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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Aladdin of London, by Sir Max Pemberton,
+Illustrated by Frank Parker
+
+
+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: Aladdin of London
+       or Lodestar
+
+
+Author: Sir Max Pemberton
+
+
+
+Release Date: March 15, 2009  [eBook #28326]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALADDIN OF LONDON***
+
+
+E-text prepared by David Garcia, Martin Pettit, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 28326-h.htm or 28326-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/3/2/28326/28326-h/28326-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/3/2/28326/28326-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+ALADDIN OF LONDON
+
+Or
+
+Lodestar
+
+by
+
+MAX PEMBERTON
+
+Author of "The Hundred Days," "A Gentleman's Gentleman," "Doctor
+Xavier," "The Lady Evelyn," etc., etc.
+
+Illustrated by Frank Parker
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York Empire Book Company Publishers
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: A very orgy of blood and slaughter; a carnival of
+whips.--Page 198]
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1907, by Max Pemberton.
+Entered at Stationers' Hall.
+All rights reserved.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                       PAGE
+
+     I. THE HALL BY UNION STREET                 5
+
+    II. ALBAN KENNEDY MAKES A PROMISE           14
+
+   III. WITHOUT THE GATE                        23
+
+    IV. THE CAVES                               33
+
+     V. DISMISSAL                               45
+
+    VI. THE STRANGER                            56
+
+   VII. THE HOUSE OF THE FIVE GABLES            62
+
+  VIII. ALBAN KENNEDY DINES                     71
+
+    IX. ANNA GESSNER                            79
+
+     X. RICHARD GESSNER DEBATES AN ISSUE        90
+
+    XI. WHIRLWIND                              109
+
+   XII. ALBAN SEES LIFE                        121
+
+  XIII. ALBAN REVISITS UNION STREET            132
+
+   XIV. THERE ARE STRANGERS IN THE CAVES       145
+
+    XV. A STUDY IN INDIFFERENCE                152
+
+   XVI. THE INTRUDER                           160
+
+  XVII. FATHER AND DAUGHTER                    167
+
+ XVIII. FATE IRONICAL                          182
+
+   XIX. THE PLOT HAS FAILED                    192
+
+    XX. ALBAN GOES TO WARSAW                   198
+
+   XXI. THE BOY IN THE BLUE BLOUSE             209
+
+  XXII. A FIGURE IN THE STRAW                  224
+
+ XXIII. AN INSTRUCTION TO THE POLICE           231
+
+  XXIV. THE DAWN OF THE DAY                    240
+
+   XXV. COUNT ZAMOYSKI SLEEPS                  247
+
+  XXVI. AN INTERLUDE IN PICCADILLY             259
+
+ XXVII. THE PRISON YARD                        268
+
+XXVIII. THE MEETING                            276
+
+  XXIX. ALBAN RETURNS TO LONDON                285
+
+   XXX. WE MEET OLD FRIENDS                    294
+
+  XXXI. THE MAN UPON THE PAVEMENT              303
+
+ XXXII. IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY                307
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+"You love another woman, Alban Kennedy, and
+you have wished to forget my daughter."        132
+
+A very orgy of blood and slaughter; a
+carnival of whips.                             198
+
+"Why do you come here?" she asked him wildly.  267
+
+
+
+
+ALADDIN OF LONDON
+
+OR
+
+LODESTAR
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE HALL BY UNION STREET
+
+
+The orator was not eloquent; but he had told a human story and all
+listened with respect. When he paused and looked upward it seemed to
+many that a light of justice shone upon his haggard face while the tears
+rolled unwiped down his ragged jerkin. His lank, unkempt hair, caught by
+the draught from the open doors at the far end of the hall, streamed
+behind him in grotesque profusion. His hands were clenched and his lips
+compressed. That which he had told to the sea of questioning faces below
+him was the story of his life. The name which he had uttered with an
+oath upon his lips was the name of the man who had deprived him of
+riches and of liberty. When he essayed to add a woman's name and to
+speak of the wrongs which had been done her, the power of utterance left
+him in an instant and he stood there gasping, his eyes toward the light
+which none but he could see; a prayer of gratitude upon his lips because
+he had found the man and would repay.
+
+Look down upon this audience and you shall see a heterogeneous assembly
+such as London alone of the cities can show you. The hall is a crazy
+building enough, not a hundred yards from the Commercial Road at
+Whitechapel. The time is the spring of the year 1903--the hour is eight
+o'clock at night. Ostensibly a meeting to discuss the news which had
+come that day from the chiefs of the Revolutionaries in Warsaw, the
+discussion had been diverted, as such discussions invariably are, to a
+recital of personal wrongs and of individual resolutions--even to mad
+talk of the conquest of the world and the crowning of King Anarchy. And
+to this the wild Asiatics and the sad-faced Poles listened alike with
+rare murmurs and odd contortions of limbs and body. Let Paul Boriskoff
+of Minsk be the orator and they knew that the red flag would fly. But
+never before has Boriskoff been seen in tears and the spectacle
+enchained their attention as no mere rhetoric could have done.
+
+A man's confession, if it be honest, must ever be a profoundly
+interesting document. Boriskoff, the Pole, did not hold these people
+spellbound by the vigor of his denunciation or the rhythmic chant of his
+anger. He had begun in a quiet voice, welcoming the news from Warsaw and
+the account of the assassination of the Deputy Governor Lebinsky. From
+that he passed to the old question, why does authority remain in any
+city at all? This London that sleeps so securely, does it ever awake to
+remember the unnumbered hosts which pitch their tents in the courts and
+alleys of Whitechapel? "Put rifles into the hands of a hundred thousand
+men who can be found to-night," he had said, "and where is your British
+Government to-morrow? The police--they would be but as dead leaves under
+the feet of a mighty multitude. The soldiers! Friends," he put it to
+them, "do you ever ask yourselves how many soldiers there are in the
+barracks of London to-night and what would happen to them if the people
+were armed? I say to you that the house would fall as a house of cards;
+the rich would flee; the poor would reign. And you who know this for a
+truth, what do you answer to me? That London harbors you, that London
+feeds you--aye, with the food of swine in the kennels of the dogs."
+
+Men nodded their heads to this and some of the women tittered behind
+their ragged shawls. They had heard it all so often--the grand assault
+by numbers; the rifle shots ringing out in the sleeping streets by
+Piccadilly; the sack of Park Lane; the flight of the Government; the
+downfall of what is and the establishment of what might be. If they
+believed it possible, they had sense enough to remember that a sacked
+city of amnesty would be the poorest tribute to their own sagacity. At
+least London did not flog them. Their wives and sisters were not here
+dragged to the police stations to be brutally lashed at the command of
+any underling they had offended. Applause for Boriskoff and his sound
+and fury might be interpreted as a concession to their vanity. "We could
+do all this," they seemed to say; "if we forbear, let London be
+grateful." As for Boriskoff, he had talked so many times in such a
+strain that a sudden change in voice and matter surprised them beyond
+words. What had happened to him, then? Was the fellow mad when he began
+to speak of the copper mines and the days of slavery he had spent
+therein?
+
+A hush fell upon the hall when the demagogue struck this unaccustomed
+note; rude gas flares shed an ugly yellow glow upon faces which
+everywhere asked an unspoken question. What had copper mines to do with
+the news from Warsaw, and what had they to do with this assembly?
+Presently, however, it came to the people that they were listening to
+the story of a wrong, that the pages of a human drama were being
+unfolded before them. In glowing words the speaker painted the miner's
+life and that of the stokers who kept the furnaces. What a living hell
+that labor had been. There were six operations in refining the copper,
+he said, and he had served years of apprenticeship to each of them.
+Hungry and faint and weary he had kept watch half the night at the
+furnace's door and returned to his home at dawn to see white faces half
+buried in the ragged beds of his house or to hear the child he loved
+crying for the food he could not bring. And in those night watches the
+great idea had come to him.
+
+"Friends," he said, "the first conception of the Meltka furnace was
+mine. The white heat of the night gave it to me; a child's cry, 'thou
+art my father and thou wilt save me,' was my inspiration. Some of you
+will have heard that there are smelting works to-day where the
+sulphurous acid, which copper pyrites supplies when it is roasted, is
+used for the manufacture of sulphuric acid. That was my discovery. Many
+have claimed it since, but the Meltka furnace was mine--as God is in
+heaven it was mine. Why, then, do I stand among you wanting bread, I who
+should own the riches of kings? My friends, I will tell you. A devil
+stole my secret from me and has traded it in the markets of the world.
+I trusted him. I was poor and he was rich. 'Sell for me and share my
+gains,' I said. His honor would be my protection, I thought, his
+knowledge my security. Ah, God, what reward had I? He named me to the
+police and their lashes cut the flesh from my body. I lay three years in
+the prison at Irkutsk and five at Saghalin. The white faces were turned
+to the earth they sprang from, my son was heard at the foot of God's
+throne when they bade me go and set my foot in Poland no more. This I
+knew even in that island of blood and death. Letters had come to me from
+my dear wife; the Committee had kept me informed even there at the end
+of the earth. I knew that my home had perished; that of all my family,
+my daughter Lois alone remained to me; I knew that the days of the
+tyranny were numbered and that I, even I, might yet have my work to do.
+Did they keep me from Poland? I tell you that I lived there three years
+in spite of them, searching for the man who should answer me. Maxim
+Gogol, where had he hidden himself? The tale at the mines was that he
+had gone to America, sold his interest and embarked in new ventures. I
+wrote to our friends in New York and they knew nothing of such a man. I
+had search made for him in Berlin, in Vienna and Paris. The years were
+not too swift for my patience, but the harvest went ungathered. I came
+to London and bent my neck to this yoke of starvation and eternal night.
+I have worked sixteen hours a day in the foul holds of ships that I
+might husband my desire and repay. Friends, ten days ago in London I
+passed the man I am seeking and knew him for my own. Maxim Gogol may
+hide from me no more. With these eyes have I seen him--ah, God give me
+strength to speak of it--with these eyes have I seen him, with these
+hands have I touched him, with this voice have I accused him. He lives
+and he is mine--to suffer as I have suffered, to repay as I have
+paid--until the eternal justice of God shall decide between us both."
+
+There would have been loud applause in any other assembly upon the
+conclusion of such an impassioned if verbally conventional an harangue;
+but these Asiatics who heard Paul Boriskoff, who watched the tears
+stream down his hollowed cheeks and beheld the face uplifted as in
+ecstasy, had no applause to give him. Had not they also suffered as he
+had suffered? What wrong of his had not been, in some phase or other, a
+wrong of theirs? How many of them had lost children well beloved, had
+known starvation and the sweater's block? Such sympathy as they had to
+give was rather the cold systematical pity of their order which ever
+made the individual's cause its own. This unknown Maxim Gogol, if he
+were indeed in London so much the worse for him. The chosen hand would
+strike him down when his hour had come--even if it were not the hand of
+the man he had wronged. In so far as Boriskoff betrayed intense emotion
+before them, it may be that they despised him. What nation had been made
+free by tears? How would weeping put bread into the children's mouths?
+This was the sentiment immediately expressed by a lank-haired Pole who
+followed the speaker. Let Paul Boriskoff write out his case and the
+Committee would consider it, he said. If Maxim Gogol were adjudged
+guilty, let him be punished. For himself he would spare neither man,
+woman, or child sheltered in the house of the oppressor. A story had
+been told to them of an unusual order. He did not wholly regret that
+Paul Boriskoff had not made a fortune, for, had he done so, he would not
+be a brother among them to-night. Let him be assured of their sympathy.
+The Committee would hear him when and where he wished.
+
+There were other speakers in a similar mood, but the immediate interest
+in the dramatic recital quickly evaporated. A little desultory talk was
+followed by the serving of vodki and of cups of steaming coffee to the
+women. The younger people at the far end of the hall, who had been
+admitted to hear the music which should justify the gathering, grew
+weary of waiting and pushed their way into the street. There they formed
+little companies to speak, not of the strange entertainment which had
+been provided for them, but of commonplace affairs--the elder women of
+infantile sufferings, the girls of the songs they had heard on Saturday
+at the Aldgate Empire or of the shocking taste in feathers of more
+favored rivals. But here and there a black-eyed daughter of Poland or a
+fair-haired Circassian edged away discreetly from the company and was as
+warily followed by the necessary male. The dirty street caught snatches
+of music-hall melodies. Windows were opened above and wit exchanged. A
+voice, that of a young girl evidently, asked what had become of the
+Hunter, and to this another voice replied immediately, as though
+greatly satisfied, that Alban Kennedy had gone down toward the High
+Street with Lois Boriskoff.
+
+"As if you didn't know, Chris. Gawsh, you should 'ave seen her feathers
+waggin' at the Union jess now. Fawther's took wiv the jumps, I hear, and
+Alb's gone to the Pav to give her hair. Oh, the fine gentleming--I seed
+his poor toes through his bloomin' boots this night, s'welp me Gawd I
+did."
+
+The admission was received with a shout of laughter from the window
+above, where a red-haired girl leaned pensively upon the rail of a
+broken balcony. The speaker, in her turn, moved away with a youth who
+asked her, with much unnecessary emphasis, "what the 'ell she had to do
+with Albey's feet and why she couldn't leave Chris Denham alone."
+
+"If I ain't 'xactly gawn on Russian taller myself, wot's agen Albey
+a-doin' of it," he asked authoritatively. "Leave the lidy alone and
+don't arst no questions. They say as the old man is took with spasms
+round at the Union. S'welp me if Albey ain't in luck--at his time of
+life too."
+
+He winked at the girl, who had put her arm boldly round his waist, and
+marched on with the proud consciousness that his cleverness had not
+failed to make a just impression. The red-haired girl of the pensive
+face still gazed dreamily down the court and her head inclined a little
+toward the earth as though she were listening for the sound of a
+footstep. Not only the dreamer of dreams in that den of squalor, this
+Alban Kennedy was her idol to-night as he had been the idol of fifty of
+her class since he came to live among them. What cared she for his
+ragged shoes or the frayed collar about his neck? Did not the whole
+community admit him to be a very aristocrat of aristocrats, a diamond of
+class in a quarry of ashes, a figure at once mysterious and heroical?
+And this knight of the East, what irony led him away with that
+white-faced Pole, Lois Boriskoff? What did he see in her? What was she
+to him?
+
+The pensive head was withdrawn sadly from the window at last. Silence
+fell in the dismal court. The Russians who had been breathing fire and
+vengeance were now eating smoked sturgeon and drinking vodki. A man
+played the fiddle to them and some danced. After all, life has something
+else than the story of wrong to tell us sometimes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ALBAN KENNEDY MAKES A PROMISE
+
+
+The boy and the girl halted together by one of the great lights at the
+corner of the Commercial Road and there they spoke of the strange
+confession which had just fallen from Paul Boriskoff's lips. Little
+Lois, white-faced as a mime at the theatre, her black hair tousled and
+unkempt, her eyes shining almost with the brightness of fever, declared
+all her heart to the gentle Alban and implored him for God's sake to
+take her from London and this pitiful home. He, as discreet as she was
+rash, pitied her from his heart, but would not admit as much.
+
+"If I could only speak Polish, Lois--but you know I can't," he said.
+"Bread and salt, that's about what I should get in your country--and
+perhaps be able to count the nails in the soles of my boots. What's the
+good of telling me all about it? I saw that your father was angry, but
+you people are always angry. And, little girl, he does his best for you.
+Never forget that--he would sooner lose anything on earth than you."
+
+"I don't believe it," said the girl, tossing her head angrily, "what's
+he care about anything but that ole machine of his which he says they
+stole from him? Ten hours have I been sewing to-day, Alb, and ten it
+will be to-morrow. Truth, dear, upon my soul. What's father care so long
+as the kettle boils and he can read the papers? And you're no
+better--you'd take me away if you were--right away from here to the
+gardens where he couldn't find me, and no one but you would ever find me
+any more. That's what you'd do if you were as I want you to be. But you
+ain't, Alb--you'll never care for any girl--now will you, Alb, dear?"
+
+She clutched his arm and pressed closely to him, regardless of
+passers-by so accustomed to love-making on the pavements that neither
+man nor woman turned a head because of it. Alban Kennedy, however, was
+frankly ashamed of the whole circumstance, and he pushed the girl away
+from him as though her very touch offended.
+
+"Look here, Lois, that's nonsense--let's go and see something, let's go
+into the New Empire for an hour. Your father will be all right when he's
+had a glass or two of vodki. You know he's always like this when there's
+been news from Warsaw. Let's go and hear a turn and then you can tell me
+what you want me to do."
+
+They walked on a little way, she clinging to his arm timidly and looking
+up often into his eyes as though for some expression of that affection
+she hungered for unceasingly. The "Court" had named them for lovers long
+ago, but the women declared that such an aristocrat as Alban Kennedy
+would look twice before he put his neck into Paul Boriskoff's
+matrimonial halter.
+
+"A lot of good the Empire will do me to-night," Lois exclaimed
+presently. "I feel more like dancing on my own grave than seeing other
+people do it. What with father's temper and your cold shoulder, Alb--"
+
+"Lois, that's unfair, dear; you know that I am sorry. But what can I do,
+what can any one do for men who talk such nonsense as those fellows in
+that hall? 'Seize London and the Government'--you said it was that,
+didn't you?--well, they're much more likely to get brain fever and wake
+up in the hospital. That's what I shall tell your father if he asks me.
+And, Lois, how can you and I talk about anything serious when I haven't
+a shilling to call my own and your father won't let you out of his sight
+lest he should want something. It will all be different soon--bad things
+always are. I shall make a fortune myself some day--I'm certain of it as
+though I had the money already in the bank. People who make fortunes
+always know that they are going to do so. I shall make a lot of money
+and then come back for you--just my little Lois sewing at the window,
+the same old dirty court, the same ragged fellows talking about sacking
+London, the same faces everywhere--but Lois unchanged and waiting for
+me--now isn't it that, dear, won't you be unchanged when I come back for
+you?"
+
+They stood for an instant in the shadow of a shuttered shop and, leaping
+up at his question, she lifted warm red lips to his own--and the girl of
+seventeen and the boy of mature twenty kissed as ardently as lovers
+newly sworn to eternal devotion.
+
+"I do love you, Alb," she cried, "I shall never love any other
+man--straight, my dear, though there ain't much use in a-telling you.
+Oh, Alb, if you meant it, you wouldn't leave me in this awful place;
+you'd take me away, darling, where I could see the fields and the
+gardens. I'd come, Alb, as true as death--I'd go this night if you arst
+me, straight away never to come back--if it were to sleep on the hard
+road and beg my bread from house to house--I'd go with you, Alb, as
+heaven hears me, I'd be an honest wife to you and you should never
+regret the day. What's to keep us, Alb, dear? Oh, we're fine rich, ain't
+we, both of us, you with your fifteen shillings from the yard and me
+with nine and six from the fronts. Gawd's truth, Rothschild ain't
+nothink to you and me, Alb, when we've the mind to play the great lidy
+and gentleman. Do you know that I lay abed some nights and try to think
+as it's a kerridge and pair and you a-sittin' beside of me and nothink
+round us but the green fields and the blue sky, and nothink never more
+to do but jess ride on with your hand in mine and the sun to shine upon
+us. Lord, what a thing it is to wake up then, Alb, and 'ear the caller
+cryin' five and see my father like a white ghost at the door. And that's
+wot's got to go on to the end--you know it is; you put me off 'cause you
+think it'll please me, same as you put Chris Denham off when you danced
+with her at the Institoot Ball. You won't never love no girl truly,
+Alb--it isn't in you, my dear. You're born above us and we never shall
+forget it, not none of us as I'm alive to-night."
+
+She turned away her head to hide the tears gathering in her black eyes,
+while Alban's only answer to her was a firm pressure upon the little
+white hand he held in his own and a quicker step upon the crowded
+pavement. Perhaps he understood that the child spoke the truth, but of
+this he could not be a wise judge. His father had been a poor East End
+parson, his mother was the daughter of an obstinate and flinty Sheffield
+steel factor, who first disowned her for marrying a curate and then went
+through the bankruptcy court as a protest against American competition.
+So far Alban knew himself to be an aristocrat--and yet how could he
+forget that among that very company of Revolutionaries he had so lately
+quitted there were sons of men whose nobility was older than Russia
+herself. That he understood so much singled him out immediately as a
+youth of strange gifts and abnormal insight--but such, indeed, he was,
+and as such he knew himself to be.
+
+"I won't quarrel with you, Lois, though I see that you wish it, dear,"
+he said presently, "you know I don't care for Chris Denham and what's
+the good of talking about her. Let's go and cheer up--I'm sure we can do
+with a bit and that's the plain truth, now isn't it, Lois?"
+
+He squeezed her arm and drew her closer to him. At the Empire they found
+two gallery seats and watched a Japanese acrobat balance himself upon
+five hoops and a ladder. A lady in far from immaculate evening dress,
+who sang of a flowing river which possessed eternal and immutable
+qualities chiefly concerned with love and locks and unswerving fidelity,
+appealed to little Lois' sentiment and she looked up at Alb whenever the
+refrain recurred as much as to say, "That is how I should love you." So
+many other couples about them were squeezing hands and cuddling waists
+that no one took any notice of their affability or thought it odd. A
+drunken sailor behind them kept asking the company with maudlin
+reiteration what time the last train left for Plymouth, but beyond
+crying "hush" nobody rebuked him. In truth, the young people had come
+there to make love, and when the lights were turned down and the curtain
+of the biograph revealed, the place seemed paradise itself.
+
+Lois crept very close to Alban during this part of the entertainment,
+nor did he repulse her. Moments there were undeniably when he had a
+great tenderness toward her; moments when she lay in his embrace as some
+pure gift from this haven of darkness and of evil, a fragile helpless
+figure of a girlhood he idolized. Then, perchance, he loved her as Lois
+Boriskoff hungered for love, with the supreme devotion, the abject
+surrender of his manhood.
+
+No meaner taint of passion inspired these outbreaks, nor might the most
+critical student of character have found them blameworthy. Alban
+Kennedy's rule of life defied scrutiny. His ignorance was often that of
+a child, his faith that of a trusting woman--and yet he had traits of
+strength which would have done no dishonor to those in the highest
+places. Lois loved him and there were hours when he responded wholly to
+her love and yet had no more thought of evil in his response than of
+doing any of those forbidding things against which his dead mother had
+schooled him so tenderly. Here were two little outcasts from the
+civilized world--why should they not creep close together for that
+sympathy and loving kindness which destiny had denied them.
+
+"I darsn't be late to-night, Alb," Lois said when the biograph was over
+and they had left the hall, "you know how father was. I must go back and
+get his supper."
+
+"Did he really mean all that about the copper mines and his invention?"
+Alban asked her in his practical way, and added, "Of course I couldn't
+understand much of it, but I think it's pretty awful to see a man
+crying, don't you, Lois?"
+
+"Father does that often," she rejoined, "often when he's alone. I might
+not be in the world at all, Alb, for all he thinks of me. Some one
+robbed him, you know, and just lately he thinks he's found the man in
+London. What's the good of it all--who's goin' to help a poor Pole get
+his rights back? Oh, yer bloomin' law and order, a lot we sees of you in
+Thrawl Street, so help me funny. That's what I tell father when he talks
+about his rights. We'll take ours home with us to Kingdom come and
+nobody know much about 'em when we get there. A sight of good it is
+cryin' out for them in this world, Alb--now ain't it, dear?"
+
+Alban was in the habit of taking questions very seriously, and he took
+this one just as though she had put it in the best of good faith.
+
+"I can't make head or tail of things, Lois," he said stoically, "fact
+is, I've given up trying. Why does my father die without sixpence after
+serving God all his life, and another man, who has served the devil, go
+under worth thousands? That's what puzzles me. And they tell us it will
+all come right some day, just as we're all going to drive motor-cars
+when the Socialists get in. Wouldn't I be selling mine cheap to-night if
+anyone came along and offered me five pounds for it--wouldn't I say
+'take it' and jolly glad to get the money. Why, Lois, dear, think what
+we would do with five pounds."
+
+"Go to Southend for Easter, Alb."
+
+"Buy you a pretty ring and take you to the Crystal Palace."
+
+"Drive a pony to Epping, Alb, and come back in the moonlight."
+
+"Down to Brighton for the Saturday and two in the water together."
+
+"Flash it on 'em in Thrawl Street and make Chris Denham cry."
+
+They laughed together and cuddled joyously at a dream so bewildering.
+Their united wealth that night was three shillings, of which Alb had two
+and four pence. What untold possibilities in five pounds, what sunshine
+and laughter and joy. Ah, that the dark court should be waiting for
+them, the squalor, the misery, the woe of it. Who can wonder that the
+shadows so soon engulfed them?
+
+"Kiss me, Alb," she said at the corner, "shall I see you to-morrow
+night, dear?"
+
+"Outside the Pav at nine. You can tell me how your father took it. Say I
+hope he'll get his rights. I think he always liked me rather, Lois."
+
+"A sight more than ever he liked me, Alb, and that's truth. Ah, my dear,
+you'll take me away from here some day, won't you, Alb? You'll take me
+away where none shall ever know, where I shall see the world and forget
+what I have been. Kiss me, Alb--I'm that low to-night, dear, I could cry
+my heart out."
+
+He obeyed her instantly. A voice of human suffering never failed to make
+an instant appeal to him.
+
+"As true as God's in heaven, if ever I get rich, I'll come first to Lois
+with the story," he said--and so he bent and kissed her on the lips as
+gently as though she had been his little sister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+WITHOUT THE GATE
+
+
+Alban's garret lay within a stone's throw of the tenement occupied by
+the Boriskoffs; but, in truth, it knew very little of him. They called
+him "The Hunter," in the courts and alleys round about; and this was as
+much as to say that his habits were predatory. He loved to roam afar in
+quest, not of material booty, but of mental sensation. An imagination
+that was simply wonderful helped him upon his way. He had but to stand
+at the gate of a palace to become in an instant one of those who peopled
+it. He could create himself king, or prince, or bishop as the mood took
+him. If a holiday sent him to the theatre, he was the hero or villain at
+his choice. In church he would preach well-imagined sermons to
+spellbound listeners. The streets of the West End were his true
+world--the gate without the scene of his mental pleasures.
+
+He had no friends among the youths and lads of Thrawl Street and its
+environment, nor did he seek them. Those who hung about him were soon
+repelled by his secretive manner and a diffidence which was little more
+than natural shyness. If he fell now and then into the speech of the
+alleys, constant association was responsible for the lapse. Sometimes,
+it is true, an acquaintance would defy the snub and thrust himself
+stubbornly upon the unwilling wanderer. Alban was never unkind to such
+as these. He pitied these folk from his very heart; but before them all,
+he pitied himself.
+
+His favorite walk was to the precincts of Westminster School, where he
+had spent two short terms before his father died. The influence of this
+life had never quite passed away. Alban would steal across London by
+night and stand at the gate of Little Dean's Yard as though wondering
+still what justice or right of destiny had driven him forth. He would
+haunt St. Vincent's Square on Saturday afternoons, and, taking his stand
+among all the little ragged boys who watched the cricket or football, he
+would, in imagination, become a "pink" delighting the multitude by a
+century or kicking goals so many that the very Press was startled. In
+the intervals he revisited the Abbey and tried to remember the service
+as he had known it when a schoolboy. The sonorous words of Tudor divines
+remained within his memory, but the heart of them had gone out. What had
+he to be thankful for now? Did he not earn his bitter bread by a task so
+laborious that the very poor might shun it. His father would have made
+an engineer of him if he had lived--so much had been quite decided. He
+could tell you the names of lads who had been at Westminster with him
+and were now at Oxford or Cambridge enjoying those young years which no
+subsequent fortune can recall. What had he done to the God who ruled the
+world that these were denied to him? Was he not born a gentleman, as the
+world understands the term? Had he not worn good clothes, adored a
+loving mother, been educated in his early days in those vain
+accomplishments which society demands from its children? And now he was
+an "East-ender," down at heel and half starved; and there were not three
+people in all the city who would care a straw whether he lived or died.
+
+This was the lad who went westward that night of the meeting in Union
+Street, and such were his frequent thoughts. None would have taken him
+for what he was; few who passed him by would have guessed what his
+earlier years had been. The old gray check suit, frayed at the edges,
+close buttoned and shabby, was just such a suit as any loafer out of
+Union Street might have worn. His hollow cheeks betrayed his poverty. He
+walked with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his shoulders
+slightly bent, his eyes roving from face to face as he numbered the
+wayfarers and speculated upon their fortunes and their future. Two or
+three friends who hailed him were answered by a quickening of his step
+and a curt nod of the handsome head. Alb's "curl," a fair flaxen curl
+upon a broad white forehead, had become a jest in Thrawl Street. "'E
+throws it at yer," the youths said--and this was no untrue description.
+
+Alban walked swiftly up the Whitechapel Road and was going on by Aldgate
+Station when the Reverend "Jimmy" Dale, as all the district called the
+cheery curate of St. Wilfred's Church, slapped him heartily on the
+shoulder and asked why on earth he wasted the precious hours when he
+might be in bed and asleep.
+
+"Now, my dear fellow, do you really think it is wise? I am here because
+I have just been to one of those exhibitions of unadorned gluttony they
+call a City Banquet. Do you know, Alban, that I don't want to hear of
+food and drink again for a month. It's perfectly terrible to think that
+men can do such things when I could name five hundred children who will
+go wanting bread to-morrow."
+
+Alban rejoined in his own blunt way.
+
+"Then why do you go?" was his disconcerting question.
+
+"To beg of them, that's why I go. They are not uncharitable--I will hold
+to it anywhere. And, I suppose, from a worldly point of view, it was a
+very good dinner. Now, let us walk back together, Alban. I want to talk
+to you very much."
+
+"About what, sir?"
+
+"Oh, about lots of things. Why don't you join the cricket club, Alban?"
+
+"I haven't got the money, sir."
+
+"But surely--five shillings, my dear boy--and only once a year."
+
+"If you haven't got the five shillings, it doesn't make any difference
+how many times a year it is."
+
+"Well, well, I think I must write to Sir James Hogg about you. He was
+telling me to-night--"
+
+"If he sent me the money, I'd return it to him. I'm not a beggar, Mr.
+Dale."
+
+"But are you not very proud, Alban?"
+
+"Would you let anybody give you five shillings--for yourself, Mr. Dale?"
+
+"That would depend how he offered it. In the plate I should certainly
+consider it acceptable."
+
+"Yes, but sent to you in a letter because you were hard up, you know.
+I'm certain you wouldn't. No decent fellow would. When I can afford to
+play cricket, I'll play it. Good night, Mr. Dale. I'm not going back
+just now."
+
+The curate shook his head protestingly.
+
+"Do you know it is twelve o'clock, Alban?"
+
+"Just the time the fun begins--in the world--over there, sir."
+
+He looked up at the Western sky aglow with that crimson haze which
+stands for the zenith of London's night. The Reverend "Jimmy" Dale had
+abandoned long ago the idea of understanding Alban Kennedy. "He will
+either die in a lunatic asylum or make his fortune," he said to
+himself--and all subsequent happenings did not alter this dogged
+opinion. The fellow was either a lunatic or an original. "Jimmy" Dale,
+who had rowed in the Trinity second boat, did not wholly appreciate
+either species.
+
+"What is the world to you, Alban--is not sleep better?"
+
+"In a garret, sir, where you cannot breathe?"
+
+"Oh, come, we must all be a little patient in adversity. I saw Mr.
+Browning at the works yesterday. He tells me that the firm is very
+pleased with you--you'll get a rise before long, Alban."
+
+"Half a crown for being good. Enough to sole my boots. When I have shops
+of my own, I'll let the men live to begin with, sir. The shareholders
+can come afterwards."
+
+"It would never do to preach that at a city dinner."
+
+"Ah, sir, what's preached at a city dinner and what's true in Thrawl
+Street, Whitechapel, don't ride a tandem together. Ask a hungry man
+whether he'll have his mutton boiled or roast, and he'll tell you he
+doesn't care a damn. It's just the same with me--whether I sleep in a
+cellar or a garret, what's the odds? I'll be going on now, sir. You must
+feel tired after so much eating."
+
+He turned, but not rudely, and pushing his way adroitly through the
+throng about the station disappeared in a moment. The curate shook his
+head and resumed his way moodily eastward, wondering if his momentary
+lapse from the straight and narrow way of self-sacrificing were indeed a
+sin. After all, it had been a very good dinner, and a man would be
+unwise to be influenced by a boy's argument. The Reverend "Jimmy" was a
+thousand miles from being a hypocrite, as his life's work showed, and
+this matter of the dinner really troubled him exceedingly. How many of
+his parishioners could have been fed for such an expenditure? On the
+other hand, city companies did a very great deal of good, and it would
+be churlish to object to their members dining together two or three
+times a year. In the end, he blamed the lad, Alban, for putting such
+thoughts into his head.
+
+"The fellow's off to sleep in Hyde Park, I suppose," he said to himself,
+"or in one of his pirate's caves. What a story he could write if he had
+the talent. What a freak of chance which set him down here amongst
+us--well born and educated and yet as much a prisoner as the poorest.
+Some day we shall hear of him--I am convinced of it. We shall hear of
+Alban Kennedy and claim his acquaintance as wise people do when a man
+has made a success."
+
+He carried the thought home with him, but laid it aside when he entered
+the clergy house, dark and stony and cheerless at such an hour. Alban
+was just halfway down the Strand by that time and debating whether he
+should sleep in the "caves," as he called those wonderful subterranean
+passages under Pall Mall and the Haymarket, or chance the climate upon a
+bench in Hyde Park. A chilly night of April drove him to the former
+resolution and he passed on quickly; by the theatres now empty of their
+audiences; through Trafalgar Square, where the clubs and the hotels were
+still brilliantly lighted; up dark Cockspur Street; through St. James'
+Square; and so to an abrupt halt at the door of a great house, open to
+the night and dismissing its guests.
+
+Alban despised himself for doing it, but he could never resist the
+temptation of staring through the windows of any mansion where a party
+happened to be held. The light and life of it all made a sure appeal to
+him. He could criticise the figures of beautiful women and remain
+ignorant of the impassable abyss between their sphere and his own.
+Sometimes, he would try to study the faces thus revealed to him, as in
+the focus of a vision, and to say, "That woman is utterly vain," or
+again, "There is a doll who has not the sense of an East End flower
+girl." In a way he despised their ignorance of life and its terrible
+comedies and tragedies. Little Lois Boriskoff, he thought, must know
+more of human nature than any woman in those assemblies where, as the
+half-penny papers told him, cards and horses and motor-cars were the
+subjects chiefly talked about. It delighted him to imagine the abduction
+of one of these society beauties and her forcible detention for a month
+in Thrawl Street. How she would shudder and fear it all--and yet what
+human lessons might not she carry back with her. Let them show him a
+woman who could face such an ordeal unflinchingly and he would fall in
+love with her himself. The impertinence of his idea never once dawned
+upon him. He knew that his father's people had been formerly well-to-do
+and that his mother had often talked of birth and family. "I may be
+better than some of them after all," he reflected; and this was his
+armor against humiliation. What did money matter? The fine idealist of
+twenty, with a few coppers in his pocket, declared stoically that money
+was really of no consequence at all.
+
+He lingered some five minutes outside the great house in St. James'
+Square, watching the couples in the rooms above, and particularly
+interested in one face which appeared in, and disappeared from, a
+brilliantly lighted alcove twice while he was standing there. A certain
+grace of girlhood attended this apparition; the dress was rich and
+costly and exquisitely made; but that which held Alban's closer
+attention was the fact that the wearer of it unquestionably was a Pole,
+and not unlike little Lois Boriskoff herself. He would not say, indeed,
+that the resemblance was striking--it might have been merely that of
+nationality. When the girl appeared for the second time, he admitted
+that the comparison was rather wild. None the less, he liked to think
+that she resembled Lois and might also have heard the news from Warsaw
+to-day. Evidently she was the daughter of some rich foreigner in London,
+for she talked and moved with Continental animation and grace. The type
+of face had always made a sure appeal to Alban. He liked those broad
+contrasts of color; the clear, almost white, skin; the bright red lips;
+the open expressive eyes fringed by deep and eloquent lashes. This
+unknown was taller than little Lois certainly--she had a maturer figure
+and altogether a better carriage; but the characteristics of her
+nationality were as sure--and the boy fell to wondering whether she was
+also capable of that winsome sentiment and jealous frenzy which dictated
+many of the seemingly inconsequent acts of the little heroine of Thrawl
+Street. This he imagined to be quite possible. "They are great as a
+nation," he thought, "but most of them are mad. I will tell Lois
+to-morrow that I have seen her sister in St. James' Square. I shouldn't
+wonder if she knew all about this house and the party--and Boriskoff
+will, if she doesn't."
+
+He contented himself with this; and the girl having disappeared from the
+alcove and a footman announced, in a terrible voice, that Lady Smigg's
+carriage barred the way, he turned from the house and continued upon his
+way to the "caves." It was then nearly one o'clock, and save for an
+occasional hansom making a dash to a club door, St. James' Street was
+deserted. Alban took one swift look up and down, crossed the street at a
+run and disappeared down the court which led to those amazing "tombs"
+of which few in London save the night-birds and the builders so much as
+suspect the existence.
+
+He did not go alone; he was not, as he thought, unwatched. A detective,
+commissioned by an unknown patron to follow him, crossed the road
+directly he had disappeared, and saying, "So that's the game," began to
+wonder if he also might dare the venture.
+
+He, at least, knew well what he was doing and the class of person he
+would be likely to meet down there in the depths of which even the
+police were afraid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE CAVES
+
+
+The "labyrinth" beneath the West End of London was rediscovered in our
+own time when the foundations for the Carlton Hotel and his Majesty's
+Theatre were laid. It is a network of old cellars, subterranean passages
+and, it may even be, of disused conduits, extended from the corner of
+Suffolk Street, Pall Mall, away to the confines of St. James' Park--and,
+as more daring explorers aver, to the river Thames itself. Here is a
+very town of tunnels and arches, of odd angled rooms, of veritable caves
+and depths as dark as Styx. If, in a common way, it be shut by the
+circumstance of the buildings above to the riff-raff and night-hawks who
+would frequent it, there are seasons, nevertheless, when the laying of
+new foundations, the building of hotels and the demolition of ancient
+streets in the name of "improvement" fling its gates open to the more
+cunning of the "destitutes," and they flock there as rooks to a field
+newly sown.
+
+Of these welcome opportunities, the building of the Carlton Hotel is the
+best remembered within recent times; but the erection of new houses off
+St. James' Street in the year 1903 brought the ladies and the gentlemen
+of the road again to its harborage; and they basked there for many weeks
+in undisputed possession. Molesting none and by none molested, it was
+an affair neither for the watchmen (whose glances askance earned them
+many a handsome supper) or for the police who had sufficient to do in
+the light of the street lamps that they should busy themselves with
+supposed irregularities where that light was not. The orgies thus became
+a nightly feature of the vagrant's life. There was no more popular hotel
+in London than the "Coal Hole," as the wits of the company delighted to
+style their habitation.
+
+A city below a city! Indeed imagination might call it that. A replica of
+famous catacombs with horrid faces for your spectres, ghoulish women and
+unspeakable men groping in the darkness as though, vampire-like, afraid
+of the light. Why Alban Kennedy visited this place, he himself could not
+have said. Possibly a certain morbid horror of it attracted him. He had,
+admittedly, such a passport to the caves as may be the reward of a
+shabby appearance and a resolute air. The criminal company he met with
+believed that he also was a criminal. Enjoying their confidence because
+he had never excited their suspicion, they permitted him to lie his
+length before reddened embers and hear tales which fire the blood with
+every passion of anger and of hate. Here, in these caverns, he had seen
+men fight as dogs--with teeth and claws and resounding yells; he had
+heard the screams of a woman and the cries of helpless children. A
+sufficient sense of prudence compelled him to be but an apathetic
+spectator of these infamies. The one battle he had fought had been
+impotent to save the object of his chivalry.
+
+When first he came here, heroic resolutions followed him. He had
+thrashed a ruffian who struck a woman, and narrowly escaped with his
+life for doing so. Henceforth he could but assent to a truce which
+implied mutual toleration; and yet he understood that his presence was
+not without its influence even on these irredeemables. Men called him
+"The Hunter," or in mockery "The Dook." He had done small services for
+one or two of them--even written a begging letter for a rogue who could
+not write at all, but posed as an "old public school man," fallen upon
+evil days. Alban was perfectly well aware that this was a shameless
+imposition, but his ideas of morality as it affected the relations of
+rich and poor were ever primitive and unstable. "If this old thief gets
+half a sovereign, what's it matter?" he would argue; "the other man
+stole his money, I suppose, and can well afford to pay up." Here was a
+gospel preached every day in Thrawl Street. He had never stopped to ask
+its truth.
+
+Alban crossed St. James' Street furtively, and climbed, as an athlete
+should climb, the boarding which defended the entrance to this amazing
+habitation. A contented watchman, dozing by a comfortable fire, cared
+little who came or went and rarely bestirred himself to ask the
+question. There were two entrances to the caves: one cramped and
+difficult, the other broad and open; and you took your choice of them
+according to the position of the policeman on the beat. This night, or
+rather this morning, of the day following upon the meeting in Union
+Street, discovered Alban driven to the more hazardous way. His quick eye
+had detected, on the far side of the enclosure, an amiable flirtation
+between a man of law and a lady of the dusters; and avoiding both
+discreetly, he slipped into a trench of the newly made foundations and
+crawled as swiftly through an aperture which this descent revealed.
+
+Here, laid bare by the picks and shovels of twentieth-century Trade
+Unionism, was a veritable Gothic arch, bricked up to the height of a
+tall man's waist, but open at the tympanum. Alban hoisted himself to the
+aperture and, slipping through, his feet discovered the reeking floor of
+a dank and dripping subway; and guiding himself now by hands
+outstretched and fingers touching the fungi of the walls, he went on
+with confidence until the roof lifted above him and the watch-fires of
+the confraternity were disclosed. He had come by now into a vast cellar
+not very far from the Carlton Hotel itself. There were offshoots
+everywhere, passages more remote, the arches as of crypts, smaller
+apartments, odd corners which had guarded the casks five hundred years
+ago. Each of these could show you its little company safe harbored for
+the night; each had some face from which Master Timidity might well
+avert his eyes. But Alban went in amongst them as though he had been
+their friend. They knew his very footstep, the older "lags" would
+declare.
+
+"All well, Jack?"
+
+"All well, old cove."
+
+"The Panorama come along?"
+
+"Straight art of the coffee shawp, s'help me blind."
+
+"Ship come in?"
+
+"Two tharsand next Toosday--same as usual."
+
+A lanky hawker, lying full length upon a sack, his pipe glowing in the
+darkness, exchanged these pleasantries with Alban at the entrance. There
+were fires by here and there in these depths and the smoke was often
+suffocating. The huddled groups declared all grades of ill-fortune and
+of crime; from that of the "pauper parson" to the hoariest house-breaker
+"resting" for a season. Alban's little set, so far as he had a "set" at
+all, consisted of the sometime curate of a fashionable West End Church,
+known to the company as the Archbishop of Bloomsbury; the Lady Sarah, a
+blooming, red-cheeked girl who sold flowers in Regent Street, "the
+Panorama," an old showman's son who had not a sixpenny piece in his
+pocket, but whose schemes were invariably about to bring him in "two
+thousand next Tuesday morning"; and "Betty," a pretty, fair-haired lad,
+thrown on the streets God knows how or by what callous act of
+indifferent parentage. Regularly as the clock struck, this quartette
+would gather in a tiny "chapel" of the cellars and sleep about a fire
+kindled in a grate which might have baked meats for the Tudors. They
+spoke of the events of the day with moderation and wise philosophy. It
+would be different to-morrow. Such was ever their text.
+
+"My lord the Duke is late. Does aught of fortune keep your nobility?"
+
+The ex-parson made way for Alban, grandiloquently offering a niche upon
+the bare floor and a view of the reddening embers. The boy "Betty" was
+already asleep, while the Lady Sarah and "the Panorama" divided a
+fourpenny pie most faithfully between them. A reeking atmosphere of
+spirit (but not of water) testified to the general conviviality. A hum
+of conversation was borne in upon them from the greater cellar--at odd
+times a rough oath of protest or the mad complainings of a drunkard. For
+the most part, however, the night promised to be uneventful. Alban had
+never seen the Lady Sarah more gracious, and as for "the Panorama" he
+had no doubt whatever that his fortune was made.
+
+"My contract for America's going through and I shall be out there with a
+show in a month," this wild youth said--and added patronizingly, "When I
+come back, it will be dinner upstairs, old chaps--and some of the best.
+Do you suppose that I could forget you? I would as soon forget my
+father's grave."
+
+They heard him with respect--no one differing from him.
+
+"I shall certainly be pleased to accept your kind invitation," said the
+Archbishop, "that is, should circumstance--and Providence--enable me to
+redeem the waistcoat, without which--eh--hem--I understand no visitor
+would be admitted to those noble precincts."
+
+The Lady Sarah expressed her opinion even more decidedly.
+
+"Don't 'e talk," she said pleasantly, "can't you 'ear the thick 'uns a
+rattlin' in his mouse-trap. Poor little man and 'im a horphin. Stun me
+mother if I ain't a goin' ter Jay's termerrer ter buy mournin' in honor
+of him."
+
+"I presume," continued the Archbishop, "that we shall all be admitted to
+this entertainment as it were--that is--as the colloquial expression
+goes--on the nod. It will be enough to mention that we are the
+proprietor's friends."
+
+"You shall have a season-ticket for life, Archbishop. Just you tell me
+where you want a church built and I'll see that it's done. Of course I
+don't mind your chaff--I'm dead in earnest and the money will be there."
+
+"A real contract this time?" Alban suggested kindly.
+
+"A real contract. I saw Philips about it to-day, and he knows a man who
+is Pierpont Morgan's cousin. We are to open in New York in September and
+be in San Francisco the following week."
+
+"Rather a long journey, isn't it, old chap?"
+
+"Oh, they do those things out there. I'm told you play Hamlet one night
+and Othello six hours afterwards, which is really the next night because
+of the long distances and the differences in the latitudes. Ask the
+Archbishop. I expect he hasn't forgotten all his geography."
+
+"A Cambridge man," said the Archbishop, loftily, "despises geography.
+Heat, light, electricity, the pure and the impure mathematics--these are
+his proper study. I rise superior to the occasion and tell you that San
+Francisco is a long way from New York. The paper in which I wrapped a
+ham sandwich yesterday--the advertisement of a shipping company, I may
+inform you--brings that back to my recollection. San Francisco is the
+thickness of two slices of stale bread from the seaport you mention. And
+I believe there are Red Indians in between."
+
+The Lady Sarah murmured lightly the refrain of the old song concerning
+houses which stood in that annoying position; but Alban had already
+lighted a cigarette and was watching the girl's face critically.
+
+"You've had some luck to-day, Sarah?"
+
+"A bloomin' prophet and that I won't deny. Gar'n, Dowie."
+
+"But you did have some luck?"
+
+"Sure and certain. What d'ye fink? A bit of a boy, same as 'Betty' 'ere,
+'e comes up and says, 'What'll ye take fer the whole bloomin' caravan?'
+he says, 'for ter send ter a lidy?' 'Gentleman,' I says, 'I'm only a
+poor girl and a widered muver ter keep, and, gentleman, I can't tike
+less than two pound fer 'em sure and certain as there's a God in 'eaven,
+I can't.' 'Well,' says he, 'it's a blarsted swindle but I'll take
+'em--and mind you deliver 'em ter the lidy yerself.' 'They shall go this
+very minute,' says I, 'and, oh, sir, God bless you both and may yer have
+long life and 'appiness ter-gether.' Strike me dead, wot d'yer think he
+said next? Why he arst me fer my bloomin' name, same as if I wus a
+Countess a steepin' art of a moter-kar at the door of Buckingem Peliss.
+'What's yer name, girl?' says 'e. 'Sarah Geddes, an it please yer
+capting,' says I. 'Then send the bally flowers to Sarah Geddes,' says
+'e, 'and take precious good care as she gets 'em.' Gawd's truth, yer
+could 'ave knocked me darn with a 'at pin. I never was took so suddin in
+all me life."
+
+"I wonder you didn't have your dinner in the Carlton Hotel, Sarah."
+
+"So I would 'a' done if I'd hev bed time ter chinge me dress. You orter
+know, Dook, as no lidy ever goes inter them plices in wot she's bin a
+wearin' afore she cleaned herself. I'ad ter go ter Marlborough 'Ouse ter
+tell the Prince of Wales, and that's wot kept me."
+
+"Better luck next time, Sarah. So it only ran to a 'fourpenny' between
+you and 'the Panorama.'"
+
+"You shall all dine with me next week," said the young man in question.
+"On my honor, I'll give you the best dinner you ever had in your life.
+As for Sarah here, I'm going to put her in a flower shop in Bond
+Street."
+
+"Gar'n, silly, what 'ud I do in Bond Street? Much better buy the
+Archbishop a church."
+
+The erstwhile clergyman did not take the suggestion, in good part.
+
+"I have always doubted my ability to conduct the affairs of a parish
+methodically," he said, "that is--a little habit--a slight partiality to
+the drug called morphia is not in my favor. This, I am aware, is a
+drawback. The world judges my profession very harshly. A man in the city
+who counts the collection indifferently will certainly become Lord
+Mayor. The Establishment has no use for him--he is _de trop_, or as we
+might say, a drop too much. This I recognize in frankly declining our
+young friend's offer--with grateful thanks."
+
+Sarah, the flower girl, seemed particularly amused by this frank
+admission. Feeling in the depth of her shawl she produced a capacious
+flask and a bundle of cigars.
+
+"'Ere, boys," she said, "let's talk 'am and heggs. 'Ere's a drop of the
+best and five bob's worth of chimney afire, stun me mother if there
+ain't. I'm sick of talkin' and so's 'the Panerawma.' Light up yer
+sherbooks and think as you're in Buckingem Peliss. There ain't no 'arm
+thinkin' anyways."
+
+"I dreamed last night," said the Archbishop very sadly, "that this
+cellar had become a cottage and that the sun was shining in it."
+
+"I never dream," said "the Panorama," stoically; "put my head on the
+floor and I won't lift it until the clock strikes ten."
+
+"Then begin now, my dear," exclaimed the Lady Sarah with a sudden
+tenderness, "put it there now and forget what London is ter you and me."
+
+The words were uttered almost with a womanly tenderness, not without its
+influence upon the company. Some phrase spoken of Frivolity's mouth had
+touched this group of outcasts and spoken straight to their hearts. They
+bandied, pleasantries no more, but lighting the cigars--the Lady Sarah
+boldly charging a small clay pipe--they fell to an expressive silence,
+of introspection, it may be, or even of unutterable despair. The woman
+alone amongst them had not been cast down from a comparative altitude to
+this very abyss of destitution. For the others life was a vista far
+behind them; a vista, perchance, of a cottage and the sunshine, as the
+parson had said; an echo of voices from a forgotten world; the memory of
+a hand that was cold and of dead faces reproaching them. Such pauses are
+not infrequent in the conversation of the very poor. Men bend their
+heads to destiny less willingly than we think. The lowest remembers the
+rungs of the ladder he has descended.
+
+Alban had lighted one of the cigars and he smoked it stoically,
+wondering again why the caves attracted him and what there was in this
+company which should not have made him ashamed of such associations.
+That he was not ashamed admitted of no question. In very truth, the
+humanities were conquering him in spite of inherited prejudice. Had the
+full account of it been written down by a philosopher, such a sage would
+have said that the girl Sarah stood for a type of womanly pity, of
+sympathy, and, in its way, of motherhood; qualities which demand no gift
+of birth for their appeal. The unhappy parson, too, was there not much
+of good in him, and might he not yet prove a human field worthy to be
+tilled by a husbandman of souls? His humor was kindly; his disposition
+gentle; his faults punished none but himself. And for what did "the
+Panorama" stand if not for the whole gospel of human hope without which
+no life may be lived at all? Alban had some glimmering of this, but he
+could not have set down his reasons in so many words. As for the little
+lad "Betty"--was not the affection they lavished upon him that which
+manhood ever owes to the weak and helpless. Search London over and you
+will not find elemental goodness in a shape more worthy than it was to
+be found in the caves--nor can we forego a moment's reflection upon the
+cant which ever preaches the vice of the poor and so rarely stops to
+preach their virtues.
+
+This was the human argument of Alban's association, but the romantic
+must not be forgotten. More imaginative than most youths of his age, his
+boyish delight in these grim surroundings was less to him than a real
+and inspiring sense of the power of contrast they typified. Was he not
+this very night sleeping beneath some famous London house, it might be
+below that very temple of the great God Mammon, the Carlton Hotel? Far
+above him were the splendid rooms, fair sleepers in robes of lace, tired
+men who had earned enough that very day perhaps to feed all the hungry
+children in Thrawl Street for a lifetime and to remain rich men
+afterwards. Of what were the dreams of such as those--not of sunshine
+and a cottage as the old parson had dreamed, surely? Not of these nor of
+the devoted sacrifice of motherhood or of that gentle sympathy which the
+unfortunate so readily give their fellows. Not this certainly--and yet
+who should blame them? Alban, at least, had the candor to admit that he
+would be much as they were if his conditions of life were the same. He
+never deceived himself, young as he was, with the false platitudes of
+boastful altruists. "I should enjoy myself if I were rich," he would
+say--and sigh upon it; for what assumption could be more grotesque?
+
+No, indeed, there could be no sunshine for him to-morrow. Nothing but
+the shadows of toil; and, in the background, that grim figure of
+uncertainty which never fails to haunt the lives of the very poor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+DISMISSAL
+
+
+Alban had been a disappointment to his employers, the great engineer of
+the Isle of Dogs, to whom Charity had apprenticed him in his fourteenth
+year. Faithful attempts to improve his position in the works were met,
+as it would seem, by indifference and ingratitude. He did his work
+mechanically but without enthusiasm. Had he confessed the truth, he
+would have said, "I was not born to labor with my hands." A sense of
+inherited superiority, a sure conviction, common to youth, that he would
+become a leader, of men, conduced to a restlessness and a want of
+interest which he could not master. He had the desire but not the will
+to please his employers.
+
+To such a lad these excursions to the West End, these pilgrimages to the
+shrine of the outcast and the homeless were by way of being a mental
+debauch. He arose from them in the morning as a man may arise to the
+remembrance of unjustified excess, which leaves the mind inert and the
+body weary. His daily task presented itself in a revolting attitude. Why
+had he been destined to this slavery? Why must he set out to his work at
+an hour of the chilly morning when the West End was still shuttered and
+asleep and the very footmen still yawned in their beds? If he had any
+consolation, it was that the others were often before him in that
+cunning debauch from the caves which the dawn compelled. The Lady Sarah
+would be at Covent Garden by four o'clock. The Archbishop, who rarely
+seemed to sleep at all, went off to the Serpentine for his morning
+ablutions when the clock struck five. "Betty," the pale-faced infant,
+disappeared as soon as the sun was up--and often, when Alban awoke in
+the cellar, he found himself the only tenant of that grim abode.
+Sometimes, indeed, and this morning following upon the promise to little
+Lois Boriskoff was such an occasion, he overslept himself altogether and
+was shut out from the works for the day. This had happened before and
+had brought frequent reprimands. He feared them and yet had not the will
+to remember them.
+
+Big Ben was striking seven when he quitted the cellar and London was
+awake in earnest. Alban usually spent twopence in the luxury of a "wash
+and brush up" before he went down to the river; but he hastened on this
+morning conscious of his tardiness and troubled at the possible
+consequences. The bright spring day did little to reassure him. Weather
+does not mean very much to those who labor in heated atmospheres, who
+have no profit of the sunshine nor gift of the seasons. Alban thought
+rather of the fateful clock and of the excuses which might pacify the
+timekeeper. He had never stooped to the common lies; he would not stoop
+to them this day. When, at the gate of the works, a heavy jowled man
+with a red beard asked him what he meant by coming there at such an
+hour, he answered as frankly that he did not know.
+
+"Been out to supper with the Earl of Barkin, perhaps," the burly man
+suggested. "Well, young fellow, you go up and see Mr. Tucker. He's
+particularly desirous of making your acquaintance--that he is. Tell him
+how his lordship's doin' and don't you forget the ladies."
+
+Alban made no reply, but crossing the open yard he mounted a little
+flight of stairs and knocked indifferently at the door of the dreaded
+office thus indicated. An angry voice, bidding him "come in," did not
+reassure him. He found the deputy manager frank but determined. There
+could be no doubt whatever of the issue.
+
+"Kennedy," he said quietly, "I hope you understand why I have sent for
+you."
+
+"For being late, sir. I am very sorry--I overslept myself."
+
+"My boy, if your work was as honest as your tongue, your fortune would
+be made. I am afraid I must remember what passed at our last meeting.
+You promised me then--"
+
+"I am quite aware of it, sir. The real truth is that I can't get up. The
+work here is distasteful to me--but I do my best."
+
+The manager shook his head in a deprecating manner.
+
+"We have given you many chances, Kennedy," he rejoined. "If it rested
+with me, I would give you another. But it doesn't rest with me--it rests
+with that necessary person. Example. What would the men say if I treated
+you as a privileged person? You know that the work could not go on. For
+the present, at any rate, you are suspended. I must see my directors
+and take instructions from them. Now, really, Kennedy, don't you think
+that you have been very foolish?"
+
+"I suppose so, sir. That's what foolish people generally think. It must
+make a lot of difference to you whether a man comes at six or seven,
+even if he does a good deal more work than the early ones. I could do
+what you ask me to do in three hours a day. That's what puzzles me."
+
+The amiable Mr. Tucker was up in arms in a moment.
+
+"Now, come, I cannot discuss abstract propositions with you. Our hours
+are from six to six. You do not choose to keep them and, therefore, you
+must go. When you are a little more practically inclined, I will speak
+to the directors for you. You may come and tell me so when that is the
+case."
+
+"I shall never come and tell you so, sir. I wish that I could--but it
+will never be the truth. The work that I could do for you is now what
+you want me to do. I am sure it is better for me to go, sir."
+
+"Then you have something in your mind, Kennedy?"
+
+"So many things, sir, that I could fill a book with them. That is why I
+am foolish. Good-by, Mr. Tucker. I suppose you have all been very kind
+to me--I don't rightly understand, but I think that you have. So good-by
+and thank you."
+
+The discreet manager took the outstretched hand and shook it quite
+limply. There had been a momentary contraction of the brows while he
+asked himself if astute rivals might not have been tampering with this
+young fellow and trying to buy the firm's secrets. An instant's
+reflection, however, reassured him. Alban had no secrets worth the name
+to sell, and did he possess them, money would not buy them. "Half mad
+but entirely honest," was Mr. Tucker's comment, "he will either make a
+fortune or throw himself over London Bridge."
+
+Alban had been quite truthful when he said that he had many things in
+his mind, but this confession did not mean to signify a possibility of
+new employment. In honest truth, he had hardly left the gates of the
+great yard when he realized how hopeless his position was. Of last
+week's wages but a few shillings remained in his pocket. He knew no one
+to whom he might offer such services as he had to give. The works had
+taught him the elements of mechanical engineering, and common sense told
+him that skilled labor rarely went begging if the laborer were worthy
+his hire. None the less, the prospect of touting for such employment
+affrighted him beyond words. He felt that he could not again abase
+himself for a few paltry shillings a week. The ambition to make of this
+misfortune a stepping-stone to better things rested on no greater
+security than his pride and yet it would not be wholly conquered. He
+spent a long morning by the riverside planning schemes so futile that
+even the boy's mind rejected them. The old copybook maxims recurred to
+him and were treated with derision. He knew that he would never become
+Lord Mayor of London--after a prosperous career in a dingy office which
+he had formerly swept out with a housemaid's broom.
+
+The lower reaches of the Thames are a world of themselves; peopled by a
+nation of aliens; endless in the variety of their life; abounding in
+weird and beautiful pictures which even the landsman can appreciate.
+Alban rarely tired of that panorama of swirling waters and drifting
+hulks and the majestic shapes of resting ships. And upon such a day as
+this which had made an idler of him, their interest increased tenfold;
+and to this there was added a wonder which had never come into his life
+before. For surely, he argued, this great river was the high road to an
+El Dorado of which he had often dreamed; to that shadowy land of valley
+and of mountain which his imagination so ardently desired. Let a man
+find employment upon the deck of one of those splendid ships and
+henceforth the whole world would be open to him. Alban debated this as a
+possible career, and as he thought of it the spell of the craving for
+new sights and scenes afar mastered him to the exclusion of all other
+thoughts. Who was to forbid him; who had the right to stand between him
+and his world hunger so irresistibly? When a voice within whispered a
+girl's name in his ear, he could have laughed aloud for very derision. A
+fine thing that he should talk of the love of woman or let his plans be
+influenced for the sake of a pretty face! Why, he would be a beggar
+himself in a week, it might be without a single copper in his pocket or
+a roof to shelter him! And he was just the sort of man to live on a
+woman's earnings--just the one to cast the glove to fortune and of his
+desperation achieve the final madness. No, no, he must leave London. The
+city had done with him--he had never been so sure of anything in all
+his life.
+
+It was an heroic resolution, and shame that hunger should so maltreat
+it. When twelve o'clock struck and Alban remembered how poor a breakfast
+he had made, he did not think it necessary to abandon any of his old
+habits, at least not immediately; and he went, as he usually had done,
+to the shabby dining-room in Union Street where he and Lois had taken
+their dinners together for many a month past. Boriskoff's daughter was
+already at table and waiting for him when he entered; he thought that
+she was unusually pale and that her expectancy was not that of a common
+occasion. Was it possible that she also had news to tell him--news as
+momentous as his own? Alban feared to ask her, and hanging his cap on a
+peg above their table without a word, he sat down and began to study the
+greasy menu.
+
+"What's the luck, Alb, dear--why do you look like that?"
+
+Little Lois asked the question, struck by his odd manner and appearance.
+
+He answered her with surprising candor--for the sudden determination
+came to him that he must tell Lois.
+
+"No luck at all, Lois."
+
+"Why, you don't mean--?"
+
+"I do, and that's straight. There is no further need of my services--"
+
+"You've got the sack?"
+
+"The whole of it, Lois--and now I'm selling it cheap."
+
+The girl laughed aloud, but there were tears in her eyes while she did
+so. What a day for them both. She was angry almost with him for telling
+her.
+
+"Why, if father ain't a-gettin' on the prophet line--he said you would,
+Alb. So help me rummy, I was that angry with him I couldn't hear myself
+speak. And now it's all come true. Why, Alb, dear--and I wanted to tell
+you--"
+
+She could not finish the sentence for a sob that almost choked her. The
+regular customers of the room had turned to stare at the sound of such
+unwonted hilarity. Dinner was far too serious a business for most of
+them that laughter should serve it.
+
+"What was your father saying, Lois?"
+
+"That you were going away, dear, and that the sooner I gave up thinking
+about you the fatter I should be."
+
+"How did he know what was going to happen?"
+
+"Ask me another and don't pay the bill. He's been as queer as white
+rabbits since yesterday--didn't go to work this morning, but sat all day
+over a letter he's received. I shall be frightened of father just now. I
+do really believe he's getting a bit balmy on the crumpet."
+
+"Still talking about the man who stole the furnace?"
+
+"Why, there you've got it. We're going to Buckingham Palace in a donkey
+cart and pretty quick about it. You'll be ashamed of such fine people,
+Alb--father says so. So I'm not to speak to you to begin with--not till
+the dresses come home from Covent Garden and the horses are pawing the
+ground for her lidyship. That's the chorus all day--lots of fun when the
+bricks come home and father with a watch-chain as big as Moses. He knew
+you were going to get the sack and he warned me against it. 'We can't
+afford to associate with those people nowadays'--don't yer know--'so
+mind what you're a-doing, my child.' And I'm minding it all day--I was
+just minding it when you came in, Alb. Don't you see her lidyship is
+taking mutton chops? Couldn't descend to nothink less, my dear--not on
+such a day as this--blimme."
+
+Lois' patter, acquired in the streets, invariably approached the purely
+vulgar when she was either angry or annoyed--for at other times her
+nationality saved her from many of its penalties. Alban quite understood
+that something beyond ordinary must have passed between father and
+daughter to-day; but this was neither the time nor the place to discuss
+it.
+
+"We'll meet outside the Pav to-night and have a good talk, Lois," he
+said; "everybody's listening here. Be there at nine sharp. Who knows, it
+may be the last time we shall ever meet in London--"
+
+"You're not going away, Alb?"
+
+A look of terror had come into the pretty eyes; the frail figure of the
+girl trembled as she asked the question.
+
+"Can't say, Lois--how do I know? Suppose I went as a sailor--"
+
+Lois laughed louder than before.
+
+"You--a blueboy! Lord, how you make me laugh. Fancy the aristocrat being
+ordered about. Oh, my poor funny-bone! Wouldn't you knock the man down
+that did it--oh, can't I see him."
+
+The idea amused her immensely and she dwelt upon it even in the street
+outside. Her Alb as Captain Jack--or should it be the cabin-boy. And, of
+course, he would bring her a parrot from the Brazils and perhaps a
+monkey.
+
+"An' I'll keep a light in the winder for fear you should be shipwrecked
+in High Street, Alb, and won't we go hornpiping together. Oh, you silly
+boy; oh, you dear old Captain Jack--whatever put a sailorman into your
+mind?"
+
+"The water," said Alban, as stolidly--"it leads to somewhere, Lois. This
+is the road to nowhere--good God, how tired I am of it."
+
+"And of those who go with you, Alb."
+
+"I am ashamed of myself because of them, Lois."
+
+"You silly boy, Alb--are they ashamed, Alb? Oh, no, no--people who love
+are never ashamed."
+
+He did not contest the point with her, nor might she linger. Bells were
+ringing everywhere, syrens were calling the people to work. It was a new
+thing for Alban Kennedy to be strolling the streets with his hands in
+his pockets when the clock struck one. And yet there he was become a
+loafer in an instant, just one of the many thousand who stare up idly at
+the sky or gaze upon the windows of the shops they may not patronize, or
+drift on helpless as though a dark stream of life had caught them and
+nevermore would set them on dry land again. Alban realized all this, and
+yet the full measure of his disaster was not wholly understood. It was
+so recent, the consequences yet unfelt, the future, after all, pregnant
+with the possibilities of change. He knew not at all what he should do,
+and yet determined that the shame of which he had spoken should never
+overtake him.
+
+And so determining, he strolled as far as Aldgate Station--and there he
+met the stranger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE STRANGER
+
+
+There is a great deal of fine philanthropic work done east of Aldgate
+Station by numbers of self-sacrificing young men just down from the
+Universities. So, when a slim parson touched Alban upon the arm and
+begged for a word with him, he concluded immediately that he had
+attracted the notice of one of these and become the objective of his
+charity.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said a little stiffly. The idea of stooping to
+such assistance had long been revolting to him. He was within an ace of
+breaking away from the fellow altogether.
+
+"Your name is Alban Kennedy, I think? Will you permit me to have a few
+words with you?"
+
+Alban looked the parson up and down, and the survey did something to
+satisfy him. He found himself face to face with a man, it might be of
+thirty years of age, whose complexion was dark but not unpleasant, whose
+eyes were frank and open, the possessor, too, of fair brown hair and of
+a manner not altogether free from a suspicion of that which scoffers
+call the "wash-hand" basin cult.
+
+"I do not know you, sir."
+
+"Indeed you do not--we are total strangers. My name is Sidney Geary; I
+am the senior curate of St. Philip's Church at Hampstead. If we could go
+somewhere and have a few words, I would be very much obliged to you."
+
+Alban hardly knew what to say to him. The manner was not that of a
+philanthropist desiring him to come to a "pleasant afternoon for the
+people"; he detected no air of patronage, no vulgar curiosity--indeed,
+the curate of St. Philip's was almost deferential.
+
+"Well, sir--if you don't mind a coffee shop--"
+
+"The very place. I have always thought that a coffee shop, properly
+conducted and entirely opposed to the alcoholic principle, is one of the
+most useful works in the civic economy. Let us go to a coffee shop by
+all means."
+
+Alban crossed the road and, leading the stranger a little way eastward,
+turned into a respectable establishment upon the Lockhart plan--almost
+deserted at such an hour and the very place for a confidential chat.
+
+"Will you have anything, sir?"
+
+The curate looked at the thick cups upon the counter, turned his gaze
+for an instant upon a splendid pile of sausages, and shuddered a little
+ominously.
+
+"I suppose the people here have excellent appetites," he reflected
+sagely. "I myself, unfortunately, have just lunched in Mount Street--but
+a little coffee--shall we not drink a little coffee?"
+
+"Suppose I order you two doorsteps and a thick 'un?"
+
+"My dear young fellow, what in heaven's name are 'two doorsteps and a
+thick 'un?'"
+
+Alban smiled a little scornfully.
+
+"Evidently you come from the West. I was only trying you. Shall we have
+two coffees--large? It isn't so bad as it looks by a long way."
+
+The coffee was brought and set steaming before them. In an interval of
+silence Alban studied the curate's face as he would have studied a book
+in which he might read some account of his own fortunes. Why had this
+man stopped him in the street?
+
+"Your first visit to Aldgate, sir?"
+
+"Not exactly, Mr. Kennedy--many years ago I have recollections of a
+school treat at a watering-place near the river's mouth--an exceedingly
+muddy place since become famous, I understand. But I take the children
+to Eastbourne now."
+
+"They find that a bit slow, don't they? Kids love mud, you know."
+
+"They do--upon my word. A child's love of mud is one of the most
+incurable things in nature."
+
+"Then why try to cure it?"
+
+"But what are you to do?"
+
+"Wash them, sir,--you can always do that. My father was a parson, you
+know--"
+
+"Good heavens, a clergyman--and you are come to--that is, you choose to
+live amidst these dreadful surroundings?"
+
+"I do not choose--death chose for me."
+
+"My poor boy--"
+
+"Not at all, sir. Give a man a good appetite and enough to gratify it,
+and I don't know that other circumstances count much."
+
+"Trial has made of you an epicurean, I see. Well, well, so much the
+better. That which I have to offer you will be the more acceptable."
+
+"Employment, sir?"
+
+"Employment--for a considerable term. Good employment, Mr. Kennedy.
+Employment which will take you into the highest society, educate you,
+perhaps, open a great career to you--that is what I came to speak of."
+
+The good man had meant to break the news more dramatically; but it
+flowed on now as a freshet released, while his eyes sparkled and his
+head wagged as though his whole soul were bursting with it. Alban
+thought for a moment that he had met one of those pleasant eccentrics
+who are not less rare in the East End than the West. "This good fellow
+has escaped out of an asylum," he thought.
+
+"What kind of a job would that be, sir?"
+
+"Your own. Name it and it shall be chosen for you. That is what I am
+commissioned to say."
+
+"By whom, sir?"
+
+"By my patron and by yours."
+
+"Does he wish to keep his name back?"
+
+"So little that he is waiting for you at his own house now."
+
+"Then why shouldn't we go and see him, sir?"
+
+He put the question fully believing that it would bring the whole
+ridiculous castle down with a crash, as it were, upon the table before
+him. Its effect, however, was entirely otherwise. The parson stood up
+immediately.
+
+"My carriage is waiting," he said; "nothing could possibly suit me
+better."
+
+Alban, however, remained seated.
+
+"Mr. Geary," he exclaimed, "you have forgotten to tell me something."
+
+"I can think of nothing."
+
+"The conditions of this slap-up job--the high society and all the rest
+of it! What are the conditions?"
+
+He spoke almost with contempt, and deliberately selected a vulgar
+expression. It had come to him by this time that some unknown friend had
+become interested in his career and that this amiable curate desired to
+make either a schoolmaster or an organist of him. "Old Boriskoff knew I
+was going to get the sack and little Lois has been chattering," he
+argued--nor did this line of reasoning at all console him. Sidney Geary,
+meanwhile, felt as though some one had suddenly applied a slab of
+melting ice to those grammatical nerves which Cambridge had tended so
+carefully.
+
+"My dear Mr. Kennedy--not 'slap-up,' I beg of you. If there are any
+conditions attached to the employment my patron has to offer you, is not
+he the best person to state them? Come and hear him for yourself. I
+assure you it will not be waste of time."
+
+"Does he live far from here?"
+
+"At Hampstead Heath--it will take us an hour to drive there."
+
+"And did he send the char à bancs especially for my benefit?"
+
+"Not really--but naturally he did."
+
+"Then I will go with you, sir."
+
+He put on his cap slowly and followed the curate into the street--one of
+the girls racing after them to say that they had forgotten to pay the
+bill. "And a pretty sort of clergyman you must be, to be sure," was her
+reflection--to the curate's blushing annoyance and his quite substantial
+indignation.
+
+"I find much impertinence in this part of the world," he remarked as
+they retraced their steps toward the West; "as if the girl did not know
+that it was an accident."
+
+"We pay for what we eat down here," Alban rejoined dryly; "it's a good
+plan as you would discover if you tried it, sir."
+
+Mr. Geary looked at the boy for an instant as though in doubt whether he
+had heard a sophism or a mere impertinence. This important question was
+not, however, to be decided; for a neat single brougham edged toward the
+pavement at the moment and a little crowd collected instantly to remark
+so signal a phenomenon.
+
+"Your carriage, sir?" Alban asked.
+
+"Yes," said the curate, quietly, "my carriage. And now, if you please,
+we will go and see Mr. Gessner. He is a Pole, Mr. Kennedy, and one of
+the richest men in London to-day."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE HOUSE OF THE FIVE GABLES
+
+
+It was six o'clock as the carriage passed Swiss Cottage station and ten
+minutes later when they had climbed the stiff hill to the Heath. Alban
+had not often ridden in a carriage, but he would have found his
+sensations very difficult to set down. The glossy cushions, the fine
+ivory and silver fittings, were ornaments to be touched with caressing
+fingers as one touches the coat of a beautiful animal or the ripe bloom
+upon fruit. Just to loll back in such a vehicle, to watch the houses and
+the people and the streets, was an experience he had not hitherto
+imagined. The smooth motion was a delight to him. He felt that he could
+continue such a journey to the ends of the earth, resting at his ease,
+untroubled by those never ended questions upon which poverty insisted.
+
+"Is it far yet, sir--is Mr. Gessner's house a long way off?"
+
+He asked the question as one who desired an affirmative reply. The
+parson, however, believed that his charge was already wearied; and he
+said eagerly:
+
+"It is just over there between the trees, my lad. We shall be with our
+good friend in five minutes now. Perhaps you know that you are on
+Hampstead Heath?"
+
+"I came here once with little Lois Boriskoff--on a Bank Holiday. It was
+not like this then. If Mr. Gessner is rich, why does he live in a place
+where people come to keep Bank Holiday? I should have thought he would
+have got away from them."
+
+"He is not able to get away. His business takes him into town every
+day--he goes by motor-car and comes back at night to breathe pure air.
+Bank Holidays do not occur every day, Mr. Kennedy. Fortunately for some
+of us they are but four a year."
+
+"Of course you don't like going amongst all those poor people, Mr.
+Geary. That's natural. I didn't until I had to, and then I found them
+much the same as the rest. You haven't any poor in Hampstead, I am
+told."
+
+Mr. Geary fell into the trap all unsuspectingly.
+
+"Thank heaven"--he began, and then checking himself clumsily, he added,
+"that is to say we are comparatively well off as neighborhoods go. Our
+people are not idlers, however. Some of the foremost manufacturers in
+the country live in Hampstead."
