big brown eyes.
+
+"Not everything, my little man," he answered, smoothing the rough locks
+of the small inquirer with a very tender hand. "I could not buy _you_,
+for instance! Your mother wouldn't sell you!"
+
+The child laughed.
+
+"Oh, no! But I didn't mean me!"
+
+"I know you didn't mean me!" and Helmsley smiled. "But suppose some one
+put a thousand golden sovereigns in a bag on one side, and you in your
+rough little torn clothes on the other, and asked your mother which she
+would like best to have--what do you think she would say?"
+
+"She'd 'ave _me_!" and a smile of confident satisfaction beamed on the
+grinning little face like a ray of sunshine.
+
+"Of course she would! The bag of sovereigns would be no use at all
+compared to you. So you see we cannot buy everything with money."
+
+"But--most things?" queried the boy--"Eh?"
+
+"Most things--perhaps," Helmsley answered, with a slight sigh. "But
+those 'most things' are not things of much value even when you get them.
+You can never buy love,--and that is the only real treasure,--the
+treasure of Heaven!"
+
+The child looked at him, vaguely impressed by his sudden earnestness,
+but scarcely understanding his words.
+
+"Wouldn't _you_ like a little money?" And the inquisitive young eyes
+fixed themselves on his face with an expression of tenderest pity.
+"You'se a very poor old man!"
+
+Helmsley laughed, and again patted the little curly head.
+
+"Yes--yes--a very poor old man!" he repeated. "But I don't want any more
+than I've got!"
+
+One afternoon towards mid-May, a strong yet soft sou'wester gale blew
+across Weircombe, bringing with it light showers of rain, which, as they
+fell upon the flowering plants and trees, brought out all the perfume of
+the spring in such rich waves of sweetness, that, though as yet there
+were no roses, and the lilac was only just budding out, the whole
+countryside seemed full of the promised fragrance of the blossoms that
+were yet to be. The wind made scenery in the sky, heaping up snowy
+masses of cloud against the blue in picturesque groups resembling Alpine
+heights, and fantastic palaces of fairyland, and when,--after a glorious
+day of fresh and invigorating air which swept both sea and hillside, a
+sudden calm came with the approach of sunset, the lovely colours of
+earth and heaven, melting into one another, where so pure and brilliant,
+that Mary, always a lover of Nature, could not resist Angus Reay's
+earnest entreaty that she would accompany him to see the splendid
+departure of the orb of day, in all its imperial panoply of royal gold
+and purple.
+
+"It will be a beautiful sunset," he said--"And from the 'Giant's Castle'
+rock, a sight worth seeing."
+
+Helmsley looked at him as he spoke, and looking, smiled.
+
+"Do go, my dear," he urged--"And come back and tell me all about it."
+
+"I really think you want me out of your way, David!" she said
+laughingly. "You seem quite happy when I leave you!"
+
+"You don't get enough fresh air," he answered evasively. "And this is
+just the season of the year when you most need it."
+
+She made no more demur, and putting on the simple straw hat, which,
+plainly trimmed with a soft knot of navy-blue ribbon, was all her summer
+head-gear, she left the house with Reay. After a while, Helmsley also
+went out for his usual lonely ramble on the shore, from whence he could
+see the frowning rampart of the "Giant's Castle" above him, though it
+was impossible to discern any person who might be standing at its
+summit, on account of the perpendicular crags that intervened. From both
+shore and rocky height the scene was magnificent. The sun, dipping
+slowly down towards the sea, shot rays of glory around itself in an
+aureole of gold, which, darting far upwards, and spreading from north to
+south, pierced the drifting masses of floating fleecy cloud like arrows,
+and transfigured their whiteness to splendid hues of fiery rose and
+glowing amethyst, while just between the falling Star of Day and the
+ocean, a rift appeared of smooth and delicate watery green, touched here
+and there with flecks of palest pink and ardent violet. Up on the
+parapet of the "Giant's Castle," all this loyal panoply of festal colour
+was seen at its best, sweeping in widening waves across the whole
+surface of the Heavens; and there was a curious stillness everywhere, as
+though earth itself were conscious of a sudden and intense awe. Standing
+on the dizzy edge of her favourite point of vantage, Mary Deane gazed
+upon the sublime spectacle with eyes so passionately tender in their
+far-away expression, that, to Angus Reay, who watched those eyes with
+much more rapt admiration than he bestowed upon the splendour of the
+sunset, they looked like the eyes of some angel, who, seeing heaven all
+at once revealed, recognised her native home, and with the recognition,
+was prepared for immediate flight And on the impulse which gave him this
+fantastic thought, he said softly--
+
+"Don't go away, Miss Mary! Stay with us--with me--as long as you can!"
+
+She turned her head and looked at him, smiling.
+
+"Why, what do you mean? I'm not going away anywhere--who told you that I
+was?"
+
+"No one,"--and Angus drew a little nearer to her--"But just now you
+seemed so much a part of the sea and the sky, leaning forward and giving
+yourself entirely over to the glory of the moment, that I felt as if you
+might float away from me altogether." Here he paused--then added in a
+lower tone--"And I could not bear to lose you!"
+
+She was silent. But her face grew pale, and her lips quivered. He saw
+the tremor pass over her, and inwardly rejoiced,--his own nerves
+thrilling as he realised that, after all, _if_--if she loved him, he was
+the master of her fate.
+
+"We've been such good friends," he went on, dallying with his own desire
+to know the best or worst--"Haven't we?"
+
+"Indeed, yes!" she answered, somewhat faintly. "And I hope we always
+will be."
+
+"I hope so, too!" he answered in quite a matter-of-fact way. "You see
+I'm rather a clumsy chap with women----"
+
+She smiled a little.
+
+"Are you?"
+
+"Yes,--I mean I never get on with them quite as well as other fellows do
+somehow--and--er--and--what I want to say, Miss Mary, is that I've never
+got on with any woman so well as I have with you--and----"
+
+He paused. At no time in his life had he been at such a loss for
+language. His heart was thumping in the most extraordinary fashion, and
+he prodded the end of his walking-stick into the ground with quite a
+ferocious earnestness. She was still looking at him and still smiling.
+
+"And," he went on ramblingly, "that's why I hope we shall always be good
+friends."
+
+As he uttered this perfectly commonplace remark, he cursed himself for a
+fool. "What's the matter with me?" he inwardly demanded. "My tongue
+seems to be tied up!--or I'm going to have lockjaw! It's awful!
+Something better than this has got to come out of me somehow!" And
+acting on a brilliant flash of inspiration which suddenly seemed to have
+illumined his brain, he said--
+
+"The fact is, I want to get married. I'm thinking about it."
+
+How quiet she was! She seemed scarcely to breathe.
+
+"Yes?" and the word, accentuated without surprise and merely as a
+question, was spoken very gently. "I do hope you have found some one who
+loves you with all her heart!"
+
+She turned her head away, and Angus saw, or thought he saw, the bright
+tears brim up from under her lashes and slowly fall. Without another
+instant's pause he rushed upon his destiny, and in that rush grew
+strong.
+
+"Yes, Mary!" he said, and moving to her side he caught her hand in his
+own--"I dare to think I have found that some one! I believe I have! I
+believe that a woman whom I love with all my heart, loves me in return!
+If I am mistaken, then I've lost the whole world! Tell me, Mary! Am I
+wrong?"
+
+She could not speak,--the tears were thick in her eyes.
+
+"Mary--dear, dearest Mary!" and he pressed the hand he held--"You know I
+love you!--you know----"
+
+She turned her face towards him--a pale, wondering face,--and tried to
+smile.
+
+"How do I know?" she murmured tremulously--"How can I believe? I'm past
+the time for love!"
+
+For all answer he drew her into his arms.
+
+"Ask Love itself about that, Mary!" he said. "Ask my heart, which beats
+for you,--ask my soul, which longs for you!--ask me, who worship you,
+you, best and dearest of women, about the time for love! That time for
+us is now, Mary!--now and always!"
+
+Then came a silence--that eloquent silence which surpasses all speech.
+Love has no written or spoken language--it is incommunicable as God. And
+Mary, whose nature was open and pure as the daylight, would not have
+been the woman she was if she could have expressed in words the deep
+tenderness and passion which at that supreme moment silently responded
+to her lover's touch, her lover's embrace. And when,--lifting her face
+between his two hands, he gazed at it long and earnestly, a smile,
+shining between tears, brightened her sweet eyes.
+
+"You are looking at me as if you never saw me before, Angus!" she said,
+her voice sinking softly, as she pronounced his name.
+
+"Positively, I don't think I ever have!" he answered "Not as you are
+now, Mary! I have never seen you look so beautiful! I have never seen
+you before as my love! my wife!"
+
+She drew herself a little away from him.
+
+"But, are you sure you are doing right for yourself?" she asked--"You
+know you could marry anybody----"
+
+He laughed, and threw one arm round her waist.
+
+"Thanks!--I don't want to marry 'anybody'--I want to marry _you_! The
+question is, will you have me?"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"If I thought it would be for your good----"
+
+Stooping quickly he kissed her.
+
+"_That's_ very much for my good!" he declared. "And now that I've told
+you my mind, you must tell me yours. Do you love me, Mary?"
+
+"I'm afraid you know that already too well!" she said, with a wistful
+radiance in her eyes.
+
+"I don't!" he declared--"I'm not at all sure of you----"
+
+She interrupted him.
+
+"Are you sure of yourself?"
+
+"Mary!"
+
+"Ah, don't look so reproachful! It's only for you I'm thinking! You see
+I'm nothing but a poor working woman of what is called the lower
+classes--I'm not young, and I'm not clever. Now you've got genius;
+you'll be a great man some day, quite soon perhaps--you may even become
+rich as well as famous, and then perhaps you'll be sorry you ever met
+me----"
+
+"In that case I'll call upon the public hangman and ask him to give me a
+quick despatch," he said promptly; "Though I shouldn't be worth the
+expense of a rope!"
+
+"Angus, you won't be serious!"
+
+"Serious? I never was more serious in my life! And I want my question
+answered."
+
+"What question?"
+
+"Do you love me? Yes or no!"
+
+He held her close and looked her full in the face as he made this
+peremptory demand. Her cheeks grew crimson, but she met his searching
+gaze frankly.
+
+"Ah, though you are a man, you are a spoilt child!" she said. "You know
+I love you more than I can say!--and yet you want me to tell you what
+can never be told!"
+
+He caught her to his heart, and kissed her passionately.
+
+"That's enough!" he said--"For if you love me, Mary, your love is love
+indeed!--it's no sham; and like all true and heavenly things, it will
+never change. I believe, if I turned out to be an utter wastrel, you'd
+love me still!"
+
+"Of course I should!" she answered.
+
+"Of course you would!" and he kissed her again. "Mary, _my_ Mary, if
+there were more women like you, there would be more men!--men in the
+real sense of the word--manly men, whose love and reverence for women
+would make them better and braver in the battle of life. Do you know, I
+can do anything now, with you to love me! I don't suppose,"--and here he
+unconsciously squared his shoulders--"I really don't suppose there is a
+single difficulty in my way that I won't conquer!"
+
+She smiled, leaning against him.
+
+"If you feel like that, I am very happy!" she said.
+
+As she spoke, she raised her eyes to the sky, and uttered an involuntary
+exclamation.
+
+"Look, look!" she cried--"How glorious!"
+
+The heavens above them were glowing red,--forming a dome of burning
+rose, deepening in hue towards the sea, where the outer rim of the
+nearly vanished sun was slowly disappearing below the horizon--and in
+the centre of this ardent glory, a white cloud, shaped like a dove with
+outspread wings, hung almost motionless. The effect was marvellously
+beautiful, and Angus, full of his own joy, was more than ever conscious
+of the deep content of a spirit attuned to the infinite joy of nature.
+
+"It is like the Holy Grail," he said, and, with one arm round the woman
+he loved, he softly quoted the lines:--
+
+
+    "And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail,
+    Rose-red, with beatings in it as if alive!"
+
+"That is Tennyson," she said.
+
+"Yes--that is Tennyson--the last great poet England can boast," he
+answered. "The poet who hated hate and loved love."
+
+"All poets are like that," she murmured.
+
+"Not all, Mary! Some of the modern ones hate love and love hate!"
+
+"Then they are not poets," she said. "They would not see any beauty in
+that lovely sky--and they would not understand----"
+
+"Us!" finished Angus. "And I assure you, Mary at the present moment, we
+are worth understanding!"
+
+She laughed softly.
+
+"Do we understand ourselves?" she asked.
+
+"Of course we don't! If we did, we should probably be miserable. It's
+just because we are mysterious one to another, that we are so happy. No
+human being should ever try to analyse the fact of existence. It's
+enough that we exist--and that we love each other. Isn't it, Mary?"
+
+"Enough? It is too much,--too much happiness altogether for _me_, at any
+rate," she said. "I can't believe in it yet! I can't really, Angus! Why
+should you love me?"
+
+"Why, indeed!" And his eyes grew dark and warm with tenderness--"Why
+should you love _me_?"
+
+"Ah, there's so much to love in you!" and she made her heart's
+confession with a perfectly naive candour. "I daresay you don't see it
+yourself, but I do!"
+
+"And I assure you, Mary," he declared, with a whimsical solemnity, "that
+there's ever so much more to love in you! I know you don't see it for
+yourself, but I do!"
+
+Then they laughed together like two children, and all constraint was at
+an end between them. Hand in hand they descended the grassy steep of the
+"Giant's Castle"--charmed with one another, and at every step of the way
+seeing some new delight which they seemed to have missed before. The
+crimson sunset burned about them like the widening petals of a rose in
+fullest bloom,--earth caught the fervent glory and reflected it back
+again in many varying tints of brilliant colour, shading from green to
+gold, from pink to amethyst--and as they walked through the splendid
+vaporous light, it was as though they were a living part of the glory of
+the hour.
+
+"We must tell David," said Mary, as they reached the bottom of the hill.
+"Poor old dear! I think he will be glad."
+
+"I know he will!" and Angus smiled confidently. "He's been waiting for
+this ever since Christmas Day!"
+
+Mary's eyes opened in wonderment.
+
+"Ever since Christmas Day?"
+
+"Yes. I told him then that I loved you, Mary,--that I wanted to ask you
+to marry me,--but that I felt I was too poor----"
+
+Her hand stole through his arm.
+
+"Too poor, Angus! Am I not poor also?"
+
+"Not as poor as I am," he answered, promptly possessing himself of the
+caressing hand. "In fact, you're quite rich compared to me. You've got a
+house, and you've got work, which brings you in enough to live
+upon,--now I haven't a roof to call my own, and my stock of money is
+rapidly coming to an end. I've nothing to depend upon but my book,--and
+if I can't sell that when it's finished, where am I? I'm nothing but a
+beggar--less well off than I was as a wee boy when I herded cattle. And
+I'm not going to marry you----"
+
+She stopped in her walk and looked at him with a smile.
+
+"Oh Angus! I thought you were!"
+
+He kissed the hand he held.
+
+"Don't make fun of me, Mary! I won't allow it! I _am_ going to marry
+you!--but I'm _not_ going to marry you till I've sold my book. I don't
+suppose I'll get more than a hundred pounds for it, but that will do to
+start housekeeping together on. Won't it?"
+
+"I should think it would indeed!" and she lifted her head with quite a
+proud gesture--"It will be a fortune!"
+
+"Of course," he went on, "the cottage is yours, and all that is in it. I
+can't add much to that, because to my mind, it's just perfect. I never
+want any sweeter, prettier little home. But I want to work _for_ you,
+Mary, so that you'll not have to work for yourself, you understand?"
+
+She nodded her head gravely.
+
+"I understand! You want me to sit with my hands folded in my lap, doing
+nothing at all, and getting lazy and bad-tempered."
+
+"Now you know I don't!" he expostulated.
+
+"Yes, you do, Angus! If you don't want me to work, you want me to be a
+perfectly useless and tiresome woman! Why, my dearest, now that you love
+me, I should like to work all the harder! If you think the cottage
+pretty, I shall try to make it even prettier. And I don't want to give
+up all my lace-mending. It's just as pleasant and interesting as the
+fancy-work which the rich ladies play with You must really let me go on
+working, Angus! I shall be a perfectly unbearable person if you don't!"
+
+She looked so sweetly at him, that as they were at the moment passing
+under the convenient shadow of a tree he took her in his arms and kissed
+her.
+
+"When _you_ become a perfectly unbearable person," he said, "then it
+will be time for another deluge, and a general renovation of human kind.
+You shall work if you like, my Mary, but you shall not work for _me_.
+See?"
+
+A tender smile lingered in her eyes.
+
+"I see!" and linking her arm through his again, she moved on with him
+over the thyme-scented grass, her dress gently sweeping across the stray
+clusters of golden cowslips that nodded here and there. "_I_ will work
+for myself, _you_ will work for _me_, and old David will work for both
+of us!"
+
+They laughed joyously.
+
+"Poor old David!" said Angus. "He's been wondering why I have not spoken
+to you before,--he declared he couldn't understand it. But then I wasn't
+quite sure whether you liked me at all----"
+
+"Weren't you?" and her glance was eloquent.
+
+"No--and I asked him to find out!"
+
+She looked at him in a whimsical wonderment.
+
+"You asked him to find out? And did he?"
+
+"He seems to think so. At any rate, he gave me courage to speak."
+
+Mary grew suddenly meditative.
+
+"Do you know, Angus," she said, "I think old David was sent to me for a
+special purpose. Some great and good influence guided him to me--I am
+sure of it. You don't know all his history. Shall I tell it to you?"
+
+"Yes--do tell me--but I think I know it. Was he not a former old friend
+of your father's?"
+
+"No--that's a story I had to invent to satisfy the curiosity of the
+villagers. It would never have done to let them know that he was only an
+old tramp whom I found ill and nearly dying out on the hills during a
+great storm we had last summer. There had been heavy thunder and
+lightning all the afternoon, and when the storm ceased I went to my door
+to watch the clearing off of the clouds, and I heard a dog yelping
+pitifully on the hill just above the coombe. I went out to see what was
+the matter, and there I found an old man lying quite unconscious on the
+wet grass, looking as if he were dead, and a little dog--you know
+Charlie?--guarding him and barking as loudly as it could. Well, I
+brought him back to life, and took him home and nursed him--and--that's
+all. He told me his name was David--and that he had been 'on the tramp'
+to Cornwall to find a friend. You know the rest."
+
+"Then he is really quite a stranger to you, Mary?" said Angus
+wonderingly.
+
+"Quite. He never knew my father. But I am sure if Dad had been alive, he
+would have rescued him just as I did, and then he _would_ have been his
+'friend,'--he could not have helped himself. That's the way I argued it
+out to my own heart and conscience."
+
+Angus looked at her.
+
+"You darling!" he said suddenly.
+
+She laughed.
+
+"That doesn't come in!" she said.
+
+"It does come in! It comes in everywhere!" he declared. "There's no
+other woman in the world that would have done so much for a poor forlorn
+old tramp like that, adrift on the country roads. And you exposed
+yourself to some risk, too, Mary! He might have been a dangerous
+character!"
+
+"Poor dear, he didn't look it," she said gently--"and he hasn't proved
+it. Everything has gone well for me since I did my best for him. It was
+even through him that you came to know me, Angus!--think of that!
+Blessings on the dear old man!--I'm sure he must be an angel in
+disguise!"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Well, we never know!" he said. "Angels certainly don't come to us with
+all the celestial splendour which is supposed to belong to them--they
+may perhaps choose the most unlikely way in which to make their errands
+known. I have often--especially lately--thought that I have seen an
+angel looking at me out of the eyes of a woman!"
+
+"You _will_ talk poetry!" protested Mary.
+
+"I'm not talking it--I'm living it!" he answered.
+
+There was nothing to be said to this. He was an incorrigible lover, and
+remonstrances were in vain.
+
+"You must not tell David's real history to any of the villagers," said
+Mary presently, as they came in sight of her cottage--"I wouldn't like
+them to know it."
+
+"They shall never know it so far as I am concerned," he answered. "He's
+been a good friend to me--and I wouldn't cause him a moment's trouble.
+I'd like to make him happier if I could!"
+
+"I don't think that's possible,"--and her eyes were clouded for a moment
+with a shadow of melancholy--"You see he has no money, except the little
+he earns by basket-making, and he's very far from strong. We must be
+kind to him, Angus, as long as he needs kindness."
+
+Angus agreed, with sundry ways of emphasis that need not here be
+narrated, as they composed a formula which could not be rendered into
+set language. Arriving at the cottage they found the door open, and no
+one in the kitchen,--but on the table lay two sprigs of sweetbriar.
+Angus caught sight of them at once.
+
+"Mary! See! Don't you think he knows?"
+
+She stood hesitating, with a lovely wavering colour in her cheeks.
+
+"Don't you remember," he went on, "you gave me a bit of sweetbriar on
+the evening of the first day we ever met?"
+
+"I remember!" and her voice was very soft and tremulous.
+
+"I have that piece of sweetbriar still," he said; "I shall never part
+with it. And old David must have known all about it!"
+
+He took up the little sprays set ready for them, and putting one in his
+own buttonhole, fastened the other in her bodice with a loving,
+lingering touch.
+
+"It's a good emblem," he said, kissing her--"Sweet Briar--sweet
+Love!--not without thorns, which are the safety of the rose!"
+
+A slow step sounded on the garden path, and they saw Helmsley
+approaching, with the tiny "Charlie" running at his heels. Pausing on
+the threshold of the open door, he looked at them with a questioning
+smile.
+
+"Well, did you see the sunset?" he asked, "Or only each other?"
+
+Mary ran to him, and impulsively threw her arms about his neck.
+
+"Oh David!" she said. "Dear old David! I am so happy!"
+
+He was silent,--her gentle embrace almost unmanned him. He stretched out
+a hand to Angus, who grasped it warmly.
+
+"So it's all right!" he said, in a low voice that trembled a little.
+"You've settled it together?"
+
+"Yes--we've settled it, David!" Angus answered cheerily. "Give us your
+blessing!"
+
+"You have that--God knows you have that!"--and as Mary, in her usual
+kindly way, took his hat and stick from him, keeping her arm through his
+as he went to his accustomed chair by the fireside, he glanced at her
+tenderly. "You have it with all my heart and soul, Mr. Reay!--and as for
+this dear lady who is to be your wife, all I can say is that you have
+won a treasure--yes, a treasure of goodness and sweetness and patience,
+and most heavenly kindness----"
+
+His voice failed him, and the quick tears sprang to Mary's eyes.
+
+"Now, David, please stop!" she said, with a look between affection and
+remonstrance. "You are a terrible flatterer! You mustn't spoil me."
+
+"Nothing will spoil you!" he answered, quietly. "Nothing could spoil
+you! All the joy in the world, all the prosperity in the world, could
+not change your nature, my dear! Mr. Reay knows that as well as I
+do,--and I'm sure he thanks God for it! You are all love and gentleness,
+as a woman should be,--as all women would be if they were wise!"
+
+He paused a moment, and then, raising himself a little more uprightly in
+his chair, looked at them both earnestly.
+
+"And now that you have made up your minds to share your lives together,"
+he went on, "you must not think that I will be so selfish as to stay on
+here and be a burden to you both. I should like to see you married, but
+after that I will go away----"
+
+"You will do nothing of the sort!" said Mary, dropping on her knees
+beside him and lifting her serene eyes to his face. "You don't want to
+make us unhappy, do you? This is your home, as long as it is ours,
+remember! We would not have you leave us on any account, would we,
+Angus?"
+
+"Indeed no!" answered Reay, heartily. "David, what are you talking
+about? Aren't _you_ the cause of my knowing Mary? Didn't _you_ bring me
+to this dear little cottage first of all? Don't I owe all my happiness
+to _you_? And you talk about going away! It's pretty evident you don't
+know what's good for you! Look here! If I'm good for anything at all,
+I'm good for hard work--and for that matter I may as well go in for the
+basket-making trade as well as the book-making profession. We've got
+Mary to work for, David!--and we'll both work for her--together!"
+
+Helmsley turned upon him a face in which the expression was difficult to
+define.
+
+"You really mean that?" he said.
+
+"Really mean it! Of course I do! Why shouldn't I mean it?"
+
+There was a moment's silence, and Helmsley, looking down on Mary as she
+knelt beside him, laid his hand caressingly on her hair.
+
+"I think," he said gently, "that you are both too kind-hearted and
+impulsive, and that you are undertaking a task which should not be
+imposed upon you. You offer me a continued home with you after your
+marriage--but who am I that I should accept such generosity from you? I
+am not getting younger. Every day robs me of some strength--and my
+work--such work as I can do--will be of very little use to you. I may
+suffer from illness, which will cause you trouble and expense,--death is
+closer to me than life--and why should I die on your hands? It can only
+mean trouble for you if I stay on,--and though I am grateful to you with
+all my heart--more grateful than I can say"--and his voice trembled--"I
+know I ought to be unselfish,--and that the truest and best way to thank
+you for all you have done for me is to go away and leave you in peace
+and happiness----"
+
+"We should not be happy without you, David!" declared Mary. "Can't you,
+won't you understand that we are both fond of you?"
+
+"Fond of me!" And he smiled. "Fond of a useless old wreck who can
+scarcely earn a day's wage!"
+
+"That's rather wide of the mark, David!" said Reay. "Mary's not the
+woman--and I'm sure I'm not the man--to care for any one on account of
+the money he can make. We like you for yourself,--so don't spoil this
+happiest day of our lives by suggesting any separation between us. Do
+you hear?"
+
+"I hear!"--and a sudden brightness flashed up in Helmsley's sunken eyes,
+making them look almost young--"And I understand! I understand that
+though I am poor and old, and a stranger to you,--you are giving me
+friendship such as rich men often seek for and never find!--and I will
+try,--yes, I will try, God helping me,--to be worthy of your trust! If I
+stay with you----"
+
+"There must be no 'if' in the case, David!" said Mary, smiling up at
+him.