+
+"While their work-people starve in Whitechapel. It's an odd world, isn't
+it, Mr. Geary--and I don't suppose we shall ever know much about it. If
+I had made a fortune by other people's work, I think I should like some
+of them to live in Hampstead too. But you see, I'm prejudiced."
+
+Sidney Geary looked at the boy as though he had heard a heresy. To him
+the gospel of life meant a yearly dole of coals at Christmas and a bout
+of pleasant "charity organizations" during the winter months. He would
+as soon have questioned the social position of the Archbishop of
+Canterbury as have criticised the conduct and the acts of the
+manufacturers who supported his church so generously.
+
+"I am afraid you have received some pernicious teaching down yonder," he
+said, with a shake of his abundant locks. "Mr. Gessner, I may tell you,
+has an abhorrence of socialism. If you wish to please him, avoid the
+topic."
+
+"But I do not wish to please him--I do not even know him. And I'm not a
+socialist, sir. If Mr. Gessner had ever lived in Whitechapel; if he had
+starved in a garret, he would understand me. I don't suppose it matters,
+though, whether he does or not, for we are hardly likely to discuss such
+things together."
+
+"My dear lad, he has not sent for you for that, believe me. His
+conversation will be altogether of a different nature. Let me implore
+you to remember that he desires to be your benefactor--not your judge.
+There is no kinder heart, no more worthy gentleman in all London to-day
+than Richard Gessner. That much I know and my opportunities are unique."
+
+Alban could make no reply to this; nor did he desire one. They had
+passed the Jack Straw's Castle by this time, and now the carriage
+entered a small circular drive upon the right-hand side of the road and
+drew up before a modern red-bricked mansion, by no means ostentatious or
+externally characteristic of the luxury for which its interior was
+famed. Just a trim garden surrounded the house and boasted trees
+sufficient to hide the picturesque gables from the eyes of the curious.
+There were stables in the northern wing and a great conservatory built
+out toward the south. Alban had but an instant to glance at the
+beautiful façade when a young butler opened the door to them and ushered
+them into a vast hall, panelled to the ceiling in oak and dimly lighted
+by Gothic windows of excellent stained glass. Here a silence, amazing in
+its profundity, permitted the very ticking of the clocks to be heard.
+All sounds from without, the hoot of the motors, the laughter of
+children, the grating voices of loafers on the Heath, were instantly
+shut out. An odor of flowers and fine shrubs permeated the apartment.
+The air was cool and clear as though it had passed through a lattice of
+ice.
+
+"Please to wait one moment, Kennedy, and I will go to Mr. Gessner. He
+expects us and we shall not have long to wait. Is he not in the library,
+Fellows--ah, I thought he would be there."
+
+The young butler said "Yes, sir;" but Alban perceived that it was in a
+tone which implied some slight note of contempt. "That fellow," he
+thought, "would have kicked me into the street if I had called here
+yesterday--and his father, I suppose, kept a public-house or a fish
+shop." The reflection flattered his sense of irony; and sitting
+negligently upon a broad settee, he studied the hall closely, its
+wonderful panelling, the magnificently carved balustrades, the great
+organ up there in the gallery--and lastly the portraits. Alban liked
+subject pictures, and these masterpieces of Sargent and Luke Fildes did
+not make an instantaneous appeal to him. Indeed, he had cast but a brief
+glance upon the best of them before his eye fell upon a picture which
+brought the blood to his cheeks as though a hand had slapped them. It
+was the portrait of the supposed Polish girl whom he had seen upon the
+balcony of the house in St. James' Square--last night as he visited the
+caves.
+
+Alban stared at the picture open-mouthed and so lost in amazement that
+all other interests of his visit were instantly lost to his memory. A
+hard dogmatic common-sense could make little of a coincidence so
+amazing. If he had wished to think that the unknown resembled little
+Lois Boriskoff--if he had wished so much last night, the portrait, seen
+in this dim light, flattered his desire amazingly. He knew, however,
+that the resemblance was chiefly one of nationality; and in the same
+instant he remembered that he had been brought to the house of a Pole.
+Was it possible, might he dare to imagine that Paul Boriskoff's
+friendship had contrived this strange adventure. Some excitement
+possessed him at the thought, for his spirit had ever been adventurous.
+He could not but ask himself to whose house had he come then and for
+what ends? And why did he find a portrait of the Polish girl therein?
+
+Alban's eyes were still fixed upon the picture when the young butler
+returned to summon him to the library. He was not a little ashamed to be
+found intent upon such an occupation, and he rose immediately and
+followed the man through a small conservatory, aglow with blooms, and so
+at once into the sanctum where the master of the house awaited him.
+Perfect in its way as the library was, Alban had no eyes for it in the
+presence of Richard Gessner whom thus he met for the first time. Here,
+truly, he might forget even the accident of the portrait. For he stood
+face to face with a leader among men and he was clever enough to
+recognize as much immediately.
+
+Richard Gessner was at that time fifty-three years of age. A man of
+medium height, squarely built and of fine physique, he had the face
+rather of a substantial German than of the usually somewhat cadaverous
+Pole. A tousled black beard hid the jowl almost completely; the eyes
+were very clear and light blue in color; the head massive above the neck
+but a little low at the forehead. Alban noticed how thin and fragile the
+white hand seemed as it rested upon a strip of blotting-paper upon the
+writing-table; the clothes, he thought, were little better than those
+worn by any foreman in Yarrow's works; the tie was absolutely shabby and
+the watch-chain nothing better than two lengths of black silk with a
+seal to keep them together. And yet the mental power, the personal
+magnetism of Richard Gessner made itself felt almost before he had
+uttered a single word.
+
+"Will you take a seat, Mr. Kennedy--I am dining in the city to-night and
+my time is brief. Mr. Geary, I think, has spoken to you of my
+intentions."
+
+Alban looked the speaker frankly in the face and answered without
+hesitation:
+
+"He has told me that you wish to employ me, sir."
+
+"That I wish to employ you--yes, it is not good for us to be idle. But
+he has told you something more than that?"
+
+"Indeed," the curate interrupted, "very much more, Mr. Gessner. I have
+told Kennedy that you are ready and willing to take an interest, the
+greatest possible interest, in his future."
+
+The banker--for as such Richard Gessner was commonly known--received the
+interjection a little impatiently and, turning his back slightly, he
+fixed an earnest look upon Alban's face and watched him critically while
+he spoke.
+
+"Mr. Kennedy," he said, "I never give my reasons. You enter this house
+to confer a personal obligation upon me. You will remain in that spirit.
+I cannot tell you to-night, I may be unable to tell you for many years
+why you have been chosen or what are the exact circumstances of our
+meeting. This, however, I may say--that you are fully entitled to the
+position I offer you and that it is just and right I should receive you
+here. You will for the present remain at Hampstead as one of my family.
+There will be many opportunities of talking over your future--but I wish
+you first to become accustomed to my ways and to this house, and to
+trouble your head with no speculations of the kind which I could not
+assist. I am much in the city, but Mr. Geary will take my place and you
+can speak to him as you would to me. He is my Major Domo, and needless
+to say I in him repose the most considerable confidence."
+
+He turned again toward Mr. Geary and seemed anxious to atone for his
+momentary impatience. The voice in which he spoke was not unpleasant,
+and he used the English language with an accent which did not offend.
+Rare lapses into odd and unusual sentences betrayed him occasionally to
+the keen hearer, but Alban, in his desire to know the man and to
+understand him, made light of these.
+
+"I am to remain in this house, sir--but why should I remain, what right
+have I to be here?" he asked very earnestly.
+
+The banker waved the objection away a little petulantly.
+
+"The right of every man who has a career offered to him. Be content with
+that since I am unable to tell you more."
+
+"But, sir, I cannot be content. Why should I stay here as your guest
+when I do not know you at all?"
+
+"My lad, have I not said that the obligation is entirely on my side. I
+am offering you that to which you have every just claim. Children do not
+usually refuse the asylum which their father's door opens to them. I am
+willing to take you into this house as a son--would it not be a little
+ungrateful to argue with me? From what I know of him, Alban Kennedy is
+not so foolish. Let Mr. Geary show you the house while I am dressing. We
+shall meet at breakfast and resume this pleasant conversation."
+
+He stood up as he spoke and began to gather his papers together. To
+Alban the scene was amazingly false and perplexing. He was perfectly
+aware that this stranger had no real interest in him at all; he felt,
+indeed, that his presence was almost resented and that he was being
+received into the house as upon compulsion. All the talk of obligation
+and favor and justice remained powerless to deceive. The key to the
+enigma did not lie therein; nor was it to be found in the churchman's
+suavity and the fairy tale which he had recited. Had the meeting
+terminated less abruptly, Alban believed that his own logic would have
+carried the day and that he would have left the house as he had come to
+it. But the clever suggestion of haste on the banker's part, his hurried
+manner and his domineering gestures, left a young lad quite without
+idea. Such an old strategist as Richard Gessner should have known how to
+deal with that honest original, Alban Kennedy.
+
+"We will meet at breakfast," the banker repeated; "meanwhile, consider
+Mr. Geary as your friend and counsellor. He shall by me so be appointed.
+I have a great work for you to do, Mr. Kennedy, but the education, the
+books, the knowledge--they must come first. Go now and think about
+dinner--or perhaps you would like to walk about the grounds a little
+while. Mr. Geary will show you the way--I leave you in his hands."
+
+He folded the papers up and thrust them quickly in a drawer as he spoke.
+The interview was plainly at an end. He had welcomed a son as he would
+have welcomed any stranger who had brought a letter of introduction
+which decency compelled him to read.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+ALBAN KENNEDY DINES
+
+
+Silas Geary led the way through the hall and thence to the winter
+garden. Here the display of plants was quite remarkable and the building
+one that had cost many thousands of pounds. Designed, as all that
+Richard Gessner touched, to attract the wonder of the common people and
+to defy the derision of the connoisseur, this immense garden had been
+the subject of articles innumberable and of pictures abundant. Vast in
+size, classic in form, it served many purposes, but chiefly as a gallery
+for the safe custody of a collection of Oriental china which had no
+rival in Europe.
+
+"It is our patron's hobby," said the curate, mincingly, as he indicated
+the treasures of cloisonné and of porcelain; "he does not frivol away
+his money as so many do, on idle dissipations and ephemeral pleasures.
+On the contrary, he devotes it to the beautiful objects--"
+
+"Do you call them beautiful, sir?" Alban asked ingenuously. "They seem
+to me quite ugly. I don't think that if I had money I should spend it on
+plates and jars which nobody uses. I would much sooner buy a battle ship
+and give it to the nation." And then he asked, "Did Mr. Gessner put up
+all this glass to keep out the fresh air? Does he like being in a
+hot-house? I should have thought a garden would have been better."
+
+Silas Geary could make nothing of such criticism as this.
+
+"My dear lad," he protested, "you are very young and probably don't know
+what sciatica means. When I was your age, I could have slept upon a
+board and risen therefrom refreshed. At fifty it is otherwise. We study
+the barometer then and dust before we sit. This great glass house is Mr.
+Gessner's winter temple. It is here that he plans and conceives so many
+of those vast schemes by which the world is astonished."
+
+Alban looked at him curiously.
+
+"Is the world really astonished by rich men?" he asked.
+
+Mr. Geary stood still in amazement at the question.
+
+"Rank and birth rule the nation," he declared vehemently; "it is fit and
+proper that it should be so. Our aristocracy is rightly recruited from
+those who have accumulated the wealth necessary to such a position.
+Riches, Kennedy, mean power. You will know that some day when you are
+the master of riches."
+
+Alban walked on a little way without saying anything. Then almost as one
+compelled to reply he exclaimed:
+
+"In the East End, they don't speak of money like that. I suppose it is
+their ignorance--and after all it is a very great thing to be able to
+compel other people to starve for you. Some day, I'll take you down to
+the sweating-shops, Mr. Geary. You'll see a lot of old china there, but
+I don't think it would be worth much. And all our flowers are for
+sale--poor devils, we get little enough for supper if we don't sell
+them."
+
+The curate expressed no profound desire to accept this promising
+invitation, and desiring to change so thorny a subject entered a
+delightful old-world garden and invited Alban's attention to a superb
+view of Harrow and the Welsh Harp. In the hall, to which at last they
+returned, he spoke of that more substantial reality, dinner.
+
+"I am sorry to say that I have a Dorcas meeting to-night and cannot
+possibly dine with you," he explained to the astonished lad. "I shall
+return at nine o'clock, however, to see that all is as Mr. Gessner
+wishes. The servants have told you, perhaps, that Miss Anna is in the
+country and does not return until to-morrow. This old house is very dull
+without her, Kennedy. It is astonishing how much difference a pretty
+face makes to any house."
+
+"Is that Miss Anna's portrait over the fireplace, sir?"
+
+"You know her, Kennedy?"
+
+"I have seen her once, on the balcony of a house in St. James' Square.
+That was last night when I was on my way to sleep in a cellar."
+
+"My poor, poor boy, and to-night you will sleep in one of the most
+beautiful rooms in England. How wonderful is fortune, how
+amazing--er--how very--is not that seven o'clock by the way? I think
+that it is, and here is Fellows come to show you your room. You will
+find that we have done our best for you in the matter of
+clothes--guesswork, I fear, Kennedy, but still our best. To-morrow
+Westman the tailor is to come--I think and hope you will put up with
+borrowed plumes until he can fit you up. In the meantime, Fellows has
+charge of your needs. I am sure that he will do his very best for you."
+
+The young butler said that he would--his voice was still raised to a
+little just dignity, and he, in company with Silas Geary, the
+housekeeper and the servants' hall had already put the worst
+construction possible upon Alban's reception into the house. His
+determination to patronize the "young man" however received an abrupt
+check when Alban suddenly ordered him to show the way upstairs. "He
+spoke like a Duke," Fellows said in the kitchen afterwards. "There I was
+running up the stairs just as though the Guv'ner were behind me. Don't
+you think that you can come it easy with him--he ain't the sort by a
+long way. I tell you, I never was so astonished since the Guv'ner raised
+my wages."
+
+Alban, of course, was sublimely unconscious of this. He had been
+conducted to an enormous bedroom on the first floor, superbly furnished
+with old Chippendale and excellent modern Sèvres--and there he had been
+left to realize for the first time that he was alone and that all which
+had happened since yesterday was not a dream but a hard invincible truth
+so full of meaning, so wonderful, so sure that the eyes of his brain did
+not dare to look at it unflinchingly. Boyishly and with a boy's gesture
+he had thrown himself upon the bed and hidden his face from the light as
+though the very atmosphere of this wonder world were insupportable. Good
+God, that it should have happened to him, Alban Kennedy; that it should
+have been spoken of as his just right; that he should have been told
+that he had a claim which none might refute! A hundred guesses afforded
+no clue to the solution of the mystery. He could not tell himself that
+he was in some way related to Richard Gessner, the banker; he could not
+believe that his dead parents had any claim upon this foreigner who
+received him coldly and yet would hear nothing of his departure. Pride
+had little share in this, for the issues were momentous. It was
+sufficient to know that a hand had suddenly drawn him from the abyss,
+had put him on this pinnacle--beyond all, had placed him in Anna
+Gessner's home as the first-born, there to embark upon a career whose
+goal lay beyond the City Beautiful of his dreams.
+
+He rose from the bed at length, and trying to put every thought but that
+of the moment from his head, he remembered that he was expected to dine
+alone in the great room below, and to dress himself for such an ordeal
+in the clothes which the reverend gentleman's wit had provided for him.
+Courageous in all things, he found himself not a little afraid of all
+the beautiful objects which he touched, afraid to lift the Sèvres
+pitcher, afraid to open the long doors of the inlaid wardrobe, timid
+before the dazzling mirror--a reluctant guest who, for the time being,
+would have been thankful to escape to a carpetless floor and glad to
+wash in a basin of the commonest kind. When this passed, and it was but
+momentary, the delusion that a trick was being played upon him succeeded
+to it and he stood to ask himself if he had not been a fool to believe
+their story at all, a fool thus to be made sport of by one who would
+relate the circumstance with relish to-morrow. This piece of nonsense,
+however, was as quick to give way to the somewhat cynical common sense
+with which, Alban Kennedy had rightly been credited as the other. He
+turned from it impatiently and began to dress himself. He had last
+dressed in black clothes and a white waistcoat for a school concert at
+Westminster when he was quite a little lad--but his youth had taught him
+the conventions, and he had never forgotten those traditions of what his
+dead father used to call the "decent life." In his case the experience
+was but a reversion to the primitive, and he dressed with every
+satisfaction, delighted to put off the shabby old clothes and no less
+content with his new appearance as a mirror revealed it to him.
+
+The dining room at "Five Gables" was normally a little dark in the
+daytime, for it looked upon the drive where ancient trees shaded its
+lofty latticed windows. At night, however, Richard Gessner's fine silver
+set off the veritable black oak to perfection, and the room had an air
+of dignity and richness neither artificial nor offensive. When Alban
+came down to dinner he perceived that a cover had been set for him at
+the end of a vast table, and that he was expected to take the absent
+master's place; nor could he forbear to smile at the solemn exercises
+performed by Fellows the young butler, and two footmen who were to wait
+upon him. These rascals, whatever they might say in the kitchen
+afterwards, served him at the table as though he had been an eldest son
+of the house. If they had expected that the ragged, shabby fellow, who
+entered the house so stealthily an hour ago, would provide food for
+their exquisitely delicate sense of humor, they were wofully
+disappointed. Alban ate his dinner without uttering a single remark.
+
+And last night it had been supper in the caves! There must be no charge
+of inconsistency brought against him if a momentary shudder marked this
+recollection of an experience. A man may bridge a great gulf in a single
+instant of time. Alban had no less affection for, no less interest
+to-night in those pitiful lives than yesterday, but he understood that a
+flood of fortune had carried him for the time being away from them, and
+that his desire must be to help but not to regret them. Indeed, he could
+not resist, nor did he wish to resist a great content in this
+well-being, which overtook him in so subtle a manner. The sermons of the
+old days, preached by many a mad fanatic of Union Street, declared that
+any alliance between the rich and the poor must be false and impossible.
+Alban believed it to be so. A mere recollection of the shame of poverty
+could already bring the blood to his cheeks, and yet he would have
+defended poverty with all the logic of which his clever brain was
+capable.
+
+So in a depressing silence the long dinner was eaten. Methodically and
+with velvet steps the footmen put dish after dish before him, the butler
+filled his rarely lifted glass, the whole ceremony of dining performed.
+For his own part he would have given much to have escaped after the fish
+had been served, and to have gone out and explored the garden which had
+excited Mr. Geary to such poetic thoughts. Not a large eater (for the
+East End does not dare to cultivate an appetite), he was easily
+satisfied; and he found the mere length of the menu to be an ordeal
+which he would gladly have been spared. Why did people want all these
+dishes, he asked himself. Why, in well-to-do circles, is it considered
+necessary to serve precisely similar portions of fish and flesh and fowl
+every night at eight o'clock? Men who work eat when they are disposed.
+Alban wondered what would happen if such a custom were introduced into
+the House of the Five Gables. A cynical reverie altogether--from which
+the butler's purring voice awakened him.
+
+"Will you have your coffee in the Winter Garden, sir? Mr. Gessner always
+does."
+
+"Cannot I have it in the garden?"
+
+"Oh, yes, if you like, sir. We'll carry out a chair--the seats are very
+damp at night, sir."
+
+Alban smiled. Was he not sleeping on the reeking floor of the caves but
+twenty hours ago.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+ANNA GESSNER
+
+
+They set a table in the vestibule overlooking the trim lawn, and thither
+they carried cigars and coffee. Alban had learned to smoke fiercely--one
+of the few lessons the East End had taught him thoroughly--and Richard
+Gessner's cigars had a just reputation among all who frequented the
+House of the Five Gables--some of these, it must be confessed, coming
+here for no other particular reason than to smoke them. Alban did not
+quite understand what it was that differentiated this particular cigar
+from any he had ever smoked, but he enjoyed it thoroughly and inhaled
+every whiff of its fragrant bouquet as though it had been a perfume of
+morning-roses.
+
+A profound stillness, broken at rare intervals by the rustling of young
+leaves, prevailed in the garden. Night had come down, but it was a night
+of spring, clear and still and wonderful of stars. Distantly across a
+black waste of heath and meadow, the spire of Harrow Church stood up as
+a black point against an azure sky. The waters of the Welsh Harp were as
+a shimmering lake of silver in the foreground; the lights of Hendon and
+of Cricklewood spoke of suburban life, but might just as well have
+conjured up an Italian scene to one who had the wit to imagine it. Alban
+knew nothing of Italy, he had never set foot out of England in his
+life, but the peace and the beauty of the picture impressed him
+strangely, and he wondered that he had so often visited the Caves when
+such a fairyland stood open to his pleasure. Let it not be hidden that
+he would have been easily pleased this night. Youth responds quickly to
+excitements of whatever nature they may be. He was as far from realizing
+the truth of his position as ever, but the complete change of
+environment, the penetrating luxury of the great house, the mystery
+which had carried him there and the promise of the morrow, conspired to
+elate him and to leave him, in the common phrase, as one who is walking
+upon air. Even an habitual cynicism stood silent now. What mattered it
+if he awoke to-morrow to a reality of misunderstanding or of jest? Had
+not this night opened a vista which nothing hereafter might shut out?
+And the truth might be as Richard Gessner had promised--a truth of
+permanence, of the continued possession of this wonderland. Who shall
+blame him if his heart leaped at the mere contemplation of this
+possibility?
+
+It would have been about nine o'clock when they carried his coffee to
+the garden--it was just half-past nine when Anna Gessner returned
+unexpectedly to the house. Alban heard the bell in the courtyard ring
+loudly, and upon that the throttled purr of a motor's heavy engine. He
+had expected Silas Geary, but such a man, he rightly argued, would not
+come with so much pomp and circumstance, and he stood at once, anxious
+and not a little abashed. Perhaps some suspicion of the truth had
+flashed upon him unwittingly. He heard the voice of Fellows the butler
+raised in some voluble explanation, there were a few words spoken in a
+pleasing girlish tone, and then, the boudoir behind him flashed its
+colors suddenly upon his vision, and he beheld Anna Gessner herself--a
+face he would have recognized in ten thousand, a figure of yesternight
+that would never be forgotten.
+
+She had cast aside her motor veil, and held it in her hand while she
+spoke to the butler. A heavy coat bordered and lined with fur stood open
+to reveal a gray cloth dress; her hair had been blown about by the fresh
+breezes of the night and covered her forehead in a disorder far from
+unbecoming. Alban thought that the cold light in the room and the heavy
+bright panelling against which she stood gave an added pallor to her
+usually pale face, exaggerating the crimson of her lips and the dark
+beauty of her eyes. The hand which held the veil appeared to him to be
+ridiculously small; her attitudes were so entirely graceful that he
+could not imagine a picture more pleasing. If he remembered that he had
+likened her to little Lois Boriskoff, he could now admit the
+preposterous nature of the comparison. True it was that nationality
+spoke in the contour of the face, in its coloring and its expression,
+but these elementals were forgotten in the amazing grace of the girl's
+movements, the dignity of her gestures and the vitality which animated
+her. Returning to the house unexpectedly, even a lad was shrewd enough
+to see that she returned also under the stress of an agitation she could
+conceal from none. Her very questions to the servants were so quick and
+incoherent that they could not be answered. The letters which the
+butler put into her hands were torn from the envelopes but were not
+read. When she opened the boudoir window and so permitted Alban to
+overhear her hurried words, it was as one who found the atmosphere of a
+house insupportable and must breathe fresh air at any cost.
+
+"Has my father returned, Fellows?"
+
+"No, miss, he is not expected until late."
+
+"Why did you not send the carriage to the station?"
+
+"Mr. Gessner said that you were coming to-morrow, miss."
+
+She flushed slightly at the retort and made as though to step out into
+the garden--but hesitating an instant, she said:
+
+"I have had nothing to eat since one o'clock, Fellows. I must have some
+supper."
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+"Anything will do--tell cook it does not matter. Has Lord Portcullis
+called?"
+
+"No, miss--not since yesterday."
+
+"Or Mrs. Melville?"
+
+"This afternoon. She asked for your address, miss--but I did not give
+it."
+
+"Quite right--I suppose that Captain Forrest did not come?" She turned
+away as though not wishing to look the man in the face--a gesture which
+Alban's quick eyes instantly perceived.
+
+Fellows, on the other hand, permitted a smile to lurk for an instant
+about the corners of his mouth before he said--
+
+"I understood that Captain Forrest was at Brighton, miss."
+
+The girl's face clouded perceptibly, and she loosened her cloak and
+threw it from her shoulders as though it had become an insupportable
+burden.
+
+"If he calls to-morrow, I do not wish to see him. Please tell them
+all--I will not see him."
+
+The butler smiled again, but answered, "Yes, miss."
+
+Anna Gessner herself, still hesitating upon the threshold suddenly
+remembered another interest and referred to it with no less ardor.
+
+"Oh, that reminds me, Fellows. Has my father spoken again of that
+dreadful silly business?"
+
+"Concerning the young gentleman, miss?"
+
+She heard him with unutterable contempt.
+
+"The beggar-boy that he wishes to bring to this house. Did he speak of
+him to-night?"
+
+Fellows came a step nearer and, hushing his voice, he said, with a
+servant's love of a dramatic reply:
+
+"Mr. Kennedy is in the garden now, miss--indeed, I think he's sitting
+near the vestibule."
+
+She looked at him astonished. Ugly passions of disappointment and
+thwarted desire betrayed themselves in the swift turn and the angry
+pursing of her lips. Of her father's intentions in bringing this
+beggar-boy to the house, she knew nothing at all. It seemed to her one
+of those mad acts for which no sane apology could be offered.
+
+"He is here now, Fellows! Who brought him then?"
+
+"Mr. Geary--at six o'clock."
+
+"Mr. Geary is a hateful busybody--I suppose I must speak to the boy."
+
+"I think that Mr. Gessner would wish it, miss."
+
+She hesitated a brief instant, her annoyance giving battle to her
+father's well-known desire. Curiosity in the end helped her decision.
+She must see the object of a charity so eccentric.
+
+"You say that he is in the garden?" she continued, taking two steps
+across the vestibule.
+
+But this time Alban answered her himself.
+
+"The beggar-boy is here," he said.
+
+He had risen from his chair and the two confronted each other in the
+aureole of light cast out from the open window. Just twenty-four hours
+ago, Alban had been sitting by little Lois Boriskoff's side in the
+second gallery at the Aldgate Empire. To-night he wore a suit of good
+dress clothes, had dined at a millionaire's table and already recovered
+much of that polish and confident manner which an English public school
+rarely fails to bestow. Anna Gessner, in her turn, regarded him as
+though he were the agent of a trick which had been played upon her. To
+her amazement a hot flush of anger succeeded. She knew not how to meet
+him or what excuses to make.
+
+"My father has not told me the truth," she exclaimed presently. "I am
+sorry that you overheard me--but I said what I meant. If he had told me
+that you were coming--"
+
+Alban stood before her quite unabashed. He understood the circumstances
+and delighted in them.
+
+"I am glad that you meant it," he rejoined, "of course, it is in some
+way true. Those who have no money are always beggars to those who have.
+Let me say that I don't know at all why I am here, and that I shall go
+unless I find out. We need not quarrel about it at all."
+
+Anna, however, had recovered her composure. Mistress of herself to a
+remarkable degree when her passions were not aroused, she suddenly held
+out her hand to Alban as though she would apologize--but not by the
+spoken word.
+
+"They have played a trick upon me," she cried. "I shall have it out with
+Mr. Geary when he comes. Of course I am very sorry. My father said that
+you were a distant relative, but he tried to frighten me by telling me
+that you lived in Whitechapel and were working in a factory. I was silly
+enough to believe it--you would have done so yourself."
+
+"Most certainly--for it is quite true. I have been living in Whitechapel
+since my mother died, and I worked in a factory until yesterday. If you
+had come here a few hours back, you would have run away from the
+beggar-boy or offered him sixpence. I wonder which it would have been."
+
+She would not admit the truth of it, and a little peevishly contested
+her point.
+
+"I shall never believe it. This is just the kind of thing Mr. Geary
+would do. He is the most foolish man I have ever known. To leave you all
+alone here when he brought you as a stranger to our house. I wonder what
+my father would say to that."
+
+She had drawn her cloak about her white throat again and seated herself
+near Alban's chair. Imitating her, he sat again and began to talk to her
+as naturally as though he had known her all her life. Not a trace of
+vexation at the manner of her reception remained to qualify that rare
+content he found in her company. Alban had long acquired the sense which
+judges every word and act by the particular circumstances under which it
+is spoken. He found it natural that Anna Gessner should resent his
+presence in the house. He liked her for telling him that it was so.
+
+"My father says that he is going to make an engineer of you--is that
+just what you wish, Mr. Kennedy?"
+
+"That's what I don't know," he replied as frankly. "You see, I have
+always wanted to get on, but how to do so is what beats me. Engineering
+is a big profession and I'm not sure that I have the gifts. There you
+have a candid confession. I'm one of those fellows who can do everything
+up to a certain point, but a certain point isn't good enough nowadays.
+And a man wants money to get on. I'm sure it's easy enough to make a
+fortune if you have a decent share of brains and a bigger one capital. I
+want to make money and yet the East End has taught me to hate money. If
+Mr. Gessner can convince me that I have any claim upon his patronage, I
+shall go right into something and see if I cannot come out on top. You,
+I suppose, don't think much of the dirty professions. You'd like your
+brother to be a soldier, wouldn't you--or if not that, in the navy. Half
+the fellows at Westminster wanted to go into the army, just as though
+killing other people were the chief business in life. Of course, I
+wouldn't run it down--but what I mean to say is, that I never cared at
+all about it myself and so I'm not quite the best judge."
+
+His little confession ended somewhat abruptly, for he observed that his
+words appeared to distress Anna Gessner beyond all reason. For many
+minutes she remained quite silent. When she spoke her eyes were turned
+away and her confusion not altogether to be concealed.
+
+"I'm afraid you take your ideas of us from the cheap story-books," she
+said in a low voice; "women, nowadays, have their own ambitions and
+think less of men's. My dearest friend is a soldier, but I'm sure he
+would be a very foolish one if war broke out. They say he worked
+terribly hard in South Africa, but I don't think he ever killed any one.
+So you see--I shouldn't ask you to go into the army, and I'm sure my
+father would not wish it either."
+
+"It would do no good if he did," said Alban as bluntly. "I should only
+make a fool of myself. Your friend must have told you that you want a
+pretty good allowance to do upon--and fancy begging from your people
+when you were twenty-one. Why, in the East End many a lad of nineteen
+keeps a whole family and doesn't think himself ill-used. Isn't it rot
+that there should be so much inequality in life, Miss Gessner? I don't
+suppose, though, that one would think so if one had money."
+
+She smiled at his question, but diverted the subject cleverly.
+
+"Are you very self-willed, Mr. Kennedy?"
+
+"Do you mean that I get what I want--or try to?"
+
+"I mean that you have your own way in everything. If you were in love
+you would carry the poor thing off by force."
+
+"If I were in love and guessed that she was, I should certainly be
+outside to time. That's East End, you know, for punctuality."
+
+"You would marry in haste and repent at leisure?"
+
+"It would be yes or no, and that would be the end of it. Girls like a
+man who compels them--they like to obey, at least when they are young. I
+don't believe any girl ever loved a coward yet. Do you think so
+yourself?"
+
+She astonished him by rising suddenly and breaking off the conversation
+as abruptly.
+
+"God help me, I don't know what I think," she said; and then, with half
+a laugh to cover it, "Here is Mr. Geary come to take care of you. I will
+say good-night. We shall meet at breakfast and talk of all this
+again--if you get up in time."
+
+He made no answer and she disappeared with just a flash of her ample
+skirts into the boudoir and so to the hall beyond. The curate appeared a
+minute later, full of apologies and of the Dorcas meeting he had so
+lately illuminated with his intellectual presence. A mild cigarette and
+a glass of mineral water found him quite ready for bed.
+
+"There will be so much to speak of to-morrow, my dear boy," he said in
+that lofty tone which attended his patronage, "there is so much for you
+to be thankful for to-day. Let us go and dream of it all. The reality
+must be greater than anything we can imagine."
+
+"I'll tell you in a week's time," said Alban, dryly.
+
+A change had come upon him already. For Anna Gessner had betrayed her
+secret, and he knew that she had a lover.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+RICHARD GESSNER DEBATES AN ISSUE
+
+
+Richard Gessner returned to "Five Gables" as the clock of Hampstead
+Parish Church was striking one. A yawning footman met him in the hall
+and asked him if he wished for anything. To the man's astonishment, he
+was ordered to carry brandy and Vichy water to the bedroom immediately.
+
+"To your room, sir?"
+
+"To my room--are you deaf?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir. Miss Gessner has returned."
+
+"My daughter--when?"
+
+"After dinner, sir."
+
+"Was there any one with her?"
+
+"I didn't rightly see, sir. Fellows opened the door--he could tell you,
+sir."
+
+Gessner cast a searching glance upon the man's face And then mounted the
+great staircase with laborious steps. Passing the door of the room in
+which Alban slept, he listened intently for a moment as though half of a
+mind to enter; but abandoning the intention, went on to his apartment
+and there, when the footman had attended to his requirements, he locked
+the door and helped himself liberally to the brandy. An observer would
+have remarked that drops of sweat stood upon his brow and that his hand
+was shaking.
+
+He had dined with a city company; but had dined as a man who knew
+little of the dinner or of those who ate it. Ten days ago his energy,
+his buoyant spirits, and his amazing vitality had astonished even his
+best friends. To-night these qualities were at their lowest ebb--and he
+had been so silent, so self-concentrated, so obviously distressed, that
+even a casual acquaintance had remarked the change. To say that a just
+Nemesis had overtaken him would be less than the truth. He knew that he
+stood accused, not by a man, but by a nation. And to a nation he must
+answer.
+
+He locked the door of his room and, drawing a chair to a little Buhl
+writing-table, set in the window, he opened a drawer and took therefrom
+a little bundle of papers, upon which he had spent nine sleepless nights
+and, apparently, would spend still another. They were odd scraps--now of
+letters, now of legal documents--the _précis_ of a past which could be
+recited in no court of justice, but might well be told aloud to an
+unsympathetic world. Had an historian been called upon to deal with such
+documents, he would have made nothing whatever of them--but Richard
+Gessner could rewrite the story in every line, could garnish it with
+passions awakened, fears unnamable, regrets that could not save, despair
+that would suffer no consolations.
+
+He had stolen Paul Boriskoff's secret from him and thereby had made a
+fortune. Let it be admitted that the first conception of the new furnace
+for the refining of copper had come from that white-faced whimpering
+miner, who could talk of nothing but his nation's wrongs and had no
+finer ambition in life than to feed his children. He, Richard Gessner,
+had done what such a fellow never could have done. He had made the
+furnace commercially possible and had exploited it through the copper
+mines of the world. Such had been the first rung of that magnificent
+pecuniary ladder he had afterwards climbed so adroitly. Money he had
+amassed beneath his grasping hand as at a magician's touch. He
+regretted, he had always regretted, that misfortune overtook Paul
+Boriskoff's family--he would have helped them had he been in Poland at
+the time; but their offences were adjudged to be political; and if the
+wretched woman suffered harm at the hands of the police, what share had
+he in it? To this point he charged himself lightly--as men will in
+justifying themselves before the finger of an hoary accusation. Gessner
+cared neither for God nor man. His only daughter had been at once his
+divinity and his religion. Let men call him a rogue, despot, or thief,
+and he would shrug his shoulders and glance aside at his profit and loss
+account. But let them call him "fool" and the end of his days surely was
+at hand.
+
+And so this self-examination to-night troubled itself with no thought of
+wrongs committed, with no desire to repay, but only with that supreme
+act of folly, to which the sleeping lad in the room near by was the
+surest witness. What would the threats of such a pauper as Paul
+Boriskoff have mattered if the man had stood alone against him? A word
+to the police, a hundred pounds to a score of ruffians, and he would
+have been troubled no more. But his quarrel was not with a man but a
+nation. Perceiving that the friendship of the Russian Government was
+necessary to many of his mining schemes in the East, he had changed his
+name as lightly as another would have changed his coat, had cast the
+garments of a sham patriotism and emerged an enemy to all that he had
+hitherto befriended, a foe to Poland, a servant to Russia.
+
+Acting secretly and with a strong man's discretion, no bruit of this odd
+conversion had been made public, no whisper of it heard in the camp of
+the Revolutionaries. Many knew Maxim Gogol--none had heard of Richard
+Gessner. His desire for secrecy was in good accord with the plans of a
+police he assisted and the bureaucracy he bribed. He lived for a while
+in Vienna, then at Tiflis--he came at length to England where his
+daughter had been educated; and there he established himself, ostensibly
+as a wealthy banker, in reality as the secret director of one of the
+greatest conspiracies against the liberty of a little nation that the
+world had ever seen.
+
+Upon such a man, the blow of discovery fell with, stunning force.
+Gessner had grown so accustomed to the security of this suburban life
+that he could imagine no circumstance which might disturb it. All that
+he did for the satisfaction of the Russian Government had been cleverly
+done by agents and deputies. Entitled by his years to leisure, he had
+latterly almost abandoned politics for a culture of the arts and the
+sciences, in some branches of which he was a master. His leisure he gave
+almost entirely to his daughter. To contrive for her an alliance worthy
+of his own fortune and of her beauty had become the absorbing passion of
+his life. He studied the Peerage as other men study a balance-sheet.
+All sorts and conditions of possible husbands appeared at "Five Gables;"
+were dined, discussed, and dismissed. The older families despised him
+and would not be appeased. To crown his vexation, his daughter named a
+lover for herself. He had twice shown Captain Willy Forrest from the
+door and twice had the man returned. Anna seemed fascinated by this
+showy adventurer as by none other who visited them. Gessner, for his
+part, would sooner have lost the half of his fortune than that she
+should have married him.
+
+These vexations had been real enough ten days ago; but, to-night, a
+greater made light of them and now they were almost forgotten. Detection
+had stalked out of the slums to humble this man in an instant and bring
+him to his knees. Gessner could have recited to you the most trivial
+detail attending the reception of Paul Boriskoff's letter and the claim
+it made upon him--how a secretary had passed it to him with a suggestion
+that Scotland Yard should know of it; how he had taken up the scrawl
+idly enough to flush before them all an instant later and to feel his
+heart sink as in an abyss of unutterable dismay. He had crumpled the
+dirty paper in his hand, he remembered, and thrown it to the ground--to
+pick it up immediately and smooth it out as though it were a precious
+document. To his secretary he tried to explain that the writer was an
+odd fanatic who must be humored. Determined at the first blush to face
+the matter out, to answer and to defy this pauper Pole who had dared to
+threaten him, he came ultimately to see that discretion would best serve
+him. Paul Boriskoff had named Kensington Gardens as a rendezvous where
+matters might be discussed. Gessner was there to the minute--without
+idea, without hope, seeking only that pity which he himself had never
+bestowed upon any human being.
+
+Paul Boriskoff did not hurry to the Gardens, so sure was he of the
+success of his undertaking. The frowsy black coat, in which he made his
+bow to the millionaire, had not seen the light for many years--his hat
+was a wide-brimmed eccentricity in soft felt which greatly delighted the
+nursemaids who passed him by. Gessner would never have recognized, in
+the hollow-cheeked, pale-faced, humble creature the sturdy young Pole
+who had come to him nearly a generation ago and had said, "Our fortunes
+are made; this is my discovery." Believing at the moment that money
+would buy such a derelict, body and soul, he opened the negotiations
+firmly and in that lofty tone which suited Throgmorton Street so well.
+But five minutes had not passed before he understood his mistake and
+realized that Boriskoff, the lad who had trusted him, and Boriskoff, the
+Pole who now threatened him, were one and the same after all.
+
+"I remember you perfectly," he said; "it would be idle to say that I do
+not. You had some claim in the matter of a certain furnace. Yes, I
+remember that and would willingly admit it. But, my friend, you fell
+into trouble with the Government, and what could I do then? Was not I
+also compelled to leave Poland? Did not I change my name for that very
+reason? How could I repay the debt? Here in England it is different.
+You make your existence known to me and I respond at once. Speak
+freely, then, for I shall hear you patiently."
+
+They were seated on a bench beneath a chestnut in full bloom. Distantly,
+through a vista of giant trunks, the waters of the Round Pond glimmered
+in the evening light. Children, worn out by the day, sat idle in groups
+on the benches of the Long Walk or lagged through a fitful game on the
+open spaces between the trees. Few observed these two men who thus
+earnestly recalled the drama of their lives; none remarked their odd
+association, for were not both obviously foreigners, and who shall
+dictate a fashion to such as they? Indeed, they conversed without any
+animation of gesture; the one convulsed by fears he did not dare to
+express, the other by hopes on the threshold of realization.
+
+"I speak freely," said Boriskoff with unaffected candor, "for to do that
+I have come here. And first I must set your memory right in a matter
+that concerns us both. You did not leave Poland to serve your country;
+you left it to betray us. Spare your words, for the story has been told
+many times in Warsaw and in London. Shall I give you the list of those
+who are tortured to-day at Saghalien because of what you did? It would
+be vain, for if you have any feeling, even that of a dog, they are
+remembered by you. You betrayed the man who trusted you; you betrayed
+your country--for what? Shall I say that it was for this asylum in a
+strange land; for power, for the temptations which all must suffer? No,
+no. You have had but one desire in all your life, and that is money. So
+much even I understand. You are ready now to part with a little of that
+money--so little that it would be as a few grains from the sands of the
+sea--to save your neck from the rope, to escape the just punishment
+which is about to fall upon you. Do not believe that you can do so. I
+hold your secret, but at any hour, at any minute, others may share it
+with me. Maxim Gogol--for I shall call you by your true name--if one
+word of this were spoken to the Committee at Warsaw, how long would you
+have to live? You know the answer to that question. Do not compel me to
+dwell upon it."
+
+He spoke in a soft purring tone, an echo of a voice, as it were, beneath
+the rustling leaves; but, none the less, Richard Gessner caught every
+word as though it had been the voice of an oracle. A very shrewd man, he
+had feared this knowledge, and fear had brought him to this covert
+interview. The Pole could betray him and betrayal must mean death--and
+what a death, reluctant, procrastinating, the hour of it unknown, the
+manner of it beyond any words terrible. Such had been the end of many
+who had left Poland as he had done. He had read their story and
+shuddered even in his imagined security. And now this accusation was
+spoken, not as a whisper of a voice in the hours of the night, but as
+the truth of an inevitable day.
+
+And what should he answer? Would it profit him to speak of law; to
+retort with a threat; to utter the commonplaces concerning Scotland Yard
+and a vigilant police? He was far too wise even to contemplate such
+folly. Let him have this man arrested, and what then? Would any country
+thereafter shelter the informer from the vengeance of the thousands
+whom no law could arrest? Would any house harbor him against the dagger
+of the assassin, the swift blow, it might even be the lingering justice
+of such fanatics as sought to rule Poland. He knew that there was none.
+Abject assent could be the only reply. He must yield to any humiliation,
+suffer any extortion rather than speak the word which would be as
+irrevocable as the penalty it invited.
+
+"I shall not dispute with you, Paul Boriskoff," he said, with a last
+attempt to save his dignity; "yes, it would be in your power to do me a
+great injury even in this country which gives you liberty. It is your
+own affair. You did not come here to threaten me, but to seek a favor.
+Name it to me and I shall be prepared to answer you. I am not an
+ungenerous man as some of our countrymen know. Tell me what you wish and
+I shall know how to act."
+
+Boriskoff's answer astonished him by its impetuosity.
+
+"For myself nothing," he exclaimed contemptuously--and these brief words
+echoed in Gessner's ears almost as a message of salvation--"for myself
+nothing, but for my children much. Yes, your money can make even Paul
+Boriskoff despise himself--but it is for the children's sake. I sell my
+honor that they may profit by it. I ask for them that which is due to
+me, but which I have sworn to forego. Maxim Gogol, it is for the
+children that I ask it. You have done me a great wrong, but they shall
+profit by it. That is what I am come here to say to-day--that you shall
+repay, not to me but to my children."
+
+The words appeared to cost him much, as though he had deliberately
+sacrificed a great vengeance that those he loved might profit. Leaping
+to the hope of it, and telling himself that this after all was but a
+question of pounds, shillings, and pence, Gessner answered with an
+eagerness beyond all bounds ridiculous.
+
+"There could be nothing I would do more willingly. Yes, I remember--you
+left a daughter in Warsaw and she was not to be discovered by those of
+us who would have befriended her. Believe me when I say that I will help
+her very gladly. Anything, my friend, anything that is humbly
+reasonable--"
+
+Boriskoff did not permit him to finish.
+
+"My daughter will be educated in Germany at your cost," he said curtly.
+"I would speak first of one who is as a son to me because of her
+affection for him. There is a young Englishman living in Union Street,
+the son of a poor clergyman who died in the service of the poor. This
+lad you will take into your own house and treat as your own son. It is
+my desire and must be gratified. Remember that he is the son of a
+gentleman and treat him as such. There will be time enough afterwards to
+tell you how you must act in the interests of our people at Warsaw. This
+affair is our own and not of politics at all. As God is in heaven, but
+for my daughter you, Maxim Gogol, would not be alive this night."
+
+Gessner's heart sank again at the hint of further requests subsequently
+to come. The suggestion that he should adopt into his own house a youth
+of whom he knew nothing seemed in keeping with the circumstances of this
+dread encounter and the penalty that must be paid for it. After all, it
+was but a small price to pay for comparative security and the silence of
+a tongue which could work such ill. Accustomed to deal with men of all
+natures, honest and simple, clever and foolish, secretive and
+loquacious, there ran in his mind the desperate idea that he would
+temporize with Paul Boriskoff and ultimately destroy him. Let the
+Russian Government be informed of the activity of this Pole and of his
+intention to visit the Continent of Europe again, and what were
+Boriskoff's chances? Such were the treacherous thoughts which stood in
+Gessner's mind while he framed an answer which should avert the final
+hour of reckoning and give him that opportunity for the counter-stroke
+which might yet save all.
+
+"Your youth will profit little in my house," he said with some pretense
+of earnestness. "Had you asked an education abroad for him, that would
+have been a wiser thing in these days. Frankly, I do not understand your
+motive, but I am none the less willing to humor it. Let me know
+something more of the lad, let me have his history and then I shall be
+able to say what is the best course. I live a very quiet life and my
+daughter is much away. There is the possibility also that the boy, if he
+be the son of a clergyman, would do much better at Oxford or at
+Cambridge than at Hampstead, as you yourself must see. Let us speak of
+it afterwards. There will be time enough."
+
+"The time is to-day," rejoined Boriskoff, firmly, "Alban Kennedy will
+live under your roof as your own son. I have considered the matter and
+am determined upon it. When the time comes for him to marry my
+daughter, I will inform you of it. Understand, he knows nothing of your
+story or of mine. He will not hear of me in my absence from England. I
+leave the burden of this to you. He is a proud lad and will accept no
+charity. It must be your task to convince him that he has a title to
+your benevolence. Be wise and act discreetly. Our future requisitions
+will depend upon your conduct of this affair--and God help you, Maxim
+Gogol, if you fail in it."
+
+Something of the fanatic, almost of the madman, spoke in this vehement
+utterance. If Gessner had been utterly at a loss as yet to account for a
+request so unusual, he now began to perceive in it the instrument of his
+own humiliation. Would not this stranger be a perpetual witness to the
+hazard of his life, a son who stood also as a hostage, the living voice
+of Paul Boriskoff's authority? And what of his own daughter Anna and of
+the story he must tell her? These facts he realized clearly but had no
+answer to them. The reluctant assent, wrung from his unwilling lips, was
+the promise of a man who stood upon the brink of ruin and must answer as
+his accusers wished or pay the ultimate penalty. All his common
+masterfulness, the habit of autocracy, the anger of the bully and the
+tyrant, trembled before the clear cold eyes of this man he had wronged.
+He must answer or pay the price, humiliate himself or suffer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And to-night Alban Kennedy slept beneath his roof; the bargain had been
+clinched, the word spoken. Twenty thousand pounds had he paid to Paul
+Boriskoff that morning for the education of his daughter and in part
+satisfaction of the ancient claim. But the witness of his degradation
+had come to him and must remain.
+
+Aye, and there the strife of it began. When he put detectives upon the
+lad's path, had him followed from Union Street to the caves and from the
+caves to his place of employment, the report came to him that he was
+interesting himself in a callous ne'er-do-well, the friend of rogues and
+vagabonds, the companion of sluts, the despair of the firm which
+employed him. He had expected something of the kind, but the seeming
+truth dismayed him. In a second interview with Boriskoff he used all his
+best powers of argument and entreaty to effect a compromise. He would
+send the lad to the University, have him educated abroad, establish him
+in chambers--do anything, in fact, but that which the inexorable Pole
+demanded of him. This he protested with a humility quite foreign to him
+and an earnestness which revealed the depth of the indignity he
+suffered; but Boriskoff remained inflexible.
+
+"I am determined upon it," was the harsh retort; "the boy shall be as a
+link between us. Keep him from this hell in which he has lived and I
+will set so much to your credit. I warn you that you have a difficult
+task. Do not fail in it as you value your own safety."
+
+The manner of this reply left Gessner no alternative, and he sent Silas
+Geary to Whitechapel as we have seen. A less clever man, perhaps, would
+have fenced alike with the proposal and the threat; but he knew his own
+countrymen too well for that. Perhaps a hope remained that any kindness
+shown to this vagrant lad would win back ultimately his ancient
+freedom. Alone in his room this night, a single light rebutting the
+darkness, he understood into what an abyss of discovery he had fallen,
+the price that must be paid, the debt that he owed to forgotten years.
+
+"This man is a devil," he said, "he will rob me shilling by shilling
+until I am a beggar. Good God! that it should have come to this after
+twenty years; twenty years which have achieved so much; twenty years of
+such slavery as few men have known. And I am helpless; and this beggar
+is here to remind me of my enemies, to tell me that I walk in chains and
+that their eyes are following me."
+
+He threw himself upon his bed dressed as he was and tried to sleep. The
+stillness of the house gave fruitful visions, magnifying all his fears
+and bringing him to an unspeakable terror of the days which must come
+after. He had many ambitions yet to achieve, great ideas which remained
+ideas, masterly projects which must bring him both fame and riches, but
+he would have abandoned them all this night if freedom had been offered
+him. Years ago, he remembered, Boriskoff, the young miner, had earned
+his hatred, he knew not why unless it were a truth that men best hate
+those who have served them best. To-night found that old hatred
+increased a thousand fold and shaping itself in schemes which he would
+not even whisper aloud. He had always been looked upon as a man of good
+courage and that courage prompted him to a hundred mad notions--to swift
+assassination or to slow intrigue--last of all to self destruction
+should his aims miscarry. He would kill himself and cheat them after
+all. Many another in Petersburg had sacrificed his life rather than
+suffer those years of torture which discovery brought. He knew that he
+would not shrink even from the irrevocable if he were driven far enough.
+
+A man may take such a resolution as this and yet a great desire of life
+may remain to thwart it. Gessner found himself debating the issues more
+calmly as the night wore on, and even asking himself if the presence of
+a stranger in his house might be so intolerable as he had believed. He
+had seen little of Alban and that little had not been to the young man's
+disadvantage. If the youth were not all that report had painted him, if
+the amenities of the house should civilize him and kindness win his
+favor, then even he might be an advocate for those to whom he owed such
+favors. This new phase set Gessner thinking more hopefully than at any
+time since the beginning of it. He rose from his bed and turning on the
+lamps began to recall all that the Pole had demanded of him. The terms
+of the compact were not so very unreasonable, surely, he argued. Let
+this young Kennedy consent to remain at "Five Gables" and he, Richard
+Gessner, would answer for the rest. But would he consent to
+remain--would that wild life of the slums call him back to its freedom
+and its friendships? He knew not what to think. A great fear came to
+him, not that the lad would remain but that he would go. Had it been at
+a reasonable hour, he would have talked to him there and then, for the
+hours of that night were beyond all words intolerable. He must see
+Kennedy and convince him. In the end, unable to support the doubt, he
+quitted his own room, and crossed the landing, irresolute, trembling,
+hardly knowing what he did.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It would have been about five o'clock of the morning when he entered
+Alban's room and discovered him to be still sleeping. A sound of heavy
+breathing followed by a restless movement had deceived him and he
+knocked upon the door gently, quite expecting to be answered. When no
+reply came, he ventured in as one who would not willingly pry upon
+another but is compelled thereto by curiosity. The room itself should
+have been in darkness, but Alban had deliberately drawn the heavy
+curtains back from the windows before he slept, and the wan gray light
+of dawn struck down upon his tired face as though seeking out him alone
+of all that slept in the house. A lusty figure of shapely youth, a
+handsome face which the finger of the World had touched already, these
+the light revealed. He slept upon his back, his head turned toward the
+light, his arm outstretched and almost touching the floor.
+
+Gessner stood very still, afraid to wake the sleeper and by him to be
+thus discovered. No good nationalist at any time, he had always admired
+that product of a hard-drinking, hard-fighting ancestry, the British
+boy; and in Alban it seemed to him that he discovered an excellent type.
+Undoubtedly the lad was both handsome and strong. For his brains, Silas
+Geary would answer, and he had given evidence of good wit in their brief
+encounter last night. Gessner drew a step nearer and asked himself again
+if the detective's reports were true. Was this the friend of vagabonds,
+the companion of sluts--this clean-limbed, virile fellow with the fair
+face and the flaxen curls and the head of a thinker and a sage? A judge
+of men himself, he said that the words were a lie, and then he
+remembered Boriskoff's account, the story of a father who had died to
+serve an East End Mission, and of a devoted mother worsted in her youth
+by those gathering hosts of poverty she had set out so bravely to
+combat. Could the son of such as these be all that swift espionage would
+have him? Gessner did not believe it. New hopes, as upon a great freshet
+of content, came to him to give him comfort. He had no son. Let this lad
+be the son whom he had desired so ardently. Let them live together, work
+together in a mutual affection of gratitude and knowledge. Who could
+prevail against such an alliance? What rancor of Boriskoff's would harm
+the lad he desired to be the husband of his daughter. Aye, and this was
+the supreme consolation--that if Alban would consent, he, Gessner, would
+so earn his devotion and his love that therein he might arm himself
+against all the world.
+
+But would he consent? How if this old habit of change asserted itself
+and took him back to the depths? Gessner breathed quickly when he
+remembered that such might be the end of it. No law could compel the
+boy, no guardian claim him. Twice already he had expressed in this house
+his contempt for the riches which should have tempted him. Gessner began
+to perceive that his fate depended upon a word. It must be "yes" or "no"
+to-morrow--and while "yes" would save him, the courage of a hundred men
+would not have faced the utmost possibilities of "no."
+
+This simple truth kept the man to the room as though therein lay all his
+hopes of salvation. At one time he was upon the point of waking Alban
+and putting the question to him. Or again, he tried to creep back to the
+landing, determined, in his own room, to suffer as best he could the
+hours of uncertainty. Distressed by irresolution he crossed to the
+window at last and breathed the cool sweet air of morning as one being a
+stranger to such a scene at such an hour. The sun had risen by this time
+and all the landscape stood revealed in its morning beams. Not yet had
+London stirred to the murmur of the coming day--no smoke rose from her
+forest of chimneys, no haze drifted above the labyrinth. Far below she
+lay, a maze of empty streets, of shuttered shops, of vast silent
+buildings--a city of silence, hiding her cares from the glory of the
+dawn, veiling her sorrow and her suffering, hushing her children to
+rest, deaf to the morning voices; rich and poor alike turning from the
+eyes of the day to Mother Sleep upon whose heart is eternal rest. Such a
+city Gessner beheld while he looked from the window, and the golden
+beams lighted his pallid face and the sweet air of day called him to
+deed and resolution. What victories he had won upon that grimy field;
+what triumphs he had known; what hours of pomp and vanity--what bitter
+anguish! And now he might rule there no longer. Detection had stalked
+out of the unknown and touched him upon the shoulder. Somewhere in that
+labyrinth his enemies were sleeping. But one human being could shield
+him from them, and he a lad--without home or friends, penniless and a
+wanderer.
+
+He drew back from the window, saying that the hours of suspense must be
+brief and that his will should prevail with this lad, at whatever
+sacrifice. Believing that his old shrewdness would help him, and that in
+Alban not only the instrument of his salvation but of his vengeance
+should be found, he would have quitted the room immediately, had not his
+eye lighted at hazard upon a rough paper, lying upon the floor by the
+bed, and a pencil which had tumbled from Alban's tired hand. Perceiving
+that the lad had been drawing, and curious beyond ordinary to know the
+subject of his picture, he picked the paper up to discover thereon a
+rude portrait which he recognized instantly for that of his daughter,
+Anna. Such a discovery, thrusting into his schemes as it did an idea
+which hitherto had escaped him, held him for an instant spellbound with
+wonder. A clever man, accustomed to arrive at conclusions swiftly, the
+complexity of his thoughts, the strife of arguments now unnerved him
+utterly. For he perceived both a great possibility and a great danger.
+
+He is "to marry Lois Boriskoff" was the silent reflection--"to marry the
+daughter. And this--this--good God, the man would never forgive me
+this!"
+
+The paper tumbled from his hands. Alban, turning upon his pillow, sighed
+in his sleep. A neighboring church clock struck six; there were workmen
+going down to the city which must now awake to the labors of the day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+WHIRLWIND
+
+
+Captain Willy Forrest admitted that he had few virtues, but he never
+charged himself with the vice of idleness. In town or out of it, his
+trim man-servant, Abel, would wake him at seven o'clock and see that he
+had a cup of tea and the morning papers by a quarter-past. Fine physical
+condition was one of the ambitions of this lithe shapely person, whose
+father had been a jockey and whose mother had not forgotten to the day
+of her death the manner in which measurements are taken upon a counter.
+
+Willy Forrest, by dint of perseverance, had really come to believe that
+these worthy parents never existed but in his imagination. To the world
+he was the second son of the late Sir John Forrest, Bart., whose
+first-born, supposed to be in Africa, had remained beyond the pale for
+many years. Society, which rarely questions pleasant people, took him at
+his word and opened many doors to him. In short, he was a type of
+adventurer by no means uncommon, and rarely unsuccessful when there are
+brains to back the pretensions.
+
+He was not a particularly evil rascal, and women found him charming.
+Possessed of a merry face, a horsey manner and a vocabulary which would
+have delighted a maker of slang dictionaries, he pushed his my
+everywhere, not hoping for something to turn up, but determined that his
+own cleverness should contrive that desirable arrival. When he met Anna
+Gessner at Ascot a year ago, the propitious moment seemed at hand. "The
+girl is a gambler to her very boots," he told himself, while he
+reflected that a seat upon the box of such a family coach would
+certainly make his fortune. Willy Forrest resolved to secure such a seat
+without a moment's loss of time.
+
+This determination taken, the ardor with which he pursued it was
+surprising. A cunning fox-like instinct led him to read Anna Gessner's
+character as few others who had known her. Believing greatly in the
+gospel of heredity, he perceived that Anna owed much to her father and
+more to her nationality. "She is selfish and passionate, a little devil
+in single harness who would be worse in double"--this was his reading of
+her; to which he added the firm resolution to put the matter to the
+proof without loss of time.
+
+"I shall weigh in immediately and the weights will be light," he
+thought. "She likes a bit of a flutter and I'll see that she gets it.
+There is plenty of corn in the old man's manger, and if it comes to
+bursting the bag, I will carry home the pieces. There's where I drive
+the car. She shall play and I will be her pet lamb. Great Jupiter, what
+a catch!"
+
+The result of this pretty conclusion is next to be seen in a cottage in
+Hampshire, not far removed from the racing stables of the great John
+Farrier, who, as all the world knows, is one of the most honest and the
+most famous trainers in the country. This cottage had Willy Forrest
+furnished (indirectly at Anna's expense) in a manner worthy of all the
+artistic catalogues. And hither would Anna come, driving over from her
+father's country-house near Basingstoke, and caring not a fig what the
+grooms might think of her.
+
+"Captain Forrest is my trainer," she told the men, bidding them to be
+secret.
+
+For any other explanation they cared not at all. To run a horse in a
+great race seemed to them the highest of human achievements, and great
+was their wonder that this fragile girl should dare it. "She be a rare
+good 'un and a stayer. Derned if I don't put my last button on
+Whirlwind." This was the extent of the scandal that she caused.
+
+Anna motored over to "The Nest" some three weeks after Alban had been
+received at Hampstead, and found Willy Forrest anxiously waiting for her
+at the gate. She had brought with her one of those obliging dependents
+who act so cheerfully as unnecessary chaperones, and this "person" she
+left in the smart car while she entered the cottage and told the owner
+that he was forgiven. Their quarrel had been vehement and tempestuous
+while it lasted--and the Captain remembered that she had struck him with
+her whip.
+
+"I knew you'd come, Anna," he said good-humoredly while he opened the
+gate for her. "Of course, I don't bear you any grudge. Good Lord, how
+you went it last time. I might have been a hair-trunk that had let you
+down at a gate. Eh, what--do you remember it? And the old chin-pot which
+cost me twenty guineas. Why, you smashed it all to bits with your
+whip--eh, what? I've laughed till I cried every time I tried to stick it
+together again. Come right in and let's shake hands. You've got an
+oddish looking lot in the car--bought her in at the sale, I suppose--eh,
+what? Well, I'm glad to see you really."
+
+She looked a little downcast, he thought, but prettier than he had ever
+seen her before. It was quite early in the morning and his table had
+been set out for breakfast, with dainty old-fashioned china and a silver
+kettle singing over a lamp. Anna took her favorite arm-chair, and
+drawing it close to the table permitted him to give her a cup of tea.
+
+"You wanted to make a cheat of me," she said calmly enough. "Oh, yes, I
+have heard all about it. There's nothing whatever the matter with
+Whirlwind. He must win the cup--John Farrier says so. You are the person
+who does not wish him to win."
+
+Adventurers never blush when they are found out, and Willy Forrest was
+no exception to the rule.
+
+"Oh, there you are," he cried boisterously, "just the same old
+kettle-drum and the same old sticks. Do you think I don't know as much
+about a horse as Farrier? Good Lord, he makes me sick--I'd sooner hear a
+Salvation Army Band playing 'Jumping Jerusalem' on the trombone than old
+John Farrier talking honest. Are we running nags to pay the brokers out
+or to make a bit on our sweet little own--eh, what? Are we
+white-chokered philanthropists or wee wee baby mites on the nobbly
+nuggets? Don't you listen to him, Anna. You'll have to sell your boots
+if you follow old John."
+
+She stirred her tea and sipped it slowly.
+
+"You said Whirlwind was going lame on the near fore-leg, and it isn't
+true," she exclaimed upon a pause. "What was your object in telling me
+that?"
+
+"I said it before the grooms and you didn't give me a chance of blowing
+the smoke away afterwards. You say you are racing to make money and
+what's the good of hymns and milk? This horse will start at eleven to
+four on unless you're careful--where's my gold-lined shower bath then?
+Don't you see that you must put the market back--frighten the backers
+off and then step in? That's what I was trying to teach you all the
+time. Give out on the loud trumpet that the horse has gone dickey and
+leave 'em uncertain for a week whether he's running or sticking. Your
+money's on through a third party in the 'tween times and your cheeks are
+as red as roses when the flag goes down."
+
+"And if the horse should not win after you have cheated the people?"
+
+"You'll be some five thousand out of pocket--that's all. Now, Anna,
+don't let us have any mumble-pie between us. I'm not the dark man of the
+story-books who lures the beautiful heroine on to play, and you're not
+the wonderful Princess who breaks her old pa and marries because he's
+stony. You can't get overmuch out of the old man and you're going to
+make the rest at Tattersalls. If you listen to me, you'll make it--but
+if you don't, if you play the giddy goat with old John Farrier in the
+pulpit; well, then, the sooner you write cheques the better. That's the
+plain truth and you may take it or leave it. There are not three honest
+men racing and Willy Forrest don't join the trinity. We'll do as all
+the crowd does and leave 'em to take care of themselves. You make a book
+that they know how to do it. Oh, my stars, don't they--eh, what?"
+
+Anna did not reply immediately to this odd harangue. She knew a good
+deal about horses, but nothing whatever about the knavery of betting,
+the shoddy tricks of it and the despicable spirit in which this great
+game is often played. Something of her father's cunning, inherited and
+ineradicable, led her to condone the Captain's sporting creed and not to
+seek understanding. The man's high spirits made a sure appeal to her.
+She could not comprehend it wholly--but she had to admit that none of
+all her father's widening circle had ever appealed to her as this
+nimble-tongued adventurer, who could make her heart quicken every time
+their hands touched.
+
+"I don't like it," she said anon, "and I don't want anything to do with
+it. You make Whirlwind win the race and nobody will be hurt. If they bet
+against the horse, what is that to me? How can I help what they
+think--and I don't care either if they are so foolish. Didn't you
+promise me that I should see him gallop this morning? I wouldn't have
+motored over otherwise. You said that there was to be a Trial--"
+
+"Divine angel, we are at your feet always. Of course, there's a Trial.
+Am I so foolish as to suppose that you came over to see Willy
+Forrest--eh, what? Have I lost the funny-bone up above? Farrier is going
+to gallop the nags in half an hour's time. Your smoke-machine can take
+us up the hill and there we'll form our own conclusions. You leave the
+rest to me. It will be a bright sunny morning when they put any salt on
+Willy Forrest's tail--eh, what?"
+
+She admitted the truth with the first smile he had seen since she
+entered the cottage. His quick bustling manner, the deference he always
+paid to her, despite his odd phrases, won upon her good humor and led
+her to open her heart to him.
+
+"My father is going mad," she said quietly--his startled "eh, what" not
+preventing her; "we are making our house a home for the destitute, and
+the first arrived just three weeks ago. Imagine a flaxen-haired image of
+righteousness, who draws my portrait on the covers of books and puts
+feathers in my hat. He is in love with me, Willy, and he is to be my big
+brother. Yesterday I took him to Ranalegh and heard a discourse upon the
+beauties of nature and the wonders of the air and the sky. Oh, my dear
+man--what a purgatory and what an event. We are going to sell our jewels
+presently and to live in Whitechapel. My father, I must tell you, seems
+afraid of this beautiful apparition and implores him every day not to go
+away. I know that he stops because he is inclined to make love to me.
+
+"Whew--so it's only 'inclined' at present?"
+
+"Absolutely as you say. There appear to be two of us. I have been
+expecting a passionate declaration--but the recollections of a feathered
+beauty who once lived in a fairy palace, in a wonderland where you dine
+upon red herrings--she is my hated rival. I am more beautiful,
+observe--that is conceded, but he cannot understand me. The feathered
+hat has become my salvation. My great big brother can't get over
+it--and oh, the simplicity of the child, the youthful verdant
+confidence, my Willy. Don't you see that the young man thinks I am an
+angel and is wondering all the time where the wings have gone to."
+
+"Ha, ha--he'd better ask Paquin. Are you serious, Anna?"
+
+"As serious as the Lord High Executioner himself. My father has adopted
+a youth--and I have a big brother. He has consented to dwell in our
+house and to spend our savings because he believes that by so doing he
+is in some way helping me. I don't in the least want his help, but my
+father is determined that I shall have it. I am not to bestow my young
+affections upon him--nor, upon the other hand, am I to offend him. Admit
+that the situation is delightful. Pity a poor maiden in her distress."
+
+Willy Forrest did not like the sound of it at all.
+
+"The old chap must have gone dotty," he remarked presently; "they're
+often taken this way when they get to a certain age. You'll have to sit
+tight and see about it, Anna. He isn't too free with the ready as it
+is--and if you've a boy hanging about, God help you. Why don't you be
+rude to him? You know the way as well as most--eh, what?"
+
+"I'm positively afraid to. Do you know, my dear man, that if this
+Perfect Angel left us, strange things would happen. My father says so,
+and I believe he speaks the truth. There is a mystery--and I hate
+mysteries."
+
+"Get hold of the feathered lady and hear what she has to say."
+
+"Impossible but brilliant. She has gone to Germany."
+
+"Oh, damn--then he'll be making love to you. I say, Anna, there's not
+going to be any billing and cooing or anything of that sort. I'm not
+very exacting, but the way you look at men is just prussic acid to me.
+If this kid should begin--"
+
+She laughed drolly.
+
+"He is my great big brother," she said--and then jumping up--"let us go
+and see the horses. You'll be talking nonsense if we don't. And, Willy,
+I forbid you to talk nonsense."
+
+She turned and faced him in mock anger, and he, responding instantly,
+caught her in his arms and kissed her ardently.
+
+"What a pair of cherubs," he exclaimed, "what a nest of cooing doves--I
+say, Anna, I must kill that kid--or shall it be the fatted calf?
+There'll be murder done somewhere if he stops at Hampstead."
+
+"If it were done, then when it were done--O let me go, Willy, your arms
+are crushing me."
+
+He released her instantly and, snatching up a cap, set out with her to
+the downs where the horses were being stripped for the gallop. The
+morning of early summer was delightfully fragrant--a cool breeze came up
+from the sea and every breath invigorated. Old John Farrier, mounted on
+a sturdy cob, met them at the foot of a great grassy slope and
+complained that it was over late in the day for horses to gallop, but,
+as he added, "they'll have to do it at Ascot and they may as well do it
+here." A silent man, old John had once accompanied Willy Forrest to a
+dinner at the Carlton which Anna gave to a little sporting circle. Then
+he uttered but one remark, seeming to think some observation necessary,
+and it fell from his lips in the pause of a social discussion. "I always
+eat sparrer-grass with my fingers," he had said, and wondered at the
+general hilarity.
+
+Old John was unusually silent upon this morning of the trial, and when
+he named the weights at which the horses would gallop, his voice sank to
+a sepulchral whisper. "The old 'oss is giving six pounds," he said, "he
+should be beat a length. If it's more, go cautious, miss, and save your
+money for another day. He hasn't been looking all I should like of him
+for a long time--that's plain truth; and when a horse isn't looking all
+I should like of him, 'go easy' say I and keep your money under the
+bed."
+
+Anna laughed at the kindly advice, and leaving the car she walked to the
+summit of the hill and there watched the horses--but three pretty specks
+they appeared--far down in the hollow. The exhilaration of the great
+open spaces, the wide unbroken grandeur of the downs, the sweetness of
+the air, the freshness of the day, brought blood to her pallid cheeks
+and a sparkle of life to her eyes. How free it all was, how
+unrestrained, how suggestive of liberty and of a boundless kingdom! And
+then upon it all the excitements of the gallop, the thunder of hoofs
+upon the soft turf, the bent figures of the jockeys, the raking strides
+of the beautiful horses--Anna no longer wondered why sport could so
+fascinate its devotees. She felt at such a moment that she would have
+gladly put her whole fortune upon Whirlwind.
+
+"He wins--he wins--he wins," she cried as the three drew near, and Willy
+Forrest, watching her with cunning eyes, said that the trap was closed
+indeed and the key in his possession. Whirlwind, a magnificent chestnut
+four-year-old, came striding up the hill as though the last furlong of
+the mile and a half he had galloped were his chief delight. He was a
+winner by a short head as they passed the post, and old John Farrier
+could not hide his satisfaction.
+
+"He's the best plucked 'un in England to-day, lady, and you may put your
+wardrobe on him after that. Be quick about it though, for there'll be no
+odds to speak of when the touts have written to-day's work in the
+newspapers. Go and telegraph your commissions now. There isn't a minute
+to lose."
+
+Willy Forrest seconded the proposal eagerly.
+
+"I should back him for five thou," he said as they left the course
+together, "what's the good of half measures? You might as well play
+dominoes in a coffee shop. And I can always break the news to your
+father if you lose."
+
+Anna hardly knew what to say. When she consented finally to risk the
+money, she did not know that Willy Forrest was the man who laid against
+her horse, and that if she lost it would be to him.
+
+"The boss is good enough," he told himself, "but the near-off is dicky
+or I never saw one. She'll lose the money and the old boy will pay
+up--if I compel her to ask him. That depends on the kid. She couldn't
+help making eyes at him if her life depended on it. Well--she's going to
+marry me, and that's the long and short of it. Fancy passing a certainty
+at my time of life. Do I see it--eh, what?"
+
+And so they went their ways: Anna back to London to the solemn routine
+of the big house; Willy Forrest to Epsom to try, as he said, "and pick
+up the nimble with a pencil."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+ALBAN SEES LIFE
+
+
+Alban had been five weeks at Hampstead when he met Willy Forrest for the
+first time, and was able to gratify his curiosity concerning one whom he
+believed to be Anna's lover.
+
+The occasion was Richard Gessner's absence in Paris upon a business of
+great urgency and the immediate appearance of the dashing captain at
+"Five Gables." True, Anna behaved with great discretion, but, none the
+less, Alban understood that this man was more to her than others, and he
+did not fail to judge him with that shrewd scrutiny even youth may
+command.
+
+Willy Forrest, to give him his due, took an instinctive liking to the
+new intruder and was not to be put off, however much his attentions were
+displeasing to Anna. A cunning foresight, added to a fecund imagination
+and a fine taste for all _chroniques scandaleuses_, led him to determine
+that Alban Kennedy might yet inherit the bulk of Gessner's fortune and
+become the plumpest of all possible pigeons. Should this be the case,
+those who had been the young man's friends in the beginning might well
+remain so to the end. He resolved instantly to cultivate an acquaintance
+so desirable, and lost not a moment in the pursuit of his aims.
+
+"My dear chap," he said on the third day of their association, "you are
+positively growing grass in this place. Do you never go anywhere? Has no
+one taught you how to amuse yourself?"
+
+Alban replied that everything was so new to him that he desired no other
+amusement than its enjoyment.
+
+"It was almost years since I saw a tree that was not black," he said;
+"the water used to drip through the roof of my garret, and there was a
+family in the room on the opposite side of the landing. I don't think
+you can understand what this house means to me. Perhaps I don't
+understand myself. I'm almost afraid to go to sleep at night for fear I
+should wake up in Union Street and find it all a fairy story. Mr.
+Gessner says I am to stop with them always--but he might change his mind
+and then it would be Commercial Road again--if I had the courage to go
+back there."
+
+Forrest had known evil times himself, and he could honestly appreciate
+the possibility.
+
+"Stick by the old horse while he sticks by you," was his candid advice.
+"I expect he's under a pretty stiff obligation to some of your people
+who are gone, and this is how he's paying it. You take all the corn you
+can get and put it in your nose-bag. Anna herself tells me that the old
+man is only happy while you are in the house. Play up to it, old chap,
+and grease your wheels while the can's going round."
+
+This very worldy advice fell upon ears strikingly deficient in
+understanding subtleties. Alban could not dislike Forrest, though he
+tried his best to do so. There was something sympathetic about the
+fellow, rogue that he was, and even shrewd men admitted his
+fascination. When the Captain proposed that they should go down to the
+West End of London and see a little of life together, Alban consented
+gladly. New experiences set him hungering after those supposed delights
+which were made so much of in the newspapers. He reflected how very
+little he really knew of the world and its people.
+
+It was a day of early June when they set off in that very single
+brougham which had carried Silas Geary to Whitechapel. The Captain,
+having first ascertained the amount of money in his friend's possession,
+proposed a light lunch in the restaurant of the Savoy, and there, to do
+him justice, he was amusing enough.
+
+"People are all giving up houses and living in restaurants nowadays," he
+said as they sat at table. "I don't blame 'em either. Just think of the
+number of nags in those big stables, all eating their heads off and
+smoking your best cigars--eh, what? Why, I kept myself in weeds a few
+years ago--got 'em for twopence halfpenny from a butler in Curzon Street
+and never smoked better. You don't want to do that, for you can bottle
+old Bluebeard's and try 'em on the dog--eh, what? When you marry, don't
+you take a house. A man who lives in a hotel doesn't seem as though he
+were married and that's good for the filly. Look at these angels here.
+Why, half of them sold the family oak tree a generation ago, and
+Attenborough down the street will tell you what their Tiffanies are
+worth. They live in hotels because it's cheaper, and they wear French
+paste because the other is at uncle's. That's the truth, my boy, and all
+the world knows it."
+
+Alban listened with an odd cynical smile upon his face, but he did not
+immediately reply. This famous hotel had seemed a cavern of all the
+wonders when first he entered it, and he would not willingly abandon his
+illusions. The beautifully dressed women, the rustling gowns, the
+chiffon, the lace, the feathers, the diamonds--might he not have thought
+that they stood for all that pomp and circumstance of life which the
+East End denounced so vehemently and the West End as persistently
+demanded? Of the inner lives of these people he knew absolutely nothing.
+And, after all, he remembered, men and women are much the same whatever
+the circumstance.
+
+"I like to be in beautiful places," he confessed in his turn, "and this
+place seems to me very beautiful. Does it really matter to us, Forrest,
+what the people do or what they are so long as they don't ask us to be
+the same? Jimmy Dale, a parson in Whitechapel, used to say that a man
+was just what his conscience made him. I don't see how the fact of
+living in or out of a hotel would matter anyway--unless you leave your
+conscience in a cab. The rest is mostly talk, and untrue at that, they
+say. You yourself know that you don't believe half of it."
+
+"My dear man, what would life be if one were incredulous? How would the
+newspaper proprietors buy bread and cheese, to say nothing of pâte de
+foie gras and ninety-two Pommery if the world desired the truth? This
+crowd is mostly on the brink of a precipice, and a man or a woman goes
+over every day. Then you have the law report and old Righteousness in a
+white wig, who has not been found out, to pronounce a judgment. I'd
+like to wager that not one in three of these people ever did an honest
+day's work in a lifetime. One half is rank idle--the other half is
+trying to live on the remainder. Work it out and pass me the wine--and
+mind you don't get setting up any images for time to knock down--eh,
+what?"
+
+Alban would not wrangle with him, and for a little while he ate in
+silence, watching the sparkling throng and listening to such scraps of
+conversation as floated to him from merry tables. Down in Union Street
+it had been the fashion to decry idleness and the crimes of the
+rich--the orators having it that leisure was criminal and ease a heinous
+sin. Alban had never believed in any such fallacy. "We are all born
+lazy," he had said, "and few of us would work unless we had to. Vanity
+is at the bottom of all that we do. If no one were vain, the world would
+stand still." In the Savoy, his arguments seemed to be justified a
+hundredfold. A sense of both content and dignity came to him. He began
+almost to believe that money could ennoble as well as satisfy.
+
+Willy Forrest, of course, knew nothing whatever of thoughts such as
+these. He was a past master in the art of killing time and he boasted
+that he rarely knew an "idle hour." His programme for this day seemed
+altogether beyond criticism.
+
+"We'll look in at the club afterwards and play a game of bridge--you can
+stand by me and see me win--or perhaps you'd like a side bet. Then we
+might turn into the park to give the girls a treat--eh, what?--and go
+on to the New Bridge Club to dress. After that there's the old sporting
+shanty and a bit of a mill between Neddy Tinker and Marsh Hill. You
+never saw a fight, I suppose? Man, but your education has been
+neglected."
+
+Alban smiled and admitted his deficiencies.
+
+"I've seen many a set-to in Commercial Road and taken a hand sometimes.
+Is it really quite necessary to my education?"
+
+"Absolutely indispensable. You must do everything and be seen
+everywhere. If I had time, I'd give you the personal history of half the
+light-weights in this room. Look at that black crow in the corner there.
+He's a Jew parson from Essex--as rich as bottled beer and always stops
+here. Last time I rode a welter down his way they told me his favorite
+text was "Blessed are the poor." He's a pretty figurehead for a
+bean-feast, isn't he? That chirpy barrister next door has a practice of
+fifteen thou. The blighter once cross-examined me in a card-sharping
+case and made me look the biggest damned fool in Europe. Did I rest on
+my laurels--eh, what? Why, sir, he can't cross a race-course now without
+having his pocket picked. My doing, my immortal achievement. The little
+Countess next door used to do stunts at the _Nouveau Cirque_. Lord
+Saxe-Holt married her when he was hazy and is taming her. That old chap,
+who eats like a mule, is Lord Whippingham. He hasn't got a sixpence, and
+if you ask me how he lives--well, there are ways and means foreign to
+your young and virgin mind. The old geezer used to run after little
+Betty Sine at the Apollo--but she put an ice down his back at supper
+here one night and then there were partings. Some day I'll take you to
+the Blenheim and show you England's aristocracy in arm-chairs--we
+haven't time to-day and here's the coffee coming. Pay up and be thankful
+that your new pa isn't overdrawn, and has still a shekel or two in his
+milk jug. My godfather!--but you are a lucky young man, and so you are
+beginning to think, I suppose."
+
+Alban did not condescend to answer a question so direct. He was still
+quite uncertain as to his future, and he would not discuss it with this
+irresponsible, who had undertaken to be his worldly mentor. When they
+left the Savoy it was to visit a club in Trafalgar Square and there
+discover the recumbent figures of aged gentlemen who had lunched not
+wisely but too well. Of all that he had seen in the kingdoms of money,
+Alban found this club least to his liking. The darkness of its great
+rooms, the insolence of its members toward the servants who waited upon
+them, the gross idleness, the trivial excitements of the card-room, the
+secret drinking in remote corners--he had never imagined that men of
+brains could so abase themselves, and he escaped ultimately to Hyde Park
+with a measure of thankfulness he would not conceal.
+
+"Why do people go to places like that, Forrest?" he asked as they went.
+"What enjoyment do they get out of them?"
+
+Willy Forrest, who had taken a "mahogany one" in the club and was
+getting mighty confidential, answered him as candidly.
+
+"Half of 'em go to get away from their wives, the other half to win
+money--eh, what?"
+
+"But why do they never speak to each other?"
+
+"Put two game-cocks in a pen and then ask again. It's a club, my boy,
+and so they think every other man a rogue or a fool."
+
+"And do they pay much for the privilege?"
+
+"That depends on the airs they give themselves. I've been pilled for
+half the clubs in town and so, I suppose, I'm rather a decent sort of
+chap. It used to be a kind of hall-mark to get in a good club, but we
+live at hotels nowadays and don't care a dump for them. That's why half
+of 'em are on the verge of bankruptcy. Don't you trouble about them,
+unless you get a filly that bolts. I shall have to give up clubs
+altogether, I suppose, when I marry Anna--eh, what?"
+
+He laughed at the idea, and Alban remaining silent, he whistled a hansom
+in a way that would have done credit to a railway porter, and continued
+affably.
+
+"You knew that I was going to marry Anna, didn't you? She told you on
+the strict q.t., didn't she? Oh, my stars, how she can talk! I shall buy
+an ear-trumpet when we're in double harness. But Anna told you, now
+didn't she?"
+
+"I have only once heard her mention your name--she certainly did not
+speak of being engaged."
+
+"They never do when the old man bucks--eh, what? Gessner don't like me,
+and I'd poison him for a shilling. Why shouldn't I marry her? I can ride
+a horse and point a gun and throw a fly better than most. Can Old
+Bluebeard go better--eh, what? The old pot-hook, I'd play him any game
+you like to name for a pony aside and back myself to the Day of
+Judgment. And he's the man who talks about bagging a Duke for his girl!
+Pshaw, Anna would kick the coronet downstairs in three days and the
+owner after it. You must know that for yourself--she's a little devil to
+rear and you can't touch her on the curb--eh, what, you've noticed it
+yourself?"
+
+Alban declared quite frankly that he had noticed nothing whatever. Not
+for a fortune would he have declared his heart to this man, the hopes,
+the perplexities, and the self-reproach which had attended ever these
+early weeks in wonderland. Just as Anna's shrewdness had perceived, so
+was it the truth that an image of perfect womanhood dazzled his
+imagination and left him without any clear perception whatever. For
+little Lois of the slums he had a sterling affection, begotten of long
+association and of mutual sympathy--but the vision of Anna had been the
+beatification of his love dream, so to speak, deceiving him by its
+immense promise and leading him to credit Gessner's daughter with all
+those qualities of womanhood which stood nearest to his heart's desire.
+Here was a Lois become instantly more beautiful, more refined, more
+winning. If he remained true to the little friend of his boyish years,
+his faith had been obscured for a moment by this superb apparition of a
+young girl's beauty, enshrined upon the altar of riches and endowed with
+those qualities which wealth alone could purchase. Anna, indeed, held
+him for a little while spellbound, and now he listened to Forrest as
+though a heresy against all women were spoken.
+
+"I did not know you were engaged," he said quite frankly. "Anna
+certainly has never told me. Of course, I congratulate you. She is a
+very beautiful girl, Forrest."
+
+"That's true, old chap. You might see her in the paddock and pick her at
+a glance--eh, what? But it's mum at present--not a whistle to the old
+man until the south wind blows. And don't you tell Anna either. She'd
+marry somebody else if she thought I was really in love with her--eh,
+what?"
+
+Alban shrugged his shoulders but had nothing to say. They had now come
+to the famous Achilles Statue in Hyde Park, and there they walked for
+half an hour amidst the showily dressed women on the lawn. Willy Forrest
+was known to many of these and everywhere appeared sure of a familiar
+welcome. The very men, who would tell you aside that he was a "wrong
+'un," nodded affably to him and sometimes stopped to ask him what was
+going to win the Oaks. He patronized a few pretty girls with
+condescending recognition and immediately afterwards would relate to
+Alban the more intimate and often scandalous stories of their families.
+At a later moment they espied Anna herself in a superb victoria drawn by
+two strawberry roans. And to their intense astonishment they perceived
+that she had the Reverend Silas Geary in the carriage by her side.
+
+"A clever little devil, upon my soul," said the Captain, ecstatically,
+"to cart that fire-escape round and show him to the crowd. She must
+have done it to annoy me--eh, what? She thinks I'm not so much an angel
+as I look and is going to make me good. Oh, my stars--let's get. I shall
+be saying the catechism if I stop here any longer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+ALBAN REVISITS UNION STREET
+
+
+Alban escaped from the Sporting Club at a quarter to eleven, sick of its
+fetid atmosphere and wearied by its mock brutalities. He made no
+apologies for quitting Willy Forrest--for, truth to tell, that merry
+worthy was no longer capable of understanding them. Frequent calls for
+whisky-and-soda, added to a nice taste for champagne at dinner, left the
+Captain in that maudlin condition in which a man is first cousin to all
+the world--at once garrulous and effusive and generally undesirable.
+Alban had, above all things, a contempt for a drunken man; and leaving
+Forrest to the care of others of his kind, he went out into the street
+and made his way slowly eastward.
+
+It was an odd thing to recall; but he had hardly set foot east of the
+Temple, he remembered, since the day when the bronze gates of Richard
+Gessner's house first closed upon him and the vision of wonderland burst
+upon his astonished eyes. The weeks had been those of unending kindness,
+of gifts showered abundantly, of promises for the future which might
+well overwhelm him by their generosity. Let him but consent to claim his
+rights, Gessner had said, and every ambition should be gratified. No
+other explanation than that of a lagging justice could he obtain--and no
+other had he come to desire. If he remained at Hampstead, the image of
+Anna Gessner, of a perfect womanhood as he imagined it, kept him to the
+house. He did not desire his patron's money; he began to discover how
+few were his wants and how small the satisfaction of their gratification
+could be. But the image he worshipped ever--and at its feet all other
+desires were forgotten.
+
+And now reality had come with its sacrilegious hand, warring upon the
+vision and bidding him open his eyes and see. It was easy enough to
+estimate this adventurer Willy Forrest at his true worth, less easy to
+bind the wounds imagination had received and to set the image once more
+upon its ancient pedestal. Could he longer credit Anna with those
+qualities with which his veneration had endowed her? Must there not be
+heart searchings and rude questionings, the abandonment of the dream and
+the stern corrections of truth? He knew not what to think. A voice of
+reproach asked him if he also had not forgotten. The figure of little
+Lois Boriskoff stood by him in the shadows, and he feared to speak with
+her lest she should accuse him.
+
+Let it be said in justice that he had written to Lois twice, and heard
+but lately that she had left Union Street and gone, none knew whither.
+His determination to do his utmost for her and her father, to bid them
+share his prosperity and command him as they would, had been strong with
+him from the first and delayed only by the amazing circumstances of his
+inheritance. He did not understand even yet that he had the right to
+remain at "Five Gables," but this right had so often been insisted upon
+that he began at last to believe in its reality and to accept the
+situation as a _chose jugée_. And with the conviction, there came an
+intense longing to revisit the old scenes--who knows, it may have been
+but the promptings of a vanity after all.
+
+It was a great thing, indeed, to be walking there in the glare of the
+lamps and telling himself that fortune and a future awaited him, that
+the instrument of mighty deeds would be his inheritance, and that the
+years of his poverty were no more. How cringingly he had walked
+sometimes in the old days when want had shamed him and wealth looked
+down upon him with contempt. To-night he might stare the boldest in the
+face, nurse fabulous desires and know that they would be gratified, peer
+through the barred windows of the shops and say all he saw was at his
+command. A sense of might and victory attended his steps. He understood
+what men mean when they say that money is power and that it rules the
+world.
+
+He turned eastward, and walking with rapid strides made his way down the
+Strand and thence by Ludgate Circus to Aldgate and the mean streets he
+knew so well. It was nearly midnight when he arrived there, and yet he
+fell in with certain whom he knew and passed them by with a genial nod.
+His altered appearance, the black overcoat and the scarf which hid his
+dress clothes, called for many a "Gor blime" or "Strike me dead." Women
+caught his arm and wrestled with him, roughs tried to push him from the
+pavement and were amazed at his good humor. In Union Street he first met
+little red-haired Chris Denham and asked of her the news. She shrank
+back from him as though afraid, and answered almost in a whisper.
+
+"Lois gone--she went three weeks ago. I thought you'd have know'd it--I
+thought you was sweet on her, Alban. And now you come here like
+that--what's happened to you, whatever have you been doing of?"
+
+He told her gaily that he had found new friends.
+
+"But I haven't forgotten the old ones, Chris, and I'm coming down to see
+you all some day soon. How's your mother--what's she doing now?"
+
+The girl shrugged her shoulders and the glance she turned upon him
+seemed to say that she would sooner speak on any other subject.
+
+"What should she be doin'--what's any of us doin' but slave our bones
+off and break our hearts. You've come to see Lois' father, haven't you?
+Oh, yes, I know how much you want to talk about my mother. The old man's
+up there in the shop--I saw him as I came by."
+
+Alban stood an instant irresolute. How much he would have liked to offer
+some assistance to this poor girl, to speak of real pecuniary help and
+friendship. But he knew the people too well. The utmost delicacy would
+be necessary.
+
+"Well," he said, "I'm sorry things are not better, Chris. I've had a
+good Saturday night, you see, and if I can do anything, don't you mind
+letting me know. We'll talk of it when we have more time. I'm going on
+to see Boriskoff now, and I doubt that I'll find him out of bed."
+
+She laughed a little wildly, still turning almost pathetic eyes upon
+him.
+
+"Is it true that it's all off between you and Lois--all the Court says
+it is. That's why she went away, they say--is it true, Alb, or are they
+telling lies? I can't believe it myself. You're not the sort to give a
+girl over--not one that's stood by you as well as Lois. Tell me it ain't
+true or I shall think the worse of you."
+
+The question staggered him and he could not instantly answer it. Was it
+true or false? Did he really love little Lois and had he still an
+intention to marry her? Alban had never looked the situation straight in
+the face until this moment.
+
+"I never tell secrets," he exclaimed a little lamely, and turning upon
+his heel, he shut his ears to the hard laugh which greeted him and went
+on, as a man in a dream, to old Boriskoff's garret. A lamp stood in the
+window there and the tap of a light hammer informed him that the
+indefatigable Pole was still at work. In truth, old Paul was bending
+copper tubing--for a firm which said that he had no equal at the task
+and paid him a wage which would have been despised by a
+crossing-sweeper.
+
+Alban entered the garret quietly and was a little startled by the sharp
+exclamation which greeted him. He knew nothing, of course, of the part
+this crafty Pole had played or what his own change of circumstance owed
+to him. To Alban, Paul Boriskoff was just the same mad revolutionary as
+before--at once fanatic and dreamer and, before then, the father of Lois
+who had loved him. If the old fellow had no great welcome for the young
+Englishman to-night, let that be set down to his sense of neglect and,
+in some measure, to his daughter's absence.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Boriskoff, you are working very late to-night."
+
+Alban stood irresolute at the door, watching the quick movements of the
+shaggy brows and wondered what had happened to old Paul that he should
+be received so coolly. Had he known what was in the Pole's mind he would
+have as soon have jumped off London Bridge as have braved the anger of
+one who judged him so mercilessly in that hour. For Boriskoff had heard
+the stories which Hampstead had to tell, and he had said, "He will ruin
+Lois' life and I have put the power to do so in his hands."
+
+"The poor do not choose their hours, Alban Kennedy. Sit down, if you
+please, and talk to me. I have much to say to you."
+
+He did not rise from his chair, but indicated a rude seat in the corner
+by the chimney and waited until his unwilling guest had taken it. Alban
+judged that his own altered appearance and his absence from Union Street
+must be the cause of his displeasure. He could guess no other reason.
+
+"Do you love my daughter, Alban Kennedy?"
+
+"You know that I do, Paul. Have we not always been good friends? I came
+to tell you about a piece of great good fortune which has happened to me
+and to find out why Lois had not written to me. You see for yourself
+that there is a great change in me. One of the richest men in London
+considers that I have a claim, to some of his money--through some
+distant relative, it appears--and I am living at his house almost as
+his own son."
+
+"Is that why you forget your old friends so quickly?"
+
+"I have never forgotten them. I wrote to Lois twice."
+
+"Did you speak of marriage in your letters?"
+
+The lad's face flushed crimson. He knew that he could not tell Paul
+Boriskoff the truth.
+
+"I did not speak of marriage--why should I?" he exclaimed; "it was never
+your wish that we should speak of it until Lois is twenty-one. She will
+not be that for more than three years--why do you ask me the question
+to-night?"
+
+"Because you have learned to love another woman."
+
+A dead silence fell in the room. The old man continued to tap gently
+upon the coil of tube, rapidly assuming a fantastic shape under the
+masterly touch of a trained hand. A candle flickered by him upon a crazy
+table where stood a crust of bread and a lump of coarse cheese. Not
+boastfully had he told Richard Gessner that he would accept nothing for
+himself. He was even poorer than he had been six weeks ago when he
+discovered that his old enemy was alive.
+
+[Illustration: "You love another woman, Alban Kennedy, and you have
+wished to forget my daughter."]
+
+"You love another woman, Alban Kennedy, and you have wished to forget my
+daughter. Do not say that it is not the truth, for I read it upon your
+face. You should be ashamed to come here unless you can deny it. Fortune
+has been kind to you, but how have you rewarded those for whom she has
+nothing? I say that you have forgotten them--been ashamed of them as
+they have now the right to be ashamed of you."
+
+He put his hammer down and looked the lad straight in the face. Upon
+Alban's part there was an intense desire to confess everything and to
+tell his old friend of all those distressing doubts and perplexities
+which had so harassed him since he went to Hampstead. If he could have
+done so, much would have been spared him in the time to come. But he
+found it impossible to open his heart to an alien,--nor did he believe
+Paul Boriskoff capable of appreciating the emotions which now tortured
+him.
+
+"I have never been ashamed of any of my friends," he exclaimed hotly;
+"you know that it is not true, Paul Boriskoff. Where are the letters
+which I wrote to Lois? Why has she not answered them? If I had been
+ashamed, would they have been written? Cannot you understand that all
+which has happened to me has been very distracting. I have seen a new
+life--a new world, and it is not as our world. Perhaps there is no more
+happiness in it than in these courts and alleys where we have suffered
+so much. I cannot tell you truly. It is all too new to me and naturally
+I feel incapable of judging it. When I came to you to-night it was to
+speak of our old friendship. Should I have done so if I had forgotten?"
+
+Old Paul heard him with patience, but his anger none the less remained.
+The shaggy eyebrows were at rest now, but the eyes were never turned
+from Alban's face.
+
+"You are in love with Anna Gessner," he said quietly; "why do you not
+tell Lois so?"
+
+"I cannot tell her so--it would not be true. She will always be the
+same little Lois to me, and when she is twenty-one I will marry her."
+
+"Ha--when she is twenty-one. That seems a long time off to one who is
+your age. You will marry her, you say--a promise to keep her quiet while
+you make love to this fine lady who befools you. No, Alban Kennedy, I
+shall not let Lois imagine any such thing; I shall tell her the truth.
+She will choose another husband--that is my wish and she will obey it."
+
+"You are doing me a great injustice, Paul Boriskoff. I do not love
+Anna--perhaps for a moment I thought that I did, but I know now that I
+was deceiving myself. She is not one who is worthy of being loved. I
+believed her very different when first I went to Hampstead."
+
+"Tell me no such thing. I am an old man and I know men's hearts. What
+shall my daughter and her rags be to you now that you have fine clothes
+upon your back? You are as the others--you have knelt down at the shrine
+of money and there you worship. This woman in her fine clothes--she is
+your idol. All your past is forgotten immediately you see her. A great
+gulf is set between you and us. Think not that I do not know, for there
+are those who bring me the story every day. You worship Anna Gessner,
+but you live in a fool's paradise, for the father will forbid you to
+marry her. I say it and I know. Be honest and speak to my daughter as I
+have spoken to you to-night."
+
+He raised his hammer as though he would resume his work, and Alban began
+to perceive how hopeless an argument would be with him while in such a
+mood. Not deficient in courage, the lad could not well defend himself
+from so direct an attack, and he had the honesty to admit as much.
+
+"I shall tell Lois the truth," he said: "she will then judge me and say
+whether you are right or wrong. I came here to-night to see if I could
+help you both. You know, Paul Boriskoff, how much I wish to do so. While
+I have money, it is yours also. Have not Lois and I always been as your
+children? You cannot forbid me to act as a son should, just because I
+have come into my inheritance. Let me find you a better home and take
+you away from this dismal place. Then I shall be doing right to worship
+money. Will you not let me do so? There is nothing in life half so good
+as helping those we love--I am sure of it already, and it is only five
+weeks since I came into my inheritance. Give me the right and let me
+still call you father."
+
+Old Paul was much affected, but he would not let the lad see as much.
+Avoiding the question discreetly but not unkindly, he muttered, "No, no,
+I need no help. I am an old man and what happens to me does not matter."
+And then turning the subject swiftly, he asked, "Your patron, he has
+left England, has he not?"
+
+"He has gone to Paris, I believe."
+
+"Did he speak of the business that took him there?"
+
+"He never speaks of business to me. He has asked me once or twice about
+the poor people down here and I have tried to tell him. Such a fortune
+as his could redeem thousands of lives, Paul. I have told him that when
+he spoke to me."
+
+"Such a man will never redeem one life. All the money in the world will
+never buy him rest. He has eaten his harvest and the fields are bare.
+Did you mention my name to him?"
+
+"I do not think that I have done so yet."
+
+"Naturally, you would have been a little ashamed to speak of us. It is
+very rarely that one who becomes rich remembers those who were poor with
+him. His money only teaches him to judge them. Those who were formerly
+his friends are now spendthrifts, extravagant folk who should not be
+injured by assistance. The rich man makes their poverty an excuse for
+deserting them, and he cloaks his desertion beneath lofty moral
+sentiments. You are too young to do so, but the same spirit is already
+leading you. Beware of it, Alban Kennedy, for it will lead you to
+destruction."
+
+Alban did not know how to argue with him. He resented the accusation
+hotly and yet could make no impression of resentment upon the imagined
+grievance which old Paul nursed almost affectionately. It were better,
+he thought, to hold his tongue and to let the old man continue.
+
+"Your patron has gone to Paris, you say? Are you sure it is to Paris?"
+
+"How could I be sure. I am telling you what was told to me. He is to be
+back in a few days' time. It is not to be expected that he would share
+his plans with me."
+
+"Certainly not--he would tell you nothing. Do you know that he is a
+Pole, Alban?"
+
+"A Pole? No! Indeed he gives it out that he was born in Germany and is
+now a naturalized British subject."
+
+"He would do so, but he is a Pole--and because he is a Pole he tells
+you that he has gone to Paris when the truth is that he is at Berlin all
+the time."
+
+"But why should he wish to deceive me, Paul--what am I to him?"
+
+"You are one necessary to his salvation--perhaps it is by you alone that
+he will live. I could see when I first spoke to you how much you were
+astonished that I knew anything about it, but remember, every Pole in
+London knows all about his fellow-countrymen, and so it is very natural
+that I know something of Richard Gessner. You who live in his house can
+tell me more. See what a gossip I am where my own people are concerned.
+You have been living in this man's house and you can tell me all about
+it--his tastes, his books, his friends. There would be many friends
+coming, of course?"
+
+"Not very many, Paul, and those chiefly city men. They eat a great deal
+and talk about money. It's all money up there--the rich, the rich, the
+rich--I wonder how long I shall be able to stand it."
+
+"Oh, money's a thing most people get used to very quickly. They can
+stand a lot of it, my boy. But are there not foreigners at your
+house--men of my own country?"
+
+"I have never seen any--once, I think, Mr. Gessner was talking to a
+stranger in the garden and he looked like a foreigner. You don't think I
+would spy upon him Paul?"
+
+"That would be the work of a very ungrateful fellow. None the less, if
+there are foreigners at Hampstead--I should wish to know of it."
+
+"You--and why?"
+
+"That I may save your kind friend from certain perils which I think are
+about to menace him. Yes, yes, he has been generous to you and I
+wish to reward him. He must not know--he must never hear my name in
+the matter, but should there be strangers at Hampstead let me know
+immediately--write to me if you cannot come here. Do not delay or you
+may rue it to the end of your days. Write to me, Alban, and I shall know
+how to help your friend."
+
+He had spoken under a spell of strong excitement, but his message
+delivered, he fell again to his old quiet manner; and having exchanged a
+few commonplaces with the astonished lad plainly intimated that he would
+be alone. Alban, surprised beyond measure, perceived in his turn that no
+amount of questioning would help him to a better understanding; and so,
+in a state of perplexity which defied expression, he said "Good night"
+and went out into the quiet street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THERE ARE STRANGERS IN THE CAVES
+
+
+It was some time after midnight when Alban reached Broad Street Station
+and discovered that the last train for Hampstead had left. A certain
+uneasiness as to what his new friends would think of him did not deter
+him from his sudden determination to turn westward and seek out his old
+haunts. He had warned Richard Gessner that no house would ever make a
+prisoner of him, and this quick desire for liberty now burned in his
+veins as a fever. It would be good, he thought, to sleep under the stars
+once more and to imagine himself that same Alban Kennedy who had not
+known whither to look for bread--could it be but five short weeks ago!
+
+The city was very still as he passed through it and, save for a
+broken-down motor omnibus with a sleepy conductor for its guardian,
+Cheapside appeared to be almost destitute of traffic. The great
+buildings, wherein men sought the gold all day, were now given over to
+watchmen and the rats, as the bodies of the seekers would one day be
+given over to the earth whence they sprang. Alban depicted a great army
+of the servants of money asleep in distant homes, and he could not but
+ask what happiness they carried there, what capacities for rest and true
+enjoyment.
+
+Was it true, as he had begun to believe, that the life of pleasure had
+cares of its own, hardly less supportable than those which crushed the
+poor to the very earth? Was the daily round of abundance, of lights and
+music and wine and women--was it but the basest of shams, scarce
+deceiving those who practised it? His brief experience seemed to answer
+the question in the affirmative. He wondered if he had known such an
+hour of true happiness as that which had come to him upon the last night
+he had spent in the Caves. Honesty said that he had not--and to the
+Caves he now turned as one who would search out forgotten pleasures.
+
+The building in St. James' Street had made great advance since last he
+saw it, but he observed to his satisfaction that the entrance to the
+subterranean passages were not absolutely closed, and he did not doubt
+that many of the old night-hawks were still in possession. His
+astonishment, therefore, was considerable when, upon dropping into the
+first of the passages, a figure sprang up and clutched him by the
+throat, while a hand thrust a lantern into his face and a pair of black
+eyes regarded him with amazed curiosity.
+
+"A slap-up toff, so help me Jimmy! And what may your Royal Highness be
+doing this way--what brings you to this pretty parlor? Now, speak up, my
+lad, or it will go queer with you."
+
+Alban knew in an instant--his long experience taught him--that he had
+fallen into the hands of the police, and his first alarms were very
+real.
+
+"What right have you to question me?"
+
+"Oh, we'll show our right sharp enough. Now, you be brisk--what's your
+name and what are you doing here?"
+
+"I am the son of Mr. Richard Gessner of Hampstead and I used to know
+this place. I came down to have a look at it before the building is
+finished. If you doubt me, let us go to Mr. Gessner's house together and
+he will tell you who I am."
+
+It was a proud thing to say and he said it with pride. That thrill of
+satisfaction which attends a fine declaration of identity came to Alban
+then as it has done to many a great man in the hour of his vanity. The
+son of Richard Gessner--yes, his patron would acknowledge him for that!
+The police themselves admitted the title by almost instant capitulation.
+
+"Well, sir, it's a queer place to come to, I must say, and not very safe
+either for a gentleman in your position. Why didn't you ask one of us to
+bring you down? We'd have done it right enough, though not to-night
+perhaps."
+
+"Then you're out on business?"
+
+"You couldn't have guessed better, sir. We're here with the nets and
+there will be herrings to salt in the morning. If you care to wait five
+minutes, you may look into the bundle. Here's two or three of them
+coming along now and fine music they're making, I must say. Just step
+aside a minute, sir, while we give a hand. That's a woman's voice and
+she's not been to the Tabernacle. I shouldn't wonder if it was the
+flower girl that hobnobs with the parson--oh, by no means, oh dear, no."
+
+He raised his lantern and turned the light of it full on the passage,
+disclosing a spectacle which brought a flush of warm blood to Alban's
+cheeks and filled him with a certain sense of shame he could not defend.
+For there were three of his old friends, no others than Sarah and the
+Archbishop of Bloomsbury with the boy "Betty," the latter close in the
+custody of the police who dragged him headlong, regardless of the girl's
+shrieks and the ex-clergyman's protests upon their cruelty. For an
+instant Alban was tempted to flee the place, to deny his old friends and
+to surrender to a base impulse of his pride; but a better instinct
+saving him, he intervened boldly and immediately declared himself to the
+astonished company.
+
+"These people are friends of mine," he said, to the complete
+bewilderment of the constables, "please to tell me why you are charging
+them?"
+
+"Gawd Almighty--if it ain't Mr. Kennedy!"--this from the woman.
+
+"Indeed," said the clergyman, with a humility foreign to him, "I am very
+glad to see you, Alban. Our friend 'Betty' here is accused of theft. I
+am convinced--I feel assured that the charge is misplaced and that you
+will be able to help us. Will you not tell these men that you know us
+and can answer for our honesty?"
+
+The lad "Betty" said nothing at all. His eyes were very wide open, a
+heavy hand clutched his ragged collar, and the police stood about him as
+though in possession of a convicted criminal.
+
+"A young lad, sir, that stole a gold match-box from a gentleman and has
+got it somewhere about him now. Stand up, you young devil--none of your
+blarney. Where's the box now and what have you done with it?"
+
+"I picked it up and give it to Captain Forrest--so help me Gawd, it's
+true. Arst him if I didn't."
+
+The sergeant laughed openly at the story.
+
+"He run two of our men from the National Sporting right round Covent
+Garden and back, sir," he said to Alban. "The gentleman dropped the box
+and couldn't wait. But we'll see about all that in the morning."
+
+"If you mean Captain Forrest of the Trafalgar Club, I have just left
+him," interposed Alban, quickly; "this lad has been known to me for some
+years and I am positively sure he is not a thief. Indeed, I will answer
+for him anywhere--and if he did pick up the box, I can promise you that
+Captain Forrest will not prosecute."
+
+He turned to "Betty" and asked him an anxious question.
+
+"Is it true, Betty--did you pick up the box?"
+
+"I picked it up and put it into the gentleman's hand. He couldn't stand
+straight and he dropped it again. Then a cab runner found it and some
+one cried 'stop thief.' I was frightened and ran away. That's the truth,
+Mr. Alban, if I die for it--"
+
+"We must search you, Betty, to satisfy the officers."
+
+"Oh, yes, sir--I'm quite willing to be searched."
+
+He turned out all his pockets there and then, was pinched and pushed and
+cuffed to no avail. The indignant Sarah shaking her clothes in the
+sergeant's face dared him to do the same for her and to take the
+consequences of his curiosity. The Archbishop obligingly offered his
+pockets, which, as he said, were open at all times to the inspection of
+his Majesty's authorized servants. A few words aside between Alban and
+the assembled police, the crisp rustle of a bank-note in the darkness,
+helped conviction to a final victory. There were other ferrets in that
+dark warren and bigger game to be had.
+
+"Well, sir," said the sergeant, "if you'll answer for Captain
+Forrest--and he'll want a lot of answering for to-night--I'll leave the
+lad in your hands. But don't let me find any of 'em down here again, or
+it will go hard with them. Now, be off all of you, for we have work to
+do. And mind you remember what I say."
+
+It was a blessed release and all quitted the place without an instant's
+delay. Out in the open street, the Archbishop of Bloomsbury took Alban
+aside and congratulated him upon his good fortune.
+
+"So your old friend Boriskoff has found you a job?" he said, laying a
+patronizing hand on the lad's stout shoulder. "Well, well, I knew
+Richard Gessner when I was--er--hem--on duty in Kensington, and in all
+matters of public charity I certainly found him to be an example. You
+know, of course, that he is a Pole and that his real name is Maxim
+Gogol. General Kaulbars told me as much when he was visiting England
+some years ago. Your friend is a Pole who would find himself singularly
+inconvenienced if he were called upon to return to Poland. Believe me,
+how very much astonished I was to hear that you had taken up your
+residence in his house."
+
+"Then you heard about it--from whom?" Alban asked.
+
+"Oh, 'Betty' followed you, on the day the person who calls himself
+Willy Forrest, but is really the son of a jockey named Weston, returned
+from Winchester. We were anxious about you, Alban--we questioned the
+company into which you had fallen. I may say, indeed, that our hearths
+were desolate and crape adorned our spears. We thought that you had
+forgotten us--and what is life when those who should remember prefer to
+forget."
+
+Alban answered at hazard, for he knew perfectly well what was coming.
+The boy "Betty," still frightened out of his wits, clung close to the
+skirts of the homeless Sarah and walked with her, he knew not whither. A
+drizzle of rain had begun to fall; the streets were shining as desolate
+rivers of the night--the Caves behind them stood for a house of the
+enemy which none might enter again. But Alban alone was silent--for his
+generosity had loosened the pilgrims' tongues, and they spoke as they
+went of a morrow which should give them bread.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A STUDY IN INDIFFERENCE
+
+
+There are many spurs to a woman's vanity, but declared indifference is
+surely the sharpest of them all. When Anna Gessner discovered that Alban
+was not willing to enroll himself in the great band of worshippers who
+knelt humbly at her golden shrine, she set about converting him with a
+haste which would have been dangerous but for its transparent
+dishonesty. In love herself, so far as such a woman could ever be in
+love at all, with the dashing and brainless jockey who managed her
+race-horses, she was quite accustomed, none the less, to add the
+passionate confessions and gold-sick protestations of others to her
+volume of amatory recollections, and it was not a little amazing that a
+mere youth should be discovered, so obstinate, so chilly and so
+indifferent as to remain insensible both to her charms and their value,
+in what her father had called "pounds sterling."
+
+When Alban first came to "Five Gables," his honesty amused her greatly.
+She liked to hear him speak of the good which her father's money could
+do in the slums and alleys he had left. It was a rare entertainment for
+her to be told of those "dreadful people" who sewed shirts all day and
+were frequently engaged in the same occupation when midnight came. "I
+shall call you the Missionary," she had said, and would sit at his feet
+while he confessed some of the wild hopes which animated him, or
+justified his desire for that great humanity of the East whose supreme
+human need was sympathy. Anna herself did not understand a word of
+it--but she liked to have those clear blue eyes fixed upon her, to hear
+the soft musical voice and to wonder when this pretty boy would speak of
+his love for her.
+
+But the weeks passed and no word of love was spoken, and the woman in
+her began to ask why this should be. She was certain as she could be
+that her beauty had dazzled the lad when first he came to "Five Gables."
+She remembered what fervid glances he had turned upon her when first
+they met, how his eyes had expressed unbounded admiration, nay worship
+such as was unknown in the circles in which she moved. If this silent
+adoration flattered her for the moment, honesty played no little part in
+its success--for though there had been lovers who looked deep into her
+heart before, the majority carried but liabilities to her feet and,
+laying them there, would gladly have exchanged them for her father's
+cheques to salve their financial wounds. In Alban she had met for the
+first time a natural English lad who had no secrets to hide from her.
+"He will worship the ground upon which I walk," she had said in the mood
+of sundry novelettes borrowed from her maid. And this, in truth, the lad
+might very well have come to do.
+
+But the weeks passed and Alban remained silent, and the declaration she
+had desired at first as an amusement now became a vital necessity to her
+fasting vanity. Believing that their surroundings at Hampstead, the
+formality, the servants, the splendor of "Five Gables," forbade that
+little comedy of love for which she hungered, she went off, in her
+father's absence, to their cottage at Henley, and compelling Alban to
+follow her, she played Phyllis to his Corydon with an ardor which could
+not have been surpassed. Aping the schoolgirl, she would wear her hair
+upon her shoulders, carry her gown shortened, and bare her sleeves to
+the suns of June. The rose garden became the arbor of her delights. "You
+shall love me," she said to herself--and in the determination a passion
+wholly vain and not a little hazardous found its birth and prospered.
+
+For hours together now, she would compel this unconscious slave to row
+her in the silent reaches or to hide with her in backwaters to which the
+mob rarely came. Deluding him by the promise that her father was
+returning shortly from Paris and would come to Henley immediately upon
+his arrival, she led Alban to forget the days of waiting, petted him as
+though he had been her lover through the years, invited him a hundred
+times a day to say, "I love you--you shall be my wife."
+
+In his turn, he remained silent and amazed, tempted sorely by her
+beauty, not understanding and yet desiring to understand why he could
+not love her. True, indeed, that the image of another would intervene
+sometimes--a little figure in rags, wan and pitiful and alone; but the
+environment in which the vision of the past had moved, the slums, the
+alleys, the mean streets, these would hedge the picture about and then
+leave the dreamer averse and shuddering. Not there could liberty be
+found again. The world must show its fields to the wanderer when again
+he dared it alone.
+
+Alban remembered one night above all others of this strange seclusion,
+and that was a night of a woman's humiliation. There had been great
+bustle all day, the coming of oarsmen and of coaches to Henley, and all
+the aquatic renaissance which prefaces the great regatta. Their own
+cottage, lying just above the bridge with a shady garden extending to
+the water's edge, was no longer the place apart that it had been.
+Strangers now anchored a little way from their boat-house and consumed
+monstrous packets of sandwiches and the contents of abundant bottles.
+There were house-boats being tugged up and down the river, little groups
+of rowing men upon the bridge all day, the music of banjos by night, and
+lanterns glowing in the darkness. Anna watched this pretty scene as one
+who would really take a young girl's part in it. She simulated an
+interest in the rowing about which she knew nothing at all--visited the
+house-boats of such of her friends as had come down for the regatta, and
+was, in Willy Forrest's words, as "skittish as a two-year-old that had
+slipped its halter." Forrest had been to and fro from the stable near
+Winchester on several occasions. "He comes to tell me that I am about to
+lose a fortune, and I am beginning to hate him," Anna said; and on this
+occasion she enjoyed that diverting and unaccustomed recreation known as
+speaking the truth.
+
+There had been such a visit as this upon the morning of the day when
+Anna spoke intimately to Alban of his future and her own. Her mood now
+abandoned itself utterly to her purpose. The close intimacy of these
+quiet days had brought her to the point where a real if momentary
+passion compelled her to desire this boy's love as she had never desired
+anything in all her life. To bring him to that declaration she sought so
+ardently, to feel his kisses upon her lips, to play the young lover's
+part if it were but for a day, to this folly her vanity had driven her.
+And now the opportunities for words were not denied. She had spent the
+afternoon in the backwaters up by Shiplake; there had been a little
+dinner afterwards with the old crone who served them so usefully as
+chaperone--a dependent who had eyes but did not see, ears which, as she
+herself declared, "would think scorn to listen." Amiable dame, she was
+in bed by nine o'clock, while Alban and Anna were lying in a punt at the
+water's edge, listening to the music of a distant guitar and watching
+the twinkling lights far away below the bridge where the boat-houses
+stand.
+
+A Chinese lantern suspended upon a short boat-hook cast a deep crimson
+glow upon the faces of those who might well have been young lovers. The
+river rippled musically against the square bows of their ugly but
+comfortable craft. But few passed them by and those were also seekers
+after solitude, with no eyes for their co-religionists in the amatory
+gospel. Alban, wholly fascinated by the silence and the beauty of the
+scene, lay at Anna's feet, so full of content that he did not dare to
+utter his thoughts aloud. The girl caught the tiny wavelets in her
+outstretched hand and said that Corydon had become blind.
+
+"Do you like Willy Forrest?" she asked, "do you think he is clever,
+Alban?"--a question, the answer to which would not interest her at all
+if it did not lead to others. Alban, in his turn, husbanding the
+secrets, replied evasively:
+
+"Why should I think about him? He is not a friend of mine. You are the
+one to answer that, Anna. You like him--I have heard you say so."
+
+"Never believe what a girl says. I adore Willy Forrest because he makes
+me laugh. I am like the poor little white rabbit which is fascinated by
+the great black wriggly snake. Some day it will swallow me up--perhaps
+on Thursday--after Ascot. I wish I could tell you. Pandora seems to have
+dropped everything out of her basket except the winner of the Gold Cup.
+If Willy Forrest is right, I shall win a fortune. But, of course, he
+doesn't tell the truth any more than I do."
+
+Alban was silent a little while and then he asked her:
+
+"Do you know much about him, Anna? Did you ever meet his people or
+anything?"
+
+She looked at him sharply.
+
+"He is the son of Sir John Forrest, who died in India. His brother was
+lost at sea. What made you ask me?"
+
+He laughed as though it had not been meant.
+
+"You say that he doesn't tell the truth. Suppose it were so about
+himself. He might be somebody else--not altogether the person he
+pretends to be. Would it matter if he were? I don't think so, Anna--I
+would much rather know something about a man himself than about his
+name."
+
+She sat up in the punt and rested her chin upon the knuckles of her
+shapely hands. This kind of talk was little to her liking. She had often
+doubted Willy Forrest, but had never questioned his title to the name he
+bore.
+
+"Have they ever told you anything about us, Alban?" she continued, "did
+you ever hear any stories which I should not hear?"
+
+"Only from Captain Forrest himself; he told me that he was engaged to
+you. That was when I went to the Savoy Hotel."
+
+"All those weeks ago. And you never mentioned it?"
+
+"Was it any business of mine? What right had I to speak to you about
+it?"
+
+She flushed deeply.
+
+"A secret for a secret," she said. "When you first came to Hampstead, I
+thought that you liked me a little Alban. Now, I know that you do not.
+Suppose there were a reason why I let Willy Forrest say that he was
+engaged to me. Suppose some one else had been unkind when I wished him
+to be very kind to me. Would you understand then?"
+
+This was in the best spirit of the coquette and yet a great earnestness
+lay behind it. Posing in that romantic light, the thick red lips
+pouting, the black eyes shining as with the clear flame of a soul
+awakened, the head erect as that of a deer which has heard a sound afar,
+this passionate little actress, half Pole, half Jewess, might well have
+set a man's heart beating and brought him, suppliant, to her feet. To
+Alban there returned for a brief instant all that spirit of homage and
+of awe with which he had first beheld her on the balcony of the house
+in St. James' Square. The cynic in him laid down his robe and stood
+before her in the garb of youth spellbound and fascinated. He dared to
+say to himself, she loves me--it is to me that these words are spoken.
+
+"I cannot understand you, Anna," he exclaimed, tortured by some plague
+of a sudden memory, held back from a swift embrace he knew not by what
+instinct. "You say that you only let Willy Forrest call himself engaged
+to you. Don't you love him then--is it all false that you have told
+him?"
+
+"It is quite false, Alban--I do not love him as you would understand the
+meaning of the word. If he says that I am engaged to him, is it true
+because he says it? There are some men who marry women simply because
+they are persevering. Willy Forrest would be one of them if I were weak
+enough. But I do not love him--I shall never love him, Alban."
+
+She bent low and almost whispered the words in his ear. Her hand covered
+his fingers caressingly. His forehead touched the lace upon her robe and
+he could hear her heart beating. An impulse almost irresistible came
+upon him to take her in his arms and hold her there, and find in her
+embrace that knowledge of the perfect womanhood which had been his dream
+through the years. He knew not what held him back.
+
+Anna watched him with a hope that was almost as an intoxication of doubt
+and curiosity. She loved him in that moment with all a young girl's
+ardor. She believed that the whole happiness of her life lay in the
+words he was about to speak.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE INTRUDER
+
+
+A man's voice, calling to them from the lawn, sent them instantly apart
+as though caught in some guilty confidence. Anna knew that something
+unwonted had happened and that Willy Forrest had returned.
+
+"What has brought him back?" she exclaimed a little wildly; and then,
+"Don't go away, Alban, I shall want you. My father would never forgive
+me if he heard of it. Of course he cannot stop here."
+
+Alban made no reply, but he helped her to the bank and they crossed the
+lawn together. In the light of the veranda, they recognized Forrest,
+carrying a motor cap in his hand and wearing a dust coat which almost
+touched his heels. He had evidently dined and was full of the story of
+his mishap.
+
+"Hello, Anna, here's a game," he began, "my old fumigator's broke down
+and I'm on the cold, cold world. Never had such a time in my life.
+Shoved the thing from Taplow and nothing but petrol to drink--eh, what,
+can't you see me? I say, Anna, you'll have to put me up to-night. There
+isn't a billiard table to let in the town, and I can't sleep on the
+grass--eh, what--you wouldn't put me out to graze, now would you?"
+
+He entered the dining-room with them, and they stood about the table
+while the argument was continued.
+
+"Billy says the nag--what-d'yer-call-it's gone lame in the off
+fore-leg. She went down at the distance like a filly that's been
+hocussed. There were the two of us in the bally dust--and look at my
+fingers where I burned 'em with matches. After that a parson came along
+in a gig. I asked him if he had a whisky-and-soda aboard and he didn't
+quote the Scriptures. We couldn't get the blighter to move, and I ground
+the handle like Signor Gonedotti of Saffron Hill in the parish of High
+Holborn. You'd have laughed fit to split if you'd have been there,
+Anna--and, oh my Sammy, what a thing it is to have a thirst and to bring
+it home with you. Do I see myself before a mahogany one or do I not--eh,
+what? Do I dream, do I sleep, or is visions about? You'll put us up, of
+course, Anna? I've told Billy as much and he's shoving the car into the
+coach-house now."
+
+He stalked across the room and without waiting to be asked helped
+himself to a whisky-and-soda. Anna looked quickly at Alban as though to
+say, "You must help me in this." Twenty-four hours ago she would not
+have protested at this man's intrusion, but to-night the glamor of the
+love-dream was still upon her, the idyll of her romance echoed in her
+ears and would admit no other voice.
+
+"Willy," she said firmly, "you know that you cannot stop. My father
+would never forgive me. He has absolutely forbidden you the house."
+
+He turned round, the glass still in his hand and the soda from the
+siphon running in a fountain over the table-cloth.
+
+"Your father! He's in Paris, ain't he? Are we going to telegraph about
+it? What nonsense you are talking, Anna!"
+
+"I am telling you what I mean. You cannot stop here and you must go to
+the hotel immediately."
+
+He looked at her quite gravely, cast an ugly glance upon Alban and
+instantly understood.
+
+"Oh, so that's the game. I've tumbled into the nest and the young birds
+are at home. Say it again, Anna. You show me the door because this young
+gentleman doesn't like my company. Is it that or something else? Perhaps
+I'll take it that the old girl upstairs is going to ask me my
+intentions. The sweet little Anna Gessner of my youth has got the
+megrims and is off to Miss Bolt-up-Right to have a good cry
+together--eh, what, are you going to cry, Anna? Hang me if you wouldn't
+give the crocodiles six pounds and a beating--eh, what, six pounds and a
+beating and odds on any day."
+
+He approached her step by step as he spoke, while the girl's face
+blanched and her fear of him was to be read in every look and gesture.
+Alban had been but a spectator until this moment, but Anna's distress
+and the bullying tone in which she had been addressed awakened every
+combative instinct he possessed, and he thrust himself into the fray
+with a resolute determination to make an end of it.
+
+"Look here, Forrest," he exclaimed, "we've had about enough of this. You
+know that you can't stop here--why do you make a fuss about it? Go over
+to the hotel. There's plenty of room there--they told me so this
+afternoon."
+
+Forrest laughed at the invitation, but there was more than laughter in
+his voice when he replied:
+
+"Thank you for your good intentions, my boy. I am very much obliged to
+your worship. A top-floor attic and a marble bath. Eh, what--you want to
+put me in a garret? I'll see you the other side of Jordan first. Oh,
+come, it's a nice game, isn't it? Papa away and little Anna canoodling
+with the Whitechapel boy. Are we downhearted? No. But I ain't going, old
+pal, and that's a fact."
+
+He almost fell into an arm-chair and looked upon them with that bland
+air of patronage which intoxication inspires. Anna, very pale and
+frightened, was upon the point of summoning the servants; but Alban,
+wiser in his turn, forbade her to do so.
+
+"You go to bed, Anna," he said quietly, "Captain Forrest and I will have
+a talk. I'm sure he doesn't expect you to sit up. Eh, Forrest, don't you
+think that Anna had better go?"
+
+"By all means, old chap. Nothing like bed--I'm going myself in a minute
+or two. Don't you sit up, Anna. Anywhere's good enough for me. I'll
+sleep in the greenhouse--eh, what? Your gardener'll find a new specimen
+in the morning and get fits. Mind he don't prune me, though. I can't
+afford to lose much at my time of life. You go to bed, Anna, and dream
+of little Willy. He's going to make your fortune on Thursday--good old
+Lodestar, some of 'em'll feel the draught, you bet. Don't spoil your
+complexion on my account, Anna. You go to bed and keep young."
+
+He rambled on, half good-humoredly, wholly determined in his resolution
+to stay. Anna had never found him obstinate or in opposition to her will
+before, and blazing cheeks and flashing eyes expressed her resentment at
+an attitude so changed.
+
+"Alban," she said quietly, "Captain Forrest will not stay. Will you
+please see that he does not."
+
+She withdrew upon the words and left the two men alone. They listened
+and heard her mounting the stairs with slow steps. While Forrest was
+still disposed to treat the matter as a joke, Alban had enough
+discretion to avoid a scene if it could be avoided. He was quite calm
+and willing to forget the insult that had been offered to him.
+
+"Why not make an end of it, Forrest?" he said presently. "I'll go to the
+hotel with you--you know perfectly well that you can get a bed there.
+What's the good of playing the fool?"
+
+"I was never more serious in my life, old man. Here I am and here I
+stay. There's no place like home--eh, what? Why should you do stunts
+about it? What's it to do with you after all? Suppose you think you're
+master here. Then give us a whisky-and-soda for luck, my boy."
+
+"I shall not give you a whisky-and-soda and I do not consider myself the
+master here. That has nothing to do with it. You know that Anna wishes
+you to go, and go you shall. What's to be gained by being obstinate."
+
+Forrest looked at him cunningly.
+
+"Appears that I intrude," he exclaimed with a sudden flash which
+declared his real purpose, "little Anna Gessner and the boy out of
+Whitechapel making a match of it together--eh, what? Don't let's have
+any rotten nonsense, old man. You're gone on the girl and you don't want
+me here. Say so and be a man. You've played a low card on me and you
+want to see the hand out. Isn't it that? Say so and be honest if you
+can."
+
+"It's a lie," retorted Alban, quietly--and then unable to restrain
+himself he added quickly, "a groom's lie and you know it."
+
+Forrest, sobered in a moment by the accusation, sprang up from his chair
+as though stung by the lash of a whip.
+
+"What's that," he cried, "what do you say?"
+
+"That you are not the son of Sir John Forrest at all. Your real name is
+Weston--your father was a jockey and you were born at Royston near
+Cambridge. That's what I say. Answer it when you like--but not in this
+house, for you won't have the opportunity. There's the door and that's
+your road. Now step out before I make you."
+
+He pointed to the open door and drew a little nearer to his slim
+antagonist. Forrest, a smile still upon his face, stood for an instant
+irresolute--then recovering himself, he threw the glass he held as
+though it had been a ball, and the missile, striking Alban upon the
+forehead, cut him as a knife would have done.
+
+"You puppy, you gutter-snipe--I'll show you who I am. Wipe that off if
+you can;" and then almost shouting, he cried, "Here, Anna, come down and
+see what I've done to your little ewe lamb, come down and comfort
+him--Anna, do you hear?"
+
+He said no more, for Alban had him by the throat, leaping upon him with
+the ferocity of a wild beast and carrying him headlong to the lawn
+before the windows. Never in his life had such a paroxysm of anger
+overtaken the boy or one which mastered him so utterly. Blindly he
+struck; his blows rained upon the cowering face as though he would beat
+it out of all recognition. He knew not wholly why he thus acted if not
+upon some impulse which would avenge the wrongs good women had suffered
+at the hands of such an impostor as this. When he desisted, the man lay
+almost insensible upon the grass at his feet--and he, drawing apart,
+felt the hot tears running down his face and could not restrain them.
+
+For in a measure he felt that his very chivalry had been faithless to
+one who had loved him well--and in the degradation of that violent scene
+he recalled the spirit of the melancholy years, the atmosphere of the
+mean streets, and the figure of little Lois Boriskoff asking both his
+pity and his love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+FATHER AND DAUGHTER
+
+
+Richard Gessner returned to Hampstead on the Friday in Ascot week and
+upon the following morning Anna and Alban came back from Henley. They
+said little of their adventures there, save to tell of quiet days upon
+sunny waters; nor did the shrewdest questioning add one iota to the
+tale. Indeed, Gessner's habitual curiosity appeared, for the time being,
+to have deserted him, and they found him affable and good-humored almost
+to the point of wonder.
+
+It had been a very long time, as Anna declared, since anything of this
+kind had shed light upon the commonly gloomy atmosphere of "Five
+Gables." For weeks past Gessner had lived as a man who carried a secret
+which he dared to confess to none. Night or day made no difference to
+him. He lived apart, seeing many strangers in his study and rarely
+visiting the great bank in Lombard Street where so many fortunes lay. To
+Alban he was the same mysterious, occasionally gracious figure which had
+first welcomed him to the magnificent hospitality of his house. There
+were days when he appeared to throw all restraint aside and really to
+desire this lad's affection as though he had been his own son--other
+days when he shrank from him, afraid to speak lest he should name him
+the author of his vast misfortunes. And now, as it were in an instant,
+he had cast both restraint and fear aside, put on his ancient bonhomie
+and given full rein to that natural affection of which he was very
+capable. Even the servants remarked a change so welcome and so manifest.
+
+Let it be written down as foreordained in the story of this unhappy
+house, that in like measure as the father recovered his self-possession,
+so, as swiftly, had the daughter journeyed to the confines of tragedy
+and learned there some of those deeper lessons which the world is ever
+ready to teach. Anna returned from Henley so greatly changed that her
+altered appearance rarely escaped remark. Defiant, reckless, almost
+hysterical, her unnatural gaiety could not cloak her anxiety nor all her
+artifice disguise it. If she had told the truth, it would have been to
+admit a position, not only of humiliation but of danger. A whim, by
+which she would have amused herself, had created a situation from which
+she could not escape. She loved Alban and had not won his love. The
+subtle antagonist against whom she played had turned her weapons
+adroitly and caught her in the deadly meshes of his fatal net. Not for
+an instant since she stood upon the lawn at Ascot and witnessed the
+defeat of her great horse Lodestar had she ceased to tell herself that
+the world pointed the finger at her and held up her name to scorn. "They
+say that I cheated them," she would tell herself and that estimate of
+the common judgment was entirely true.
+
+It had been a great race upon a brilliant day of summer. Alban had
+accompanied her to the enclosure and feasted his eyes upon that rainbow
+scene, so amazing in its beauty, so bewildering in its glow of color
+that it stood, to his untrained imagination, for the whole glory of the
+world. Of the horses or their meaning he knew nothing at all. This
+picture of radiant women, laughing, feasting, flirting at the heart of a
+natural forest; the vast concourse of spectators--the thousand hues of
+color flashing in the sunshine, the stands, the music, the royal
+procession, the superbly caparisoned horses, the State carriages--what a
+spectacle it was, how far surpassing all that he had been led to expect
+of Money and its kingdom. Let Anna move excitedly amid the throng,
+laughing with this man, changing wit with another--he was content just
+to watch the people, to reflect upon their happy lives, it may be to ask
+himself what justification they had when the children were wanting bread
+and the great hosts of the destitute lay encamped beyond the pale. Such
+philosophy, to be sure, had but a short shrift on such a day. The
+intoxication of the scene quickly ran hot in his veins and he
+surrendered to it willingly. These were hours to live, precious every
+one of them--and who would not worship the gold which brought them, who
+would not turn to it as to the lodestar of desire?
+
+And then the race! Anna had talked of nothing else since they set out in
+the motor to drive over to the course. Her anger against Willy Forrest
+appeared to be forgotten for the time being--he, on his part, eying
+Alban askance, but making no open complaint against him, met her in the
+paddock and repeated his assurances that Lodestar could not lose.
+
+"They run him down to evens, Anna," he said, "and precious lucky we
+were to get the price we did. There'll be some howls to-night, but
+what's that to us? Are we a philanthropic society, do we live to endow
+the multitude? Not much, by no means, oh dear, no. We live to make an
+honest bit--and we'll make it to-day if ever we did. You go easy and
+don't butt in. I've laid all that can be got at the price and the rest's
+best in your pocket. You'll want a bit for the other races--eh, what?
+You didn't come here to knit stockings, now did you, Anna?"
+
+She laughed with him and returned to see the race. Her excitement gave
+her a superb color, heightened her natural beauty and turned many
+admiring eyes upon her. To Alban she whispered that she was going to
+make a fortune, and he watched her curiously, almost afraid for himself
+and for her. When the great thrill passed over the stands and "they're
+off" echoed almost as a sound of distant thunder, he crept closer to her
+as though to share the excitement of which she was mistress. The specks
+upon the green were nothing to him--those dots of color moving swiftly
+across the scene, how odd to think that they might bring riches or
+beggary in their train! This he knew to be the stern fact, and when men
+began to shout hoarsely, to press together and crane their necks, when
+that very torrent of sound which named the distance arose, he looked
+again at Anna and saw that she was smiling. "She has won," he said, "she
+will be happy to-night."
+
+The horses passed the post in a cluster. Alban, unaccustomed to the
+objects of a race-course, had not an eye so well trained that he could
+readily distinguish the colors or locate with certainty the position of
+the "pink--green sleeves--white cap"--the racing jacket of "Count
+Donato," as Anna was known to the Jockey Club. He could make out nothing
+more than a kaleidoscope of color changing swiftly upon a verdant arena,
+this and an unbroken line of people stretching away to the very confines
+of the woodlands and a rampart wall of stands and boxes and tents. For
+him there were no niceties of effort and of counter-effort. The jockeys
+appeared to be so many little monkeys clinging to the necks of wild
+chargers who rolled in their distress as though to shake off the imps
+tormenting them. The roar of voices affrighted him--he could not
+understand that lust of gain which provoked the mad outcry, the sudden
+forgetfulness of self and dignity and environment, the absolute
+surrender to the desire of victory. Nor was the succeeding silence less
+mysterious. It came as the hush in an interval of tempests. The crowd
+drew back from the railings and moved about as quietly as though nothing
+of any consequence had happened. Anna herself, smiling still, stood just
+where she was; but her back was now toward the winning-post and she
+seemed to have forgotten its existence.
+
+"Do you know," she said very slowly, "my horse has lost."
+
+"What does that mean?" Alban asked with real earnestness.
+
+She laughed again, looking about her a little wildly as though to read
+something of the story upon other faces.
+
+"What does it mean--oh, lots of things. I wonder if we could get a cup
+of tea, Alban--I think I should like one."
+
+He said that he would see and led her across the enclosure toward the
+marquee. As they went a sybilant sound of hissing arose. The "Alright"
+had come from the weighing-in room and the people were hissing the
+winner. Presently, from the far side of the course, a louder outcry
+could be heard. That which the men in the gray frock-coats were telling
+each other in whispers was being told also by the mob in stentorian
+tones. "The horse was pulled off his feet," said the knowing ones; "they
+ought to warn the whole crowd off."
+
+Anna heard these cries and began dimly to understand them. She knew that
+Willy Forrest had done this in return for the slight she had put upon
+him at Henley. He had named his own jockey for the race and chosen one
+who had little reputation to lose. Between them they would have reason
+to remember the Royal Hunt Cup for many a day. Their gains could have
+been little short of thirty thousand pounds--and of this sum, Anna owed
+them nearly five thousand.
+
+She heard the people's cries and the sounds affrighted her. Not an
+Englishwoman, none the less she had a good sense of personal honor, and
+her pride was wounded, not only because of this affront but that a
+strange people should put it upon her. Had it been any individual
+accusation, she would have faced it gladly--but this intangible judgment
+of the multitude, the whispering all about her, the sidelong glances of
+the men and the open contempt of the women, these she could not meet.
+
+"Let us go back to the bungalow to tea," she exclaimed suddenly, as
+though it were but a whim of the moment; "this place makes my head ache.
+Let us start now and avoid the crush. Don't you think it would be a
+great idea, Alban?"
+
+He said that it would be--but chancing to look at her while she spoke,
+he perceived the tears gathering in her eyes and knew that she had
+suffered a great misfortune.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Richard Gessner knew nothing of Anna's racing escapades, nor had he any
+friend who made it his business to betray them. The day was rare when he
+made an inquiry concerning her amusements or the manner of them. Women
+were in his eyes just so many agreeable decorations for the tables at
+which men dined. Of their mental capacity he had no opinion whatever,
+and it was a common jest for him to declare their brain power
+consistently inferior to that of the male animal.
+
+"There has been no woman financial genius since the world began," he
+would observe, and if those who contradicted him named the arts, he
+waved them aside. "What is art when finance is before us?" That Anna
+should amuse herself was well and proper. He wished her to marry well
+that he might have spoken of "my daughter, Lady Anna"--not with pride as
+most men would speak, but ironically as one far above such petty titles
+and able from his high place to deride them.
+
+Of her daily life, it must be confessed that he knew very little. A
+succession of worthy if incompetent dependants acted the chaperones part
+for him and satisfied his conscience upon that score. He heard of her
+at this social function or at that, and was glad that she should go. Men
+would say, "There's a catch for you--old Gessner's daughter; he must be
+worth a million if he's worth a penny." Her culpable predisposition
+toward that pleasant and smooth-tongued rascal, Willy Forrest, annoyed
+him for the time being but was soon forgotten. He believed that the man
+would not dare to carry pursuit farther, and if he did, the remedy must
+be drastic.
+
+"I will buy up his debts and send him through the Court," Gessner said.
+"If that does not do, we must find out his past and see where we can
+have him. My daughter may not marry as I wish, but if she marries a
+jockey, I have done with her." And this at hazard, though he had not the
+remotest idea who Forrest really was and had not taken the trouble to
+find out. When the man ceased to visit "Five Gables" he forgot him
+immediately. He was the very last person in all London whom he suspected
+when Anna, upon the day following his return from Paris, asked that they
+might have a little talk together and named the half-hour immediately
+before dinner for that purpose. He received her in his study, whither
+Fellows had already carried him a glass of sherry and bitters, and being
+in the best of good humor, he frankly confessed his pleasure that she
+should so appeal to him.
+
+"Come in, Anna, come in, my dear. What's the matter now--been getting
+into mischief? Oh, you girls--always the same story, a man or a
+milliner, and the poor old father to get you out of it. What is it this
+time--Paquin or Worth? Don't mind me, Anna. I can always live in a
+cottage on a pound a week. The doctor says I should be the better for
+it. Perhaps I should. Half the complaints we suffer from are just 'too
+much.' Think that over and add it up. You look very pale, my girl.
+You're not ill, are you?"
+
+The sudden change of tone occurred as Anna advanced into the light and
+seated herself in the bow-window overlooking the rose garden. She wore a
+delicate skirt of pink satin below a superb gown of chiffon and real
+lace. A single pink rose decorated her fine black hair which she had
+coiled upon her neck to betray a shapely contour of dazzlingly white
+skin beneath it. Her jewels were few but remarkable. The pearls about
+her neck had been called bronze in tint and were perfect in their shape.
+She carried a diamond bracelet upon her right arm, and its glitter
+flashed about her as a radiant spirit of the riches whose emblems she
+wore. The pallor of her face was in keeping with the picture. The wild
+black eyes seemed alight with all the fires of tragedy unconfessed.
+
+"I am not ill, father," she said, "but there is something about which I
+must speak to you."
+
+"Yes, yes, Anna--of course. And this is neither Paquin nor Worth, it
+appears. Oh, you little rogue. To come to me like this--to come to your
+poor old father and bring him a son-in-law for dinner. Ha, ha,--I'll
+remember that--a son-in-law to dinner. Well, I sha'n't eat him, Anna, if
+he's all right. It wouldn't be Alban Kennedy now?"
+
+He became serious in an instant, putting the question as though his
+favor depended upon her answer in the negative. Anna, however, quite
+ignored the suggestion when she replied.
+
+"I came to speak to you about Ascot, father--"
+
+"About Ascot--who's Ascot?"
+
+"The races at Ascot. I ran a horse there and lost five thousand pounds."
+
+"What--you lost--come, Anna, my dear child--you lost--think of it
+again--you lost fifty pounds? And who the devil took you there, I want
+to know--who's been playing the fool? I don't agree with young girls
+betting. I'll have none of that sort of thing in this house. Just tell
+him so--whoever he is. I'll have none of it, and if it's that--"
+
+He broke off at the words, arrested in his banter by the sudden memory
+of a name. As in a flash he perceived the truth. The man Forrest was at
+the bottom of this.
+
+"Now be plain with me," he cried, "you've seen Willy Forrest again and
+this is his doing. Yes or no, Anna? Don't you tell me a lie. It's
+Forrest--he took you to Ascot?"
+
+She smiled at his anger.
+
+"I ran a horse named Lodestar under the name of Count Donato. I believed
+that he would win and he lost. That's the story, father. Why drag any
+names into it?"
+
+He regarded her, too amazed to speak. His daughter, this bit of a
+schoolgirl as he persisted in calling her, she had run a race-horse in
+her own name? What a thing to hear! But was it an evil thing. The girl
+had plenty of courage certainly. Very few would have had the pluck to
+do it at all. Of course it was unlucky that she had not won--but, after
+all, that could soon be put straight.
+
+"You ran a race-horse--but who trained it for you? where did you keep
+it? Why did I know nothing about it? Look here, Anna, this isn't dealing
+very fair with me. I have never denied you any pleasure--you know I
+haven't. If you wanted to play this game, why couldn't you have come to
+me and told me so? I wouldn't have denied you--but five thousand; you're
+not serious about that--you don't mean to say that you lost five
+thousand pounds?"
+
+"I lost five thousand pounds, father--and I must pay the money. They
+will call me a cheat if I do not. It must be paid on Monday--Willy says
+so--"
+
+He turned upon her with a shout that was almost a roar. She knew in an
+instant how foolish she had been.
+
+"Willy Forrest--did you lose the money to him? Come, speak out. I shall
+get at the truth somehow--did you lose the money to him?"
+
+"I lost it through him--he made the bets for me."
+
+"Then I will not pay a penny of it if it sends you to prison. Not a
+penny as I'm a living man."
+
+She heard him calmly and delivered her answer as calmly.
+
+"I shall marry him if you do not," she said.
+
+Gessner stood quite still and watched her face closely. It had grown
+hard and cold, the face of a woman who has taken a resolution and will
+not be turned from it.
+
+"You will marry Forrest?" he asked quietly.
+
+"I shall marry him and he will pay my debts."
+
+"He--he hasn't got two brass pieces to rub together. He's a needy
+out-at-elbow adventurer. Do you want to know who William Forrest
+is--well, my detectives shall tell me in the morning. I'll find out all
+about him for you. And you'd marry him! Well, my lady, there you'll do
+as you please. I've done with a daughter who tells me that to my face.
+Go and marry him. Live in a kennel. But don't come to me for a bone,
+don't think I'm to be talked over, because that's not my habit. If you
+choose such a man as that--"
+
+"I do not choose him. There are few I would not sooner marry. I am
+thinking of my good name--of our good name. If I marry Willy Forrest,
+they will say that I helped to cheat the public. Do you not know that it
+is being said already. The horse was pulled--I believe that I am not to
+be allowed to race again. Poor Mr. Farrier is terribly upset. They say
+that we were all cheats together. What can I do, father? If I pay the
+money and they know that we lost it, that is a good answer to them. If I
+do not, Willy is probably the one man who can put matters straight and I
+shall marry him."
+
+She rose as though this was the end of the argument. Her words, lightly
+spoken, were so transparently honest that the shrewd man of business
+summed up the whole situation in an instant. The mere possibility that
+his name should be mixed up with a racing scandal staggered him by its
+dangers and its absurdity. Anger against his daughter became in some
+measure compassion. Of course she was but a woman and a clever charlatan
+had entrapped her.
+
+"Sit down--sit down," he said bluffly, motioning her back to her seat.
+"It is perfectly clear that this William Forrest of yours is a rogue,
+and as a rogue we must treat him. I am astonished at what you tell me.
+It is a piece of nonsense, women's sense as ridiculous as the silly
+business which is responsible for it. Of course you must pay them the
+money. I will do the rest, Anna. I have friends who will quickly put
+that matter straight--and if your rogue finds his way to a race-course
+again, he is a very lucky man. Now sit down and let me speak to you in
+my turn, Anna. I want you to speak about Alban--I want to hear how you
+like him. He has now been with us long enough for us to know something
+about him. Let us see if your opinion agrees with mine."
+
+His keen scrutiny detected a flush upon her face while he asked the
+question and he understood that all he had suspected had been nothing
+but the truth. Anna had come to love this open-minded lad who had been
+forced upon them by such an odd train of circumstances; her threats
+concerning Willy Forrest were the merest bravado. Gessner would have
+trembled at the knowledge a week ago, but to-night it found him
+singularly complacent. He listened to Anna's response with the air of a
+light-hearted judge who condemned a guilty prisoner out of her own
+mouth.
+
+"Alban Kennedy has many good qualities," she said. "I think he is very
+worthy of your generosity."
+
+"Ah, you like him, I perceive. Let us suppose, Anna, that my intentions
+toward him were to go beyond anything I had imagined--suppose, being no
+longer under any compulsion in the matter, the compulsion of an
+imaginary obligation which does not exist, I were still to consider him
+as my own son. Would you be surprised then at my conduct?"
+
+"It would not surprise me," she said. "You have always wished for a son.
+Alban is the most original boy of his age I have ever met. He is clever
+and absurdly honest. I don't think you would regret any kindness you may
+show to him."
+
+"And you yourself?"
+
+"What have I to do with it, father?"
+
+"It might concern you very closely, Anna."
+
+"In what way, father?"
+
+"In the only way which would concern a woman. Suppose that I thought of
+him as your husband?"
+
+She flushed crimson.
+
+"Have you spoken to him on the matter?"
+
+"No, but being about to speak to him--after dinner to-night."
+
+"I should defer my opinion until that has happened."
+
+He laughed as though the idea of it amused him very much.
+
+"Of course, he will have nothing to do with us, Anna. What is a fortune
+to such a fine fellow? What is a great house--and I say it--a very
+beautiful wife? Of course, he will refuse us. Any boy would do that,
+especially one who has been brought up in Union Street. Now go and look
+for him in the garden. I must tell Geary to have that cheque drawn
+out--and mind you, if I meet that fellow Forrest, I will half kill him
+just to show my good opinion of him. This nonsense must end to-night.
+Remember, it is a promise to me."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders and left the room with slow steps. Gessner,
+still smiling, turned up a lamp by his writing-table and took out his
+cheque-book.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+FATE IRONICAL
+
+
+They were a merry party at the dinner-table, and the Reverend Silas
+Geary amused them greatly by his discussion of that absorbing topic, is
+golf worth playing? He himself, good man, deplored the fact that several
+worthy persons who, otherwise, would have been working ten or twelve
+hours a day as Cabinet ministers, deliberately toiled in the sloughs and
+pits of the golf course.
+
+"The whole nation is chasing a little ball," he said; "we deplore the
+advance of Germany, but, I would ask you, how does the German spend his
+day, what are his needs, where do his amusements lie? There is a country
+for you--every man a soldier, every worker an intellect. In England
+nowadays our young fellows seem to try and find out how little they can
+do. We live for minimums. We are only happy when we have struck a bat
+with a ball and it has gone far. We reserve our greatest honors for
+those who thus excel."
+
+Alban ventured to say that beer seemed to be the recreation of the
+average German and insolence his amusement. He confessed that the
+Germans beat his own people by hard work; but he asked, is it really a
+good thing that work should be the beginning and the end of all things?
+He had been taught at school that the supreme beauty of life lay in
+things apart and chiefly in a man's own soul. To which Gessner himself
+retorted that a woman's soul was what the writer probably meant.
+
+"We have let civilization make us what we are," the banker said
+shrewdly, "and now we complain of her handiwork. Write what you like
+about it, money and love are the only two things left in the world
+to-day. The story has always been the same, but people did not read it
+so often formerly. There have always been ambition, strife, struggle,
+suffering--why should the historians trouble to tell of them? You
+yourself, Alban, would be a worker if the opportunity came to you. I
+have foreseen that from the first moment I met you. If you were
+interested, you would outdo the Germans and beat them both with your
+head and your hands. But it will be very difficult to interest you. You
+would need some great stimulus, and in your case it would be ambition
+rather than its rewards."
+
+Alban replied that a love of power was probably the strongest influence
+in the world.
+
+"We all hate work," he said, repeating his favorite dictum, "I don't
+suppose there is one man in a thousand who would do another day's work
+unless he were compelled. The success of Socialism in our time is the
+belief that it will glorify idleness and make it real. The agitators
+themselves never work. They have learned the rich men's secret--I have
+heard them preaching the dignity of labor a hundred times, but I never
+yet saw one wheeling a barrow. The poor fellows who listen to them think
+that you have only got to pass a few acts of Parliament to be happy
+forever after. I pity them, but how are you to teach them that the
+present state of things is just--and if it is not just, why should you
+wish it to last?"