+
+He stroked her bright hair caressingly.
+
+"Well, then, I will put it not 'if,' but as long as I stay with you," he
+answered--"as long as I stay with you, I will do all I can to show you
+how grateful I am to you,--and--and--I will never give you cause"--here
+he spoke more slowly, and with deliberate emphasis--"I will never give
+you cause to regret your confidence in me! I want you both to be
+glad--not sorry--that you spared a lonely old man a little of your
+affection!"
+
+"We _are_ glad, David!"--and Mary, as he lifted his hand from her head,
+caught it and kissed it lightly. "And we shall never be sorry! And here
+is Charlie"--and she picked up the little dog as she spoke and fondled
+it playfully,--"wondering why he is not included in the family party!
+For, after all, it is quite your affair, isn't it, Charlie? _You_ were
+the cause of my finding David out on the hills!--and David was the cause
+of my knowing Angus--so if it hadn't been for _you_, nothing would have
+happened at all, Charlie!--and I should have been a lonely old maid all
+the days of my life! And I can't do anything to show my gratitude to
+you, you quaint wee soul, but give you a saucer of cream!"
+
+She laughed, and springing up, began to prepare the tea. While she was
+moving quickly to and fro on this household business, Helmsley beckoned
+Reay to come closer to him.
+
+"Speak frankly, Mr. Reay!" he said. "As the master of her heart, you are
+the master of her home. I can easily slip away--and tramping is not such
+hard work in summer time. Shall I go?"
+
+"If you go, I shall start out and bring you back again," replied Reay,
+shaking his head at him determinedly. "You won't get so far but that I
+shall be able to catch you up in an hour! Please consider that you
+belong to us,--and that we have no intention of parting with you!"
+
+Tears rose in Helmsley's eyes, and for a moment he covered them with his
+hand. Angus saw that he was deeply moved, and to avoid noticing him,
+especially as he was somewhat affected himself by the touching
+gratefulness of this apparently poor and lonely old man, went after Mary
+with all the pleasant ease and familiarity of an accepted lover, to help
+her bring in the tea. The tiny "Charlie," meanwhile, sitting on the
+hearth in a vigilantly erect attitude, with quivering nose pointed in a
+creamward direction, waited for the approach of the expected afternoon
+refreshment, trembling from head to tail with nervous excitement. And
+Helmsley, left alone for those few moments, presently mastered the
+strong emotion which made him long to tell his true history to the two
+sincere souls who, out of his whole life's experience, had alone proved
+themselves faithful to the spirit of a friendship wherein the claims of
+cash had no part. Regaining full command of himself, and determining to
+act out the part he had elected to play to whatever end should most
+fittingly arrive,--an end he could not as yet foresee,--he sat quietly
+in his chair as usual, gazing into the fire with the meditative patience
+and calm of old age, and silently building up in a waking dream the last
+story of his House of Love,--which now promised to be like that house
+spoken of in the Divine Parable--"And the rain descended, and the floods
+came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for
+it was founded upon a rock." For as he knew,--and as we all must surely
+know,--the greatest rains and floods and winds of a world of sorrow, are
+powerless to destroy love, if love be true.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Three days later, when the dawn was scarcely declared and the earliest
+notes of the waking birds trembled on the soft air with the faint
+sweetness of a far-off fluty piping, the door of Mary Deane's cottage
+opened stealthily, and David Helmsley, dressed ready for a journey,
+stepped noiselessly out into the little garden. He wore the same
+ordinary workman's outfit in which he had originally started on his
+intended " tramp," including the vest which he had lined with banknotes,
+and which he had not used once since his stay with Mary Deane. For she
+had insisted on his wearing the warmer and softer garments which had
+once belonged to her own father,--and all these he had now taken off and
+left behind him, carefully folded up on the bed in his room. He had
+examined his money and had found it just as he had placed it,--even the
+little "surprise packet" which poor Tom o' the Gleam had collected for
+his benefit in the "Trusty Man's" common room, was still in the
+side-pocket where he had himself put it. Unripping a corner of the vest
+lining, he took out two five-pound notes, and with these in a rough
+leather purse for immediate use, and his stout ash stick grasped firmly
+in his hand, he started out to walk to the top of the coombe where he
+knew the path brought him to the verge of the highroad leading to
+Minehead. As he moved almost on tip-toe through Mary's garden, now all
+fragrant with golden wall-flowers, lilac, and mayblossom, he paused a
+moment,--looking up at the picturesque gabled eaves and latticed
+windows. A sudden sense of loneliness affected him almost to tears. For
+now he had not even the little dog Charlie with him to console him--that
+canine friend slept in a cushioned basket in Mary's room, and was
+therefore all unaware that his master was leaving him.
+
+"But, please God, I shall come back in a day or two!" he murmured. "
+Please God, I shall see this dear shrine of peace and love again before
+I die! Meanwhile--good-bye, Mary! Good-bye, dearest and kindest of
+women! God bless you!"
+
+He turned away with an effort--and, lifting the latch of the garden
+gate, opened it and closed it softly behind him. Then he began the
+ascent of the coombe. Not a soul was in sight,--the actual day had not
+yet begun. The hill torrent flowed along with a subdued purling sound
+over the rough stones and pebbles,--there had been little rain of late
+and the water was shallow, though clear and bright enough to gleam like
+a wavering silver ribbon in the dimness of the early morning,--and as he
+followed it upward and finally reached a point from whence the open sea
+was visible he rested a moment, leaning on his stick and looking
+backward on the way he had come. Strangely beautiful and mystical was
+the scene his eyes dwelt upon,--or rather perhaps it should be said that
+he saw it in a somewhat strange and mystical fashion of his own. There,
+out beyond the furthest edge of land, lay the ocean, shadowed just now
+by a delicate dark grey mist, which, like a veil, covered its placid
+bosom,--a mist which presently the rising sun would scatter with its
+glorious rays of gold;--here at his feet nestled Weircombe,--a cluster
+of simple cottages, sweetly adorned by nature with her fairest
+garlanding of springtime flowers,--and behind him, just across a length
+of barren moor, was the common highroad leading to the wider, busier
+towns. And he thought as he stood alone,--a frail and solitary figure,
+gazing dreamily out of himself, as it were, to things altogether beyond
+himself,--that the dim and shadowy ocean was like the vast Unknown which
+we call Death,--which we look upon tremblingly,--afraid of its darkness,
+and unable to realise that the sun of Life will ever rise again to
+pierce its gloom with glory. And the little world--the only world that
+can be called a world,--namely, that special corner of the planet which
+holds the hearts that love us--a world which for him, the
+multi-millionaire, was just a tiny village with one sweet woman living
+in it--resembled a garland of flowers flung down from the rocks as
+though to soften their ruggedness,--a garland broken asunder at the
+shoreline, even as all earthly garlands must break and fade at the touch
+of the first cold wave of the Infinite. As for the further road in which
+he was about to turn and go, that, to his fancy, was a nearer similitude
+of an approach to hell than any scene ever portrayed in Dante's _Divine
+Comedy_. For it led to the crowded haunts of men--the hives of greedy
+business,--the smoky, suffocating centres where each human unit seeks
+to over-reach and outrival the other--where there is no time to be
+kind--no room to be courteous; where the passion for gain and the
+worship of self are so furious and inexhaustible, that all the old fair
+virtues which make nations great and lasting, are trampled down in the
+dust, and jeered at as things contemptible and of no value,--where, if a
+man is honourable, he is asked "What do you get by it?"--and where, if a
+woman would remain simple and chaste, she is told she is giving herself
+"no chance." In this whirl of avarice, egotism, and pushfulness,
+Helmsley had lived nearly all his life, always conscious of, and longing
+for, something better--something truer and more productive of peace and
+lasting good. Almost everything he had touched had turned to
+money,--while nothing he had ever gained had turned to love. Except
+now--now when the end was drawing nigh--when he must soon say farewell
+to the little earth, so replete with natural beauty--farewell to the
+lovely sky, which whether in storm or calm, ever shows itself as a
+visible reflex of divine majesty and power--farewell to the sweet birds,
+which for no thanks at all, charm the ear by their tender songs and
+graceful winged ways--farewell to the flowers, which, flourishing in the
+woods and fields without care, lift their cups to the sun, and fill the
+air with fragrance,--and above all, farewell to the affection which he
+had found so late!--to the heart whose truth he had tested--to the woman
+for whose sake, could he in some way have compassed her surer and
+greater happiness, he would gladly have lived half his life over again,
+working with every moment of it to add to her joy. But an instinctive
+premonition warned him that the sands in Time's hour-glass were for him
+running to an end,--there was no leisure left to him now for any new
+scheme or plan by which he could improve or strengthen that which he had
+already accomplished. He realised this fully, with a passing pang of
+regret which soon tempered itself into patient resignation,--and as the
+first arrowy beam of the rising sun shot upwards from the east, he
+slowly turned his back on the quiet hamlet where in a few months he had
+found what he had vainly sought for in many long and weary years, and
+plodded steadily across the moor to the highroad. Here he sat down on
+the bank to wait till some conveyance going to Minehead should pass
+by--for he knew he had not sufficient strength to walk far. "Tramping
+it" now was for him impossible,--moreover, his former thirst for
+adventure was satisfied; he had succeeded in his search for "a friend"
+without going so far as Cornwall. There was no longer any cause for him
+to endure unnecessary fatigue--so he waited patiently, listening to the
+first wild morning carol of a skylark, which, bounding up from its nest
+hard by, darted into the air with quivering wings beating against the
+dispersing vapours of the dawn, and sang aloud in the full rapture of a
+joy made perfect by innocence. And he thought of the lovely lines of
+George Herbert:--
+
+      "How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean
+    Are Thy returns! Ev'n as the flowers in Spring,
+      To which, besides their own demean,
+    The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring;
+                Grief melts away
+                Like snow in May,
+            As if there were no such cold thing.
+
+      "Who would have thought my shrivell'd heart
+    Could have recover'd greenness? It was gone
+      Quite under ground; as flowers depart
+    To see their mother-root, when they have blown,
+                Where they together
+                All the hard weather,
+            Dead to the world, keep house unknown.
+
+      "These are Thy wonders, Lord of power,
+    Killing and quick'ning, bringing down to Hell
+      And up to Heaven in an hour;
+    Making a chiming of a passing bell.
+                We say amiss
+                This or that is;
+            Thy Word is all, if we could spell!"
+
+"If we could spell!" he murmured, half aloud. "Ay, if we could learn
+even a quarter of the alphabet which would help us to understand the
+meaning of that 'Word!'--the Word which 'was in the beginning, and the
+word was with God, and the word _was_ God!' Then we should be wise
+indeed with a wisdom that would profit us,--we should have no fears and
+no forebodings,--we should know that all is, all _must_ be for the
+best!" And he raised his eyes to the slowly brightening sky. "Yet, after
+all, the attitude of simple faith is the right one for us, if we would
+call ourselves children of God--the faith which affirms--'Though He
+slay me, yet will I trust in Him!'"
+
+As he thus mused, a golden light began to spread around him,--the sun
+had risen above the horizon, and its cheerful radiance sparkled on every
+leaf and every blade of grass that bore a drop of dew. The morning mists
+rose hoveringly, paused awhile, and then lightly rolled away, disclosing
+one picture after another of exquisite sylvan beauty,--every living
+thing took up anew its burden of work and pleasure for the day, and
+"Now" was again declared the acceptable time. To enjoy the moment, and
+to make much of the moment while it lasts, is the very keynote of
+Nature's happiness, and David Helmsley found himself on this particular
+morning more or less in tune with the general sentiment. Certain sad
+thoughts oppressed him from time to time, but they were tempered and
+well-nigh overcome by the secret pleasure he felt within himself at
+having been given the means wherewith to ensure happiness for those whom
+he considered were more deserving of it than himself. And he sat
+patiently watching the landscape grow in glory as the sun rose higher
+and higher, till presently, struck by a sudden fear lest Mary Deane
+should get up earlier than usual, and missing him, should come out to
+seek for him, he left the bank by the roadside, and began to trudge
+slowly along in the direction of Minehead. He had not walked for a much
+longer time than about ten minutes, when he heard the crunching sound of
+heavy wheels behind him, and, looking back, saw a large mill waggon
+piled with sacks of flour and drawn by two sturdy horses, coming
+leisurely along. He waited till it drew near, and then called to the
+waggoner--
+
+"Will you give me a lift to Minehead for half a crown?"
+
+The waggoner, stout, red-faced, and jolly-looking, nodded an emphatic
+assent.
+
+"I'd do it for 'arf the money!" he said. "Gi' us yer 'and, old gaffer!"
+
+The "old gaffer" obeyed, and was soon comfortably seated between the
+projecting corners of two flour sacks, which in their way were as
+comfortable as cushions.
+
+"'Old on there," said the waggoner, "an' ye'll be as safe as though ye
+was in Abram's bosom. Not that I knows much about Abram anyway. Wheer
+abouts d'ye want in Minehead?"
+
+"The railway station."
+
+"Right y' are! That's my ticket too. Tired o' trampin' it, I s'pose,
+aint ye?"
+
+"A bit tired--yes. I've walked since daybreak."
+
+The waggoner cracked his whip, and the horses plodded on. Their heavy
+hoofs on the dusty road, and the noise made by the grind of the cart
+wheels, checked any attempt at prolonged conversation, for which
+Helmsley was thankful. He considered himself lucky in having met with a
+total stranger, for the name of the owner of the waggon, which was duly
+displayed both on the vehicle itself and the sacks of flour it
+contained, was unknown to him, and the place from which it had come was
+an inland village several miles away from Weircombe. He was therefore
+safe--so far--from any chance of recognition. To be driven along in a
+heavy mill cart was a rumblesome, drowsy way of travelling, but it was
+restful, and when Minehead was at last reached, he did not feel himself
+at all tired. The waggoner had to get his cargo of flour off by rail, so
+there was no lingering in the town itself, which was as yet scarcely
+astir. They were in time for the first train going to Exeter, and
+Helmsley, changing one of his five-pound notes at the railway station,
+took a third-class ticket to that place. Then he paid the promised
+half-crown to his friendly driver, with an extra threepence for a
+morning "dram," whereat the waggoner chuckled.
+
+"Thankee! I zee ye be no temp'rance man!"
+
+Helmsley smiled.
+
+"No. I'm a sober man, not a temperance man!"
+
+"Ay! We'd a parzon in these 'ere parts as was temp'rance, but 'e took
+'is zpirits different like! 'E zkorned 'is glass, but 'e loved 'is gel!
+Har--ar--ar! Ivir 'eerd o' Parzon Arbroath as woz put out o' the Church
+for 'avin' a fav'rite?"
+
+"I saw something about it in the papers," said Helmsley.
+
+"Ay, 'twoz in the papers. Har--ar--ar! 'E woz a temp'rance man. But wot
+I sez is, we'se all a bit o' devil in us, an' we can't be temp'rance
+ivry which way. An' zo, if not the glass, then the gel! Har--ar--ar!
+Good-day t' ye, an' thank ye kindly!"
+
+He went off then, and a few minutes later the train came gliding in. The
+whirr and noise of the panting engine confused Helmsley's ears and dazed
+his brain, after his months of seclusion in such a quiet little spot as
+Weircombe,--and he was seized with quite a nervous terror and doubt as
+to whether he would be able, after all, to undertake the journey he had
+decided upon, alone. But an energetic porter put an end to his
+indecision by opening all the doors of the various compartments in the
+train and banging them to again, whereupon he made up his mind quickly,
+and managed, with some little difficulty, to clamber up the high step of
+a third-class carriage and get in before the aforesaid porter had the
+chance to push him in head foremost. In another few minutes the engine
+whistle set up a deafening scream, and the train ran swiftly out of the
+station. He was off;--the hills, the sea, were left behind--and
+Weircombe--restful, simple little Weircombe, seemed not only miles of
+distance, but ages of time away! Had he ever lived there, he hazily
+wondered? Would he ever go back? Was he "old David the basket-maker," or
+David Helmsley the millionaire? He hardly knew. It did not seem worth
+while to consider the problem of his own identity. One figure alone was
+real,--one face alone smiled out of the cloudy vista of thoughts and
+memories, with the true glory of an ineffable tenderness--the sweet,
+pure face of Mary, with her clear and candid eyes lighting every
+expression to new loveliness. On Angus Reay his mind did not dwell so
+much--Angus was a man--and as a man he regarded him with warm liking and
+sympathy--but it was as the future husband and protector of Mary that he
+thought of him most--as the one out of all the world who would care for
+her, when he, David Helmsley, was no more. Mary was the centre of his
+dreams--the pivot round which all his last ambitions in this world were
+gathered together in one focus,--without her there was, there could be
+nothing for him--nothing to give peace or comfort to his last
+days--nothing to satisfy him as to the future of all that his life had
+been spent to gain.
+
+Meantime,--while the train bearing him to Exeter was rushing along
+through wide and ever-varying stretches of fair landscape,--there was
+amazement and consternation in the little cottage he had left behind
+him. Mary, rising from a sound night's sleep, and coming down to the
+kitchen as usual to light the fire and prepare breakfast, saw a letter
+on the table addressed to her, and opening, it read as follows:--
+
+    "MY DEAR MARY,--Do not be anxious this morning when you find that
+    I am gone. I shall not be long away. I have an idea of getting some
+    work to do, which may be more useful to you and Angus than my poor
+    attempts at basket-making. At any rate I feel it would be wrong if I
+    did not try to obtain some better paying employment, of a kind which
+    I can do at home, so that I may be of greater assistance to you both
+    when you marry and begin your double housekeeping. Old though I am
+    and ailing, I want to feel less of a burden and more of a help. You
+    will not think any the worse of me for wishing this. You have been
+    so good and charitable to me in my need, that I should not die happy
+    if I, in my turn, did not make an effort to give you some
+    substantial proof of gratitude. This is Tuesday morning, and I shall
+    hope to be home again with you before Sunday. In the meanwhile, do
+    not worry at all about me, for I feel quite strong enough to do what
+    I have in my mind. I leave Charlie with you. He is safest and
+    happiest in your care. Good-bye for a little while, dear, kind
+    friend, and God bless you!
+                                                              DAVID."
+
+She read this with amazement and distress, the tears welling up in her
+eyes.
+
+"Oh, David!" she exclaimed. "Poor, poor old man! What will he do all by
+himself, wandering about the country with no money! It's dreadful! How
+could he think of such a thing! He is so weak, too!--he can't possibly
+get very far!"
+
+Here a sudden thought struck her, and picking up Charlie, who had
+followed her downstairs from her bedroom and was now trotting to and
+fro, sniffing the air in a somewhat disconsolate and dubious manner, she
+ran out of the house bareheaded, and hurried up to the top of the
+"coombe." There she paused, shading her eyes from the sun and looking
+all about her. It was a lovely morning, and the sea, calm and sparkling
+with sunbeams, shone like a blue glass flecked with gold. The sky was
+clear, and the landscape fresh and radiant with the tender green of the
+springtime verdure. But everything was quite solitary. Vainly her glance
+swept from left to right and from right to left again,--there was no
+figure in sight such as the one she sought and half-expected to
+discover. Putting Charlie down to follow at her heels, she walked
+quickly across the intervening breadth of moor to the highroad, and
+there paused, looking up and down its dusty length, hoping against hope
+that she might see David somewhere trudging slowly along on his lonely
+way, but there was not a human creature visible. Charlie, assuming a
+highly vigilant attitude, cocked his tiny ears and sniffed the air
+suspiciously, as though he scented the trail of his lost master, but no
+clue presented itself as likely to serve the purpose of tracking the way
+in which he had gone. Moved by a sudden loneliness and despondency, Mary
+slowly returned to the cottage, carrying the little dog in her arms, and
+was affected to tears again when she entered the kitchen, because it
+looked so empty. The bent figure, the patient aged face, on which for
+her there was ever a smile of grateful tenderness--these had composed a
+picture by her fireside to which she had grown affectionately
+accustomed,--and to see it no longer there made her feel almost
+desolate. She lit the fire listlessly and prepared her own breakfast
+without interest--it was a solitary meal and lacked flavour. She was
+glad when, after breakfast, Angus Reay came in, as was now his custom,
+to say good-morning, and to "gain inspiration,"--so he told her,--for
+his day's work. He was no less astonished than herself at David's sudden
+departure.
+
+"Poor old chap! I believe he thinks he is in our way, Mary!" he said, as
+he read the letter of explanation which their missing friend had left
+behind him. "And yet he says quite plainly here that he will be back
+before Sunday. Perhaps he will. But where can he have gone to?"
+
+"Not far, surely!" and Mary looked, as she felt, perplexed. "He has no
+money!"
+
+"Not a penny?"
+
+"Not a penny! He makes me take everything he earns to help pay for his
+keep and as something towards the cost of his illness last year. I don't
+want it--but it pleases him that I should have it----"
+
+"Of course--I understand that,"--and Angus slipped an arm round her
+waist, while he read the letter through again. "But if he hasn't a
+penny, how can he get along?"
+
+"He must be on the tramp again," said Mary. "But he isn't strong enough
+to tramp. I went up the coombe this morning and right out to the
+highroad, for I thought I might see him and catch up with him--because I
+know it would take him ever so long to walk a mile. But he had gone
+altogether."
+
+Reay stood thinking.
+
+"I tell you what, Mary," he said at last, "I'll take a brisk walk down
+the road towards Minehead. I should think that's the only place where
+he'd try for work. I daresay I shall overtake him."
+
+Her eyes brightened.
+
+"Yes, that's quite possible,"--and she was evidently pleased at the
+suggestion. "He's so old and feeble, and you're so strong and quick on
+your feet----"
+
+"Quick with my lips, too," said Angus, promptly kissing her. "But I
+shall have to be on my best behaviour now you're all alone in the
+cottage, Mary! David has left you defenceless!"
+
+He laughed, but as she raised her eyes questioningly to his face, grew
+serious.
+
+"Yes, my Mary! You'll have to stay by your own sweet lonesome! Otherwise
+all the dear, kind, meddlesome old women in the village will talk! Mrs.
+Twitt will lead the chorus, with the best intentions, unless--and this
+is a dreadful alternative!--you can persuade her to come up and play
+propriety!"
+
+The puzzled look left her face, and she smiled though a wave of colour
+flushed her cheeks.
+
+"Oh! I see what you mean, Angus! But I'm too old to want looking
+after--I can look after myself."
+
+"Can you?" And he took her into his arms and held her fast. "And how
+will you do it?"
+
+She was silent a moment, looking into his eyes with a grave and musing
+tenderness. Then she said quietly--
+
+"By trusting you, my love, now and always!"
+
+Very gently he released her from his embrace--very reverently he kissed
+her.
+
+"And you shall never regret your trust, you dear, sweet angel of a
+woman! Be sure of that! Now I'm off to look for David--I'll try and
+bring him back with me. By the way, Mary, I've told Mr. and Mrs. Twitt
+and good old Bunce that we are engaged--so the news is now the public
+property of the whole village. In fact, we might just as well have put
+up the banns and secured the parson!"
+
+He laughed his bright, jovial laugh, and throwing on his cap went out,
+striding up the coombe with swift, easy steps, whistling joyously "My
+Nannie O" as he made the ascent. Twice he turned to wave his hand to
+Mary who stood watching him from her garden gate, and then he
+disappeared. She waited a moment among all the sweetly perfumed flowers
+in her little garden, looking at the bright glitter of the hill stream
+as it flowed equably by.
+
+"How wonderful it is," she thought, "that God should have been so good
+to me! I have done nothing to deserve any love at all, and yet Angus
+loves me! It seems too beautiful to be real! I am not worthy of such
+happiness! Sometimes I dare not think too much of it lest it should all
+prove to be only a dream! For surely no one in the world could wish for
+a better life than we shall live--Angus and I--in this dear little
+cottage together,--he with his writing, which I know will some day move
+the world,--and I with my usual work, helping as much as I can to make
+his life sweet to him. For we have the great secret of all joy--we love
+each other!"
+
+With her eyes full of the dreamy light of inward heart's content, she
+turned and went into the house. The sight of David's empty chair by the
+fire troubled her,--but she tried to believe that Angus would succeed in
+finding him on the highroad, and in persuading him to return at once.
+Towards noon Mrs. Twitt came in, somewhat out of breath, on account of
+having climbed the village street more rapidly than was her custom on
+such a warm day as it had turned out to be, and straightway began
+conversation.
+
+"Wonders 'ull never cease, Mis' Deane, an' that's a fact!" she said,
+wiping her hot face with the corner of her apron--"An' while there's
+life there's 'ope! I'd as soon 'a thought o' Weircombe Church walkin'
+down to the shore an' turnin' itself into a fishin' smack, as that you'd
+a' got engaged to be married! I would, an' that's a Gospel truth! Ye
+seemed so steady like an' settled--lor' a mussy me!" And here, despite
+her effort to look serious, a broad smile got the better of her. "An' a
+fine man too you've got,--none o' your scallywag weaklings as one sees
+too much of nowadays, but a real upright sort o' chap wi' no nonsense
+about 'im. An' I wishes ye well, Mary, my dear,"--and the worthy soul
+took Mary's hand in hers and gave her a hearty kiss. "For it's never too
+late to mend, as the Scripter tells us, an' forbye ye're not in yer
+green gooseberry days there's those as thinks ripe fruit better than
+sour-growin' young codlings. An' ye may take 'art o' grace for one
+thing--them as marries young settles quickly old--an' to look at the
+skin an' the 'air an' the eyes of ye, you beat ivery gel I've ivir seen
+in the twenties, so there's good preservin' stuff in ye wot'll last. An'
+I bet you're more fond o' the man ye've got late than if ye'd caught 'im
+early!"
+
+Mary laughed, but her eyes were full of wistful tenderness.
+
+"I love him very dearly," she said simply--"And I know he's a great deal
+too good for me."
+
+Mrs. Twitt sniffed meaningly.