+
+Gessner could answer that. A rich man himself, all that concerned the
+new doctrines was of the profoundest interest to him.
+
+"The present state of things is the only state of things--in the bulk,"
+he said; "it is as old as the world and will go on as long as the world.
+We grumble at our rich men, but those who have amassed their own
+fortunes are properly the nation's bankers. Consider what a sudden gift
+of money would mean to the working-men of England to-day--drunkenness,
+crime, debauchery. You can legislate to improve the conditions of their
+lives, but to give them creative brains is beyond all legislation. And I
+will tell you this--that once you have passed any considerable
+socialistic legislation for this kingdom of Great Britain, you have
+decided her destiny. She will in twenty years be in the position of
+Holland--a country that was but never will be again."
+
+No one disputed the proposition, for no one thoroughly understood it.
+Alban had not the courage to debate his pet theorems at such a time, and
+the parson was too intent upon denouncing the national want of
+seriousness to enter upon such abstruse questions as the banker would
+willingly have discussed. So they fell back upon athletics again, and
+were busy with football and cricket until the time came for Anna to
+withdraw and leave them to their cigars. Silas Geary, quickly imitating
+her, waited but for a glass of port before he made his excuses and
+departed, as he said, upon a "parochial necessity."
+
+"We will go to the Winter Garden," Gessner said to Alban when they were
+alone--"I will see that Fellows takes our coffee there. Bring some
+cigarettes, Alban--I wish to have a little private talk with you."
+
+Alban assented willingly, for he was glad of this opportunity to say
+much that he had desired to say for some days past. The night had turned
+very hot and close, but the glass roof of the Winter Garden stood open
+and they sat there almost as in the open air, the great palms and shrubs
+all about them and many lights glowing cunningly amid the giant leaves.
+As earlier in the evening, so now Gessner was in the best of spirits,
+laughing at every trivial circumstance and compelling his guest to see
+how kindly was his desposition toward him.
+
+"We shall be comfortable here," he said, "and far enough away from the
+port wine to save me self-reproach to-morrow. I see that you drink
+little, Alban. It is wise--all those who have the gout will speak of
+your wisdom. We drink because the wine is there, not because we want it.
+And then in the morning, we say, how foolish. Come now, light another
+cigarette and listen to me. I have great things to talk about, great
+questions to ask you. You must listen patiently, for this concerns your
+happiness--as closely perhaps as anything will concern it as long as you
+live."
+
+He did not continue immediately, seeing the footman at his elbow with
+the coffee. Alban, upon his part, lighted a cigarette as he had been
+commanded, and waited patiently. He thought that he knew what was coming
+and yet was afraid of the thought. Anna's sudden passion for him had
+been too patent to all the world that he should lightly escape its
+consequences. Indeed, he had never waited for any one to speak with the
+anxiety which attended this interval of service. He thought that the
+footman would never leave them alone.
+
+"Now," said Gessner at last, "now that those fellows are gone we can
+make ourselves comfortable. I shall be very plain, my lad--I shall not
+deceive you again. When you first came to my house, I did not tell you
+the truth--I am going to tell it to you to-night, for it is only right
+that you should know it."
+
+He stirred his coffee vigorously and puffed at his cigar until it glowed
+red again. When he resumed he spoke in brief decisive sentences as
+though forbidding question or contradiction until he had finished.
+
+"There is a fellow-countryman of mine--you know him and know his
+daughter. He believes that I am under some obligation to him and I do
+not contradict him. When we met in London, many years after the business
+transaction of which he complains, I asked him in what way I could be of
+service to him or to his family, as the case might be. He answered that
+he wanted nothing for himself, but that any favor I might be disposed to
+show should be toward his daughter and to you. I took it that you were
+in love with the girl and would marry her. That was what I was given to
+believe. At the same time, this fellow Boriskoff assured me that you
+were well educated, of a singularly independent character, and well
+worthy of being received into this house. I will not deny that the
+fellow made very much of this request, and that it was put to me with
+certain alternatives which I considered impertinent. You, however, had
+no part in that. You came here because the whole truth was not told to
+you--and you remained because my daughter wished it. There I do not fear
+contradiction. You know yourself that it is true and will not contradict
+me. As the time went on, I perceived that you had established a claim to
+my generosity such as did not exist when first you came here--the claim
+of my affection and of my daughter's. This, I will confess, has given me
+more pleasure than anything which has happened here for a long time. I
+have no son and I take it as the beneficent work of Providence that one
+should be sent to me as you were sent. My daughter would possibly have
+married a scoundrel if the circumstances had been otherwise. So, you
+see, that while you are now established here by right of our affection,
+I am rewarded twofold for anything I may have done for you. Henceforth
+this happy state of things must become still happier. I have spoken to
+Anna to-night, and I should be very foolish if I could not construe her
+answer rightly. She loves you, my lad, and will take you for her
+husband. It remains for you to say that your happiness shall not be
+delayed any longer than may be reasonable."
+
+It need scarcely be said with what surprise Alban listened to this
+lengthy recital. Some part of the truth had already been made known to
+him--but this fuller account could not but flatter his vanity while it
+left him silent in his amazement and perplexity. Richard Gessner, he
+understood, had always desired a brilliant match for Anna, and had
+sought an alliance with some of the foremost English families. If he
+abandoned these ambitions, a shrewd belief in the impossibility lay at
+the root of his determination. Anna would never marry as he wished. Her
+birthright and her Eastern blood forbade it. She would be the child of
+whim and of passion always, and it lay upon him to avert the greater
+evil by the lesser. Alban in a vague way understood this, but of his own
+case he could make little. What a world of ease and luxury and delight
+these few simple words opened up to him. He had but to say "yes" to
+become the ultimate master of this man's fortune, the possessor of a
+heritage which would have been considered fabulous but fifty years ago.
+And yet he would not say "yes." It was as though some unknown power
+restrained him, almost as though his own brain tricked him. Of Anna's
+sudden passion for him he had no doubt whatever. She was ready and
+willing to yield her whole self to him and would, it might be, make him
+a devoted wife. None the less, the temptation found him vacillating and
+incapable even of a clear decision. Some voice of the past called to him
+and would not be silenced. Maladroitly, he gave no direct reply, but
+answered the question by another.
+
+"Did Paul Boriskoff tell you that I was about to marry his daughter, Mr.
+Gessner?"
+
+"My dear lad, what Paul Boriskoff said or did can be of little interest
+to you or me to-night. He is no longer in England, let me tell you. He
+left for Poland three days ago."
+
+"Then you saw him or heard from him before he left?"
+
+"Not at all. The less one sees or hears from that kind of person the
+better. You know the fellow and will understand me. He is a firebrand we
+can well do without. I recommended him to go to Poland and he has gone.
+His daughter, I understand, is being educated at Warsaw. Let me advise
+you to forget such acquaintances--they are no longer of any concern to
+either of us."
+
+He waved his hand as though to dismiss the subject finally; but his
+words left Alban strangely ill at ease.
+
+"Old Paul is a fanatic," he said presently, "but a very kindly one. I
+think he is very selfish where his daughter is concerned, but he loves
+his country and is quite honest in his opinions. From what I have heard
+in Union Street, he is very unwise to go back to Poland. The Russian
+authorities must be perfectly well aware what he has done in London, and
+are not likely to forget it. Yes, indeed, I am sorry that he has been so
+foolish."
+
+He spoke as one who regretted sincerely the indiscretions of a friend
+and would have saved him from them. Gessner, upon his side, desired as
+little talk of the Boriskoffs as might be. If he had told the truth, he
+knew that Alban Kennedy would walk out of his house never to return. For
+it had been his own accomplices who had persuaded old Paul to return to
+Poland--and the Russian police were waiting for him across the frontier.
+Any hour might bring the news of his arrest. The poor fanatic who
+babbled threats would be under lock and key before many hours had
+passed, on his way to Saghalin perhaps--and his daughter might starve if
+she were obstinate enough. All this was in Gessner's mind, but he said
+nothing of it. His quick perception set a finger upon Alban's difficulty
+and instantly grappled with it.
+
+"We must do what we can for the old fellow," he said lightly, "I am
+already paying for the daughter's education and will see to her future.
+You would be wise, Alban, to cut all those connections finally. I want
+you to take a good place in the world. You have a fine talent, and when
+you come into my business, as I propose that you shall do, you will get
+a training you could not better in Europe. Believe me, a financier's
+position is more influential in its way than that of kings. Here am I
+living in this quiet way, rarely seen by anybody, following my own
+simple pleasures just as a country gentleman might do, and yet I have
+but to send a telegram over the wires to make thousands rich or to ruin
+them. You will inherit my influence as you will inherit my fortune. When
+you are Anna's husband, you must be my right hand, acting for me,
+speaking for me, learning to think for me. This I foresee and
+welcome--this is what I offer you to-night. Now go to Anna and speak to
+her for yourself. She is waiting for you in the drawing-room and you
+must not tease her. Go to her, my dear boy, and say that which I know
+she wishes to hear."
+
+He did not doubt the issue--who would have done? Standing there with his
+hand upon Alban's shoulder, he believed that he had found a son and
+saved his daughter from the peril of her heritage.
+
+So is Fate ironical. For as they talked, Fellows appeared in the garden
+and announced the Russian, who carried to Hampstead tidings of a failure
+disastrous beyond any in the eventful story of this man's life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE PLOT HAS FAILED
+
+
+The Russian appeared to be a young man, some thirty years of age
+perhaps. His dress was after the French fashion. He wore a shirt with a
+soft embroidered front and a tousled black cravat which added a shade of
+pallor to his unusually pale face. When he spoke in the German tongue,
+his voice had a pleasant musical ring, even while it narrated the story
+of his friend's misfortune.
+
+"We have failed, mein Heir," he said, "I come to you with grievous news.
+We have failed and there is not an hour to lose."
+
+Gessner heard him with that self-mastery to which his whole life had
+trained him. Betraying no sign of emotion whatever, he pulled a chair
+toward the light and invited the stranger to take it.
+
+"This is my young kinsman," he said, introducing Alban who still
+lingered in the garden; "you have heard of him, Count." And then to
+Alban, "Let me present you to my very old friend, Count Zamoyaki. He is
+a cavalry soldier, Alban, and there is no finer rider in Europe."
+
+Alban took the outstretched hand and, having exchanged a word with the
+stranger, would have left the place instantly. This, however, Count
+Zamoyski himself forbade. Speaking rapidly to Gessner in the German
+tongue, he turned to the lad presently and asked him to remain.
+
+"Young heads are wise heads sometimes," he said in excellent English,
+"you may be able to help us, Mr. Kennedy. Please wait until we have
+discussed the matter a little more fully."
+
+To this the banker assented by a single inclination of his head.
+
+"As you say, Count--we shall know presently. Please tell me the story
+from the beginning."
+
+The Count lighted a cigarette, and sinking down into the depths of a
+monstrous arm-chair, he began to speak in smooth low tones--a tragedy
+told almost in whispers; for thus complacently, as the great Frenchman
+has reminded us, do we bear the misfortunes of our neighbors.
+
+"I bring news both of failure and of success," he began, "but the
+failure is of greater moment to us. Your instructions to my Government,
+that the Boriskoffs, father and daughter, were an embarrassment to you
+which must be removed, have been faithfully interpreted and acted upon
+immediately. The father was arrested at Alexandrovf Station, as I
+promised that he should be--the police have visited the school in Warsaw
+where the daughter was supposed to reside--this also as I promised
+you--but their mission has been in vain. So you see that while Paul
+Boriskoff is now in the old prison at Petersburg, the daughter is heaven
+knows where, which I may say is nowhere for our purpose. That we did not
+complete the affair is our misfortune. The girl, we are convinced, is
+still in Warsaw, but her friends are hiding her. Remember that the
+police knew the father, but that the daughter is unknown to them. These
+Polish girls--pardon me, I refer to the peasant classes--are as alike as
+two roses on a bush. We shall do nothing until we establish
+identity--and how that is to be done, I do not pretend to say. If you
+can help us--and it is very necessary for your own safety to do so--you
+have not a minute to lose. We should act at once, I say, without the
+loss of a single hour."
+
+Thus did this man of affairs, one who had been deep in many a brave
+intrigue, make known to the man who had employed him the supreme
+misfortune of their adventure. Had he said, "Your life is in such peril
+that you may not have another hour to live," it would have been no more
+than the truth. Their plot had failed and the story of it was abroad.
+This had he come from Paris to tell--this was the news that Richard
+Gessner heard with less apparent emotion than though one had told him of
+the pettiest event of a common day.
+
+"The matter has been very badly bungled," he said. "I shall write to
+General Trepoff and complain of it. Do you not see how inconvenient this
+is? If the girl has escaped, she will be sheltered by the
+Revolutionaries, and if she knows my story, she will tell it to them. I
+may be followed here--to this very house. You know that these people
+stick at nothing. They would avenge this man's liberty whatever the
+price. What remains to discover is the precise amount of her knowledge.
+Does she know my name, my story? You must find that out,
+Zamoyski--there is not an hour to lose, as you say."
+
+He repeated his fears, pacing the room and smoking incessantly. The
+whole danger of a situation is not usually realized upon its first
+statement, but every instant added to this man's apprehensions and
+brought the drops of sweat anew to his forehead. He had planned to
+arrest both Boriskoff and his daughter. The Russian Government, seeking
+the financial support of his house, fell in readily with his plans and
+commanded the police to assist him. Paul Boriskoff himself had been
+arrested at the frontier station upon an endeavor to return to Poland.
+His daughter Lois, warned in some mysterious manner, had fled from the
+school where she was being educated and put herself beyond the reach of
+her father's enemies. This was the simple story of the plot. But God
+alone could tell what the price of failure might be.
+
+"It is very easy to say what we must do," the Count observed, "the
+difficulties remain. Identify this girl for us among the twenty thousand
+who answer to her description in Warsaw, and I will undertake that the
+Government shall deal well by her. But who is to identify her? Where is
+your agent to be found? Name him to me and the task begins to-night. We
+can do nothing more. I say again that my Government has done all in its
+power. The rest is with you, Herr Gessner, to direct us where we have
+failed."
+
+Gessner made no immediate answer. Perhaps he was about to admit the
+difficulties of the Count's position and to agree that identification
+was impossible, when suddenly his glance fell upon Alban, waiting, as
+he had asked, until the interview should be done. And what an
+inspiration was that--what an instantaneous revelation of possibilities.
+Let this lad go to Warsaw and he would discover Lois Boriskoff quickly
+enough. The girl had been in love with him and would hold her tongue at
+his bidding. As in a flash, he perceived this spar which should save
+him, and clutched at it. Let the lad go to Warsaw--let him be the agent.
+If the police arrested the girl after all--well, that would be an
+accident which he might regret, but certainly would not seek to prevent.
+A man whose life is imperilled must be one in ten thousand if any common
+dictates of faith or conduct guide him. Richard Gessner had a fear of
+death so terrible that he would have dared the uttermost treachery to
+save himself.
+
+"Count," he exclaimed suddenly, "your agent is here, in this room. He
+will go to Warsaw at your bidding. He will find the girl."
+
+The Count, who knew something of Alban's story already, received the
+intimation as though he had expected it.
+
+"It was for that I asked him to wait. I have been thinking of it. He
+will go to Warsaw and tell the lady that she may obtain her father's
+liberty upon a condition. Let her make a direct appeal to the
+Government--and we will consider it. Of course you intend an immediate
+departure--you are not contemplating a delay, Herr Gessner?"
+
+"Delay--am I the man to delay? He shall go to-morrow by the first
+train."
+
+A smile hovered upon the Count's face in spite of himself.
+
+"In a week," he was saying to himself, "Lois Boriskoff shall be flogged
+in the Schusselburg."
+
+In truth, the whip was the weapon he liked best--when women were to be
+schooled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+ALBAN GOES TO WARSAW
+
+
+Alban had never been abroad, and it would have been difficult for him to
+give any good account of his journey to Warsaw. The swiftly changing
+scenes, the new countries, the uproar and strife of cities, the glamour
+of the sea, put upon his ripe imagination so heavy a burden that he
+lived as one apart, almost as a dreamer who had forgotten how to dream.
+If he carried an abiding impression it was that of the miracle of travel
+and the wonders that travel could work. In twenty hours he had almost
+forgotten the existence of the England he had left. Chains of bondage
+fell from his willing shoulders. He felt as one released from a prison
+house to all the freedom of a boundless world.
+
+And so at last he came to the beautiful city of Warsaw and his sterner
+task began. Here, as in London, that pleasant person Count Sergius
+Zamoyski reminded him how considerable was the service he could confer,
+not alone upon his patron but upon the friends of his evil days.
+
+"It has all been a mistake," the Count would say with fine protestation
+of regret; "my Government arrested that poor old fellow Boriskoff, but
+it would gladly let him go. To begin with, however, we must have
+pledges. You know perfectly well that the man is a fanatic and will
+work a great mischief unless some saner head prevents it. We must find
+his daughter and see that she promises to hold her tongue concerning our
+friend at Hampstead. When that is done, we shall pack off the pair to
+London and they will carry a good round sum in their pockets. Herr
+Gessner is not the man to deal ungenerously with them--nor with you to
+whom he may owe so much."
+
+He was a shrewd man of the world, this amiable diplomat, and who can
+wonder that so simple a youth as Alban Kennedy proved no match for him.
+Alban honestly believed that he would be helping both Gessner and his
+old friends, the Boriskoffs, should he discover little Lois' whereabouts
+and take her back to London. A very natural longing to see her once more
+added to the excitements of the journey. He would not have been willing
+to confess this interest, but it prompted him secretly so that he was
+often reminding himself of the old days when Lois had been his daily
+companion and their mutual confidences had been their mutual pleasure.
+Just as a knight-errant of the old time might set out to seek his
+mistress, so did Alban go to Warsaw determined to succeed. He would find
+Lois in this whirling wonderland of delight, and, finding her, would
+return triumphant to their home.
+
+Now, they arrived in Warsaw upon the Thursday evening after the
+memorable interview at Hampstead; and driving through the crowded
+streets of that pleasant city, by its squares, its gardens, and its
+famous Palaces, they descended at last at the door of the Hôtel de
+France; and there they heard the fateful news which the city itself had
+discussed all day and would discuss far into the night.
+
+General Trubenoff, the new Dictator, had been shot dead at the gate of
+the Arsenal that very afternoon, men said, and the Revolutionaries were
+already armed and abroad. What would happen in the next few hours,
+heaven and the Deputy Governor alone could tell. Were this not
+sufficiently significant, the aspect of the great Square itself was
+menacing enough to awe the imagination even of the least impressionable
+of travellers. Excited crowds passed and repassed; Cossacks were riding
+by at the gallop--even the reports of distant rifle shots were to be
+heard and, from time to time, the screams and curses of those upon whose
+faces and shoulders the soldiers' whips fell so pitilessly.
+
+In the great hall of the hotel itself pandemonium reigned. Afraid of the
+streets and of their homes, the wives and daughters of many officials
+fled hither as to a haven of refuge which would never be suspected. They
+crowded the passages, the staircases, the reception-rooms. They besieged
+the officers for news of that which befell without. Their terrified
+faces remained a striking tribute to the ferocity of their enemies and
+the reality of the peril.
+
+Let it be said in justice that this majestic spectacle of tragedy found
+Alban Kennedy well prepared to understand its meaning. Had he told the
+truth he would have said that the mob orators of Union Street had
+prepared him for such a state of things as he now beheld. The Cossacks,
+were they not the Cossacks whom old Paul had called "the enemies of the
+human race?" The gilt-belarded generals, had he not seen them cast upon
+the screen in England and there heard their names with curses? Just as
+they had told him would be the case, so now he had stumbled upon
+autocracy face to face with its ancient enemy, the people. He saw the
+brutal Cossacks with their puny horses and their terrible whips parading
+beneath his balcony and treating all the poor folk with that insolence
+for which they are famous. He beheld the huddled crowds lifting white
+faces to the sky and cowering before the relentless lash. Not a whit had
+the patriot exiles in London exaggerated these things or misrepresented
+them. Men, and women too, were struck down, their faces ripped by the
+thongs, their shoulders lacerated before his very eyes. And all this, as
+he vaguely understood, that freedom might be denied to this nation and
+justice withheld from her citizens. Truly had he travelled far since he
+left England a few short days ago.
+
+Sergius Zamoyski had engaged a handsome suite of rooms upon the first
+floor of the magnificent modern hotel which looks down upon the Aleja
+Avenue, and to these they went at once upon their arrival. It was
+something at least to escape from the excited throngs below and to stand
+apart, alike from the rabble and the soldiers. Nor was the advantage of
+their situation to be despised; for they had but to step out upon the
+veranda before their sitting-rooms to command the whole prospect of the
+avenue, and there, at their will, to be observers of the conflict. To
+Sergius Zamoyski, familiar with such scenes, Warsaw offered no
+surprises whatever. To Alban it remained a city of whirlwind, and of
+human strife and suffering beyond all imagination terrible. He would
+have been content to remain out there upon that high balcony until the
+last trooper had ridden from the street and the last bitter cry been
+raised. The Count's invitation to dinner seemed grotesque in its
+reversion to commonplace affairs.
+
+"All this is an every-day affair here now," that young man remarked with
+amazing nonchalance; "since the workmen began to shoot the patrols, the
+city has had no peace. I see that it interests you very much. You will
+find it less amusing when you have been in Russia for a month or two.
+Now let us dress and dine while we can. Those vultures down below will
+not leave a bone of the carcass if we don't take care."
+
+He re-entered the sitting-room and thence the two passed to their
+respective dressing-rooms. An obsequious valet offered Alban a cigarette
+while he made his bath, and served a glass of an American cocktail. The
+superb luxury of these apartments did not surprise the young English boy
+as much as they might have done, for he had already stayed one night at
+an almost equally luxurious hotel in Berlin and so approached them
+somewhat familiarly; but the impression, oddly conceived and incurable,
+that he had no right to enjoy such luxuries and was in some way an
+intruder, remained. No one would have guessed this, the silent valet
+least of all; but in truth, Alban dressed shyly, afraid of the splendor
+and the richness; and his feet fell softly upon the thick Persian
+carpets as though some one would spy him out presently and cry, "Here is
+the guest who has not the wedding garment." In the dining-room, face to
+face with the gay Count, some of these odd ideas vanished; so that an
+observer might have named them material rather than personal.
+
+They dined with open windows, taking a zakuska in the Russian fashion in
+lieu of hors d'oeuvre, and nibbling at smoked fish, caviar and other
+pickled mysteries. The Count's ability to drink three or four glasses of
+liquor with this prefatory repast astonished Alban not a little--which
+the young Russian observed and remarked upon.
+
+"I am glad that I was born in the East," he said lightly, "you English
+have no digestions. When you have them, your climate ruins them. Here in
+Russia we eat and drink what we please--that is our compensation. We are
+Tartars, I admit--but when you remember that a Tartar is a person who
+owns no master, rides like a jockey, and drinks as much as he pleases
+with impunity, the imputation is not serious. None of you Western people
+understand the Russian. None of you understand that we are men in a very
+big sense of the word--men with none of your feminine Western
+weaknesses--great fighters, splendid lovers, fine drinkers. You preach
+civilization instead--and we point to your Whitechapel, your Belleville,
+your Bowery. Just think of it, your upper classes, as you yourselves
+admit, are utterly decadent, alike in brains and in morals; your middle
+classes are smug hypocrites--your lower classes starve in filthy dens.
+This is what you desire to bring about in Russia under the name of
+freedom and liberty. Do you wonder that those of us who have travelled
+will have none of it. Are you surprised that we fight your civilization
+with the whip--as we are fighting it outside at this moment. If we fail,
+very well, we shall know how to fail. But do not tell me that it would
+be a blessing for this country to imitate your institutions, for I could
+not believe you if you did."
+
+He laughed upon it as though disbelieving his own words and, giving
+Alban no opportunity to reply, fell to talk of that which they must do
+and of the task immediately before them.
+
+"We are better in this hotel than at the Palace Zamoyski, my kinsman's
+house," he said, "for here no inquisitive servants will trouble us.
+Naturally, you think it a strange thing to be brought to a great city
+like this and there asked to identify a face. Let me say that I don't
+think it will be a difficult matter. The Chief of the Police will call
+upon me in the morning and he will be able to tell us in how many houses
+it would be possible for the girl Lois Boriskoff to hide. We shall
+search them and discover her--and then learn what Herr Gessner desires
+to learn. I confess it amazes me that a man with his extraordinary
+fortune should have dealt so clumsily with these troublesome people. A
+thousand pounds paid to them ten years ago might have purchased his
+security for life. But there's your millionaire all over. He will not
+pay the money and so he risks not only his fortune but his life. Let me
+assure you that he is not mistaken when he declares that there is no
+time to lose. These people, should they discover that he has been aiding
+my Government, would follow him to the ends of the earth. They may have
+already sent an assassin after him--it would be in accord with their
+practice to lose no time, and as you see they are not in a temper to
+procrastinate. The best thing for us to do is to speak of our business
+to no one. When we have discovered the girl, we will promise her
+father's liberty in return for her silence. Herr Gessner must now deal
+with these people once and for all--generously and finally. I see no
+other chance for him whatever."
+
+Alban agreed to this, although he had some reservations to make.
+
+"I know the Boriskoffs very well," he said, "and they are kindly people.
+We have always considered old Paul a bit of a madman, but a harmless
+one. Even his own countrymen in London laugh when he talks to them. I am
+sure he would be incapable of committing such a crime as you suggest;
+and as for his daughter, Lois, she is quite a little schoolgirl who may
+know nothing about the matter at all. Mr. Gessner undoubtedly owes Paul
+a great deal, and I should be pleased to see the poor fellow in better
+circumstances. But is it quite fair to keep him in prison just because
+you are afraid of what his daughter may say?"
+
+"It is our only weapon. If we give him liberty, will he hold his tongue
+then? By your own admissions a louder talker does not exist. And
+remember that it may cost Herr Gessner many thousand pounds and many
+weeks of hard work to secure his liberty at all. Is he likely to
+undertake this while the daughter is at liberty and harbored among the
+ruffians of this city? He would be a madman to do so. I, who know the
+Poles as few of them know themselves, will tell you that they would
+sooner strike at those whom they call 'traitors in exile' than at their
+enemies round about us. If the girl has told them what she knows of Herr
+Gessner and his past, I would not be in his shoes to-night for a million
+of roubles heaped up upon the table. No, no, we have no time to lose--we
+owe it to him to act with great dispatch."
+
+Alban did not make any immediate reply. Hopeful as the Count was, the
+difficulties of tracking little Lois down in such a city at such a time
+seemed to him well-nigh insuperable. He had seen hundreds of faces like
+hers as they drove through Warsaw that very afternoon. The monstrous
+crowd showed him types both of Anna and of Lois, and he wondered no
+longer at the resemblance he had detected between them when he first saw
+Richard Gessner's daughter on the balcony of the house in St. James'
+Square. None the less, the excitements of the task continued to grow
+upon him. How would it all end, he asked impulsively. And what if they
+were too late after all and his friend and patron were to be the victim
+of old Boriskoff's vengeance? That would be terrible indeed--it would
+drive him from Lois' friendship forever.
+
+All this was in his mind as the dinner drew toward a conclusion and the
+solemn waiters served them cigars and coffee. There had been some
+cessation of the uproar in the streets during the latter moments; but a
+new outcry arising presently, the Count suggested that they should
+return to the balcony and see what was happening.
+
+"I would have taken you to the theatre," he said laughingly, "but we
+shall see something prettier here. They are firing their rifles, it
+appears. Do not let us miss the play when we can have good seats for
+nothing. And mind you bring that kummel, for it is the best in Europe."
+
+They were just lighting the great arc lamps upon the avenue as the two
+emerged from the dining-room and took up their stations by the railing
+of the balcony. In the roadway below the spectacle had become superb in
+its weird drama and excited ferocity. Great crowds passed incessantly
+upon the broad pavements and were as frequently dispersed by the fiery
+Cossacks who rode headlong as though mad with the lust of slaughter.
+Holding all who were abroad to be their enemies, these fellows slashed
+with their brutal whips at every upturned face and had no pity even for
+the children. Alban saw little lads of ten and twelve years of age
+carried bleeding from the streets--he beheld gentle women cut and lashed
+until they fell dying upon the pavement--he heard the death-cry from
+many a human throat. Just as the exiles had related it, so the drama
+went, with a white-faced, terror-stricken mob for the people of its
+scene and these devils upon their little horses for the chief actors.
+When the troopers fell (and from time to time a bullet would find its
+billet and leave a corpse rolling in a saddle) this was but the signal
+for a new outburst, surpassing the old in its diabolical ferocity. A
+very orgy of blood and slaughter; a Carnival of whips cutting deep into
+soft white flesh and drawing from their victims cries so awful that
+they might have risen up from hell itself.
+
+And in this crowd, among this people perhaps, little Lois Boriskoff must
+be looked for. Her friends would be the people's friends. Wayward as she
+was, a true child of the streets, Alban did not believe that she would
+remain at home this night or consent to forego the excitements of a
+spectacle so wonderful. Nor in this was he mistaken, for he had been but
+a very few minutes upon the balcony when he perceived Lois herself
+looking up to him from the press below and plainly intimating that she
+had both seen and recognized him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE BOY IN THE BLUE BLOUSE
+
+
+A sharp exclamation brought the Count to Alban's side.
+
+"Lois is down there," Alban said, "I am sure of it--she waved to me just
+now. She was walking with a man in a dark blue blouse. I could not have
+been mistaken."
+
+He was quite excited that he should have discovered her thus, and
+Sergius Zamoyski did not lag behind him in interest.
+
+"Do you still see her?" he asked--"is she there now?"
+
+"I cannot see her now--the soldiers drove the people back. Perhaps if we
+went down--"
+
+The Count laughed.
+
+"Even I could not protect you to-night," he exclaimed dryly,
+"no--whatever is to be done must be done to-morrow. But does not that
+prove to you what eyes and ears these people have. Here we left London
+as secretly as a man on a love affair. With the single exception of our
+friend at Hampstead, not a human being should have known of our
+departure or our destination. And yet we are not three hours in this
+place before this girl is outside our hotel, as well aware that we have
+arrived as we are ourselves. That is what baffles our police. They
+cannot contend with miracles. They are only human, and I tell you that
+these people are more than human."
+
+Alban, still peering down into the press in the hope that he might see
+Lois' face again, confessed that he could offer no explanation whatever.
+
+"They told me the same thing in London," he said, "but I did not believe
+them. Old Boriskoff used to boast that he knew of things which had
+happened in Warsaw before the Russian Government. They seem to have
+spies in every street and every house. If Lois' presence is not a
+coincidence--"
+
+"My dear fellow, are you also a believer in coincidence--the idle excuse
+of men who will not reason. Forgive me, but I think very little of
+coincidence. Just figure the chances against such a meeting as this.
+Would it not run into millions--your first visit to Warsaw; nobody
+expecting you; nobody knowing your name in the city--and here is the
+girl waiting under your window before you have changed your clothes. Oh,
+no, I will have nothing to do with coincidence. These people certainly
+knew that we had left England--they have been expecting us; they will do
+their best to baffle us. Yes, and that means that we run some danger. I
+must think of it--I must see the Chief of the Police to-night. It would
+be foolish to neglect all reasonable precautions."
+
+Alban looked at him with surprise.
+
+"None of those people will do me an injury," he exclaimed, "and you,
+Count, why should you fear them?"
+
+The Count lighted a cigarette very deliberately. "There may be
+reasons," he said--and that was all.
+
+Had he told the whole truth, revealed the secrets of his work during the
+last three years, Alban would have understood very well what those
+reasons were. A shrewder agent of the Government, a more discreet
+zealous official of the secret service, did not exist. His very bonhomie
+and good-fellowship had hitherto been his surest defence against
+discovery. Men spoke of him as the great gambler and a fine sportsman.
+The Revolutionaries had been persuaded to look upon him as their friend.
+Some day they would learn the truth--and then, God help him. Meanwhile,
+the work was well enough. He found it even more amusing than making love
+and a vast deal more exciting than big-game hunting.
+
+"Yes," he repeated anon, "There may be reasons, but it is a little too
+late to remember them. I am sending over to the Bureau now. If the Chief
+is there, he will be able to help me. Of course, you will see or hear
+from this girl again. These people would deliver a letter if you locked
+yourself up in an iron safe. They will communicate with you in the
+morning and we must make up our minds what to do. That is why I want
+advice."
+
+"If you take mine," said Alban quietly, "you will permit me to see her
+at once. I am the last person in all Warsaw whom Lois Boriskoff will
+desire to injure."
+
+"Am I to understand, then--but no, it would be impossible. Forgive me
+even thinking of it. I had really imagined for a moment that you might
+be her lover."
+
+Alban's face flushed crimson.
+
+"She was my little friend in London--she will be the same in Warsaw,
+Count."
+
+Count Sergius bowed as though he readily accepted this simple
+explanation and apologized for his own thoughts. A shrewd man of the
+world, he did not believe a word of it, however. These two, boy and girl
+together, had been daily associates in the slums of London. They had
+shared their earnings and their pleasures and passed for those who would
+be man and wife presently. This Richard Gessner had told him when they
+discussed the affair, and he remembered it to his great satisfaction.
+For if Alban were Lois Boriskoff's lover, then might he venture even
+where the police were afraid to go.
+
+"I will talk it all over with the Chief," the Count exclaimed abruptly;
+"you have had a long day and are better in bed. Don't stand on any
+ceremony, but please go directly you feel inclined."
+
+Alban did not demur for he was tired out and that was the truth of it.
+In his own room he recalled the question the Count had put to him and
+wondered that it had so distressed him. Why had his cheeks tingled and
+the words stumbled upon his lips because he had been called Lois
+Boriskoff's lover? It used not to be so when they walked Union Street
+together and all the neighbors regarded the engagement as an
+accomplished fact. He had never resented such a charge then--what had
+happened that he should resent it now? Was it the long weeks of
+temptation he had suffered in Anna Gessner's presence? Had the world of
+riches so changed him that any mention of the old time could make him
+ashamed? He knew not what to think--the blood rushed to his cheeks again
+and his heart beat quickly when he remembered that but for Count
+Sergius's visit to Hampstead, he might have been Anna's betrothed
+to-day.
+
+In this he was, as ever, entirely candid with himself, neither condoning
+his faults nor accusing himself blindly. There had been nothing of the
+humbler realities of love in his relations with Richard Gessner's
+daughter; none of the superb spirit of self-sacrifice; none of those
+fine ideals which his boyhood had desired to set up. He had worshipped
+her beauty--so much he readily admitted; her presence had ever been
+potent to quicken his blood and claim the homage of his senses; but of
+that deeper understanding and mutual sympathy by which love is born she
+had taught him nothing. Why this should have been so, he could not
+pretend to say. Her father's riches and the glamour of the great house
+may have had not a little to do with it. Alban had always seemed to
+stand apart from all which the new world showed to him. He felt that he
+had no title to a place there, no just claim at all to those very favors
+his patron thrust upon him so lavishly.
+
+He was as a man escaped from a prison whose bars were of gold--a prison
+whereof the jailer had been a beautiful and capricious woman. Here in
+Warsaw he discovered a new world; but one that seemed altogether
+familiar. All this clamor of the streets, this going to and fro of
+people, the roar of traffic, the shriek of whistles, the ringing of
+bells--had he not known them all in London when Lois was his friend and
+old Paul his neighbor? There had been many Poles by Thrawl Street and
+the harsh music of their tongue came to him as an old friend. It is true
+that he was housed luxuriously, in a palace built for millionaires; but
+he had the notion that he would not long continue there and that a newer
+and a stranger destiny awaited him. This thought, indeed, he carried to
+his bedroom and slept upon at last. He would find Lois to-morrow and she
+would be his messenger.
+
+There had still been excited crowds in the streets when he found his
+bedroom and a high balcony showed him the last phases of a weird
+pageant. Though it was then nearly midnight, Cossacks continued to
+patrol the avenue and the mob to deride them. By here and there, where
+the arc lamps illuminated the pavement, the white faces and slouching
+figures of the more obstinate among the Revolutionaries spoke of dogged
+defiance and an utter indifference to personal safety. Alban could well
+understand why the people had ventured out, but that they should have
+taken women and even young children with them astonished him beyond
+measure. These, certainly, could vindicate no principle when their flesh
+was cut by the brutal whips and the savage horses rode them down to
+emphasize the majesty of the Czar. Such sights he had beheld that
+afternoon and such were being repeated, if the terrible cries which came
+to his ears from time to time were true harbingers. Alban closed his
+windows at last for very shame and anger. He tried to shut the city's
+terrible voice from his ears. He wished to believe that his eyes had
+deceived him.
+
+This would have been about one o'clock in the morning. When he awoke
+from a heavy sleep (and youth will sleep whatever the circumstance) the
+sun was shining into his rooms and the church-bells called the people to
+early Mass. An early riser, long accustomed to be up and out when the
+clock struck six, he dressed himself at once and determined to see
+something of Warsaw before the Count was about. This good resolution led
+him first to the splendid avenue upon which the great hotel was built,
+and here he walked awhile, rejoicing in his freedom and wondering why he
+had ever parted with it. Let a man have self-reliance and courage enough
+and there is no city in all the world which may not become a home to
+him, no land among whose people he may not find friends, no government
+whose laws shall trouble him. Alban's old nomadic habits brought these
+truths to his mind again as he walked briskly down the avenue and filled
+his lungs with the fresh breezes of that sunny morning. Why should he
+return to the Count at all? What was Gessner's money to him now? He
+cared less for it than the stones beneath his feet; he would not have
+purchased an hour's command of a princely fortune for one of these
+precious moments.
+
+He was not alone in the streets. The electric cars had already commenced
+to run and there were many soberly dressed work-people hurrying to the
+factories. It was difficult to believe that this place had been the
+scene of a civic battle yesterday, or to picture the great avenues, with
+their pretty trees, tall and stately houses and fine broad pavements, as
+the scene of an encounter bloody beyond all belief. Not a sign now
+remained of all this conflict. The dead had already been carried to the
+mortuaries; the prisoners were safe at the police-stations where, since
+sundown, the whips had been so busy that their lashes were but crimson
+shreds. True there were Cossacks at many a street corner and patrols
+upon some of the broader thoroughfares--but of Revolutionaries not a
+trace. These, after the patient habits of their race, would go to work
+to-day as though yesterday had never been. Not a tear would be shed
+where any other eye could see it--not a tear for the children whose
+voices were forever silent or the mothers who had perished that their
+sons might live. Warsaw had become schooled to the necessity of
+sacrifice. Freedom stood upon the heights, but the valley was the valley
+of the shadow of death.
+
+Alban realized this in a dim way, for he had heard the story from many a
+platform in Whitechapel. Perhaps he had enough selfishness in his nature
+to be glad that the evil sights were hidden from his eyes. His old
+craving for journeying amid narrow streets came upon him here in Warsaw
+and held him fascinated. Knowing nothing of the city or its environment,
+he visited the castle, the barracks, the Saxon gardens, watched the
+winding river Vistula and the Praga suburb beyond, and did not fail to
+spy out the old town, lying beneath the guns of the fortress, a maze of
+red roofs and tortuous streets and alleys wherein the outcasts were
+hiding. To this latter he turned by some good instinct which seemed to
+say that he had an errand there. And here little Lois Boriskoff touched
+him upon the shoulder and bade him follow her--just as imagination had
+told him would be the case. She had come up to him so silently that even
+a trained ear might not have detected her footstep. Whence she came or
+how he could not say. The street wherein they met was one of the
+narrowest he had yet discovered. The crazy eaves almost touched above
+his head--the shops were tenanted by Jews already awake and crying their
+merchandise. Had Alban been a traveller he would have matched the scene
+only in Nuremberg, the old German town. As it was, he could but stare
+open-mouthed.
+
+Lois--was it Lois? The voice rang familiarly enough in his ears, the
+eyes were those pathetic, patient eyes he had known so well in London.
+But the black hair cut in short and silky curls about the neck, the blue
+engineer's blouse reaching to the knees, the stockings and shoes
+below--was this Lois or some young relative sent to warn him of her
+hiding-place? For an instant he stared at her amazed. Then he
+understood.
+
+"Lois--it is Lois?" he said.
+
+The girl looked swiftly up and down the street before she answered him.
+He thought her very pale and careworn. He could see that her hands were
+trembling while she spoke.
+
+"Go down to the river and ask for Herr Petermann," she said almost in a
+whisper. "I dare not speak to you here, Alb dear. Go down to the river
+and find out the timber-yard--I shall be there when you come."
+
+She ran from him without another word and disappeared in one of the
+rows which diverged from the narrow street and were so many filthy lanes
+in the possession of the scum of Warsaw. To Alban both her coming and
+her going were full of mystery. If Count Sergius had told him the truth,
+the Russian Government wished well not only to her but also to her
+father, the poor old fanatic Paul who was now in the prison at
+Petersburg. Why, then, was it necessary for her to appear in the streets
+of Warsaw disguised as a boy and afraid to exchange a single word with a
+friend from England. The truth astounded him and provoked his curiosity
+intolerably. Was Lois in danger then? Had the Count been lying to him?
+He could come to no other conclusion.
+
+It was not difficult to find Herr Petermann's timber-yard, for many
+Englishmen found their way there and many a ship's captain from Dantzig
+had business with the merry old fellow whom Alban now sought out at
+Lois' bidding. The yard itself might have covered an acre of ground
+perhaps, bordering the river by a handsome quay and showing mighty
+stacks of good wood all ready for the barges or seasoning against next
+year's shipment. Two gates of considerable size admitted the lorries
+that went in from the town, and by them stood the wooden hut at whose
+window inquiries must be made. Here Alban presented himself ten minutes
+after Lois had left him.
+
+"I wish to see Herr Petermann," he said in English.
+
+A young Jew clerk took up a scrap of paper and thrust it forward.
+
+"To write your name, please, mein Herr."
+
+Alban wrote his name without any hesitation whatever. The clerk called a
+boy, who had been playing by a timber stack, and dispatched him in quest
+of his chief.
+
+"From Dantzig, mein Herr?" he asked.
+
+"No," said Alban civilly, "from London."
+
+"Ah," said the clerk, "I think it would be Dantzig. Lot of Englishes
+from Dantzig--you have not much of the woods in Engerland, mein Herr."
+
+He did not expect a reply and immediately applied himself to the useful
+occupation of killing a blue-bottle with the point of his pen. Two or
+three lorries rolled in and out while Alban waited. He could see ships
+passing upon the river and hear the scream of a steam-saw from a shed
+upon his left hand. A soldier passed the gate, but hardly cast a glance
+at the yard. Five minutes must have elapsed before Herr Petermann
+appeared. He held the paper in a thin cadaverous hand as though quite
+unacquainted with his visitor's name and not at all curious to be
+enlightened.
+
+"You are Mr. Kennedy," he said in excellent English.
+
+"Yes," said Alban, "a friend of mine told me to come here."
+
+"It would be upon the business of the English ship--ah, I should have
+remembered it. Please come to my office. I am sorry to have kept you
+waiting."
+
+He was a short man and very fat, clean shaven and a thorough German in
+appearance. Dressed in a very dirty white canvas suit, he shuffled
+rather than walked across the yard, never once looking to the right
+hand or to the left and apparently oblivious of the presence of a
+stranger. This manner had befriended him through all the stormy days
+Warsaw had lately known. Even the police had no suspicion of him. Old
+fat Petermann, who hobnobbed with sailors--what had revolution to do
+with him!
+
+"This way, mein Herr--yonder is my office. When I go to Dantzig by water
+my books go with me. That is very good for the health to live upon the
+water. Now please to cross the plank carefully, for what shall you say
+to me if you fall in? This is my _bureau de travail_--you will tell me
+how you like him by and by."
+
+There were two barges of considerable size moored to the quay and a
+substantial plank bridged the abyss between the stone and the combings
+of the great hatchway. Herr Petermann went first, walking briskly in
+spite of his fat; Alban, no less adroit, followed with a lad's nimble
+foot and was upon the old fellow's heels when they stepped on board. The
+barges, he perceived, were fully laden and covered by heavy tarpaulins.
+Commodious cabins at the stern accommodated the crew--and into one of
+these Herr Petermann now turned, stooping as he went and crying to his
+guest to take care.
+
+"It is rather dark, my friend, but you soon shall be accustomed to that.
+This is my private room, you see. In England you would not laugh at a
+man who works afloat, for you are all sailors. Now, tell me how you like
+it?"
+
+The cabin certainly was beautifully furnished. Walls of polished wood
+had their adornment of excellent seascapes, many of them bought at the
+Paris salon. A bureau with delightful curves and a clock set at the apex
+above the writing-shelf pleased Alban immensely--he thought that he had
+seen nothing more graceful even at "Five Gables"; while the chair to
+match it needed no sham expert to declare its worth. The carpet was of
+crimson, without pattern but elegantly bordered. There were many shelves
+for books, but no evidence of commercial papers other than a great
+staring ledger which was the one eyesore.
+
+"I like your room very much indeed," said Alban upon his swift
+survey--"not many people would have thought of this. We are all afraid
+of the damp in England, and if we talked of a floating office, people
+would think us mad." And then he added--"But you don't come here in
+winter, Herr Petermann--this place is no use to you then?"
+
+Herr Petermann smiled as though he were well pleased.
+
+"Every place has its uses sometimes," he rejoined a little vaguely, "we
+never know what is going to happen to us. That is why we should help
+each other when the occasion arises. You, of course, are visiting Warsaw
+merely as a tourist, Mr. Kennedy?"
+
+"Indeed, no--I have come here to find a very old friend, the daughter--"
+
+"No names, if you please, Mr. Kennedy. You have come here, I think you
+said, to find the son of a very old friend. What makes you suppose that
+I can help you?"
+
+His change of tone had been a marvellous thing to hear--so swift, so
+masterful that Alban understood in a moment what strength of will and
+purpose lay hidden by this bland smile and benevolent manner. Herr
+Petermann was far from being the simple old fellow he pretended to be.
+You never could have named him that if you had heard him speak as he
+spoke those few stern words. Alban, upon his part, felt as though some
+one had slapped him upon the cheek and called him a fool.
+
+"I am very sorry," he blundered--and then recovering himself, he said as
+honestly--"Is there any need to ask me for reasons? Are not our aims the
+same, Herr Petermann?"
+
+"To sell wood, Mr. Kennedy?"
+
+Alban was almost angry.
+
+"I was walking down from the Castle," he began, but again the stern
+voice arrested him.
+
+"Neither names nor history, if your please, Mr. Kennedy. We are here to
+do business together as two honest merchants. All that I shall have to
+ask you is your word, the word of an English gentleman, that nothing
+which transpires upon my premises shall be spoken of outside under any
+circumstances whatever."
+
+"That is very readily given, Herr Petermann."
+
+"Your solemn assurance?"
+
+"My solemn assurance."
+
+The old fellow nodded and smiled. He had become altogether benevolent
+once more and seemed exceedingly pleased with himself and everybody
+else.
+
+"It is fortunate that you should have applied to me," he exclaimed very
+cheerily--"since you are thinking of taking a Polish servant--please do
+not interrupt me--since you are thinking of taking a Polish servant and
+of asking him to accompany you to England, by boat, if you should find
+the journey otherwise inconvenient--I merely put the idea to you--there
+is a young man in my employment who might very honestly be recommended
+to your notice. Is it not lucky that he is here at this moment--on board
+this very barge, Mr. Kennedy?"
+
+Alban looked about him astonished. He half expected to see Lois step out
+of one of the cupboards or appear from the recess beneath Herr
+Petermann's table. The amiable wood merchant enjoyed his perplexity--as
+others of his race he was easily amused.
+
+"Ah, I see that I am troubling you," he exclaimed, "and really there is
+not much time to be lost. Let me introduce this amiable young man to you
+without delay, Mr. Kennedy. I am sure he will be very pleased to see
+you."
+
+He stood up and went to the wall of the cabin nearest to the ship's bow.
+A panel cut in this gave access to the lower deck; he opened it and
+revealed a great empty hold, deftly covered by the tarpaulin and made to
+appear fully loaded to any one who looked at the barge from the shore.
+
+"Here is your friend," he cried with huge delight of his own cleverness,
+"here is the young servant you are looking for, Mr. Kennedy. And mind,"
+he added this in the same stern voice which had exacted the promise,
+"and mind, I have your solemn promise."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A FIGURE IN THE STRAW
+
+
+A little light filtered down through the crevices and betrayed the
+secrets of that strange refuge in all their amazing simplicity. Here was
+neither costly furniture nor any adornment whatsoever. A thick carpet of
+straw, giving flecks of gold wherever the sunlight struck down upon it,
+had been laid to such a depth that a grown man might have concealed
+himself therein. A few empty bales stood here and there as though thrown
+down at hazard; there were coils of rope and great blocks of timber used
+by the stevedores who loaded the barges. But of the common things of
+daily life not a trace. No tables, no chairs, neither bed nor blanket
+adorn this rude habitation. Let a sergeant of police open his lantern
+there and the tousled straw would answer him in mockery. This, for a
+truth, had been the case. Little Lois could tell a tale of Cossacks on
+the barge, even of rifles fired down into the hold, and of a child's
+heart beating so quickly that she thought she must cry out for very pain
+of it. But that was before the men were told that the ship belonged to
+merry Herr Petermann. They went away at once then--to drink the old
+fellow's beer and to laugh with him.
+
+That had been a terrible day and Lois had never forgotten it. Whenever
+old Petermann opened the door of his office now, she would start and
+tremble as though a Cossack's hand already touched her shoulder.
+Sometimes she lay deep down in the straw, afraid to declare herself even
+though a friend's voice called her. And so it was upon that morning of
+Alban's visit.
+
+Old Petermann had shut the cabin door behind him and discreetly left the
+young people together. Seeing little in the deep gloom and his eyes
+blinking wherever he turned them, Alban stood almost knee-deep in straw
+and cried Lois' name aloud.
+
+"Lois--where are you, Lois--why don't you answer me?"
+
+She crept from the depths at his very feet and shaking the straw from
+her pretty hair, she stood upright and put both her hands upon his
+shoulders.
+
+"I am here, Alb dear, just waiting for you. Won't you kiss me, Alb
+dear?"
+
+He put his arms about her neck and kissed her at her wish--just as a
+brother might have kissed a sister in the hour of her peril.
+
+"I came at once, Lois," he said, "of course I did not understand that it
+would be like this. Why are you here? Whatever has happened--what does
+it all mean? Will you not teach me to understand, Lois?"
+
+"Sit by my side, Alb dear, sit down and listen to me. I want you to know
+what your friends have been doing. Oh, I have been so lonely, so
+frightened, and I don't deserve that. You know that my father is in
+prison, Alb--the Count told you that?"
+
+"I heard it before I left England, Lois. You did not answer my letters?"
+
+"I was ashamed to, dear. That was the first thing they taught me at the
+school--to be ashamed to write to you until you would not be ashamed to
+read my letters. Can't you understand, Alb? Wasn't I right to be
+ashamed?"
+
+She buried her head upon his breast and put a little hot hand into his
+own. A great tenderness toward her filled his whole being and brought a
+sense of happiness very foreign to him lately. How gentle and kindly
+this little waif of fortune had ever been. And how even those few weeks
+of a better schooling had improved her. She had shed all the old
+vulgarities--she was just a simple schoolgirl as he would have wished
+her to be.
+
+"We are never right to be ashamed before those who love us," Alban said
+kindly; "you did not write to me and how was I to know what had
+happened? Of course, your father told you what I had been doing and why
+I went away from Union Street? It was all his kindness. I know it now
+and I have come to Russia to thank him--when he is free. That won't be
+very long now that I have found you. They were frightened of you,
+Lois--they thought you were going to betray their secrets to the
+Revolutionary party. I knew that you would not do so--I said so all
+along."
+
+She looked up at him with glowing eyes, and putting her lips very close
+to his ear she said:
+
+"I loved you, Alb--I never could have told them while I loved you--not
+even to save my father, and God knows how much I love him. Did not they
+say that you were very happy with Mr. Gessner? There would have been no
+more happiness if I had told them."
+
+"And that is what kept you silent, Lois?"
+
+She would not answer him, but hiding her face again, she asked him a
+question which surprised him greatly.
+
+"Do you know why the police wished to arrest me, Alb dear?"
+
+"How could I know that, Lois?"
+
+"It was the Count who told them to do so. He is only deceiving you,
+dear. He does not want to release my father and will never do so. If I
+were in prison too, he thinks that Mr. Gessner would be quite safe. Do
+not trust the Count if you would help us. My people understand him and
+they will punish him some day. He has done a great wrong to many in
+Warsaw, and he deserves to be punished. You must remember this, dear,
+when he promises my father's freedom. He is not telling you the
+truth--he is only asking you to punish me."
+
+"But, Lois, what have you done, what charge can they bring against a
+little schoolgirl?"
+
+"I am my father's daughter," she said proudly, "that is why they would
+punish me. Oh, you don't know, dear. Even the little children are
+criminals in Warsaw. My father escaped from Saghalen and I have no right
+to live in Russia. When he sent me to school here, I did not come under
+my own name, they called me Lois Werner and believed I was a German.
+Then my people heard that Count Sergius wished to have me arrested, and
+they took me away from the school and brought me here. Herr Petermann is
+one of my father's oldest friends. He has saved a great many who would
+be in prison but for his kindness. We can trust Herr Petermann, dear--he
+will never betray us."
+
+Alban understood, but he had no answer ready for her. All that she had
+told him filled him with unutterable contempt toward the men he had but
+lately considered as his patrons and his friends. The polished, courtly
+Sergius, his master Richard Gessner--to what duplicity had they not
+stooped, nay, to what treachery? For they had sent him into Russia, not
+to befriend this child, but to put the ultimate shame of a Russian
+prison upon her--the cell, the lash, the unnamable infamy. As in a flash
+he detected the whole conspiracy and laid it bare. He, Alban Kennedy,
+had been chosen as their instrument--he had been sent to Poland to
+condemn this little friend of the dreadful years to the living death in
+a Russian prison. The blood raced in his veins at the thought. Perhaps
+for the first time in his life he knew the meaning of the word anger.
+
+"Lois," he exclaimed presently, "if Mr. Gessner does not set your father
+free, I myself will tell your people. That is the message I am going to
+send to him to-day. Count Sergius will not lie to me again--I shall tell
+him so when I return."
+
+She started up in wild alarm.
+
+"You must not do it--I forbid it," she cried, closing her white arms
+about his neck as though to protect him already from his enemies. "Oh,
+my dear, you do not know the Russian people, you do not know what it
+means to stand against the police here and have them for your enemies.
+Mr. Gessner is their friend. The Government would do a great deal to
+serve him--my father says so. If Count Sergius heard that you had met
+me, we should both be in prison this night--ah, dear God, what a prison,
+what suffering--and I have seen it myself, the women cowering from the
+lash, the men beaten so that they cut the flesh from their faces. That's
+what happens to those who go against the Government, dear Alb--but not
+to you because you love me."
+
+She clung to him hysterically, for this long vigil had tried her nerves
+and the shadow of discovery lay upon her always. It had been no surprise
+to her to find Alban in Warsaw, for the Revolutionary Committee in
+London had informed her friends by cable on the very day that Count
+Sergius had left. She knew exactly how he had come, where he had
+stopped, and when to seek him out. But now that his arms were about her,
+she dreaded a new separation and was almost afraid to release his hand
+from hers.
+
+"You will not leave me, Alban," she said--a new dignity coming to her
+suddenly as though some lesson, not of the school, but of life, had
+taught it to her--"you will take me to London with you--yes, yes, dear,
+as your servant. That is what my friends wish, they have thought it all
+out. I am to go as your servant and you must get a passport for me--for
+Lois Werner, and then if you call me by my own name no one will know.
+There we can see Mr. Gessner together and speak of my father. I will
+promise him that his secret shall never be known. He will trust me,
+Alban, because I promise him."
+
+Alban stooped and kissed her upon the lips.
+
+"No," he said, "the work must be done here in Russia, Lois. I am called
+to do it and I go now. Let me find you at the same time to-morrow, and I
+will tell you what I have done. God bless you, Lois. It is happiness to
+be with you again."
+
+Their lips met, their arms unclasped reluctantly. A single tap upon the
+panel of the cabin brought that merry old fellow, Herr Petermann, to
+open to them. Alban told him in a sentence what had happened and
+hastened back to the hotel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+AN INSTRUCTION TO THE POLICE
+
+
+Count Sergius was a little more than uneasy when Alban returned--he was
+suspicious. A highly trained agent of Government himself, he rarely
+permitted any circumstance, however trifling, to escape him; and this
+circumstance of tardiness was not trifling.
+
+"He has met the girl," the argument went, "and she is detaining him with
+a fine story of her wrongs. He may learn that we have tricked him and
+that would be troublesome. Certainly I was a fool not to have had him
+watched--but, then, his first night in Warsaw and he a stranger! We
+shall make up for lost time at once. I will see the Chief and give
+instructions. A dove does not go but once to the nest. We will take
+wings ourselves next time."
+
+By which it will be perceived that he blamed himself for having lost a
+great opportunity and determined not to do so a second time. His whole
+purpose in coming to Warsaw had been to track down Boriskoff's daughter
+and to hand her over to the police. This he owed to his employers, the
+Government, and to his friend, Richard Gessner--than whom none would pay
+a better price for the service. And when it were done, then he imagined
+that nothing in the world would be easier than to excuse himself to this
+amiable lad and to take him back to England without any loss of time
+whatever. In all a pretty plan, lacking only the finer judgment to
+discern the strength of the enemy's force and not to despise them.
+
+Alban entered the sitting-room just as the Count had determined to have
+his breakfast. It was nearly twelve o'clock then and the fierce heat of
+the day made the streets intolerable. Few people were abroad in the
+great avenue--there was no repetition of the disturbance of yesterday,
+nor any Cossack going at a gallop. Down below in the restaurant a bevy
+of smartly dressed women ate and gossiped to the music of a good
+Hungarian band. From distant streets there came an echo of gongs and the
+muffled hum of wheels; the sirens of the steam-tugs screamed incessantly
+upon the sleepy river.
+
+Whatever the Count's curiosity may have been, he had the wit to hide it
+when Alban appeared. Adopting a well-feigned tone of raillery, he spoke
+as men speak when another has been absent and has no good excuse to
+make.
+
+"I will ask no questions," he said with mock solemnity--"A man who
+forgets how to breakfast is in a bad way. That is to suppose that you
+have not breakfasted--ah, forgive me, she makes coffee like a chef,
+perhaps, and there is no Rhine wine to match the gold of her hair. Let
+us talk politics, history, the arts--anything you like. I am absolutely
+discreet, Mr. Kennedy, I have forgotten already that you were late."
+
+Alban drew a chair to the table and began to eat with good appetite. His
+sense of humor was strong enough to lead him to despise such talk at any
+time, but to-day it exasperated him. Understanding perfectly well what
+was in the Count's mind, he was not to be trapped by any such artifice.
+Honesty is a card which a diplomatist rarely expects an opponent to
+hold. Alban held such a card and determined to play it without loss of
+time.
+
+"I have seen Lois Boriskoff," he said.
+
+"Again--that is quick work."
+
+The Count looked up, still smiling.
+
+"I told you that we should have no difficulties," he exclaimed.
+
+Alban helped himself to some superb bisque soup and permitted the waiter
+to fill his glass from a flask of Chablis.
+
+"It was quite an accident upon my part. I went up to the Castle as you
+advised me and then down into the old town. Lois is with her friends
+there. I have had a long talk to her and now I understand everything."
+
+The Count nodded his head and sipped his wine. The frankness of all this
+deceived him but not wholly. The boy had discovered something--it
+remained to be seen how much.
+
+"You are successful beyond hope," he exclaimed presently, "this will be
+great news for Mr. Gessner. Of course, you asked her plainly what had
+happened?"
+
+"She told me without my asking, Count. Now I understand everything--for
+the first time."
+
+The tone of the reply arrested Sergius' attention and brought a frown to
+his face. He kept his eyes upon Alban when next he spoke.
+
+"Those people are splendid liars," he remarked as though he had been
+expecting just such a story--"of course she spoke about me. I can almost
+imagine what she said."
+
+"It was a very great surprise to me," Alban rejoined, and with so simple
+an air that any immediate reply seemed impossible. For five minutes they
+ate and drank in silence. Then Count Sergius, excusing himself, stood up
+and went to the window.
+
+"Is she to come to this hotel?" he asked anon.
+
+"She would be very foolish to do so, Count."
+
+"Foolish, my dear fellow, whatever do you mean?"
+
+"I mean what I say--that she would be mad to put herself into your
+power."
+
+The Count bit his lip. It had been many years since so direct an insult
+had been offered to him, and yet he did not know how to answer it.
+
+"I see that these people have been lying to you as I thought," he
+rejoined sharply, "is it not indiscreet to accept the word of such a
+person?"
+
+"You know perfectly well that it is not, Count. You brought me to Warsaw
+to help you to arrest Lois Boriskoff. Well, I am not going to do so and
+that is all."
+
+"Are you prepared to say the same to your friend in London--will you
+cable that news to Mr. Gessner?"
+
+"I was going to do so without any loss of time. You can send the message
+for me if you like."
+
+"Nothing will be easier. Let me take it down at your dictation. Really I
+am not offended. You have been deceived and are right to say what you
+think. Our friend at Hampstead shall judge between us."
+
+He lighted a cigarette with apparent unconcern and sat down before the
+writing-table near the window.
+
+"Now," he asked, "how shall we put it to him?"
+
+Alban came over and stood by his side.
+
+"Say that Paul Boriskoff must be released by his intervention without
+any condition whatever."
+
+"He will never consent to that."
+
+"He will have to consent, Count Sergius. His personal safety depends
+upon it."
+
+"But, my dear boy, what of the girl? Are you going to leave her here to
+shout our friend's secret all over Warsaw?"
+
+"She has not spoken and she will not speak, Count."
+
+"Ah, you are among the credulous. Your confidence flatters her, I fear."
+
+"It is just--she has never lied to me."
+
+The Count shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I will send your message," he said.
+
+He wrote the cable in a fine pointed hand and duly delivered it to the
+waiter. His own would follow it ten minutes later--when he had made up
+his mind how to act. A dangerous thought had come to him and begun to
+obsess his mind. This English boy, he was saying, might yet be a more
+dangerous enemy than the girl they had set out to trap. It might yet be
+necessary to clap them both in the same prison until the whole truth
+were known. He resolved to debate it at his leisure. There was plenty of
+time, for the police were watching all the exits from the city, and if
+Lois Boriskoff attempted to pass out, God help her.
+
+"We must not expect an answer to this before dinner," he said, holding
+out the message for the waiter to take it. "If you think it all right,
+we can proceed to amuse ourselves until the reply comes. Warsaw is
+somewhat a remarkable city as you will already have seen. Some of its
+finest monuments have been erected to celebrate the execution of its
+best patriots. Every public square stands for an insurrection. The
+castle is fortified not against the stranger but the citizen--those guns
+you tell me about were put there by Nicolas to remind us that he would
+stand no nonsense. We are the sons of a nation which, officially, does
+not exist--but we honor our dead kings everywhere and can show you some
+of Thorwaldsen's finest monuments to them. Let us go out and see these
+wonders if you are willing."
+
+The apparent digression served him admirably, for it permitted him to
+think. As many another in the service of the autocracy, he had a
+sterling love for Poland in its historical aspect, and was as proud as
+any man when he uttered the name of a Sobieski, a Sigismund or a
+Ladislaus. Revolution as a modern phase he despised. To him there were
+but people and nobles, and the former had become vulgar disturbers of
+the Czar's peace who must be chastened with rods. His own career
+depended altogether upon his callous indifference to mere human
+sympathies.
+
+Alban could offer no objection to visit Warsaw under such a pleasant
+guide and he also welcomed the hours of truce. It came to him that the
+Count might honestly doubt Lois' word and that, knowing nothing of her,
+he would have had little reason to trust her. The morning passed in a
+pleasant stroll down the Senatorska where are the chief shops of Moscow.
+Here the Count insisted upon buying his English friend a very beautiful
+amber and gold cigarette-case, to remind him, as he said, of their
+quarrel.
+
+"It was very natural," he admitted, "I know these people so well. They
+talk like angels and act like devils. You will know more about them in
+good time. If I have interfered, it was at my friend Gessner's wish. I
+shall leave the matter in his hands now. If he accepts the girl's word,
+he is perfectly at liberty to do so. To me it is a matter of absolute
+indifference."
+
+Alban took the cigarette-case but accepted it reluctantly. He could not
+resist the charm of this man's manner nor had he any abiding desire to
+do so. As far as that went, there was so much to see in these bright
+streets, so many odd equipages, fine horses, prettily dressed women,
+magnificent soldiers, that his interest was perpetually enchained and he
+uttered many exclamations of surprised delight very foreign to his usual
+manner.
+
+"I cannot believe that this is the city we saw yesterday," he declared
+as the Count called a drosky and bade the driver make a tour of the
+avenues and the gardens--"you would think the people were the happiest
+in the world. I have never seen so many smiling faces before."
+
+The Count understood the situation better.
+
+"Life is sweet to them because of its uncertainty. They live while they
+can. When I used to fish in your English waters, they sent me to a river
+where the Mayfly was out--ah, that beautiful, fluttering creature which
+may live one minute or may live five. He struggles up from the bottom of
+the river, you remember, and then, just as he has extended his splendid
+wings, up comes a great trout and swallows him--the poor thing of ten or
+twenty or a hundred seconds. Here we struggle up through the social
+ranks, and just when the waters of intrigue fascinate us and we go to
+play Narcissus to them, up comes the official trout and down his throat
+we go. Some day there will be so many of us that the trout will be
+gorged and unable to move. Then he will go to the cooking-pot--but not
+in our time, I think."
+
+Alban remained silent. That "not in our time" seemed so strange a saying
+when he recalled the threats and the promises of the fanatics of Union
+Street. Was this fine fellow deceiving himself, or was he like the
+Russian bureaucracy, simply ignorant? The lad of twenty could not say,
+but he made a shrewder guess at the truth than the diplomatist by his
+side.
+
+They visited the Lazienki Park, passing many of Warsaw's famous people
+as they went, and so affording the Count many opportunities for
+delightful little histories in which such men excel. No pretty woman
+escaped his observation, few the rigors of his tongue. He could tell you
+precisely when Madame Latienski began to receive young Prince Nicolas at
+her house and the exact terms in which old Latienski objected to the
+visits. Priests, jockeys, politicians, actors--for these he had a
+distinguishing gesture of contempt or pity or gracious admiration. The
+actresses invariably recognized him with alluring smiles, which he
+received condescendingly as who should say--well, you were fortunate.
+When they arrived at the Moktowski barracks, a group of officers quickly
+surrounded them and conducted them to a place where champagne corks
+might pop and cigarettes be lighted. This was but the beginning of a
+round of visits which Alban found tiresome to the last degree. How many
+glasses of wine he sipped, how many cigarettes he lighted, he could not
+have told you for a fortune. It was nearly five o'clock when they
+returned to the hotel and the Count proposed an hour's repose "de
+travail."
+
+"There is no message from your friend," he said candidly, "no doubt your
+telegram has troubled him. Perhaps we shall get it by dinner-time. You
+must be very tired and perhaps you would like to lie down."
+
+Alban did not demur and he went to his own room, and taking off his
+boots he lay upon his bed and quickly fell fast asleep. Count Sergius,
+however, had no intention of doing any such thing. He was closeted with
+the Chief of the Police ten minutes after they had returned, and in
+twenty he had come to a resolution.
+
+"This young Englishman will meet the girl Lois Boriskoff to-morrow
+morning," he said. "Arrest the pair of them and let me know when it is
+done. But mind you--treat him as though he were your own son. I have my
+reasons."
+
+The Chief merely bowed. He quite understood that such a man as Sergius
+Zamoyski would have very good reasons indeed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE DAWN OF THE DAY
+
+
+Count Sergius believed that he had settled the affaire Gessner when he
+gave his instructions to the Chief of the Police, and the subsequent
+hours found him exceedingly pleased with himself. An artist in his
+profession, he flattered himself that it had all come about in the
+manner of his own anticipations and that he would be able to carry back
+to London a story which would not only win upon a rich man's gratitude,
+but advance him considerably in the favor of those who could well reward
+his labors.
+
+This was an amiable reflection and one that ministered greatly to his
+self-content. No cloud stood upon the horizon of his self-esteem nor did
+shadows darken his glowing hopes. He had promised Richard Gessner to
+arrest the girl Lois Boriskoff, and arrested she would be before twelve
+o'clock to-morrow. As for this amiable English lad, so full of fine
+resolutions, so defiant, so self-willed, it would be a good jest enough
+to clap him in a police-station for four-and-twenty hours and to bow him
+out again, with profuse apologies, when the girl was on her way to
+Petersburg to join her amiable father in the Schlusselburg.
+
+For Alban personally he had a warm regard. The very honesty of his
+character, his habit of saying just what he meant (so foreign to the
+Count's own practice), his ingenuous delight in all that he saw, his
+modern knight-errantry based upon an absurdly old-fashioned notion of
+right and wrong and justice and all such stuff as that, these were the
+very qualities to win the admiration of a man of the world who possessed
+none of them. Count Sergius said that the lad must suffer nothing. His
+intrigues with the daughter of a Polish anarchist were both dangerous
+and foolish. And was he not already the acknowledged lover of Anna
+Gessner, whom he must marry upon his return to London. Certainly, it
+would be very wrong not to lock him up, and he, Sergius, was not going
+to take the responsibility of any other course upon his already
+over-burdened shoulders.
+
+These being his ideas, he found it amusing enough to meet Alban at the
+dinner-table and to speak of to-morrow and its programme. The reply to
+the cable they had dispatched to London lay already warm in his pocket,
+sent straight to him from the post-office as the police had directed. It
+was fitting that he should open the ball with a lie about this, and add
+thereto any other pleasant fancy which a fertile imagination dictated.
+
+"Gessner does not cable us," he said at that moment of the repast when
+the glasses are first filled and the tongue is loosed. "I suppose he has
+gone over to Paris again as he hinted might be the case. If there is no
+news to-morrow, we must reconsider the arguments and see how we stand.
+You know that I am perfectly willing to be guided by him and will do
+nothing of my own initiative. If he can procure the old man's freedom,
+I will be the first to congratulate you. Meanwhile, I am not to forget
+that we have a box at the opera and that _Huguenots_ is on the bill.
+When I am not in musical circles, I confess my enjoyment of _Huguenots_.
+Meyerbeer always seemed to me a grand old charlatan who should have run
+a modern show in New York. He wrote one masterpiece and some five miles
+of rubbish--but why decry a great work because there are also those
+which are not great. Besides, I am not musician enough really to enjoy
+the Ring. If it were not for the pretty women who come to my box to
+escape ennui, I would find Wagner intolerable."
+
+Alban, very quiet and not a little excited to-night, differed from this
+opinion altogether.
+
+"My father was a musician," he said. "I believe that if he had not been
+a parson, he would have been a great musician. I don't know very much
+about music myself, but the first time that Mr. Gessner took me to hear
+one of Wagner's operas, I seemed to live in a new world. It could not
+have been just the desire to like it, for I had made up my mind that it
+would be very dry. There is something in such music as that which is
+better than all argument. I shall never forget the curious sensation
+which came to me when first I heard the overture to Tannhäuser played by
+a big orchestra. You will not deny that it is splendid?"
+
+"Undoubtedly it's fine--especially where the clarinets came in and you
+seem to have five hundred mice running up your back. I am not going to
+be drawn into an argument on the point--these likes and dislikes are
+purely individual. To me it seems perfectly ridiculous that one man
+should quarrel with another because a third person has said or written
+something about which they disagree. In politics, of course, there is
+justification. The Have-Nots want to get money out of the Haves and the
+pockets supply the adjectives. But in the arts, which exist for our
+pleasure,--why, I might as well fall foul of you because you do not like
+caviar and are more partial to brunettes than to blondes. My taste is
+all the other way--I dote upon caviar; golden-haired women are to me
+just a little more attractive than the angels. But, of course, that does
+not speak for their tempers."
+
+He laughed at the candor of it, and looking round the brilliant
+restaurant where they dined to-night, he began to speak in a low tone of
+Russian and Polish women generally.
+
+"The Polish ladies are old-fashioned enough to love one man at a
+time--in their own country, at any rate. The Russians, on the contrary,
+are less selfish. A Russian woman is often the victim of three
+centuries, of suppressed female ambitions. She has large ideas, fierce
+passions, an excellent political sense--and all these must be cooled by
+the wet blanket of a very ordinary domesticity. In reality, she is not
+domesticated at all and would far sooner be following her lover--the one
+chosen for the day--down the street with a flag. Here you have the
+reason why a Russian woman appeals to us. She is rarely beautiful--some
+of them would themselves admit the deficiency--but she is never an
+embarrassment. Tell her that you are tired of her and you will discover
+that she was about to stagger your vanity by a similar confidence. In
+these days of revolution, she is seen at her best. Fear neither of God
+nor man will restrain her. We have more of the show of religion and less
+of the spirit in Russia than in any other country in the world. Here in
+Poland, it is a little different. Some of our women are as the idealists
+would have them to be. But there are others--or the city would be
+intolerable."
+
+Alban had lived too long in a world of mean cynics that this talk should
+either surprise or entertain him. Men in Union Street spoke of women
+much as this careless fellow did, rarely generous to them and often
+exceedingly unjust. His own ideals he had confessed wholly to none, not
+even to Anna Gessner in the moment of their greatest intimacy. That fine
+old-world notion of the perfect womanhood, developed to the point of
+idolatry by the Celts of the West, but standing none the less as a
+witness to the whole world's desire, might remain but as a memory of his
+youth--he would neither surrender it nor admit that it was unworthy of
+men's homage. When Sergius spoke of his own countrywomen, Alban could
+forgive him all other estimates. And this was as much as to say that the
+image of Lois was with him even in that splendid place, and that some
+sentiment of her humble faith and sacrifice had touched him to the
+quick.
+
+They went to the opera as the Count had promised and there heard an
+indifferent rendering of the _Huguenots_. A veritable sisterhood of
+blondes, willing to show off Count Sergius to some advantage, came from
+time to time to his box and was by him visited in turn. Officers in
+uniform crowded the foyers and talked in loud tones during the finest
+passages. A general sense of unrest made itself felt everywhere as
+though all understood the danger which threatened the city and the
+precarious existence its defenders must lead. When they quitted the
+theatre and turned into one of the military clubs for supper, the common
+excitement was even more marked and ubiquitous enough to arrest the
+attention even of such a _flâneur_ as Sergius.
+
+"These fellows are sitting down to supper with bombs under their
+chairs," he said _sotto voce_. "That is to say, each thinks that a bomb
+is there and hopes that it will kill his neighbor. We have no sympathy
+in our public life here--the conditions are altogether against it.
+Imagine five hundred men upon the deck of a ship which has struck a
+rock, and consider what opportunities there would be to deplore the
+drowned. In Russia each plays for his own safety and does not care a
+rouble what becomes of the man next door. Such a fact is both our
+strength and our weakness--our strength because opportunities make men,
+and our weakness because we have no unity of plan which will enable us
+to fight such a combination as is now being pitted against us. I myself
+believe that the old order is at an end. That is why I have a villa in
+the south of France and some excellent apartments in Paris."
+
+"You believe that the Revolutionaries will be victorious?" Alban asked
+in his quiet way.
+
+"I believe that the power is passing from the hands of all autocratic
+governments, and that some phase of socialism will eventually be the
+policy of all civilized nations."
+
+"Then what is the good of going to England, Count, if you believe that
+it will be the same story there?"
+
+"It is only a step on the road. You will never have a revolution in your
+country, you have too much common sense. But you will tax your bourgeois
+until you make him bankrupt, and that will be your way of having all
+things in common. In America the workingman is too well off and the
+country is too young to permit this kind of thing yet. Its day will be
+much later--but it will come all the same, and then the deluge. Let us
+rejoice that we shall not see these things in our time. It is something
+to know that our champagne is assured to us."
+
+He lifted a golden glass and drank a vague toast heartily. Others in the
+Club were frankly intoxicated and many a heated scene marked the
+progress of unceremonious and impromptu revels. Young officers, who
+carried their lives in their hands every hour, showed their contempt of
+life in many bottles. Old men, stern and gray at dawn, were so many
+babbling imbeciles at midnight. The waiters ran to and fro ceaselessly,
+their faces dripping with perspiration and their throats hoarse with
+shouting. The musicians fiddled as though the end of all things was at
+hand and must not surprise them at a broken bar. In Russia the scene was
+familiar enough, but to the stranger incomprehensible and revolting.
+Alban felt as one released from a pit of gluttony when at three in the
+morning Sergius staggered to his feet and bade a servant call him in a
+drosky.
+
+"We have much to do to-morrow," he muttered, "much to do--and then, ah,
+my friend, if we only knew what we meant when we say 'and then.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+COUNT ZAMOYSKI SLEEPS
+
+
+A glimmer of wan daylight in the Count's bedroom troubled him while he
+undressed and he drew the curtains with angry fingers. Down there in the
+dismal streets the Cossacks watched the night-birds going home to bed
+and envied them alike their condition and its consequences. If Sergius
+rested a moment at the window, it was to mark the presence of these men
+and to take heart at it. And this is to say that few who knew him in the
+social world had any notion of the life he lived apart or guessed that
+authority stood to him for his shield and buckler against the unknown
+enemies his labors had created. Perhaps he rarely admitted the truth
+himself. Light and laughter and music were his friends in so far as they
+permitted him to forget the inevitable or to deride it.
+
+Here in this room of eloquent shadows he was a different man indeed from
+the fine fellow of the opera and the barracks--a haunted secret man
+looking deep into the mysteries and weary for the sun. The brilliant
+scene he had but just quitted could now be regretted chiefly because he
+needed the mental anæsthetic with which society alone could supply him.
+Pale and gaunt and inept in his movements, few would have recognized the
+Sergius Zamoyski of the dressing-room or named him for the diplomatist
+whose successes had earned the warmest encomiums of harassed authority.
+Herein lay a testimony to his success which his bitterest enemy would
+not have denied him. None knew better than he that the day of reckoning
+had come for all who opposed revolution in Russia, none had anticipated
+that day with a greater personal dread.
+
+He closed the curtains, thankful that the Cossacks stood sentinels
+without, and hungering for sleep which had been denied to him so often
+lately. If he had any consolation of his thoughts, it lay in the
+comparative secrecy of his present mission and the fact that to-day
+would accomplish its purpose. The girl Lois had not confessed Richard
+Gessner's secret and she would stand presently where confession would
+not help her. As for this agreeable youth, who certainly had been her
+lover, he must be coerced into silence, threatened, cajoled, bought.
+Sergius remembered Alban's fine gospel of life and laughed when he
+recalled it. This devotion to humanity, this belief in great causes,
+what was it worth when a woman laughed and her rosy lips parted for a
+kiss? The world is too busy for the pedants who would stem the social
+revolution, was his argument--the rich men have too much to do to hide
+their common frailties that they should put on the habits of the friars.
+Let this hot gospeller acquire a fortune and he would become as the
+others before a month had passed. The women would see to that--for were
+not two of them already about the business?
+
+He closed his curtains and undressed with a clumsy hand upon the buttons
+and many a curse at the obstinate things. The intense silence of the
+morning hour depressed him and he wondered that the hotel should sleep
+so soundly. His own door was both locked and bolted--he had a pistol in
+his travelling-bag and would finger it with grim satisfaction at such
+moments as these. Hitherto he had owed much to his very bravado, to a
+habit of going in and out among the people freely, and deriding all
+politics as a fool's employment. Latterly he had been wondering how far
+this habit would protect him, had made shrewd guesses at the truth and
+had come to the stage of question. Yesterday's work helped him to
+confirm these vague suspicions. How came it that Lois Boriskoff was able
+to warn this young Englishman, why had she come immediately to his hotel
+and followed him to the old quarters of the city? This could only mean
+that her friends had telegraphed the information from London, that every
+step of the journey had been reported and that a promising plan of
+action had been decided upon. Sergius dreaded this more than anything
+that could have happened to him. They will ask what share I had in it,
+he told himself; and he knew what the answer to that must be. Let them
+but suspect a hundredth part of the truth and he might not have twenty
+hours to live.
+
+It had been a splendid life so far and a sufficient atonement for the
+dreaded hours apart. There in his own room he gave battle to the
+phantoms by recalling the faces of the pretty women he had cajoled and
+defeated, the houses of pride he had destroyed, the triumphs he had
+numbered and the recompense he had enjoyed. To be known to none save as
+a careless idler, to pass as a figure of vengeance unrecognized across
+the continents, to be the idol of the police in three cities, to have
+men running to and fro at his command though they knew not by whose
+order they were sent, here was wine of life so intoxicating that a man
+might sell his very soul to possess it. Sergius did not believe that
+there was any need for such a bargain as this--he had been consistently
+successful hitherto in eluding even the paltriest consequences of his
+employment--but the dark hours came none the less, and coming, they
+whispered a word which even the bravest may shudder to hear.
+
+He slept but fitfully, listening for any sounds from the city without
+and anxious for the hotel to awaken to its daily routine. The cooler
+argument of the passing hour declared it most unlikely that any plan
+would be ventured until Lois Boriskoff's fate were known and Alban had
+visited her this morning. If there were danger to be apprehended, the
+moment of it would arrive when the girl was arrested and the story of
+Alban Kennedy's misadventure made known to her friends. Sergius began to
+perceive that he must not linger an hour in Warsaw when this were done.
+He could direct operations as easily from Paris or London as from this
+conspicuous hotel, and with infinitely less risk to himself and his
+empire. Sometimes he wondered that he had been so foolish as to enter
+Russia at all. Why could he not have telegraphed to the Chief of the
+Police to arrest the girl as soon as might be and to flog her into a
+confession. The whip would have purchased her secret readily enough,
+then the others could have been arrested also and Gessner left reassured
+beyond question. Sergius blamed himself very much that he had permitted
+a finer chivalry to guide his acts. "I came because this young man
+persuaded me to come," he admitted, and added the thought that he had
+been a fool for his pains.
+
+This would have been about four o'clock of the morning. He slept a
+little while upon it, but woke again at five and sat up in bed to mark a
+step on the landing without and to ask himself who had the right to be
+there at such an hour. When he had waited a little while, he came to the
+conclusion that two people were approaching his door and making little
+secret of their coming. Presently a knock informed him that he had
+nothing whatever to fear; and upon asking the question "What do you
+want?" a voice answered immediately, "From the bureau, your excellency,
+with a letter." This he concluded to mean that the Chief of the Police
+had some important news to convey to him and had sent his own messenger
+to the hotel.
+
+"Wait a moment and I will let you in," he replied, and asked, "I suppose
+you can wait a little while?"
+
+"It is very urgent, excellency--you had better open at once."
+
+The Count sprang up from his bed and drew the curtains back from the
+window. A warm glow of sunlight instantly suffused the cold room and
+warmed it with welcome beams. Down there in the streets the Cossacks
+still nodded upon patient horses as though no event of the night had
+disturbed them. A drosky passed, driving an old man to the railway
+station--there were porters at the doors of some of the houses and a few
+wagons going down toward the river. All this Sergius perceived
+instantly in one swift vision. Then he opened the door and admitted the
+officer.
+
+"There were two of you," he exclaimed, peering down the passage.
+
+"It is true, excellency, myself and the night-porter, but he has gone to
+sleep again."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"From the Chief, excellency, with this letter."
+
+He held out a great square document, grotesquely sealed and carefully
+folded. A small man with a pockmarked face, he wore the uniform of an
+ordinary gendarme and aped that rôle to perfection. Saluting gravely, he
+permitted the letter to pass from his hands. Then he closed the door and
+leaned his back against it.
+
+"I am to take an answer to the bureau, excellency."
+
+The Count read a few lines of the document and looked up uneasily.
+
+"You say that you were commanded to wake me up--for this?"
+
+"Those are my orders."
+
+"Zaniloff must have lost his wits--there was nothing else?"
+
+The man took one stride forward.
+
+"Yes," he cried in a low voice, "there was this, excellency."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Alban slept no better than his friend; in truth he hardly closed his
+eyes until they waked him and told him of the tragedy. He had said
+little to Sergius during the evening, but the perplexities of the long
+day remained with him and were not to be readily silenced.
+
+That his patron sent no reply to their urgent telegram he thought a
+little strange. Mr. Gessner's silence could only mean that he had left
+London suddenly, perhaps had set out to join them in Warsaw. Meanwhile
+Alban perceived very clearly in what a position of danger Lois stood and
+how difficult it would be to help her if others did not come to his
+assistance.
+
+Accustomed to regard all the Revolutionaries from the standpoint of the
+wild creatures who talked nonsense in the East End of London, he could
+not believe in old Herr Petermann's optimism or pay much attention to
+the wild plan of escape he had devised. It must be absurd to think that
+Lois could leave Poland disguised as a servant. Alban himself would
+readily have recognized her in her disguise if he had been seeking her
+at the time, and the police would very soon detect it when their minds
+were set upon the purpose. In his own opinion, and this was shrewd
+enough, their hope of salvation lay in Richard Gessner's frank
+acceptance of the position. The banker had influence enough with the
+Russian authorities to release both Lois and her father. He must do so
+or accept the consequences of his obstinacy.
+
+All this and much more was in Alban's head while he tossed restlessly
+upon his strange bed and waited impatiently for the day. The oddest
+fancies came to him, the most fantastic ideas. Now he would be living in
+London again, a drudge at the works, the nightly companion of little
+Lois, the adventurer of the streets and the slums. Then, as readily, he
+would recall the most trifling incidents of his life in Richard
+Gessner's house, the days of the miracles, the wonderful hours when he
+had worshipped Anna Gessner and believed almost in her divinity. This
+had been a false faith, surely. He knew now that he would never marry
+Anna, and that must mean return to the wilderness, the bitter days of
+poverty and all the old-time strife with circumstance. It would have
+been easier, he thought, if those weeks of wonderland had never been.
+Richard Gessner had done him no service--rich men rarely help those whom
+they patronize for their own ends.
+
+Alban thought of all this, and still being unable to sleep, he fell to
+numbering the hours which stood between him and his meeting with Lois.
+He was sure that she would be ready for him however early his visit
+might be--and he said that he would ring for his coffee at seven o'clock
+and try to go down to the river at eight. If there were no message from
+Mr. Gessner before he left, he thought it would be wise to counsel
+patience for this day at least. In plain truth he was less concerned
+about the diplomatic side of the affair than the personal. An
+overmastering desire for Lois' companionship, the wish to hear her
+voice, to speak to her, to talk as they had talked in the dark days of
+long ago, prevailed above the calm reckoning of yesterday. His
+resolution to defeat Count Sergius at his own game seemed less heroic
+than it had done twelve hours ago. Alban had conceit enough not to fear
+the Count. That incurable faith in British citizenship still upheld him.
+
+Seven had been the hour named by his intention--it was a little after
+six o'clock when he heard a knock upon his bedroom door and started up
+wondering who called him at such an hour.
+
+"Who is there, what do you want?" he cried, with the bedclothes still
+about his shoulders. No one answered this, but the knock was repeated, a
+decisive knock as of one who meant to win admittance.
+
+"All right, I will come in a minute," was now his answer; to which he
+added the question--"Is that you, Count? Do you know it's only just six
+o'clock?"
+
+He opened the door and found himself face to face with the hotel valet,
+an amiable young Frenchman by the name of Malette.
+
+"Monsieur," said the man, "will you please come at once? There has been
+an accident--his excellency is very ill."
+
+"An accident to the Count? Is it serious, Malette?"
+
+"It is very serious, monsieur. They say that he will not live. The
+doctors are with him--I thought that you would wish to know
+immediately."
+
+Alban turned without a word and began to put on his clothes. His hands
+were quite cold and he trembled as though stricken by an ague. When he
+had found a dressing-gown, he huddled it on anyhow and followed Malette
+down the corridor.
+
+"When did this happen, Malette?"
+
+"I do not know, monsieur. One of the servants chanced to pass his
+excellency's door and saw something which frightened him. He called the
+concierge and they waked the Herr Director. Afterwards they sent for the
+police."
+
+"Do they think that the Count was assassinated, then?"
+
+"Ah, that is to find out. The officers will help us to say. Will you go
+in at once, monsieur, or shall I tell the Herr Director?"
+
+Alban said that he would go at once. The young fear to look upon the
+face of death and he was no braver than others of his age. A terrible
+sense of dread overtook him while he stood before the door and heard the
+hushed whispers of those about it. Here a giant police officer had
+already taken up his post as sentinel and he cast a searching glance
+upon all who approached. There were two or three privileged servants
+standing apart and discussing the affair; but a stain upon a crimson
+carpet was more eloquent of the truth than any word. Alban came near to
+swooning as he stepped over it and entered the room without word or
+knock.
+
+They had laid the Count upon the bed and dragged it to the window to
+husband the light. Two doctors, hastily summoned from a neighboring
+hospital, worked like heroes in their shirt sleeves--a nurse in a gray
+dress stood behind them holding sponge and bandages. At the first
+glance, the untrained onlooker would have said that Sergius Zamoyski was
+certainly dead. The intense pallor of his face, the set eyes, the
+stiffened limbs, spoke of the rigor mortis and the finality of tragedy.
+None the less, the surgeons went to work as though all might yet be
+saved. Uttering their orders in the calm and measured tones of those
+whom no scene of death could unnerve, they were unconscious of all else
+but the task before them and its immediate achievement. When they had
+need of anything, they spoke to the Herr Director of the hotel who
+passed on his commands in a sharp decisive tone to a porter who stood
+at his heels. Near by him stood the Chief of the Police, Zaniloff, a
+short burly man who wore a dark green uniform and held his sheathed
+sword lightly in his left hand. These latter looked up when the door
+opened, but the doctors took no notice whatever. There was an
+overpowering odor of anaesthetics in the room although the windows had
+been thrown wide open.
+
+"Is the Count dead?" Alban asked them in a low voice. He had taken a few
+steps toward the bed and there halted irresolute. "What is it, what has
+happened, sir?" he continued, turning to Zaniloff. That worthy merely
+shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"The Count has been assassinated--we believe by a woman. The doctors
+will tell us by and by."
+
+Alban shuddered at the words and took another step toward the bed.
+He felt giddy and faint. The words he had just heard were ringing
+in his ears as a sound of rushing waters. "Has Lois done this
+thing?"--incredible! And yet the man implied as much.
+
+"I cannot stay here," he exclaimed presently, "I must go to my room, if
+you please."
+
+He turned and reeled from the place, ashamed of his weakness, yet unable
+to control it. Outside upon the landing, he discovered that Zaniloff was
+at his elbow and had something to say to him. Speaking sharply and
+autocratically in the Russian tongue, that worthy realized almost
+immediately that he had failed to make himself understood and so called
+the Herr Director to his aid.
+
+"They will require your attendance at the bureau," the Director said
+with an obsequious bow toward Alban--"you must dress at once, sir, and
+accompany this gentleman."
+
+Alban said that he would do so. He was miserably cold and ill and
+trembling still. Knowing nothing of the truth, he believed that they
+were taking him to Lois Boriskoff and that she was already in custody.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+AN INTERLUDE IN PICCADILLY
+
+
+Alban had been fifteen days out of England when Anna Gessner met Willy
+Forrest one afternoon as she was driving a pair of chestnut ponies down
+Piccadilly towards the Circus. He, amiable creature, had just left a
+club and a bridge table which had been worth fifteen pounds to him. The
+gray frock suit he wore suited him admirably. He certainly looked very
+smart and wide-awake.
+
+"Anna, by Jupiter," he cried, as he stepped from the pavement at the
+very corner of Dover Street--"well, if my luck don't beat cock-fighting.
+Where are you off to, Anna--what have you done with the shoving-machine?
+I thought you never aired the gee-gees now. Something new for you, isn't
+it? May I get in and have a pawt? We shall be fined forty bob and costs
+at Marlborough Street if we hold up the traffic. Say, you look ripping
+in this char à bancs, upon my soul you're killing."
+
+She had not meant to stop for him, and half against her wish she now
+reined the ponies in and made room for him. There never had been a day
+in her life since she had known him when she was able to resist
+altogether the blandishments of this pleasant rogue, who made so many
+appeals to her interest. To-day sheer curiosity conquered her. She
+wished above all things to hear what he had done with the extravagant
+cheque her father had sent him.
+
+"I drove the ponies for a change," she said coldly, "we must not be
+unkind to dumb creatures. Do you know, it is most improper that you
+should be seen with me in this carriage, Willy. Just think what my
+father would say if he heard of it."
+
+Willy Forest, to give him his due, rarely devoted much time to
+unpleasant thoughts.
+
+"What's the good of dragging your father in, Anna?" he asked her sagely.
+"I want to have a talk to you and you want to have a talk to me. Where
+shall we go, now? We can't blow the loud trumpet at a tea-shop and a
+hotel is inquisitive. Why not come round to my rooms? There's an old
+charwoman there who will do very well when rumors arise--and she'll make
+us a cup of tea. Why not come, Anna?"
+
+"It's out of the question, Willy. You know that it is. Besides, I am
+never going to speak to you again."
+
+"Oh, that's all right--that's what you used to say when you came over to
+the cottage. We're getting too old for that kind of nonsense, you and I,
+Anna. Suppose I tell your man to wait for us in Berkeley Square. I'll
+say that we are going into the Arcade to look at the motor-cars--and
+they won't let you keep a carriage waiting in Bond Street now. I can
+tell you what I've heard about your friend Alban Kennedy while you're
+cutting me the bread and butter."
+
+Her attention was arrested in an instant.
+
+"What can you know about Mr. Kennedy?" she asked quickly, while her face
+betrayed her interest.
+
+"Oh, I know a lot more than most. I've struck more than one friend of
+his these later days, and a fine time he seems having with the girls out
+yonder. Come over to my rooms and I'll tell you about it. I'm just
+fitting up a bit of a place in the Albany since your good father began
+to encourage virtue. I say, Anna,--he should never have sent me that
+cheque, you know he shouldn't."
+
+It was a masterpiece of impudence, but it won upon her favor none the
+less. She had made up her mind a week ago that Willy Forrest was a
+rogue, a thief, and a charlatan. Yet here she was--for such is
+woman--tolerating his conversation and not unwilling to hear his
+explanations. Upon it all came his insinuation that he had news of
+Alban. Certainly, she did not know how to refuse him.
+
+"You are sure that there is some one in your rooms--I will leave them
+instantly if there is not," she exclaimed, surprised at scruples which
+never had troubled her hitherto. Forrest protested by all the gods that
+the very doubt was an outrage.
+
+"There's a hag about fit to knock down a policeman," he rejoined, with a
+feigned indignation fine to see. "Now be sensible, Anna, and let's get
+out. Are we babes and sucklings or what? Don't make a scene about it. I
+don't want you to come if you'd rather not."
+
+She turned the ponies round almost at the door of the Albany, which they
+had just passed while they talked, and drove up to the door of that
+somewhat dismal abode. A word to her groom to be in Berkeley Square in
+half-an-hour did not astonish that worthy, who was quite accustomed to
+"Miss Hanna's" vagaries. In the corridor before the chambers, Willy laid
+stress upon the point about the charwoman and made much of her.
+
+"I'll ring the old girl up and you can cross-question her if you like.
+She's a regular beauty. Don't you think that I'd deceive you, Anna. Have
+I ever done it in all my miserable life--eh, what?" he said at the door.
+"Now walk right in and I'll order tea. It seems like old times to have
+you about, upon my word it does."
+
+She followed him into the chambers, her anxiety about the charwoman
+absolutely at rest. The rooms themselves were in some little confusion,
+but promised to be splendidly furnished presently. Fine suites of
+furniture were all huddled together like policemen at a scene of public
+rejoicing. The rich curtains, unhung, were neatly folded upon chairs and
+sofas--a few sporting prints relieved the cold monotony of tinted
+walls--the library boasted Ruff and Wisdom for its chief masterpieces.
+Nothing, however, disconcerted Willy Forrest. He had produced that
+charwoman before you could count five.
+
+"Make us a cup of tea, Mrs. Smiggs, will you?" he asked her
+boisterously. "Here's my cousin come to tell me how to plant the
+furniture. We shan't trouble you long--just make love to the kettle and
+say we're in a hurry, will you now, there's a good soul."
+
+Mrs. Smiggs took a sidelong glance at the lady, and tossing a proud but
+tousled head assented to the proposition in far from becoming terms.
+
+"I'm sure, sir, that I'm always willing to oblige," she said
+condescendingly, "if as the young lady wouldn't like me to step out and
+get no cakes nor nothing--"
+
+"No, no, no cakes, thank you, Mrs. Smiggs--just a cup of tea as you can
+make it and that's all. My cousin's carriage is waiting--she won't be
+here ten minutes--eh, what?"
+
+The good woman left them, carrying a retroussé nose at an angle of
+suspicion. Willy Forrest drew an arm-chair towards the window of that
+which would presently be his dining-room, and having persuaded Anna to
+take it, he poised himself elegantly upon the arm of a sofa near by and
+at once invited her confidence.
+
+"Say, Anna, now, what's the good of nonsense? Why did you let the old
+man send me that cheque?"
+
+She began to pull off her gloves, slowly and with contemplative
+deliberation.
+
+"I let him send it because I did not wish to marry you."
+
+"That's just what I thought. You got in a huff about a lot of fool's
+talk on the course and turned it round upon me. Just like a woman--eh,
+what? As if I could prevent your horse going dotty. That was Farrier's
+business, not mine."
+
+"But you let me back the horse."
+
+"Of course I did. He might have won. I was just backing my luck against
+yours. Of course I didn't mean you to lose anything. We were just two
+good pals together, and what I took out of the ring would have been
+yours if you'd asked me. Good Lord, what a mess your father's made of
+it! Me with his five thou in my pocket and you calling me a blackguard.
+You did call me a blackguard--now didn't you, Anna?"
+
+It was very droll to see him sitting there and for a wonder telling her
+something very like the truth. This, however, had been the keystone of a
+moderately successful life. He had always told people that he was a
+scamp--a kind of admission the world is very fond of. In Anna's case he
+found the practice quite useful. It rarely failed to win her over.
+
+"What was I to think?" she exclaimed almost as though her perplexity
+distressed her. "The people say that I have cheated them and you win my
+money. If I don't pay you, you say that I must marry you. Will you deny
+that it is the truth? You won this money from me to compel me to marry
+you?"
+
+Captain Willy Forrest slapped his thigh as though she had told him an
+excellent joke.
+
+"That's the best thing I've heard for a twelvemonth," cried he; "as if
+you were the sort to be caught that way, Anna--by an impostor too, as
+your Little Boy Blue told you at Henley. He said I was an impostor,
+didn't he? Well, he's about right there--I'm not the son of old Sir
+James Forrest--never was, my dear. He was my father's employer, and a
+devilish good servant he had. But I've some claims on his memory all the
+same--and why shouldn't I call myself Forrest if I want to? Now, Anna,
+I'll be as plain with you as a parson at a pigeon match. I do want to
+marry you--I've wanted to marry you ever since I knew you--but if you
+think I'm such a fool as to go about it in the way you say I've done,
+well, then, I'll put right in for the Balmy Stakes and win 'em sure and
+certain. Don't you see that the boot's just on the other leg right
+along? I win your money because I want you to think I'm a decent sort of
+chap when I don't take it. As for the bookies who hissed the horse on
+the course--who's to pity them? Didn't they see the old gee in the
+paddock--eh, what! Hadn't they as good a chance as any of us to spot
+that dotty leg. If I'd a been born with a little white choker round my
+swan's-down, I'd have shouted the news from the mulberry tree. But I
+wasn't, my dear--I'm just one of the ruck on the lookout to make a
+bit--and who'll grease my wheels if I leave my can at home? No, don't
+you think it--I wanted to marry you right enough, but that wasn't the
+road. What your father's paid me, he's going to have back again and
+pretty soon about. Let him give it to the kid who's playing Peep-bo with
+the Polish Venus--I shan't take it, no, not if I come down to a
+porcelain bath in the Poplar Union--and what's more, you know I won't,
+Anna."
+
+His keen eyes searched her face earnestly, much more earnestly than
+their wont, as he asked her this pointed question. Anna, upon her part,
+knew that he had juggled cleverly with the admitted facts of the case
+and yet her interest in his confession waxed stronger every moment. What
+an odd fascination this man exercised upon her. She felt drawn toward
+him as to some destiny she could not possibly escape. And when he spoke
+of Alban, then he had her finally enmeshed.
+
+"What do you know of Mr. Kennedy?" she asked, sitting up very straight
+and turning flashing eyes upon him. "He certainly wouldn't write to
+you. How do you know what he is doing?"
+
+"A little fat bird in a black coat living down Whitechapel way. Oh, I
+don't make any secret of it. I know a man who used to be a parson. He
+began to stick needles into himself, and the Bishop said--what ho! They
+took off his pinafore and he is now teaching Latin outside Aldgate
+Station. He's in with the Polish crowd--I beg your pardon, the gentlemen
+refugees from Poland--who are sewing the buttons on our shirts not far
+from the Commercial Road. Those people knew more about your friend than
+he knows about himself. Ask 'em straight and they'll tell you that he is
+in Warsaw and the girl Lois Boriskoff with him. Whether they've begun to
+keep house, I don't pretend to say. But it's as true as the east wind
+and that's gospel. You ask your father to make his own inquiries. I
+don't want to take it on myself. If he can tell you that Master Alban
+Kennedy is not something like the husband of the Polish lady Lois
+Boriskoff, then I'll give a penny to a hospital. Now go and ask him,
+Anna--don't you wait a minute, you go and ask him."
+
+"Not until I've had that cup of tea, Willy."
+
+She turned round as the charwoman entered and so hid her face from him.
+Light laughter cloaked at once the deep affront her pride had received,
+and the personal sense of shame his words had left. Not for a moment did
+she question the truth of his story or seek to prove it. As women all
+the world over, she accepted instantly the hint at a man's faithlessness
+and determined that it must be true. And this was to say that her
+passion for Alban Kennedy had never been anything but a phase of
+girlish romance acceptable for the moment and to be made permanent only
+by persistence. The Eastern blood, flowing warm in her veins, would
+never have left her long satisfied with the precise and strenuous
+Englishman and the restraint his nationality put upon him. She hungered
+for the warm passionate caress which the East had taught her to desire.
+She was drawn insensibly toward the man who had awakened this instinct
+within her and ministered to it whenever he approached her.
+
+They drank their tea in silence, each perhaps afraid to admit the hazard
+of their task. When the moment came, she had recovered her self-control
+sufficiently to refer again to the question of the cheque and to do so
+adroitly.
+
+"Are you going to return that money to my father, Willy?"
+
+"That's just as you like. When you come here for good, we could send it
+back together."
+
+"What makes you think that I will come here for good, Willy?"
+
+"Because when I kiss you--like this--you tremble, Anna."
+
+He caught her instantly in his arms and covered her face with passionate
+kisses. Struggling for a moment in his embrace, she lay there presently
+acquiescent as he had known even before his hands touched her. An hour
+had passed before Anna quitted the flat--and then she knew beyond any
+possibility of question that she was about to become Willy Forrest's
+wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE PRISON YARD
+
+
+The great gates of the prison yard rolled back to admit the carriage in
+which Alban had been driven from the hotel, and a cordon of
+straight-backed officials immediately surrounded it. Early as the hour
+was, the meanest servant whom Zaniloff commanded had work to do and well
+understood the urgency of his task. The night had been one long story of
+plot and counterplot; of Revolutionaries fleeing from street to street,
+Cossacks galloping upon their heels, houses awakened and doors beaten
+down, the screams and cries of women, the savage anger of men. And all
+this, not upon the famous avenues which knew little of the new émeute,
+but down in the narrow alleys of the old city where bulging gables hid
+the sight from a clear heaven of stars and the crazy eaves had husbanded
+the cries.
+
+There had been a civil battle fought and many were the prisoners. Not a
+cell about that great yard but had not its batch of ragged, shivering
+wretches whose backs were still bloody, whose wounds were still unbound.
+The quadrangle itself served, as a Cossack jocularly remarked, for the
+overflow meeting. Here you might perceive many types of men-students,
+still defiant, sage lawyers given to the parley, ragged vermin of the
+slums gathering their rags close about their shoulders as though to
+protect them from the lash; timid apostles of the gospel of humanity
+cowering before human fiends--thus the yard and its environment. For
+Alban, however, the place might not have existed. His eyes knew nothing
+of this grim spectacle. He followed the Chief to the upper rooms,
+remembering only that Lois was here.
+
+They passed down a gloomy corridor and entered a lofty room high up on
+the third floor of the station. Two spacious windows gave them a fine
+view of the yard below with all its gregarious misery. There was a table
+here covered by a green baize cloth, and an officer in uniform writing
+at it. He stood and saluted Zaniloff with a gravity fine to see. The
+Chief, in turn, nodded to him and drew a chair to the table. When he had
+found ink and paper he began the interrogation which should help his
+dossier.
+
+"You are an Englishman and your age is"--he waited and turned to Alban.
+
+"My age is just about twenty-one."
+
+"You were born in England?"
+
+"In London; I was born in London."
+
+"And you now live?"
+
+"With Mr. Richard Gessner at Hampstead."
+
+So it went--interminable question and answer, of the most trivial kind.
+It seemed an age before they came to the vital issue.
+
+"And what do you know of this crime which has been committed?"
+
+"I know nothing--how could I know anything."
+
+"Pardon me, you were yesterday in company of the girl who is charged
+with its commission."
+
+"The charge is absurd--I am sure of it."
+
+"We shall decide that for ourselves. You visited her upon the barge of
+the German merchant, Petermann. He is now in custody and has confessed
+as much. What did she say to you when you were alone with her?"
+
+"She asked me to help to set her father free."
+
+"An honest admission--we shall do very well, I see. When she spoke of
+his excellency the Count, she said--"
+
+"I am not afraid to tell you. She did not like him and asked me to take
+her away from Warsaw, disguised as my servant."
+
+"That was not clever, sir. As if we should not have known--but I pass it
+by. You left her and then--"
+
+"I spent the day with the Count and returned with him to the hotel at
+three o'clock in the morning."
+
+"There was no one with him, then?"
+
+"Yes, his valet was with him."
+
+"Did you leave them together when you went to bed?"
+
+"He always helped the Count to undress. I cannot remember where I left
+him."
+
+"You have not a good memory, I perceive."
+
+"Not for that which happened at three o'clock in the morning."
+
+Zaniloff permitted the merest suspicion of a smile to lurk about the
+corners of a sensual mouth.
+
+"It is difficult," he said dryly--and then, "your memory will be better
+later on. Did the girl tell you that his excellency would be
+assassinated?"
+
+"You know very well that she did not."
+
+"I know?"
+
+"Certainly, you have had too much experience not to know."
+
+"Most flattering--please do not mistake me. I am asking you these
+questions because I wish that justice shall be done. If you can do
+nothing to clear Lois Boriskoff, I am afraid that we shall have to flog
+her."
+
+"That would be a cowardly thing to do. It would also be very foolish.
+She has many friends both here and in England. I don't think they will
+forget her."
+
+"Wild talk, Mr. Kennedy, very wild talk. I see that you will not help
+me. We must let the Governor know as much and he will decide. I warn you
+at the same time that it will go very hard with you if the Count should
+die--and as for this woman, we will try other measures. She must
+certainly be flogged."
+
+"If you do that, I myself will see that her friends in England know
+about it. The Governor will never be so foolish--that is, if he wishes
+to save Mr. Gessner."
+
+"Gessner--Gessner--I hear the name often--pardon me, I have not the
+honor of his acquaintance."
+
+"Telegraph to the Minister at St. Petersburg and he will tell you who
+Mr. Gessner is. I think you would be wise to do so."
+
+Zaniloff could make nothing of it. The cool effrontery of this mere
+stripling was unlike anything he had heard at the bureau in all the
+years he had served authority. Why, the bravest men had gone down on
+their knees to him before now and almost shrieked for mercy. And here
+was this bit of an English boy plucking the venerable beard of Terror as
+unconcernedly as though he were a sullen-eyed Cossack with a nagaika in
+his hand. Assuredly he could be no ordinary traveller. And why did he
+harp upon this name Gessner, Richard Gessner! Reflection brought it to
+Zaniloff's mind that he had heard the name before. Yes, it had been
+mentioned in a dossier from the Ministry of Justice. He thought again
+and recalled other circumstances. The Government had been anxious to do
+the man a service--they had commanded the arrest of the Boriskoffs--why,
+at this very Gessner's bidding! And had not the Count warned him to
+treat the young Englishman as his own son--merely to play a comedian's
+part and to frighten him before opening the doors with profuse
+apologies. Zaniloff did not like the turn affairs had taken. He
+determined to see the Governor-General without a moment's loss of time.
+Meanwhile there could be no earthly reason why the girl should not be
+flogged. Whatever happened the Minister would approve that.
+
+"It shall be done as you advise," he rejoined presently, the admission
+passing for an excellent joke. "The telegram shall be dispatched
+immediately. While we are waiting for an answer I will command them to
+bring you some breakfast to my own private room. Meanwhile, as I say,
+the girl must be flogged."
+
+Alban shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I did not believe that you could possibly be so foolish," he said.
+
+It puzzled Zaniloff altogether. Searching that open face with eyes
+accustomed to read many human stories, he could discern neither emotion
+nor anger, but just an honest man's faith in his own cause and a sure
+belief that it must triumph. Whatever Alban might really feel, the
+sickening apprehension of which he was the victim, the almost
+overmastering desire to take this ruffian by the throat and strangle him
+as he sat, not a trace of it could be discerned either in his speech or
+his attitude. "He stood before me like a dog which has barked and is
+waiting to bite," Zaniloff said afterwards. "I might as well have
+threatened to flog the statue of Sobiesky in the Castle gardens." This
+impression, however, he was careful to conceal from the prisoner.
+Official dignity never argues--especially when it is getting the worst
+of the deal.
+
+"My wisdom is not for us to discuss," he snapped; "please to remember
+that I am in authority here and allow no one to question what I do. You
+will remain in my room until I return, sir. Afterwards it must be as the
+Governor decides."
+
+He took up his papers and whispering a few words to the stolid secretary
+he left the room and went clanking down the corridor. The officer who
+remained seemed principally concerned in driving the flies from his bald
+head and from the documents he compiled so laboriously. Stopping from
+time to time to shape a quill pen to his liking, he would write a few
+lines carefully, kill a number of flies, take a peep at Alban from
+beneath his shaggy brows and then resume the cycle of his labors. Alban
+pitied him cynically. This labor of docketing scarred backs seemed
+wretchedly monotonous. He was really glad when the fellow spoke to him,
+in as amazing a combination of tongues as man had ever heard:
+
+"Mein Herr--pardon--what shall you say--comment à dire--for the
+English--Moskowa?"
+
+"We say Moscow, sir."
+
+"Ah--Mosk--Mosk-nitchevo--je ne m'en souviens jamais."
+
+He continued to write as though laboring under an incurable
+disappointment. That Alban knew what Moskowa meant was not surprising,
+for he had heard the word so often in Union Street. Here in this very
+courtyard, far below his windows, were the sons and the brothers of
+those who had preached revolution in England. How miserable they
+looked--great hordes of them, all crouching in the shadow of the wall to
+save their lacerated skins from the burning sunshine. Verily did they
+resemble sheep driven into pens for the slaughter. As for the Cossacks
+who moved in and out among them, there was hardly a moment which found
+their whips at rest. Standing or sitting, you could not escape the
+dreadful thongs--lashes of raw hide upon a core of wires, leaded at the
+end and cutting as knives. Sometimes they would strike at a huddled form
+as though they resented its mute confession of overwhelming misery. An
+upturned face almost invariably invited a cut which laid it open from
+forehead to chin. And not only this, but there were ordered floggings,
+one of which Alban must witness as he stood at the window above, too
+fascinated by the horror of the spectacle to move away and not unwilling
+to know the truth.
+
+Many police assisted at this--driving their victims before them to a
+rude bench in the centre of the yard. There was neither strap nor
+triangle. They threw their man down and held him across the plank,
+gripping his wrists and ankles and one forcing his head to the floor.
+The whip of a single lash, wired to cut and leaded everywhere, fell
+across the naked flesh with a sound of a cane upon a board. Great welts
+were left at the very first blow, torn flesh afterwards and sights not
+to be recounted. The most stolid were broken to shrieks and screams
+despite their resolutions. The laugh upon defiant lips became instantly
+a terrible cry seeming to echo the ultimate misery. As they did to these
+poor wretches so would they do to Lois, Alban said. He was giddy when a
+voice called him from the window and he almost reeled as he turned.
+
+"Well, what do you want with me?"
+
+"I am to take you to the cell of the girl Lois Boriskoff, mein Herr.
+Please to follow me."
+
+An official, well dressed in civilian's clothes, spoke to him this time
+and with a sufficient knowledge of the English language. The bald-headed
+secretary still snapped up the unconsidered insectile trifles which
+troubled his paper. Alban, his heart thumping audibly, followed the
+newcomer from the room and remembered only that he was going to Lois.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE MEETING
+
+
+They had imprisoned many of the women in one of the stables behind the
+great yard of the station. So numerous were the captives that the common
+cells had been full and overflowing long ago. Zaniloff, charged with the
+command to restore order in the city at any cost, cared not a straw what
+the world without might say of him. The rifle, the bayonet, the
+revolver, the whip--here were fine tools and proved. Let but a breath of
+suspicion frost the burnish of a reputation and he would have that man
+or woman at the bar, though arrest might cost a hundred lives. Thus it
+came about that those within the gates were a heterogeneous multitude to
+which all classes had contributed. The milliner's assistant crouched
+side by side with the Countess, though she still feared to touch her
+robe. There were professors' daughters and dockers' wives, ladies from
+the avenue and ladies from the hovels. And just as in the great arena
+beyond the walls, so here Pride was the staff of the well-born,
+Prejudice of the weak.
+
+Amid this trembling company, in the second of the stables, the gloom
+shrouding her from suspicious observation, none noticing so humble a
+creature, Alban found Lois and made himself known to her. The amiable
+civilian with his two or three hundred words of English seemed as
+guileless as a child when he announced Master Zaniloff's message and
+dwelt upon his honorable master's beneficence.
+
+"You are to see this lady, sir, and to tell her that if she is honest
+with us we shall do our best to clear her of the charge. She knows what
+that will mean to name the others to us and then for herself the
+liberty. That is his excellency my master's decision."
+
+"Much obliged to him," said Alban, dryly, and perhaps it was as well
+that Herr Amiability did not catch the tone of it.
+
+"We have much prisoner," the good man went on, "much prisoner and not so
+much prison. That is as you say a perplexity. But it will be better;
+later in the time after. Here is the girl, this is the place."
+
+He bent his head to enter the stable and Alban followed him, silently
+for very fear of his own excitement. There was so little light in the
+place that he could scarcely distinguish anything at first, nothing,
+indeed, but great beds of straw and black figures huddled upon them. By
+and by these took shape and became figures of women of all ages and
+types. Many, he perceived, were Jewesses, dark as night and as
+mysterious. Their clothes were poor, their attitude courageous and
+quiet. A Circassian, whose hair was the very color of the straw with
+which it mingled, stood out in contrast with the others. She had lately
+been flogged and the clothes, torn from her bleeding shoulders, had not
+been replaced. Near by, the wife of a professor at the University, young
+and distinguished and but yesterday welcomed everywhere, sat dumb in
+misery, her eyes wide open, her thoughts upon the child she had left.
+Not among these did Alban find Lois, but in the second of the great
+stalls still waiting its complement of prisoners. He wondered that he
+found her at all, so dark was this place; but a sure instinct led him to
+her and he stopped before he had even seen her face.
+
+"Lois dear, I am sure it is Lois."
+
+She started up from the straw, straining wild eyes in the shadows.
+Awakened from her sleep when they arrested her, she wore the dress which
+she had carried to her haven from the school, quite plain and pretty,
+with linen collars and cuffs in the old-fashioned style. Her hair had
+been loosely plaited and was bound about her like a cord. She rested
+upon the palms of her hands turned down to the pavement. There was but
+one other woman near her, and she appeared to be asleep. When she heard
+Alban's voice, she cried out almost as though they had struck her with
+the whip.
+
+"Why do you come here?" she asked him wildly. "Alban, dear, whatever
+made you come?"
+
+[Illustration: "Why do you come here?" she asked him wildly.]
+
+He stepped forward and kneeling down in the straw he pressed his cold
+lips to hers and held them there for many minutes.
+
+"Did you not wish me to come, Lois?"
+
+She shivered, her big eyes were casting quick glances everywhere, they
+rested at last upon the woman who seemed to sleep almost at her feet.
+
+"They will hear every word we say, Alb, dear. That woman is listening,
+she is a spy."
+
+"I am glad of it, she can go and give her master a message from me.
+Tell me, Lois, do not be afraid to speak. You knew nothing of Count
+Zamoyski's death. Say that you knew nothing."
+
+She cowered and would not answer him. A dreadful fear came upon Alban.
+He began to tremble and could not keep his hands still upon her
+shoulders.
+
+"Good God, Lois, why do you not speak to me? I must know the truth, you
+didn't kill him."
+
+She shrank back, laughing horribly. The pent-up excitements of the night
+had broken her nerve at last. For an instant he feared almost for her
+reason.
+
+"Lois, Lois dear, Lois, listen to me; I have come to help you. I can
+help you. Lois, will you not hear me patiently?"
+
+He caught her to him as he spoke and pressed her burning forehead to his
+lips. So she lay for a little while, rocked in his arms as a child that
+would be comforted. A single ray of sunshine filtered through a slit in
+the wall above, dwelt for a moment upon her white face and showed him
+all the pity of it.
+
+"Lois, why should you speak like this because I come to you? Is it so
+difficult to tell the truth?"
+
+"Did they tell you to ask me that, Alban?"
+
+"It was forced from me, Lois. I don't believe it. I would as soon
+believe it of myself. But don't you see that we must answer them? They
+are saying it, and we must answer them."
+
+She struggled to be free, half resenting the manner of his question, but
+in her heart admitting its necessity.
+
+"I knew nothing of it," she said simply, "you may tell them that, Alban.
+If they offered me all the riches in the world, I could not say more. I
+don't know who did it, dear, and I'd never tell them if I did."
+
+A little cry escaped his lips and he caught her close in his arms again.
+It was not to say that he had believed the darker story at which
+imagination, in a cowardly mood, might hint, but this plain denial, from
+the lips of Lois who had never told him a lie, came as a very message of
+their salvation.
+
+"You have made me very happy, Lois," he said, "now I can talk to them as
+they deserve. Of course, I shall get you out of here. Mr. Gessner will
+help me to do so. We have the whip hand of him all said and done, for
+don't you see, that if you don't tell your people, I shall, and that
+will be the end of it. Of course, it won't come to that. I know how he
+will act, and what they will do when the time arrives. Perhaps they will
+bundle us both out of Russia, Lois, thankful to see the back of us."
+
+She shook her head, looking up to him with a wild face.
+
+"I would not go, Alb dear. Not while my father is a prisoner. Who is
+there to work for him, if I don't? No, my dear, I must not think of it.
+I have my duty to do whatever comes. But you, it is different for you,
+Alban, you would be right to go."
+
+He answered her hotly with a boyish phrase, conventional but true.
+
+"You would make a coward of me, Lois," he said, "just a coward like the
+others. But I am not going to let you. You left me once before; I have
+never forgotten that. You went to Russia, and forgot that we had ever
+been friends. Was that very kind, was it your true self that did so?
+I'll never believe, unless you say so now."
+
+She sat a little apart from him, regarding him wistfully as though she
+wondered greatly at his accusation.
+
+"You went to live in another world, dear, and so did I. My father made
+me promise that I would not try to see you for six months, and I kept my
+word. That was better for you and better for me. If money had changed
+you, and money does change most of us, you would have been happier for
+my silence. I have told you about the letters, and that's God's truth.
+If I had not been ashamed, I couldn't have kept my word, for I loved
+you, dear, and I shall always love you. When my father sent you to Mr.
+Gessner's house, I think he wished to find out if his good opinion of
+you was right or not. He said that you were going to carry a sword into
+Wonderland and kill some of the giants. If you came back to us, you were
+to marry me, but if you forgot us, then he would never believe in any
+man again. There's the truth for you, my dear, I tell you because it all
+means nothing to me now. I could not go to London and leave my father in
+prison here, and they will never release him, Alban, they will never do
+it as things are, for they are more frightened of him than of any man in
+Russia. When I go away from here, it will be to Petersburg to try and
+see my father. There's no one else in all the world to help him, and I
+shall go there and try to see him. If they will let me stay with him,
+that will be something, dear. You can ask them that for me; when Mr.
+Gessner writes, you can beg it of the Ministry in Mr. Gessner's name."
+
+"Ask them to send you to prison, Lois?"
+
+"To send me to my father, dear."
+
+Alban sat very silent, almost ashamed for himself and his own desires.
+The stupendous sacrifice of which she spoke so lightly revealed to him a
+page in the story of human sympathy which he had often read and as often
+derided. Here in the prison cell he stood face to face with human love
+as Wonderland knew nothing of it. Supreme above all other desires of her
+life, this desire to save her father, to share his sorrows, to stand by
+him to the end, prevailed. The riches of the world could not purchase a
+devotion as precious, or any fine philosophy belittle it. He knew that
+she would go to Petersburg because Paul Boriskoff, her father, had need
+of her. This was her answer to his selfish complaints during the years
+of their exile.
+
+"And what am I to do if they give you the permission, Lois?"
+
+"To go back to London and marry Anna Gessner. Won't you do that, Alban?"
+
+"You know that I shall never do so."
+
+"There was a time when you would not have said that, my dear."
+
+He was greatly troubled, for the accusation was very just. The
+impossibility of making the whole truth plain to her had stared him in
+the face since the moment of her pathetic confession when he met her on
+the barge. Impossible to say to her, "I had an ideal and pursued it,
+looking to the right and the left for the figure of the vision and
+suffering it to escape me all the time." This he could not tell her or
+even hint at. The lie cried for a hearing, and the lie was detestable to
+him.
+
+"There was a time, yes, Lois," he said, turning his face from her, "I am
+ashamed to remember it now, since you have spoken. If you love me, you
+would understand what all the wonders of Mr. Gessner's house meant to a
+poor devil, brought up as I had been. It was another world with strange
+people everywhere. I thought they were more than human and found them
+just like the rest of us. Oh, that's the truth of it, and I know it now.
+Our preachers are always calling upon the rich to do fine things for the
+poor, but the rich man is deaf as often as not, because some little puny
+thing in their own lives is dinning in their ears and will shut out all
+other sounds. I know that it must be so. The man who has millions
+doesn't think about humanity at all. He wages war upon trifles, his
+money-books are his library, he has blinded himself by reading them and
+lost his outlook upon the world. I thought it would all be so different,
+and then somebody touches me upon the shoulder and I look up and see
+that my vision is no vision at all, and that the true heart of it is my
+own all the time. Can you understand that, Lois, is it hidden from you
+also?"
+
+"It is not hidden, Alban, it is just as I said it would be."
+
+"And you did not love me less because of it?"
+
+"I should never have loved you less, whatever you had done."
+
+"I shall remind you of that when we are in England together."
+
+"That will never be, Alban dear, unless my father is free."
+
+She repeated it again and again. Her manner of speaking had now become
+that of one who understood that this was a last farewell.
+
+"You cannot help us," she said, "why should you suffer because we must?
+In England there's a great future before you as Mr. Gessner's adopted
+son. I shall never hear of it, but I shall be proud because I know the
+world will talk about you. That will be something to take with me, dear,
+something they can never rob me of, whatever happens. When you remember
+who Lois was, say that she is thinking of you in Russia far away. They
+cannot separate us, dear Alban, while we love."
+
+He had no word to answer this and could but harp again upon all the
+promise of his fine resolution. When the matter-of-fact official came to
+find him, Lois was close in his embrace and there were tears of regret
+in his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+ALBAN RETURNS TO LONDON
+
+
+They returned to the great courtyard, but not to Zaniloff's room as the
+promise had been. Here by the gates there stood a passable private
+carriage, and into this Alban perceived that he was to be hustled. The
+bestarred transcriber of the upper story, he who waged the battle of the
+flies, now stood by the carriage door and appeared to be ill at ease.
+Evidently his study of strange tongues still troubled him.
+
+"Pardon, mein Herr--how in English--khorosho?" he asked very
+deferentially.
+
+"It means 'that's all right,' sir." Alban answered immediately.
+
+"It means that,--ah, nitchevo--je ne m'en souviens jamais."
+
+He held the door open and Alban entered the carriage without a word.
+Apparently they still waited for someone and five minutes passed and
+found their attitudes unchanged. Then Zaniloff himself appeared full of
+bustle and business but in a temper modified toward concession.
+
+"I am taking you back to your hotel, mein Herr," he said to Alban, "it
+is the Governor's order. You will leave Warsaw to-night. Those are our
+instructions."
+
+He sank back in the cushions and the great gates were shut behind them
+with a sonorous clang. Out in the streets the outbreak of the earlier
+hours had been a veritable battle but was now a truce. The whole city
+seemed to be swarming with troops. Well might Zaniloff think of other
+things.
+
+"Is the Count better, sir?" Alban ventured presently.
+
+"He will live," was the dry response, "at least the doctors say so."
+
+"And you have discovered the truth about the affair?"
+
+"The man who attacked him was shot on the Rymarska half an hour ago."
+
+"Then that is why you are taking me back to my hotel?"
+
+"There is positively no other reason," said the Chief.
+
+The statement was frank to the point of brutality, but it carried also
+such a message of hope that Alban hardly dared to repeat the words of it
+even to himself; there was no longer any possibility of a capital charge
+against the child he had just left in the wretched stable. Let the other
+facts be as they might, these people could not detain Lois Boriskoff
+upon the Count's affair or add it to the dossier in which her father's
+offences were narrated. Of this Zaniloff's tone convinced him. "He would
+never have admitted it at all if Lois were compromised," the argument
+ran, and was worthy of the wise head which arrived at it.
+
+"I am glad that you have found the man," he explained presently, "it
+clears up so much and must be very satisfactory. Would you have any
+objection to telling me what you are going to do with the girl I have
+just left?"
+
+Zaniloff smiled.
+
+"I have no objection at all. When the Ministry at St. Petersburg
+condescends to inform me, you shall share my information. At present I
+am going to keep her under lock and key, and if she is obstinate I am
+going to flog her."
+
+"Do the people at St. Petersburg wish you to do that?"
+
+"I do not consult their feelings," was the curt reply.
+
+They fell to silence once more and the carriage rolled on through the
+busy streets. It had escaped Alban's notice hitherto, that an escort of
+Cossacks accompanied them, but as they turned into the great avenue he
+caught a glimpse of bright accoutrements and of horsemen going at a
+gentle canter. The avenue itself was almost deserted save by the
+ever-present infantry who lined its walks as though some great cavalcade
+were to pass. When they had gone another hundred paces, the need for the
+presence of the soldiers declared itself in a heap of blackened ruins
+and a great fire still smouldering. Zaniloff smiled grimly when they
+passed the place.
+
+"Half an hour ago that was the palace of my namesake, the Grand Duke
+Sergius," he said, almost as though the intelligence were a matter of
+personal satisfaction to him.
+
+Alban looked at the smouldering ruins and could not help remembering the
+strange threats he had heard in Union Street on the very eve of his
+departure from England. Had any of the old mad orators a hand in this?
+Those wild figures of the platforms and the slums, had they achieved so
+much, if indeed it were achievement at all?
+
+"They are fools to make war upon bricks and mortar," Zaniloff remarked
+in his old quiet way.
+
+"I told them so in London, sir."
+
+"You told them; do you enjoy the honor of their acquaintance then?"
+
+"I know as much about them as any of your people, and that is saying a
+good deal. They are very ignorant men who are suffering great wrongs. If
+your government would make an effort to learn what the world is thinking
+about to-day, you would soon end all this. But you will never do it by
+the whip, and guns will not help you."
+
+Zaniloff laid a hand upon his shoulder almost in a kindly way.
+
+"My honor alone forbids me to believe that," he exclaimed.
+
+They arrived at the hotel while he spoke and passed immediately to the
+private apartments above. A brief intimation that Alban must consider
+himself still a prisoner and not leave his rooms under any
+circumstances, whatever, found a ready acquiescence from one who had
+heard an echo in Lois' words of his own farewell to Russia. That the
+authorities would detain him he did not believe, and he knew that his
+long task was not here. He must return to England and save Lois. How or
+by what means he could not say; for the ultimate threat, so lightly
+spoken, affrighted him when he was alone and left him a coward. How,
+indeed, if he went to the fanatics of Union Street and said to
+them,--"Richard Gessner is your enemy; strike at him." There would be
+vengeance surely, but he had received too many kindnesses at Hampstead
+that he should contemplate such an infamy. And what other course lay
+before him? He could not say, his life seemed lived. Neither ambition
+nor desire, apart from the prison he had left, remained to him.
+
+The French valet Malette waited upon him in his rooms and gave him such
+news of the Count as the sentinels of the sick-room permitted. Oh, yes,
+his excellency was a little better. He had spoken a few words and asked
+for his English friend. Nothing was known of the madman who struck him
+save that which the papers in his pocket told them. The fellow had been
+shot as he left the Grand Duke's palace; some thought that he had been
+formerly in the Count's service and that this was merely an act of
+vengeance, _mais terrible_, as Malette added with emphasis. Later on his
+excellency would be able to tell the story for himself. His grand
+constitution had meant very much to him to-day.
+
+The interview took place at three o'clock in the afternoon, the doctors
+having left their patient, and the perplexed Zaniloff being again at the
+prison. The bed had now been wheeled a little way from the window and
+the room set in pleasant order by clever and willing hands. The Count
+himself had lost none of his courage. The attack in truth had nerved him
+to believe that he had nothing further to fear in Warsaw, for who would
+think about a man already as good as buried by the newspapers. Here was
+something to help the surgeons and bring some little flush of color to
+the patient's pallid cheeks. He spoke as a man who had been through the
+valley of the shadow and had suffered little inconvenience by the
+journey.
+
+"I am forbidden to talk," he said to Alban, and immediately began to
+talk in defiance of a nurse's protests.
+
+"So you have been to prison, mon vieux; well, it is so much experience
+for you, and experience is useful. I have done a good morning's work, as
+you see. Imagine it. I open my door to a policeman, and when I ask him
+what he has got for me, he whips out a butcher's knife and makes a
+thrust at my ribs. Happily for me, I come from a bony race. The surgeons
+have now gone to fight a duel about it. One is for septic pneumonia, the
+other for the removal of the lungs. I shall be out of Poland in my
+beautiful France by the time they agree."
+
+He flushed with the exertion and cast reproachful eyes upon the nurse
+who stood up to forbid his further eloquence. Alban, in turn, began to
+tell him of the adventure of the morning.
+
+"It was a Jack and Jill business, except that Jill does not come
+tumbling after," he said. "What is going to happen I cannot tell you.
+Lois will not leave Poland until her father is released, and I have it
+from her that he never will be released. Don't you see, Count, that Mr.
+Gessner is a fool to play with fire like this. Does he believe that this
+secret will be kept because these two are in prison? I know that it will
+not. If he is to be saved, it must be by generosity and courage. I
+should have thought he would have known it from the beginning. Let him
+act fairly by old Paul Boriskoff and I will answer for his safety. If he
+does not do so, he must blame himself for the consequences."
+
+"Pride never blames itself, Kennedy, even when it is foolish. I like
+your wisdom and shall give a good account of it. Of course, there is the
+other side of the picture, and that is not very pretty. How can we
+answer for the man, even if he be generously dealt with? More important
+still, how can we answer for the woman?"
+
+"I will answer for her, Count."
+
+"You, my dear boy. How can you do that?"
+
+"By making her my wife."
+
+"Do you say this seriously?"
+
+"I say it seriously."
+
+"But why not at Hampstead before we left England. That would have made
+it easier for us all."
+
+"I would try to tell you, but you would not understand. Perhaps I did
+not know then what I know now. There are some things which we only learn
+with difficulty, lessons which it needs suffering to teach us."
+
+A sharp spasm, almost of pain, crossed the Count's face.
+
+"That is very true," he exclaimed, "please do not think I am deficient
+in understanding. It has been necessary for you to come to Poland to
+discover where your happiness lay?"
+
+"Yes, it has been necessary."
+
+"Do you understand, that this would mean the termination of your good
+understanding with my friend Gessner. You could not remain in his house
+naturally."
+
+"I have thought of that. It will be necessary for me to leave him as you
+say. But I have been an interloper from the beginning, and I do not see
+how I could have remained. While everything was new to me, while I
+lived in Wonderland, I never gave much thought to it; but here when I
+begin to think, I am no longer in doubt. How could I shut myself up in a
+citadel of riches and know that so many of my poor people were starving
+not ten miles from my door. I would feel as though I had gone into the
+enemy's camp and sold myself for the gratification of a few silly
+desires and a whole pantomime of show which a decent man must laugh at.
+It is better for me to have done with it once and for all and try to get
+my own living. Lois will give me the right to work, if she ever wins her
+liberty, which I doubt. You could help her to do so, if you were
+willing, Count."
+
+"I, what influence have I?"
+
+"As much as any man in Poland, I should say."
+
+"Ah, you appeal to my vanity. I wish it could respond. Frankly, my
+Government will be little inclined to clemency, just now at any rate.
+Why should it be? These people are burning down our houses, why should
+we help them to build their own? Your old friend Boriskoff was as
+dangerous a man as any in Poland, why should they let him go just
+because an English banker wishes it."
+
+"They will let him go because he is more dangerous in prison than out of
+it. In London I could answer for him. I could not answer while he is at
+Petersburg."
+
+"My dear lad, we must really make you Master of all these pretty
+ceremonies. I'll speak to Zaniloff." He laughed lightly, for the idea of
+this mere stripling being of any use to his Government amused him
+greatly. His apologies for the indulgence, however, were not to be
+spoken, for the blood suddenly rushed from his cheeks, and the good
+nurse intervened in some alarm.
+
+"Please to leave him," she said to Alban in French. He obeyed her
+immediately, seeing that he had been wrong to stay so long.
+
+"I will come again when you permit me. Please let me know when his
+excellency is better."
+
+She promised him that she would do so, and he returned to his own rooms.
+He was not, however, to see the Count again until he met him many years
+afterwards in Paris. The distressed Zaniloff himself carried the amazing
+news, some two hours later.
+
+"You are to leave for London by the evening mail," the Chief said
+shortly, "a berth has been reserved for you, and I myself will see you
+into the train. Do not complain of us, Mr. Kennedy. I can assure you
+that there are many cities more agreeable than Warsaw at the present
+moment."
+
+Alban was not surprised, nor would he argue upon it. He realized that
+his labors in Poland had been in vain. If he could save Lois from the
+prison, he must do so in London, in the alleys and dens he had so long
+deserted. Not toward Wonderland, not at the shrines of riches, but as an
+exile returned to labor with the humblest, must this journey carry him.
+
+And he bowed his head to destiny and believed that he stood alone
+against the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+WE MEET OLD FRIENDS
+
+
+Alban had returned some two months from Poland, when, upon a drear
+October evening, the Archbishop of Bloomsbury, my Lady Sarah, the flower
+girl, and "Betty," the half-witted boy, made their way about half-past
+nine o'clock to the deserted stage of the Regent Theatre, and there by
+the courtesy of the watchman, distantly related to Sarah, began their
+preparations for a homely evening meal.
+
+To be quite candid, this was altogether a more respectable company than
+that which had assembled in the Caves at the springtime of the year. The
+Lady Sarah wore a spruce black silk dress which had adorned the back of
+a Duchess more than three years ago; the Archbishop boasted a coat that
+would have done no discredit to a Canon of St. Paul's; the boy they
+would call "Betty" had a flower at the button-hole of a neat gray suit,
+and carried himself as though all the world belonged to him. This purple
+and fine linen, to be sure, were rather lost upon the empty stage of
+that dismal theatre, nor did the watchman's lantern and two proud
+wax-candles which the Lady Sarah carried do much for their reputation;
+but, as the Archbishop wisely said, "We know that they are there, and
+Sarah has the satisfaction of rustling for us."
+
+Now to be plainer, this was the occasion of a letter just received from
+"the Panorama," who had gone to America since June, and of joyful news
+from that incurable optimism.
+
+"I gather," the Archbishop had said, as he passed the document round,
+"that our young friend, er--hem--having exhibited the American nation in
+wax, a symbol of its pliability, surely is now proceeding to melt it
+down and to return to England. That is a wise undertaking. Syrus, the
+philosopher, has told us that Fortune is like glass, when she shines too
+much she is broken. Let our friend take the tide at the flood and not
+complain afterwards that his ship was too frail. The Panorama has
+achieved reputation, and who is of the world does not know the pecuniary
+worth of that? Consider my own case and bear with me. I have the
+misfortune to prick myself with a needle and to suffer certain personal
+inconveniences thereby. The world calls me a villain. Other men,
+differently situated, kill thousands of their fellow-creatures and look
+forward to the day when they will be buried in Westminster Abbey. We
+envy them at the height and the depth of it. This the Panorama should
+remember. A successful showman is here to-day and--er--hem--melted down
+to-morrow. It is something to have left no debts behind him; it is much
+more to have remembered his old friends in these small tokens which we
+shall consume in all thankfulness, according to our happiness and our
+digestions."
+
+He had seated himself upon a stage chair, gilt and anciently splendid,
+to deliver himself of this fine harangue. The lady Sarah, in her turn,
+hastened to take up a commanding position upon the throne that had
+served for a very modern Cleopatra, while the boy "Betty," accustomed to
+hard beds, squatted upon the bare boards and was the happier for his
+liberty. For inward satisfaction, the menu declared a monstrous pie from
+a shop near by; a plentiful supply of fried fish; three dozen oysters in
+a puny barrel, and a half a dozen bottles of stout, three of which
+protruded from the Archbishop's capacious pockets. The occasion was a
+great one, indeed, the memory of their old friend, the Panorama, at its
+zenith.
+
+"I always did say as he'd make a noise in the world, and that's the
+truth, God knows," Sarah took an early occasion to remark. "Not if he
+were my own brother could I wish him more than I do this night. 'Tisn't
+all of us would care to go 'crost the ocean among the cannibals and take
+the King of Hingerland in a 'amper. I saw him myself, wrapped up in a
+piper box and lookin' beautiful, God's truth, with the crown done up in
+tissue beside him. That was before the Panorama left us. 'Be a good
+boy,' says I, 'and don't fall in love with any of them darkies as you'll
+find in' Mericky. So help me lucky, I'd a good mind ter come after you,'
+says I, 'and marry their Ole Man jess ter set 'em a good example.'"
+
+By which it will be perceived that the Lady Sarah's knowledge of the
+great and mighty Republic beyond the seas was clearly limited. Such
+ignorance had often provoked the Archbishop of Bloomsbury to
+exasperation, it annoyed him not a little to-night.
+
+"My dear child," he protested, "you are laboring under a very great
+delusion. Be assured that America is a very great country,
+where--er--hem--they may eat each other, but not as you imagine. I
+believe that the American ladies are very beautiful. I have met some of
+them--er--in the old days, when--hem--the Bishops showed their
+confidence in me by drinking my claret and finding it to their liking.
+All that we have in England they have in America--prisons, paupers,
+policemen, palaces. You are thinking of Africa, Sarah, darkest Africa,
+that used to be, but is fast disappearing. Led me add--"
+
+Sarah, however, was already busy upon her dozen of oysters and had no
+patience to hear the good man out.
+
+"Don't you take on so, Bishop," she intervened, "'Mericky ain't done
+much for me and precious little it's going ter do for you. What I says
+is, let those as have got a good 'ome stop there and be thankful. Yer
+may talk about your oshun wave, but I ain't taking any, no, not though
+there was diamonds on the sea beach the other side and 'ot-'arse roses
+fer nothink. Who ever sees their ole friends as is swallered up by the
+sea? Who ever heard of Alb Kennedy since he went ter Berling as he told
+us for to mike his fortune? Ho, a life on the oshun wave if yer like,
+but not for them as has bread and cheese ashore and a good bed to go to
+arterwards; that's what I shall say as long as I've breath in my body."
+
+"Betty," the boy, answered to this earnest lamentation with a sound word
+of good common sense.
+
+"You're a-goin' to sleep in one o' them boxes to-night, ain't you,
+Sarah?" he asked, and she admitted the truth of his conclusions.
+
+"And sweeter dreams I would have if I knew where the Dook was a-layin'
+his 'ed this night," she added.
+
+The Archbishop ate a succulent morsel and drank a long draught from the
+unadorned black bottle.
+
+"Nothing is known of Kennedy at Hampstead," he interposed, "I have made
+diligent inquiries of the gardener there, and he assures me that our
+dear friend never returned from Poland and that no one knows anything of
+him, not even Mr. Gessner. Anna, the daughter, I understand, is married
+to an old acquaintance of ours and has taken a little house in Curzon
+Street. She liked to go the--er--hem--pace, as the people say; and she
+is mated to one who will not be afraid of exceeding the legal limits.
+Mr. Gessner himself is on his yacht, and is supposed to be cruising off
+the coast of Norway. That is what they tell me. I have no reason to
+doubt the truth of their information. Would to heaven I had. Kennedy was
+a friend, a true friend, while he was in England. I have known many a
+bitter night since he left us."
+
+He sighed, but valiantly, and applied himself once more to the pewter
+pot. It was a terrible night outside, raining heavily and blowing a
+bitter wind. Even here on the stage of the deserted theatre a chilling
+draught sported with their candles and made fine ghosts for them upon
+the faded canvas. Talk of Alban Kennedy seemed to have depressed them
+all. They uttered no word for many minutes, not indeed until one of the
+iron doors suddenly swung open and Alban himself came in among them. He
+was drenched to the skin, for he had carried no umbrella, and wore but a
+light travelling suit, the identical one in which he had returned from
+Poland. Very pale and worn and thin, this, they said, was the ghost of
+the Alban who had left them in the early summer. And his manner was as
+odd as his appearance. You might almost have said that he had thrown the
+last shred of the aristocratic rags to the winds and put on old habits
+so long discarded that they were almost forgotten. When he crossed the
+stage to them, it was with his former air of dogged indifference and
+cynical self-content. Explanations were neither offered nor asked. He
+flung his hat aside and sat upon the corner of a crazy sofa despised by
+the rest of the company. A hungry look, cast upon the inviting
+delicacies, betrayed the fact that he was hungry. Be sure it was not
+lost upon the watchful Sarah.
+
+"Good Gawd, to see him walk in amongst us like that. Why, Mr. Kennedy,
+whatever's up, whatever brings you here a night like this?"
+
+Alban had always admired the Lady Sarah, he admired her more than ever
+to-night.
+
+"Wind and rain, Sarah," he said shortly, "they brought me here, to say
+nothing of Master Betty cutting across the street as though the cops
+were at his heels. How are you all? How's his reverence? Speak up, my
+lord, how are the affairs of your extensive diocese?"
+
+"My affairs," said the Archbishop, slowly, "are what might be called in
+_nubibus_--cloudy, my dear boy, distinctly cloudy. I am, to adopt a
+homely simile, at present under a neighbor's umbrella, which is not as
+sound as it might be. Behold me, none the less, in that state of content
+to which the poet Horace has happily referred--_nec vixit male qui natus
+moriensque fefellit_. At this moment you discover me upon a pleasant
+bridge which spans an unknown abyss. I eat, drink and am merry. What
+more shall I desire?"
+
+"And Betty here, does Betty keep out of mischief?"
+
+Sarah answered this.
+
+"I got him a job at Covent Garden, and he's there regular at four
+o'clock every morning sure as the sun's in heaven. Don't you go thinking
+nothink about Betty, Mr. Kennedy, and so I tell you straight."
+
+"And what have you done with the Panorama, Sarah?"
+
+She laughed loudly.
+
+"Panorama's among the black men, them's his oysters as we're eatin' now.
+Try one, Mr. Kennedy. You look as if a drop of summat would do you good,
+so help me you do. Take a sup o' stout and rest yourself awhile. It is a
+surprise to see you, I must say."
+
+"A very pleasant surprise, indeed," added the Archbishop, emphatically.
+"There has been no event in my life for many months which has given me
+so much satisfaction. We have not so many friends that we can spare even
+one of them to those higher spheres, which, I must say, he has adorned
+with such conspicuous lustre."
+
+"Oh, spare me, reverence, don't talk nonsense to-night. I am tired as
+you see, tired and hungry. And I'm going to beg food and drink from old
+friends who have loved me. Now, Sarah, what's it to be?"
+
+He drew the sofa nearer to the bare table and began to eat with them.
+Sarah's motherly protestations induced him to take off his coat and hang
+it up in the watchman's office to dry. The same tender care served out
+to him the most delicate morsels, from a generous if uncouth table, and
+insisted upon their acceptance. If his old friends were hot with
+curiosity to know whence he came and what he had been doing, they, as
+the poor alone can do successfully, asked no questions nor even hinted
+at their desire. Not until the supper was over and the Archbishop had
+produced a little packet of cigars, did any general conversation
+interrupt that serious business of eating and drinking, so rarely
+indulged in, so sacred when opportunity offered.
+
+This amiable truce to curiosity, dictated by nature, was first broken by
+the Archbishop, who did not possess my Lady Sarah's robust powers of
+self-command. Passing Alban a cigar, he asked him a question which had
+been upon his lips from the beginning.
+
+"You are just returned from Poland, Kennedy?"
+
+"I have been in England two months, reverence."
+
+"But not at Hampstead, my dear boy, not at Hampstead, surely?"
+
+"As you say, not at Hampstead, at least not at "Five Gables." Mr.
+Gessner is away yachting; I read it in the newspapers."
+
+"You read it in the newspapers. God bless me! do you mean to say that he
+did not tell you himself?"
+
+"He told me nothing. How could he? He hasn't got my address."
+
+They all stared, open-eyed in wonder. Even the Lady Sarah had a question
+to ask now.
+
+"You're not back in Whitechapel again."
+
+"True as gold. I am living in Union Street, and going to be married."
+
+"To be married; who's the lidy?"
+
+"That's what I want to know; perhaps it would be little red-haired Chris
+Denholm. I can't exactly tell you, Sarah."
+
+"Here none of that--you're pullin'--"
+
+Sarah caught the Archbishop's frown, and corrected herself adroitly.
+
+"It ain't true, Mr. Kennedy, is it now?"
+
+"God knows, Sarah, I don't. I'm earning two pounds a week in a motor
+shop and living in the old ken by Union Street. Mr. Gessner has left the
+country and his daughter is married to Willy Forrest. I hope she'll like
+him. They'll make a pretty pair in a crow's nest. Pass the stout and
+let's drink to 'em. I must be off directly; if I don't walk home, it'll
+be pneumonia or something equally pleasant. But I'm glad to see you all,
+you know it, and I wish you luck from the bottom of my heart."
+
+He took a long drink from a newly opened bottle and claiming his coat
+passed out as mysteriously as he had come. The watchman said that a man
+waited for him upon the pavement, but his information seemed vague. The
+others continued to discuss him until weariness overtook them and they
+slept where they lay. His going had taken a friend away from them, and
+their friends were few enough, God knows!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE MAN UPON THE PAVEMENT
+
+
+A well-meaning stage-door keeper for once had told the plain truth and
+there had been a man upon the pavement when Alban quitted the Regent
+Theatre.
+
+Little more than six months ago, this identical fellow had been
+commissioned by Richard Gessner to seek Alban out and report upon his
+habits. He had visited the great ship-building yard, had made a hundred
+inquiries in Thrawl Street and the Commercial Road, had tracked his
+quarry to the Caves and carried his news thereafter triumphantly to
+Hampstead and his employer. To-night his purpose was otherwise. He
+sought not gossip but a man, and that man now appeared before him upon
+the pavement, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his head bent, his
+attitude that of utter dejection and despair.
+
+"Mr. Kennedy, if you please."
+
+The stranger spoke beneath the shadow of a great lamp in the Charing
+Cross Road. Not hearing him immediately, Alban had arrived at the next
+lamp before the earnest entreaty arrested him and found him erect and
+watchful in a moment.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir; you are Mr. Kennedy, are you not?"
+
+"My name, at least the half of it."
+
+"Mr. Alban Kennedy, shall we say. I have been looking for you for three
+days, sir. It is not often that I search three days for anybody when his
+house is known. Forgive me, it is not my fault that there has been a
+delay."
+
+Alban knew no more than the man in the moon what he was driving at, and
+he thought it must be all a mistake.
+
+"What's it all about, old chap?" he exclaimed, falling into the manners
+of the street. "Why have you been hurrying yourself on my account?"
+
+"To give you this letter, sir, and to ask you to accompany me."
+
+Alban whistled, but took the note nevertheless and tore it open with
+trembling fingers. He thought that he recognized the handwriting, but
+was not sure. When he had read the letter through, he turned to the man
+and said that he would go with him.
+
+"Then I will call a hansom, sir."
+
+The detective blew a shrill whistle, and a hansom immediately tried to
+cannon an omnibus, and succeeding came skidding to the pavement. The two
+men entered without a word to each other; but to the driver the
+direction was Hampstead Heath. He, wise merchant, demurred with chosen
+phrase of weight, until a fare was named and then lashed his horse
+triumphantly.
+
+"My lucky's in," he cried to a friend upon another box, "it's a quid if
+I ain't bilked."
+
+Alban meanwhile took a cigarette from a paper packet, and asked his
+companion for a light. When he struck it an observer would have noticed
+that his hand was still shaking.
+
+"Did you go down yonder?" he asked, indicating generally the
+neighborhood east of Aldgate.
+
+"Searched every coffee shop in Whitechapel, sir."
+
+"Ah, you weren't lucky. I have been living three days on Hampstead
+Heath."
+
+"On Hampstead Heath? My godfather, I wish I'd known."
+
+They were driving through Regent's Park by this time, and the darkness
+of a tempestuous night enshrouded them. Alban recalled that unforgotten
+evening of spring when, with the amiable Silas Geary for his companion,
+he had first driven to Mr. Gessner's house and had heard the story of
+Wonderland, as that very ordinary cleric had described it. What days he
+had lived through since then! And now this news surpassing all the
+miracles! What must it mean to him, and to her! Had they been fooling
+him again or might he dare to accept it for the truth? He knew not what
+to think. A surpassing excitement seized upon him and held him dumb. He
+felt that he would give years of his life to know.