+
+"Well, I'm not in any way sure o' that," she observed. "When a man's too
+good for a woman it's what we may call a Testymen' miracle. For the
+worst wife as ivir lived is never so bad as a bad 'usband. There's a
+suthin' in a man wot's real devil-like when it gits the uppermost of
+'im--an' 'e's that crafty born that I've known 'im to be singin' hymns
+one hour an' drinkin' 'isself silly the next. 'Owsomever, Mister Reay
+seems a decent chap, forbye 'e do give 'is time to writin' which don't
+appear to make 'is pot boil----"
+
+"Ah, but he will be famous!" interrupted Mary exultantly. "I know he
+will!"
+
+"An' what's the good o' that?" enquired Mrs. Twitt. "If bein' famous is
+bein' printed about in the noospapers, I'd rather do without it if I wos
+'im. Parzon Arbroath got famous that way!" And she chuckled. "But the
+great pint is that you an' 'e is a-goin' to be man an' wife, an' I'm
+right glad to 'ear it, for it's a lonely life ye've been leadin' since
+yer father's death, forbye ye've got a bit o' company in old David. An'
+wot'll ye do with David when you're married?"
+
+"He'll stay on with us, I hope," said Mary. "But this morning he has
+gone away--and we don't know where he can have gone to."
+
+Mrs. Twitt raised her eyes and hands in astonishment.
+
+"Gone away?"
+
+"Yes." And Mary showed her the letter Helmsley had written, and
+explained how Angus Reay had started off to walk towards Minehead, in
+the hope of overtaking the wanderer.
+
+"Well, I never!" And Mrs. Twitt gave a short gasp of wonder. "Wants to
+find employment, do 'e? The poor old innercent! Why, Twitt would 'a
+given 'im a job in the stoneyard if 'e'd 'a known. He'll never find a
+thing to do anywheres on the road at 'is age!"
+
+And the news of David's sudden and lonely departure affected her more
+powerfully than the prospect of Mary's marriage, which had, in the first
+place, occupied all her mental faculties.
+
+"An' that reminds me," she went on, "of 'ow the warnin' came to me
+yesterday when I was a-goin' out to my wash-tub an' I slipt on a bit o'
+potato peelin'. That's allus a sign of a partin' 'twixt friends. Put
+that together with the lump o' clinkers as flew out o' the fire last
+week and split in two in the middle of the kitchen, an' there ye 'ave it
+all writ plain. I sez to Twitt--'Suthin's goin' to 'appen'--an' 'e sez
+in 'is fool way--'G'arn, old woman, suthin's allus a-'appenin'
+somewheres'--then when Mister Reay looked in all smiles an' sez
+'Good-mornin', Twitt! I'm goin' to marry Miss Mary Deane! Wish us joy!'
+Twitt, 'e up an' sez, 'There's your suthin', old gel! A marriage!' an' I
+sez, 'Not at all, Twitt--not at all, Mister Reay, if I may make so bold,
+but slippin' on peel don't mean marriage, nor yet clinkers, though two
+spoons in a saucer does convey 'ints o' the same, an' two spoons was in
+Twitt's saucer only this very mornin'. Which I wishes both man an' woman
+as runs the risk everlastin' joy!' An' Twitt, as is allus puttin' in 'is
+word where 'taint wanted, sez, 'Don't talk about everlastin' joy,
+mother, 'tis like a hepitaph'--which I answers quick an' sez, 'Your mind
+may run on hepitaphs, Twitt, seein' 'tis your livin', but mine don't do
+no such thing, an' when I sez everlastin' joy for man an' wife, I means
+it.' An' then Mister Reay comes an' pats me on the shoulder cosy like
+an' sez, 'Right you are, Mrs. Twitt!' an' 'e walks off laughin', an'
+Twitt 'e laughs too an' sez, 'Good luck to the bridegroom an' the
+bride,' which I aint denyin', but there was still the thought o' the
+potato peel an' the clinker, an' it's come clear to-day now I've 'eerd
+as 'ow poor old David's gone!" She paused to take breath, and shook her
+head solemnly. "It's my opinion 'e'll never come back no more!"
+
+"Oh, don't say that!" exclaimed Mary, distressed. "Don't even think it!"
+
+But Mrs. Twitt was not to be shaken in her pronouncement.
+
+"'E'll never come back no more!" she said. "An' the children on the
+shore 'ull miss 'im badly, for 'e was a reg'lar Father Christmas to
+'em, not givin' presents by any manner o' means, 'avin' none to give,
+but tellin' 'em stories as kep' 'em quiet an' out of 'arms way for
+'ours,--an' mendin' their toys an' throwin' their balls an' spinnin'
+their tops like the 'armless old soul 'e was! I'm right sorry 'e's gone!
+Weircombe 'll miss 'im for sartin sure!"
+
+And this was the general feeling of the whole village when the
+unexpected departure of "old David" became known. Angus Reay, returning
+in the afternoon, reported that he had walked half the way, and had
+driven the other half with a man who had given him a lift in his trap,
+right into Minehead, but had seen and heard nothing of the missing waif
+and stray. Coming back to Weircombe with the carrier's cart, he had
+questioned the carrier as to whether he had seen the old man anywhere
+along the road, but this inquiry likewise met with failure.
+
+"So the only thing to do, Mary," said Angus, finally, "is to believe his
+own written word,--that he will be back with us before Sunday. I don't
+think he means to leave you altogether in such an abrupt way,--that
+would be churlish and ungrateful--and I'm sure he is neither."
+
+"Oh, he's anything but churlish!" she answered quickly. "He has always
+been most thoughtful and kind to me; and as for gratitude!--why, the
+poor old dear makes too much of it altogether--one would think I had
+given him a fortune instead of just taking common human care of him. I
+expect he must have worked in some very superior house of business, for
+though he's so poor, he has all the ways of a gentleman."
+
+"What are the ways of a gentleman, my Mary?" demanded Angus, gaily. "Do
+you know? I mean, do you know what they are nowadays? To stick a cigar
+in one's mouth and smoke it all the time a woman is present--to keep
+one's hat on before her, and to talk to her in such a loose, free and
+easy fashion as might bring one's grandmother out of her grave and make
+her venerable hair curl! Those are the 'ways' of certain present-time
+'gentlemen' who keep all the restaurants and music-halls of London
+going--and I don't rank good old David with these. I know what _you_
+mean--you mean that he has all the fine feeling, delicacy and courtesy
+of a gentleman, as 'gentlemen' used to be before our press was degraded
+to its present level by certain clowns and jesters who make it their
+business to jeer at every "gentlemanly" feeling that ever inspired
+humanity--yes, I understand! He is a gentleman of the old
+school,--well,--I think he is--and I think he would always be that, if
+he tramped the road till he died. He must have seen better days."
+
+"Oh yes, I'm sure of that!" said Mary. "So many really capable men get
+turned out of work because they are old----"
+
+"Well, there's one advantage about my profession," interrupted Angus.
+"No one can turn _me_ out of literature either for young or old age, if
+I choose to make a name in it! Think of that, my Mary! The glorious
+independence of it! An author is a law unto himself, and if he succeeds,
+he is the master of his own fate. Publishers are his humble
+servants--waiting eagerly to snatch up his work that they may get all
+they can for themselves out of it,--and the public--the great public
+which, apart from all 'interested' critical bias, delivers its own
+verdict, is always ready to hearken and to applaud the writer of its
+choice. There is no more splendid and enviable life!--if I could only
+make a hundred pounds a year by it, I would rather be an author than a
+king! For if one has something in one's soul to say--something that is
+vital, true, and human as well as divine, the whole world will pause to
+listen. Yes, Mary! In all its toil and stress, its scheming for
+self-advantage, its political changes, its little temporary passing
+shows of empires and monarchies, the world will stop to hear what the
+Thinker and the Writer tells it! The words of old Socrates still ring
+down the ages--the thoughts of Shakespeare are still the basis of
+English literature!--what a grand life it is to be among the least of
+one of the writing band! I tell you, Mary, that even if I fail, I shall
+be proud to have at any rate _tried_ to succeed!"
+
+"You will not fail!" she said, her eyes glowing with enthusiasm. "I
+shall see you win your triumph!"
+
+"Well, if I cannot conquer everything with you by my side, I shall be
+but a poor and worthless devil!" he answered. "And now I must be off and
+endeavour to make up for my lost time this morning, running after David!
+Poor old chap! Don't worry about him, Mary. I think you may take his
+word for it that he means to be back before Sunday."
+
+He left her then, and all the day and all the evening too she spent the
+time alone. It would have been impossible to her to express in words
+how greatly she missed the companionship of the gentle old man who had
+so long been the object of her care. There was a sense of desolate
+emptiness in the little cottage such as had not so deeply affected her
+for years--not indeed since the first months following immediately on
+her own father's death. That Angus Reay kept away was, she knew, care
+for her on his part. Solitary woman as she was, the villagers, like all
+people who live in very small, mentally restricted country places, would
+have idly gossiped away her reputation had she received her lover into
+her house alone. So she passed a very dismal time all by herself; and
+closing up the house early, took little Charlie in her arms and went to
+bed, where, much to her own abashment, she cried herself to sleep.
+
+Meanwhile, David himself, for whom she fretted, had arrived in Exeter.
+The journey had fatigued him considerably, though he had been able to
+get fairly good food and a glass of wine at one of the junctions where
+he had changed _en route_. On leaving the Exeter railway station, he
+made his way towards the Cathedral, and happening to chance on a very
+small and unpretending "Temperance Hotel" in a side street, where a
+placard intimating that "Good Accommodation for Travellers" might be had
+within, he entered and asked for a bedroom. He obtained it at once, for
+his appearance was by no means against him, being that of a respectable
+old working man who was prepared to pay his way in a humble, but
+perfectly honest fashion. As soon as he had secured his room, which was
+a curious little three-cornered apartment, partially obscured by the
+shadows of the many buttresses of the Cathedral, his next care was to go
+out into the High Street and provide himself with a good stock of
+writing materials. These obtained, he returned to his temporary lodging,
+where, after supper, he went to bed early in order to rise early. With
+the morning light he was up and dressed, eager to be at work,--an inrush
+of his old business energy came back on him,--his brain was clear, his
+mental force keen and active. There happened to be an old-fashioned oak
+table in his room, and drawing this to the window, he sat down to write
+the document which his solicitor and friend, Sir Francis Vesey, had so
+often urged him to prepare--his Will. He knew what a number of legal
+technicalities might, or could be involved in this business, and was
+therefore careful to make it as short, clear, and concise as possible,
+leaving no chance anywhere open of doubt or discussion. And with a firm,
+unwavering pen, in his own particularly distinct and characteristic
+caligraphy, he disposed of everything of which he died possessed
+"absolutely and without any conditions whatsoever" to Mary Deane,
+spinster, at present residing in Weircombe, Somerset, adding the hope
+that she would, if she saw fit to do so, carry out certain requests of
+his, the testator's, as conveyed privately to her in a letter
+accompanying the Will. All the morning long he sat thoughtfully
+considering and weighing each word he used--till at last, when the
+document was finished to his satisfaction, he folded it up, and putting
+it in his pocket, started out to get his midday meal and find a lawyer's
+office. He was somewhat surprised at his own alertness and vigour as he
+walked through the streets of Exeter on this quest;--excitement buoyed
+him up to such a degree that be was not conscious of the slightest
+fatigue or lassitude--he felt almost young. He took his lunch at a small
+restaurant where he saw city clerks and others of that type going in,
+and afterwards, strolling up a dull little street which ended in a _cul
+de sac_, he spied a dingy archway, offering itself as an approach to a
+flight of equally dingy stairs. Here a brass plate, winking at the
+passer-by, stated that "Rowden and Owlett, Solicitors," would be found
+on the first floor. Helmsley paused, considering a moment--then, making
+up his mind that "Rowden and Owlett" would suit his purpose as well as
+any other equally unknown firm, he slowly climbed the steep and unwashed
+stair. Opening the first door at the top of the flight, he saw a small
+boy leaning both arms across a large desk, and watching the gyrations of
+two white mice in a revolving cage.
+
+"Hullo!" said the boy sharply, "what d' ye want?"
+
+"I want to see Mr. Rowden or Mr. Owlett," he replied.
+
+"Right y' are!" and the boy promptly seized the cage containing the
+white mice and hid it in a cupboard. "You're our first caller to-day.
+Mr. Rowden's gone to Dawlish,--but Mr. Owlett's in. Wait a minute."
+
+Helmsley obeyed, sitting down in a chair near the door, and smiling to
+himself at the evidences of slack business which the offices of Messrs.
+Rowden and Owlett presented. In about five minutes the boy returned, and
+gave him a confidential nod.
+
+"You can go in now," he said; "Mr. Owlett was taking his after-dinner
+snooze, but he's jumped up at once, and he's washed his hands and face,
+so he's quite ready for business. This way, please!"
+
+He beckoned with a rather dirty finger, and Helmsley followed him into a
+small apartment where Mr. Owlett, a comfortably stout, middle-aged
+gentleman, sat at a large bureau covered with papers, pretending to
+read. He looked up as his hoped-for client entered, and flushed redly in
+the face with suppressed vexation as he saw that it was only a working
+man after all--"Some fellow wanting a debt collected," he decided,
+pushing away his papers with a rather irritated movement. However, in
+times when legal work was so scarce, it did not serve any good purpose
+to show anger, so, smoothing his ruffled brow, he forced a reluctantly
+condescending smile, as his office-boy, having ushered in the visitor,
+left the room.
+
+"Good afternoon, my man!" he said, with a patronising air. "What can I
+do for you?"
+
+"Well, not so very much, sir," and Helmsley took off his hat
+deferentially, standing in an attitude of humility. "It's only a matter
+of making my Will,--I've written it out myself, and if you would be so
+good as to see whether it is all in order, I'm prepared to pay you for
+your trouble."
+
+"Oh, certainly, certainly!" Here Mr. Owlett took off his spectacles and
+polished them. "I suppose you know it's not always a wise thing to draw
+up your own Will yourself? You should always let a lawyer draw it up for
+you."
+
+"Yes, sir, I've heard that," answered Helmsley, with an air of
+respectful attention--"And that's why I've brought the paper to you, for
+if there's anything wrong with it, you can put it right, or draw it up
+again if you think proper. Only I'd rather not be put to more expense
+than I can help."
+
+"Just so!" And the worthy solicitor sighed, as he realised that there
+were no "pickings" to be made out of his present visitor--"Have you
+brought the document with you?"
+
+"Yes, sir!" Helmsley fumbled in his pocket, and drew out the paper with
+a well-assumed air of hesitation; "I'm leaving everything I've got to a
+woman who has been like a daughter to me in my old age--my wife and
+children are dead--and I've no one that has any blood claim on me--so I
+think the best thing I can do is to give everything I've got to the one
+that's been kind to me in my need."
+
+"Very right--very proper!" murmured Mr. Owlett, as he took the offered
+document from Helmsley's hand and opened it--"Um--um!--let me see!----"
+Here he read aloud--"I, David
+Helmsley,--um--um!--Helmsley--Helmsley!--that's a name that I seem to
+have heard somewhere!--David Helmsley!--yes!--why that's the name of a
+multi-millionaire!--ha-ha-ha! A multi-millionaire! That's curious! Do
+you know, my man, that your name is the same as that of one of the
+richest men in the world?"
+
+Helmsley permitted himself to smile.
+
+"Really, sir? You don't say so!"
+
+"Yes, yes!" And Mr. Owlett fixed his spectacles on his nose and beamed
+at his humble client through them condescendingly--"One of the richest
+men in the world!" And he smacked his lips as though he had just
+swallowed a savoury morsel--"Amazing! Now if you were he, your Will
+would be a world's affair--a positively world's affair!"
+
+"Would it indeed?" And again Helmsley smiled.
+
+"Everybody would talk of it," proceeded Owlett, lost in rapturous
+musing--"The disposal of a rich man's millions is always a most
+interesting subject of conversation! And you actually didn't know you
+had such a rich namesake?"
+
+"No, sir, I did not."
+
+"Ah well! I suppose you live in the country, and people in the country
+seldom hear of the names that are famous in towns. Now let me consider
+this Will again--'I, David Helmsley, being in sound health of mind and
+body, thanks be to God, do make this to be my Last Will and Testament,
+revoking all former Wills, Codicils and Testamentary Dispositions. First
+I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping and
+believing, through the merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour, to be made
+partaker of life everlasting'--Dear me, dear me!" and Mr. Owlett took
+off his spectacles. "You must be a very old-fashioned man! This sort of
+thing is not at all necessary nowadays!"
+
+"Not necessary, perhaps," said Helmsley gently--"But there is no harm in
+putting it in, sir, I hope?"
+
+"Oh, there's no harm! It doesn't affect the Will itself, of
+course,--but--but--it's odd--it's unusual! You see nobody minds what
+becomes of your Soul, or your Body either--the only question of
+importance to any one is what is to be done with your Money!"
+
+"I see!" And Helmsley nodded his head and spoke with perfect
+mildness--"But I'm an old man, and I've lived long enough to be fonder
+of old-fashioned ways than new, and I should like, if you please, to let
+it be known that I died a Christian, which is, to me, not a member of
+any particular church or chapel, but just a Christian--a man who
+faithfully believes in the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ."
+
+The attorney stared at him astonished, and moved by a curious sense of
+shame. There was something both pathetic and dignified in the aspect of
+this frail old "working man," who stood before him so respectfully with
+his venerable white hair uncovered, and his eyes full of an earnest
+resolution which was not to be gainsaid. Coughing a cough of nervous
+embarrassment, he again glanced at the document before him.
+
+"Of course," he said--"if you wish it, there is not the slightest
+objection to your making this--this public statement as to your
+religious convictions. It does not affect the disposal of your worldly
+goods in any way. It used--yes, it used to be quite the ordinary way of
+beginning a Last Will and Testament--but we have got beyond any special
+commendation of our souls to God, you know----"
+
+"Oh yes, I quite understand that," rejoined Helmsley. "Present-day
+people like to think that God takes no interest whatever in His own
+creation. It's a more comfortable doctrine to believe that He is
+indifferent rather than observant. But, so far as I'm concerned, I don't
+go with the time."
+
+"No, I see you don't," and Mr. Owlett bent his attention anew on the
+Will--"And the religious preliminary being quite unimportant, you shall
+have it your own way. Apart from that, you've drawn it up quite
+correctly, and in very good form. I suppose you understand that you have
+in this Will left 'everything' to the named legatee, Mary Deane,
+spinster, that is to say, excluding no item whatsoever? That she becomes
+the possessor, in fact, of your whole estate?"
+
+Helmsley bent his head in assent.
+
+"That is what I wish, sir, and I hope I have made it clear."
+
+"Yes, you have made it quite clear. There is no room for discussion on
+any point. You wish us to witness your signature?"
+
+"If you please, sir."
+
+And he advanced to the bureau ready to sign. Mr. Owlett rang a bell
+sharply twice. An angular man with a youngish face and a very elderly
+manner answered the summons.
+
+"My confidential clerk," said Owlett, briefly introducing him. "Here,
+Prindle! I want you to be witness with me to this gentleman's Will."
+
+Prindle bowed, and passed his hand across his mouth to hide a smile.
+Prindle was secretly amused to think that a working man had anything to
+leave worth the trouble of making a Will at all. Mr. Owlett dipped a pen
+in ink, and handed it to his client. Whereat, Helmsley wrote his
+signature in a clear, bold, unfaltering hand. Mr. Owlett appended his
+own name, and then Prindle stepped up to sign. As he saw the signature
+"David Helmsley," he paused and seemed astonished. Mr. Owlett gave a
+short laugh.
+
+"We know that name, don't we, Prindle?"
+
+"Well, sir, I should say all the world knew it!" replied Prindle.
+
+"All the world--yes!--all except our friend here," said Owlett, nodding
+towards Helmsley. "You didn't know, my man, did you, that there was a
+multi-millionaire existing of the same name as yourself?"
+
+"No, sir, I did not!" answered Helmsley. "I hope he's made his Will!"
+
+"I hope he has!" laughed the attorney. "There'll be a big haul for the
+Crown if he hasn't!"
+
+Prindle, meanwhile, was slowly writing "James George Prindle, Clerk to
+the aforesaid Robert Owlett" underneath his legal employer's signature.
+
+"I should suggest," said Mr. Owlett, addressing David, jocosely, "that
+you go and make yourself known to the rich Mr. Helmsley as a namesake of
+his!"
+
+"Would you, sir? And why?"
+
+"Well, he might be interested. Men as rich as he is always want a new
+'sensation' to amuse them. And he might, for all you know, make you a
+handsome present, or leave you a little legacy!"
+
+Helmsley smiled--he very nearly laughed. But he carefully guarded his
+equanimity.
+
+"Thank you for the hint, sir! I'll try and see him some day!"
+
+"I hear he's dead," said Prindle, finishing the signing of his name and
+laying down his pen. "It was in the papers some time back."
+
+"But it was contradicted," said Owlett quickly.
+
+"Ah, but I think it was true all the same," and Prindle shook his head
+obstinately. "The papers ought to know."
+
+"Oh yes, they ought to know, but in nine cases out of ten they _don't_
+know," declared Owlett. "And if you contradict their lies, they're so
+savage at being put in the wrong that they'll blazon the lies all the
+more rather than confess them. That will do, Prindle! You can go."
+
+Prindle, aware that his employer was not a man to be argued with, at
+once retired, and Owlett, folding up the Will, handed it to Helmsley.
+
+"That's all right," he said, "I suppose you want to take it with you?
+You can leave it with us if you like."
+
+"Thank you, but I'd rather have it about me," Helmsley answered. "You
+see I'm old and not very strong, and I might die at any time. I'd like
+to keep my Will on my own person."
+
+"Well, take care of it, that's all," said the solicitor, smiling at what
+he thought his client's rustic _naivete_. "No matter how little you've
+got to leave, it's just as well it should go where you want it to go
+without trouble or difficulty. And there's generally a quarrel over
+every Will."
+
+"I hope there's no chance of any quarrel over mine," said Helmsley, with
+a touch of anxiety.
+
+"Oh no! Not the least in the world! Even if you were as great a
+millionaire as the man who happens to bear the same name as yourself,
+the Will would hold good."
+
+"Thank you!" And Helmsley placed on the lawyer's desk more than his
+rightful fee, which that respectable personage accepted without any
+hesitation. "I'm very much obliged to you. Good afternoon!"
+
+"Good afternoon!" And Mr. Owlett leaned back in his chair, blandly
+surveying his visitor. "I suppose you quite understand that, having made
+your legatee, Mary Deane, your sole executrix likewise, you give her
+absolute control?"
+
+"Oh yes, I quite understand that!" answered Helmsley. "That is what I
+wish her to have--the free and absolute control of all I die possessed
+of."
+
+"Then you may be quite easy in your mind," said the lawyer. "You have
+made that perfectly clear."
+
+Whereat Helmsley again said "Good afternoon," and again Mr. Owlett
+briefly responded, sweeping the money his client had paid him off his
+desk, and pocketing the same with that resigned air of injured virtue
+which was his natural expression whenever he thought of how little good
+hard cash a country solicitor could make in the space of twenty-four
+hours. Helmsley, on leaving the office, returned at once to his lodging
+under the shadow of the Cathedral and resumed his own work, which was
+that of writing several letters to various persons connected with his
+financial affairs, showing to each and all what a grip he held, even in
+absence, on the various turns of the wheel of fortune, and dating all
+his communications from Exeter, "at which interesting old town I am
+making a brief stay," he wrote, for the satisfaction of such curiosity
+as his correspondents might evince, as well as for the silencing of all
+rumours respecting his supposed death. Last of all he wrote to Sir
+Francis Vesey, as follows:--
+
+    "MY DEAR VESEY,--On this day, in the good old city of Exeter, I have
+    done what you so often have asked me to do. I have made my Will. It
+    is drawn up entirely in my own handwriting, and has been duly
+    declared correct and valid by a legal firm here, Messrs. Rowden and
+    Owlett. Mr. Owlett and Mr. Owlett's clerk were good enough to
+    witness my signature. I wish you to consider this communication made
+    to you in the most absolute confidence, and as I carry the said
+    document, namely my 'Last Will and Testament,' upon my person, it
+    will not reach your hands till I am no more. Then I trust you will
+    see the business through without unnecessary trouble or worry to the
+    person who, by my desire, will inherit all I have to leave.
+
+    "I have spent nearly a year of almost perfect happiness away from
+    London and all the haunts of London men, and I have found what I
+    sought, but what you probably doubted I could ever find--Love! The
+    treasures of earth I possess and have seldom enjoyed--but the
+    treasure of Heaven,--that pure, disinterested, tender affection,
+    which bears the stress of poverty, sickness, and all other kindred
+    ills,--I never had till now. And now the restless craving of my soul
+    is pacified. I am happy,--moreover, I am perfectly at ease as
+    regards the disposal of my wealth when I am gone. I know you will be
+    glad to hear this, and that you will see that my last wishes and
+    instructions are faithfully carried out in every respect--that is,
+    if I should die before I see you again, which I hope may not be the
+    case.
+
+    "It is my present intention to return to London shortly, and tell
+    you personally the story of such adventures as have chanced to me
+    since I left Carlton House Terrace last July, but 'man proposes, and
+    God disposes,' and one can be certain of nothing. I need not ask you
+    to keep all my affairs going as if I myself were on the scene of
+    action, and also to inform the servants of my household to prepare
+    for my return, as I may be back in town any day. I must thank you
+    for your prompt and businesslike denial of the report of my death,
+    which I understand has been circulated by the press. I am well--as
+    well as a man of my age can expect to be, save for a troublesome
+    heart-weakness, which threatens a brief and easy ending to my
+    career. But for this, I should esteem myself stronger than some men
+    who are still young. And one of the strongest feelings in me at the
+    present moment (apart altogether from the deep affection and devout
+    gratitude I have towards the one who under my Will is to inherit all
+    I have spent my life to gain) is my friendship for you, my dear
+    Vesey,--a friendship cemented by the experience of years, and which
+    I trust may always be unbroken, even remaining in your mind as an
+    unspoilt memory after I am gone where all who are weary, long, yet
+    fear to go! Nevertheless, my faith is firm that the seeming darkness
+    of death will prove but the veil which hides the light of a more
+    perfect life, and I have learned, through the purity of a great and
+    unselfish human love, to believe in the truth of the Love
+    Divine.--Your friend always,
+                                                      DAVID HELMSLEY."