+
+They toiled up the long hill to the Heath and entered the grounds of
+"Five Gables" just as the church clock was striking eleven. There were
+lights in the Italian Garden and in the drawing-room. Just as it had
+been six months ago, so now the obliging Fellows opened the door to
+them. Alban gave him a kindly nod and asked him where Lois was.
+
+"The young lady is there, in the hall, sir. Pardon me saying it, she
+seems much upset to-night."
+
+"Mr. Gessner is still away?"
+
+"On his yacht, sir. We think he is going to visit South America."
+
+Alban waited for no more, but went straight on, his eyes half blinded by
+the glaring lights, his hands outstretched as though feeling for other
+hands to grasp them.
+
+"Lois, I am here as you wished."
+
+A deep sob answered him, a hot face was pressed close to his own.
+
+"Alban," she said, "my father is dead!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY
+
+
+Very early upon the following morning, almost before it was light, Alban
+entered the familiar study at "Five Gables" and read his patron's
+letter. It had been written the day after he himself returned from
+Poland, and had long awaited him, there in that great lonely house. He
+opened it almost as though it had been a message from the dead.
+
+"I am leaving England to-day," the note went on, "and may be many months
+abroad. The unhappy death of Paul Boriskoff in the Schlusselburg will be
+already known to you, and will relieve you of any further anxiety upon
+his daughter's account. I have the assurance of the Minister of St.
+Petersburg that she will be released immediately and sent to "Five
+Gables" as I have wished. There I have made that provision for her
+future which I owe to my own past, and there she will live as your wife
+until the days of my exile are finished.
+
+"You, Alban Kennedy, must henceforth be the agent of my fortunes. To
+you, in the name of humanity, I entrust the realization of those dreams
+which have endeared you to me and made you as my own son. If there be
+salvation for the outcasts of this city by such labors as you will now
+undertake upon their behalf, then let yours be the ministering hands,
+and the people's gratitude. I have lived too long in the kingdom of the
+money-changers either to accept your beliefs or to put them into
+practice. Go you out then as an Apostle in my name, that at my coming I
+may help you to reap a rich harvest.
+
+"My agents will be able at all times to tell upon what sea or in what
+haven I am to be found. I go in quest of that peace which the world has
+denied to me. But I carry your name before others in my memory, and if I
+live, I will return to call you my son."
+
+So the letter went on, so Alban read it as the dawn broke and the great
+city woke to the labors of the day.
+
+
+
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+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Aladdin of London, by Sir Max Pemberton</title>
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+<body>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Aladdin of London, by Sir Max Pemberton,
+Illustrated by Frank Parker</h1>
+<pre>
+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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Aladdin of London</p>
+<p>       or Lodestar</p>
+<p>Author: Sir Max Pemberton</p>
+<p>Release Date: March 15, 2009  [eBook #28326]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALADDIN OF LONDON***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by David Garcia, Martin Pettit,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+
+<h1>Aladdin of London</h1>
+
+<h3>OR</h3>
+
+<h2>LODESTAR</h2>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>By</h3>
+
+<h2>MAX PEMBERTON</h2>
+
+<h4><i>Author of "The Hundred Days," "A Gentleman's Gentleman,"<br />"Doctor
+Xavier," "The Lady Evelyn," etc., etc.</i></h4>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h4><i>Illustrated by FRANK PARKER</i></h4>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">New York</span><br />EMPIRE BOOK COMPANY<br />Publishers</h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/cover.jpg" width='467' height='700' alt="cover" /></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h4>Copyright, 1907, by Max Pemberton.</h4>
+
+<hr class="smler" />
+
+<h4>Entered at Stationers' Hall.</h4>
+
+<hr class="smler" />
+
+<h4>All rights reserved.</h4>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="center"><a name="frontis.jpg" id="frontis.jpg"></a><img src="images/frontis.jpg" width='505' height='700' alt="A very orgy of blood and slaughter; a carnival of
+whips. Page 198" /></div>
+
+<h4>A very orgy of blood and slaughter; a carnival of
+whips.&mdash;<a href="#Page_207">Page 207</a></h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="index">
+<ul>
+<li><span class="mono">CHAPTER</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Hall by Union Street</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Alban Kennedy Makes a Promise</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Without the Gate</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Caves</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Dismissal</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Stranger</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The House of the Five Gables</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Alban Kennedy Dines</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Anna Gessner</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Richard Gessner Debates an Issue</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Whirlwind</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Alban Sees Life</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Alban Revisits Union Street</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">There are Strangers in the Caves</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">A Study in Indifference</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Intruder</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Father and Daughter</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Fate Ironical</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Plot has Failed</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Alban Goes to Warsaw</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Boy in the Blue Blouse</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">A Figure in the Straw</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">An Instruction to the Police</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Dawn of the Day</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Count Zamoyski Sleeps</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">XXVI.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">An Interlude in Piccadilly</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">XXVII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Prison Yard</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Meeting</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">XXIX.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Alban Returns to London</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">XXX.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap"> We Meet Old Friends</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">XXXI.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Man upon the Pavement</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">XXXII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">In the Name of Humanity</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<hr class="smler" />
+
+<div class="picindex">
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#f-132.jpg">"You love another woman, Alban Kennedy, and
+you have wished to forget my daughter."</a></li>
+<li><a href="#frontis.jpg">A very orgy of blood and slaughter; a carnival of whips.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#f-267.jpg">"Why do you come here?" she asked him wildly.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>
+
+<h1>ALADDIN OF LONDON</h1>
+
+<h3>OR</h3>
+
+<h1>LODESTAR</h1>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HALL BY UNION STREET</h3>
+
+<p>The orator was not eloquent; but he had told a human story and all
+listened with respect. When he paused and looked upward it seemed to
+many that a light of justice shone upon his haggard face while the tears
+rolled unwiped down his ragged jerkin. His lank, unkempt hair, caught by
+the draught from the open doors at the far end of the hall, streamed
+behind him in grotesque profusion. His hands were clenched and his lips
+compressed. That which he had told to the sea of questioning faces below
+him was the story of his life. The name which he had uttered with an
+oath upon his lips was the name of the man who had deprived him of
+riches and of liberty. When he essayed to add a woman's name and to
+speak of the wrongs which had been done her, the power of utterance left
+him in an instant and he stood there gasping, his eyes toward the light
+which none but he could see; a prayer of gratitude upon his lips because
+he had found the man and would repay.</p>
+
+<p>Look down upon this audience and you shall see a heterogeneous assembly
+such as London alone of the cities can show you. The hall is a crazy
+building<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> enough, not a hundred yards from the Commercial Road at
+Whitechapel. The time is the spring of the year 1903&mdash;the hour is eight
+o'clock at night. Ostensibly a meeting to discuss the news which had
+come that day from the chiefs of the Revolutionaries in Warsaw, the
+discussion had been diverted, as such discussions invariably are, to a
+recital of personal wrongs and of individual resolutions&mdash;even to mad
+talk of the conquest of the world and the crowning of King Anarchy. And
+to this the wild Asiatics and the sad-faced Poles listened alike with
+rare murmurs and odd contortions of limbs and body. Let Paul Boriskoff
+of Minsk be the orator and they knew that the red flag would fly. But
+never before has Boriskoff been seen in tears and the spectacle
+enchained their attention as no mere rhetoric could have done.</p>
+
+<p>A man's confession, if it be honest, must ever be a profoundly
+interesting document. Boriskoff, the Pole, did not hold these people
+spellbound by the vigor of his denunciation or the rhythmic chant of his
+anger. He had begun in a quiet voice, welcoming the news from Warsaw and
+the account of the assassination of the Deputy Governor Lebinsky. From
+that he passed to the old question, why does authority remain in any
+city at all? This London that sleeps so securely, does it ever awake to
+remember the unnumbered hosts which pitch their tents in the courts and
+alleys of Whitechapel? "Put rifles into the hands of a hundred thousand
+men who can be found to-night," he had said, "and where is your British
+Government to-morrow? The police&mdash;they would be but as dead leaves under
+the feet of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> mighty multitude. The soldiers! Friends," he put it to
+them, "do you ever ask yourselves how many soldiers there are in the
+barracks of London to-night and what would happen to them if the people
+were armed? I say to you that the house would fall as a house of cards;
+the rich would flee; the poor would reign. And you who know this for a
+truth, what do you answer to me? That London harbors you, that London
+feeds you&mdash;aye, with the food of swine in the kennels of the dogs."</p>
+
+<p>Men nodded their heads to this and some of the women tittered behind
+their ragged shawls. They had heard it all so often&mdash;the grand assault
+by numbers; the rifle shots ringing out in the sleeping streets by
+Piccadilly; the sack of Park Lane; the flight of the Government; the
+downfall of what is and the establishment of what might be. If they
+believed it possible, they had sense enough to remember that a sacked
+city of amnesty would be the poorest tribute to their own sagacity. At
+least London did not flog them. Their wives and sisters were not here
+dragged to the police stations to be brutally lashed at the command of
+any underling they had offended. Applause for Boriskoff and his sound
+and fury might be interpreted as a concession to their vanity. "We could
+do all this," they seemed to say; "if we forbear, let London be
+grateful." As for Boriskoff, he had talked so many times in such a
+strain that a sudden change in voice and matter surprised them beyond
+words. What had happened to him, then? Was the fellow mad when he began
+to speak of the copper mines and the days of slavery he had spent therein?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p><p>A hush fell upon the hall when the demagogue struck this unaccustomed
+note; rude gas flares shed an ugly yellow glow upon faces which
+everywhere asked an unspoken question. What had copper mines to do with
+the news from Warsaw, and what had they to do with this assembly?
+Presently, however, it came to the people that they were listening to
+the story of a wrong, that the pages of a human drama were being
+unfolded before them. In glowing words the speaker painted the miner's
+life and that of the stokers who kept the furnaces. What a living hell
+that labor had been. There were six operations in refining the copper,
+he said, and he had served years of apprenticeship to each of them.
+Hungry and faint and weary he had kept watch half the night at the
+furnace's door and returned to his home at dawn to see white faces half
+buried in the ragged beds of his house or to hear the child he loved
+crying for the food he could not bring. And in those night watches the
+great idea had come to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Friends," he said, "the first conception of the Meltka furnace was
+mine. The white heat of the night gave it to me; a child's cry, 'thou
+art my father and thou wilt save me,' was my inspiration. Some of you
+will have heard that there are smelting works to-day where the
+sulphurous acid, which copper pyrites supplies when it is roasted, is
+used for the manufacture of sulphuric acid. That was my discovery. Many
+have claimed it since, but the Meltka furnace was mine&mdash;as God is in
+heaven it was mine. Why, then, do I stand among you wanting bread, I who
+should own the riches of kings? My friends, I will tell you. A devil
+stole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> my secret from me and has traded it in the markets of the world.
+I trusted him. I was poor and he was rich. 'Sell for me and share my
+gains,' I said. His honor would be my protection, I thought, his
+knowledge my security. Ah, God, what reward had I? He named me to the
+police and their lashes cut the flesh from my body. I lay three years in
+the prison at Irkutsk and five at Saghalin. The white faces were turned
+to the earth they sprang from, my son was heard at the foot of God's
+throne when they bade me go and set my foot in Poland no more. This I
+knew even in that island of blood and death. Letters had come to me from
+my dear wife; the Committee had kept me informed even there at the end
+of the earth. I knew that my home had perished; that of all my family,
+my daughter Lois alone remained to me; I knew that the days of the
+tyranny were numbered and that I, even I, might yet have my work to do.
+Did they keep me from Poland? I tell you that I lived there three years
+in spite of them, searching for the man who should answer me. Maxim
+Gogol, where had he hidden himself? The tale at the mines was that he
+had gone to America, sold his interest and embarked in new ventures. I
+wrote to our friends in New York and they knew nothing of such a man. I
+had search made for him in Berlin, in Vienna and Paris. The years were
+not too swift for my patience, but the harvest went ungathered. I came
+to London and bent my neck to this yoke of starvation and eternal night.
+I have worked sixteen hours a day in the foul holds of ships that I
+might husband my desire and repay. Friends, ten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> days ago in London I
+passed the man I am seeking and knew him for my own. Maxim Gogol may
+hide from me no more. With these eyes have I seen him&mdash;ah, God give me
+strength to speak of it&mdash;with these eyes have I seen him, with these
+hands have I touched him, with this voice have I accused him. He lives
+and he is mine&mdash;to suffer as I have suffered, to repay as I have
+paid&mdash;until the eternal justice of God shall decide between us both."</p>
+
+<p>There would have been loud applause in any other assembly upon the
+conclusion of such an impassioned if verbally conventional an harangue;
+but these Asiatics who heard Paul Boriskoff, who watched the tears
+stream down his hollowed cheeks and beheld the face uplifted as in
+ecstasy, had no applause to give him. Had not they also suffered as he
+had suffered? What wrong of his had not been, in some phase or other, a
+wrong of theirs? How many of them had lost children well beloved, had
+known starvation and the sweater's block? Such sympathy as they had to
+give was rather the cold systematical pity of their order which ever
+made the individual's cause its own. This unknown Maxim Gogol, if he
+were indeed in London so much the worse for him. The chosen hand would
+strike him down when his hour had come&mdash;even if it were not the hand of
+the man he had wronged. In so far as Boriskoff betrayed intense emotion
+before them, it may be that they despised him. What nation had been made
+free by tears? How would weeping put bread into the children's mouths?
+This was the sentiment immediately expressed by a lank-haired Pole who
+followed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> speaker. Let Paul Boriskoff write out his case and the
+Committee would consider it, he said. If Maxim Gogol were adjudged
+guilty, let him be punished. For himself he would spare neither man,
+woman, or child sheltered in the house of the oppressor. A story had
+been told to them of an unusual order. He did not wholly regret that
+Paul Boriskoff had not made a fortune, for, had he done so, he would not
+be a brother among them to-night. Let him be assured of their sympathy.
+The Committee would hear him when and where he wished.</p>
+
+<p>There were other speakers in a similar mood, but the immediate interest
+in the dramatic recital quickly evaporated. A little desultory talk was
+followed by the serving of vodki and of cups of steaming coffee to the
+women. The younger people at the far end of the hall, who had been
+admitted to hear the music which should justify the gathering, grew
+weary of waiting and pushed their way into the street. There they formed
+little companies to speak, not of the strange entertainment which had
+been provided for them, but of commonplace affairs&mdash;the elder women of
+infantile sufferings, the girls of the songs they had heard on Saturday
+at the Aldgate Empire or of the shocking taste in feathers of more
+favored rivals. But here and there a black-eyed daughter of Poland or a
+fair-haired Circassian edged away discreetly from the company and was as
+warily followed by the necessary male. The dirty street caught snatches
+of music-hall melodies. Windows were opened above and wit exchanged. A
+voice, that of a young girl evidently, asked what had become of the
+Hunter, and to this another voice replied immediately,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> as though
+greatly satisfied, that Alban Kennedy had gone down toward the High
+Street with Lois Boriskoff.</p>
+
+<p>"As if you didn't know, Chris. Gawsh, you should 'ave seen her feathers
+waggin' at the Union jess now. Fawther's took wiv the jumps, I hear, and
+Alb's gone to the Pav to give her hair. Oh, the fine gentleming&mdash;I seed
+his poor toes through his bloomin' boots this night, s'welp me Gawd I did."</p>
+
+<p>The admission was received with a shout of laughter from the window
+above, where a red-haired girl leaned pensively upon the rail of a
+broken balcony. The speaker, in her turn, moved away with a youth who
+asked her, with much unnecessary emphasis, "what the 'ell she had to do
+with Albey's feet and why she couldn't leave Chris Denham alone."</p>
+
+<p>"If I ain't 'xactly gawn on Russian taller myself, wot's agen Albey
+a-doin' of it," he asked authoritatively. "Leave the lidy alone and
+don't arst no questions. They say as the old man is took with spasms
+round at the Union. S'welp me if Albey ain't in luck&mdash;at his time of
+life too."</p>
+
+<p>He winked at the girl, who had put her arm boldly round his waist, and
+marched on with the proud consciousness that his cleverness had not
+failed to make a just impression. The red-haired girl of the pensive
+face still gazed dreamily down the court and her head inclined a little
+toward the earth as though she were listening for the sound of a
+footstep. Not only the dreamer of dreams in that den of squalor, this
+Alban Kennedy was her idol to-night as he had been the idol of fifty of
+her class since he came to live among them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> What cared she for his
+ragged shoes or the frayed collar about his neck? Did not the whole
+community admit him to be a very aristocrat of aristocrats, a diamond of
+class in a quarry of ashes, a figure at once mysterious and heroical?
+And this knight of the East, what irony led him away with that
+white-faced Pole, Lois Boriskoff? What did he see in her? What was she to him?</p>
+
+<p>The pensive head was withdrawn sadly from the window at last. Silence
+fell in the dismal court. The Russians who had been breathing fire and
+vengeance were now eating smoked sturgeon and drinking vodki. A man
+played the fiddle to them and some danced. After all, life has something
+else than the story of wrong to tell us sometimes.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>ALBAN KENNEDY MAKES A PROMISE</h3>
+
+<p>The boy and the girl halted together by one of the great lights at the
+corner of the Commercial Road and there they spoke of the strange
+confession which had just fallen from Paul Boriskoff's lips. Little
+Lois, white-faced as a mime at the theatre, her black hair tousled and
+unkempt, her eyes shining almost with the brightness of fever, declared
+all her heart to the gentle Alban and implored him for God's sake to
+take her from London and this pitiful home. He, as discreet as she was
+rash, pitied her from his heart, but would not admit as much.</p>
+
+<p>"If I could only speak Polish, Lois&mdash;but you know I can't," he said.
+"Bread and salt, that's about what I should get in your country&mdash;and
+perhaps be able to count the nails in the soles of my boots. What's the
+good of telling me all about it? I saw that your father was angry, but
+you people are always angry. And, little girl, he does his best for you.
+Never forget that&mdash;he would sooner lose anything on earth than you."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it," said the girl, tossing her head angrily, "what's
+he care about anything but that ole machine of his which he says they
+stole from him? Ten hours have I been sewing to-day, Alb, and ten it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+will be to-morrow. Truth, dear, upon my soul. What's father care so long
+as the kettle boils and he can read the papers? And you're no
+better&mdash;you'd take me away if you were&mdash;right away from here to the
+gardens where he couldn't find me, and no one but you would ever find me
+any more. That's what you'd do if you were as I want you to be. But you
+ain't, Alb&mdash;you'll never care for any girl&mdash;now will you, Alb, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>She clutched his arm and pressed closely to him, regardless of
+passers-by so accustomed to love-making on the pavements that neither
+man nor woman turned a head because of it. Alban Kennedy, however, was
+frankly ashamed of the whole circumstance, and he pushed the girl away
+from him as though her very touch offended.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Lois, that's nonsense&mdash;let's go and see something, let's go
+into the New Empire for an hour. Your father will be all right when he's
+had a glass or two of vodki. You know he's always like this when there's
+been news from Warsaw. Let's go and hear a turn and then you can tell me
+what you want me to do."</p>
+
+<p>They walked on a little way, she clinging to his arm timidly and looking
+up often into his eyes as though for some expression of that affection
+she hungered for unceasingly. The "Court" had named them for lovers long
+ago, but the women declared that such an aristocrat as Alban Kennedy
+would look twice before he put his neck into Paul Boriskoff's
+matrimonial halter.</p>
+
+<p>"A lot of good the Empire will do me to-night,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> Lois exclaimed
+presently. "I feel more like dancing on my own grave than seeing other
+people do it. What with father's temper and your cold shoulder, Alb&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lois, that's unfair, dear; you know that I am sorry. But what can I do,
+what can any one do for men who talk such nonsense as those fellows in
+that hall? 'Seize London and the Government'&mdash;you said it was that,
+didn't you?&mdash;well, they're much more likely to get brain fever and wake
+up in the hospital. That's what I shall tell your father if he asks me.
+And, Lois, how can you and I talk about anything serious when I haven't
+a shilling to call my own and your father won't let you out of his sight
+lest he should want something. It will all be different soon&mdash;bad things
+always are. I shall make a fortune myself some day&mdash;I'm certain of it as
+though I had the money already in the bank. People who make fortunes
+always know that they are going to do so. I shall make a lot of money
+and then come back for you&mdash;just my little Lois sewing at the window,
+the same old dirty court, the same ragged fellows talking about sacking
+London, the same faces everywhere&mdash;but Lois unchanged and waiting for
+me&mdash;now isn't it that, dear, won't you be unchanged when I come back for you?"</p>
+
+<p>They stood for an instant in the shadow of a shuttered shop and, leaping
+up at his question, she lifted warm red lips to his own&mdash;and the girl of
+seventeen and the boy of mature twenty kissed as ardently as lovers
+newly sworn to eternal devotion.</p>
+
+<p>"I do love you, Alb," she cried, "I shall never love any other
+man&mdash;straight, my dear, though there ain't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> much use in a-telling you.
+Oh, Alb, if you meant it, you wouldn't leave me in this awful place;
+you'd take me away, darling, where I could see the fields and the
+gardens. I'd come, Alb, as true as death&mdash;I'd go this night if you arst
+me, straight away never to come back&mdash;if it were to sleep on the hard
+road and beg my bread from house to house&mdash;I'd go with you, Alb, as
+heaven hears me, I'd be an honest wife to you and you should never
+regret the day. What's to keep us, Alb, dear? Oh, we're fine rich, ain't
+we, both of us, you with your fifteen shillings from the yard and me
+with nine and six from the fronts. Gawd's truth, Rothschild ain't
+nothink to you and me, Alb, when we've the mind to play the great lidy
+and gentleman. Do you know that I lay abed some nights and try to think
+as it's a kerridge and pair and you a-sittin' beside of me and nothink
+round us but the green fields and the blue sky, and nothink never more
+to do but jess ride on with your hand in mine and the sun to shine upon
+us. Lord, what a thing it is to wake up then, Alb, and 'ear the caller
+cryin' five and see my father like a white ghost at the door. And that's
+wot's got to go on to the end&mdash;you know it is; you put me off 'cause you
+think it'll please me, same as you put Chris Denham off when you danced
+with her at the Institoot Ball. You won't never love no girl truly,
+Alb&mdash;it isn't in you, my dear. You're born above us and we never shall
+forget it, not none of us as I'm alive to-night."</p>
+
+<p>She turned away her head to hide the tears gathering in her black eyes,
+while Alban's only answer to her was a firm pressure upon the little
+white hand he held<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> in his own and a quicker step upon the crowded
+pavement. Perhaps he understood that the child spoke the truth, but of
+this he could not be a wise judge. His father had been a poor East End
+parson, his mother was the daughter of an obstinate and flinty Sheffield
+steel factor, who first disowned her for marrying a curate and then went
+through the bankruptcy court as a protest against American competition.
+So far Alban knew himself to be an aristocrat&mdash;and yet how could he
+forget that among that very company of Revolutionaries he had so lately
+quitted there were sons of men whose nobility was older than Russia
+herself. That he understood so much singled him out immediately as a
+youth of strange gifts and abnormal insight&mdash;but such, indeed, he was,
+and as such he knew himself to be.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't quarrel with you, Lois, though I see that you wish it, dear,"
+he said presently, "you know I don't care for Chris Denham and what's
+the good of talking about her. Let's go and cheer up&mdash;I'm sure we can do
+with a bit and that's the plain truth, now isn't it, Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>He squeezed her arm and drew her closer to him. At the Empire they found
+two gallery seats and watched a Japanese acrobat balance himself upon
+five hoops and a ladder. A lady in far from immaculate evening dress,
+who sang of a flowing river which possessed eternal and immutable
+qualities chiefly concerned with love and locks and unswerving fidelity,
+appealed to little Lois' sentiment and she looked up at Alb whenever the
+refrain recurred as much as to say, "That is how I should love you." So
+many other couples about them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> were squeezing hands and cuddling waists
+that no one took any notice of their affability or thought it odd. A
+drunken sailor behind them kept asking the company with maudlin
+reiteration what time the last train left for Plymouth, but beyond
+crying "hush" nobody rebuked him. In truth, the young people had come
+there to make love, and when the lights were turned down and the curtain
+of the biograph revealed, the place seemed paradise itself.</p>
+
+<p>Lois crept very close to Alban during this part of the entertainment,
+nor did he repulse her. Moments there were undeniably when he had a
+great tenderness toward her; moments when she lay in his embrace as some
+pure gift from this haven of darkness and of evil, a fragile helpless
+figure of a girlhood he idolized. Then, perchance, he loved her as Lois
+Boriskoff hungered for love, with the supreme devotion, the abject
+surrender of his manhood.</p>
+
+<p>No meaner taint of passion inspired these outbreaks, nor might the most
+critical student of character have found them blameworthy. Alban
+Kennedy's rule of life defied scrutiny. His ignorance was often that of
+a child, his faith that of a trusting woman&mdash;and yet he had traits of
+strength which would have done no dishonor to those in the highest
+places. Lois loved him and there were hours when he responded wholly to
+her love and yet had no more thought of evil in his response than of
+doing any of those forbidding things against which his dead mother had
+schooled him so tenderly. Here were two little outcasts from the
+civilized world&mdash;why should they not creep close together for that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+sympathy and loving kindness which destiny had denied them.</p>
+
+<p>"I darsn't be late to-night, Alb," Lois said when the biograph was over
+and they had left the hall, "you know how father was. I must go back and get his supper."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he really mean all that about the copper mines and his invention?"
+Alban asked her in his practical way, and added, "Of course I couldn't
+understand much of it, but I think it's pretty awful to see a man
+crying, don't you, Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>"Father does that often," she rejoined, "often when he's alone. I might
+not be in the world at all, Alb, for all he thinks of me. Some one
+robbed him, you know, and just lately he thinks he's found the man in
+London. What's the good of it all&mdash;who's goin' to help a poor Pole get
+his rights back? Oh, yer bloomin' law and order, a lot we sees of you in
+Thrawl Street, so help me funny. That's what I tell father when he talks
+about his rights. We'll take ours home with us to Kingdom come and
+nobody know much about 'em when we get there. A sight of good it is
+cryin' out for them in this world, Alb&mdash;now ain't it, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>Alban was in the habit of taking questions very seriously, and he took
+this one just as though she had put it in the best of good faith.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't make head or tail of things, Lois," he said stoically, "fact
+is, I've given up trying. Why does my father die without sixpence after
+serving God all his life, and another man, who has served the devil, go
+under worth thousands? That's what puzzles me. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> they tell us it will
+all come right some day, just as we're all going to drive motor-cars
+when the Socialists get in. Wouldn't I be selling mine cheap to-night if
+anyone came along and offered me five pounds for it&mdash;wouldn't I say
+'take it' and jolly glad to get the money. Why, Lois, dear, think what
+we would do with five pounds."</p>
+
+<p>"Go to Southend for Easter, Alb."</p>
+
+<p>"Buy you a pretty ring and take you to the Crystal Palace."</p>
+
+<p>"Drive a pony to Epping, Alb, and come back in the moonlight."</p>
+
+<p>"Down to Brighton for the Saturday and two in the water together."</p>
+
+<p>"Flash it on 'em in Thrawl Street and make Chris Denham cry."</p>
+
+<p>They laughed together and cuddled joyously at a dream so bewildering.
+Their united wealth that night was three shillings, of which Alb had two
+and four pence. What untold possibilities in five pounds, what sunshine
+and laughter and joy. Ah, that the dark court should be waiting for
+them, the squalor, the misery, the woe of it. Who can wonder that the
+shadows so soon engulfed them?</p>
+
+<p>"Kiss me, Alb," she said at the corner, "shall I see you to-morrow night, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Outside the Pav at nine. You can tell me how your father took it. Say I
+hope he'll get his rights. I think he always liked me rather, Lois."</p>
+
+<p>"A sight more than ever he liked me, Alb, and that's truth. Ah, my dear,
+you'll take me away from here some day, won't you, Alb? You'll take me
+away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> where none shall ever know, where I shall see the world and forget
+what I have been. Kiss me, Alb&mdash;I'm that low to-night, dear, I could cry my heart out."</p>
+
+<p>He obeyed her instantly. A voice of human suffering never failed to make
+an instant appeal to him.</p>
+
+<p>"As true as God's in heaven, if ever I get rich, I'll come first to Lois
+with the story," he said&mdash;and so he bent and kissed her on the lips as
+gently as though she had been his little sister.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>WITHOUT THE GATE</h3>
+
+<p>Alban's garret lay within a stone's throw of the tenement occupied by
+the Boriskoffs; but, in truth, it knew very little of him. They called
+him "The Hunter," in the courts and alleys round about; and this was as
+much as to say that his habits were predatory. He loved to roam afar in
+quest, not of material booty, but of mental sensation. An imagination
+that was simply wonderful helped him upon his way. He had but to stand
+at the gate of a palace to become in an instant one of those who peopled
+it. He could create himself king, or prince, or bishop as the mood took
+him. If a holiday sent him to the theatre, he was the hero or villain at
+his choice. In church he would preach well-imagined sermons to
+spellbound listeners. The streets of the West End were his true
+world&mdash;the gate without the scene of his mental pleasures.</p>
+
+<p>He had no friends among the youths and lads of Thrawl Street and its
+environment, nor did he seek them. Those who hung about him were soon
+repelled by his secretive manner and a diffidence which was little more
+than natural shyness. If he fell now and then into the speech of the
+alleys, constant association was responsible for the lapse. Sometimes,
+it is true, an acquaintance would defy the snub and thrust<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> himself
+stubbornly upon the unwilling wanderer. Alban was never unkind to such
+as these. He pitied these folk from his very heart; but before them all, he pitied himself.</p>
+
+<p>His favorite walk was to the precincts of Westminster School, where he
+had spent two short terms before his father died. The influence of this
+life had never quite passed away. Alban would steal across London by
+night and stand at the gate of Little Dean's Yard as though wondering
+still what justice or right of destiny had driven him forth. He would
+haunt St. Vincent's Square on Saturday afternoons, and, taking his stand
+among all the little ragged boys who watched the cricket or football, he
+would, in imagination, become a "pink" delighting the multitude by a
+century or kicking goals so many that the very Press was startled. In
+the intervals he revisited the Abbey and tried to remember the service
+as he had known it when a schoolboy. The sonorous words of Tudor divines
+remained within his memory, but the heart of them had gone out. What had
+he to be thankful for now? Did he not earn his bitter bread by a task so
+laborious that the very poor might shun it. His father would have made
+an engineer of him if he had lived&mdash;so much had been quite decided. He
+could tell you the names of lads who had been at Westminster with him
+and were now at Oxford or Cambridge enjoying those young years which no
+subsequent fortune can recall. What had he done to the God who ruled the
+world that these were denied to him? Was he not born a gentleman, as the
+world understands the term? Had he not worn good clothes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> adored a
+loving mother, been educated in his early days in those vain
+accomplishments which society demands from its children? And now he was
+an "East-ender," down at heel and half starved; and there were not three
+people in all the city who would care a straw whether he lived or died.</p>
+
+<p>This was the lad who went westward that night of the meeting in Union
+Street, and such were his frequent thoughts. None would have taken him
+for what he was; few who passed him by would have guessed what his
+earlier years had been. The old gray check suit, frayed at the edges,
+close buttoned and shabby, was just such a suit as any loafer out of
+Union Street might have worn. His hollow cheeks betrayed his poverty. He
+walked with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his shoulders
+slightly bent, his eyes roving from face to face as he numbered the
+wayfarers and speculated upon their fortunes and their future. Two or
+three friends who hailed him were answered by a quickening of his step
+and a curt nod of the handsome head. Alb's "curl," a fair flaxen curl
+upon a broad white forehead, had become a jest in Thrawl Street. "'E
+throws it at yer," the youths said&mdash;and this was no untrue description.</p>
+
+<p>Alban walked swiftly up the Whitechapel Road and was going on by Aldgate
+Station when the Reverend "Jimmy" Dale, as all the district called the
+cheery curate of St. Wilfred's Church, slapped him heartily on the
+shoulder and asked why on earth he wasted the precious hours when he
+might be in bed and asleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, my dear fellow, do you really think it is wise?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> I am here because
+I have just been to one of those exhibitions of unadorned gluttony they
+call a City Banquet. Do you know, Alban, that I don't want to hear of
+food and drink again for a month. It's perfectly terrible to think that
+men can do such things when I could name five hundred children who will
+go wanting bread to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Alban rejoined in his own blunt way.</p>
+
+<p>"Then why do you go?" was his disconcerting question.</p>
+
+<p>"To beg of them, that's why I go. They are not uncharitable&mdash;I will hold
+to it anywhere. And, I suppose, from a worldly point of view, it was a
+very good dinner. Now, let us walk back together, Alban. I want to talk to you very much."</p>
+
+<p>"About what, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, about lots of things. Why don't you join the cricket club, Alban?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't got the money, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely&mdash;five shillings, my dear boy&mdash;and only once a year."</p>
+
+<p>"If you haven't got the five shillings, it doesn't make any difference
+how many times a year it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, I think I must write to Sir James Hogg about you. He was
+telling me to-night&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If he sent me the money, I'd return it to him. I'm not a beggar, Mr. Dale."</p>
+
+<p>"But are you not very proud, Alban?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you let anybody give you five shillings&mdash;for yourself, Mr. Dale?"</p>
+
+<p>"That would depend how he offered it. In the plate I should certainly consider it acceptable."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p><p>"Yes, but sent to you in a letter because you were hard up, you know.
+I'm certain you wouldn't. No decent fellow would. When I can afford to
+play cricket, I'll play it. Good night, Mr. Dale. I'm not going back just now."</p>
+
+<p>The curate shook his head protestingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know it is twelve o'clock, Alban?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just the time the fun begins&mdash;in the world&mdash;over there, sir."</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at the Western sky aglow with that crimson haze which
+stands for the zenith of London's night. The Reverend "Jimmy" Dale had
+abandoned long ago the idea of understanding Alban Kennedy. "He will
+either die in a lunatic asylum or make his fortune," he said to
+himself&mdash;and all subsequent happenings did not alter this dogged
+opinion. The fellow was either a lunatic or an original. "Jimmy" Dale,
+who had rowed in the Trinity second boat, did not wholly appreciate either species.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the world to you, Alban&mdash;is not sleep better?"</p>
+
+<p>"In a garret, sir, where you cannot breathe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, we must all be a little patient in adversity. I saw Mr.
+Browning at the works yesterday. He tells me that the firm is very
+pleased with you&mdash;you'll get a rise before long, Alban."</p>
+
+<p>"Half a crown for being good. Enough to sole my boots. When I have shops
+of my own, I'll let the men live to begin with, sir. The shareholders can come afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>"It would never do to preach that at a city dinner."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p><p>"Ah, sir, what's preached at a city dinner and what's true in Thrawl
+Street, Whitechapel, don't ride a tandem together. Ask a hungry man
+whether he'll have his mutton boiled or roast, and he'll tell you he
+doesn't care a damn. It's just the same with me&mdash;whether I sleep in a
+cellar or a garret, what's the odds? I'll be going on now, sir. You must
+feel tired after so much eating."</p>
+
+<p>He turned, but not rudely, and pushing his way adroitly through the
+throng about the station disappeared in a moment. The curate shook his
+head and resumed his way moodily eastward, wondering if his momentary
+lapse from the straight and narrow way of self-sacrificing were indeed a
+sin. After all, it had been a very good dinner, and a man would be
+unwise to be influenced by a boy's argument. The Reverend "Jimmy" was a
+thousand miles from being a hypocrite, as his life's work showed, and
+this matter of the dinner really troubled him exceedingly. How many of
+his parishioners could have been fed for such an expenditure? On the
+other hand, city companies did a very great deal of good, and it would
+be churlish to object to their members dining together two or three
+times a year. In the end, he blamed the lad, Alban, for putting such
+thoughts into his head.</p>
+
+<p>"The fellow's off to sleep in Hyde Park, I suppose," he said to himself,
+"or in one of his pirate's caves. What a story he could write if he had
+the talent. What a freak of chance which set him down here amongst
+us&mdash;well born and educated and yet as much a prisoner as the poorest.
+Some day we shall hear of him&mdash;I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> convinced of it. We shall hear of
+Alban Kennedy and claim his acquaintance as wise people do when a man has made a success."</p>
+
+<p>He carried the thought home with him, but laid it aside when he entered
+the clergy house, dark and stony and cheerless at such an hour. Alban
+was just halfway down the Strand by that time and debating whether he
+should sleep in the "caves," as he called those wonderful subterranean
+passages under Pall Mall and the Haymarket, or chance the climate upon a
+bench in Hyde Park. A chilly night of April drove him to the former
+resolution and he passed on quickly; by the theatres now empty of their
+audiences; through Trafalgar Square, where the clubs and the hotels were
+still brilliantly lighted; up dark Cockspur Street; through St. James'
+Square; and so to an abrupt halt at the door of a great house, open to
+the night and dismissing its guests.</p>
+
+<p>Alban despised himself for doing it, but he could never resist the
+temptation of staring through the windows of any mansion where a party
+happened to be held. The light and life of it all made a sure appeal to
+him. He could criticise the figures of beautiful women and remain
+ignorant of the impassable abyss between their sphere and his own.
+Sometimes, he would try to study the faces thus revealed to him, as in
+the focus of a vision, and to say, "That woman is utterly vain," or
+again, "There is a doll who has not the sense of an East End flower
+girl." In a way he despised their ignorance of life and its terrible
+comedies and tragedies. Little Lois Boriskoff, he thought, must know
+more of human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> nature than any woman in those assemblies where, as the
+half-penny papers told him, cards and horses and motor-cars were the
+subjects chiefly talked about. It delighted him to imagine the abduction
+of one of these society beauties and her forcible detention for a month
+in Thrawl Street. How she would shudder and fear it all&mdash;and yet what
+human lessons might not she carry back with her. Let them show him a
+woman who could face such an ordeal unflinchingly and he would fall in
+love with her himself. The impertinence of his idea never once dawned
+upon him. He knew that his father's people had been formerly well-to-do
+and that his mother had often talked of birth and family. "I may be
+better than some of them after all," he reflected; and this was his
+armor against humiliation. What did money matter? The fine idealist of
+twenty, with a few coppers in his pocket, declared stoically that money
+was really of no consequence at all.</p>
+
+<p>He lingered some five minutes outside the great house in St. James'
+Square, watching the couples in the rooms above, and particularly
+interested in one face which appeared in, and disappeared from, a
+brilliantly lighted alcove twice while he was standing there. A certain
+grace of girlhood attended this apparition; the dress was rich and
+costly and exquisitely made; but that which held Alban's closer
+attention was the fact that the wearer of it unquestionably was a Pole,
+and not unlike little Lois Boriskoff herself. He would not say, indeed,
+that the resemblance was striking&mdash;it might have been merely that of
+nationality. When the girl appeared for the second time, he admitted
+that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> comparison was rather wild. None the less, he liked to think
+that she resembled Lois and might also have heard the news from Warsaw
+to-day. Evidently she was the daughter of some rich foreigner in London,
+for she talked and moved with Continental animation and grace. The type
+of face had always made a sure appeal to Alban. He liked those broad
+contrasts of color; the clear, almost white, skin; the bright red lips;
+the open expressive eyes fringed by deep and eloquent lashes. This
+unknown was taller than little Lois certainly&mdash;she had a maturer figure
+and altogether a better carriage; but the characteristics of her
+nationality were as sure&mdash;and the boy fell to wondering whether she was
+also capable of that winsome sentiment and jealous frenzy which dictated
+many of the seemingly inconsequent acts of the little heroine of Thrawl
+Street. This he imagined to be quite possible. "They are great as a
+nation," he thought, "but most of them are mad. I will tell Lois
+to-morrow that I have seen her sister in St. James' Square. I shouldn't
+wonder if she knew all about this house and the party&mdash;and Boriskoff
+will, if she doesn't."</p>
+
+<p>He contented himself with this; and the girl having disappeared from the
+alcove and a footman announced, in a terrible voice, that Lady Smigg's
+carriage barred the way, he turned from the house and continued upon his
+way to the "caves." It was then nearly one o'clock, and save for an
+occasional hansom making a dash to a club door, St. James' Street was
+deserted. Alban took one swift look up and down, crossed the street at a
+run and disappeared down the court which led to those amazing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> "tombs"
+of which few in London save the night-birds and the builders so much as suspect the existence.</p>
+
+<p>He did not go alone; he was not, as he thought, unwatched. A detective,
+commissioned by an unknown patron to follow him, crossed the road
+directly he had disappeared, and saying, "So that's the game," began to
+wonder if he also might dare the venture.</p>
+
+<p>He, at least, knew well what he was doing and the class of person he
+would be likely to meet down there in the depths of which even the police were afraid.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CAVES</h3>
+
+<p>The "labyrinth" beneath the West End of London was rediscovered in our
+own time when the foundations for the Carlton Hotel and his Majesty's
+Theatre were laid. It is a network of old cellars, subterranean passages
+and, it may even be, of disused conduits, extended from the corner of
+Suffolk Street, Pall Mall, away to the confines of St. James' Park&mdash;and,
+as more daring explorers aver, to the river Thames itself. Here is a
+very town of tunnels and arches, of odd angled rooms, of veritable caves
+and depths as dark as Styx. If, in a common way, it be shut by the
+circumstance of the buildings above to the riff-raff and night-hawks who
+would frequent it, there are seasons, nevertheless, when the laying of
+new foundations, the building of hotels and the demolition of ancient
+streets in the name of "improvement" fling its gates open to the more
+cunning of the "destitutes," and they flock there as rooks to a field newly sown.</p>
+
+<p>Of these welcome opportunities, the building of the Carlton Hotel is the
+best remembered within recent times; but the erection of new houses off
+St. James' Street in the year 1903 brought the ladies and the gentlemen
+of the road again to its harborage; and they basked there for many weeks
+in undisputed possession.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> Molesting none and by none molested, it was
+an affair neither for the watchmen (whose glances askance earned them
+many a handsome supper) or for the police who had sufficient to do in
+the light of the street lamps that they should busy themselves with
+supposed irregularities where that light was not. The orgies thus became
+a nightly feature of the vagrant's life. There was no more popular hotel
+in London than the "Coal Hole," as the wits of the company delighted to style their habitation.</p>
+
+<p>A city below a city! Indeed imagination might call it that. A replica of
+famous catacombs with horrid faces for your spectres, ghoulish women and
+unspeakable men groping in the darkness as though, vampire-like, afraid
+of the light. Why Alban Kennedy visited this place, he himself could not
+have said. Possibly a certain morbid horror of it attracted him. He had,
+admittedly, such a passport to the caves as may be the reward of a
+shabby appearance and a resolute air. The criminal company he met with
+believed that he also was a criminal. Enjoying their confidence because
+he had never excited their suspicion, they permitted him to lie his
+length before reddened embers and hear tales which fire the blood with
+every passion of anger and of hate. Here, in these caverns, he had seen
+men fight as dogs&mdash;with teeth and claws and resounding yells; he had
+heard the screams of a woman and the cries of helpless children. A
+sufficient sense of prudence compelled him to be but an apathetic
+spectator of these infamies. The one battle he had fought had been
+impotent to save the object of his chivalry.</p>
+
+<p>When first he came here, heroic resolutions followed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> him. He had
+thrashed a ruffian who struck a woman, and narrowly escaped with his
+life for doing so. Henceforth he could but assent to a truce which
+implied mutual toleration; and yet he understood that his presence was
+not without its influence even on these irredeemables. Men called him
+"The Hunter," or in mockery "The Dook." He had done small services for
+one or two of them&mdash;even written a begging letter for a rogue who could
+not write at all, but posed as an "old public school man," fallen upon
+evil days. Alban was perfectly well aware that this was a shameless
+imposition, but his ideas of morality as it affected the relations of
+rich and poor were ever primitive and unstable. "If this old thief gets
+half a sovereign, what's it matter?" he would argue; "the other man
+stole his money, I suppose, and can well afford to pay up." Here was a
+gospel preached every day in Thrawl Street. He had never stopped to ask its truth.</p>
+
+<p>Alban crossed St. James' Street furtively, and climbed, as an athlete
+should climb, the boarding which defended the entrance to this amazing
+habitation. A contented watchman, dozing by a comfortable fire, cared
+little who came or went and rarely bestirred himself to ask the
+question. There were two entrances to the caves: one cramped and
+difficult, the other broad and open; and you took your choice of them
+according to the position of the policeman on the beat. This night, or
+rather this morning, of the day following upon the meeting in Union
+Street, discovered Alban driven to the more hazardous way. His quick eye
+had detected, on the far side of the enclosure, an amiable flirtation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+between a man of law and a lady of the dusters; and avoiding both
+discreetly, he slipped into a trench of the newly made foundations and
+crawled as swiftly through an aperture which this descent revealed.</p>
+
+<p>Here, laid bare by the picks and shovels of twentieth-century Trade
+Unionism, was a veritable Gothic arch, bricked up to the height of a
+tall man's waist, but open at the tympanum. Alban hoisted himself to the
+aperture and, slipping through, his feet discovered the reeking floor of
+a dank and dripping subway; and guiding himself now by hands
+outstretched and fingers touching the fungi of the walls, he went on
+with confidence until the roof lifted above him and the watch-fires of
+the confraternity were disclosed. He had come by now into a vast cellar
+not very far from the Carlton Hotel itself. There were offshoots
+everywhere, passages more remote, the arches as of crypts, smaller
+apartments, odd corners which had guarded the casks five hundred years
+ago. Each of these could show you its little company safe harbored for
+the night; each had some face from which Master Timidity might well
+avert his eyes. But Alban went in amongst them as though he had been
+their friend. They knew his very footstep, the older "lags" would declare.</p>
+
+<p>"All well, Jack?"</p>
+
+<p>"All well, old cove."</p>
+
+<p>"The Panorama come along?"</p>
+
+<p>"Straight art of the coffee shawp, s'help me blind."</p>
+
+<p>"Ship come in?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two tharsand next Toosday&mdash;same as usual."</p>
+
+<p>A lanky hawker, lying full length upon a sack, his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> pipe glowing in the
+darkness, exchanged these pleasantries with Alban at the entrance. There
+were fires by here and there in these depths and the smoke was often
+suffocating. The huddled groups declared all grades of ill-fortune and
+of crime; from that of the "pauper parson" to the hoariest house-breaker
+"resting" for a season. Alban's little set, so far as he had a "set" at
+all, consisted of the sometime curate of a fashionable West End Church,
+known to the company as the Archbishop of Bloomsbury; the Lady Sarah, a
+blooming, red-cheeked girl who sold flowers in Regent Street, "the
+Panorama," an old showman's son who had not a sixpenny piece in his
+pocket, but whose schemes were invariably about to bring him in "two
+thousand next Tuesday morning"; and "Betty," a pretty, fair-haired lad,
+thrown on the streets God knows how or by what callous act of
+indifferent parentage. Regularly as the clock struck, this quartette
+would gather in a tiny "chapel" of the cellars and sleep about a fire
+kindled in a grate which might have baked meats for the Tudors. They
+spoke of the events of the day with moderation and wise philosophy. It
+would be different to-morrow. Such was ever their text.</p>
+
+<p>"My lord the Duke is late. Does aught of fortune keep your nobility?"</p>
+
+<p>The ex-parson made way for Alban, grandiloquently offering a niche upon
+the bare floor and a view of the reddening embers. The boy "Betty" was
+already asleep, while the Lady Sarah and "the Panorama" divided a
+fourpenny pie most faithfully between them. A reeking atmosphere of
+spirit (but not of water) testified<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> to the general conviviality. A hum
+of conversation was borne in upon them from the greater cellar&mdash;at odd
+times a rough oath of protest or the mad complainings of a drunkard. For
+the most part, however, the night promised to be uneventful. Alban had
+never seen the Lady Sarah more gracious, and as for "the Panorama" he
+had no doubt whatever that his fortune was made.</p>
+
+<p>"My contract for America's going through and I shall be out there with a
+show in a month," this wild youth said&mdash;and added patronizingly, "When I
+come back, it will be dinner upstairs, old chaps&mdash;and some of the best.
+Do you suppose that I could forget you? I would as soon forget my father's grave."</p>
+
+<p>They heard him with respect&mdash;no one differing from him.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall certainly be pleased to accept your kind invitation," said the
+Archbishop, "that is, should circumstance&mdash;and Providence&mdash;enable me to
+redeem the waistcoat, without which&mdash;eh&mdash;hem&mdash;I understand no visitor
+would be admitted to those noble precincts."</p>
+
+<p>The Lady Sarah expressed her opinion even more decidedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't 'e talk," she said pleasantly, "can't you 'ear the thick 'uns a
+rattlin' in his mouse-trap. Poor little man and 'im a horphin. Stun me
+mother if I ain't a goin' ter Jay's termerrer ter buy mournin' in honor of him."</p>
+
+<p>"I presume," continued the Archbishop, "that we shall all be admitted to
+this entertainment as it were&mdash;that is&mdash;as the colloquial expression
+goes&mdash;on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> nod. It will be enough to mention that we are the
+proprietor's friends."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have a season-ticket for life, Archbishop. Just you tell me
+where you want a church built and I'll see that it's done. Of course I
+don't mind your chaff&mdash;I'm dead in earnest and the money will be there."</p>
+
+<p>"A real contract this time?" Alban suggested kindly.</p>
+
+<p>"A real contract. I saw Philips about it to-day, and he knows a man who
+is Pierpont Morgan's cousin. We are to open in New York in September and
+be in San Francisco the following week."</p>
+
+<p>"Rather a long journey, isn't it, old chap?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they do those things out there. I'm told you play Hamlet one night
+and Othello six hours afterwards, which is really the next night because
+of the long distances and the differences in the latitudes. Ask the
+Archbishop. I expect he hasn't forgotten all his geography."</p>
+
+<p>"A Cambridge man," said the Archbishop, loftily, "despises geography.
+Heat, light, electricity, the pure and the impure mathematics&mdash;these are
+his proper study. I rise superior to the occasion and tell you that San
+Francisco is a long way from New York. The paper in which I wrapped a
+ham sandwich yesterday&mdash;the advertisement of a shipping company, I may
+inform you&mdash;brings that back to my recollection. San Francisco is the
+thickness of two slices of stale bread from the seaport you mention. And
+I believe there are Red Indians in between."</p>
+
+<p>The Lady Sarah murmured lightly the refrain of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> old song concerning
+houses which stood in that annoying position; but Alban had already
+lighted a cigarette and was watching the girl's face critically.</p>
+
+<p>"You've had some luck to-day, Sarah?"</p>
+
+<p>"A bloomin' prophet and that I won't deny. Gar'n, Dowie."</p>
+
+<p>"But you did have some luck?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure and certain. What d'ye fink? A bit of a boy, same as 'Betty' 'ere,
+'e comes up and says, 'What'll ye take fer the whole bloomin' caravan?'
+he says, 'for ter send ter a lidy?' 'Gentleman,' I says, 'I'm only a
+poor girl and a widered muver ter keep, and, gentleman, I can't tike
+less than two pound fer 'em sure and certain as there's a God in 'eaven,
+I can't.' 'Well,' says he, 'it's a blarsted swindle but I'll take
+'em&mdash;and mind you deliver 'em ter the lidy yerself.' 'They shall go this
+very minute,' says I, 'and, oh, sir, God bless you both and may yer have
+long life and 'appiness ter-gether.' Strike me dead, wot d'yer think he
+said next? Why he arst me fer my bloomin' name, same as if I wus a
+Countess a steepin' art of a moter-kar at the door of Buckingem Peliss.
+'What's yer name, girl?' says 'e. 'Sarah Geddes, an it please yer
+capting,' says I. 'Then send the bally flowers to Sarah Geddes,' says
+'e, 'and take precious good care as she gets 'em.' Gawd's truth, yer
+could 'ave knocked me darn with a 'at pin. I never was took so suddin in all me life."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder you didn't have your dinner in the Carlton Hotel, Sarah."</p>
+
+<p>"So I would 'a' done if I'd hev bed time ter chinge me dress. You orter
+know, Dook, as no lidy ever goes inter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> them plices in wot she's bin a
+wearin' afore she cleaned herself. I'ad ter go ter Marlborough 'Ouse ter
+tell the Prince of Wales, and that's wot kept me."</p>
+
+<p>"Better luck next time, Sarah. So it only ran to a 'fourpenny' between
+you and 'the Panorama.'"</p>
+
+<p>"You shall all dine with me next week," said the young man in question.
+"On my honor, I'll give you the best dinner you ever had in your life.
+As for Sarah here, I'm going to put her in a flower shop in Bond Street."</p>
+
+<p>"Gar'n, silly, what 'ud I do in Bond Street? Much better buy the
+Archbishop a church."</p>
+
+<p>The erstwhile clergyman did not take the suggestion, in good part.</p>
+
+<p>"I have always doubted my ability to conduct the affairs of a parish
+methodically," he said, "that is&mdash;a little habit&mdash;a slight partiality to
+the drug called morphia is not in my favor. This, I am aware, is a
+drawback. The world judges my profession very harshly. A man in the city
+who counts the collection indifferently will certainly become Lord
+Mayor. The Establishment has no use for him&mdash;he is <i>de trop</i>, or as we
+might say, a drop too much. This I recognize in frankly declining our
+young friend's offer&mdash;with grateful thanks."</p>
+
+<p>Sarah, the flower girl, seemed particularly amused by this frank
+admission. Feeling in the depth of her shawl she produced a capacious
+flask and a bundle of cigars.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ere, boys," she said, "let's talk 'am and heggs. 'Ere's a drop of the
+best and five bob's worth of chimney afire, stun me mother if there
+ain't. I'm sick of talkin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> and so's 'the Panerawma.' Light up yer
+sherbooks and think as you're in Buckingem Peliss. There ain't no 'arm thinkin' anyways."</p>
+
+<p>"I dreamed last night," said the Archbishop very sadly, "that this
+cellar had become a cottage and that the sun was shining in it."</p>
+
+<p>"I never dream," said "the Panorama," stoically; "put my head on the
+floor and I won't lift it until the clock strikes ten."</p>
+
+<p>"Then begin now, my dear," exclaimed the Lady Sarah with a sudden
+tenderness, "put it there now and forget what London is ter you and me."</p>
+
+<p>The words were uttered almost with a womanly tenderness, not without its
+influence upon the company. Some phrase spoken of Frivolity's mouth had
+touched this group of outcasts and spoken straight to their hearts. They
+bandied, pleasantries no more, but lighting the cigars&mdash;the Lady Sarah
+boldly charging a small clay pipe&mdash;they fell to an expressive silence,
+of introspection, it may be, or even of unutterable despair. The woman
+alone amongst them had not been cast down from a comparative altitude to
+this very abyss of destitution. For the others life was a vista far
+behind them; a vista, perchance, of a cottage and the sunshine, as the
+parson had said; an echo of voices from a forgotten world; the memory of
+a hand that was cold and of dead faces reproaching them. Such pauses are
+not infrequent in the conversation of the very poor. Men bend their
+heads to destiny less willingly than we think. The lowest remembers the
+rungs of the ladder he has descended.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p><p>Alban had lighted one of the cigars and he smoked it stoically,
+wondering again why the caves attracted him and what there was in this
+company which should not have made him ashamed of such associations.
+That he was not ashamed admitted of no question. In very truth, the
+humanities were conquering him in spite of inherited prejudice. Had the
+full account of it been written down by a philosopher, such a sage would
+have said that the girl Sarah stood for a type of womanly pity, of
+sympathy, and, in its way, of motherhood; qualities which demand no gift
+of birth for their appeal. The unhappy parson, too, was there not much
+of good in him, and might he not yet prove a human field worthy to be
+tilled by a husbandman of souls? His humor was kindly; his disposition
+gentle; his faults punished none but himself. And for what did "the
+Panorama" stand if not for the whole gospel of human hope without which
+no life may be lived at all? Alban had some glimmering of this, but he
+could not have set down his reasons in so many words. As for the little
+lad "Betty"&mdash;was not the affection they lavished upon him that which
+manhood ever owes to the weak and helpless. Search London over and you
+will not find elemental goodness in a shape more worthy than it was to
+be found in the caves&mdash;nor can we forego a moment's reflection upon the
+cant which ever preaches the vice of the poor and so rarely stops to
+preach their virtues.</p>
+
+<p>This was the human argument of Alban's association, but the romantic
+must not be forgotten. More imaginative than most youths of his age, his
+boyish delight in these grim surroundings was less to him than a real<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+and inspiring sense of the power of contrast they typified. Was he not
+this very night sleeping beneath some famous London house, it might be
+below that very temple of the great God Mammon, the Carlton Hotel? Far
+above him were the splendid rooms, fair sleepers in robes of lace, tired
+men who had earned enough that very day perhaps to feed all the hungry
+children in Thrawl Street for a lifetime and to remain rich men
+afterwards. Of what were the dreams of such as those&mdash;not of sunshine
+and a cottage as the old parson had dreamed, surely? Not of these nor of
+the devoted sacrifice of motherhood or of that gentle sympathy which the
+unfortunate so readily give their fellows. Not this certainly&mdash;and yet
+who should blame them? Alban, at least, had the candor to admit that he
+would be much as they were if his conditions of life were the same. He
+never deceived himself, young as he was, with the false platitudes of
+boastful altruists. "I should enjoy myself if I were rich," he would
+say&mdash;and sigh upon it; for what assumption could be more grotesque?</p>
+
+<p>No, indeed, there could be no sunshine for him to-morrow. Nothing but
+the shadows of toil; and, in the background, that grim figure of
+uncertainty which never fails to haunt the lives of the very poor.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>DISMISSAL</h3>
+
+<p>Alban had been a disappointment to his employers, the great engineer of
+the Isle of Dogs, to whom Charity had apprenticed him in his fourteenth
+year. Faithful attempts to improve his position in the works were met,
+as it would seem, by indifference and ingratitude. He did his work
+mechanically but without enthusiasm. Had he confessed the truth, he
+would have said, "I was not born to labor with my hands." A sense of
+inherited superiority, a sure conviction, common to youth, that he would
+become a leader, of men, conduced to a restlessness and a want of
+interest which he could not master. He had the desire but not the will
+to please his employers.</p>
+
+<p>To such a lad these excursions to the West End, these pilgrimages to the
+shrine of the outcast and the homeless were by way of being a mental
+debauch. He arose from them in the morning as a man may arise to the
+remembrance of unjustified excess, which leaves the mind inert and the
+body weary. His daily task presented itself in a revolting attitude. Why
+had he been destined to this slavery? Why must he set out to his work at
+an hour of the chilly morning when the West End was still shuttered and
+asleep and the very footmen still yawned in their beds? If he had any
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>consolation, it was that the others were often before him in that
+cunning debauch from the caves which the dawn compelled. The Lady Sarah
+would be at Covent Garden by four o'clock. The Archbishop, who rarely
+seemed to sleep at all, went off to the Serpentine for his morning
+ablutions when the clock struck five. "Betty," the pale-faced infant,
+disappeared as soon as the sun was up&mdash;and often, when Alban awoke in
+the cellar, he found himself the only tenant of that grim abode.
+Sometimes, indeed, and this morning following upon the promise to little
+Lois Boriskoff was such an occasion, he overslept himself altogether and
+was shut out from the works for the day. This had happened before and
+had brought frequent reprimands. He feared them and yet had not the will to remember them.</p>
+
+<p>Big Ben was striking seven when he quitted the cellar and London was
+awake in earnest. Alban usually spent twopence in the luxury of a "wash
+and brush up" before he went down to the river; but he hastened on this
+morning conscious of his tardiness and troubled at the possible
+consequences. The bright spring day did little to reassure him. Weather
+does not mean very much to those who labor in heated atmospheres, who
+have no profit of the sunshine nor gift of the seasons. Alban thought
+rather of the fateful clock and of the excuses which might pacify the
+timekeeper. He had never stooped to the common lies; he would not stoop
+to them this day. When, at the gate of the works, a heavy jowled man
+with a red beard asked him what he meant by coming there at such an
+hour, he answered as frankly that he did not know.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p><p>"Been out to supper with the Earl of Barkin, perhaps," the burly man
+suggested. "Well, young fellow, you go up and see Mr. Tucker. He's
+particularly desirous of making your acquaintance&mdash;that he is. Tell him
+how his lordship's doin' and don't you forget the ladies."</p>
+
+<p>Alban made no reply, but crossing the open yard he mounted a little
+flight of stairs and knocked indifferently at the door of the dreaded
+office thus indicated. An angry voice, bidding him "come in," did not
+reassure him. He found the deputy manager frank but determined. There
+could be no doubt whatever of the issue.</p>
+
+<p>"Kennedy," he said quietly, "I hope you understand why I have sent for you."</p>
+
+<p>"For being late, sir. I am very sorry&mdash;I overslept myself."</p>
+
+<p>"My boy, if your work was as honest as your tongue, your fortune would
+be made. I am afraid I must remember what passed at our last meeting.
+You promised me then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I am quite aware of it, sir. The real truth is that I can't get up. The
+work here is distasteful to me&mdash;but I do my best."</p>
+
+<p>The manager shook his head in a deprecating manner.</p>
+
+<p>"We have given you many chances, Kennedy," he rejoined. "If it rested
+with me, I would give you another. But it doesn't rest with me&mdash;it rests
+with that necessary person. Example. What would the men say if I treated
+you as a privileged person? You know that the work could not go on. For
+the present,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> at any rate, you are suspended. I must see my directors
+and take instructions from them. Now, really, Kennedy, don't you think
+that you have been very foolish?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so, sir. That's what foolish people generally think. It must
+make a lot of difference to you whether a man comes at six or seven,
+even if he does a good deal more work than the early ones. I could do
+what you ask me to do in three hours a day. That's what puzzles me."</p>
+
+<p>The amiable Mr. Tucker was up in arms in a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, come, I cannot discuss abstract propositions with you. Our hours
+are from six to six. You do not choose to keep them and, therefore, you
+must go. When you are a little more practically inclined, I will speak
+to the directors for you. You may come and tell me so when that is the case."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never come and tell you so, sir. I wish that I could&mdash;but it
+will never be the truth. The work that I could do for you is now what
+you want me to do. I am sure it is better for me to go, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you have something in your mind, Kennedy?"</p>
+
+<p>"So many things, sir, that I could fill a book with them. That is why I
+am foolish. Good-by, Mr. Tucker. I suppose you have all been very kind
+to me&mdash;I don't rightly understand, but I think that you have. So good-by and thank you."</p>
+
+<p>The discreet manager took the outstretched hand and shook it quite
+limply. There had been a momentary contraction of the brows while he
+asked himself if astute rivals might not have been tampering with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> this
+young fellow and trying to buy the firm's secrets. An instant's
+reflection, however, reassured him. Alban had no secrets worth the name
+to sell, and did he possess them, money would not buy them. "Half mad
+but entirely honest," was Mr. Tucker's comment, "he will either make a
+fortune or throw himself over London Bridge."</p>
+
+<p>Alban had been quite truthful when he said that he had many things in
+his mind, but this confession did not mean to signify a possibility of
+new employment. In honest truth, he had hardly left the gates of the
+great yard when he realized how hopeless his position was. Of last
+week's wages but a few shillings remained in his pocket. He knew no one
+to whom he might offer such services as he had to give. The works had
+taught him the elements of mechanical engineering, and common sense told
+him that skilled labor rarely went begging if the laborer were worthy
+his hire. None the less, the prospect of touting for such employment
+affrighted him beyond words. He felt that he could not again abase
+himself for a few paltry shillings a week. The ambition to make of this
+misfortune a stepping-stone to better things rested on no greater
+security than his pride and yet it would not be wholly conquered. He
+spent a long morning by the riverside planning schemes so futile that
+even the boy's mind rejected them. The old copybook maxims recurred to
+him and were treated with derision. He knew that he would never become
+Lord Mayor of London&mdash;after a prosperous career in a dingy office which
+he had formerly swept out with a housemaid's broom.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p><p>The lower reaches of the Thames are a world of themselves; peopled by a
+nation of aliens; endless in the variety of their life; abounding in
+weird and beautiful pictures which even the landsman can appreciate.
+Alban rarely tired of that panorama of swirling waters and drifting
+hulks and the majestic shapes of resting ships. And upon such a day as
+this which had made an idler of him, their interest increased tenfold;
+and to this there was added a wonder which had never come into his life
+before. For surely, he argued, this great river was the high road to an
+El Dorado of which he had often dreamed; to that shadowy land of valley
+and of mountain which his imagination so ardently desired. Let a man
+find employment upon the deck of one of those splendid ships and
+henceforth the whole world would be open to him. Alban debated this as a
+possible career, and as he thought of it the spell of the craving for
+new sights and scenes afar mastered him to the exclusion of all other
+thoughts. Who was to forbid him; who had the right to stand between him
+and his world hunger so irresistibly? When a voice within whispered a
+girl's name in his ear, he could have laughed aloud for very derision. A
+fine thing that he should talk of the love of woman or let his plans be
+influenced for the sake of a pretty face! Why, he would be a beggar
+himself in a week, it might be without a single copper in his pocket or
+a roof to shelter him! And he was just the sort of man to live on a
+woman's earnings&mdash;just the one to cast the glove to fortune and of his
+desperation achieve the final madness. No, no, he must leave London. The
+city had done with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> him&mdash;he had never been so sure of anything in all
+his life.</p>
+
+<p>It was an heroic resolution, and shame that hunger should so maltreat
+it. When twelve o'clock struck and Alban remembered how poor a breakfast
+he had made, he did not think it necessary to abandon any of his old
+habits, at least not immediately; and he went, as he usually had done,
+to the shabby dining-room in Union Street where he and Lois had taken
+their dinners together for many a month past. Boriskoff's daughter was
+already at table and waiting for him when he entered; he thought that
+she was unusually pale and that her expectancy was not that of a common
+occasion. Was it possible that she also had news to tell him&mdash;news as
+momentous as his own? Alban feared to ask her, and hanging his cap on a
+peg above their table without a word, he sat down and began to study the greasy menu.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the luck, Alb, dear&mdash;why do you look like that?"</p>
+
+<p>Little Lois asked the question, struck by his odd manner and appearance.</p>
+
+<p>He answered her with surprising candor&mdash;for the sudden determination
+came to him that he must tell Lois.</p>
+
+<p>"No luck at all, Lois."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you don't mean&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do, and that's straight. There is no further need of my services&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You've got the sack?"</p>
+
+<p>"The whole of it, Lois&mdash;and now I'm selling it cheap."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p><p>The girl laughed aloud, but there were tears in her eyes while she did
+so. What a day for them both. She was angry almost with him for telling her.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, if father ain't a-gettin' on the prophet line&mdash;he said you would,
+Alb. So help me rummy, I was that angry with him I couldn't hear myself
+speak. And now it's all come true. Why, Alb, dear&mdash;and I wanted to tell you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She could not finish the sentence for a sob that almost choked her. The
+regular customers of the room had turned to stare at the sound of such
+unwonted hilarity. Dinner was far too serious a business for most of
+them that laughter should serve it.</p>
+
+<p>"What was your father saying, Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>"That you were going away, dear, and that the sooner I gave up thinking
+about you the fatter I should be."</p>
+
+<p>"How did he know what was going to happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ask me another and don't pay the bill. He's been as queer as white
+rabbits since yesterday&mdash;didn't go to work this morning, but sat all day
+over a letter he's received. I shall be frightened of father just now. I
+do really believe he's getting a bit balmy on the crumpet."</p>
+
+<p>"Still talking about the man who stole the furnace?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, there you've got it. We're going to Buckingham Palace in a donkey
+cart and pretty quick about it. You'll be ashamed of such fine people,
+Alb&mdash;father says so. So I'm not to speak to you to begin with&mdash;not till
+the dresses come home from Covent Garden and the horses are pawing the
+ground for her lidyship. That's the chorus all day&mdash;lots of fun when the
+bricks come home and father with a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>watch-chain as big as Moses. He knew
+you were going to get the sack and he warned me against it. 'We can't
+afford to associate with those people nowadays'&mdash;don't yer know&mdash;'so
+mind what you're a-doing, my child.' And I'm minding it all day&mdash;I was
+just minding it when you came in, Alb. Don't you see her lidyship is
+taking mutton chops? Couldn't descend to nothink less, my dear&mdash;not on
+such a day as this&mdash;blimme."</p>
+
+<p>Lois' patter, acquired in the streets, invariably approached the purely
+vulgar when she was either angry or annoyed&mdash;for at other times her
+nationality saved her from many of its penalties. Alban quite understood
+that something beyond ordinary must have passed between father and
+daughter to-day; but this was neither the time nor the place to discuss it.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll meet outside the Pav to-night and have a good talk, Lois," he
+said; "everybody's listening here. Be there at nine sharp. Who knows, it
+may be the last time we shall ever meet in London&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You're not going away, Alb?"</p>
+
+<p>A look of terror had come into the pretty eyes; the frail figure of the
+girl trembled as she asked the question.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't say, Lois&mdash;how do I know? Suppose I went as a sailor&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Lois laughed louder than before.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;a blueboy! Lord, how you make me laugh. Fancy the aristocrat being
+ordered about. Oh, my poor funny-bone! Wouldn't you knock the man down
+that did it&mdash;oh, can't I see him."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p><p>The idea amused her immensely and she dwelt upon it even in the street
+outside. Her Alb as Captain Jack&mdash;or should it be the cabin-boy. And, of
+course, he would bring her a parrot from the Brazils and perhaps a monkey.</p>
+
+<p>"An' I'll keep a light in the winder for fear you should be shipwrecked
+in High Street, Alb, and won't we go hornpiping together. Oh, you silly
+boy; oh, you dear old Captain Jack&mdash;whatever put a sailorman into your mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"The water," said Alban, as stolidly&mdash;"it leads to somewhere, Lois. This
+is the road to nowhere&mdash;good God, how tired I am of it."</p>
+
+<p>"And of those who go with you, Alb."</p>
+
+<p>"I am ashamed of myself because of them, Lois."</p>
+
+<p>"You silly boy, Alb&mdash;are they ashamed, Alb? Oh, no, no&mdash;people who love
+are never ashamed."</p>
+
+<p>He did not contest the point with her, nor might she linger. Bells were
+ringing everywhere, syrens were calling the people to work. It was a new
+thing for Alban Kennedy to be strolling the streets with his hands in
+his pockets when the clock struck one. And yet there he was become a
+loafer in an instant, just one of the many thousand who stare up idly at
+the sky or gaze upon the windows of the shops they may not patronize, or
+drift on helpless as though a dark stream of life had caught them and
+nevermore would set them on dry land again. Alban realized all this, and
+yet the full measure of his disaster was not wholly understood. It was
+so recent, the consequences yet unfelt, the future, after all, pregnant
+with the possibilities of change. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> knew not at all what he should do,
+and yet determined that the shame of which he had spoken should never overtake him.</p>
+
+<p>And so determining, he strolled as far as Aldgate Station&mdash;and there he met the stranger.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE STRANGER</h3>
+
+<p>There is a great deal of fine philanthropic work done east of Aldgate
+Station by numbers of self-sacrificing young men just down from the
+Universities. So, when a slim parson touched Alban upon the arm and
+begged for a word with him, he concluded immediately that he had
+attracted the notice of one of these and become the objective of his charity.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," he said a little stiffly. The idea of stooping to
+such assistance had long been revolting to him. He was within an ace of
+breaking away from the fellow altogether.</p>
+
+<p>"Your name is Alban Kennedy, I think? Will you permit me to have a few
+words with you?"</p>
+
+<p>Alban looked the parson up and down, and the survey did something to
+satisfy him. He found himself face to face with a man, it might be of
+thirty years of age, whose complexion was dark but not unpleasant, whose
+eyes were frank and open, the possessor, too, of fair brown hair and of
+a manner not altogether free from a suspicion of that which scoffers
+call the "wash-hand" basin cult.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed you do not&mdash;we are total strangers. My<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> name is Sidney Geary; I
+am the senior curate of St. Philip's Church at Hampstead. If we could go
+somewhere and have a few words, I would be very much obliged to you."</p>
+
+<p>Alban hardly knew what to say to him. The manner was not that of a
+philanthropist desiring him to come to a "pleasant afternoon for the
+people"; he detected no air of patronage, no vulgar curiosity&mdash;indeed,
+the curate of St. Philip's was almost deferential.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir&mdash;if you don't mind a coffee shop&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The very place. I have always thought that a coffee shop, properly
+conducted and entirely opposed to the alcoholic principle, is one of the
+most useful works in the civic economy. Let us go to a coffee shop by all means."</p>
+
+<p>Alban crossed the road and, leading the stranger a little way eastward,
+turned into a respectable establishment upon the Lockhart plan&mdash;almost
+deserted at such an hour and the very place for a confidential chat.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you have anything, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>The curate looked at the thick cups upon the counter, turned his gaze
+for an instant upon a splendid pile of sausages, and shuddered a little ominously.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose the people here have excellent appetites," he reflected
+sagely. "I myself, unfortunately, have just lunched in Mount Street&mdash;but
+a little coffee&mdash;shall we not drink a little coffee?"</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose I order you two doorsteps and a thick 'un?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear young fellow, what in heaven's name are 'two doorsteps and a thick 'un?'"</p>
+
+<p>Alban smiled a little scornfully.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p><p>"Evidently you come from the West. I was only trying you. Shall we have
+two coffees&mdash;large? It isn't so bad as it looks by a long way."</p>
+
+<p>The coffee was brought and set steaming before them. In an interval of
+silence Alban studied the curate's face as he would have studied a book
+in which he might read some account of his own fortunes. Why had this
+man stopped him in the street?</p>
+
+<p>"Your first visit to Aldgate, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly, Mr. Kennedy&mdash;many years ago I have recollections of a
+school treat at a watering-place near the river's mouth&mdash;an exceedingly
+muddy place since become famous, I understand. But I take the children to Eastbourne now."</p>
+
+<p>"They find that a bit slow, don't they? Kids love mud, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"They do&mdash;upon my word. A child's love of mud is one of the most
+incurable things in nature."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why try to cure it?"</p>
+
+<p>"But what are you to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wash them, sir,&mdash;you can always do that. My father was a parson, you know&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens, a clergyman&mdash;and you are come to&mdash;that is, you choose to
+live amidst these dreadful surroundings?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not choose&mdash;death chose for me."</p>
+
+<p>"My poor boy&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, sir. Give a man a good appetite and enough to gratify it,
+and I don't know that other circumstances count much."</p>
+
+<p>"Trial has made of you an epicurean, I see. Well,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> well, so much the
+better. That which I have to offer you will be the more acceptable."</p>
+
+<p>"Employment, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Employment&mdash;for a considerable term. Good employment, Mr. Kennedy.