+
+This letter finished, he went out and posted it with all the others he
+had written, and then passed the evening in listening to the organist
+practising grave anthems and voluntaries in the Cathedral. Every little
+item he could think of in his business affairs was carefully gone over
+during the three days he spent in Exeter,--nothing was left undone that
+could be so arranged as to leave his worldly concerns in perfect and
+unquestionable order--and when, as "Mr. David," he paid his last daily
+score at the little Temperance hotel where he had stayed since the
+Tuesday night, and started by the early train of Saturday morning on his
+return to Minehead, he was at peace with himself and all men. True it
+was that the making of his will had brought home to him the fact that it
+was not the same thing as when, being in the prime of life, he had made
+it in favour of his two sons, who were now dead,--it was really and
+truly a final winding-up of his temporal interests, and an admitted
+approach to the verge of the Eternal,--but he was not depressed by this
+consciousness. On the contrary, a happy sense of perfect calm pervaded
+his whole being, and as the train bore him swiftly through the quiet,
+lovely land back to Minehead, that sea-washed portal to the little
+village paradise which held the good angel of his life, he silently
+thanked God that he had done the work which he had started out to do,
+and that he had been spared to return and look again into the beloved
+face of the one woman in all the world who had given him a true
+affection without any "motive," or hope of reward. And he murmured again
+his favourite lines:--
+
+    "Let the sweet heavens endure,
+      Not close nor darken above me,
+    Before I am quite, quite sure
+      That there is one to love me!
+    Then let come what come may,
+      To a life that has been so sad,
+    I shall have had my day!"
+
+"That is true!" he said--"And being 'quite, quite sure' beyond all
+doubt, that I have found 'one to love me' whose love is of the truest,
+holiest and purest, what more can I ask of Divine goodness!"
+
+And his face was full of the light of a heart's content and peace, as
+the dimpled hill coast of Somerset came into view, and the warm spring
+sunshine danced upon the sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Arriving at Minehead, Helmsley passed out of the station unnoticed by
+any one, and made his way easily through the sunny little town. He was
+soon able to secure a "lift" towards Weircombe in a baker's cart going
+half the way; the rest of the distance he judged he could very well
+manage to walk, albeit slowly. A fluttering sense of happiness, like the
+scarcely suppressed excitement of a boy going home from school for the
+holidays, made him feel almost agile on his feet,--if he had only had a
+trifle more strength he thought he could have run the length of every
+mile stretching between him and the dear cottage in the coombe, which
+had now become the central interest of his life. The air was so pure,
+the sun so bright--the spring foliage was so fresh and green, the birds
+sang so joyously--all nature seemed to be in such perfect tune with the
+deep ease and satisfaction of his own soul, that every breath he took
+was more or less of a thanksgiving to God for having been spared to
+enjoy the beauty of such halcyon hours. By the willing away of all his
+millions to one whom he knew to be of a pure, noble, and incorruptible
+nature, a great load had been lifted from his mind,--he had done with
+world's work for ever; and by some inexplicable yet divine compensation
+it seemed as though the true meaning of the life to come had been
+suddenly disclosed to him, and that he was allowed to realise for the
+first time not only the possibility, but the certainty, that Death is
+not an End, but a new Beginning. And he felt himself to be a free
+man,--free of all earthly confusion and worry--free to recommence
+another cycle of nobler work in a higher and wider sphere of action, And
+he argued with himself thus:--
+
+"A man is born into this world without his own knowledge or consent. Yet
+he finds himself--also without his own knowledge or consent--surrounded
+by natural beauty and perfect order--he finds nothing in the planet
+which can be accounted valueless--he learns that even a grain of dust
+has its appointed use, and that not a sparrow shall fall to the ground
+without 'Our Father.' Everything is ready to his hand to minister to his
+reasonable wants--and it is only when he misinterprets the mystic
+meaning of life, and puts God aside as an 'unknown quantity,' that
+things go wrong. His mission is that of progress and advancement--but
+not progress and advancement in base material needs and pleasures,--the
+progress and advancement required of him is primarily spiritual. For the
+spiritual, or Mind, is the only Real. Matter is merely the husk in which
+the seed of Spirit is enclosed--and Man's mistake is always that he
+attaches himself to the perishable husk instead of the ever germinating
+seed. He advances, but advances wrongly, and therefore has to go back
+upon his steps. He progresses in what he calls civilisation, which so
+long as it is purely self-aggrandisement, is but a common circle,
+bringing him back in due course to primitive savagery. Now I, for
+example, started in life to make money--I made it, and it brought me
+power, which I thought progress; but now, at the end of my tether, I see
+plainly that I have done no good in my career save such good as will
+come from my having placed all my foolish gainings under the control of
+a nature simpler and therefore stronger than my own. And I, leaving my
+dross behind me, must go forward and begin again--spiritually the wiser
+for my experience of this world, which may help me better to understand
+the next."
+
+Thus he mused, as he slowly trudged along under the bright and burning
+sun--happy enough in his thoughts except that now and then a curious
+touch of foreboding fear came over him as to whether anything ill had
+happened to Mary in his absence.
+
+"For one never knows!"--and a faint shudder came over him as he
+remembered Tom o' the Gleam, and the cruel, uncalled-for death of his
+child, the only human creature left to him in the world to care for.
+"One can never tell, whether in the scheme of creation there is such a
+being as a devil, who takes joy in running counter to the beneficent
+intentions of the Creator! Light exists--and Darkness. Good seems
+co-equal with Evil. It is all mystery! Now, suppose Mary were to die?
+Suppose she were, at this very moment, dead?"
+
+Such a horror came over him as this idea presented itself to his mind
+that he trembled from head to foot, and his brain grew dizzy. He had
+walked for a longer time than he knew since the cart in which he had
+ridden part of the way had left him at about four miles away from
+Weircombe, and he felt that he must sit down on the roadside and rest
+for a bit before going further. How cruel, how fiendish it would be, he
+continued to imagine, if Mary were dead! It would be devil's work!--and
+he would have no more faith in God! He would have lost his last
+hope,--and he would fall into the grave a despairing atheist and
+blasphemer! Why, if Mary were dead, then the world was a snare, and
+heaven a delusion!--truth a trick, and goodness a lie! Then--was all the
+past, the present, and future hanging for him like a jewel on the finger
+of one woman? He was bound to admit that it was so. He was also bound to
+admit that all the past, present, and future had, for poor Tom o' the
+Gleam, been centred in one little child. And--God?--no, not God--but a
+devil, using as his tools devilish men,--had killed that child! Then,
+might not that devil kill Mary? His head swam, and a sickening sense of
+bafflement and incompetency came over him. He had made his will,--that
+was true!--but who could guarantee that she whom he had chosen as his
+heiress would live to inherit his wealth?
+
+"I wish I did not think of such horrible things!" he said wearily--"Or I
+wish I could walk faster, and get home--home to the little cottage
+quickly, and see for myself that she is safe and well!"
+
+Sitting among the long grass and field flowers by the roadside, he
+grasped his stick in one hand and leaned his head upon that support,
+closing his eyes in sheer fatigue and despondency. Suddenly a sound
+startled him, and he struggled to his feet, his eyes shining with an
+intent and eager look. That clear, tender voice!--that quick, sweet cry!
+
+"David!"
+
+He listened with a vague and dreamy sense of pleasure. The soft patter
+of feet across the grass--the swish of a dress against the leaves, and
+then--then--why, here was Mary herself, one tress of her lovely hair
+tumbling loose in the sun, her eyes bright and her cheeks crimson with
+running.
+
+"Oh, David, dear old David! Here you are at last! Why _did_ you go away!
+We have missed you dreadfully! David, you look _so_ tired!--where have
+you been? Angus and I have been waiting for you ever so long,--you said
+in your letter you would be back by Sunday, and we thought you would
+likely choose to-day to come--oh, David?--you are quite worn out!
+Don't--don't give way!"
+
+For with the longed-for sight of her, the world's multi-millionaire had
+become only a weak, over-wrought old man, and his tired heart had leaped
+in his breast with quite a poor and common human joy which brought the
+tears falling from his eyes despite himself. She was beside him in a
+moment, her arm thrown affectionately about his shoulders, and her sweet
+face turned up close to his, all aglow with sympathy and tenderness.
+
+"Why did you leave us?" she went on with a gentle playfulness, though
+the tears were in her own eyes. "Whatever made you think of getting work
+out of Weircombe? Oh, you dissatisfied old boy! I thought you were quite
+happy with me!"
+
+He took her hand and held it a moment, then pressed it to his lips.
+
+"Happy!" he murmured. "My dear, I was _too_ happy!--and I felt that I
+owed you too much! I went away for a bit just to see if I could do
+something for you more profitable than basket-making----"
+
+Mary nodded her head at him in wise-like fashion, just as if he were a
+spoilt child.
+
+"I daresay you did!" she said, smiling. "And what's the end of it all,
+eh?"
+
+He looked at her, and in the brightness of her smile, smiled also.
+
+"Well, the end of it all is that I've come back to you in exactly the
+same condition in which I went away," he said. "No richer,--no poorer!
+I've got nothing to do. Nobody wants old people on their hands nowadays.
+It's a rough time of the world!"
+
+"You'll always find the world rough on you if you turn your back on
+those that love you!" she said.
+
+He lifted his head and gazed at her with such a pained and piteous
+appeal, that her heart smote her. He looked so very ill, and his worn
+face with the snow-white hair ruffled about it, was so pallid and thin.
+
+"God forbid that I should do that!" he murmured tremulously. "God
+forbid! Mary, you don't think I would ever do that?"
+
+"No--of course not!" she answered soothingly. "Because you see, you've
+come back again. But if you had gone away altogether----"
+
+"You'd have thought me an ungrateful, worthless old rascal, wouldn't
+you?" And the smile again sparkled in his dim eyes. "And you and Angus
+Reay would have said--'Well, never mind him! He served one useful
+purpose at any rate--he brought us together!'"
+
+"Now, David!" said Mary, holding up a warning finger, "You know we
+shouldn't have talked in such a way of you at all! Even if you had never
+come back, we should always have thought of you kindly--and I should
+have always loved you and prayed for you!"
+
+He was silent, mentally pulling himself together. Then he put his arm
+gently through hers.
+
+"Let us go home," he said. "I can walk now. Are we far from the coombe?"
+
+"Not ten minutes off," she answered, glad to see him more cheerful and
+alert. "By the short cut it's just over the brow of the hill. Will you
+come that way?"
+
+"Any way you like to take me," and leaning on her arm he walked bravely
+on. "Where is Angus?"
+
+"I left him sitting under a tree at the top of the coombe near the
+Church," she replied. "He was busy with his writing, and I told him I
+would just run across the hill and see if you were coming. I had a sort
+of fancy you would be tramping home this morning! And where have you
+been all these days?"
+
+"A good way," he answered evasively. "I'm rather a slow walker."
+
+"I should think you were!" and she laughed good-humouredly. "You must
+have been pretty near us all the while!"
+
+He made no answer, and together they paced slowly across the grass,
+sweet with the mixed perfume of thousands of tiny close-growing herbs
+and flowers which clung in unseen clumps to the soil. All at once the
+quaint little tower of Weircombe Church thrust its ivy-covered summit
+above the edge of the green slope which they were ascending, and another
+few steps showed the glittering reaches of the sunlit sea. Helmsley
+paused, and drew a deep breath.
+
+"I am thankful to see it all again!" he said.
+
+She waited, while leaning heavily on her arm he scanned the whole fair
+landscape with a look of eager love and longing. She saw that he was
+very tired and exhausted, and wondered what he had been doing with
+himself in his days of absence from her care, but she had too much
+delicacy and feeling for him to ask him any questions. And she was glad
+when a cheery "Hillo!" echoed over the hill and Angus appeared, striding
+across the grass and waving his cap in quite a jubilant fashion. As soon
+as he saw them plainly he exchanged his stride for a run and came up to
+them in a couple of minutes.
+
+"Why, David!" he exclaimed. "How are you, old boy? Welcome back! So Mary
+is right as usual! She said she was sure you would be home to-day!"
+
+Helmsley could not speak. He merely returned the pressure of Reay's
+warm, strong hand with all the friendly fervour of which he was capable.
+A glance from Mary's eyes warned Angus that the old man was sorely
+tired--and he at once offered him his arm.
+
+"Lean on me, David," he said. "Strong as bonnie Mary is, I'm just a bit
+stronger. We'll be across the brae in no time! Charlie's at home keeping
+house!"
+
+He laughed, and Helmsley smiled.
+
+"Poor wee Charlie!" he said. "Did he miss me?"
+
+"That he did!" answered Mary. "He's been quite lonesome, and not
+contented at all with only me. Every morning and every night he went
+into your room looking for you, and whined so pitifully at not finding
+you that I had quite a trouble to comfort him."
+
+"More tender-hearted than many a human so-called 'friend'!" murmured
+Helmsley.
+
+"Why yes, of course!" said Reay. "There's nothing more faithful on earth
+than a faithful dog--except"--and he smiled--"a faithful husband!"
+
+Mary laughed.
+
+"Or a faithful wife--which?" she playfully demanded. "How does the old
+rhyme go--
+
+    'A wife, a dog, and a walnut tree,
+    The more you beat 'em, the better they be!'
+
+Are you going to try that system when we are married, Angus?"
+
+She laughed again, and without waiting for an answer, ran on a little in
+front, in order to be first across the natural bridge which separated
+them from the opposite side of the "coombe," and from the spot where the
+big chestnut-tree waved its fan-like green leaves and plumes of pinky
+white blossom over her garden gate. Another few steps made easily with
+the support of Reay's strong arm, and Helmsley found himself again in
+the simple little raftered cottage kitchen, with Charlie tearing madly
+round and round him in ecstasy, uttering short yelps of joy. Something
+struggled in his throat for utterance,--it seemed ages since he had last
+seen this little abode of peace and sweet content, and a curious
+impression was in his mind of having left one identity here to take up
+another less pleasing one elsewhere. A deep, unspeakable gratitude
+overwhelmed him,--he felt to the full the sympathetic environment of
+love,--that indescribable sense of security which satisfies the heart
+when it knows it is "dear to some one else."
+
+    "If I be dear to some one else,
+    Then I should be to myself more dear."
+
+For there is nothing in the whole strange symphony of human life, with
+its concordances and dissonances, that strikes out such a chord of
+perfect music as the consciousness of love. To feel that there is one at
+least in the world to whom you are more dear than to any other living
+being, is the very centralisation of life and the mainspring of action.
+For that one you will work and plan,--for that one you will seek to be
+noble and above the average in your motives and character--for that one
+you will, despite a multitude of drawbacks, agree to live. But without
+this melodious note in the chorus all the singing is in vain.
+
+Led to his accustomed chair by the hearth, Helmsley sank into it
+restfully, and closed his eyes. He was so thoroughly tired out mentally
+and physically with the strain he had put upon himself in undertaking
+his journey, as well as in getting through the business he had set out
+to do, that he was only conscious of a great desire to sleep. So that
+when he shut his eyes for a moment, as he thought, he was quite unaware
+that he fell into a dead faint and so remained for nearly half an hour.
+When he came to himself again, Mary was kneeling beside him with a very
+pale face, and Angus was standing quite close to him, while no less a
+personage than Mr. Bunce was holding his hand and feeling his pulse.
+
+"Better now?" said Mr. Bunce, in a voice of encouraging mildness. "We
+have done too much. We have walked too far. We must rest."
+
+Helmsley smiled--the little group of three around him looked so
+troubled, while he himself felt nothing unusual.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked. "I'm all right--quite all right. Only
+just a little tired!"
+
+"Exactly!" And Mr. Bunce nodded profoundly. "Just a little tired! We
+have taken a very unnecessary journey away from our friends, and we are
+suffering for it! We must now be very good; we must stay at home and
+keep quiet!"
+
+Helmsley looked from one to the other questioningly.
+
+"Do you think I'm ill?" he asked. "I'm not, really! I feel very well."
+
+"That's all right, David, dear!" said Mary, patting his hand. "But you
+_are_ tired--you know you are!"
+
+His eyes rested on her fondly.
+
+"Yes, I'm tired," he confessed. "But that's nothing." He waited a
+minute, looking at them all. "That's nothing! Is it, Mr. Bunce?"
+
+"When we are young it is nothing," replied Mr. Bunce cautiously. "But
+when we are old, we must be careful!"
+
+Helmsley smiled.
+
+"Shake hands, Bunce!" he said, suiting the action to the word. "I'll
+obey your orders, never fear! I'll sit quiet!"
+
+And he showed so much cheerfulness, and chatted with them all so
+brightly, that, for the time, anxiety was dispelled. Mr. Bunce took his
+departure promptly, only pausing at the garden gate to give a hint to
+Angus Reay.
+
+"He will require the greatest care. Don't alarm Miss Deane--but his
+heart was always weak, and it has grown perceptibly weaker. He needs
+complete repose."
+
+Angus returned to the cottage somewhat depressed after this, and from
+that moment Helmsley found himself surrounded with evidences of tender
+forethought for his comfort such as no rich man could ever obtain for
+mere cash payment. The finest medical skill and the best trained nursing
+are, we know, to be had for money,--but the soothing touch of love,--the
+wordless sympathy which manifests itself in all the looks and movements
+of those by whom a life is really and truly held precious--these are
+neither to be bought nor sold. And David Helmsley in his assumed
+character of a man too old and too poor to have any so-called "useful"
+friends--a mere wayfarer on the road apparently without a home, or any
+prospect of obtaining one,--had, by the simplest, yet strangest chance
+in the world, found an affection such as he had never in his most
+successful and most brilliant days been able to win. He upon whom the
+society women of London and Paris had looked with greedy and speculative
+eyes, wondering how much they could manage to get out of him, was now
+being cared for by one simple-hearted sincere woman, who had no other
+motive for her affectionate solicitude save gentlest compassion and
+kindness;--he whom crafty kings had invited to dine with them because of
+his enormous wealth, and because is was possible that, for the "honour"
+of sitting at the same table with them he might tide them over a
+financial difficulty, was now tended with more than the duty and
+watchfulness of a son in the person of a poor journalist, kicked out of
+employment for telling the public certain important facts concerning
+financial "deals" on the part of persons of influence--a journalist, who
+for this very cause was likely never more to be a journalist, but rather
+a fighter against bitter storm and stress, for the fair wind of popular
+favour,--that being generally the true position of any independent
+author who has something new and out of the common to say to the world.
+Angus Reay, working steadily and hopefully on his gradually diminishing
+little stock of money, with all his energies bent on cutting a diamond
+of success out of the savagely hard rock of human circumstance, was more
+filial in his respect and thought for Helmsley than either of Helmsley's
+own sons had been; while his character was as far above the characters
+of those two ne'er-do-weel sprouts of their mother's treachery as light
+is above darkness. And the multi-millionaire was well content to rest in
+the little cottage where he had found a real home, watching the quiet
+course of events,--and waiting--waiting for something which he found
+himself disposed to expect--a something to which he could not give a
+name.
+
+There was quite a little rejoicing in the village of Weircombe when it
+was known he had returned from his brief wanderings, and there was also
+a good deal of commiseration expressed for him when it was known that he
+was somewhat weakened in physical health by his efforts to find more
+paying work. Many of the children with whom he was a favourite came up
+to see him, bringing little knots of flowers, or curious trophies of
+weed and shells from the seashore--and now that the weather was settled
+fine and warm, he became accustomed to sit in his chair outside the
+cottage door in the garden, with the old sweetbriar bush shedding
+perfume around him, and a clambering rose breaking into voluptuous
+creamy pink blossom above his head. Here he would pursue his occupation
+of basket-making, and most of the villagers made it their habit to pass
+up and down at least once or twice a day in their turns, to see how he
+fared, or, as they themselves expressed it, "to keep old David going."
+His frail bent figure, his thin, intellectual face, with its composed
+expression of peace and resignation, his soft white hair, and his slow
+yet ever patiently working hands, made up a picture which, set in the
+delicate framework of leaf and blossom, was one to impress the
+imagination and haunt the memory. Mr. and Mrs. Twitt were constant
+visitors, and many were the would-be jocose remarks of the old
+stonemason on David's temporary truancy.
+
+"Wanted more work, did ye?" And thrusting his hands deep in the pockets
+of his corduroys, Twitt looked at him with a whimsical complacency.
+"Well, why didn't ye come down to the stoneyard an' learn 'ow to cut a
+hepitaph? Nice chippy, easy work in its way, an' no 'arm in yer sittin'
+down to it. Why didn't ye, eh?"
+
+"I've never had enough education for such work as that, Mr. Twitt,"
+answered David mildly, with something of a humorous sparkle in his eyes.
+"I'm afraid I should spoil more than I could pay for. You want an
+artist--not an untrained clumsy old fellow like me."
+
+"Oh, blow artists!" said Mr. Twitt irreverently. "They talks a lot--they
+talks yer 'ed off--but they doos onny 'arf the labour as they spends in
+waggin' their tongues. An' for a hepitaph, they none of 'em aint got an
+idee. It's allus Scripter texes with 'em,--they aint got no 'riginality.
+Now I'm a reg'lar Scripter reader, an' nowheres do I find it writ as
+we're to use the words o' God Himself to carve on tombstones for our
+speshul convenience, cos we aint no notions o' feelin' an' respect of
+our own. But artists can't think o' nothin', an' I never cares to employ
+'em. Yet for all that there's not a sweeter, pruttier place than our
+little cemetery nowheres in all the world. There aint no tyranny in it,
+an' no pettifoggin' interference. Why, there's places in England where
+ye can't put what ye likes over the grave o' yer dead friends!--ye've
+got to 'submit' yer idee to the parzon, or wot's worse, the Corporation,
+if ser be yer last go-to-bed place is near a town. There's a town I know
+of," and here Mr. Twitt began to laugh,--"wheer ye can't 'ave a moniment
+put up to your dead folk without 'subjectin'' the design to the Town
+Council--an' we all knows the fine taste o' Town Councils! They'se
+'artists,' an' no mistake! I've got the rules of the cemetery of that
+town for my own eddification. They runs like this--" And drawing a paper
+from his pocket, he read as follows:--
+
+"'All gravestones, monuments, tombs, tablets, memorials, palisades,
+curbs, and inscriptions shall be subject to the approval of the Town
+Council; and a drawing, showing the form, materials, and dimensions of
+every gravestone, monument, tomb, tablet, memorial, palisades, or curb
+proposed to be erected or fixed, together with a copy of the inscription
+intended to be cut thereon (if any), on the form provided by the Town
+Council, must be left at the office of the Clerk at least ten days
+before the first Tuesday in any month. The Town Council reserve to
+themselves the right to remove or prevent the erection of any monument,
+tomb, tablet, memorial, etc., which shall not have previously received
+their sanction.' There! What d' ye think of that?"
+
+Helmsley had listened in astonishment.
+
+"Think? I think it is monstrous!" he said, with some indignation. "Such
+a Town Council as that is a sort of many-headed tyrant, resolved to
+persecute the unhappy townspeople into their very graves!"
+
+"Right y' are!" said Twitt. "But there's a many on 'em! An' ye may thank
+yer stars ye're not anywheres under 'em. Now when _you_ goes the way o'
+all flesh----"
+
+He paused, suddenly embarrassed, and conscious that he had perhaps
+touched on a sore subject. But Helmsley reassured him.
+
+"Yes, Twitt? Don't stop!--what then?"
+
+"Why, then," said Twitt, almost tenderly, "ye'll 'ave our good old
+parzon to see ye properly tucked under a daisy quilt, an' wotever ye
+wants put on yer tomb, or wotever's writ on it, can be yer own desire,
+if ye'll think about it afore ye goes. An' there'll be no expense at
+all--for I tell ye just the truth--I've grown to like ye that well that
+I'll carve ye the pruttiest little tombstone ye ever seed for nothin'!"
+
+Helmsley smiled.
+
+"Well, I shan't be able to thank you then, Mr. Twitt, so I thank you
+now," he said. "You know a good deed is always rewarded, if not in this
+world, then in the next."
+
+"I b'leeve that," rejoined Twitt; "I b'leeve it true. And though I know
+Mis' Deane is that straight an' 'onest, she'd see ye properly mementoed
+an' paid for, I wouldn't take a penny from 'er--not on account of a
+kindly old gaffer like yerself. I'd do it all friendly."
+
+"Of course you would!" and Helmsley shook his hand heartily; "And of
+course you _will_!"
+
+This, and many other conversations he had with Twitt and a certain few
+of the villagers, showed him that the little community of Weircombe
+evidently thought of him as being not long for this world. He accepted
+the position quietly, and passed day after day peacefully enough,
+without feeling any particular illness, save a great weakness in his
+limbs. He was in himself particularly happy, for Mary was always with
+him, and Angus passed every evening with them both. Another great
+pleasure, too, he found in the occasional and entirely unobtrusive
+visits of the parson of the little parish--a weak and ailing man
+physically, but in soul and intellect exceptionally strong. As different
+from the Reverend Mr. Arbroath as an old-time Crusader would be from a
+modern jockey, he recognised the sacred character of his mission as an
+ordained minister of Christ, and performed that mission simply and
+faithfully. He would sit by Helmsley's chair of a summer afternoon and
+talk with him as friend to friend--it made no difference to him that to
+all appearances the old man was poor and dependent on Mary Deane's
+bounty, and that his former life was, to him, the clergyman, a sealed
+book; he was there to cheer and to comfort, not to inquire, reproach, or
+condemn. He was the cheeriest of companions, and the most hopeful of
+believers.
+
+"If all clergymen were like you, sir," said Helmsley to him one day,
+"there would be no atheists!"
+
+The good man reddened at the compliment, as though he had been accused
+of a crime.
+
+"You think too kindly of my efforts," he said gently. "I only speak to
+you as I would wish others to speak to me."
+
+"'For this is the Law and the Prophets!'" murmured Helmsley. "Sir, will
+you tell me one thing--are there many poor people in Weircombe?"
+
+The clergyman looked a trifle surprised.
+
+"Why, yes, to tell the exact truth, they are all poor people in
+Weircombe," he answered. "You see, it is really only a little fishing
+village. The rich people's places are situated all about it, here and
+there at various miles of distance, but no one with money lives in
+Weircombe itself."
+
+"Yet every one seems happy," said Helmsley thoughtfully.
+
+"Oh, yes, every one not only seems, but _is_ happy!" and the clergyman
+smiled. "They have the ordinary troubles that fall to the common lot, of
+course--but they are none of them discontented. There's very little
+drunkenness, and as a consequence, very little quarrelling. They are a
+good set of people--typically English of England!"
+
+"If some millionaire were to leave every man, woman, and child a
+thousand or more pounds apiece, I wonder what would happen?" suggested
+Helmsley.
+
+"Their joy would be turned to misery!" said the clergyman--"and their
+little heaven would become a hell! Fortunately for them, such a disaster
+is not likely to happen!"
+
+Helmsley was silent; and after his kindly visitor had left him that day
+sat for a long time absorbed in thought, his hands resting idly on the
+osiers which he was gradually becoming too weak to bend.
+
+It was now wearing on towards the middle of June, and on one fine
+morning when Mary was carefully spreading out on a mending-frame a
+wonderful old flounce of priceless _point d'Alencon_ lace, preparatory
+to examining the numerous repairs it needed, Helmsley turned towards her
+abruptly with the question--
+
+"When are you and Angus going to be married, my dear?"
+
+Mary smiled, and the soft colour flew over her face at the suggestion.
+
+"Oh, not for a long time yet, David!" she replied. "Angus has not yet
+finished his book,--and even when it is all done, he has to get it
+published. He won't have the banns put up till the book is accepted."
+
+"Won't he?" And Helmsley's eyes grew very wistful. "Why not?"
+
+"Well, it's for quite a good reason, after all," she said. "He wants to
+feel perfectly independent. You see, if he could get even a hundred
+pounds down for his book he would be richer than I am, and it would be
+all right. He'd never marry me with nothing at all of his own."
+
+"Yet _you_ would marry him?"
+
+"I'm not sure that I would," and she lifted her hand with a prettily
+proud gesture. "You see, David, I really love him! And my love is too
+strong and deep for me to be so selfish as to wish to drag him down. I
+wouldn't have him lower his own self-respect for the world!"
+
+"Love is greater than self-respect!" said Helmsley.
+
+"Oh, David! You know better than that! There's no love _without_
+self-respect--no real love, I mean. There are certain kinds of stupid
+fancies called love--but they've no 'wear' in them!" and she laughed.
+"They wouldn't last a month, let alone a lifetime!"
+
+He sighed a little, and his lips trembled nervously.
+
+"I'm afraid, my dear,--I'm afraid I shall not live to see you married!"
+he said.
+
+She left her lace frame and came to his side.
+
+"Don't say that, David! You mustn't think it for a moment. You're much
+better than you were--even Mr. Bunce says so!"
+
+"Even Mr. Bunce!" And he took her hand in his own and studied its smooth
+whiteness and beautiful shape attentively--anon he patted it tenderly.
+"You have a pretty hand, Mary! It's a rare beauty!"
+
+"Is it?" And she looked at her rosy palm meditatively. "I've never
+thought much about it--but I've noticed that Angus and you both have
+nice hands."
+
+"Especially Angus!" said Helmsley, with a smile.
+
+Her face reflected the smile.
+
+"Yes. Especially Angus!"
+
+After this little conversation Helmsley was very quiet and thoughtful.
+Often indeed he sat with eyes closed, pretending to sleep, in order
+inwardly to meditate on the plans he had most at heart. He saw no reason
+to alter them,--though the idea presented itself once or twice as to
+whether he should not reveal his actual identity to the clergyman who
+visited him so often, and who was, apart from his sacred calling, not
+only a thinking, feeling, humane creature, but a very perfect gentleman.
+But on due reflection he saw that this might possibly lead to awkward
+complications, so he still resolved to pursue the safer policy of
+silence.
+
+One evening, when Angus Reay had come in as usual to sit awhile and chat
+with him before he went to bed, he could hardly control a slight nervous
+start when Reay observed casually--
+
+"By the way, David, that old millionaire I told you about, Helmsley,
+isn't dead after all!"
+
+"Oh--isn't he?" And Helmsley feigned to be affected with a troublesome
+cough which necessitated his looking away for a minute. "Has he turned
+up?"
+
+"Yes--he's turned up. That is to say, that he's expected back in town
+for the 'season,' as the Cooing Column of the paper says."
+
+"Why, what's the Cooing Column?" asked Mary, laughing.
+
+"The fashionable intelligence corner," answered Angus, joining in her
+laughter. "I call it the Cooing Column, because it's the place where all
+the doves of society, soiled and clean, get their little grain of
+personal advertisement. They pay for it, of course. There it is that the
+disreputable Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup gets it announced that she wore a
+collar of diamonds at the Opera, and there the battered, dissipated Lord
+'Jimmy' Jenkins has it proudly stated that his yacht is undergoing
+'extensive alterations.' Who in the real work-a-day, sane world cares a
+button whether his lordship Jenkins sails in his yacht or sinks in it!
+And Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup's diamonds are only so much fresh fuel piled
+on the burning anguish of starving and suffering men,--anguish which
+results in anarchy. Any number of anarchists are bred from the Cooing
+Column!"
+
+"What would you have rich men do?" asked Helmsley suddenly. "If all
+their business turns out much more successfully than they have ever
+expected, and they make millions almost despite their own desire, what
+would you have them do with their wealth?"
+
+Angus thought a moment.
+
+"It would be difficult to advise," he said at last. "For one thing I
+would not have them pauperise two of the finest things in this world and
+the best worth fighting for--Education and Literature. The man who has
+no struggle at all to get himself educated is only half a man. And
+literature which is handed to the people free of cost is shamed by being
+put at a lower level than beer and potatoes, for which every man has to
+_pay_. Andrew Carnegie I look upon as one of the world's big meddlers. A
+'cute' meddler too, for he takes care to do nothing that hasn't got his
+name tacked on to it. However, I'm in great hopes that his pauperising
+of Scottish University education may in time wear itself out, and that
+Scotsmen will be sufficiently true to the spirit of Robert Burns to
+stick to the business of working and paying for what they get. I hate
+all things that are given _gratis_. There's always a smack of the
+advertising agent about them. God Himself gives nothing 'free'--you've
+got to pay with your very life for each gulp of air you breathe,--and
+rightly too! And if you try to get something out of His creation
+_without_ paying for it, the bill is presented in due course with
+compound interest!"
+
+"I agree with you," said Helmsley. "But what, then, of the poor rich
+men? You don't approve of Carnegie's methods of disbursing wealth. What
+would you suggest?"
+
+"The doing of private good," replied Angus promptly. "Good that is never
+heard of, never talked of, never mentioned in the Cooing Column. A rich
+man could perform acts of the most heavenly and helpful kindness if he
+would only go about personally and privately among the very poor, make
+friends with them, and himself assist them. But he will hardly ever do
+this. Now the millionaire who is going to marry my first love, Lucy
+Sorrel----"
+
+"Oh, _is_ he going to marry her?" And Helmsley looked up with sudden
+interest.
+
+"Well, I suppose he is!" And Angus threw back his head and laughed.
+"He's to be back in town for the 'season'--and you know what the London
+'season' is!"
+
+"I'm sure we don't!" said Mary, with an amused glance. "Tell us!"
+
+"An endless round of lunches, dinners, balls, operas, theatres,
+card-parties, and inane jabber," he answered. "A mixture of various
+kinds of food which people eat recklessly with the natural
+results,--dyspepsia, inertia, mental vacuity, and general uselessness. A
+few Court 'functions,' some picture shows, and two or three great
+races--and--that's all. Some unfortunate marriages are usually the
+result of each year's motley."
+
+"And you think the millionaire you speak of will be one of the
+unfortunate ones?" said Helmsley.
+
+"Yes, David, I do! If he's going back to London for the season, Lucy
+Sorrel will never let him out of her sight again! She's made up her mind
+to be a Mrs. Millionaire, and she's not troubled by any
+over-sensitiveness or delicacy of sentiment."
+
+"That I quite believe--from what you have told me,"--and Helmsley
+smiled. "But what do the papers--what does the Cooing Column say?"
+
+"The Cooing Column says that one of the world's greatest millionaires,
+Mr. David Helmsley, who has been abroad for nearly a year for the
+benefit of his health, will return to his mansion in Carlton House
+Terrace this month for the 'season.'"
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"That's all. Mary, my bonnie Mary,"--and Angus put an arm tenderly round
+the waist of his promised wife--"Your husband may, perhaps--only
+perhaps!--become famous--but you'll never, never be a Mrs. Millionaire!"
+
+She laughed and blushed as he kissed her.
+
+"I don't want ever to be rich," she said. "I'd rather be poor!"
+
+They went out into the little garden then, with their arms
+entwined,--and Helmsley, seated in his chair under the rose-covered
+porch, watched them half in gladness, half in trouble. Was he doing well
+for them, he wondered? Or ill? Would the possession of wealth disturb
+the idyll of their contented lives, their perfect love? Almost he wished
+that he really were in very truth the forlorn and homeless wayfarer he
+had assumed to be,--wholly and irrevocably poor!
+
+That night in his little room, when everything was quiet, and Mary was
+soundly sleeping in the attic above him, he rose quietly from his bed,
+and lighting a candle, took pen and ink and made a few additions to the
+letter of instructions which accompanied his will. Some evenings
+previously, when Mary and Angus had gone out for a walk together, he had
+taken the opportunity to disburden his "workman's coat" of all the
+banknotes contained in the lining, and, folding them up in one parcel,
+had put them in a sealed envelope, which envelope he marked in a
+certain fashion, enclosing it in the larger envelope which contained his
+will. In the same way he made a small, neatly sealed packet of the
+"collection" made for him at the "Trusty Man" by poor Tom o' the Gleam,
+marking that also. Now, on this particular night, feeling that he had
+done all he could think of to make business matters fairly easy to deal
+with, he packed up everything in one parcel, which he tied with a string
+and sealed securely, addressing it to Sir Francis Vesey. This parcel he
+again enclosed in another, equally tied up and sealed, the outer wrapper
+of which he addressed to one John Bulteel at certain offices in London,
+which were in truth the offices of Vesey and Symonds, Bulteel being
+their confidential clerk. The fact that Angus Reay knew the name of the
+firm which had been mentioned in the papers as connected with the famous
+millionaire, David Helmsley, caused him to avoid inscribing it on the
+packet which would have to be taken to its destination immediately after
+his death. As he had now arranged things, it would be conveyed to the
+office unsuspectingly, and Bulteel, opening the first wrapper, would see
+that the contents were for Sir Francis, and would take them to him at
+once. Locking the packet in the little cupboard in the wall which Mary
+had given him, as she playfully said, "to keep his treasures in"--he
+threw himself again on his bed, and, thoroughly exhausted, tried to
+sleep.
+
+"It will be all right, I think!" he murmured to himself, as he closed
+his eyes wearily--"At any rate, so far as I am concerned, I have done
+with the world! God grant some good may come of my millions after I am
+dead! After I am dead! How strange it sounds! What will it seem like, I
+wonder,--to be dead?"
+
+And he suddenly thought of a poem he had read some years back,--one of
+the finest and most daring thoughts ever expressed in verse, from the
+pen of a fine and much neglected poet, Robert Buchanan:--
+
+    "Master, if there be Doom,
+      All men are bereaven!
+    If in the Universe
+    One Spirit receive the curse,
+      Alas for Heaven!
+    If there be Doom for one,
+    Thou, Master, art undone!
+    "Were I a Soul in Heaven,
+      Afar from pain;--
+    Yea, on thy breast of snow,
+    At the scream of one below,
+      I should scream again--
+    Art Thou less piteous than
+    The conception of a Man?"
+
+"No, no, not less piteous!" he murmured--"But surely infinitely more
+pitiful!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+And now there came a wondrous week of perfect weather. All the lovely
+Somersetshire coast lay under the warmth and brilliance of a dazzling
+sun,--the sea was smooth,--and small sailing skiffs danced merrily up
+and down from Minehead to Weircombe and back again with the ease and
+security of seabirds, whose happiest resting-place is on the waves. A
+lovely calm environed the little village,--it was not a haunt of cheap
+"trippers,"--and summer-time was not only a working-time, but a playing
+time too with all the inhabitants, both young and old. The shore, with
+its fine golden sand, warm with the warmth of the cloudless sky, was a
+popular resort, and Helmsley, though his physical weakness perceptibly
+increased, was often able to go down there, assisted by Mary and Angus,
+one on each side supporting him and guarding his movements. It pleased
+him to sit under the shelter of the rocks and watch the long shining
+ripples of ocean roll forwards and backwards on the shore in silvery
+lines, edged with delicate, lace-like fringes of foam,--and the slow,
+monotonous murmur of the gathering and dispersing water soothed his
+nerves and hushed a certain inward fretfulness of spirit which teased
+him now and then, but to which he bravely strove not to give way.
+Sometimes--but only sometimes--he felt that it was hard to die. Hard to
+be old just as he was beginning to learn how to live,--hard to pass out
+of the beauty and wonder of this present life with all its best joys
+scarcely experienced, and exchange the consciousness of what little he
+knew for something concerning which no one could honestly give him any
+authentic information.
+
+"Yet I might have said the same, had I been conscious, before I was
+born!" he thought. "In a former state of existence I might have said,
+'Why send me from this that I know and enjoy, to something which I have
+not seen and therefore cannot believe in?' Perhaps, for all I can tell,
+I did say it. And yet God had His way with me and placed me here--for
+what? Only to learn a lesson! That is truly all I have done. For the
+making of money is as nothing in the sight of Eternal Law,--it is
+merely man's accumulation of perishable matter, which, like all
+perishable things, is swept away in due course, while he who accumulated
+it is of no more account as a mere corpse than his poverty-stricken
+brother. What a foolish striving it all is! What envyings, spites,
+meannesses and miserable pettinesses arise from this greed of money!
+Yes, I have learned my lesson! I wonder whether I shall now be permitted
+to pass into a higher standard, and begin again!"
+
+These inner musings sometimes comforted and sometimes perplexed him, and
+often he was made suddenly aware of a strange and exhilarating
+impression of returning youthfulness--a buoyancy of feeling and a
+delightful ease, such as a man in full vigour experiences when, after
+ascending some glorious mountain summit, he sees the panorama of a world
+below him. His brain was very clear and active--and whenever he chose to
+talk, there were plenty of his humble friends ready to listen. One day
+the morning papers were full of great headlines announcing the
+assassination of one of the world's throned rulers, and the Weircombe
+fishermen, discussing the news, sought the opinion of "old David"
+concerning the matter. "Old David" was, however, somewhat slow to be
+drawn on so questionable a subject, but Angus Reay was not so reticent.
+
+"Why should kings spend money recklessly on their often filthy vices and
+pleasures," he demanded, "while thousands, ay, millions of their
+subjects starve? As long as such a wretched state of things exists, so
+long will there be Anarchy. But I know the head and front of the
+offending! I know the Chief of all the Anarchists!"
+
+"Lord bless us!" exclaimed Mrs. Twitt, who happened to be standing by.
+"Ye don't say so! Wot's' 'ee like?"
+
+"He's all shapes and sizes--all colours too!" laughed Angus. "He's
+simply the Irresponsible Journalist!"
+
+"As you were once!" suggested Helmsley, with a smile.
+
+"No, I was never 'irresponsible,'" declared Reay, emphatically. "I may
+have been faulty in the following of my profession, but I never wrote a
+line that I thought might cause uneasiness in the minds of the million.
+What I mean is, that the Irresponsible Journalist who gives more
+prominence to the doings of kings and queens and stupid 'society' folk,
+than to the actual work, thought, and progress of the nation at large,
+is making a forcing-bed for the growth of Anarchy. Consider the
+feelings of a starving man who reads in a newspaper that certain people
+in London give dinners to their friends at a cost of Two Guineas a head!
+Consider the frenzied passion of a father who sees his children dying of
+want, when he reads that the mistress of a king wears diamonds worth
+forty thousand pounds round her throat! If the balance of material
+things is for the present thus set awry, and such vile and criminal
+anachronisms exist, the proprietors of newspapers should have better
+sense than to flaunt them before the public eye as though they deserved
+admiration. The Anarchist at any rate has an ideal. It may be a mistaken
+ideal, but whatever it is, it is a desperate effort to break down a
+system which anarchists imagine is at the root of all the bribery,
+corruption, flunkeyism and money-grubbing of the world. Moreover, the
+Anarchist carries his own life in his hand, and the risk he runs can
+scarcely be for his pleasure. Yet he braves everything for the 'ideal,'
+which he fancies, if realised, will release others from the yoke of
+injustice and tyranny. Few people have any 'ideals' at all
+nowadays;--what they want to do is to spend as much as they like, and
+eat as much as they can. And the newspapers that persist in chronicling
+the amount of their expenditure and the extent of their appetites, are
+the real breeders and encouragers of every form of anarchy under the
+sun!"
+
+"You may be right," said Helmsley, slowly. "Indeed I fear you are! If
+one is to judge by old-time records, it was a kinder, simpler world when
+there was no daily press."
+
+"Man is an imitative animal," continued Reay. "The deeds he hears of,
+whether good or bad, he seeks to emulate. In bygone ages crime existed,
+of course, but it was not blazoned in headlines to the public. Good and
+brave deeds were praised and recorded, and as a consequence--perhaps as
+a result of imitation--there were many heroes. In our times a good or
+brave deed is squeezed into an obscure paragraph,--while intellect and
+brilliant talent receive scarcely any acknowledgment--the silly doings
+of 'society' and the Court are the chief matter,--hence, possibly, the
+preponderance of dunces and flunkeys, again produced by sheer
+'imitativeness.' Is it pleasant for a man with starvation at his door,
+to read that a king pays two thousand a year to his cook? That same two
+thousand comes out of the pockets of the nation--and the starving man
+thinks some of it ought to fall in _his_ way instead of providing for a
+cooker of royal victuals! There is no end to the mischief generated by
+the publication of such snobbish statements, whether true or false. This
+was the kind of irresponsible talk that set Jean-Jacques Rousseau
+thinking and writing, and kindling the first spark of the fire of the
+French Revolution. 'Royal-Flunkey' methods of journalism provoke deep
+resentment in the public mind,--for a king after all is only the paid
+servant of the people--he is not an idol or a deity to which an
+independent nation should for ever crook the knee. And from the
+smouldering anger of the million at what they conceive to be injustice
+and hypocrisy, springs Anarchy."
+
+"All very well said,--but now suppose you were a wealthy man, what would
+you do with your money?" asked Helmsley.
+
+Angus smiled.
+
+"I don't know, David!--I've never realised the position yet. But I
+should try to serve others more than to serve myself."
+
+The conversation ceased then, for Helmsley looked pale and exhausted. He
+had been on the seashore for the greater part of the afternoon, and it
+was now sunset. Yet he was very unwilling to return home, and it was
+only by gentle and oft-repeated persuasion that he at last agreed to
+leave his well-loved haunt, leaning as usual on Mary's arm, with Angus
+walking on the other side. Once or twice as he slowly ascended the
+village street he paused, and looked back at the tranquil loveliness of
+ocean, glimmering as with millions of rubies in the red glow of the
+sinking sun.
+
+"'And there shall be no more sea!'" he quoted, dreamily--"I should be
+sorry if that were true! One would miss the beautiful sea!--even in
+heaven!"
+
+He walked very feebly, and Mary exchanged one or two anxious glances
+with Angus. But on reaching the cottage again, his spirits revived.
+Seated in his accustomed chair, he smiled as the little dog, Charlie,
+jumped on his knee, and peered with a comically affectionate gravity
+into his face.
+
+"Asking me how I am, aren't you, Charlie!" he said, cheerfully--"I'm all
+right, wee man!--all right!"
+
+Apparently Charlie was not quite sure about it, for he declined to be
+removed from the position he had chosen, and snuggling close down on
+his master's lap, curled himself up in a silky ball and went to sleep,
+now and then opening a soft dark eye to show that his slumbers were not
+so profound as they seemed.
+
+That evening when Angus had gone, after saying a prolonged good-night to
+Mary in the little scented garden under the lovely radiance of an almost
+full moon, Helmsley called her to his side.
+
+"Mary!"
+
+She came at once, and put her arm around him. He looked up at her,
+smiling.
+
+"You think I'm very tired, I know," he said--"But I'm not. I--I want to
+say a word to you."
+
+Still keeping her arm round him, she patted his shoulder gently.
+
+"Yes, David! What is it?"
+
+"It is just this. You know I told you I had some papers that I valued,
+locked away in the little cupboard in my room?"
+
+"Yes. I know."
+
+"Well now,--when--when I die--will you promise me to take these papers
+yourself to the address that is written on them? That's all I ask of
+you! Will you?"
+
+"Of course I will!" she said, readily--"You know you've kept the key
+yourself since you got well from your bad fever last year----"
+
+"There is the key," he said, drawing it from his pocket, and holding it
+up to her--"Take it now!"
+
+"But why now----?" she began.
+
+"Because I wish it!" he answered, with a slight touch of
+obstinacy--then, smiling rather wistfully, he added, "It will comfort me
+to know you have it in your own possession. And Mary--promise me that
+you will let no one--not even Angus--see or touch these papers!--that
+you will take the parcel just as you find it, straight to the person to
+whom it is addressed, and deliver it yourself to him! I don't want you
+to _swear_, but I want you to put your dear kind hand in mine, and say
+'On my word of honour I will not open the packet old David has entrusted
+to me. When he dies I will take it my own self to the person to whom it
+is addressed, and wait till I am told that everything in it has been
+received and understood.' Will you, for my comfort, say these words
+after me, Mary?"
+
+"Of course I will!"
+
+And placing her hand in his, she repeated it slowly word for word. He
+watched her closely as she spoke, her eyes gazing candidly into his own.
+Then he heaved a deep sigh.
+
+"Thank you, my dear! That will do. God bless you! And now to bed!"
+
+He rose somewhat unsteadily, and she saw he was very weak.
+
+"Don't you feel so well, David?" she asked, anxiously. "Would you like
+me to sit up with you?"
+
+"No, no, my dear, no! All I want is a good sleep--a good long sleep. I'm
+only tired."
+
+She saw him into his room, and, according to her usual custom, put a
+handbell on the small table which was at the side of his bed. Charlie,
+trotting at her heels, suddenly began to whimper. She stooped and picked
+the little creature up in her arms.
+
+"Mind you ring if you want me," she said to Helmsley then,--"I'm just
+above you, and I can hear the least sound."
+
+He looked at her earnestly. His eyes were almost young in their
+brightness.
+
+"God bless you, Mary!" he said--"You've been a good angel to me! I never
+quite believed in Heaven, but looking at you I know there is such a
+place--the place where you were born!"
+
+She smiled--but her eyes were soft with unshed tears.
+
+"You think too well of me, David," she said. "I'm not an angel--I wish I
+were! I'm only a very poor, ordinary sort of woman."
+
+"Are you?" he said, and smiled--"Well, think so, if it pleases you.
+Good-night--and again God bless you!"
+
+He patted the tiny head of the small Charlie, whom she held nestling
+against her breast.
+
+"Good-night, Charlie!"
+
+The little dog licked his hand and looked at him wistfully.
+
+"Don't part with him, Mary!" he said, suddenly--"Let him always have a
+home with you!"
+
+"Now, David! You really are tired out and over-melancholy! As if I
+should ever part with him!" And she kissed Charlie's silky head--"We'll
+all keep together! Good-night, David!"
+
+"Good-night!" he answered. He watched her as she went through the
+doorway, holding the dog in her arms and turning back to smile at him
+over her shoulder--anon he listened to her footfall ascending the
+stairway to her own room--then, to her gentle movements to and fro above
+his bed--till presently all was silent. Silence--except for the measured
+plash of the sea, which he heard distinctly echoing up through the
+coombe from the shore. A great loneliness environed him--touched by a
+great awe. He felt himself to be a solitary soul in the midst of some
+vast desert, yet not without the consciousness that a mystic joy, an
+undreamed-of glory, was drawing near that should make that desert
+"blossom like the rose." He moved slowly and feebly to the
+window--against one-half of the latticed pane leaned a bunch of white
+roses, shining with a soft pearl hue in the light of a lovely moon.
+
+"It is a beautiful world!" he said, half aloud--"No one in his right
+mind could leave it without some regret!"
+
+Then an inward voice seemed to whisper to him--
+
+"You knew nothing of this world you call so beautiful before you entered
+it; may there not be another world still more beautiful of which you
+equally know nothing, but of which you are about to make an experience,
+all life being a process of continuous higher progress?"
+
+And this idea now not only seemed to him possible but almost a
+certainty. For as our last Laureate expresses it:--
+
+    "Whatever crazy sorrow saith,
+    No life that breathes with human breath
+    Has ever truly longed for death.
+    'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant,
+    Oh life, not death, for which we pant--
+    More life, and fuller, that I want!"
+
+His brain was so active and his memory so clear that he was somewhat
+surprised to feel his body so feeble and aching, when at last he
+undressed, and lay down to sleep. He thought of many things--of his
+boyhood's home out in Virginia--of the stress and excitement of his
+business career--of his extraordinary successes, piled one on the top of
+the other--and then of the emptiness of it all!