+Employment which will take you into the highest society, educate you,
+perhaps, open a great career to you&mdash;that is what I came to speak of."</p>
+
+<p>The good man had meant to break the news more dramatically; but it
+flowed on now as a freshet released, while his eyes sparkled and his
+head wagged as though his whole soul were bursting with it. Alban
+thought for a moment that he had met one of those pleasant eccentrics
+who are not less rare in the East End than the West. "This good fellow
+has escaped out of an asylum," he thought.</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of a job would that be, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your own. Name it and it shall be chosen for you. That is what I am
+commissioned to say."</p>
+
+<p>"By whom, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"By my patron and by yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Does he wish to keep his name back?"</p>
+
+<p>"So little that he is waiting for you at his own house now."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why shouldn't we go and see him, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>He put the question fully believing that it would bring the whole
+ridiculous castle down with a crash, as it were, upon the table before
+him. Its effect, however, was entirely otherwise. The parson stood up immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"My carriage is waiting," he said; "nothing could possibly suit me better."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p><p>Alban, however, remained seated.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Geary," he exclaimed, "you have forgotten to tell me something."</p>
+
+<p>"I can think of nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"The conditions of this slap-up job&mdash;the high society and all the rest
+of it! What are the conditions?"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke almost with contempt, and deliberately selected a vulgar
+expression. It had come to him by this time that some unknown friend had
+become interested in his career and that this amiable curate desired to
+make either a schoolmaster or an organist of him. "Old Boriskoff knew I
+was going to get the sack and little Lois has been chattering," he
+argued&mdash;nor did this line of reasoning at all console him. Sidney Geary,
+meanwhile, felt as though some one had suddenly applied a slab of
+melting ice to those grammatical nerves which Cambridge had tended so carefully.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Mr. Kennedy&mdash;not 'slap-up,' I beg of you. If there are any
+conditions attached to the employment my patron has to offer you, is not
+he the best person to state them? Come and hear him for yourself. I
+assure you it will not be waste of time."</p>
+
+<p>"Does he live far from here?"</p>
+
+<p>"At Hampstead Heath&mdash;it will take us an hour to drive there."</p>
+
+<p>"And did he send the char &agrave; bancs especially for my benefit?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not really&mdash;but naturally he did."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I will go with you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>He put on his cap slowly and followed the curate into the street&mdash;one of
+the girls racing after them to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> say that they had forgotten to pay the
+bill. "And a pretty sort of clergyman you must be, to be sure," was her
+reflection&mdash;to the curate's blushing annoyance and his quite substantial indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"I find much impertinence in this part of the world," he remarked as
+they retraced their steps toward the West; "as if the girl did not know
+that it was an accident."</p>
+
+<p>"We pay for what we eat down here," Alban rejoined dryly; "it's a good
+plan as you would discover if you tried it, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Geary looked at the boy for an instant as though in doubt whether he
+had heard a sophism or a mere impertinence. This important question was
+not, however, to be decided; for a neat single brougham edged toward the
+pavement at the moment and a little crowd collected instantly to remark
+so signal a phenomenon.</p>
+
+<p>"Your carriage, sir?" Alban asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the curate, quietly, "my carriage. And now, if you please,
+we will go and see Mr. Gessner. He is a Pole, Mr. Kennedy, and one of
+the richest men in London to-day."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HOUSE OF THE FIVE GABLES</h3>
+
+<p>It was six o'clock as the carriage passed Swiss Cottage station and ten
+minutes later when they had climbed the stiff hill to the Heath. Alban
+had not often ridden in a carriage, but he would have found his
+sensations very difficult to set down. The glossy cushions, the fine
+ivory and silver fittings, were ornaments to be touched with caressing
+fingers as one touches the coat of a beautiful animal or the ripe bloom
+upon fruit. Just to loll back in such a vehicle, to watch the houses and
+the people and the streets, was an experience he had not hitherto
+imagined. The smooth motion was a delight to him. He felt that he could
+continue such a journey to the ends of the earth, resting at his ease,
+untroubled by those never ended questions upon which poverty insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it far yet, sir&mdash;is Mr. Gessner's house a long way off?"</p>
+
+<p>He asked the question as one who desired an affirmative reply. The
+parson, however, believed that his charge was already wearied; and he said eagerly:</p>
+
+<p>"It is just over there between the trees, my lad. We shall be with our
+good friend in five minutes now. Perhaps you know that you are on Hampstead Heath?"</p>
+
+<p>"I came here once with little Lois Boriskoff&mdash;on a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> Bank Holiday. It was
+not like this then. If Mr. Gessner is rich, why does he live in a place
+where people come to keep Bank Holiday? I should have thought he would
+have got away from them."</p>
+
+<p>"He is not able to get away. His business takes him into town every
+day&mdash;he goes by motor-car and comes back at night to breathe pure air.
+Bank Holidays do not occur every day, Mr. Kennedy. Fortunately for some
+of us they are but four a year."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you don't like going amongst all those poor people, Mr.
+Geary. That's natural. I didn't until I had to, and then I found them
+much the same as the rest. You haven't any poor in Hampstead, I am told."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Geary fell into the trap all unsuspectingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank heaven"&mdash;he began, and then checking himself clumsily, he added,
+"that is to say we are comparatively well off as neighborhoods go. Our
+people are not idlers, however. Some of the foremost manufacturers in
+the country live in Hampstead."</p>
+
+<p>"While their work-people starve in Whitechapel. It's an odd world, isn't
+it, Mr. Geary&mdash;and I don't suppose we shall ever know much about it. If
+I had made a fortune by other people's work, I think I should like some
+of them to live in Hampstead too. But you see, I'm prejudiced."</p>
+
+<p>Sidney Geary looked at the boy as though he had heard a heresy. To him
+the gospel of life meant a yearly dole of coals at Christmas and a bout
+of pleasant "charity organizations" during the winter months. He would
+as soon have questioned the social position of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> the Archbishop of
+Canterbury as have criticised the conduct and the acts of the
+manufacturers who supported his church so generously.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid you have received some pernicious teaching down yonder," he
+said, with a shake of his abundant locks. "Mr. Gessner, I may tell you,
+has an abhorrence of socialism. If you wish to please him, avoid the topic."</p>
+
+<p>"But I do not wish to please him&mdash;I do not even know him. And I'm not a
+socialist, sir. If Mr. Gessner had ever lived in Whitechapel; if he had
+starved in a garret, he would understand me. I don't suppose it matters,
+though, whether he does or not, for we are hardly likely to discuss such things together."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear lad, he has not sent for you for that, believe me. His
+conversation will be altogether of a different nature. Let me implore
+you to remember that he desires to be your benefactor&mdash;not your judge.
+There is no kinder heart, no more worthy gentleman in all London to-day
+than Richard Gessner. That much I know and my opportunities are unique."</p>
+
+<p>Alban could make no reply to this; nor did he desire one. They had
+passed the Jack Straw's Castle by this time, and now the carriage
+entered a small circular drive upon the right-hand side of the road and
+drew up before a modern red-bricked mansion, by no means ostentatious or
+externally characteristic of the luxury for which its interior was
+famed. Just a trim garden surrounded the house and boasted trees
+sufficient to hide the picturesque gables from the eyes of the curious.
+There were stables in the northern wing and a great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> conservatory built
+out toward the south. Alban had but an instant to glance at the
+beautiful fa&ccedil;ade when a young butler opened the door to them and ushered
+them into a vast hall, panelled to the ceiling in oak and dimly lighted
+by Gothic windows of excellent stained glass. Here a silence, amazing in
+its profundity, permitted the very ticking of the clocks to be heard.
+All sounds from without, the hoot of the motors, the laughter of
+children, the grating voices of loafers on the Heath, were instantly
+shut out. An odor of flowers and fine shrubs permeated the apartment.
+The air was cool and clear as though it had passed through a lattice of ice.</p>
+
+<p>"Please to wait one moment, Kennedy, and I will go to Mr. Gessner. He
+expects us and we shall not have long to wait. Is he not in the library,
+Fellows&mdash;ah, I thought he would be there."</p>
+
+<p>The young butler said "Yes, sir;" but Alban perceived that it was in a
+tone which implied some slight note of contempt. "That fellow," he
+thought, "would have kicked me into the street if I had called here
+yesterday&mdash;and his father, I suppose, kept a public-house or a fish
+shop." The reflection flattered his sense of irony; and sitting
+negligently upon a broad settee, he studied the hall closely, its
+wonderful panelling, the magnificently carved balustrades, the great
+organ up there in the gallery&mdash;and lastly the portraits. Alban liked
+subject pictures, and these masterpieces of Sargent and Luke Fildes did
+not make an instantaneous appeal to him. Indeed, he had cast but a brief
+glance upon the best of them before his eye fell upon a picture which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+brought the blood to his cheeks as though a hand had slapped them. It
+was the portrait of the supposed Polish girl whom he had seen upon the
+balcony of the house in St. James' Square&mdash;last night as he visited the caves.</p>
+
+<p>Alban stared at the picture open-mouthed and so lost in amazement that
+all other interests of his visit were instantly lost to his memory. A
+hard dogmatic common-sense could make little of a coincidence so
+amazing. If he had wished to think that the unknown resembled little
+Lois Boriskoff&mdash;if he had wished so much last night, the portrait, seen
+in this dim light, flattered his desire amazingly. He knew, however,
+that the resemblance was chiefly one of nationality; and in the same
+instant he remembered that he had been brought to the house of a Pole.
+Was it possible, might he dare to imagine that Paul Boriskoff's
+friendship had contrived this strange adventure. Some excitement
+possessed him at the thought, for his spirit had ever been adventurous.
+He could not but ask himself to whose house had he come then and for
+what ends? And why did he find a portrait of the Polish girl therein?</p>
+
+<p>Alban's eyes were still fixed upon the picture when the young butler
+returned to summon him to the library. He was not a little ashamed to be
+found intent upon such an occupation, and he rose immediately and
+followed the man through a small conservatory, aglow with blooms, and so
+at once into the sanctum where the master of the house awaited him.
+Perfect in its way as the library was, Alban had no eyes for it in the
+presence of Richard Gessner whom thus he met for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> first time. Here,
+truly, he might forget even the accident of the portrait. For he stood
+face to face with a leader among men and he was clever enough to
+recognize as much immediately.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Gessner was at that time fifty-three years of age. A man of
+medium height, squarely built and of fine physique, he had the face
+rather of a substantial German than of the usually somewhat cadaverous
+Pole. A tousled black beard hid the jowl almost completely; the eyes
+were very clear and light blue in color; the head massive above the neck
+but a little low at the forehead. Alban noticed how thin and fragile the
+white hand seemed as it rested upon a strip of blotting-paper upon the
+writing-table; the clothes, he thought, were little better than those
+worn by any foreman in Yarrow's works; the tie was absolutely shabby and
+the watch-chain nothing better than two lengths of black silk with a
+seal to keep them together. And yet the mental power, the personal
+magnetism of Richard Gessner made itself felt almost before he had
+uttered a single word.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you take a seat, Mr. Kennedy&mdash;I am dining in the city to-night and
+my time is brief. Mr. Geary, I think, has spoken to you of my intentions."</p>
+
+<p>Alban looked the speaker frankly in the face and answered without hesitation:</p>
+
+<p>"He has told me that you wish to employ me, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"That I wish to employ you&mdash;yes, it is not good for us to be idle. But
+he has told you something more than that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed," the curate interrupted, "very much more, Mr. Gessner. I have
+told Kennedy that you are ready<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> and willing to take an interest, the
+greatest possible interest, in his future."</p>
+
+<p>The banker&mdash;for as such Richard Gessner was commonly known&mdash;received the
+interjection a little impatiently and, turning his back slightly, he
+fixed an earnest look upon Alban's face and watched him critically while he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kennedy," he said, "I never give my reasons. You enter this house
+to confer a personal obligation upon me. You will remain in that spirit.
+I cannot tell you to-night, I may be unable to tell you for many years
+why you have been chosen or what are the exact circumstances of our
+meeting. This, however, I may say&mdash;that you are fully entitled to the
+position I offer you and that it is just and right I should receive you
+here. You will for the present remain at Hampstead as one of my family.
+There will be many opportunities of talking over your future&mdash;but I wish
+you first to become accustomed to my ways and to this house, and to
+trouble your head with no speculations of the kind which I could not
+assist. I am much in the city, but Mr. Geary will take my place and you
+can speak to him as you would to me. He is my Major Domo, and needless
+to say I in him repose the most considerable confidence."</p>
+
+<p>He turned again toward Mr. Geary and seemed anxious to atone for his
+momentary impatience. The voice in which he spoke was not unpleasant,
+and he used the English language with an accent which did not offend.
+Rare lapses into odd and unusual sentences betrayed him occasionally to
+the keen hearer, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> Alban, in his desire to know the man and to
+understand him, made light of these.</p>
+
+<p>"I am to remain in this house, sir&mdash;but why should I remain, what right
+have I to be here?" he asked very earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>The banker waved the objection away a little petulantly.</p>
+
+<p>"The right of every man who has a career offered to him. Be content with
+that since I am unable to tell you more."</p>
+
+<p>"But, sir, I cannot be content. Why should I stay here as your guest
+when I do not know you at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"My lad, have I not said that the obligation is entirely on my side. I
+am offering you that to which you have every just claim. Children do not
+usually refuse the asylum which their father's door opens to them. I am
+willing to take you into this house as a son&mdash;would it not be a little
+ungrateful to argue with me? From what I know of him, Alban Kennedy is
+not so foolish. Let Mr. Geary show you the house while I am dressing. We
+shall meet at breakfast and resume this pleasant conversation."</p>
+
+<p>He stood up as he spoke and began to gather his papers together. To
+Alban the scene was amazingly false and perplexing. He was perfectly
+aware that this stranger had no real interest in him at all; he felt,
+indeed, that his presence was almost resented and that he was being
+received into the house as upon compulsion. All the talk of obligation
+and favor and justice remained powerless to deceive. The key to the
+enigma did not lie therein; nor was it to be found in the churchman's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+suavity and the fairy tale which he had recited. Had the meeting
+terminated less abruptly, Alban believed that his own logic would have
+carried the day and that he would have left the house as he had come to
+it. But the clever suggestion of haste on the banker's part, his hurried
+manner and his domineering gestures, left a young lad quite without
+idea. Such an old strategist as Richard Gessner should have known how to
+deal with that honest original, Alban Kennedy.</p>
+
+<p>"We will meet at breakfast," the banker repeated; "meanwhile, consider
+Mr. Geary as your friend and counsellor. He shall by me so be appointed.
+I have a great work for you to do, Mr. Kennedy, but the education, the
+books, the knowledge&mdash;they must come first. Go now and think about
+dinner&mdash;or perhaps you would like to walk about the grounds a little
+while. Mr. Geary will show you the way&mdash;I leave you in his hands."</p>
+
+<p>He folded the papers up and thrust them quickly in a drawer as he spoke.
+The interview was plainly at an end. He had welcomed a son as he would
+have welcomed any stranger who had brought a letter of introduction
+which decency compelled him to read.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>ALBAN KENNEDY DINES</h3>
+
+<p>Silas Geary led the way through the hall and thence to the winter
+garden. Here the display of plants was quite remarkable and the building
+one that had cost many thousands of pounds. Designed, as all that
+Richard Gessner touched, to attract the wonder of the common people and
+to defy the derision of the connoisseur, this immense garden had been
+the subject of articles innumberable and of pictures abundant. Vast in
+size, classic in form, it served many purposes, but chiefly as a gallery
+for the safe custody of a collection of Oriental china which had no rival in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>"It is our patron's hobby," said the curate, mincingly, as he indicated
+the treasures of cloisonn&eacute; and of porcelain; "he does not frivol away
+his money as so many do, on idle dissipations and ephemeral pleasures.
+On the contrary, he devotes it to the beautiful objects&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you call them beautiful, sir?" Alban asked ingenuously. "They seem
+to me quite ugly. I don't think that if I had money I should spend it on
+plates and jars which nobody uses. I would much sooner buy a battle ship
+and give it to the nation." And then he asked, "Did Mr. Gessner put up
+all this glass to keep out the fresh air? Does he like being in a
+hot-house? I should have thought a garden would have been better."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p><p>Silas Geary could make nothing of such criticism as this.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear lad," he protested, "you are very young and probably don't know
+what sciatica means. When I was your age, I could have slept upon a
+board and risen therefrom refreshed. At fifty it is otherwise. We study
+the barometer then and dust before we sit. This great glass house is Mr.
+Gessner's winter temple. It is here that he plans and conceives so many
+of those vast schemes by which the world is astonished."</p>
+
+<p>Alban looked at him curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the world really astonished by rich men?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Geary stood still in amazement at the question.</p>
+
+<p>"Rank and birth rule the nation," he declared vehemently; "it is fit and
+proper that it should be so. Our aristocracy is rightly recruited from
+those who have accumulated the wealth necessary to such a position.
+Riches, Kennedy, mean power. You will know that some day when you are
+the master of riches."</p>
+
+<p>Alban walked on a little way without saying anything. Then almost as one
+compelled to reply he exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"In the East End, they don't speak of money like that. I suppose it is
+their ignorance&mdash;and after all it is a very great thing to be able to
+compel other people to starve for you. Some day, I'll take you down to
+the sweating-shops, Mr. Geary. You'll see a lot of old china there, but
+I don't think it would be worth much. And all our flowers are for
+sale&mdash;poor devils, we get little enough for supper if we don't sell them."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p><p>The curate expressed no profound desire to accept this promising
+invitation, and desiring to change so thorny a subject entered a
+delightful old-world garden and invited Alban's attention to a superb
+view of Harrow and the Welsh Harp. In the hall, to which at last they
+returned, he spoke of that more substantial reality, dinner.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry to say that I have a Dorcas meeting to-night and cannot
+possibly dine with you," he explained to the astonished lad. "I shall
+return at nine o'clock, however, to see that all is as Mr. Gessner
+wishes. The servants have told you, perhaps, that Miss Anna is in the
+country and does not return until to-morrow. This old house is very dull
+without her, Kennedy. It is astonishing how much difference a pretty
+face makes to any house."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that Miss Anna's portrait over the fireplace, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know her, Kennedy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen her once, on the balcony of a house in St. James' Square.
+That was last night when I was on my way to sleep in a cellar."</p>
+
+<p>"My poor, poor boy, and to-night you will sleep in one of the most
+beautiful rooms in England. How wonderful is fortune, how
+amazing&mdash;er&mdash;how very&mdash;is not that seven o'clock by the way? I think
+that it is, and here is Fellows come to show you your room. You will
+find that we have done our best for you in the matter of
+clothes&mdash;guesswork, I fear, Kennedy, but still our best. To-morrow
+Westman the tailor is to come&mdash;I think and hope you will put up with
+borrowed plumes until he can fit you up. In the meantime,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> Fellows has
+charge of your needs. I am sure that he will do his very best for you."</p>
+
+<p>The young butler said that he would&mdash;his voice was still raised to a
+little just dignity, and he, in company with Silas Geary, the
+housekeeper and the servants' hall had already put the worst
+construction possible upon Alban's reception into the house. His
+determination to patronize the "young man" however received an abrupt
+check when Alban suddenly ordered him to show the way upstairs. "He
+spoke like a Duke," Fellows said in the kitchen afterwards. "There I was
+running up the stairs just as though the Guv'ner were behind me. Don't
+you think that you can come it easy with him&mdash;he ain't the sort by a
+long way. I tell you, I never was so astonished since the Guv'ner raised my wages."</p>
+
+<p>Alban, of course, was sublimely unconscious of this. He had been
+conducted to an enormous bedroom on the first floor, superbly furnished
+with old Chippendale and excellent modern S&egrave;vres&mdash;and there he had been
+left to realize for the first time that he was alone and that all which
+had happened since yesterday was not a dream but a hard invincible truth
+so full of meaning, so wonderful, so sure that the eyes of his brain did
+not dare to look at it unflinchingly. Boyishly and with a boy's gesture
+he had thrown himself upon the bed and hidden his face from the light as
+though the very atmosphere of this wonder world were insupportable. Good
+God, that it should have happened to him, Alban Kennedy; that it should
+have been spoken of as his just right; that he should have been told
+that he had a claim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> which none might refute! A hundred guesses afforded
+no clue to the solution of the mystery. He could not tell himself that
+he was in some way related to Richard Gessner, the banker; he could not
+believe that his dead parents had any claim upon this foreigner who
+received him coldly and yet would hear nothing of his departure. Pride
+had little share in this, for the issues were momentous. It was
+sufficient to know that a hand had suddenly drawn him from the abyss,
+had put him on this pinnacle&mdash;beyond all, had placed him in Anna
+Gessner's home as the first-born, there to embark upon a career whose
+goal lay beyond the City Beautiful of his dreams.</p>
+
+<p>He rose from the bed at length, and trying to put every thought but that
+of the moment from his head, he remembered that he was expected to dine
+alone in the great room below, and to dress himself for such an ordeal
+in the clothes which the reverend gentleman's wit had provided for him.
+Courageous in all things, he found himself not a little afraid of all
+the beautiful objects which he touched, afraid to lift the S&egrave;vres
+pitcher, afraid to open the long doors of the inlaid wardrobe, timid
+before the dazzling mirror&mdash;a reluctant guest who, for the time being,
+would have been thankful to escape to a carpetless floor and glad to
+wash in a basin of the commonest kind. When this passed, and it was but
+momentary, the delusion that a trick was being played upon him succeeded
+to it and he stood to ask himself if he had not been a fool to believe
+their story at all, a fool thus to be made sport of by one who would
+relate the circumstance with relish to-morrow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> This piece of nonsense,
+however, was as quick to give way to the somewhat cynical common sense
+with which, Alban Kennedy had rightly been credited as the other. He
+turned from it impatiently and began to dress himself. He had last
+dressed in black clothes and a white waistcoat for a school concert at
+Westminster when he was quite a little lad&mdash;but his youth had taught him
+the conventions, and he had never forgotten those traditions of what his
+dead father used to call the "decent life." In his case the experience
+was but a reversion to the primitive, and he dressed with every
+satisfaction, delighted to put off the shabby old clothes and no less
+content with his new appearance as a mirror revealed it to him.</p>
+
+<p>The dining room at "Five Gables" was normally a little dark in the
+daytime, for it looked upon the drive where ancient trees shaded its
+lofty latticed windows. At night, however, Richard Gessner's fine silver
+set off the veritable black oak to perfection, and the room had an air
+of dignity and richness neither artificial nor offensive. When Alban
+came down to dinner he perceived that a cover had been set for him at
+the end of a vast table, and that he was expected to take the absent
+master's place; nor could he forbear to smile at the solemn exercises
+performed by Fellows the young butler, and two footmen who were to wait
+upon him. These rascals, whatever they might say in the kitchen
+afterwards, served him at the table as though he had been an eldest son
+of the house. If they had expected that the ragged, shabby fellow, who
+entered the house so stealthily an hour ago, would provide food for
+their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> exquisitely delicate sense of humor, they were wofully
+disappointed. Alban ate his dinner without uttering a single remark.</p>
+
+<p>And last night it had been supper in the caves! There must be no charge
+of inconsistency brought against him if a momentary shudder marked this
+recollection of an experience. A man may bridge a great gulf in a single
+instant of time. Alban had no less affection for, no less interest
+to-night in those pitiful lives than yesterday, but he understood that a
+flood of fortune had carried him for the time being away from them, and
+that his desire must be to help but not to regret them. Indeed, he could
+not resist, nor did he wish to resist a great content in this
+well-being, which overtook him in so subtle a manner. The sermons of the
+old days, preached by many a mad fanatic of Union Street, declared that
+any alliance between the rich and the poor must be false and impossible.
+Alban believed it to be so. A mere recollection of the shame of poverty
+could already bring the blood to his cheeks, and yet he would have
+defended poverty with all the logic of which his clever brain was capable.</p>
+
+<p>So in a depressing silence the long dinner was eaten. Methodically and
+with velvet steps the footmen put dish after dish before him, the butler
+filled his rarely lifted glass, the whole ceremony of dining performed.
+For his own part he would have given much to have escaped after the fish
+had been served, and to have gone out and explored the garden which had
+excited Mr. Geary to such poetic thoughts. Not a large eater (for the
+East End does not dare to cultivate an appetite), he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> easily
+satisfied; and he found the mere length of the menu to be an ordeal
+which he would gladly have been spared. Why did people want all these
+dishes, he asked himself. Why, in well-to-do circles, is it considered
+necessary to serve precisely similar portions of fish and flesh and fowl
+every night at eight o'clock? Men who work eat when they are disposed.
+Alban wondered what would happen if such a custom were introduced into
+the House of the Five Gables. A cynical reverie altogether&mdash;from which
+the butler's purring voice awakened him.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you have your coffee in the Winter Garden, sir? Mr. Gessner always does."</p>
+
+<p>"Cannot I have it in the garden?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, if you like, sir. We'll carry out a chair&mdash;the seats are very
+damp at night, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Alban smiled. Was he not sleeping on the reeking floor of the caves but twenty hours ago.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>ANNA GESSNER</h3>
+
+<p>They set a table in the vestibule overlooking the trim lawn, and thither
+they carried cigars and coffee. Alban had learned to smoke fiercely&mdash;one
+of the few lessons the East End had taught him thoroughly&mdash;and Richard
+Gessner's cigars had a just reputation among all who frequented the
+House of the Five Gables&mdash;some of these, it must be confessed, coming
+here for no other particular reason than to smoke them. Alban did not
+quite understand what it was that differentiated this particular cigar
+from any he had ever smoked, but he enjoyed it thoroughly and inhaled
+every whiff of its fragrant bouquet as though it had been a perfume of morning-roses.</p>
+
+<p>A profound stillness, broken at rare intervals by the rustling of young
+leaves, prevailed in the garden. Night had come down, but it was a night
+of spring, clear and still and wonderful of stars. Distantly across a
+black waste of heath and meadow, the spire of Harrow Church stood up as
+a black point against an azure sky. The waters of the Welsh Harp were as
+a shimmering lake of silver in the foreground; the lights of Hendon and
+of Cricklewood spoke of suburban life, but might just as well have
+conjured up an Italian scene to one who had the wit to imagine it. Alban
+knew nothing of Italy, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> had never set foot out of England in his
+life, but the peace and the beauty of the picture impressed him
+strangely, and he wondered that he had so often visited the Caves when
+such a fairyland stood open to his pleasure. Let it not be hidden that
+he would have been easily pleased this night. Youth responds quickly to
+excitements of whatever nature they may be. He was as far from realizing
+the truth of his position as ever, but the complete change of
+environment, the penetrating luxury of the great house, the mystery
+which had carried him there and the promise of the morrow, conspired to
+elate him and to leave him, in the common phrase, as one who is walking
+upon air. Even an habitual cynicism stood silent now. What mattered it
+if he awoke to-morrow to a reality of misunderstanding or of jest? Had
+not this night opened a vista which nothing hereafter might shut out?
+And the truth might be as Richard Gessner had promised&mdash;a truth of
+permanence, of the continued possession of this wonderland. Who shall
+blame him if his heart leaped at the mere contemplation of this possibility?</p>
+
+<p>It would have been about nine o'clock when they carried his coffee to
+the garden&mdash;it was just half-past nine when Anna Gessner returned
+unexpectedly to the house. Alban heard the bell in the courtyard ring
+loudly, and upon that the throttled purr of a motor's heavy engine. He
+had expected Silas Geary, but such a man, he rightly argued, would not
+come with so much pomp and circumstance, and he stood at once, anxious
+and not a little abashed. Perhaps some suspicion of the truth had
+flashed upon him unwittingly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> He heard the voice of Fellows the butler
+raised in some voluble explanation, there were a few words spoken in a
+pleasing girlish tone, and then, the boudoir behind him flashed its
+colors suddenly upon his vision, and he beheld Anna Gessner herself&mdash;a
+face he would have recognized in ten thousand, a figure of yesternight
+that would never be forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>She had cast aside her motor veil, and held it in her hand while she
+spoke to the butler. A heavy coat bordered and lined with fur stood open
+to reveal a gray cloth dress; her hair had been blown about by the fresh
+breezes of the night and covered her forehead in a disorder far from
+unbecoming. Alban thought that the cold light in the room and the heavy
+bright panelling against which she stood gave an added pallor to her
+usually pale face, exaggerating the crimson of her lips and the dark
+beauty of her eyes. The hand which held the veil appeared to him to be
+ridiculously small; her attitudes were so entirely graceful that he
+could not imagine a picture more pleasing. If he remembered that he had
+likened her to little Lois Boriskoff, he could now admit the
+preposterous nature of the comparison. True it was that nationality
+spoke in the contour of the face, in its coloring and its expression,
+but these elementals were forgotten in the amazing grace of the girl's
+movements, the dignity of her gestures and the vitality which animated
+her. Returning to the house unexpectedly, even a lad was shrewd enough
+to see that she returned also under the stress of an agitation she could
+conceal from none. Her very questions to the servants were so quick and
+incoherent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> that they could not be answered. The letters which the
+butler put into her hands were torn from the envelopes but were not
+read. When she opened the boudoir window and so permitted Alban to
+overhear her hurried words, it was as one who found the atmosphere of a
+house insupportable and must breathe fresh air at any cost.</p>
+
+<p>"Has my father returned, Fellows?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, miss, he is not expected until late."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you not send the carriage to the station?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Gessner said that you were coming to-morrow, miss."</p>
+
+<p>She flushed slightly at the retort and made as though to step out into
+the garden&mdash;but hesitating an instant, she said:</p>
+
+<p>"I have had nothing to eat since one o'clock, Fellows. I must have some supper."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, miss."</p>
+
+<p>"Anything will do&mdash;tell cook it does not matter. Has Lord Portcullis called?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, miss&mdash;not since yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"Or Mrs. Melville?"</p>
+
+<p>"This afternoon. She asked for your address, miss&mdash;but I did not give it."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right&mdash;I suppose that Captain Forrest did not come?" She turned
+away as though not wishing to look the man in the face&mdash;a gesture which
+Alban's quick eyes instantly perceived.</p>
+
+<p>Fellows, on the other hand, permitted a smile to lurk for an instant
+about the corners of his mouth before he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p><p>"I understood that Captain Forrest was at Brighton, miss."</p>
+
+<p>The girl's face clouded perceptibly, and she loosened her cloak and
+threw it from her shoulders as though it had become an insupportable burden.</p>
+
+<p>"If he calls to-morrow, I do not wish to see him. Please tell them
+all&mdash;I will not see him."</p>
+
+<p>The butler smiled again, but answered, "Yes, miss."</p>
+
+<p>Anna Gessner herself, still hesitating upon the threshold suddenly
+remembered another interest and referred to it with no less ardor.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that reminds me, Fellows. Has my father spoken again of that
+dreadful silly business?"</p>
+
+<p>"Concerning the young gentleman, miss?"</p>
+
+<p>She heard him with unutterable contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"The beggar-boy that he wishes to bring to this house. Did he speak of him to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>Fellows came a step nearer and, hushing his voice, he said, with a
+servant's love of a dramatic reply:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kennedy is in the garden now, miss&mdash;indeed, I think he's sitting
+near the vestibule."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him astonished. Ugly passions of disappointment and
+thwarted desire betrayed themselves in the swift turn and the angry
+pursing of her lips. Of her father's intentions in bringing this
+beggar-boy to the house, she knew nothing at all. It seemed to her one
+of those mad acts for which no sane apology could be offered.</p>
+
+<p>"He is here now, Fellows! Who brought him then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Geary&mdash;at six o'clock."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p><p>"Mr. Geary is a hateful busybody&mdash;I suppose I must speak to the boy."</p>
+
+<p>"I think that Mr. Gessner would wish it, miss."</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated a brief instant, her annoyance giving battle to her
+father's well-known desire. Curiosity in the end helped her decision.
+She must see the object of a charity so eccentric.</p>
+
+<p>"You say that he is in the garden?" she continued, taking two steps
+across the vestibule.</p>
+
+<p>But this time Alban answered her himself.</p>
+
+<p>"The beggar-boy is here," he said.</p>
+
+<p>He had risen from his chair and the two confronted each other in the
+aureole of light cast out from the open window. Just twenty-four hours
+ago, Alban had been sitting by little Lois Boriskoff's side in the
+second gallery at the Aldgate Empire. To-night he wore a suit of good
+dress clothes, had dined at a millionaire's table and already recovered
+much of that polish and confident manner which an English public school
+rarely fails to bestow. Anna Gessner, in her turn, regarded him as
+though he were the agent of a trick which had been played upon her. To
+her amazement a hot flush of anger succeeded. She knew not how to meet
+him or what excuses to make.</p>
+
+<p>"My father has not told me the truth," she exclaimed presently. "I am
+sorry that you overheard me&mdash;but I said what I meant. If he had told me
+that you were coming&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Alban stood before her quite unabashed. He understood the circumstances
+and delighted in them.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad that you meant it," he rejoined, "of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> course, it is in some
+way true. Those who have no money are always beggars to those who have.
+Let me say that I don't know at all why I am here, and that I shall go
+unless I find out. We need not quarrel about it at all."</p>
+
+<p>Anna, however, had recovered her composure. Mistress of herself to a
+remarkable degree when her passions were not aroused, she suddenly held
+out her hand to Alban as though she would apologize&mdash;but not by the spoken word.</p>
+
+<p>"They have played a trick upon me," she cried. "I shall have it out with
+Mr. Geary when he comes. Of course I am very sorry. My father said that
+you were a distant relative, but he tried to frighten me by telling me
+that you lived in Whitechapel and were working in a factory. I was silly
+enough to believe it&mdash;you would have done so yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Most certainly&mdash;for it is quite true. I have been living in Whitechapel
+since my mother died, and I worked in a factory until yesterday. If you
+had come here a few hours back, you would have run away from the
+beggar-boy or offered him sixpence. I wonder which it would have been."</p>
+
+<p>She would not admit the truth of it, and a little peevishly contested her point.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never believe it. This is just the kind of thing Mr. Geary
+would do. He is the most foolish man I have ever known. To leave you all
+alone here when he brought you as a stranger to our house. I wonder what
+my father would say to that."</p>
+
+<p>She had drawn her cloak about her white throat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> again and seated herself
+near Alban's chair. Imitating her, he sat again and began to talk to her
+as naturally as though he had known her all her life. Not a trace of
+vexation at the manner of her reception remained to qualify that rare
+content he found in her company. Alban had long acquired the sense which
+judges every word and act by the particular circumstances under which it
+is spoken. He found it natural that Anna Gessner should resent his
+presence in the house. He liked her for telling him that it was so.</p>
+
+<p>"My father says that he is going to make an engineer of you&mdash;is that
+just what you wish, Mr. Kennedy?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I don't know," he replied as frankly. "You see, I have
+always wanted to get on, but how to do so is what beats me. Engineering
+is a big profession and I'm not sure that I have the gifts. There you
+have a candid confession. I'm one of those fellows who can do everything
+up to a certain point, but a certain point isn't good enough nowadays.
+And a man wants money to get on. I'm sure it's easy enough to make a
+fortune if you have a decent share of brains and a bigger one capital. I
+want to make money and yet the East End has taught me to hate money. If
+Mr. Gessner can convince me that I have any claim upon his patronage, I
+shall go right into something and see if I cannot come out on top. You,
+I suppose, don't think much of the dirty professions. You'd like your
+brother to be a soldier, wouldn't you&mdash;or if not that, in the navy. Half
+the fellows at Westminster wanted to go into the army, just as though
+killing other people were the chief<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> business in life. Of course, I
+wouldn't run it down&mdash;but what I mean to say is, that I never cared at
+all about it myself and so I'm not quite the best judge."</p>
+
+<p>His little confession ended somewhat abruptly, for he observed that his
+words appeared to distress Anna Gessner beyond all reason. For many
+minutes she remained quite silent. When she spoke her eyes were turned
+away and her confusion not altogether to be concealed.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid you take your ideas of us from the cheap story-books," she
+said in a low voice; "women, nowadays, have their own ambitions and
+think less of men's. My dearest friend is a soldier, but I'm sure he
+would be a very foolish one if war broke out. They say he worked
+terribly hard in South Africa, but I don't think he ever killed any one.
+So you see&mdash;I shouldn't ask you to go into the army, and I'm sure my
+father would not wish it either."</p>
+
+<p>"It would do no good if he did," said Alban as bluntly. "I should only
+make a fool of myself. Your friend must have told you that you want a
+pretty good allowance to do upon&mdash;and fancy begging from your people
+when you were twenty-one. Why, in the East End many a lad of nineteen
+keeps a whole family and doesn't think himself ill-used. Isn't it rot
+that there should be so much inequality in life, Miss Gessner? I don't
+suppose, though, that one would think so if one had money."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled at his question, but diverted the subject cleverly.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you very self-willed, Mr. Kennedy?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p><p>"Do you mean that I get what I want&mdash;or try to?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that you have your own way in everything. If you were in love
+you would carry the poor thing off by force."</p>
+
+<p>"If I were in love and guessed that she was, I should certainly be
+outside to time. That's East End, you know, for punctuality."</p>
+
+<p>"You would marry in haste and repent at leisure?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would be yes or no, and that would be the end of it. Girls like a
+man who compels them&mdash;they like to obey, at least when they are young. I
+don't believe any girl ever loved a coward yet. Do you think so yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>She astonished him by rising suddenly and breaking off the conversation as abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"God help me, I don't know what I think," she said; and then, with half
+a laugh to cover it, "Here is Mr. Geary come to take care of you. I will
+say good-night. We shall meet at breakfast and talk of all this
+again&mdash;if you get up in time."</p>
+
+<p>He made no answer and she disappeared with just a flash of her ample
+skirts into the boudoir and so to the hall beyond. The curate appeared a
+minute later, full of apologies and of the Dorcas meeting he had so
+lately illuminated with his intellectual presence. A mild cigarette and
+a glass of mineral water found him quite ready for bed.</p>
+
+<p>"There will be so much to speak of to-morrow, my dear boy," he said in
+that lofty tone which attended his patronage, "there is so much for you
+to be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>thankful for to-day. Let us go and dream of it all. The reality
+must be greater than anything we can imagine."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you in a week's time," said Alban, dryly.</p>
+
+<p>A change had come upon him already. For Anna Gessner had betrayed her
+secret, and he knew that she had a lover.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>RICHARD GESSNER DEBATES AN ISSUE</h3>
+
+<p>Richard Gessner returned to "Five Gables" as the clock of Hampstead
+Parish Church was striking one. A yawning footman met him in the hall
+and asked him if he wished for anything. To the man's astonishment, he
+was ordered to carry brandy and Vichy water to the bedroom immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"To your room, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"To my room&mdash;are you deaf?"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, sir. Miss Gessner has returned."</p>
+
+<p>"My daughter&mdash;when?"</p>
+
+<p>"After dinner, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Was there any one with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't rightly see, sir. Fellows opened the door&mdash;he could tell you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Gessner cast a searching glance upon the man's face And then mounted the
+great staircase with laborious steps. Passing the door of the room in
+which Alban slept, he listened intently for a moment as though half of a
+mind to enter; but abandoning the intention, went on to his apartment
+and there, when the footman had attended to his requirements, he locked
+the door and helped himself liberally to the brandy. An observer would
+have remarked that drops of sweat stood upon his brow and that his hand was shaking.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p><p>He had dined with a city company; but had dined as a man who knew
+little of the dinner or of those who ate it. Ten days ago his energy,
+his buoyant spirits, and his amazing vitality had astonished even his
+best friends. To-night these qualities were at their lowest ebb&mdash;and he
+had been so silent, so self-concentrated, so obviously distressed, that
+even a casual acquaintance had remarked the change. To say that a just
+Nemesis had overtaken him would be less than the truth. He knew that he
+stood accused, not by a man, but by a nation. And to a nation he must answer.</p>
+
+<p>He locked the door of his room and, drawing a chair to a little Buhl
+writing-table, set in the window, he opened a drawer and took therefrom
+a little bundle of papers, upon which he had spent nine sleepless nights
+and, apparently, would spend still another. They were odd scraps&mdash;now of
+letters, now of legal documents&mdash;the <i>pr&eacute;cis</i> of a past which could be
+recited in no court of justice, but might well be told aloud to an
+unsympathetic world. Had an historian been called upon to deal with such
+documents, he would have made nothing whatever of them&mdash;but Richard
+Gessner could rewrite the story in every line, could garnish it with
+passions awakened, fears unnamable, regrets that could not save, despair
+that would suffer no consolations.</p>
+
+<p>He had stolen Paul Boriskoff's secret from him and thereby had made a
+fortune. Let it be admitted that the first conception of the new furnace
+for the refining of copper had come from that white-faced whimpering
+miner, who could talk of nothing but his nation's wrongs and had no
+finer ambition in life than to feed his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>children. He, Richard Gessner,
+had done what such a fellow never could have done. He had made the
+furnace commercially possible and had exploited it through the copper
+mines of the world. Such had been the first rung of that magnificent
+pecuniary ladder he had afterwards climbed so adroitly. Money he had
+amassed beneath his grasping hand as at a magician's touch. He
+regretted, he had always regretted, that misfortune overtook Paul
+Boriskoff's family&mdash;he would have helped them had he been in Poland at
+the time; but their offences were adjudged to be political; and if the
+wretched woman suffered harm at the hands of the police, what share had
+he in it? To this point he charged himself lightly&mdash;as men will in
+justifying themselves before the finger of an hoary accusation. Gessner
+cared neither for God nor man. His only daughter had been at once his
+divinity and his religion. Let men call him a rogue, despot, or thief,
+and he would shrug his shoulders and glance aside at his profit and loss
+account. But let them call him "fool" and the end of his days surely was at hand.</p>
+
+<p>And so this self-examination to-night troubled itself with no thought of
+wrongs committed, with no desire to repay, but only with that supreme
+act of folly, to which the sleeping lad in the room near by was the
+surest witness. What would the threats of such a pauper as Paul
+Boriskoff have mattered if the man had stood alone against him? A word
+to the police, a hundred pounds to a score of ruffians, and he would
+have been troubled no more. But his quarrel was not with a man but a
+nation. Perceiving that the friendship of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> the Russian Government was
+necessary to many of his mining schemes in the East, he had changed his
+name as lightly as another would have changed his coat, had cast the
+garments of a sham patriotism and emerged an enemy to all that he had
+hitherto befriended, a foe to Poland, a servant to Russia.</p>
+
+<p>Acting secretly and with a strong man's discretion, no bruit of this odd
+conversion had been made public, no whisper of it heard in the camp of
+the Revolutionaries. Many knew Maxim Gogol&mdash;none had heard of Richard
+Gessner. His desire for secrecy was in good accord with the plans of a
+police he assisted and the bureaucracy he bribed. He lived for a while
+in Vienna, then at Tiflis&mdash;he came at length to England where his
+daughter had been educated; and there he established himself, ostensibly
+as a wealthy banker, in reality as the secret director of one of the
+greatest conspiracies against the liberty of a little nation that the
+world had ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>Upon such a man, the blow of discovery fell with, stunning force.
+Gessner had grown so accustomed to the security of this suburban life
+that he could imagine no circumstance which might disturb it. All that
+he did for the satisfaction of the Russian Government had been cleverly
+done by agents and deputies. Entitled by his years to leisure, he had
+latterly almost abandoned politics for a culture of the arts and the
+sciences, in some branches of which he was a master. His leisure he gave
+almost entirely to his daughter. To contrive for her an alliance worthy
+of his own fortune and of her beauty had become the absorbing passion of
+his life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> He studied the Peerage as other men study a balance-sheet.
+All sorts and conditions of possible husbands appeared at "Five Gables;"
+were dined, discussed, and dismissed. The older families despised him
+and would not be appeased. To crown his vexation, his daughter named a
+lover for herself. He had twice shown Captain Willy Forrest from the
+door and twice had the man returned. Anna seemed fascinated by this
+showy adventurer as by none other who visited them. Gessner, for his
+part, would sooner have lost the half of his fortune than that she
+should have married him.</p>
+
+<p>These vexations had been real enough ten days ago; but, to-night, a
+greater made light of them and now they were almost forgotten. Detection
+had stalked out of the slums to humble this man in an instant and bring
+him to his knees. Gessner could have recited to you the most trivial
+detail attending the reception of Paul Boriskoff's letter and the claim
+it made upon him&mdash;how a secretary had passed it to him with a suggestion
+that Scotland Yard should know of it; how he had taken up the scrawl
+idly enough to flush before them all an instant later and to feel his
+heart sink as in an abyss of unutterable dismay. He had crumpled the
+dirty paper in his hand, he remembered, and thrown it to the ground&mdash;to
+pick it up immediately and smooth it out as though it were a precious
+document. To his secretary he tried to explain that the writer was an
+odd fanatic who must be humored. Determined at the first blush to face
+the matter out, to answer and to defy this pauper Pole who had dared to
+threaten him, he came ultimately to see that discretion would best serve
+him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> Paul Boriskoff had named Kensington Gardens as a rendezvous where
+matters might be discussed. Gessner was there to the minute&mdash;without
+idea, without hope, seeking only that pity which he himself had never
+bestowed upon any human being.</p>
+
+<p>Paul Boriskoff did not hurry to the Gardens, so sure was he of the
+success of his undertaking. The frowsy black coat, in which he made his
+bow to the millionaire, had not seen the light for many years&mdash;his hat
+was a wide-brimmed eccentricity in soft felt which greatly delighted the
+nursemaids who passed him by. Gessner would never have recognized, in
+the hollow-cheeked, pale-faced, humble creature the sturdy young Pole
+who had come to him nearly a generation ago and had said, "Our fortunes
+are made; this is my discovery." Believing at the moment that money
+would buy such a derelict, body and soul, he opened the negotiations
+firmly and in that lofty tone which suited Throgmorton Street so well.
+But five minutes had not passed before he understood his mistake and
+realized that Boriskoff, the lad who had trusted him, and Boriskoff, the
+Pole who now threatened him, were one and the same after all.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember you perfectly," he said; "it would be idle to say that I do
+not. You had some claim in the matter of a certain furnace. Yes, I
+remember that and would willingly admit it. But, my friend, you fell
+into trouble with the Government, and what could I do then? Was not I
+also compelled to leave Poland? Did not I change my name for that very
+reason? How could I repay the debt? Here in England it is different.
+You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> make your existence known to me and I respond at once. Speak
+freely, then, for I shall hear you patiently."</p>
+
+<p>They were seated on a bench beneath a chestnut in full bloom. Distantly,
+through a vista of giant trunks, the waters of the Round Pond glimmered
+in the evening light. Children, worn out by the day, sat idle in groups
+on the benches of the Long Walk or lagged through a fitful game on the
+open spaces between the trees. Few observed these two men who thus
+earnestly recalled the drama of their lives; none remarked their odd
+association, for were not both obviously foreigners, and who shall
+dictate a fashion to such as they? Indeed, they conversed without any
+animation of gesture; the one convulsed by fears he did not dare to
+express, the other by hopes on the threshold of realization.</p>
+
+<p>"I speak freely," said Boriskoff with unaffected candor, "for to do that
+I have come here. And first I must set your memory right in a matter
+that concerns us both. You did not leave Poland to serve your country;
+you left it to betray us. Spare your words, for the story has been told
+many times in Warsaw and in London. Shall I give you the list of those
+who are tortured to-day at Saghalien because of what you did? It would
+be vain, for if you have any feeling, even that of a dog, they are
+remembered by you. You betrayed the man who trusted you; you betrayed
+your country&mdash;for what? Shall I say that it was for this asylum in a
+strange land; for power, for the temptations which all must suffer? No,
+no. You have had but one desire in all your life, and that is money. So
+much even I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>understand. You are ready now to part with a little of that
+money&mdash;so little that it would be as a few grains from the sands of the
+sea&mdash;to save your neck from the rope, to escape the just punishment
+which is about to fall upon you. Do not believe that you can do so. I
+hold your secret, but at any hour, at any minute, others may share it
+with me. Maxim Gogol&mdash;for I shall call you by your true name&mdash;if one
+word of this were spoken to the Committee at Warsaw, how long would you
+have to live? You know the answer to that question. Do not compel me to dwell upon it."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke in a soft purring tone, an echo of a voice, as it were, beneath
+the rustling leaves; but, none the less, Richard Gessner caught every
+word as though it had been the voice of an oracle. A very shrewd man, he
+had feared this knowledge, and fear had brought him to this covert
+interview. The Pole could betray him and betrayal must mean death&mdash;and
+what a death, reluctant, procrastinating, the hour of it unknown, the
+manner of it beyond any words terrible. Such had been the end of many
+who had left Poland as he had done. He had read their story and
+shuddered even in his imagined security. And now this accusation was
+spoken, not as a whisper of a voice in the hours of the night, but as
+the truth of an inevitable day.</p>
+
+<p>And what should he answer? Would it profit him to speak of law; to
+retort with a threat; to utter the commonplaces concerning Scotland Yard
+and a vigilant police? He was far too wise even to contemplate such
+folly. Let him have this man arrested, and what then? Would any country
+thereafter shelter the informer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> from the vengeance of the thousands
+whom no law could arrest? Would any house harbor him against the dagger
+of the assassin, the swift blow, it might even be the lingering justice
+of such fanatics as sought to rule Poland. He knew that there was none.
+Abject assent could be the only reply. He must yield to any humiliation,
+suffer any extortion rather than speak the word which would be as
+irrevocable as the penalty it invited.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not dispute with you, Paul Boriskoff," he said, with a last
+attempt to save his dignity; "yes, it would be in your power to do me a
+great injury even in this country which gives you liberty. It is your
+own affair. You did not come here to threaten me, but to seek a favor.
+Name it to me and I shall be prepared to answer you. I am not an
+ungenerous man as some of our countrymen know. Tell me what you wish and
+I shall know how to act."</p>
+
+<p>Boriskoff's answer astonished him by its impetuosity.</p>
+
+<p>"For myself nothing," he exclaimed contemptuously&mdash;and these brief words
+echoed in Gessner's ears almost as a message of salvation&mdash;"for myself
+nothing, but for my children much. Yes, your money can make even Paul
+Boriskoff despise himself&mdash;but it is for the children's sake. I sell my
+honor that they may profit by it. I ask for them that which is due to
+me, but which I have sworn to forego. Maxim Gogol, it is for the
+children that I ask it. You have done me a great wrong, but they shall
+profit by it. That is what I am come here to say to-day&mdash;that you shall
+repay, not to me but to my children."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p><p>The words appeared to cost him much, as though he had deliberately
+sacrificed a great vengeance that those he loved might profit. Leaping
+to the hope of it, and telling himself that this after all was but a
+question of pounds, shillings, and pence, Gessner answered with an
+eagerness beyond all bounds ridiculous.</p>
+
+<p>"There could be nothing I would do more willingly. Yes, I remember&mdash;you
+left a daughter in Warsaw and she was not to be discovered by those of
+us who would have befriended her. Believe me when I say that I will help
+her very gladly. Anything, my friend, anything that is humbly reasonable&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Boriskoff did not permit him to finish.</p>
+
+<p>"My daughter will be educated in Germany at your cost," he said curtly.
+"I would speak first of one who is as a son to me because of her
+affection for him. There is a young Englishman living in Union Street,
+the son of a poor clergyman who died in the service of the poor. This
+lad you will take into your own house and treat as your own son. It is
+my desire and must be gratified. Remember that he is the son of a
+gentleman and treat him as such. There will be time enough afterwards to
+tell you how you must act in the interests of our people at Warsaw. This
+affair is our own and not of politics at all. As God is in heaven, but
+for my daughter you, Maxim Gogol, would not be alive this night."</p>
+
+<p>Gessner's heart sank again at the hint of further requests subsequently
+to come. The suggestion that he should adopt into his own house a youth
+of whom he knew nothing seemed in keeping with the circumstances of this
+dread encounter and the penalty that must be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> paid for it. After all, it
+was but a small price to pay for comparative security and the silence of
+a tongue which could work such ill. Accustomed to deal with men of all
+natures, honest and simple, clever and foolish, secretive and
+loquacious, there ran in his mind the desperate idea that he would
+temporize with Paul Boriskoff and ultimately destroy him. Let the
+Russian Government be informed of the activity of this Pole and of his
+intention to visit the Continent of Europe again, and what were
+Boriskoff's chances? Such were the treacherous thoughts which stood in
+Gessner's mind while he framed an answer which should avert the final
+hour of reckoning and give him that opportunity for the counter-stroke
+which might yet save all.</p>
+
+<p>"Your youth will profit little in my house," he said with some pretense
+of earnestness. "Had you asked an education abroad for him, that would
+have been a wiser thing in these days. Frankly, I do not understand your
+motive, but I am none the less willing to humor it. Let me know
+something more of the lad, let me have his history and then I shall be
+able to say what is the best course. I live a very quiet life and my
+daughter is much away. There is the possibility also that the boy, if he
+be the son of a clergyman, would do much better at Oxford or at
+Cambridge than at Hampstead, as you yourself must see. Let us speak of
+it afterwards. There will be time enough."</p>
+
+<p>"The time is to-day," rejoined Boriskoff, firmly, "Alban Kennedy will
+live under your roof as your own son. I have considered the matter and
+am determined upon it. When the time comes for him to marry my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+daughter, I will inform you of it. Understand, he knows nothing of your
+story or of mine. He will not hear of me in my absence from England. I
+leave the burden of this to you. He is a proud lad and will accept no
+charity. It must be your task to convince him that he has a title to
+your benevolence. Be wise and act discreetly. Our future requisitions
+will depend upon your conduct of this affair&mdash;and God help you, Maxim
+Gogol, if you fail in it."</p>
+
+<p>Something of the fanatic, almost of the madman, spoke in this vehement
+utterance. If Gessner had been utterly at a loss as yet to account for a
+request so unusual, he now began to perceive in it the instrument of his
+own humiliation. Would not this stranger be a perpetual witness to the
+hazard of his life, a son who stood also as a hostage, the living voice
+of Paul Boriskoff's authority? And what of his own daughter Anna and of
+the story he must tell her? These facts he realized clearly but had no
+answer to them. The reluctant assent, wrung from his unwilling lips, was
+the promise of a man who stood upon the brink of ruin and must answer as
+his accusers wished or pay the ultimate penalty. All his common
+masterfulness, the habit of autocracy, the anger of the bully and the
+tyrant, trembled before the clear cold eyes of this man he had wronged.
+He must answer or pay the price, humiliate himself or suffer.</p>
+
+<p class="center">*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*</p>
+
+<p>And to-night Alban Kennedy slept beneath his roof; the bargain had been
+clinched, the word spoken. Twenty thousand pounds had he paid to Paul
+Boriskoff that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> morning for the education of his daughter and in part
+satisfaction of the ancient claim. But the witness of his degradation
+had come to him and must remain.</p>
+
+<p>Aye, and there the strife of it began. When he put detectives upon the
+lad's path, had him followed from Union Street to the caves and from the
+caves to his place of employment, the report came to him that he was
+interesting himself in a callous ne'er-do-well, the friend of rogues and
+vagabonds, the companion of sluts, the despair of the firm which
+employed him. He had expected something of the kind, but the seeming
+truth dismayed him. In a second interview with Boriskoff he used all his
+best powers of argument and entreaty to effect a compromise. He would
+send the lad to the University, have him educated abroad, establish him
+in chambers&mdash;do anything, in fact, but that which the inexorable Pole
+demanded of him. This he protested with a humility quite foreign to him
+and an earnestness which revealed the depth of the indignity he
+suffered; but Boriskoff remained inflexible.</p>
+
+<p>"I am determined upon it," was the harsh retort; "the boy shall be as a
+link between us. Keep him from this hell in which he has lived and I
+will set so much to your credit. I warn you that you have a difficult
+task. Do not fail in it as you value your own safety."</p>
+
+<p>The manner of this reply left Gessner no alternative, and he sent Silas
+Geary to Whitechapel as we have seen. A less clever man, perhaps, would
+have fenced alike with the proposal and the threat; but he knew his own
+countrymen too well for that. Perhaps a hope remained that any kindness
+shown to this vagrant lad would win<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> back ultimately his ancient
+freedom. Alone in his room this night, a single light rebutting the
+darkness, he understood into what an abyss of discovery he had fallen,
+the price that must be paid, the debt that he owed to forgotten years.</p>
+
+<p>"This man is a devil," he said, "he will rob me shilling by shilling
+until I am a beggar. Good God! that it should have come to this after
+twenty years; twenty years which have achieved so much; twenty years of
+such slavery as few men have known. And I am helpless; and this beggar
+is here to remind me of my enemies, to tell me that I walk in chains and
+that their eyes are following me."</p>
+
+<p>He threw himself upon his bed dressed as he was and tried to sleep. The
+stillness of the house gave fruitful visions, magnifying all his fears
+and bringing him to an unspeakable terror of the days which must come
+after. He had many ambitions yet to achieve, great ideas which remained
+ideas, masterly projects which must bring him both fame and riches, but
+he would have abandoned them all this night if freedom had been offered
+him. Years ago, he remembered, Boriskoff, the young miner, had earned
+his hatred, he knew not why unless it were a truth that men best hate
+those who have served them best. To-night found that old hatred
+increased a thousand fold and shaping itself in schemes which he would
+not even whisper aloud. He had always been looked upon as a man of good
+courage and that courage prompted him to a hundred mad notions&mdash;to swift
+assassination or to slow intrigue&mdash;last of all to self destruction
+should his aims miscarry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> He would kill himself and cheat them after
+all. Many another in Petersburg had sacrificed his life rather than
+suffer those years of torture which discovery brought. He knew that he
+would not shrink even from the irrevocable if he were driven far enough.</p>
+
+<p>A man may take such a resolution as this and yet a great desire of life
+may remain to thwart it. Gessner found himself debating the issues more
+calmly as the night wore on, and even asking himself if the presence of
+a stranger in his house might be so intolerable as he had believed. He
+had seen little of Alban and that little had not been to the young man's
+disadvantage. If the youth were not all that report had painted him, if
+the amenities of the house should civilize him and kindness win his
+favor, then even he might be an advocate for those to whom he owed such
+favors. This new phase set Gessner thinking more hopefully than at any
+time since the beginning of it. He rose from his bed and turning on the
+lamps began to recall all that the Pole had demanded of him. The terms
+of the compact were not so very unreasonable, surely, he argued. Let
+this young Kennedy consent to remain at "Five Gables" and he, Richard
+Gessner, would answer for the rest. But would he consent to
+remain&mdash;would that wild life of the slums call him back to its freedom
+and its friendships? He knew not what to think. A great fear came to
+him, not that the lad would remain but that he would go. Had it been at
+a reasonable hour, he would have talked to him there and then, for the
+hours of that night were beyond all words intolerable. He must see
+Kennedy and convince him. In the end,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> unable to support the doubt, he
+quitted his own room, and crossed the landing, irresolute, trembling,
+hardly knowing what he did.</p>
+
+<p class="center">*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*</p>
+
+<p>It would have been about five o'clock of the morning when he entered
+Alban's room and discovered him to be still sleeping. A sound of heavy
+breathing followed by a restless movement had deceived him and he
+knocked upon the door gently, quite expecting to be answered. When no
+reply came, he ventured in as one who would not willingly pry upon
+another but is compelled thereto by curiosity. The room itself should
+have been in darkness, but Alban had deliberately drawn the heavy
+curtains back from the windows before he slept, and the wan gray light
+of dawn struck down upon his tired face as though seeking out him alone
+of all that slept in the house. A lusty figure of shapely youth, a
+handsome face which the finger of the World had touched already, these
+the light revealed. He slept upon his back, his head turned toward the
+light, his arm outstretched and almost touching the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Gessner stood very still, afraid to wake the sleeper and by him to be
+thus discovered. No good nationalist at any time, he had always admired
+that product of a hard-drinking, hard-fighting ancestry, the British
+boy; and in Alban it seemed to him that he discovered an excellent type.
+Undoubtedly the lad was both handsome and strong. For his brains, Silas
+Geary would answer, and he had given evidence of good wit in their brief
+encounter last night. Gessner drew a step nearer and asked himself again
+if the detective's reports were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> true. Was this the friend of vagabonds,
+the companion of sluts&mdash;this clean-limbed, virile fellow with the fair
+face and the flaxen curls and the head of a thinker and a sage? A judge
+of men himself, he said that the words were a lie, and then he
+remembered Boriskoff's account, the story of a father who had died to
+serve an East End Mission, and of a devoted mother worsted in her youth
+by those gathering hosts of poverty she had set out so bravely to
+combat. Could the son of such as these be all that swift espionage would
+have him? Gessner did not believe it. New hopes, as upon a great freshet
+of content, came to him to give him comfort. He had no son. Let this lad
+be the son whom he had desired so ardently. Let them live together, work
+together in a mutual affection of gratitude and knowledge. Who could
+prevail against such an alliance? What rancor of Boriskoff's would harm
+the lad he desired to be the husband of his daughter. Aye, and this was
+the supreme consolation&mdash;that if Alban would consent, he, Gessner, would
+so earn his devotion and his love that therein he might arm himself
+against all the world.</p>
+
+<p>But would he consent? How if this old habit of change asserted itself
+and took him back to the depths? Gessner breathed quickly when he
+remembered that such might be the end of it. No law could compel the
+boy, no guardian claim him. Twice already he had expressed in this house
+his contempt for the riches which should have tempted him. Gessner began
+to perceive that his fate depended upon a word. It must be "yes" or "no"
+to-morrow&mdash;and while "yes"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> would save him, the courage of a hundred men
+would not have faced the utmost possibilities of "no."</p>
+
+<p>This simple truth kept the man to the room as though therein lay all his
+hopes of salvation. At one time he was upon the point of waking Alban
+and putting the question to him. Or again, he tried to creep back to the
+landing, determined, in his own room, to suffer as best he could the
+hours of uncertainty. Distressed by irresolution he crossed to the
+window at last and breathed the cool sweet air of morning as one being a
+stranger to such a scene at such an hour. The sun had risen by this time
+and all the landscape stood revealed in its morning beams. Not yet had
+London stirred to the murmur of the coming day&mdash;no smoke rose from her
+forest of chimneys, no haze drifted above the labyrinth. Far below she
+lay, a maze of empty streets, of shuttered shops, of vast silent
+buildings&mdash;a city of silence, hiding her cares from the glory of the
+dawn, veiling her sorrow and her suffering, hushing her children to
+rest, deaf to the morning voices; rich and poor alike turning from the
+eyes of the day to Mother Sleep upon whose heart is eternal rest. Such a
+city Gessner beheld while he looked from the window, and the golden
+beams lighted his pallid face and the sweet air of day called him to
+deed and resolution. What victories he had won upon that grimy field;
+what triumphs he had known; what hours of pomp and vanity&mdash;what bitter
+anguish! And now he might rule there no longer. Detection had stalked
+out of the unknown and touched him upon the shoulder. Somewhere in that
+labyrinth his enemies were sleeping. But one human being could shield
+him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> from them, and he a lad&mdash;without home or friends, penniless and a
+wanderer.</p>
+
+<p>He drew back from the window, saying that the hours of suspense must be
+brief and that his will should prevail with this lad, at whatever
+sacrifice. Believing that his old shrewdness would help him, and that in
+Alban not only the instrument of his salvation but of his vengeance
+should be found, he would have quitted the room immediately, had not his
+eye lighted at hazard upon a rough paper, lying upon the floor by the
+bed, and a pencil which had tumbled from Alban's tired hand. Perceiving
+that the lad had been drawing, and curious beyond ordinary to know the
+subject of his picture, he picked the paper up to discover thereon a
+rude portrait which he recognized instantly for that of his daughter,
+Anna. Such a discovery, thrusting into his schemes as it did an idea
+which hitherto had escaped him, held him for an instant spellbound with
+wonder. A clever man, accustomed to arrive at conclusions swiftly, the
+complexity of his thoughts, the strife of arguments now unnerved him
+utterly. For he perceived both a great possibility and a great danger.</p>
+
+<p>He is "to marry Lois Boriskoff" was the silent reflection&mdash;"to marry the
+daughter. And this&mdash;this&mdash;good God, the man would never forgive me this!"</p>
+
+<p>The paper tumbled from his hands. Alban, turning upon his pillow, sighed
+in his sleep. A neighboring church clock struck six; there were workmen
+going down to the city which must now awake to the labors of the day.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>WHIRLWIND</h3>
+
+<p>Captain Willy Forrest admitted that he had few virtues, but he never
+charged himself with the vice of idleness. In town or out of it, his
+trim man-servant, Abel, would wake him at seven o'clock and see that he
+had a cup of tea and the morning papers by a quarter-past. Fine physical
+condition was one of the ambitions of this lithe shapely person, whose
+father had been a jockey and whose mother had not forgotten to the day
+of her death the manner in which measurements are taken upon a counter.</p>
+
+<p>Willy Forrest, by dint of perseverance, had really come to believe that
+these worthy parents never existed but in his imagination. To the world
+he was the second son of the late Sir John Forrest, Bart., whose
+first-born, supposed to be in Africa, had remained beyond the pale for
+many years. Society, which rarely questions pleasant people, took him at
+his word and opened many doors to him. In short, he was a type of
+adventurer by no means uncommon, and rarely unsuccessful when there are
+brains to back the pretensions.</p>
+
+<p>He was not a particularly evil rascal, and women found him charming.
+Possessed of a merry face, a horsey manner and a vocabulary which would
+have delighted a maker of slang dictionaries, he pushed his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> my
+everywhere, not hoping for something to turn up, but determined that his
+own cleverness should contrive that desirable arrival. When he met Anna
+Gessner at Ascot a year ago, the propitious moment seemed at hand. "The
+girl is a gambler to her very boots," he told himself, while he
+reflected that a seat upon the box of such a family coach would
+certainly make his fortune. Willy Forrest resolved to secure such a seat
+without a moment's loss of time.</p>
+
+<p>This determination taken, the ardor with which he pursued it was
+surprising. A cunning fox-like instinct led him to read Anna Gessner's
+character as few others who had known her. Believing greatly in the
+gospel of heredity, he perceived that Anna owed much to her father and
+more to her nationality. "She is selfish and passionate, a little devil
+in single harness who would be worse in double"&mdash;this was his reading of
+her; to which he added the firm resolution to put the matter to the
+proof without loss of time.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall weigh in immediately and the weights will be light," he
+thought. "She likes a bit of a flutter and I'll see that she gets it.
+There is plenty of corn in the old man's manger, and if it comes to
+bursting the bag, I will carry home the pieces. There's where I drive
+the car. She shall play and I will be her pet lamb. Great Jupiter, what a catch!"</p>
+
+<p>The result of this pretty conclusion is next to be seen in a cottage in
+Hampshire, not far removed from the racing stables of the great John
+Farrier, who, as all the world knows, is one of the most honest and the
+most famous trainers in the country. This cottage had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> Willy Forrest
+furnished (indirectly at Anna's expense) in a manner worthy of all the
+artistic catalogues. And hither would Anna come, driving over from her
+father's country-house near Basingstoke, and caring not a fig what the grooms might think of her.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Forrest is my trainer," she told the men, bidding them to be secret.</p>
+
+<p>For any other explanation they cared not at all. To run a horse in a
+great race seemed to them the highest of human achievements, and great
+was their wonder that this fragile girl should dare it. "She be a rare
+good 'un and a stayer. Derned if I don't put my last button on
+Whirlwind." This was the extent of the scandal that she caused.</p>
+
+<p>Anna motored over to "The Nest" some three weeks after Alban had been
+received at Hampstead, and found Willy Forrest anxiously waiting for her
+at the gate. She had brought with her one of those obliging dependents
+who act so cheerfully as unnecessary chaperones, and this "person" she
+left in the smart car while she entered the cottage and told the owner
+that he was forgiven. Their quarrel had been vehement and tempestuous
+while it lasted&mdash;and the Captain remembered that she had struck him with her whip.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew you'd come, Anna," he said good-humoredly while he opened the
+gate for her. "Of course, I don't bear you any grudge. Good Lord, how
+you went it last time. I might have been a hair-trunk that had let you
+down at a gate. Eh, what&mdash;do you remember it? And the old chin-pot which
+cost me twenty guineas. Why, you smashed it all to bits with your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+whip&mdash;eh, what? I've laughed till I cried every time I tried to stick it
+together again. Come right in and let's shake hands. You've got an
+oddish looking lot in the car&mdash;bought her in at the sale, I suppose&mdash;eh,
+what? Well, I'm glad to see you really."</p>
+
+<p>She looked a little downcast, he thought, but prettier than he had ever
+seen her before. It was quite early in the morning and his table had
+been set out for breakfast, with dainty old-fashioned china and a silver
+kettle singing over a lamp. Anna took her favorite arm-chair, and
+drawing it close to the table permitted him to give her a cup of tea.</p>
+
+<p>"You wanted to make a cheat of me," she said calmly enough. "Oh, yes, I
+have heard all about it. There's nothing whatever the matter with
+Whirlwind. He must win the cup&mdash;John Farrier says so. You are the person
+who does not wish him to win."</p>
+
+<p>Adventurers never blush when they are found out, and Willy Forrest was
+no exception to the rule.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there you are," he cried boisterously, "just the same old
+kettle-drum and the same old sticks. Do you think I don't know as much
+about a horse as Farrier? Good Lord, he makes me sick&mdash;I'd sooner hear a
+Salvation Army Band playing 'Jumping Jerusalem' on the trombone than old
+John Farrier talking honest. Are we running nags to pay the brokers out
+or to make a bit on our sweet little own&mdash;eh, what? Are we
+white-chokered philanthropists or wee wee baby mites on the nobbly
+nuggets? Don't you listen to him, Anna. You'll have to sell your boots
+if you follow old John."</p>
+
+<p>She stirred her tea and sipped it slowly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p><p>"You said Whirlwind was going lame on the near fore-leg, and it isn't
+true," she exclaimed upon a pause. "What was your object in telling me that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I said it before the grooms and you didn't give me a chance of blowing
+the smoke away afterwards. You say you are racing to make money and
+what's the good of hymns and milk? This horse will start at eleven to
+four on unless you're careful&mdash;where's my gold-lined shower bath then?
+Don't you see that you must put the market back&mdash;frighten the backers
+off and then step in? That's what I was trying to teach you all the
+time. Give out on the loud trumpet that the horse has gone dickey and
+leave 'em uncertain for a week whether he's running or sticking. Your
+money's on through a third party in the 'tween times and your cheeks are
+as red as roses when the flag goes down."</p>
+
+<p>"And if the horse should not win after you have cheated the people?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be some five thousand out of pocket&mdash;that's all. Now, Anna,
+don't let us have any mumble-pie between us. I'm not the dark man of the
+story-books who lures the beautiful heroine on to play, and you're not
+the wonderful Princess who breaks her old pa and marries because he's
+stony. You can't get overmuch out of the old man and you're going to
+make the rest at Tattersalls. If you listen to me, you'll make it&mdash;but
+if you don't, if you play the giddy goat with old John Farrier in the
+pulpit; well, then, the sooner you write cheques the better. That's the
+plain truth and you may take it or leave it. There are not three honest
+men racing and Willy Forrest don't join the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> trinity. We'll do as all
+the crowd does and leave 'em to take care of themselves. You make a book
+that they know how to do it. Oh, my stars, don't they&mdash;eh, what?"</p>
+
+<p>Anna did not reply immediately to this odd harangue. She knew a good
+deal about horses, but nothing whatever about the knavery of betting,
+the shoddy tricks of it and the despicable spirit in which this great
+game is often played. Something of her father's cunning, inherited and
+ineradicable, led her to condone the Captain's sporting creed and not to
+seek understanding. The man's high spirits made a sure appeal to her.
+She could not comprehend it wholly&mdash;but she had to admit that none of
+all her father's widening circle had ever appealed to her as this
+nimble-tongued adventurer, who could make her heart quicken every time
+their hands touched.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like it," she said anon, "and I don't want anything to do with
+it. You make Whirlwind win the race and nobody will be hurt. If they bet
+against the horse, what is that to me? How can I help what they
+think&mdash;and I don't care either if they are so foolish. Didn't you
+promise me that I should see him gallop this morning? I wouldn't have
+motored over otherwise. You said that there was to be a Trial&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Divine angel, we are at your feet always. Of course, there's a Trial.
+Am I so foolish as to suppose that you came over to see Willy
+Forrest&mdash;eh, what? Have I lost the funny-bone up above? Farrier is going
+to gallop the nags in half an hour's time. Your smoke-machine can take
+us up the hill and there we'll form<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> our own conclusions. You leave the
+rest to me. It will be a bright sunny morning when they put any salt on
+Willy Forrest's tail&mdash;eh, what?"</p>
+
+<p>She admitted the truth with the first smile he had seen since she
+entered the cottage. His quick bustling manner, the deference he always
+paid to her, despite his odd phrases, won upon her good humor and led
+her to open her heart to him.</p>
+
+<p>"My father is going mad," she said quietly&mdash;his startled "eh, what" not
+preventing her; "we are making our house a home for the destitute, and
+the first arrived just three weeks ago. Imagine a flaxen-haired image of
+righteousness, who draws my portrait on the covers of books and puts
+feathers in my hat. He is in love with me, Willy, and he is to be my big
+brother. Yesterday I took him to Ranalegh and heard a discourse upon the
+beauties of nature and the wonders of the air and the sky. Oh, my dear
+man&mdash;what a purgatory and what an event. We are going to sell our jewels
+presently and to live in Whitechapel. My father, I must tell you, seems
+afraid of this beautiful apparition and implores him every day not to go
+away. I know that he stops because he is inclined to make love to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Whew&mdash;so it's only 'inclined' at present?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely as you say. There appear to be two of us. I have been
+expecting a passionate declaration&mdash;but the recollections of a feathered
+beauty who once lived in a fairy palace, in a wonderland where you dine
+upon red herrings&mdash;she is my hated rival. I am more beautiful,
+observe&mdash;that is conceded, but he cannot understand me. The feathered
+hat has become my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> salvation. My great big brother can't get over
+it&mdash;and oh, the simplicity of the child, the youthful verdant
+confidence, my Willy. Don't you see that the young man thinks I am an
+angel and is wondering all the time where the wings have gone to."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha, ha&mdash;he'd better ask Paquin. Are you serious, Anna?"</p>
+
+<p>"As serious as the Lord High Executioner himself. My father has adopted
+a youth&mdash;and I have a big brother. He has consented to dwell in our
+house and to spend our savings because he believes that by so doing he
+is in some way helping me. I don't in the least want his help, but my
+father is determined that I shall have it. I am not to bestow my young
+affections upon him&mdash;nor, upon the other hand, am I to offend him. Admit
+that the situation is delightful. Pity a poor maiden in her distress."</p>
+
+<p>Willy Forrest did not like the sound of it at all.</p>
+
+<p>"The old chap must have gone dotty," he remarked presently; "they're
+often taken this way when they get to a certain age. You'll have to sit
+tight and see about it, Anna. He isn't too free with the ready as it
+is&mdash;and if you've a boy hanging about, God help you. Why don't you be
+rude to him? You know the way as well as most&mdash;eh, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm positively afraid to. Do you know, my dear man, that if this
+Perfect Angel left us, strange things would happen. My father says so,
+and I believe he speaks the truth. There is a mystery&mdash;and I hate mysteries."</p>
+
+<p>"Get hold of the feathered lady and hear what she has to say."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p><p>"Impossible but brilliant. She has gone to Germany."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, damn&mdash;then he'll be making love to you. I say, Anna, there's not
+going to be any billing and cooing or anything of that sort. I'm not
+very exacting, but the way you look at men is just prussic acid to me.
+If this kid should begin&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed drolly.</p>
+
+<p>"He is my great big brother," she said&mdash;and then jumping up&mdash;"let us go
+and see the horses. You'll be talking nonsense if we don't. And, Willy,
+I forbid you to talk nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>She turned and faced him in mock anger, and he, responding instantly,
+caught her in his arms and kissed her ardently.</p>
+
+<p>"What a pair of cherubs," he exclaimed, "what a nest of cooing doves&mdash;I
+say, Anna, I must kill that kid&mdash;or shall it be the fatted calf?