+
+"I should have been happier and wiser," he said, "if I had lived the
+life of a student in some quiet home among the hills--where I should
+have seen less of men and learned more of God. But it is too late
+now--too late!"
+
+And a curious sorrow and pity moved him for certain men he knew who were
+eating up the best time of their lives in a mad struggle for money,
+losing everything of real value in their scramble for what was, after
+all, so valueless,--sacrificing peace, honour, love, and a quiet mind,
+for what in the eternal countings is of no more consideration than the
+dust of the highroad. Not what a man _has_, but what he _is_,--this is
+the sole concern of Divine Equity. Earthly ideas of justice are in
+direct opposition to this law, but the finite can never overbalance the
+infinite. We may, if we so please, honour a king as king,--but with God
+there are no kings. There are only Souls, "made in His image." And
+whosoever defaces that Divine Image, whether he be base-born churl or
+crowned potentate, must answer for the wicked deed. How many of us view
+our social acquaintances from any higher standard than the extent of
+their cash accounts, or the "usefulness" of their influence? Yet the
+inexorable Law works silently on,--and day after day, century after
+century, shows us the vanity of riches, the fall of pride and power, the
+triumph of genius, the immutability of love! And we are still turning
+over the well-worn pages of the same old school-book which was set
+before Tyre and Sidon, Carthage and Babylon--the same, the very same,
+with one saving exception--that a Divine Teacher came to show us how to
+spell it and read it aright--and He was crucified! Doubtless were He to
+come again and once more try to help us, we should re-enact that
+old-time Jewish murder!
+
+Lying quietly in his bed, Helmsley conversed with his inner self, as it
+were, reasoning with his own human perplexities and gradually
+unravelling them. After all, if his life had been, as he considered,
+only a lesson, was it not good for him that he had learned that lesson?
+A passing memory of Lucy Sorrel flitted across his brain--and he thought
+how singular it was that chance should have brought him into touch with
+the very man who would have given her that "rose of love" he desired she
+should wear, had she realised the value and beauty of that immortal
+flower. He, David Helmsley, had been apparently led by devious ways, not
+only to find an unselfish love for himself, but also to be the
+instrument of atoning to Angus Reay for his first love-disappointment,
+and uniting him to a woman whose exquisitely tender and faithful nature
+was bound to make the joy and sanctity of his life. In this, had not
+all things been ordered well? Did it not seem that, notwithstanding his,
+Helmsley's, self-admitted worthlessness, the Divine Power had used him
+for the happiness of others, to serve as a link of love between two
+deserving souls? He began to think that it was not by chance that he had
+been led to wander away from the centre of his business interests, and
+lose himself on the hills above Weircombe. Not accident, but a high
+design had been hidden in this incident--a design in which Self had been
+transformed to Selflessness, and loneliness to love. "I should like to
+believe in God--if I could!" This he had said to his friend Vesey, on
+the last night he had seen him. And now--did he believe? Yes!--for he
+had benefited by his first experience of what a truly God-like love may
+be--the love of a perfectly unselfish, tender, devout woman who, for no
+motive at all, but simply out of pure goodness and compassion for sorrow
+and suffering, had rescued one whom she judged to be in need of help. If
+therefore God could make one poor woman so divinely forbearing and
+gentle, it was certain that He, from whom all Love must emanate, was yet
+more merciful than the most merciful woman, as well as stronger than the
+strongest man. And he believed--believed implicitly;--lifted to the
+height of a perfect faith by the help of a perfect love. In the mirror
+of one sweet and simple human character he had seen the face of God--and
+he was of the same mind as the mighty musician who, when he was dying,
+cried out in rapture--"I believe I am only at the Beginning!"[2] He was
+conscious of a strange dual personality,--some spirit within him
+urgently expressed itself as being young, clamorous, inquisitive, eager,
+and impatient of restraint, while his natural bodily self was so weary
+and feeble that he felt as if he could scarcely move a hand. He listened
+for a little while to the ticking of the clock in the kitchen which was
+next to his room,--and by and by, being thoroughly drowsy, he sank into
+a heavy slumber. He did not know that Mary, anxious about him, had not
+gone to bed at all, but had resolved to sit up all night in case he
+should call her or want for anything. But the hours wore on peacefully
+for him till the moon began her downward course towards the west, and
+the tide having rolled in to its highest mark, began to ebb and flow out
+again. Then--all at once--he awoke--smitten by
+a shock of pain that seemed to crash through his heart and send his
+brain swirling into a blind chaos. Struggling for breath, he sprang up
+in his bed, and instinctively snatched the handbell at his side. He was
+hardly aware of ringing it, so great was his agony--but presently,
+regaining a glimmering sense of consciousness, he found Mary's arms
+round him, and saw Mary's eyes looking tenderly into his own.
+
+"David, dear David!" And the sweet voice was shaken by tears.
+"David!--Oh, my poor dear, don't you know me?"
+
+Know her? In the Valley of the Shadow what other Angel could there be so
+faithful or so tender! He sighed, leaning heavily against her bosom.
+
+"Yes, dear--I know you!" he gasped, faintly. "But--I am very ill--dying,
+I think! Open the window--give me air!"
+
+She laid his head gently back on the pillow, and ran quickly to throw
+open the lattice. In that same moment, the dog Charlie, who had followed
+her downstairs from her room, jumped on the bed, and finding his
+master's hand lying limp and pallid outside the coverlet, fawned upon it
+with a plaintive cry. The cool sea-air rushed in, and Helmsley's sinking
+strength revived. He turned his eyes gratefully towards the stream of
+silvery moonlight that poured through the open casement.
+
+"'Angels ever bright and fair!'" he murmured--then as Mary came back to
+his side, he smiled vaguely; "I thought I heard my little sister
+singing!"
+
+Slipping her arm again under his head, she carefully administered a dose
+of the cordial which had been made up for him as a calmative against his
+sudden heart attacks.
+
+He swallowed it slowly and with difficulty.
+
+"I'm--I'm all right," he said, feebly. "The pain has gone. I'm sorry to
+have wakened you up, Mary!--but you're always kind and patient----"
+
+His voice broke--and a grey pallor began to steal almost imperceptibly
+upwards over his wasted features. She watched him, her heart beating
+fast with grief and terror,--the tears rushing to her eyes in spite of
+her efforts to restrain them. For she saw that he was dying. The
+solemnly musical plash of the sea sounded rhythmically upon the quiet
+air like the soothing murmur of a loving mother's lullaby, and the
+radiance of the moonlight flooded the little room with mystical glory.
+In her womanly tenderness she drew him more protectingly into the
+embrace of her kind arm, as though seeking to hold him back from the
+abyss of the Unknown, and held his head close against her breast. He
+opened his eyes and saw her thus bending over him. A smile brightened
+his face--a smile of youth, and hope, and confidence.
+
+"The end is near, Mary!" he said in a clear, calm voice; "but--it's not
+difficult! There is no pain. And you are with me. That is enough!--that
+is more than I ever hoped for!--more than I deserve! God bless you
+always!"
+
+He shut his eyes again--but opened them quickly in a sudden struggle for
+breath.
+
+"The papers!" he gasped. "Mary--Mary--you won't forget--your promise!"
+
+"No, David!--dear David!" she sobbed. "I won't forget!"
+
+The paroxysm passed, and his hand wandered over the coverlet, where it
+encountered the soft, crouching head of the little dog who was lying
+close to him, shivering in every limb.
+
+"Why, here's Charlie!" he whispered, weakly. "Poor wee Charlie! 'Take
+care of me' is written on his collar. Mary will take care of you,
+Charlie!--good-bye, little man!"
+
+He lay quiet then, but his eyes were wide open, gazing not upward, but
+straight ahead, as though they saw some wondrous vision in the little
+room.
+
+"Strange!--strange that I did not know all this before!" he
+murmured--and then was silent, still gazing straight before him. All at
+once a great shudder shook his body--and his thin features grew suddenly
+pinched and wan.
+
+"It is almost morning!" he said, and his voice was like an echo of
+itself from very far away. "The sun will rise--but I shall not be here
+to see the sun or you, Mary!" and rallying his fast ebbing strength he
+turned towards her. "Keep your arms about me!--pray for me!--God will
+hear you--God must hear His own! Don't cry, dear! Kiss me!"
+
+She kissed him, clasping his poor frail form to her heart as though he
+were a child, and tenderly smoothing back his venerable snow-white
+hair. A slumbrous look of perfect peace softened the piteousness of his
+dying eyes.
+
+"The only treasure!" he murmured, faintly. "The treasure of
+Heaven--Love! God bless you for giving it to me, Mary!--good-bye, my
+dear!"
+
+"Not good-bye, David!" she cried. "No--not good-bye!"
+
+"Yes--good-bye!" he said,--and then, as another strong shudder convulsed
+him, he made a last feeble effort to lay his head against her bosom.
+"Don't let me go, Mary! Hold me!--closer!--closer! Your heart is warm,
+ah, so warm, Mary!--and death is cold--cold----!"
+
+Another moment--and the moonlight, streaming through the open window,
+fell on the quiet face of a dead man. Then came silence--broken only by
+the gentle murmur of the sea, and the sound of a woman's weeping.
+
+[Footnote 2: Beethoven.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+Not often is the death of a man, who to all appearances was nothing more
+than a "tramp," attended by any demonstrations of sorrow. There are so
+many "poor" men! The roads are infested with them. It would seem, in
+fact, that they have no business to live at all, especially when they
+are old, and can do little or nothing to earn their bread. Such,
+generally and roughly speaking, is the opinion of the matter-of-fact
+world. Nevertheless, the death of "old David" created quite an
+atmosphere of mourning in Weircombe, though, had it been known that he
+was one of the world's famous millionaires, such kindly regret and
+compassion might have been lacking. As things were, he carried his
+triumph of love to the grave with him. Mary's grief for the loss of the
+gentle old man was deep and genuine, and Angus Reay shared it with her
+to the full.
+
+"I shall miss him so much!" she sobbed, looking at the empty chair,
+which had been that of her own father. "He was always so kind and
+thoughtful for me--never wishing to give trouble!--poor dear old
+David!--and he did so hope to see us married, Angus!--you know it was
+through him that we knew each other!"
+
+"I know!"--and Angus, profoundly moved, was not ashamed of the tears in
+his own eyes--"God bless him! He was a dear, good old fellow! But, Mary,
+you must not fret; he would not like to see your pretty eyes all red
+with weeping. This life was getting very difficult for him,
+remember,--he endured a good deal of pain. Bunce says he must have
+suffered acutely often without saying a word about it, lest you should
+be anxious. He is at rest now."
+
+"Yes, he is at rest!"--and Mary struggled to repress her tears--"Come
+and see!"
+
+Hand in hand they entered the little room where the dead man lay,
+covered with a snowy sheet, his waxen hands crossed peacefully outside
+it, and delicate clusters of white roses and myrtle laid here and there
+around him. His face was like a fine piece of sculptured marble in its
+still repose--the gravity and grandeur of death had hallowed the worn
+features of old age, and given them a great sweetness and majesty. The
+two lovers stood gazing at the corpse for a moment in silent awe--then
+Mary whispered softly--
+
+"He seems only asleep! And he looks happy."
+
+"He _is_ happy, dear!--he must be happy!"--and Angus drew her gently
+away. "Poor and helpless as he was, still he found a friend in you at
+the last, and now all his troubles are over. He has gone to Heaven with
+the help and blessing of your kind and tender heart, my Mary! I am sure
+of that!"
+
+She sighed, and her eyes were clouded with sadness.
+
+"Heaven seems very far away sometimes!" she said. "And--often I
+wonder--what _is_ Heaven?"
+
+"Love!" he answered--"Love made perfect--Love that knows no change and
+no end! 'Nothing is sweeter than love; nothing stronger, nothing higher,
+nothing broader, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in
+heaven and in earth, for love is born of God, and can rest only in God
+above all things created.'"
+
+He quoted the beautiful words from the _Imitation of Christ_ reverently
+and tenderly.
+
+"Is that not true, my Mary?" he said, kissing her.
+
+"Yes, Angus! For _us_ I know it is true!--I wish it were true for all
+the world!"
+
+And then there came a lovely day, perfectly brilliant and intensely
+calm, on which "old David," was quietly buried in the picturesque little
+churchyard of Weircombe. Mary and Angus together had chosen his
+resting-place, a grassy knoll swept by the delicate shadows of a noble
+beech-tree, and facing the blue expanse of the ocean. Every man who had
+known and talked with him in the village offered to contribute to the
+expenses of his funeral, which, however, were very slight. The good
+Vicar would accept no burial fee, and all who knew the story of the old
+"tramp's" rescue from the storm by Mary Deane, and her gentle care of
+him afterwards, were anxious to prove that they too were not destitute
+of that pure and true charity which "suffereth long and is kind." Had
+David Helmsley been buried as David Helmsley the millionaire, it is more
+than likely that he might not have had one sincere mourner at his grave,
+with the exception of his friend, Sir Francis Vesey, and his valet
+Benson. There would have been a few "business" men,--and some empty
+carriages belonging to fashionable folk sent out of so-called "respect";
+but of the many he had entertained, assisted and benefited, not one
+probably would have taken the trouble to pay him, so much as a last
+honour. As the poor tramping old basket-maker, whose failing strength
+would not allow him to earn much of a living, his simple funeral was
+attended by nearly a whole village,--honest men who stood respectfully
+bareheaded as the coffin was lowered into the grave--kind-hearted women
+who wept for "poor lonely soul"--as they expressed it,--and little
+children who threw knots of flowers into that mysterious dark hole in
+the ground "where people went to sleep for a little, and then came out
+again as angels"--as their parents told them. It was a simple ceremony,
+performed in a spirit of perfect piety, and without any hypocrisy or
+formality. And when it was all over, and the villagers had dispersed to
+their homes, Mr. Twitt on his way "down street," as he termed it, from
+the churchyard, paused at Mary Deane's cottage to unburden his mind of a
+weighty resolution.
+
+"Ye see, Mis' Deane, it's like this," he said--"I as good as promised
+the poor old gaffer as I'd do 'im a tombstone for nuthin', an' I'm 'ere
+to say as I aint a-goin' back on that. But I must take my time on it.
+I'd like to think out a speshul hepitaph--an' doin' portry takes a bit
+of 'ard brain work. So when the earth's set down on 'is grave a bit, an'
+the daisies is a-growin' on the grass, I'll mebbe 'ave got an idea
+wot'll please ye. 'E aint left any mossel o' paper writ out like, with
+wot 'e'd like put on 'im, I s'pose?"
+
+Mary felt the colour rush to her face.
+
+"N--no! Not that I know of, Mr. Twitt," she said. "He has left a few
+papers which I promised him I would take to a friend of his, but I
+haven't even looked at them yet, and don't know to whom they are
+addressed. If I find anything I'll let you know."
+
+"Ay, do so!" and Twitt rubbed his chin meditatively. "I wouldn't run
+agin' 'is wishes for anything if ser be I can carry 'em out. I considers
+as 'e wor a very fine sort--gentle as a lamb, an' grateful for all wot
+was done for 'im, an' I wants to be as friendly to 'im in 'is death as I
+wos in 'is life--ye understand?"
+
+"Yes--I know--I quite understand," said Mary. "But there's plenty of
+time---"
+
+"Yes, there's plenty of time!" agreed Twitt. "But, lor,' if you could
+only know what a pain it gives me in the 'ed to work the portry out of
+it, ye wouldn't wonder at my preparin' ye, as 'twere. Onny I wishes ye
+just to understand that it'll all be done for love--an' no charge."
+
+Mary thanked him smiling, yet with tears in her eyes, and he strolled
+away down the street in his usual slow and somewhat casual manner.
+
+That evening,--the evening of the day on which all that was mortal of
+"old David" had been committed to the gentle ground, Mary unlocked the
+cupboard of which he had given her the key on the last night of his
+life, and took out the bulky packet it contained. She read the
+superscription with some surprise and uneasiness. It was addressed to a
+Mr. Bulteel, in a certain street near Chancery Lane, London. Now Mary
+had never been to London in her life. The very idea of going to that
+vast unknown metropolis half scared her, and she sat for some minutes,
+with the sealed packet in her lap, quite confused and troubled.
+
+"Yet I made the promise!" she said to herself--"And I dare not break it!
+I must go. And I must not tell Angus anything about it--that's the worst
+part of all!"
+
+She gazed wistfully at the packet,--anon she turned it over and over. It
+was sealed in several places--but the seal had no graven impress, the
+wax having merely been pressed with the finger.
+
+"I must go!" she repeated. "I'm bound to deliver it myself to the man
+for whom it is intended. But what a journey it will be! To London!"
+
+Absorbed in thought, she started as a tap came at the cottage door,--and
+rising, she hurriedly put the package out of sight, just as Angus
+entered.
+
+"Mary," he said, as he came towards her--"Do you know, I've been
+thinking we had better get quietly married as soon as possible?"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"Why? Is the book finished?" she asked.
+
+"No, it isn't. I wish it was! But it will be finished in another
+month----"
+
+"Then let us wait that other month," she said. "You will be happier, I
+know, if the work is off your mind."
+
+"Yes--I shall be happier--but Mary, I can't bear to think of you all
+alone in this little cottage----"
+
+She gently interrupted him.
+
+"I was all alone for five years after my father died," she said. "And
+though I was sometimes a little sad, I was not dull, because I always
+had work to do. Dear old David was a good companion, and it was pleasant
+to take care of him--indeed, this last year has been quite a happy one
+for me, and I shan't find it hard to live alone in the cottage for just
+a month now. Don't worry about me, Angus!"
+
+He stooped and picked up Charlie, who, since his master's death, had
+been very dispirited.
+
+"You see, Mary," he said, as he fondled the little dog and stroked its
+silky hair--"nothing will alter the fact that you are richer than I am.
+You do regular work for which you get regular pay--now I have no settled
+work at all, and not much chance of pay, even for the book on which I've
+been spending nearly a year of my time. You've got a house which you can
+keep going--and very soon I shall not be able to afford so much as a
+room!--think of that! And yet--I have the impertinence to ask you to
+marry me! Forgive me, dear! It is, as you say, better to wait."
+
+She came and entwined her arms about him.
+
+"I'll wait a month," she said--"No longer, Angus! By that time, if you
+don't marry me, I shall summons you for breach of promise!"
+
+She smiled--but he still remained thoughtful.
+
+"Angus!" she said suddenly--"I want to tell you--I shall have to go away
+from Weircombe for a day--perhaps two days."
+
+He looked surprised.
+
+"Go away!" he echoed. "What for? Where to?"
+
+She told him then of "old David's" last request to her, and of the duty
+she had undertaken to perform.
+
+He listened gravely.
+
+"You must do it, of course," he said. "But will you have to travel far?"
+
+"Some distance from Weircombe," she answered, evasively.
+
+"May I not go with you?" he asked.
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"I promised----" she began.
+
+"And you shall not break your word," he said, kissing her. "You are so
+true, my Mary, that I wouldn't tempt you to change one word or even half
+a word of what you have said to any one, living or dead. When do you
+want to take this journey?"
+
+"To-morrow, or the next day," she said. "I'll ask Mrs. Twitt to see to
+the house and look after Charlie, and I'll be back again as quickly as I
+can. Because, when I've given the papers over to David's friend, whoever
+he is, I shall have nothing more to do but just come home."
+
+This being settled, it was afterwards determined that the next day but
+one would be the most convenient for her to go, as she could then avail
+herself of the carrier's cart to take her as far as Minehead. But she
+was not allowed to start on her unexpected travels without a burst of
+prophecy from Mrs. Twitt.
+
+"As I've said an' allus thought," said that estimable lady--"Old David
+'ad suthin' 'idden in 'is 'art wot 'e never giv' away to nobody. Mark my
+words, Mis' Deane!--'e 'ad a sin or a sorrer at the back of 'im, an'
+whichever it do turn out to be I'm not a-goin' to blame 'im either way,
+for bein' dead 'e's dead, an' them as sez unkind o' the dead is apt to
+be picked morsels for the devil's gridiron. But now that you've got a
+packet to take to old David's friends somewheres, you may take my word
+for 't, Mis' Deane, you'll find out as 'e was wot ye didn't expect. Onny
+last night, as I was a-sittin' afore the kitchen fire, for though bein'
+summer I'm that chilly that I feels the least change in the temper o'
+the sea,--as I was a-sittin', I say, out jumps a cinder as long as a
+pine cone, red an' glowin' like a candle at the end. An' I stares at the
+thing, an' I sez: 'That's either a purse o' money, or a journey with a
+coffin at the end'--an' the thing burns an' shines like a reg'lar spark
+of old Nick's cookin' stove, an' though I pokes an' pokes it, it won't
+go out, but lies on the 'erth, frizzlin' all the time. An' I do 'ope,
+Mis' Deane, as now yer goin' off to 'and over old David's effecks to the
+party interested, ye'll come back safe, for the poor old dear 'adn't a
+penny to bless 'isself with, so the cinder must mean the journey, an'
+bein' warned, ye'll guard agin the coffin at the end."
+
+Mary smiled rather sadly.
+
+"I'll take care!" she said. "But I don't think anything very serious is
+likely to happen. Poor old David had no friends,--and probably the few
+papers he has left are only for some relative who would not do anything
+for him while he was alive, but who, all the same, has to be told that
+he is dead."
+
+"Maybe so!" and Mrs. Twitt nodded her head profoundly--"But that cinder
+worn't made in the fire for nowt! Such a shape as 'twas don't grow out
+of the flames twice in twenty year!"
+
+And, with the conviction of the village prophetess she assumed to be,
+she was not to be shaken from the idea that strange discoveries were
+pending respecting "old David." Mary herself could not quite get rid of
+a vague misgiving and anxiety, which culminated at last in her
+determination to show Angus Reay the packet left in her charge, in order
+that he might see to whom it was addressed.
+
+"For that can do no harm," she thought--"I feel that he really ought to
+know that I have to go all the way to London."
+
+Angus, however, on reading the superscription, was fully as perplexed as
+she was. He was familiar with the street near Chancery Lane where the
+mysterious "Mr. Bulteel" lived, but the name of Bulteel as a resident in
+that street was altogether unknown to him. Presently a bright idea
+struck him.
+
+"I have it!" he said. "Look here, Mary, didn't David say he used to be
+employed in office-work?"
+
+"Yes," she answered,--"He had to give up his situation, so I understand,
+on account of old age."
+
+"Then that makes it clear," Angus declared. "This Mr. Bulteel is
+probably a man who worked with him in the same office--perhaps the only
+link he had with his past life. I think you'll find that's the way it
+will turn out. But I hate to think of your travelling to London all
+alone!--for the first time in your life, too!"
+
+"Oh well, that doesn't matter much!" she said, cheerfully,--"Now that
+you know where I am going, it's all right. You forget, Angus!--I'm quite
+old enough to take care of myself. How many times must I remind you that
+you are engaged to be married to an old maid of thirty-five? You treat
+me as if I were quite a young girl!"
+
+"So I do--and so I will!" and his eyes rested upon her with a proud look
+of admiration. "For you _are_ young, Mary--young in your heart and soul
+and nature--younger than any so-called young girl I ever met, and
+twenty times more beautiful. So there!"
+
+She smiled gravely.
+
+"You are easily satisfied, Angus," she said--"But the world will not
+agree with you in your ideas of me. And when you become a famous
+man----"
+
+"If I become a famous man----" he interrupted.
+
+"No--not 'if'--I say 'when,'" she repeated. "When you become a famous
+man, people will say, 'what a pity he did not marry some one younger and
+more suited to his position----"
+
+She could speak no more, for Angus silenced her with a kiss.
+
+"Yes, what a pity it will be!" he echoed. "What a pity! When other men,
+less fortunate, see that I have won a beautiful and loving wife, whose
+heart is all my own,--who is pure and true as the sun in heaven,--'what
+a pity,' they will say, 'that we are not so lucky!' That's what the talk
+will be, Mary! For there's no man on earth who does not crave to be
+loved for himself alone--a selfish wish, perhaps--but it's implanted in
+every son of Adam. And a man's life is always more or less spoilt by
+lack of the love he needs."
+
+She put her arms round his neck, and her true eyes looked straightly
+into his own.
+
+"Your life will not be spoilt that way, dear!" she said. "Trust me for
+that!"
+
+"Do I not know it!" he answered, passionately. "And would I not lose the
+whole world, with all its chances of fame and fortune, rather than lose
+_you_!"
+
+And in their mutual exchange of tenderness and confidence they forgot
+all save
+
+    "The time and place
+    And the loved one all together!"
+
+It was a perfect summer's morning when Mary, for the first time in many
+years, left her little home in Weircombe and started upon a journey she
+had never taken and never had thought of taking--a journey which, to her
+unsophisticated mind, seemed fraught with strange possibilities of
+difficulty, even of peril. London had loomed upon her horizon through
+the medium of the daily newspaper, as a vast over-populated city where
+(if she might believe the press) humanity is more selfish than
+generous, more cruel than kind,--where bitter poverty and starvation are
+seen side by side with criminal extravagance and luxury,--and where,
+according to her simple notions, the people were forgetting or had
+forgotten God. It was with a certain lingering and wistful backward look
+that she left her little cottage embowered among roses, and waved
+farewell to Mrs. Twitt, who, standing at the garden gate with Charlie in
+her arms, waved hearty response, cheerfully calling out "Good Luck!"
+after her, and adding the further assurance--"Ye'll find everything as
+well an' straight as ye left it when ye comes 'ome, please God!"
+
+Angus Reay accompanied her in the carrier's cart to Minehead, and there
+she caught the express to London. On enquiry, she found there was a
+midnight train which would bring her back from the metropolis at about
+nine o'clock the next morning, and she resolved to travel home by it.
+
+"You will be so tired!" said Angus, regretfully. "And yet I would rather
+you did not stay away a moment longer than you can help!"
+
+"Don't fear!" and she smiled. "You cannot be a bit more anxious for me
+to come back than I am to come back myself! Good-bye! It's only for a
+day!"
+
+She waved her hand as the train steamed out of the station, and he
+watched her sweet face smiling at him to the very last, when the
+express, gathering speed, rushed away with her and whirled her into the
+far distance. A great depression fell upon his soul,--all the light
+seemed gone out of the landscape--all the joy out of his life--and he
+realised, as it were suddenly, what her love meant to him.
+
+"It is everything!" he said. "I don't believe I could write a line
+without her!--in fact I know I wouldn't have the heart for it! She is so
+different to every woman I have ever known,--she seems to make the world
+all warm and kind by just smiling her own bonnie smile!"
+
+And starting off to walk part of the way back to Weircombe, he sang
+softly under his breath as he went a verse of "Annie Laurie"--
+
+    "Like dew on the gowan lyin'
+      Is the fa' o' her fairy feet;
+    And like winds in simmer sighin'
+      Her voice is low an' sweet
+     Her voice is low an' sweet;
+    An' she's a' the world to me;
+      An' for bonnie Annie Laurie
+    I'd lay me doun and dee!"
+
+And all the beautiful influences of nature,--the bright sunshine, the
+wealth of June blossom, the clear skies and the singing of birds, seemed
+part of that enchanting old song, expressing the happiness which alone
+is made perfect by love.
+
+Meanwhile, no adventures of a startling or remarkable kind occurred to
+Mary during her rather long and tedious journey. Various passengers got
+into her third-class compartment and got out again, but they were
+somewhat dull and commonplace folk, many of them being of that curiously
+unsociable type of human creature which apparently mistrusts its
+fellows. Contrary to her ingenuous expectation, no one seemed to think a
+journey to London was anything of a unique or thrilling experience. Once
+only, when she was nearing her destination, did she venture to ask a
+fellow-passenger, an elderly man with a kindly face, how she ought to go
+to Chancery Lane. He looked at her with a touch of curiosity.
+
+"That's among the hornets' nests," he said.
+
+She raised her pretty eyebrows with a little air of perplexity.
+
+"Hornets' nests?"
+
+"Yes. Where a good many lawyers live, or used to live."
+
+"Oh, I see!" And she smiled responsively to what he evidently intended
+as a brilliant satirical joke. "But is it easy to get there?"
+
+"Quite easy. Take a 'bus."
+
+"From the station?"
+
+"Of course!"
+
+And he subsided into silence.
+
+She asked no more questions, and on her arrival at Paddington confided
+her anxieties to a friendly porter, who, announcing that he was "from
+Somerset born himself and would see her through," gave her concise
+directions which she attentively followed; with the result that despite
+much bewilderment in getting in and getting out of omnibuses, and
+jostling against more people than she had ever seen in the course of her
+whole life, she found herself at last at the entrance of a rather
+obscure-looking smutty little passage, guarded by a couple of round
+columns, on which were painted in black letters a considerable number of
+names, among which were those of "Vesey and Symonds." The numeral
+inscribed above the entrance to this passage corresponded to the number
+on the address of the packet which she carried for "Mr. Bulteel"--but
+though she read all the names on the two columns, "Bulteel" was not
+among them. Nevertheless, she made her way perseveringly into what
+seemed nothing but a little blind alley leading nowhere, and as she did
+so, a small boy came running briskly down a flight of dark stairs, which
+were scarcely visible from the street, and nearly knocked her over.
+
+"'Ullo! Beg pardon 'm! Which office d' ye want?"
+
+"Is there," began Mary, in her gentle voice--"is there a Mr.
+Bulteel----?"
+
+"Bulteel? Yes--straight up--second floor--third door--Vesey and
+Symonds!"
+
+With these words jerked out of himself at lightning speed, the boy
+rushed past her and disappeared.
+
+With a beating heart Mary cautiously climbed the dark staircase which he
+had just descended. When she reached the second floor, she paused. There
+were three doors all facing her,--on the first one was painted the name
+of "Sir Francis Vesey"--on the second "Mr. John Symonds"--and on the
+third "Mr. Bulteel." As soon as she saw this last, she heaved a little
+sigh of relief, and going straight up to it knocked timidly. It was
+opened at once by a young clerk who looked at her questioningly.
+
+"Mr. Bulteel?" she asked, hesitatingly.
+
+"Yes. Have you an appointment?"
+
+"No. I am quite a stranger," she said. "I only wish to tell Mr. Bulteel
+of the death of some one he knows."
+
+The clerk glanced at her and seemed dubious.
+
+"Mr. Bulteel is very busy," he began--"and unless you have an
+appointment----"
+
+"Oh, please let me see him!" And Mary's eyes almost filled with tears.
+"See!"--and she held up before him the packet she carried. "I've
+travelled all the way from Weircombe, in Somerset, to bring him this
+from his dead friend, and I promised to give it to him myself. Please,
+please do not turn me away!"
+
+The clerk stared hard at the superscription on the packet, as he well
+might. For he had at once recognised the handwriting of David Helmsley.
+But he suppressed every outward sign of surprise, save such as might
+appear in a glance of unconcealed wonder at Mary herself. Then he said
+briefly--
+
+"Come in!"
+
+She obeyed, and was at once shut in a stuffy cupboard-like room which
+had no other furniture than an office desk and high stool.
+
+"Name, please!" said the clerk.
+
+She looked startled--then smiled.
+
+"My name? Mary Deane."
+
+"Miss or Mrs.?"
+
+"'Miss,' if you please, sir," she answered, the colour flushing her
+cheeks with confusion at the sharpness of his manner.
+
+The clerk gave her another up-and-down look, and opening a door behind
+his office desk vanished like a conjuror tricking himself through a
+hole.
+
+She waited patiently for a couple of minutes--and then the clerk came
+back, with traces of excitement in his manner.
+
+"Yes--Mr. Bulteel will see you. This way!"
+
+She followed him with her usual quiet step and composed demeanour, and
+bent her head with a pretty air of respect as she found herself in the
+presence of an elderly man with iron-grey whiskers and a severely
+preoccupied air of business hardening his otherwise rather benevolent
+features. He adjusted his spectacles and looked keenly at her as she
+entered. She spoke at once.
+
+"You are Mr. Bulteel?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then this is for you," she said, approaching him, and handing him the
+packet she had brought. "They are some papers belonging to a poor old
+tramp named David, who lodged in my house for nearly a year--it will be
+a year come July. He was very weak and feeble and got lost in a storm on
+the hills above Weircombe--that's where I live--and I found him lying
+quite unconscious in the wet and cold, and took him home and nursed him.
+He got better and stayed on with me, making baskets for a living--he was
+too feeble to tramp any more--but he gave me no trouble, he was such a
+kind, good old man. I was very fond of him. And--and--last week he
+died"--here her sweet voice trembled. "He suffered great pain--but at
+the end he passed away quite peacefully--in my arms. He was very anxious
+that I should bring his papers to you myself--and I promised I would
+so----"
+
+She paused, a little troubled by his silence. Surely he looked very
+strangely at her.
+
+"I am sorry," she faltered, nervously--"if I have brought you any bad
+news;--poor David seemed to have no friends, but perhaps you were a
+friend to him once and may have a kind recollection of him----"
+
+He was still quite silent. Slowly he broke the seals of the packet, and
+drawing out a slip of paper which came first to his hand, read what was
+written upon it. Then he rose from his chair.
+
+"Kindly wait one moment," he said. "These--these papers and letters are
+not for me, but--but for--for another gentleman."
+
+He hurried out of the room, taking the packet with him, and Mary
+remained alone for nearly a quarter of an hour, vaguely perplexed, and
+wondering how any "other gentleman" could possibly be concerned in the
+matter. Presently Mr. Bulteel returned, in an evident state of
+suppressed agitation.
+
+"Will you please follow me, Miss Deane?" he said, with a singular air of
+deference. "Sir Francis is quite alone and will see you at once."
+
+Mary's blue eyes opened in amazement.
+
+"Sir Francis----!" she stammered. "I don't quite understand----"
+
+"This way," said Mr. Bulteel, escorting her out of his own room along
+the passage to the door which she had before seen labelled with the name
+of "Sir Francis Vesey"--then catching the startled and appealing glance
+of her eyes, he added kindly: "Don't be alarmed! It's all right!"
+
+Thereupon he opened the door and announced--
+
+"Miss Deane, Sir Francis."
+
+Mary looked up, and then curtsied with quite an "out-of-date" air of
+exquisite grace, as she found herself in the presence of a dignified
+white-haired old gentleman, who, standing near a large office desk on
+which the papers she had brought lay open, was wiping his spectacles,
+and looking very much as if he had been guilty of the womanish weakness
+of tears. He advanced to meet her.
+
+"How do you do!" he said, uttering this commonplace with remarkable
+earnestness, and taking her hand kindly in his own. "You bring me sad
+news--very sad news! I had not expected the death of my old friend so
+suddenly--I had hoped to see him again--yes, I had hoped very much to
+see him again quite soon! And so you were with him at the last?"
+
+Mary looked, as she felt, utterly bewildered.
+
+"I think," she murmured--"I think there must be some mistake,--the
+papers I brought here were for Mr. Bulteel----"
+
+"Yes--yes!" said Sir Francis. "That's quite right! Mr. Bulteel is my
+confidential clerk--and the packet was addressed to him. But a note
+inside requested that Mr. Bulteel should bring all the documents at once
+to me, which he has done. Everything is quite correct--quite in order.
+But--I forgot! You do not know! Please sit down--and I will endeavour to
+explain."
+
+He drew up a chair for her near his desk so that she might lean her arm
+upon it, for she looked frightened. As a matter of fact he was
+frightened himself. Such a task as he had now to perform had never
+before been allotted to him. A letter addressed to him, and enclosed in
+the packet containing Helmsley's Last Will and Testament, had explained
+the whole situation, and had fully described, with simple fidelity, the
+life his old friend had led at Weircombe, and the affectionate care with
+which Mary had tended him,--while the conclusion of the letter was
+worded in terms of touching farewell.
+
+    "For," wrote Helmsley, "when you read this, I shall be dead and in
+    my quiet grave at Weircombe. Let me rest there in peace,--for though
+    my eyes will no more see the sun,--or the kindness in the eyes of
+    the woman whose unselfish goodness has been more than the sunshine
+    to me, I shall--or so I think and hope--be spiritually conscious
+    that my mortal remains are buried where humble and simple folk think
+    well of me. This last letter from my hand to you is one not of
+    business so much as friendship--for I have learned that what we call
+    'business' counts for very little, while the ties of sympathy,
+    confidence, and love between human beings are the only forces that
+    assist in the betterment of the world. And so farewell! Let the
+    beloved angel who brings you these last messages from me have all
+    honour from you for my sake.--Yours,
+
+                                                       David Helmsley."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now, to Sir Francis Vesey's deep concern, the "beloved angel" thus
+spoken of sat opposite to him, moved by evident alarm,--her blue eyes
+full of tears, and her face pale and scared. How was he to begin telling
+her what she was bound to know?
+
+"Yes--I will--I must endeavour to explain," he repeated, bending his
+brows upon her and regaining something of his self-control. "You, of
+course, were not aware--I mean my old friend never told you who he
+really was?"
+
+Her anxious look grew more wistful.
+
+"No, and indeed I never asked," she said. "He was so feeble when I took
+him to my home out of the storm, and for weeks afterwards he was so
+dangerously ill, that I thought questions might worry him. Besides it
+was not my business to bother about where he came from. He was just old
+and poor and friendless--that was enough for me."
+
+"I hope--I do very much hope," said Sir Francis gently, "that you will
+not allow yourself to be too much startled--or--or overcome by what I
+have to tell you. David--he said his name was David, did he not?"
+
+She made a sign of assent. A strange terror was creeping upon her, and
+she could not speak.
+
+"David--yes!--that was quite right--David was his name," proceeded Sir
+Francis cautiously. "But he had another name--a surname which perhaps
+you may, or may not have heard. That name was Helmsley----"
+
+She sprang up with a cry, remembering Angus Reay's story about his first
+love, Lucy Sorrel, and her millionaire.
+
+"Helmsley! Not David Helmsley!"
+
+"Yes,--David Helmsley! The 'poor old tramp' you sheltered in your
+home,--the friendless and penniless stranger you cared for so
+unselfishly and tenderly, was one of the richest men in the world!"
+
+She stood amazed,--stricken as by a lightning shock.
+
+"One of the richest men in the world!" she faltered. "One of the
+richest----" and here, with a little stifled sob, she wrung her hands
+together. "Oh no--no! That can't be true! He would never have deceived
+me!"
+
+Sir Francis felt an uncomfortable tightness in his throat. The
+situation was embarrassing. He saw at once that she was not so much
+affected by the announcement of the supposed "poor" man's riches, as by
+the overwhelming thought that he could have represented himself to her
+as any other than he truly was.
+
+"Sit down again, and let me tell you all," he said gently--"You will, I
+am sure, forgive him for the part he played when you know his history.
+David Helmsley--who was my friend as well as my client for more than
+twenty years--was a fortunate man in the way of material
+prosperity,--but he was very unfortunate in his experience of human
+nature. His vast wealth made it impossible for him to see much more of
+men and women than was just enough to show him their worst side. He was
+surrounded by people who sought to use him and his great influence for
+their own selfish ends,--and the emotions and sentiments of life, such
+as love, fidelity, kindness, and integrity, he seldom or never met with
+among either his so-called 'friends' or his acquaintances. His wife was
+false to him, and his two sons brought him nothing but shame and
+dishonour. They all three died--and then--then in his old age he found
+himself alone in the world without any one who loved him, or whom he
+loved--without any one to whom he could confidently leave his enormous
+fortune, knowing it would be wisely and nobly used. When I last saw him
+I urged upon him the necessity of making his Will. He said he could not
+make it, as there was no one living whom he cared to name as his heir.
+Then he left London,--ostensibly on a journey for his health." Here Sir
+Francis paused, looking anxiously at his listener. She was deadly pale,
+and every now and then her eyes brimmed over with tears. "You can guess
+the rest," he continued,--"He took no one into his confidence as to his
+intention,--not even me. I understood he had gone abroad--till the other
+day--a short time ago--when I had a letter from him telling me that he
+was passing through Exeter."
+
+She clasped and unclasped her hands nervously.
+
+"Ah! That was where he went when he told me he had gone in search of
+work!" she murmured--"Oh, David, David!"
+
+"He informed me then," proceeded Sir Francis, "that he had made his
+Will. The Will is here,"--and he took up a document lying on his
+desk--"The manner of its execution coincides precisely with the letter
+of instructions received, as I say, from Exeter--of course it will have
+to be formally proved----"
+
+She lifted her eyes wonderingly.
+
+"What is it to me?" she said--"I have nothing to do with it. I have
+brought you the papers--but I am sorry--oh, so sorry to hear that he was
+not what he made himself out to be! I cannot think of him in the same
+way----"
+
+Sir Francis drew his chair closer to hers.
+
+"Is it possible," he said--"Is it possible, my dear Miss Deane, that you
+do not understand?"
+
+She gazed at him candidly.
+
+"Yes, of course I understand," she said--"I understand that he was a
+rich man who played the part of a poor one--to see if any one would care
+for him just for himself alone--and--I--I--did care--oh, I did
+care!--and now I feel as if I couldn't care any more----"
+
+Her voice broke sobbingly, and Sir Francis Vesey grew desperate.
+
+"Don't cry!" he said--"Please don't cry! I should not be able to bear
+it! You see I'm a business man"--here he took off his spectacles and
+rubbed them vigorously--"and my position is that of the late Mr. David
+Helmsley's solicitor. In that position I am bound to tell you the
+straight truth--because I'm afraid you don't grasp it at all. It is a
+very overwhelming thing for you,--but all the same, I am sure, quite
+sure, that my old friend had reason to rely confidently upon your
+strength of character--as well as upon your affection for him----"
+
+She had checked her sobs and was looking at him steadily.
+
+"And, therefore," he proceeded--"referring again to my own
+position--that of the late David Helmsley's solicitor, it is my duty to
+inform you that you, Mary Deane, are by his last Will and Testament, the
+late David Helmsley's sole heiress."
+
+She started up in terror.
+
+"Oh no, no!--not me!" she cried.
+
+"Everything which the late David Helmsley died possessed of, is left to
+you absolutely and unconditionally," went on Sir Francis, speaking with
+slow and deliberate emphasis--"And--even as he was one of the richest
+men, so you are now one of the richest women in the world!"
+
+She turned deathly white,--then suddenly, to his great alarm and
+confusion, dropped on her knees before him, clasping her hands in a
+passion of appeal.
+
+"Oh, don't say that, sir!" she exclaimed--"Please, please don't say it!
+I cannot be rich--I would not! I should be miserable--I should indeed!
+Oh, David, dear old David! I'm sure he never wished to make me
+wretched--he was fond of me--he was, really! And we were so happy and
+peaceful in the cottage at home! There was so little money, but so much
+love! Don't say I'm rich, sir!--or, if I am, let me give it all away at
+once! Let me give it to the starving and sick people in this great
+city--or please give it to them for me,--but don't, don't say that I
+must keep it myself!--I could not bear it!--oh, I could not bear it!
+Help me, oh, do help me to give it all away and let me remain just as I
+am, quite, quite poor!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+There was a moment's silence, broken only by the roar and din of the
+London city traffic outside, which sounded like the thunder of mighty
+wheels--the wheels of a rolling world. And then Sir Francis, gently
+taking Mary's hand in his own, raised her from the ground.
+
+"My dear,"--he said, huskily--"You must not--you really must not give
+way! See,"--and he took up a sealed letter from among the documents on
+the desk, addressed "To Mary"--and handed it to her--"my late friend
+asks me in the last written words I have from him to give this to you. I
+will leave you alone to read it. You will be quite private in this
+room--and no one will enter till you ring. Here is the bell,"--and he
+indicated it--"I think--indeed I am sure, when you understand
+everything, you will accept the great responsibility which will now
+devolve upon you, in as noble a spirit as that in which you accepted the
+care of David Helmsley himself when you thought him no more than what in
+very truth he was--a lonely-hearted old man, searching for what few of
+us ever find--an unselfish love!"
+
+He left her then--and like one in a dream, she opened and read the
+letter he had given her--a letter as beautiful and wise and tender as
+ever the fondest father could have written to the dearest of daughters.
+Everything was explained in it--everything made clear; and gradually she
+realised the natural, strong and pardonable craving of the rich, unloved
+man, to seek out for himself some means whereby he might leave all his
+world's gainings to one whose kindness to him had not been measured by
+any knowledge of his wealth, but which had been bestowed upon him solely
+for simple love's sake. Every line Helmsley had written to her in this
+last appeal to her tenderness, came from his very heart, and went to her
+own heart again, moving her to the utmost reverence, pity and affection.
+In his letter he enclosed a paper with a list of bequests which he left
+to her charge.
+
+"I could not name them in my Will,"--he wrote--"as this would have
+disclosed my identity--but you, my dear, will be more exact than the law
+in the payment of what I have here set down as just. And, therefore, to
+you I leave this duty."
+
+First among these legacies came one of Ten Thousand Pounds to "my old
+friend Sir Francis Vesey,"--and then followed a long list of legacies to
+servants, secretaries, and workpeople generally. The sum of Five Hundred
+Pounds was to be paid to Miss Tranter, hostess of "The Trusty
+Man,"--"for her kindness to me on the one night I passed under her
+hospitable roof,"--and sums of Two Hundred Pounds each were left to
+"Matthew Peke, Herb Gatherer," and Farmer Joltram, both these personages
+to be found through the aforesaid Miss Tranter. Likewise a sum of Two
+Hundred Pounds was to be paid to one "Meg Ross--believed to hold a farm
+near Watchett in Somerset." No one that had served the poor "tramp" was
+forgotten by the great millionaire;--a sum of Five Hundred Pounds was
+left to John Bunce, "with grateful and affectionate thanks for his
+constant care"--and a final charge to Mary was the placing of Fifty
+Thousand Pounds in trust for the benefit of Weircombe, its Church, and
+its aged poor. The money in bank notes, enclosed with the testator's
+last Will and Testament, was to be given to Mary for her own immediate
+use,--and then came the following earnest request;--"I desire that the
+sum of Half-a-crown, made up of coppers and one sixpence, which will be
+found with these effects, shall be enclosed in a casket of gold and
+inscribed with the words 'The "surprise gift" collected by "Tom o' the
+Gleam" for David Helmsley, when as a tramp on the road he seemed to be
+in need of the charity and sympathy of his fellow men and which to him
+was
+
+    MORE PRECIOUS THAN MANY MILLIONS.
+
+And I request that the said casket containing these coins may be
+retained by Mary Deane as a valued possession in her family, to be
+handed down as a talisman and cornerstone of fortune for herself and her
+heirs in perpetuity."
+
+Finally the list of bequests ended with one sufficiently unusual to be
+called eccentric. It ran thus:--"To Angus Reay I leave Mary Deane--and
+with Her, all that I value, and more than I have ever possessed!"
+
+Gradually, very gradually, Mary, sitting alone in Sir Francis Vesey's
+office, realised the whole position,--gradually the trouble and
+excitation of her mind calmed down, and her naturally even temperament
+reasserted itself. She was rich,--but though she tried to realise the
+fact, she could not do so, till at last the thought of Angus and how she
+might be able now to help him on with his career, roused a sudden rush
+of energy within her--which, however, was not by any means actual
+happiness. A great weight seemed to have fallen on her life--and she was
+bowed down by its heaviness. Kissing David Helmsley's letter, she put it
+in her bosom,--he had asked that its contents might be held sacred, and
+that no eyes but her own should scan his last words, and to her that
+request of a dead man was more than the command of a living King. The
+list of bequests she held in her hand ready to show Sir Francis Vesey
+when he entered, which he did as soon as she touched the bell. He saw
+that, though very pale, she was now comparatively calm and collected,
+and as she raised her eyes and tried to smile at him, he realised what a
+beautiful woman she was.
+
+"Please forgive me for troubling you so much,"--she said, gently--"I am
+very sorry! I understand it all now,--I have read David's letter,--I
+shall always call him David, I think!--and I quite see how it all
+happened. I can't help being sorry--very sorry, that he has left his
+money to me--because it will be so difficult to know how to dispose of
+it for the best. But surely a great deal of it will go in these
+legacies,"--and she handed him the paper she held--"You see he names you
+first."
+
+Sir Francis stared at the document, fairly startled and overcome by his
+late friend's generosity, as well as by Mary's naive candour.
+
+"My dear Miss Deane,"--he began, with deep embarrassment.
+
+"You will tell me how to do everything, will you not?" she interrupted
+him, with an air of pathetic entreaty--"I want to carry out all his
+wishes exactly as if he were beside me, watching me--I think--" and her
+voice sank a little--"he may be here--with us--even now!" She paused a
+moment. "And if he is, he knows that I do not want money for myself at
+all--but that if I can do good with it, for his sake and memory, I will.
+Is it a very great deal?"
+
+"Is it a great deal of money, you mean?" he queried.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I should say that at the very least my late friend's personal estate
+must be between six and seven millions of pounds sterling."
+
+She clasped her hands in dismay.
+
+"Oh! It is terrible!" she said, in a low strained voice--"Surely God
+never meant one man to have so much money!"
+
+"It was fairly earned,"--said Sir Francis, quietly--"David Helmsley, to
+my own knowledge, never wronged or oppressed a single human being on his
+way to his own success. His money is clean! There's no brother's blood
+on the gold--and no 'sweated' labour at the back of it. That I can vouch
+for--that I can swear! No curse will rest on the fortune you inherit,
+Miss Deane--for it was made honestly!"
+
+Tears stood in her eyes, and she wiped them away furtively.
+
+"Poor David!" she murmured--"Poor lonely old man! With all that wealth
+and no one to care for him! Oh yes, the more I think of it the more I
+understand it! But now there is only one thing for me to do--I must get
+home as quickly as possible and tell Angus"--here she pointed to the
+last paragraph in Helmsley's list of bequests--"You see,"--she went
+on--"he leaves Mary Deane--that's me--to Angus Reay, 'and with Her all
+that I value.' I am engaged to be married to Mr. Reay--David wished very
+much to live till our wedding-day--"
+
+She broke off, passing her hand across her brow and looking puzzled.
+
+"Mr. Reay is very much to be congratulated!"--said Sir Francis, gently.
+
+She smiled rather sadly.
+
+"Oh, I'm not sure of that," she said--"He is a very clever man--he
+writes books, and he will be famous very soon--while I--" She paused
+again, then went on, looking very earnestly at Sir Francis--"May
+I--would you--write out something for me that I might sign before I go
+away to-day, to make it sure that if I die, all that I have--including
+this terrible, terrible fortune--shall come to Angus Reay? You see
+anything might happen to me--quite suddenly,--the very train I am going
+back in to-night might meet with some accident, and I might be
+killed--and then poor David's money would be lost, and his legacies
+never paid. Don't you see that?"
+
+Sir Francis certainly saw it, but was not disposed to admit its
+possibility.
+
+"There is really no necessity to anticipate evil," he began.
+
+"There is perhaps no necessity--but I should like to be sure, quite
+sure, that in case of such evil all was right,"--she said, with great
+feeling--"And I know you could do it for me----"
+
+"Why, of course, if you insist upon it, I can draw you up a form of Will
+in ten minutes,"--he said, smiling benevolently--"Would that satisfy
+you? You have only to sign it, and the thing is done."
+
+It was wonderful to see how she rejoiced at this proposition,--the eager
+delight with which she contemplated the immediate disposal of the wealth
+she had not as yet touched, to the man she loved best in the world--and
+the swift change in her manner from depression to joy, when Sir Francis,
+just to put her mind at ease, drafted a concise form of Will for her in
+his own handwriting, in which form she, with the same precision as that
+of David Helmsley, left "everything of which she died possessed,
+absolutely and unconditionally," to her promised husband. With a smile
+on her face and sparkling eyes, she signed this document in the presence
+of two witnesses, clerks of the office called up for the purpose, who,
+if it had been their business to express astonishment, would undoubtedly
+have expressed it then.
+
+"You will keep it here for me, won't you?" she said, when the clerks had
+retired and the business was concluded--"And I shall feel so much more
+at rest now! For when I have talked it over with Angus I shall realise
+everything more clearly--he will advise me what to do--he is so much
+wiser than I am! And you will write to me and tell me all that is
+needful for me to know--shall I leave this paper?"--and she held up the
+document in which the list of Helmsley's various legacies was
+written--"Surely you ought to keep it?"
+
+Sir Francis smiled gravely.
+
+"I think not!" he said--"I think I must urge you to retain that paper on
+which my name is so generously remembered, in your own possession, Miss
+Deane. You understand, I suppose, that you are not _by the law_
+compelled to pay any of these legacies. They are left entirely to your
+own discretion. They merely represent the last purely personal wishes of
+my late friend, David Helmsley, and you must yourself decide whether
+you consider it practical to carry them out."
+
+She looked surprised.
+
+"But the personal wishes of the dead are more than any law" she
+exclaimed--"They are sacred. How could I"--and moved by a sudden impulse
+she laid her hand appealingly on his arm--"How could I neglect or fail
+to fulfil any one of them? It would be impossible!
+
+Responding to her earnest look and womanly gentleness, Sir Francis who
+had not forgotten the old courtesies once practised by gentlemen to
+women whom they honoured, raised the hand that rested so lightly on his
+arm, and kissed it.
+
+"I know" he said--"that it would be impossible for you to do what is not
+right and true and just! And you will need no advice from me save such
+as is purely legal and technical. Let me be your friend in these
+matters----"
+
+"And in others too,"--said Mary, sweetly--"I do hope you will not
+dislike me!"
+
+Dislike her? Well, well! If any mortal man, old or young, could
+"dislike" a woman with a face like hers and eyes so tender, such an one
+would have to be a criminal or a madman! In a little while they fell
+into conversation as naturally as if they had known each other for
+years: Sir Francis listening with profound interest to the story of his
+old friend's last days. And presently, despatching a telegram to his
+wife to say that he was detained in the city by pressing business, he
+took Mary out with him to a quiet little restaurant where he dined with
+her, and finally saw her off from Paddington station by the midnight
+train for Minehead. Nothing would induce her to stay in London,--her one
+aim and object in life now was to return to Weircombe and explain
+everything to Angus as quickly as possible. And when the train had gone,
+Sir Francis left the platform in a state of profound abstraction, and
+was driven home in his brougham feeling more like a sentimentalist than
+a lawyer.
+
+"Extraordinary!" he ejaculated--"The most extraordinary thing I ever
+heard of in my life? But I knew--I felt that Helmsley would dispose of
+his wealth in quite an unexpected way! Now I wonder how the man--Mary
+Deane's lover--will take it? I wonder! But what a woman she is!--how
+beautiful!--how simple and honest--above all how purely womanly!--with
+all the sweet grace and gentleness which alone commands, and ever will
+command man's adoration! Helmsley must have been very much at peace and
+happy in his last days! Yes!--the sorrowful 'king' of many millions must
+have at last found the treasure he sought and which he considered more
+precious than all his money! For Solomon was right: 'If a man would give
+all the substance of his house for love, it would be utterly
+contemned!'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At Weircombe next day there was a stiff gale of wind blowing inland, and
+the village, with its garlands and pyramids of summer blossom, was swept
+from end to end by warm, swift, salty gusts, that bent the trees and
+shook the flowers in half savage, half tender sportiveness, while the
+sea, shaping itself by degrees into "wild horses" of blue water bridled
+with foam, raced into the shore with ever-increasing hurry and fury. But
+notwithstanding the strong wind, there was a bright sun, and a dazzling
+blue sky, scattered over with flying masses of cloud, like flocks of
+white birds soaring swiftly to some far-off region of rest. Everything
+in nature looked radiant and beautiful,--health and joy were exhaled
+from every breath of air--and yet in one place--one pretty
+rose-embowered cottage, where, until now, the spirit of content had held
+its happy habitation, a sudden gloom had fallen, and a dark cloud had
+blotted out all the sunshine. Mary's little "home sweet home" had been
+all at once deprived of sweetness,--and she sat within it like a
+mournful castaway, clinging to the wreck of that which had so long been
+her peace and safety. Tired out by her long night journey and lack of
+sleep, she looked very white and weary and ill--and Angus Reay, sitting
+opposite to her, looked scarcely less worn and weary than herself. He
+had met her on her return from London at the Minehead station, with all
+the ardour and eagerness of a lover and a boy,--and he had at once seen
+in her face that something unexpected had happened,--something that had
+deeply affected her--though she had told him nothing, till on their
+arrival home at the cottage, she was able to be quite alone with him.
+Then he learned all. Then he knew that "old David" had been no other
+than David Helmsley the millionaire,--the very man whom his first love,
+Lucy Sorrel, had schemed and hoped to marry. And he realised--and God
+alone knew with what a passion of despair he realised it!--that
+Mary--his bonnie Mary--his betrothed wife--had been chosen to inherit
+those very millions which had formerly stood between him and what he had
+then imagined to be his happiness. And listening to the strange story,
+he had sunk deeper and deeper into the Slough of Despond, and now sat
+rigidly silent, with all the light gone out of his features, and all the
+ardour quenched in his eyes. Mary looking at him, and reading every
+expression in that dark beloved face, felt the tears rising thickly in
+her throat, but bravely suppressed them, and tried to smile.
+
+"I knew you would be sorry when you heard all about it, Angus,"--she
+said--"I felt sure you would! I wish it had happened differently--" Here
+she stopped, and taking up the little dog Charlie, settled him on her
+knee. He was whimpering to be caressed, and she bent over his small
+silky head to hide the burning drops that fell from her eyes despite
+herself. "If it could only be altered!--but it can't--and the only thing
+to do is to give the money away to those who need it as quickly as
+possible----"
+
+"Give it away!" answered Angus, bitterly--"Good God! Why, to give away
+seven or eight millions of money in the right quarters would occupy one
+man's lifetime!"
+
+His voice was harsh, and his hand clenched itself involuntarily as he
+spoke. She looked at him in a vague fear.
+
+"No, Mary,"--he said--"You can't give it away--not as you imagine.
+Besides,--there is more than money--there is the millionaire's
+house--his priceless pictures, his books--his yacht--a thousand and one
+other things that he possessed, and which now belong to you. Oh Mary! I
+wish to God I had never seen him!"
+
+She trembled.
+
+"Then perhaps--you and I would never have met," she murmured.
+
+"Better so!" and rising, he paced restlessly up and down the little
+kitchen--"Better that I should never have loved you, Mary, than be so
+parted from you! By money, too! The last thing that should ever have
+come between us! Money! Curse it! It has ruined my life!"
+
+She lifted her tear-wet eyes to his.
+
+"What do you mean, Angus?" she asked, gently--"Why do you talk of
+parting? The money makes no difference to our love!"
+
+"No difference? No difference? Oh Mary, don't you see!" and he turned
+upon her a face white and drawn with his inward anguish--"Do you
+think--can you imagine that I would marry a woman with millions of
+money--I--a poor devil, with nothing in the world to call my own, and no
+means of livelihood save in my brain, which, after all, may turn out to
+be quite of a worthless quality! Do you think I would live on your
+bounty? Do you think I would accept money from you? Surely you know me
+better! Mary, I love you! I love you with my whole heart and soul!--but
+I love you as the poor working woman whose work I hoped to make easier,
+whose life it was my soul's purpose to make happy--but,--you have
+everything you want in the world now!--and I--I am no use to you! I can
+do nothing for you--nothing!--you are David Helmsley's heiress, and with
+such wealth as he has left you, you might marry a prince of the royal
+blood if you cared--for princes are to be bought,--like anything else in
+the world's market! But you are not of the world--you never were--and
+now--now--the world will take you! The world leaves nothing alone that
+has any gold upon it!"
+
+She listened quietly to his passionate outburst. She was deadly pale,
+and she pressed Charlie close against her bosom,--the little dog, she
+thought half vaguely, would love her just as well whether she was rich
+or poor.
+
+"How can the world take me, Angus?" she said--"Am I not yours?--all
+yours!--and what has the world to do with me? Do not speak in such a
+strange way--you hurt me----"
+
+"I know I hurt you!" he said, stopping in his restless walk and facing
+her--"And I know I should always hurt you--now! If David Helmsley had
+never crossed our path, how happy we might have been----"
+
+She raised her hand reproachfully.
+
+"Do not blame the poor old man, even in a thought, Angus!" she
+said--"His dream--his last hope was that we two might be happy! He
+brought us together,--and I am sure, quite sure, that he hoped we would
+do good in the world with the money he has left us----"
+
+"Us!" interrupted Angus, meaningly.
+
+"Yes,--surely us! For am I not to be one with you? Oh Angus, be patient,
+be gentle! Think kindly of him who meant so much kindness to those whom
+he loved in his last days!" She smothered a rising sob, and went on
+entreatingly--"He has forgotten no one who was friendly to
+him--and--and--Angus--remember!--remember in that paper I have shown to
+you--that list of bequests, which he has entrusted me to pay, he has
+left me to you, Angus!--me--with all I possess----"
+
+She broke off, startled by the sorrow in his eyes.
+
+"It is a legacy I cannot accept!" he said, hoarsely, his voice trembling
+with suppressed emotion--"I cannot take it--even though you, the most
+precious part of it, are the dearest thing to me in the world! I cannot!
+This horrible money has parted us, Mary! More than that, it has robbed
+me of my energy for work--I cannot work without you--and I must give you
+up! Even if I could curb my pride and sink my independence, and take
+money which I have not earned, I should never be great as a
+writer--never be famous. For the need of patience and grit would be
+gone--I should have nothing to work for--no object in view--no goal to
+attain. Don't you see how it is with me? And so--as things have turned
+out--I must leave Weircombe at once--I must fight this business through
+by myself----"
+
+"Angus!" and putting Charlie gently down, she rose from her chair and
+came towards him, trembling--"Do you mean--do you really mean that all
+is over between us?--that you will not marry me?"
+
+He looked at her straightly.
+
+"I cannot!" he said--"Not if I am true to myself as a man!"
+
+"You cannot be true to _me_, as a woman?"
+
+He caught her in his arms and held her there.
+
+"Yes--I can be so true to you, Mary, that as long as I live I shall love
+you! No other woman shall ever rest on my heart--here--thus--as you are
+resting now! I will never kiss another woman's lips as I kiss yours
+now!" And he kissed her again and again--"But, at the same time, I will
+never live upon your wealth like a beggar on the bounty of a queen! I
+will never accept a penny at your hands! I will go away and work--and
+if possible, will make the fame I have dreamed of--but I will never
+marry you, Mary--never! That can never be!" He clasped her more closely
+and tenderly in his arms--"Don't--don't cry, dear! You are tired with
+your long journey--and--and--with all the excitement and trouble. Lie
+down and rest awhile--and--don't--don't worry about me! You deserve your
+fortune--you will be happy with it by and by, when you find out how much
+it can do for you, and what pleasures you can have with it--and life
+will be very bright for you--I'm sure it will! Mary--don't cling to me,
+darling!--it--it unmans me!--and I must be strong--strong for your sake
+and my own"--here he gently detached her arms from about his
+neck--"Good-bye, dear!--you must--you must let me go!--God bless you!"
+
+As in a dream she felt him put her away from his embrace--the cottage
+door opened and closed--he was gone.
+
+Vaguely she looked about her. There was a great sickness at her
+heart--her eyes ached, and her brain was giddy. She was tired,--very
+tired--and hardly knowing what she did, she crept like a beaten and
+wounded animal into the room which had formerly been her own, but which
+she had so long cheerfully resigned for Helmsley's occupation and better
+comfort,--and there she threw herself upon the bed where he had died,
+and lay for a long time in a kind of waking stupor.
+
+"Oh, dear God, help me!" she prayed--"Help me to bear it! It is so
+hard--so hard!--to have won the greatest joy that life can give--and
+then--to lose it all!"
+
+She closed her eyes,--they were hot and burning, and now no tears
+relieved the pressure on her brain. By and by she fell into a heavy
+slumber. As the afternoon wore slowly away, Mrs. Twitt, on neighbourly
+thoughts intent, came up to the cottage, eager to hear all the news
+concerning "old David"--but she found the kitchen deserted; and peeping
+into the bedroom adjoining, saw Mary lying there fast asleep, with
+Charlie curled up beside her.
+
+"She's just dead beat and tired out for sure!" and Mrs. Twitt stole
+softly away again on tip-toe. "'Twould be real cruel to wake her. I'll
+put a bit on the kitchen fire to keep it going, and take myself off.
+There's plenty of time to hear all the news to-morrow."
+
+So, being left undisturbed, Mary slept on and on--and when she at last
+awoke it was quite dark. Dark save for the glimmer of the moon which
+shone with a white vividness through the lattice window--shedding on the
+room something of the same ghostly light as on the night when Helmsley
+died. She sat up, pressing her hands to her throbbing temples,--for a
+moment she hardly knew where she was. Then, with a sudden rush of
+recollection, she realised her surroundings--and smiled. She was one of
+the richest women in the world!--and--without Angus--one of the poorest!
+
+"But he does not need me so much as I need him!" she said aloud--"A man
+has so many thing to live for; but a woman has only one--love!"
+
+She rose from the bed, trembling a little. She thought she saw "old
+David" standing near the door,--how pale and cold he seemed!--what a
+sorrow there was in his eyes! She stretched out her arms to the fancied
+phantom.
+
+"Don't,--don't be unhappy, David dear!" she said--"You meant all for the
+best--I know--I know! But even you, old as you were, tried to find some
+one to care for you--and you see--surely in Heaven you see how hard it
+is for me to have found that some one, and then to lose him! But you
+must not grieve!--it will be all right!"
+
+Mechanically she smoothed her tumbled hair--and taking up Charlie from
+the bed where he was anxiously watching her, she went into the kitchen.
+A small fire was burning low--and she lit the lamp and set it on the
+table. A gust of wind rushed round the house, shaking the door and the
+window, then swept away again with a plaintive cry,--and pausing to
+listen, she heard the low, thunderous boom of the sea. Moving about
+almost automatically, she prepared Charlie's supper and gave it to him,
+and slipping a length of ribbon through his collar, tied him securely to
+a chair. The little animal was intelligent enough to consider this an
+unusual proceeding on her part--and as a consequence of the impression
+it made upon his canine mind, refused to take his food. She saw
+this--but made no attempt to coax or persuade him. Opening a drawer in
+her oaken press, she took out pen, ink, and paper, and sitting down at
+the table wrote a letter. It was not a long letter--for it was finished,
+put in an envelope and sealed in less than ten minutes. Addressing it
+"To Angus"--she left it close under the lamp where the light might fall
+upon it. Then she looked around her. Everything was very quiet. Charlie
+alone was restless--and sat on his tiny haunches, trembling nervously,
+refusing to eat, and watching her every movement. She stooped suddenly
+and kissed him--then without hat or cloak, went out, closing the cottage
+door behind her.
+
+What a night it was! What a scene of wild sky splendour! Overhead the
+moon, now at the full, raced through clouds of pearl-grey, lightening to
+milky whiteness, and the wind played among the trees as though with
+giant hands, bending them to and fro like reeds, and rustling through
+the foliage with a swishing sound like that of falling water. The ripple
+of the hill-torrent was almost inaudible, overwhelmed as it was by the
+roar of the gale and the low thunder of the sea--and Mary, going swiftly
+up the "coombe" to the churchyard, was caught by the blast like a leaf,
+and blown to and fro, till all her hair came tumbling about her face and
+almost blinded her eyes. But she scarcely heeded this. She was not
+conscious of the weather--she knew nothing of the hour. She saw the
+moon--the white, cold moon, staring at her now and then between
+pinnacles of cloud--and whenever it gleamed whitely upon her path, she
+thought of David Helmsley's dead face--its still smile--its peacefully
+closed eyelids. And with that face ever before her, she went to his
+grave. A humble grave--with the clods of earth still fresh and brown
+upon it--the chosen grave of "one of the richest men in the world!" She
+repeated this phrase over and over again to herself, not knowing why she
+did so. Then she knelt down and tried to pray, but could find no
+words--save "O God, bless my dear love, and make him happy!" It was
+foolish to say this so often,--God would be tired of it, she thought
+dreamily--but--after all--there was nothing else to pray for! She rose,
+and stood a moment--thinking--then she said aloud--"Good-night, David!
+Dear old David, you meant to make me so happy! Good-night! Sleep well!"
+
+Something frightened her at this moment,--a sound--or a shadow on the
+grass--and she uttered a cry of terror. Then, turning, she rushed out of
+the churchyard, and away--away up the hills, towards the rocks that
+over-hung the sea.
+
+Meanwhile, Angus Reay, feverish and miserable, had been shut up in his
+one humble little room for hours, wrestling with himself and trying to
+work out the way in which he could best master and overcome what he
+chose to consider the complete wreck of his life at what had promised
+to be its highest point of happiness. He could not shake himself free of
+the clinging touch of Mary's arms--her lovely, haunting blue eyes looked
+at him piteously out of the very air. Never had she been to him so
+dear--so unutterably beloved!--never had she seemed so beautiful as now
+when he felt that he must resign all claims of love upon her.
+
+"For she will be sought after by many a better man than myself,"--he
+said--"Even rich men, who do not need her millions, are likely to admire
+her--and why should I stand in her way?--I, who haven't a penny to call
+my own! I should be a coward if I kept her to her promise. For she does
+not know yet--she does not see what the possession of Helmsley's
+millions will mean to her. And by and bye when she does know she will
+change--she will be grateful to me for setting her free----"
+
+He paused, and the hot tears sprang to his eyes--"No--I am wrong!
+Nothing will change Mary! She will always be her sweet self--pure and
+faithful!--and she will do all the good with Helmsley's money that he
+believed and hoped she would. But I--I must leave her to it!"
+
+Then the thought came to him that he had perhaps been rough in speech to
+her that day--abrupt in parting from her--even unkind in overwhelming
+her with the force of his abnegation, when she was so tired with her
+journey--so worn out--so weary looking. Acting on a sudden impulse, he
+threw on his cap.
+
+"I will go and say good-night to her,"--he said--"For the last time!"
+
+He strode swiftly up the village street and saw through the cottage
+window that the lamp was lighted on the table. He knocked at the door,
+but there was no answer save a tiny querulous bark from Charlie. He
+tried the latch; it was unfastened, and he entered. The first object he
+saw was Charlie, tied to a chair, with a small saucer of untasted food
+beside him. The little dog capered to the length of his ribbon, and
+mutely expressed the absence of his kind mistress, while Angus,
+bewildered, looked round the deserted dwelling in amazement. All at once
+his eyes caught sight of the letter addressed to him, and he tore it
+open. It was very brief, and ran thus--
+
+    "My Dearest,
+
+    "When you read this, I shall be gone from you. I am sorry, oh, so
+    sorry, about the money--but it is not my fault that I did not know
+    who old David was. I hope now that everything will be right, when I
+    am out of the way. I did not tell you--but before I left London I
+    asked the kind gentleman, Sir Francis Vesey, to let me make a will
+    in case any accident happened to me on my way home. He arranged it
+    all for me very quickly--so that everything I possess, including all
+    the dreadful fortune that has parted you from me,--now belongs to
+    you. And you will be a great and famous man; and I am sure you will
+    get on much better without me than with me--for I am not clever, and
+    I should not understand how to live in the world as the world likes
+    to live. God bless you, darling! Thank you for loving me, who am so
+    unworthy of your love! Be happy! David and I will perhaps be able to
+    watch you from 'the other side,' and we shall be proud of all you
+    do. For you will spend those terrible millions in good deeds that
+    must benefit all the world, I am sure. That is what I hoped we might
+    perhaps have done together--but I see quite plainly now that it is
+    best you should be without me. My love, whom I love so much more
+    than I have ever dared to, say!--Good-bye!
+                                                        MARY."
+
+With a cry like that of a man in physical torture or despair, Angus
+rushed out of the house.
+
+"Mary! Mary!" he cried to the tumbling stream and the moonlit sky.
+"Mary!"
+
+He paused. Just then the clock in the little church tower struck ten.
+The village was asleep--and there was no sound of human life anywhere.
+The faint, subtle scent of sweetbriar stole on the air as he stood in a
+trance of desperate uncertainty--and as the delicate odour floated by, a
+rush of tears came to his eyes.
+
+"Mary!" he called again--"Mary!"
+
+Then all at once a fearful idea entered his brain that filled him as it
+were with a mad panic. Rushing up the coombe, he sprang across the
+torrent, and raced over the adjoining hill, as though racing for life.
+Soon in front of him towered the "Giant's Castle" Rock, and he ran up
+its steep ascent with an almost crazy speed. At the summit he halted
+abruptly, looking keenly from side to side. Was there any one there?
+No. There seemed to be no one. Chilled with a nameless horror, he stood
+watching--watching and listening to the crashing noise of the great
+billows as they broke against the rocks below. He raised his eyes to the
+heavens, and saw--almost unseeingly--a white cloud break asunder and
+show a dark blue space between,--just an azure setting for one brilliant
+star that shone out with a sudden flash like a signal. And then--then he
+caught sight of a dark crouching figure in the corner of the rocky
+platform over-hanging the sea,--a dear, familiar figure that even while
+he looked, rose up and advanced to the extreme edge with outstretched
+arms,--its lovely hair loosely flowing and flecked with glints of gold
+by the light of the moon. Nearer, nearer to the very edge of the dizzy
+height it moved--and Angus, breathless with terror, and fearing to utter
+a sound lest out of sudden alarm it should leap from its footing and be
+lost for ever, crept closer and ever closer. Closer still,--and he heard
+Mary's sweet voice murmuring plaintively--
+
+"I wish I did not love him so dearly! I wish the world were not so
+beautiful! I wish I could stay--but I must go--I must go!--"Here there
+was a little sobbing cry--"You are so deep and cruel, you sea!--you have
+drowned so many brave men! You will not be long in drowning poor me,
+will you?--I don't want to struggle with you! Cover me up quickly--and
+let me forget--oh, no, no! Dear God, don't let me forget Angus!--I want
+to remember him always--always!"
+
+She swayed towards the brink--one second more--and then, with a swift
+strong clasp and passionate cry Angus had caught her in her arms.
+
+"Mary! Mary, my love! My wife! Anything but that, Mary! Anything but
+that!"
+
+Heart to heart they stood, their arms entwined, clasping each other in a
+wild passion of tenderness,--Angus trembling in all his strong frame
+with the excitement and horror of the past moment, and Mary sobbing out
+all her weakness, weariness and gladness on his breast. Above their
+heads the bright star shone, pendant between the snowy wings of the
+dividing cloud, and the sound of the sea was as a sacred psalm of
+jubilation in their ears.
+
+"Thank God I came in time! Thank God I have you safe!" and Angus drew
+her closer and yet closer into his fervent embrace--"Oh Mary, my
+darling!--sweetest of women! How could you think of leaving me? What
+should I have done without you! Poverty or riches--either or neither--I
+care not which! But I cannot lose _you_, Mary! I cannot let my heavenly
+treasure go! Nothing else matters in all the world--I only want
+love--and you!"
+
+                              THE END
+
++---------------------------------------------------------------------+
+|                                                                     |
+| Transcriber's Notes                                                 |
+|                                                                     |
+| 1. Punctuation normalized to contemporary standards.                |
+|                                                                     |
+| 2. "Sorrel" was originally misspelled "Sorrell" on these pages:     |
+|     p. 15: "Mrs. Sorrel would be sorry"                             |
+|     p. 15: "Matt Sorrel never did anything"                         |
+|     p. 18: "Sorrel, I assure you!"                                  |
+|     p. 18: "Mrs. Sorrel peered at him"                              |
+|     p. 19: "Mrs. Sorrel did not attempt"                            |
+|     p. 20: "Mrs. Sorrel visibly swelled"                            |
+|                                                                     |
+| 3. Individual spelling corrections and context:                     |
+|     p. 30  pressent -> present ("always been present")              |
+|     p. 34  thresold -> threshold ("standing shyly on the thresold") |
+|     p. 44  repudiatel -> repudiated ("firmly repudiated")           |
+|     p. 77  temprary -> temporary ("such temporary pleasures")       |
+|     p. 82  kitting -> knitting ("went on kitting rapidly")          |
+|     p. 85  Brush -> Bush ("and Bill Bush")                          |
+|     p. 99  her -> he ("And he drew out")                            |
+|     p. 92  undisguisel -> undisguised ("undisguised admiration")    |
+|     p. 116 a -> I ("if I can")                                      |
+|     p. 147 Wothram -> Wrotham ("answered Lord Wrotram")             |
+|     p. 157 scared -> scared ("scarred his vision")                  |
+|     p. 184 sungly -> snugly ("was snugly ensconced")                |
+|     p. 190 mintes -> minutes ("A few minutes scramble")             |
+|     p. 255 must -> much ("dare not talk much")                      |
+|     p. 270 acomplished -> accomplished ("fairly accomplished")      |
+|     p. 276 gentlemen -> gentleman ("rank of a gentleman")           |
+|     p. 335 me -> be ("There must be")                               |
+|     p. 359 severel -> several ("writing several letters")           |
+|     p. 372 childred -> children ("sees his children")               |
+|     p. 396 troubed -> troubled ("quite confused and troubled")      |
+|     p. 399 addessed -> addressed ("to whom it was addressed")       |
+|                                                                     |
++---------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Treasure of Heaven, by Marie Corelli
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TREASURE OF HEAVEN ***
+
+***** This file should be named 18449.txt or 18449.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/4/4/18449/
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/18449.zip b/18449.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1557fe1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18449.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7ce7817
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #18449 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18449)