+There'll be murder done somewhere if he stops at Hampstead."</p>
+
+<p>"If it were done, then when it were done&mdash;O let me go, Willy, your arms
+are crushing me."</p>
+
+<p>He released her instantly and, snatching up a cap, set out with her to
+the downs where the horses were being stripped for the gallop. The
+morning of early summer was delightfully fragrant&mdash;a cool breeze came up
+from the sea and every breath invigorated. Old John Farrier, mounted on
+a sturdy cob, met them at the foot of a great grassy slope and
+complained that it was over late in the day for horses to gallop, but,
+as he added, "they'll have to do it at Ascot and they may as well do it
+here." A silent man, old John had once<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> accompanied Willy Forrest to a
+dinner at the Carlton which Anna gave to a little sporting circle. Then
+he uttered but one remark, seeming to think some observation necessary,
+and it fell from his lips in the pause of a social discussion. "I always
+eat sparrer-grass with my fingers," he had said, and wondered at the general hilarity.</p>
+
+<p>Old John was unusually silent upon this morning of the trial, and when
+he named the weights at which the horses would gallop, his voice sank to
+a sepulchral whisper. "The old 'oss is giving six pounds," he said, "he
+should be beat a length. If it's more, go cautious, miss, and save your
+money for another day. He hasn't been looking all I should like of him
+for a long time&mdash;that's plain truth; and when a horse isn't looking all
+I should like of him, 'go easy' say I and keep your money under the bed."</p>
+
+<p>Anna laughed at the kindly advice, and leaving the car she walked to the
+summit of the hill and there watched the horses&mdash;but three pretty specks
+they appeared&mdash;far down in the hollow. The exhilaration of the great
+open spaces, the wide unbroken grandeur of the downs, the sweetness of
+the air, the freshness of the day, brought blood to her pallid cheeks
+and a sparkle of life to her eyes. How free it all was, how
+unrestrained, how suggestive of liberty and of a boundless kingdom! And
+then upon it all the excitements of the gallop, the thunder of hoofs
+upon the soft turf, the bent figures of the jockeys, the raking strides
+of the beautiful horses&mdash;Anna no longer wondered why sport could so
+fascinate its devotees. She felt at such a moment that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> she would have
+gladly put her whole fortune upon Whirlwind.</p>
+
+<p>"He wins&mdash;he wins&mdash;he wins," she cried as the three drew near, and Willy
+Forrest, watching her with cunning eyes, said that the trap was closed
+indeed and the key in his possession. Whirlwind, a magnificent chestnut
+four-year-old, came striding up the hill as though the last furlong of
+the mile and a half he had galloped were his chief delight. He was a
+winner by a short head as they passed the post, and old John Farrier
+could not hide his satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"He's the best plucked 'un in England to-day, lady, and you may put your
+wardrobe on him after that. Be quick about it though, for there'll be no
+odds to speak of when the touts have written to-day's work in the
+newspapers. Go and telegraph your commissions now. There isn't a minute to lose."</p>
+
+<p>Willy Forrest seconded the proposal eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"I should back him for five thou," he said as they left the course
+together, "what's the good of half measures? You might as well play
+dominoes in a coffee shop. And I can always break the news to your father if you lose."</p>
+
+<p>Anna hardly knew what to say. When she consented finally to risk the
+money, she did not know that Willy Forrest was the man who laid against
+her horse, and that if she lost it would be to him.</p>
+
+<p>"The boss is good enough," he told himself, "but the near-off is dicky
+or I never saw one. She'll lose the money and the old boy will pay
+up&mdash;if I compel her to ask him. That depends on the kid. She couldn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
+help making eyes at him if her life depended on it. Well&mdash;she's going to
+marry me, and that's the long and short of it. Fancy passing a certainty
+at my time of life. Do I see it&mdash;eh, what?"</p>
+
+<p>And so they went their ways: Anna back to London to the solemn routine
+of the big house; Willy Forrest to Epsom to try, as he said, "and pick
+up the nimble with a pencil."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>ALBAN SEES LIFE</h3>
+
+<p>Alban had been five weeks at Hampstead when he met Willy Forrest for the
+first time, and was able to gratify his curiosity concerning one whom he
+believed to be Anna's lover.</p>
+
+<p>The occasion was Richard Gessner's absence in Paris upon a business of
+great urgency and the immediate appearance of the dashing captain at
+"Five Gables." True, Anna behaved with great discretion, but, none the
+less, Alban understood that this man was more to her than others, and he
+did not fail to judge him with that shrewd scrutiny even youth may command.</p>
+
+<p>Willy Forrest, to give him his due, took an instinctive liking to the
+new intruder and was not to be put off, however much his attentions were
+displeasing to Anna. A cunning foresight, added to a fecund imagination
+and a fine taste for all <i>chroniques scandaleuses</i>, led him to determine
+that Alban Kennedy might yet inherit the bulk of Gessner's fortune and
+become the plumpest of all possible pigeons. Should this be the case,
+those who had been the young man's friends in the beginning might well
+remain so to the end. He resolved instantly to cultivate an acquaintance
+so desirable, and lost not a moment in the pursuit of his aims.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear chap," he said on the third day of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> association, "you are
+positively growing grass in this place. Do you never go anywhere? Has no
+one taught you how to amuse yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>Alban replied that everything was so new to him that he desired no other
+amusement than its enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>"It was almost years since I saw a tree that was not black," he said;
+"the water used to drip through the roof of my garret, and there was a
+family in the room on the opposite side of the landing. I don't think
+you can understand what this house means to me. Perhaps I don't
+understand myself. I'm almost afraid to go to sleep at night for fear I
+should wake up in Union Street and find it all a fairy story. Mr.
+Gessner says I am to stop with them always&mdash;but he might change his mind
+and then it would be Commercial Road again&mdash;if I had the courage to go back there."</p>
+
+<p>Forrest had known evil times himself, and he could honestly appreciate the possibility.</p>
+
+<p>"Stick by the old horse while he sticks by you," was his candid advice.
+"I expect he's under a pretty stiff obligation to some of your people
+who are gone, and this is how he's paying it. You take all the corn you
+can get and put it in your nose-bag. Anna herself tells me that the old
+man is only happy while you are in the house. Play up to it, old chap,
+and grease your wheels while the can's going round."</p>
+
+<p>This very worldy advice fell upon ears strikingly deficient in
+understanding subtleties. Alban could not dislike Forrest, though he
+tried his best to do so. There was something sympathetic about the
+fellow, rogue that he was, and even shrewd men admitted his
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>fascination. When the Captain proposed that they should go down to the
+West End of London and see a little of life together, Alban consented
+gladly. New experiences set him hungering after those supposed delights
+which were made so much of in the newspapers. He reflected how very
+little he really knew of the world and its people.</p>
+
+<p>It was a day of early June when they set off in that very single
+brougham which had carried Silas Geary to Whitechapel. The Captain,
+having first ascertained the amount of money in his friend's possession,
+proposed a light lunch in the restaurant of the Savoy, and there, to do
+him justice, he was amusing enough.</p>
+
+<p>"People are all giving up houses and living in restaurants nowadays," he
+said as they sat at table. "I don't blame 'em either. Just think of the
+number of nags in those big stables, all eating their heads off and
+smoking your best cigars&mdash;eh, what? Why, I kept myself in weeds a few
+years ago&mdash;got 'em for twopence halfpenny from a butler in Curzon Street
+and never smoked better. You don't want to do that, for you can bottle
+old Bluebeard's and try 'em on the dog&mdash;eh, what? When you marry, don't
+you take a house. A man who lives in a hotel doesn't seem as though he
+were married and that's good for the filly. Look at these angels here.
+Why, half of them sold the family oak tree a generation ago, and
+Attenborough down the street will tell you what their Tiffanies are
+worth. They live in hotels because it's cheaper, and they wear French
+paste because the other is at uncle's. That's the truth, my boy, and all the world knows it."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p><p>Alban listened with an odd cynical smile upon his face, but he did not
+immediately reply. This famous hotel had seemed a cavern of all the
+wonders when first he entered it, and he would not willingly abandon his
+illusions. The beautifully dressed women, the rustling gowns, the
+chiffon, the lace, the feathers, the diamonds&mdash;might he not have thought
+that they stood for all that pomp and circumstance of life which the
+East End denounced so vehemently and the West End as persistently
+demanded? Of the inner lives of these people he knew absolutely nothing.
+And, after all, he remembered, men and women are much the same whatever the circumstance.</p>
+
+<p>"I like to be in beautiful places," he confessed in his turn, "and this
+place seems to me very beautiful. Does it really matter to us, Forrest,
+what the people do or what they are so long as they don't ask us to be
+the same? Jimmy Dale, a parson in Whitechapel, used to say that a man
+was just what his conscience made him. I don't see how the fact of
+living in or out of a hotel would matter anyway&mdash;unless you leave your
+conscience in a cab. The rest is mostly talk, and untrue at that, they
+say. You yourself know that you don't believe half of it."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear man, what would life be if one were incredulous? How would the
+newspaper proprietors buy bread and cheese, to say nothing of p&acirc;te de
+foie gras and ninety-two Pommery if the world desired the truth? This
+crowd is mostly on the brink of a precipice, and a man or a woman goes
+over every day. Then you have the law report and old Righteousness in a
+white wig,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> who has not been found out, to pronounce a judgment. I'd
+like to wager that not one in three of these people ever did an honest
+day's work in a lifetime. One half is rank idle&mdash;the other half is
+trying to live on the remainder. Work it out and pass me the wine&mdash;and
+mind you don't get setting up any images for time to knock down&mdash;eh, what?"</p>
+
+<p>Alban would not wrangle with him, and for a little while he ate in
+silence, watching the sparkling throng and listening to such scraps of
+conversation as floated to him from merry tables. Down in Union Street
+it had been the fashion to decry idleness and the crimes of the
+rich&mdash;the orators having it that leisure was criminal and ease a heinous
+sin. Alban had never believed in any such fallacy. "We are all born
+lazy," he had said, "and few of us would work unless we had to. Vanity
+is at the bottom of all that we do. If no one were vain, the world would
+stand still." In the Savoy, his arguments seemed to be justified a
+hundredfold. A sense of both content and dignity came to him. He began
+almost to believe that money could ennoble as well as satisfy.</p>
+
+<p>Willy Forrest, of course, knew nothing whatever of thoughts such as
+these. He was a past master in the art of killing time and he boasted
+that he rarely knew an "idle hour." His programme for this day seemed
+altogether beyond criticism.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll look in at the club afterwards and play a game of bridge&mdash;you can
+stand by me and see me win&mdash;or perhaps you'd like a side bet. Then we
+might turn into the park to give the girls a treat&mdash;eh, what?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>&mdash;and go
+on to the New Bridge Club to dress. After that there's the old sporting
+shanty and a bit of a mill between Neddy Tinker and Marsh Hill. You
+never saw a fight, I suppose? Man, but your education has been neglected."</p>
+
+<p>Alban smiled and admitted his deficiencies.</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen many a set-to in Commercial Road and taken a hand sometimes.
+Is it really quite necessary to my education?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely indispensable. You must do everything and be seen
+everywhere. If I had time, I'd give you the personal history of half the
+light-weights in this room. Look at that black crow in the corner there.
+He's a Jew parson from Essex&mdash;as rich as bottled beer and always stops
+here. Last time I rode a welter down his way they told me his favorite
+text was "Blessed are the poor." He's a pretty figurehead for a
+bean-feast, isn't he? That chirpy barrister next door has a practice of
+fifteen thou. The blighter once cross-examined me in a card-sharping
+case and made me look the biggest damned fool in Europe. Did I rest on
+my laurels&mdash;eh, what? Why, sir, he can't cross a race-course now without
+having his pocket picked. My doing, my immortal achievement. The little
+Countess next door used to do stunts at the <i>Nouveau Cirque</i>. Lord
+Saxe-Holt married her when he was hazy and is taming her. That old chap,
+who eats like a mule, is Lord Whippingham. He hasn't got a sixpence, and
+if you ask me how he lives&mdash;well, there are ways and means foreign to
+your young and virgin mind. The old geezer used to run after little
+Betty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> Sine at the Apollo&mdash;but she put an ice down his back at supper
+here one night and then there were partings. Some day I'll take you to
+the Blenheim and show you England's aristocracy in arm-chairs&mdash;we
+haven't time to-day and here's the coffee coming. Pay up and be thankful
+that your new pa isn't overdrawn, and has still a shekel or two in his
+milk jug. My godfather!&mdash;but you are a lucky young man, and so you are
+beginning to think, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>Alban did not condescend to answer a question so direct. He was still
+quite uncertain as to his future, and he would not discuss it with this
+irresponsible, who had undertaken to be his worldly mentor. When they
+left the Savoy it was to visit a club in Trafalgar Square and there
+discover the recumbent figures of aged gentlemen who had lunched not
+wisely but too well. Of all that he had seen in the kingdoms of money,
+Alban found this club least to his liking. The darkness of its great
+rooms, the insolence of its members toward the servants who waited upon
+them, the gross idleness, the trivial excitements of the card-room, the
+secret drinking in remote corners&mdash;he had never imagined that men of
+brains could so abase themselves, and he escaped ultimately to Hyde Park
+with a measure of thankfulness he would not conceal.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do people go to places like that, Forrest?" he asked as they went.
+"What enjoyment do they get out of them?"</p>
+
+<p>Willy Forrest, who had taken a "mahogany one" in the club and was
+getting mighty confidential, answered him as candidly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p><p>"Half of 'em go to get away from their wives, the other half to win
+money&mdash;eh, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"But why do they never speak to each other?"</p>
+
+<p>"Put two game-cocks in a pen and then ask again. It's a club, my boy,
+and so they think every other man a rogue or a fool."</p>
+
+<p>"And do they pay much for the privilege?"</p>
+
+<p>"That depends on the airs they give themselves. I've been pilled for
+half the clubs in town and so, I suppose, I'm rather a decent sort of
+chap. It used to be a kind of hall-mark to get in a good club, but we
+live at hotels nowadays and don't care a dump for them. That's why half
+of 'em are on the verge of bankruptcy. Don't you trouble about them,
+unless you get a filly that bolts. I shall have to give up clubs
+altogether, I suppose, when I marry Anna&mdash;eh, what?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed at the idea, and Alban remaining silent, he whistled a hansom
+in a way that would have done credit to a railway porter, and continued affably.</p>
+
+<p>"You knew that I was going to marry Anna, didn't you? She told you on
+the strict q.t., didn't she? Oh, my stars, how she can talk! I shall buy
+an ear-trumpet when we're in double harness. But Anna told you, now didn't she?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have only once heard her mention your name&mdash;she certainly did not
+speak of being engaged."</p>
+
+<p>"They never do when the old man bucks&mdash;eh, what? Gessner don't like me,
+and I'd poison him for a shilling. Why shouldn't I marry her? I can ride
+a horse and point a gun and throw a fly better than most. Can Old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
+Bluebeard go better&mdash;eh, what? The old pot-hook, I'd play him any game
+you like to name for a pony aside and back myself to the Day of
+Judgment. And he's the man who talks about bagging a Duke for his girl!
+Pshaw, Anna would kick the coronet downstairs in three days and the
+owner after it. You must know that for yourself&mdash;she's a little devil to
+rear and you can't touch her on the curb&mdash;eh, what, you've noticed it yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>Alban declared quite frankly that he had noticed nothing whatever. Not
+for a fortune would he have declared his heart to this man, the hopes,
+the perplexities, and the self-reproach which had attended ever these
+early weeks in wonderland. Just as Anna's shrewdness had perceived, so
+was it the truth that an image of perfect womanhood dazzled his
+imagination and left him without any clear perception whatever. For
+little Lois of the slums he had a sterling affection, begotten of long
+association and of mutual sympathy&mdash;but the vision of Anna had been the
+beatification of his love dream, so to speak, deceiving him by its
+immense promise and leading him to credit Gessner's daughter with all
+those qualities of womanhood which stood nearest to his heart's desire.
+Here was a Lois become instantly more beautiful, more refined, more
+winning. If he remained true to the little friend of his boyish years,
+his faith had been obscured for a moment by this superb apparition of a
+young girl's beauty, enshrined upon the altar of riches and endowed with
+those qualities which wealth alone could purchase. Anna, indeed, held
+him for a little while spellbound, and now he listened to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> Forrest as
+though a heresy against all women were spoken.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not know you were engaged," he said quite frankly. "Anna
+certainly has never told me. Of course, I congratulate you. She is a
+very beautiful girl, Forrest."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true, old chap. You might see her in the paddock and pick her at
+a glance&mdash;eh, what? But it's mum at present&mdash;not a whistle to the old
+man until the south wind blows. And don't you tell Anna either. She'd
+marry somebody else if she thought I was really in love with her&mdash;eh, what?"</p>
+
+<p>Alban shrugged his shoulders but had nothing to say. They had now come
+to the famous Achilles Statue in Hyde Park, and there they walked for
+half an hour amidst the showily dressed women on the lawn. Willy Forrest
+was known to many of these and everywhere appeared sure of a familiar
+welcome. The very men, who would tell you aside that he was a "wrong
+'un," nodded affably to him and sometimes stopped to ask him what was
+going to win the Oaks. He patronized a few pretty girls with
+condescending recognition and immediately afterwards would relate to
+Alban the more intimate and often scandalous stories of their families.
+At a later moment they espied Anna herself in a superb victoria drawn by
+two strawberry roans. And to their intense astonishment they perceived
+that she had the Reverend Silas Geary in the carriage by her side.</p>
+
+<p>"A clever little devil, upon my soul," said the Captain, ecstatically,
+"to cart that fire-escape round and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> show him to the crowd. She must
+have done it to annoy me&mdash;eh, what? She thinks I'm not so much an angel
+as I look and is going to make me good. Oh, my stars&mdash;let's get. I shall
+be saying the catechism if I stop here any longer."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>ALBAN REVISITS UNION STREET</h3>
+
+<p>Alban escaped from the Sporting Club at a quarter to eleven, sick of its
+fetid atmosphere and wearied by its mock brutalities. He made no
+apologies for quitting Willy Forrest&mdash;for, truth to tell, that merry
+worthy was no longer capable of understanding them. Frequent calls for
+whisky-and-soda, added to a nice taste for champagne at dinner, left the
+Captain in that maudlin condition in which a man is first cousin to all
+the world&mdash;at once garrulous and effusive and generally undesirable.
+Alban had, above all things, a contempt for a drunken man; and leaving
+Forrest to the care of others of his kind, he went out into the street
+and made his way slowly eastward.</p>
+
+<p>It was an odd thing to recall; but he had hardly set foot east of the
+Temple, he remembered, since the day when the bronze gates of Richard
+Gessner's house first closed upon him and the vision of wonderland burst
+upon his astonished eyes. The weeks had been those of unending kindness,
+of gifts showered abundantly, of promises for the future which might
+well overwhelm him by their generosity. Let him but consent to claim his
+rights, Gessner had said, and every ambition should be gratified. No
+other explanation than that of a lagging justice could he obtain&mdash;and no
+other had he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> come to desire. If he remained at Hampstead, the image of
+Anna Gessner, of a perfect womanhood as he imagined it, kept him to the
+house. He did not desire his patron's money; he began to discover how
+few were his wants and how small the satisfaction of their gratification
+could be. But the image he worshipped ever&mdash;and at its feet all other desires were forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>And now reality had come with its sacrilegious hand, warring upon the
+vision and bidding him open his eyes and see. It was easy enough to
+estimate this adventurer Willy Forrest at his true worth, less easy to
+bind the wounds imagination had received and to set the image once more
+upon its ancient pedestal. Could he longer credit Anna with those
+qualities with which his veneration had endowed her? Must there not be
+heart searchings and rude questionings, the abandonment of the dream and
+the stern corrections of truth? He knew not what to think. A voice of
+reproach asked him if he also had not forgotten. The figure of little
+Lois Boriskoff stood by him in the shadows, and he feared to speak with
+her lest she should accuse him.</p>
+
+<p>Let it be said in justice that he had written to Lois twice, and heard
+but lately that she had left Union Street and gone, none knew whither.
+His determination to do his utmost for her and her father, to bid them
+share his prosperity and command him as they would, had been strong with
+him from the first and delayed only by the amazing circumstances of his
+inheritance. He did not understand even yet that he had the right to
+remain at "Five Gables," but this right had so often been insisted upon
+that he began at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> last to believe in its reality and to accept the
+situation as a <i>chose jug&eacute;e</i>. And with the conviction, there came an
+intense longing to revisit the old scenes&mdash;who knows, it may have been
+but the promptings of a vanity after all.</p>
+
+<p>It was a great thing, indeed, to be walking there in the glare of the
+lamps and telling himself that fortune and a future awaited him, that
+the instrument of mighty deeds would be his inheritance, and that the
+years of his poverty were no more. How cringingly he had walked
+sometimes in the old days when want had shamed him and wealth looked
+down upon him with contempt. To-night he might stare the boldest in the
+face, nurse fabulous desires and know that they would be gratified, peer
+through the barred windows of the shops and say all he saw was at his
+command. A sense of might and victory attended his steps. He understood
+what men mean when they say that money is power and that it rules the world.</p>
+
+<p>He turned eastward, and walking with rapid strides made his way down the
+Strand and thence by Ludgate Circus to Aldgate and the mean streets he
+knew so well. It was nearly midnight when he arrived there, and yet he
+fell in with certain whom he knew and passed them by with a genial nod.
+His altered appearance, the black overcoat and the scarf which hid his
+dress clothes, called for many a "Gor blime" or "Strike me dead." Women
+caught his arm and wrestled with him, roughs tried to push him from the
+pavement and were amazed at his good humor. In Union Street he first met
+little red-haired Chris Denham and asked of her the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> news. She shrank
+back from him as though afraid, and answered almost in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois gone&mdash;she went three weeks ago. I thought you'd have know'd it&mdash;I
+thought you was sweet on her, Alban. And now you come here like
+that&mdash;what's happened to you, whatever have you been doing of?"</p>
+
+<p>He told her gaily that he had found new friends.</p>
+
+<p>"But I haven't forgotten the old ones, Chris, and I'm coming down to see
+you all some day soon. How's your mother&mdash;what's she doing now?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl shrugged her shoulders and the glance she turned upon him
+seemed to say that she would sooner speak on any other subject.</p>
+
+<p>"What should she be doin'&mdash;what's any of us doin' but slave our bones
+off and break our hearts. You've come to see Lois' father, haven't you?
+Oh, yes, I know how much you want to talk about my mother. The old man's
+up there in the shop&mdash;I saw him as I came by."</p>
+
+<p>Alban stood an instant irresolute. How much he would have liked to offer
+some assistance to this poor girl, to speak of real pecuniary help and
+friendship. But he knew the people too well. The utmost delicacy would be necessary.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "I'm sorry things are not better, Chris. I've had a
+good Saturday night, you see, and if I can do anything, don't you mind
+letting me know. We'll talk of it when we have more time. I'm going on
+to see Boriskoff now, and I doubt that I'll find him out of bed."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed a little wildly, still turning almost pathetic eyes upon him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p><p>"Is it true that it's all off between you and Lois&mdash;all the Court says
+it is. That's why she went away, they say&mdash;is it true, Alb, or are they
+telling lies? I can't believe it myself. You're not the sort to give a
+girl over&mdash;not one that's stood by you as well as Lois. Tell me it ain't
+true or I shall think the worse of you."</p>
+
+<p>The question staggered him and he could not instantly answer it. Was it
+true or false? Did he really love little Lois and had he still an
+intention to marry her? Alban had never looked the situation straight in
+the face until this moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I never tell secrets," he exclaimed a little lamely, and turning upon
+his heel, he shut his ears to the hard laugh which greeted him and went
+on, as a man in a dream, to old Boriskoff's garret. A lamp stood in the
+window there and the tap of a light hammer informed him that the
+indefatigable Pole was still at work. In truth, old Paul was bending
+copper tubing&mdash;for a firm which said that he had no equal at the task
+and paid him a wage which would have been despised by a crossing-sweeper.</p>
+
+<p>Alban entered the garret quietly and was a little startled by the sharp
+exclamation which greeted him. He knew nothing, of course, of the part
+this crafty Pole had played or what his own change of circumstance owed
+to him. To Alban, Paul Boriskoff was just the same mad revolutionary as
+before&mdash;at once fanatic and dreamer and, before then, the father of Lois
+who had loved him. If the old fellow had no great welcome for the young
+Englishman to-night, let that be set down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> to his sense of neglect and,
+in some measure, to his daughter's absence.</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening, Mr. Boriskoff, you are working very late to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Alban stood irresolute at the door, watching the quick movements of the
+shaggy brows and wondered what had happened to old Paul that he should
+be received so coolly. Had he known what was in the Pole's mind he would
+have as soon have jumped off London Bridge as have braved the anger of
+one who judged him so mercilessly in that hour. For Boriskoff had heard
+the stories which Hampstead had to tell, and he had said, "He will ruin
+Lois' life and I have put the power to do so in his hands."</p>
+
+<p>"The poor do not choose their hours, Alban Kennedy. Sit down, if you
+please, and talk to me. I have much to say to you."</p>
+
+<p>He did not rise from his chair, but indicated a rude seat in the corner
+by the chimney and waited until his unwilling guest had taken it. Alban
+judged that his own altered appearance and his absence from Union Street
+must be the cause of his displeasure. He could guess no other reason.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you love my daughter, Alban Kennedy?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know that I do, Paul. Have we not always been good friends? I came
+to tell you about a piece of great good fortune which has happened to me
+and to find out why Lois had not written to me. You see for yourself
+that there is a great change in me. One of the richest men in London
+considers that I have a claim, to some of his money&mdash;through some
+distant relative,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> it appears&mdash;and I am living at his house almost as
+his own son."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that why you forget your old friends so quickly?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have never forgotten them. I wrote to Lois twice."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you speak of marriage in your letters?"</p>
+
+<p>The lad's face flushed crimson. He knew that he could not tell Paul Boriskoff the truth.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not speak of marriage&mdash;why should I?" he exclaimed; "it was never
+your wish that we should speak of it until Lois is twenty-one. She will
+not be that for more than three years&mdash;why do you ask me the question to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because you have learned to love another woman."</p>
+
+<p>A dead silence fell in the room. The old man continued to tap gently
+upon the coil of tube, rapidly assuming a fantastic shape under the
+masterly touch of a trained hand. A candle flickered by him upon a crazy
+table where stood a crust of bread and a lump of coarse cheese. Not
+boastfully had he told Richard Gessner that he would accept nothing for
+himself. He was even poorer than he had been six weeks ago when he
+discovered that his old enemy was alive.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="f-132.jpg" id="f-132.jpg"></a><img src="images/f-132.jpg" width='480' height='700' alt="You love another woman, Alban Kennedy, and you have
+wished to forget my daughter." /></div>
+
+<h4>"You love another woman, Alban Kennedy, and you have
+wished to forget my daughter."</h4>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>"You love another woman, Alban Kennedy, and you have wished to forget my
+daughter. Do not say that it is not the truth, for I read it upon your
+face. You should be ashamed to come here unless you can deny it. Fortune
+has been kind to you, but how have you rewarded those for whom she has
+nothing? I say that you have forgotten them&mdash;been ashamed of them as
+they have now the right to be ashamed of you."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span></p><p>He put his hammer down and looked the lad straight in the face. Upon
+Alban's part there was an intense desire to confess everything and to
+tell his old friend of all those distressing doubts and perplexities
+which had so harassed him since he went to Hampstead. If he could have
+done so, much would have been spared him in the time to come. But he
+found it impossible to open his heart to an alien,&mdash;nor did he believe
+Paul Boriskoff capable of appreciating the emotions which now tortured him.</p>
+
+<p>"I have never been ashamed of any of my friends," he exclaimed hotly;
+"you know that it is not true, Paul Boriskoff. Where are the letters
+which I wrote to Lois? Why has she not answered them? If I had been
+ashamed, would they have been written? Cannot you understand that all
+which has happened to me has been very distracting. I have seen a new
+life&mdash;a new world, and it is not as our world. Perhaps there is no more
+happiness in it than in these courts and alleys where we have suffered
+so much. I cannot tell you truly. It is all too new to me and naturally
+I feel incapable of judging it. When I came to you to-night it was to
+speak of our old friendship. Should I have done so if I had forgotten?"</p>
+
+<p>Old Paul heard him with patience, but his anger none the less remained.
+The shaggy eyebrows were at rest now, but the eyes were never turned from Alban's face.</p>
+
+<p>"You are in love with Anna Gessner," he said quietly; "why do you not tell Lois so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell her so&mdash;it would not be true. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> will always be the
+same little Lois to me, and when she is twenty-one I will marry her."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha&mdash;when she is twenty-one. That seems a long time off to one who is
+your age. You will marry her, you say&mdash;a promise to keep her quiet while
+you make love to this fine lady who befools you. No, Alban Kennedy, I
+shall not let Lois imagine any such thing; I shall tell her the truth.
+She will choose another husband&mdash;that is my wish and she will obey it."</p>
+
+<p>"You are doing me a great injustice, Paul Boriskoff. I do not love
+Anna&mdash;perhaps for a moment I thought that I did, but I know now that I
+was deceiving myself. She is not one who is worthy of being loved. I
+believed her very different when first I went to Hampstead."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me no such thing. I am an old man and I know men's hearts. What
+shall my daughter and her rags be to you now that you have fine clothes
+upon your back? You are as the others&mdash;you have knelt down at the shrine
+of money and there you worship. This woman in her fine clothes&mdash;she is
+your idol. All your past is forgotten immediately you see her. A great
+gulf is set between you and us. Think not that I do not know, for there
+are those who bring me the story every day. You worship Anna Gessner,
+but you live in a fool's paradise, for the father will forbid you to
+marry her. I say it and I know. Be honest and speak to my daughter as I
+have spoken to you to-night."</p>
+
+<p>He raised his hammer as though he would resume his work, and Alban began
+to perceive how hopeless an argument would be with him while in such a
+mood. Not deficient in courage, the lad could not well defend<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> himself
+from so direct an attack, and he had the honesty to admit as much.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall tell Lois the truth," he said: "she will then judge me and say
+whether you are right or wrong. I came here to-night to see if I could
+help you both. You know, Paul Boriskoff, how much I wish to do so. While
+I have money, it is yours also. Have not Lois and I always been as your
+children? You cannot forbid me to act as a son should, just because I
+have come into my inheritance. Let me find you a better home and take
+you away from this dismal place. Then I shall be doing right to worship
+money. Will you not let me do so? There is nothing in life half so good
+as helping those we love&mdash;I am sure of it already, and it is only five
+weeks since I came into my inheritance. Give me the right and let me
+still call you father."</p>
+
+<p>Old Paul was much affected, but he would not let the lad see as much.
+Avoiding the question discreetly but not unkindly, he muttered, "No, no,
+I need no help. I am an old man and what happens to me does not matter."
+And then turning the subject swiftly, he asked, "Your patron, he has
+left England, has he not?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has gone to Paris, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he speak of the business that took him there?"</p>
+
+<p>"He never speaks of business to me. He has asked me once or twice about
+the poor people down here and I have tried to tell him. Such a fortune
+as his could redeem thousands of lives, Paul. I have told him that when he spoke to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Such a man will never redeem one life. All the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> money in the world will
+never buy him rest. He has eaten his harvest and the fields are bare.
+Did you mention my name to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think that I have done so yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally, you would have been a little ashamed to speak of us. It is
+very rarely that one who becomes rich remembers those who were poor with
+him. His money only teaches him to judge them. Those who were formerly
+his friends are now spendthrifts, extravagant folk who should not be
+injured by assistance. The rich man makes their poverty an excuse for
+deserting them, and he cloaks his desertion beneath lofty moral
+sentiments. You are too young to do so, but the same spirit is already
+leading you. Beware of it, Alban Kennedy, for it will lead you to destruction."</p>
+
+<p>Alban did not know how to argue with him. He resented the accusation
+hotly and yet could make no impression of resentment upon the imagined
+grievance which old Paul nursed almost affectionately. It were better,
+he thought, to hold his tongue and to let the old man continue.</p>
+
+<p>"Your patron has gone to Paris, you say? Are you sure it is to Paris?"</p>
+
+<p>"How could I be sure. I am telling you what was told to me. He is to be
+back in a few days' time. It is not to be expected that he would share
+his plans with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not&mdash;he would tell you nothing. Do you know that he is a Pole, Alban?"</p>
+
+<p>"A Pole? No! Indeed he gives it out that he was born in Germany and is
+now a naturalized British subject."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p><p>"He would do so, but he is a Pole&mdash;and because he is a Pole he tells
+you that he has gone to Paris when the truth is that he is at Berlin all the time."</p>
+
+<p>"But why should he wish to deceive me, Paul&mdash;what am I to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are one necessary to his salvation&mdash;perhaps it is by you alone that
+he will live. I could see when I first spoke to you how much you were
+astonished that I knew anything about it, but remember, every Pole in
+London knows all about his fellow-countrymen, and so it is very natural
+that I know something of Richard Gessner. You who live in his house can
+tell me more. See what a gossip I am where my own people are concerned.
+You have been living in this man's house and you can tell me all about
+it&mdash;his tastes, his books, his friends. There would be many friends coming, of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not very many, Paul, and those chiefly city men. They eat a great deal
+and talk about money. It's all money up there&mdash;the rich, the rich, the
+rich&mdash;I wonder how long I shall be able to stand it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, money's a thing most people get used to very quickly. They can
+stand a lot of it, my boy. But are there not foreigners at your
+house&mdash;men of my own country?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have never seen any&mdash;once, I think, Mr. Gessner was talking to a
+stranger in the garden and he looked like a foreigner. You don't think I
+would spy upon him Paul?"</p>
+
+<p>"That would be the work of a very ungrateful fellow. None the less, if
+there are foreigners at Hampstead&mdash;I should wish to know of it."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p><p>"You&mdash;and why?"</p>
+
+<p>"That I may save your kind friend from certain perils which I think are
+about to menace him. Yes, yes, he has been generous to you and I wish to
+reward him. He must not know&mdash;he must never hear my name in the matter,
+but should there be strangers at Hampstead let me know
+immediately&mdash;write to me if you cannot come here. Do not delay or you
+may rue it to the end of your days. Write to me, Alban, and I shall know
+how to help your friend."</p>
+
+<p>He had spoken under a spell of strong excitement, but his message
+delivered, he fell again to his old quiet manner; and having exchanged a
+few commonplaces with the astonished lad plainly intimated that he would
+be alone. Alban, surprised beyond measure, perceived in his turn that no
+amount of questioning would help him to a better understanding; and so,
+in a state of perplexity which defied expression, he said "Good night"
+and went out into the quiet street.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THERE ARE STRANGERS IN THE CAVES</h3>
+
+<p>It was some time after midnight when Alban reached Broad Street Station
+and discovered that the last train for Hampstead had left. A certain
+uneasiness as to what his new friends would think of him did not deter
+him from his sudden determination to turn westward and seek out his old
+haunts. He had warned Richard Gessner that no house would ever make a
+prisoner of him, and this quick desire for liberty now burned in his
+veins as a fever. It would be good, he thought, to sleep under the stars
+once more and to imagine himself that same Alban Kennedy who had not
+known whither to look for bread&mdash;could it be but five short weeks ago!</p>
+
+<p>The city was very still as he passed through it and, save for a
+broken-down motor omnibus with a sleepy conductor for its guardian,
+Cheapside appeared to be almost destitute of traffic. The great
+buildings, wherein men sought the gold all day, were now given over to
+watchmen and the rats, as the bodies of the seekers would one day be
+given over to the earth whence they sprang. Alban depicted a great army
+of the servants of money asleep in distant homes, and he could not but
+ask what happiness they carried there, what capacities for rest and true enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p><p>Was it true, as he had begun to believe, that the life of pleasure had
+cares of its own, hardly less supportable than those which crushed the
+poor to the very earth? Was the daily round of abundance, of lights and
+music and wine and women&mdash;was it but the basest of shams, scarce
+deceiving those who practised it? His brief experience seemed to answer
+the question in the affirmative. He wondered if he had known such an
+hour of true happiness as that which had come to him upon the last night
+he had spent in the Caves. Honesty said that he had not&mdash;and to the
+Caves he now turned as one who would search out forgotten pleasures.</p>
+
+<p>The building in St. James' Street had made great advance since last he
+saw it, but he observed to his satisfaction that the entrance to the
+subterranean passages were not absolutely closed, and he did not doubt
+that many of the old night-hawks were still in possession. His
+astonishment, therefore, was considerable when, upon dropping into the
+first of the passages, a figure sprang up and clutched him by the
+throat, while a hand thrust a lantern into his face and a pair of black
+eyes regarded him with amazed curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"A slap-up toff, so help me Jimmy! And what may your Royal Highness be
+doing this way&mdash;what brings you to this pretty parlor? Now, speak up, my
+lad, or it will go queer with you."</p>
+
+<p>Alban knew in an instant&mdash;his long experience taught him&mdash;that he had
+fallen into the hands of the police, and his first alarms were very real.</p>
+
+<p>"What right have you to question me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we'll show our right sharp enough. Now, you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> be brisk&mdash;what's your
+name and what are you doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am the son of Mr. Richard Gessner of Hampstead and I used to know
+this place. I came down to have a look at it before the building is
+finished. If you doubt me, let us go to Mr. Gessner's house together and
+he will tell you who I am."</p>
+
+<p>It was a proud thing to say and he said it with pride. That thrill of
+satisfaction which attends a fine declaration of identity came to Alban
+then as it has done to many a great man in the hour of his vanity. The
+son of Richard Gessner&mdash;yes, his patron would acknowledge him for that!
+The police themselves admitted the title by almost instant capitulation.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, it's a queer place to come to, I must say, and not very safe
+either for a gentleman in your position. Why didn't you ask one of us to
+bring you down? We'd have done it right enough, though not to-night perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you're out on business?"</p>
+
+<p>"You couldn't have guessed better, sir. We're here with the nets and
+there will be herrings to salt in the morning. If you care to wait five
+minutes, you may look into the bundle. Here's two or three of them
+coming along now and fine music they're making, I must say. Just step
+aside a minute, sir, while we give a hand. That's a woman's voice and
+she's not been to the Tabernacle. I shouldn't wonder if it was the
+flower girl that hobnobs with the parson&mdash;oh, by no means, oh dear, no."</p>
+
+<p>He raised his lantern and turned the light of it full<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> on the passage,
+disclosing a spectacle which brought a flush of warm blood to Alban's
+cheeks and filled him with a certain sense of shame he could not defend.
+For there were three of his old friends, no others than Sarah and the
+Archbishop of Bloomsbury with the boy "Betty," the latter close in the
+custody of the police who dragged him headlong, regardless of the girl's
+shrieks and the ex-clergyman's protests upon their cruelty. For an
+instant Alban was tempted to flee the place, to deny his old friends and
+to surrender to a base impulse of his pride; but a better instinct
+saving him, he intervened boldly and immediately declared himself to the astonished company.</p>
+
+<p>"These people are friends of mine," he said, to the complete
+bewilderment of the constables, "please to tell me why you are charging them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gawd Almighty&mdash;if it ain't Mr. Kennedy!"&mdash;this from the woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed," said the clergyman, with a humility foreign to him, "I am very
+glad to see you, Alban. Our friend 'Betty' here is accused of theft. I
+am convinced&mdash;I feel assured that the charge is misplaced and that you
+will be able to help us. Will you not tell these men that you know us
+and can answer for our honesty?"</p>
+
+<p>The lad "Betty" said nothing at all. His eyes were very wide open, a
+heavy hand clutched his ragged collar, and the police stood about him as
+though in possession of a convicted criminal.</p>
+
+<p>"A young lad, sir, that stole a gold match-box from a gentleman and has
+got it somewhere about him now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> Stand up, you young devil&mdash;none of your
+blarney. Where's the box now and what have you done with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I picked it up and give it to Captain Forrest&mdash;so help me Gawd, it's
+true. Arst him if I didn't."</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant laughed openly at the story.</p>
+
+<p>"He run two of our men from the National Sporting right round Covent
+Garden and back, sir," he said to Alban. "The gentleman dropped the box
+and couldn't wait. But we'll see about all that in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean Captain Forrest of the Trafalgar Club, I have just left
+him," interposed Alban, quickly; "this lad has been known to me for some
+years and I am positively sure he is not a thief. Indeed, I will answer
+for him anywhere&mdash;and if he did pick up the box, I can promise you that
+Captain Forrest will not prosecute."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to "Betty" and asked him an anxious question.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it true, Betty&mdash;did you pick up the box?"</p>
+
+<p>"I picked it up and put it into the gentleman's hand. He couldn't stand
+straight and he dropped it again. Then a cab runner found it and some
+one cried 'stop thief.' I was frightened and ran away. That's the truth,
+Mr. Alban, if I die for it&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We must search you, Betty, to satisfy the officers."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, sir&mdash;I'm quite willing to be searched."</p>
+
+<p>He turned out all his pockets there and then, was pinched and pushed and
+cuffed to no avail. The indignant Sarah shaking her clothes in the
+sergeant's face dared him to do the same for her and to take the
+consequences of his curiosity. The Archbishop obligingly offered his
+pockets, which, as he said, were open at all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> times to the inspection of
+his Majesty's authorized servants. A few words aside between Alban and
+the assembled police, the crisp rustle of a bank-note in the darkness,
+helped conviction to a final victory. There were other ferrets in that
+dark warren and bigger game to be had.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," said the sergeant, "if you'll answer for Captain
+Forrest&mdash;and he'll want a lot of answering for to-night&mdash;I'll leave the
+lad in your hands. But don't let me find any of 'em down here again, or
+it will go hard with them. Now, be off all of you, for we have work to
+do. And mind you remember what I say."</p>
+
+<p>It was a blessed release and all quitted the place without an instant's
+delay. Out in the open street, the Archbishop of Bloomsbury took Alban
+aside and congratulated him upon his good fortune.</p>
+
+<p>"So your old friend Boriskoff has found you a job?" he said, laying a
+patronizing hand on the lad's stout shoulder. "Well, well, I knew
+Richard Gessner when I was&mdash;er&mdash;hem&mdash;on duty in Kensington, and in all
+matters of public charity I certainly found him to be an example. You
+know, of course, that he is a Pole and that his real name is Maxim
+Gogol. General Kaulbars told me as much when he was visiting England
+some years ago. Your friend is a Pole who would find himself singularly
+inconvenienced if he were called upon to return to Poland. Believe me,
+how very much astonished I was to hear that you had taken up your
+residence in his house."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you heard about it&mdash;from whom?" Alban asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p><p>"Oh, 'Betty' followed you, on the day the person who calls himself
+Willy Forrest, but is really the son of a jockey named Weston, returned
+from Winchester. We were anxious about you, Alban&mdash;we questioned the
+company into which you had fallen. I may say, indeed, that our hearths
+were desolate and crape adorned our spears. We thought that you had
+forgotten us&mdash;and what is life when those who should remember prefer to forget."</p>
+
+<p>Alban answered at hazard, for he knew perfectly well what was coming.
+The boy "Betty," still frightened out of his wits, clung close to the
+skirts of the homeless Sarah and walked with her, he knew not whither. A
+drizzle of rain had begun to fall; the streets were shining as desolate
+rivers of the night&mdash;the Caves behind them stood for a house of the
+enemy which none might enter again. But Alban alone was silent&mdash;for his
+generosity had loosened the pilgrims' tongues, and they spoke as they
+went of a morrow which should give them bread.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>A STUDY IN INDIFFERENCE</h3>
+
+<p>There are many spurs to a woman's vanity, but declared indifference is
+surely the sharpest of them all. When Anna Gessner discovered that Alban
+was not willing to enroll himself in the great band of worshippers who
+knelt humbly at her golden shrine, she set about converting him with a
+haste which would have been dangerous but for its transparent
+dishonesty. In love herself, so far as such a woman could ever be in
+love at all, with the dashing and brainless jockey who managed her
+race-horses, she was quite accustomed, none the less, to add the
+passionate confessions and gold-sick protestations of others to her
+volume of amatory recollections, and it was not a little amazing that a
+mere youth should be discovered, so obstinate, so chilly and so
+indifferent as to remain insensible both to her charms and their value,
+in what her father had called "pounds sterling."</p>
+
+<p>When Alban first came to "Five Gables," his honesty amused her greatly.
+She liked to hear him speak of the good which her father's money could
+do in the slums and alleys he had left. It was a rare entertainment for
+her to be told of those "dreadful people" who sewed shirts all day and
+were frequently engaged in the same occupation when midnight came. "I
+shall call you the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> Missionary," she had said, and would sit at his feet
+while he confessed some of the wild hopes which animated him, or
+justified his desire for that great humanity of the East whose supreme
+human need was sympathy. Anna herself did not understand a word of
+it&mdash;but she liked to have those clear blue eyes fixed upon her, to hear
+the soft musical voice and to wonder when this pretty boy would speak of his love for her.</p>
+
+<p>But the weeks passed and no word of love was spoken, and the woman in
+her began to ask why this should be. She was certain as she could be
+that her beauty had dazzled the lad when first he came to "Five Gables."
+She remembered what fervid glances he had turned upon her when first
+they met, how his eyes had expressed unbounded admiration, nay worship
+such as was unknown in the circles in which she moved. If this silent
+adoration flattered her for the moment, honesty played no little part in
+its success&mdash;for though there had been lovers who looked deep into her
+heart before, the majority carried but liabilities to her feet and,
+laying them there, would gladly have exchanged them for her father's
+cheques to salve their financial wounds. In Alban she had met for the
+first time a natural English lad who had no secrets to hide from her.
+"He will worship the ground upon which I walk," she had said in the mood
+of sundry novelettes borrowed from her maid. And this, in truth, the lad
+might very well have come to do.</p>
+
+<p>But the weeks passed and Alban remained silent, and the declaration she
+had desired at first as an amusement now became a vital necessity to her
+fasting vanity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> Believing that their surroundings at Hampstead, the
+formality, the servants, the splendor of "Five Gables," forbade that
+little comedy of love for which she hungered, she went off, in her
+father's absence, to their cottage at Henley, and compelling Alban to
+follow her, she played Phyllis to his Corydon with an ardor which could
+not have been surpassed. Aping the schoolgirl, she would wear her hair
+upon her shoulders, carry her gown shortened, and bare her sleeves to
+the suns of June. The rose garden became the arbor of her delights. "You
+shall love me," she said to herself&mdash;and in the determination a passion
+wholly vain and not a little hazardous found its birth and prospered.</p>
+
+<p>For hours together now, she would compel this unconscious slave to row
+her in the silent reaches or to hide with her in backwaters to which the
+mob rarely came. Deluding him by the promise that her father was
+returning shortly from Paris and would come to Henley immediately upon
+his arrival, she led Alban to forget the days of waiting, petted him as
+though he had been her lover through the years, invited him a hundred
+times a day to say, "I love you&mdash;you shall be my wife."</p>
+
+<p>In his turn, he remained silent and amazed, tempted sorely by her
+beauty, not understanding and yet desiring to understand why he could
+not love her. True, indeed, that the image of another would intervene
+sometimes&mdash;a little figure in rags, wan and pitiful and alone; but the
+environment in which the vision of the past had moved, the slums, the
+alleys, the mean streets, these would hedge the picture about and then
+leave the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> dreamer averse and shuddering. Not there could liberty be
+found again. The world must show its fields to the wanderer when again he dared it alone.</p>
+
+<p>Alban remembered one night above all others of this strange seclusion,
+and that was a night of a woman's humiliation. There had been great
+bustle all day, the coming of oarsmen and of coaches to Henley, and all
+the aquatic renaissance which prefaces the great regatta. Their own
+cottage, lying just above the bridge with a shady garden extending to
+the water's edge, was no longer the place apart that it had been.
+Strangers now anchored a little way from their boat-house and consumed
+monstrous packets of sandwiches and the contents of abundant bottles.
+There were house-boats being tugged up and down the river, little groups
+of rowing men upon the bridge all day, the music of banjos by night, and
+lanterns glowing in the darkness. Anna watched this pretty scene as one
+who would really take a young girl's part in it. She simulated an
+interest in the rowing about which she knew nothing at all&mdash;visited the
+house-boats of such of her friends as had come down for the regatta, and
+was, in Willy Forrest's words, as "skittish as a two-year-old that had
+slipped its halter." Forrest had been to and fro from the stable near
+Winchester on several occasions. "He comes to tell me that I am about to
+lose a fortune, and I am beginning to hate him," Anna said; and on this
+occasion she enjoyed that diverting and unaccustomed recreation known as speaking the truth.</p>
+
+<p>There had been such a visit as this upon the morning of the day when
+Anna spoke intimately to Alban of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> future and her own. Her mood now
+abandoned itself utterly to her purpose. The close intimacy of these
+quiet days had brought her to the point where a real if momentary
+passion compelled her to desire this boy's love as she had never desired
+anything in all her life. To bring him to that declaration she sought so
+ardently, to feel his kisses upon her lips, to play the young lover's
+part if it were but for a day, to this folly her vanity had driven her.
+And now the opportunities for words were not denied. She had spent the
+afternoon in the backwaters up by Shiplake; there had been a little
+dinner afterwards with the old crone who served them so usefully as
+chaperone&mdash;a dependent who had eyes but did not see, ears which, as she
+herself declared, "would think scorn to listen." Amiable dame, she was
+in bed by nine o'clock, while Alban and Anna were lying in a punt at the
+water's edge, listening to the music of a distant guitar and watching
+the twinkling lights far away below the bridge where the boat-houses stand.</p>
+
+<p>A Chinese lantern suspended upon a short boat-hook cast a deep crimson
+glow upon the faces of those who might well have been young lovers. The
+river rippled musically against the square bows of their ugly but
+comfortable craft. But few passed them by and those were also seekers
+after solitude, with no eyes for their co-religionists in the amatory
+gospel. Alban, wholly fascinated by the silence and the beauty of the
+scene, lay at Anna's feet, so full of content that he did not dare to
+utter his thoughts aloud. The girl caught the tiny wavelets in her
+outstretched hand and said that Corydon had become blind.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p><p>"Do you like Willy Forrest?" she asked, "do you think he is clever,
+Alban?"&mdash;a question, the answer to which would not interest her at all
+if it did not lead to others. Alban, in his turn, husbanding the
+secrets, replied evasively:</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I think about him? He is not a friend of mine. You are the
+one to answer that, Anna. You like him&mdash;I have heard you say so."</p>
+
+<p>"Never believe what a girl says. I adore Willy Forrest because he makes
+me laugh. I am like the poor little white rabbit which is fascinated by
+the great black wriggly snake. Some day it will swallow me up&mdash;perhaps
+on Thursday&mdash;after Ascot. I wish I could tell you. Pandora seems to have
+dropped everything out of her basket except the winner of the Gold Cup.
+If Willy Forrest is right, I shall win a fortune. But, of course, he
+doesn't tell the truth any more than I do."</p>
+
+<p>Alban was silent a little while and then he asked her:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know much about him, Anna? Did you ever meet his people or anything?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"He is the son of Sir John Forrest, who died in India. His brother was
+lost at sea. What made you ask me?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed as though it had not been meant.</p>
+
+<p>"You say that he doesn't tell the truth. Suppose it were so about
+himself. He might be somebody else&mdash;not altogether the person he
+pretends to be. Would it matter if he were? I don't think so, Anna&mdash;I
+would much rather know something about a man himself than about his name."</p>
+
+<p>She sat up in the punt and rested her chin upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> the knuckles of her
+shapely hands. This kind of talk was little to her liking. She had often
+doubted Willy Forrest, but had never questioned his title to the name he bore.</p>
+
+<p>"Have they ever told you anything about us, Alban?" she continued, "did
+you ever hear any stories which I should not hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only from Captain Forrest himself; he told me that he was engaged to
+you. That was when I went to the Savoy Hotel."</p>
+
+<p>"All those weeks ago. And you never mentioned it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Was it any business of mine? What right had I to speak to you about it?"</p>
+
+<p>She flushed deeply.</p>
+
+<p>"A secret for a secret," she said. "When you first came to Hampstead, I
+thought that you liked me a little Alban. Now, I know that you do not.
+Suppose there were a reason why I let Willy Forrest say that he was
+engaged to me. Suppose some one else had been unkind when I wished him
+to be very kind to me. Would you understand then?"</p>
+
+<p>This was in the best spirit of the coquette and yet a great earnestness
+lay behind it. Posing in that romantic light, the thick red lips
+pouting, the black eyes shining as with the clear flame of a soul
+awakened, the head erect as that of a deer which has heard a sound afar,
+this passionate little actress, half Pole, half Jewess, might well have
+set a man's heart beating and brought him, suppliant, to her feet. To
+Alban there returned for a brief instant all that spirit of homage and
+of awe with which he had first beheld her on the balcony of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> house
+in St. James' Square. The cynic in him laid down his robe and stood
+before her in the garb of youth spellbound and fascinated. He dared to
+say to himself, she loves me&mdash;it is to me that these words are spoken.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot understand you, Anna," he exclaimed, tortured by some plague
+of a sudden memory, held back from a swift embrace he knew not by what
+instinct. "You say that you only let Willy Forrest call himself engaged
+to you. Don't you love him then&mdash;is it all false that you have told him?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is quite false, Alban&mdash;I do not love him as you would understand the
+meaning of the word. If he says that I am engaged to him, is it true
+because he says it? There are some men who marry women simply because
+they are persevering. Willy Forrest would be one of them if I were weak
+enough. But I do not love him&mdash;I shall never love him, Alban."</p>
+
+<p>She bent low and almost whispered the words in his ear. Her hand covered
+his fingers caressingly. His forehead touched the lace upon her robe and
+he could hear her heart beating. An impulse almost irresistible came
+upon him to take her in his arms and hold her there, and find in her
+embrace that knowledge of the perfect womanhood which had been his dream
+through the years. He knew not what held him back.</p>
+
+<p>Anna watched him with a hope that was almost as an intoxication of doubt
+and curiosity. She loved him in that moment with all a young girl's
+ardor. She believed that the whole happiness of her life lay in the
+words he was about to speak.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE INTRUDER</h3>
+
+<p>A man's voice, calling to them from the lawn, sent them instantly apart
+as though caught in some guilty confidence. Anna knew that something
+unwonted had happened and that Willy Forrest had returned.</p>
+
+<p>"What has brought him back?" she exclaimed a little wildly; and then,
+"Don't go away, Alban, I shall want you. My father would never forgive
+me if he heard of it. Of course he cannot stop here."</p>
+
+<p>Alban made no reply, but he helped her to the bank and they crossed the
+lawn together. In the light of the veranda, they recognized Forrest,
+carrying a motor cap in his hand and wearing a dust coat which almost
+touched his heels. He had evidently dined and was full of the story of his mishap.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Anna, here's a game," he began, "my old fumigator's broke down
+and I'm on the cold, cold world. Never had such a time in my life.
+Shoved the thing from Taplow and nothing but petrol to drink&mdash;eh, what,
+can't you see me? I say, Anna, you'll have to put me up to-night. There
+isn't a billiard table to let in the town, and I can't sleep on the
+grass&mdash;eh, what&mdash;you wouldn't put me out to graze, now would you?"</p>
+
+<p>He entered the dining-room with them, and they stood about the table
+while the argument was continued.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p><p>"Billy says the nag&mdash;what-d'yer-call-it's gone lame in the off
+fore-leg. She went down at the distance like a filly that's been
+hocussed. There were the two of us in the bally dust&mdash;and look at my
+fingers where I burned 'em with matches. After that a parson came along
+in a gig. I asked him if he had a whisky-and-soda aboard and he didn't
+quote the Scriptures. We couldn't get the blighter to move, and I ground
+the handle like Signor Gonedotti of Saffron Hill in the parish of High
+Holborn. You'd have laughed fit to split if you'd have been there,
+Anna&mdash;and, oh my Sammy, what a thing it is to have a thirst and to bring
+it home with you. Do I see myself before a mahogany one or do I not&mdash;eh,
+what? Do I dream, do I sleep, or is visions about? You'll put us up, of
+course, Anna? I've told Billy as much and he's shoving the car into the coach-house now."</p>
+
+<p>He stalked across the room and without waiting to be asked helped
+himself to a whisky-and-soda. Anna looked quickly at Alban as though to
+say, "You must help me in this." Twenty-four hours ago she would not
+have protested at this man's intrusion, but to-night the glamor of the
+love-dream was still upon her, the idyll of her romance echoed in her
+ears and would admit no other voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Willy," she said firmly, "you know that you cannot stop. My father
+would never forgive me. He has absolutely forbidden you the house."</p>
+
+<p>He turned round, the glass still in his hand and the soda from the
+siphon running in a fountain over the table-cloth.</p>
+
+<p>"Your father! He's in Paris, ain't he? Are we going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> to telegraph about
+it? What nonsense you are talking, Anna!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am telling you what I mean. You cannot stop here and you must go to the hotel immediately."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her quite gravely, cast an ugly glance upon Alban and instantly understood.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, so that's the game. I've tumbled into the nest and the young birds
+are at home. Say it again, Anna. You show me the door because this young
+gentleman doesn't like my company. Is it that or something else? Perhaps
+I'll take it that the old girl upstairs is going to ask me my
+intentions. The sweet little Anna Gessner of my youth has got the
+megrims and is off to Miss Bolt-up-Right to have a good cry
+together&mdash;eh, what, are you going to cry, Anna? Hang me if you wouldn't
+give the crocodiles six pounds and a beating&mdash;eh, what, six pounds and a
+beating and odds on any day."</p>
+
+<p>He approached her step by step as he spoke, while the girl's face
+blanched and her fear of him was to be read in every look and gesture.
+Alban had been but a spectator until this moment, but Anna's distress
+and the bullying tone in which she had been addressed awakened every
+combative instinct he possessed, and he thrust himself into the fray
+with a resolute determination to make an end of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Forrest," he exclaimed, "we've had about enough of this. You
+know that you can't stop here&mdash;why do you make a fuss about it? Go over
+to the hotel. There's plenty of room there&mdash;they told me so this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p><p>Forrest laughed at the invitation, but there was more than laughter in
+his voice when he replied:</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you for your good intentions, my boy. I am very much obliged to
+your worship. A top-floor attic and a marble bath. Eh, what&mdash;you want to
+put me in a garret? I'll see you the other side of Jordan first. Oh,
+come, it's a nice game, isn't it? Papa away and little Anna canoodling
+with the Whitechapel boy. Are we downhearted? No. But I ain't going, old
+pal, and that's a fact."</p>
+
+<p>He almost fell into an arm-chair and looked upon them with that bland
+air of patronage which intoxication inspires. Anna, very pale and
+frightened, was upon the point of summoning the servants; but Alban,
+wiser in his turn, forbade her to do so.</p>
+
+<p>"You go to bed, Anna," he said quietly, "Captain Forrest and I will have
+a talk. I'm sure he doesn't expect you to sit up. Eh, Forrest, don't you
+think that Anna had better go?"</p>
+
+<p>"By all means, old chap. Nothing like bed&mdash;I'm going myself in a minute
+or two. Don't you sit up, Anna. Anywhere's good enough for me. I'll
+sleep in the greenhouse&mdash;eh, what? Your gardener'll find a new specimen
+in the morning and get fits. Mind he don't prune me, though. I can't
+afford to lose much at my time of life. You go to bed, Anna, and dream
+of little Willy. He's going to make your fortune on Thursday&mdash;good old
+Lodestar, some of 'em'll feel the draught, you bet. Don't spoil your
+complexion on my account, Anna. You go to bed and keep young."</p>
+
+<p>He rambled on, half good-humoredly, wholly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>determined in his resolution
+to stay. Anna had never found him obstinate or in opposition to her will
+before, and blazing cheeks and flashing eyes expressed her resentment at an attitude so changed.</p>
+
+<p>"Alban," she said quietly, "Captain Forrest will not stay. Will you
+please see that he does not."</p>
+
+<p>She withdrew upon the words and left the two men alone. They listened
+and heard her mounting the stairs with slow steps. While Forrest was
+still disposed to treat the matter as a joke, Alban had enough
+discretion to avoid a scene if it could be avoided. He was quite calm
+and willing to forget the insult that had been offered to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not make an end of it, Forrest?" he said presently. "I'll go to the
+hotel with you&mdash;you know perfectly well that you can get a bed there.
+What's the good of playing the fool?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was never more serious in my life, old man. Here I am and here I
+stay. There's no place like home&mdash;eh, what? Why should you do stunts
+about it? What's it to do with you after all? Suppose you think you're
+master here. Then give us a whisky-and-soda for luck, my boy."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not give you a whisky-and-soda and I do not consider myself the
+master here. That has nothing to do with it. You know that Anna wishes
+you to go, and go you shall. What's to be gained by being obstinate."</p>
+
+<p>Forrest looked at him cunningly.</p>
+
+<p>"Appears that I intrude," he exclaimed with a sudden flash which
+declared his real purpose, "little Anna<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> Gessner and the boy out of
+Whitechapel making a match of it together&mdash;eh, what? Don't let's have
+any rotten nonsense, old man. You're gone on the girl and you don't want
+me here. Say so and be a man. You've played a low card on me and you
+want to see the hand out. Isn't it that? Say so and be honest if you can."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a lie," retorted Alban, quietly&mdash;and then unable to restrain
+himself he added quickly, "a groom's lie and you know it."</p>
+
+<p>Forrest, sobered in a moment by the accusation, sprang up from his chair
+as though stung by the lash of a whip.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that," he cried, "what do you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"That you are not the son of Sir John Forrest at all. Your real name is
+Weston&mdash;your father was a jockey and you were born at Royston near
+Cambridge. That's what I say. Answer it when you like&mdash;but not in this
+house, for you won't have the opportunity. There's the door and that's
+your road. Now step out before I make you."</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to the open door and drew a little nearer to his slim
+antagonist. Forrest, a smile still upon his face, stood for an instant
+irresolute&mdash;then recovering himself, he threw the glass he held as
+though it had been a ball, and the missile, striking Alban upon the
+forehead, cut him as a knife would have done.</p>
+
+<p>"You puppy, you gutter-snipe&mdash;I'll show you who I am. Wipe that off if
+you can;" and then almost shouting, he cried, "Here, Anna, come down and
+see what I've done to your little ewe lamb, come down and comfort
+him&mdash;Anna, do you hear?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p><p>He said no more, for Alban had him by the throat, leaping upon him with
+the ferocity of a wild beast and carrying him headlong to the lawn
+before the windows. Never in his life had such a paroxysm of anger
+overtaken the boy or one which mastered him so utterly. Blindly he
+struck; his blows rained upon the cowering face as though he would beat
+it out of all recognition. He knew not wholly why he thus acted if not
+upon some impulse which would avenge the wrongs good women had suffered
+at the hands of such an impostor as this. When he desisted, the man lay
+almost insensible upon the grass at his feet&mdash;and he, drawing apart,
+felt the hot tears running down his face and could not restrain them.</p>
+
+<p>For in a measure he felt that his very chivalry had been faithless to
+one who had loved him well&mdash;and in the degradation of that violent scene
+he recalled the spirit of the melancholy years, the atmosphere of the
+mean streets, and the figure of little Lois Boriskoff asking both his pity and his love.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>FATHER AND DAUGHTER</h3>
+
+<p>Richard Gessner returned to Hampstead on the Friday in Ascot week and
+upon the following morning Anna and Alban came back from Henley. They
+said little of their adventures there, save to tell of quiet days upon
+sunny waters; nor did the shrewdest questioning add one iota to the
+tale. Indeed, Gessner's habitual curiosity appeared, for the time being,
+to have deserted him, and they found him affable and good-humored almost
+to the point of wonder.</p>
+
+<p>It had been a very long time, as Anna declared, since anything of this
+kind had shed light upon the commonly gloomy atmosphere of "Five
+Gables." For weeks past Gessner had lived as a man who carried a secret
+which he dared to confess to none. Night or day made no difference to
+him. He lived apart, seeing many strangers in his study and rarely
+visiting the great bank in Lombard Street where so many fortunes lay. To
+Alban he was the same mysterious, occasionally gracious figure which had
+first welcomed him to the magnificent hospitality of his house. There
+were days when he appeared to throw all restraint aside and really to
+desire this lad's affection as though he had been his own son&mdash;other
+days when he shrank from him, afraid to speak lest he should name him
+the author of his vast <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>misfortunes. And now, as it were in an instant,
+he had cast both restraint and fear aside, put on his ancient bonhomie
+and given full rein to that natural affection of which he was very
+capable. Even the servants remarked a change so welcome and so manifest.</p>
+
+<p>Let it be written down as foreordained in the story of this unhappy
+house, that in like measure as the father recovered his self-possession,
+so, as swiftly, had the daughter journeyed to the confines of tragedy
+and learned there some of those deeper lessons which the world is ever
+ready to teach. Anna returned from Henley so greatly changed that her
+altered appearance rarely escaped remark. Defiant, reckless, almost
+hysterical, her unnatural gaiety could not cloak her anxiety nor all her
+artifice disguise it. If she had told the truth, it would have been to
+admit a position, not only of humiliation but of danger. A whim, by
+which she would have amused herself, had created a situation from which
+she could not escape. She loved Alban and had not won his love. The
+subtle antagonist against whom she played had turned her weapons
+adroitly and caught her in the deadly meshes of his fatal net. Not for
+an instant since she stood upon the lawn at Ascot and witnessed the
+defeat of her great horse Lodestar had she ceased to tell herself that
+the world pointed the finger at her and held up her name to scorn. "They
+say that I cheated them," she would tell herself and that estimate of
+the common judgment was entirely true.</p>
+
+<p>It had been a great race upon a brilliant day of summer. Alban had
+accompanied her to the enclosure and feasted his eyes upon that rainbow
+scene, so amazing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> in its beauty, so bewildering in its glow of color
+that it stood, to his untrained imagination, for the whole glory of the
+world. Of the horses or their meaning he knew nothing at all. This
+picture of radiant women, laughing, feasting, flirting at the heart of a
+natural forest; the vast concourse of spectators&mdash;the thousand hues of
+color flashing in the sunshine, the stands, the music, the royal
+procession, the superbly caparisoned horses, the State carriages&mdash;what a
+spectacle it was, how far surpassing all that he had been led to expect
+of Money and its kingdom. Let Anna move excitedly amid the throng,
+laughing with this man, changing wit with another&mdash;he was content just
+to watch the people, to reflect upon their happy lives, it may be to ask
+himself what justification they had when the children were wanting bread
+and the great hosts of the destitute lay encamped beyond the pale. Such
+philosophy, to be sure, had but a short shrift on such a day. The
+intoxication of the scene quickly ran hot in his veins and he
+surrendered to it willingly. These were hours to live, precious every
+one of them&mdash;and who would not worship the gold which brought them, who
+would not turn to it as to the lodestar of desire?</p>
+
+<p>And then the race! Anna had talked of nothing else since they set out in
+the motor to drive over to the course. Her anger against Willy Forrest
+appeared to be forgotten for the time being&mdash;he, on his part, eying
+Alban askance, but making no open complaint against him, met her in the
+paddock and repeated his assurances that Lodestar could not lose.</p>
+
+<p>"They run him down to evens, Anna," he said, "and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> precious lucky we
+were to get the price we did. There'll be some howls to-night, but
+what's that to us? Are we a philanthropic society, do we live to endow
+the multitude? Not much, by no means, oh dear, no. We live to make an
+honest bit&mdash;and we'll make it to-day if ever we did. You go easy and
+don't butt in. I've laid all that can be got at the price and the rest's
+best in your pocket. You'll want a bit for the other races&mdash;eh, what?
+You didn't come here to knit stockings, now did you, Anna?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed with him and returned to see the race. Her excitement gave
+her a superb color, heightened her natural beauty and turned many
+admiring eyes upon her. To Alban she whispered that she was going to
+make a fortune, and he watched her curiously, almost afraid for himself
+and for her. When the great thrill passed over the stands and "they're
+off" echoed almost as a sound of distant thunder, he crept closer to her
+as though to share the excitement of which she was mistress. The specks
+upon the green were nothing to him&mdash;those dots of color moving swiftly
+across the scene, how odd to think that they might bring riches or
+beggary in their train! This he knew to be the stern fact, and when men
+began to shout hoarsely, to press together and crane their necks, when
+that very torrent of sound which named the distance arose, he looked
+again at Anna and saw that she was smiling. "She has won," he said, "she will be happy to-night."</p>
+
+<p>The horses passed the post in a cluster. Alban, unaccustomed to the
+objects of a race-course, had not an eye so well trained that he could
+readily distinguish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> the colors or locate with certainty the position of
+the "pink&mdash;green sleeves&mdash;white cap"&mdash;the racing jacket of "Count
+Donato," as Anna was known to the Jockey Club. He could make out nothing
+more than a kaleidoscope of color changing swiftly upon a verdant arena,
+this and an unbroken line of people stretching away to the very confines
+of the woodlands and a rampart wall of stands and boxes and tents. For
+him there were no niceties of effort and of counter-effort. The jockeys
+appeared to be so many little monkeys clinging to the necks of wild
+chargers who rolled in their distress as though to shake off the imps
+tormenting them. The roar of voices affrighted him&mdash;he could not
+understand that lust of gain which provoked the mad outcry, the sudden
+forgetfulness of self and dignity and environment, the absolute
+surrender to the desire of victory. Nor was the succeeding silence less
+mysterious. It came as the hush in an interval of tempests. The crowd
+drew back from the railings and moved about as quietly as though nothing
+of any consequence had happened. Anna herself, smiling still, stood just
+where she was; but her back was now toward the winning-post and she
+seemed to have forgotten its existence.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," she said very slowly, "my horse has lost."</p>
+
+<p>"What does that mean?" Alban asked with real earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed again, looking about her a little wildly as though to read
+something of the story upon other faces.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p><p>"What does it mean&mdash;oh, lots of things. I wonder if we could get a cup
+of tea, Alban&mdash;I think I should like one."</p>
+
+<p>He said that he would see and led her across the enclosure toward the
+marquee. As they went a sybilant sound of hissing arose. The "Alright"
+had come from the weighing-in room and the people were hissing the
+winner. Presently, from the far side of the course, a louder outcry
+could be heard. That which the men in the gray frock-coats were telling
+each other in whispers was being told also by the mob in stentorian
+tones. "The horse was pulled off his feet," said the knowing ones; "they
+ought to warn the whole crowd off."</p>
+
+<p>Anna heard these cries and began dimly to understand them. She knew that
+Willy Forrest had done this in return for the slight she had put upon
+him at Henley. He had named his own jockey for the race and chosen one
+who had little reputation to lose. Between them they would have reason
+to remember the Royal Hunt Cup for many a day. Their gains could have
+been little short of thirty thousand pounds&mdash;and of this sum, Anna owed
+them nearly five thousand.</p>
+
+<p>She heard the people's cries and the sounds affrighted her. Not an
+Englishwoman, none the less she had a good sense of personal honor, and
+her pride was wounded, not only because of this affront but that a
+strange people should put it upon her. Had it been any individual
+accusation, she would have faced it gladly&mdash;but this intangible judgment
+of the multitude, the whispering all about her, the sidelong glances of
+the men and the open contempt of the women, these she could not meet.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p><p>"Let us go back to the bungalow to tea," she exclaimed suddenly, as
+though it were but a whim of the moment; "this place makes my head ache.
+Let us start now and avoid the crush. Don't you think it would be a great idea, Alban?"</p>
+
+<p>He said that it would be&mdash;but chancing to look at her while she spoke,
+he perceived the tears gathering in her eyes and knew that she had
+suffered a great misfortune.</p>
+
+<p class="center">*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*</p>
+
+<p>Richard Gessner knew nothing of Anna's racing escapades, nor had he any
+friend who made it his business to betray them. The day was rare when he
+made an inquiry concerning her amusements or the manner of them. Women
+were in his eyes just so many agreeable decorations for the tables at
+which men dined. Of their mental capacity he had no opinion whatever,
+and it was a common jest for him to declare their brain power
+consistently inferior to that of the male animal.</p>
+
+<p>"There has been no woman financial genius since the world began," he
+would observe, and if those who contradicted him named the arts, he
+waved them aside. "What is art when finance is before us?" That Anna
+should amuse herself was well and proper. He wished her to marry well
+that he might have spoken of "my daughter, Lady Anna"&mdash;not with pride as
+most men would speak, but ironically as one far above such petty titles
+and able from his high place to deride them.</p>
+
+<p>Of her daily life, it must be confessed that he knew very little. A
+succession of worthy if incompetent dependants acted the chaperones part
+for him and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>satisfied his conscience upon that score. He heard of her
+at this social function or at that, and was glad that she should go. Men
+would say, "There's a catch for you&mdash;old Gessner's daughter; he must be
+worth a million if he's worth a penny." Her culpable predisposition
+toward that pleasant and smooth-tongued rascal, Willy Forrest, annoyed
+him for the time being but was soon forgotten. He believed that the man
+would not dare to carry pursuit farther, and if he did, the remedy must be drastic.</p>
+
+<p>"I will buy up his debts and send him through the Court," Gessner said.
+"If that does not do, we must find out his past and see where we can
+have him. My daughter may not marry as I wish, but if she marries a
+jockey, I have done with her." And this at hazard, though he had not the
+remotest idea who Forrest really was and had not taken the trouble to
+find out. When the man ceased to visit "Five Gables" he forgot him
+immediately. He was the very last person in all London whom he suspected
+when Anna, upon the day following his return from Paris, asked that they
+might have a little talk together and named the half-hour immediately
+before dinner for that purpose. He received her in his study, whither
+Fellows had already carried him a glass of sherry and bitters, and being
+in the best of good humor, he frankly confessed his pleasure that she
+should so appeal to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, Anna, come in, my dear. What's the matter now&mdash;been getting
+into mischief? Oh, you girls&mdash;always the same story, a man or a
+milliner, and the poor old father to get you out of it. What is it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> this
+time&mdash;Paquin or Worth? Don't mind me, Anna. I can always live in a
+cottage on a pound a week. The doctor says I should be the better for
+it. Perhaps I should. Half the complaints we suffer from are just 'too
+much.' Think that over and add it up. You look very pale, my girl.
+You're not ill, are you?"</p>
+
+<p>The sudden change of tone occurred as Anna advanced into the light and
+seated herself in the bow-window overlooking the rose garden. She wore a
+delicate skirt of pink satin below a superb gown of chiffon and real
+lace. A single pink rose decorated her fine black hair which she had
+coiled upon her neck to betray a shapely contour of dazzlingly white
+skin beneath it. Her jewels were few but remarkable. The pearls about
+her neck had been called bronze in tint and were perfect in their shape.
+She carried a diamond bracelet upon her right arm, and its glitter
+flashed about her as a radiant spirit of the riches whose emblems she
+wore. The pallor of her face was in keeping with the picture. The wild
+black eyes seemed alight with all the fires of tragedy unconfessed.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not ill, father," she said, "but there is something about which I
+must speak to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, Anna&mdash;of course. And this is neither Paquin nor Worth, it
+appears. Oh, you little rogue. To come to me like this&mdash;to come to your
+poor old father and bring him a son-in-law for dinner. Ha, ha,&mdash;I'll
+remember that&mdash;a son-in-law to dinner. Well, I sha'n't eat him, Anna, if
+he's all right. It wouldn't be Alban Kennedy now?"</p>
+
+<p>He became serious in an instant, putting the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>question as though his
+favor depended upon her answer in the negative. Anna, however, quite
+ignored the suggestion when she replied.</p>
+
+<p>"I came to speak to you about Ascot, father&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"About Ascot&mdash;who's Ascot?"</p>
+
+<p>"The races at Ascot. I ran a horse there and lost five thousand pounds."</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;you lost&mdash;come, Anna, my dear child&mdash;you lost&mdash;think of it
+again&mdash;you lost fifty pounds? And who the devil took you there, I want
+to know&mdash;who's been playing the fool? I don't agree with young girls
+betting. I'll have none of that sort of thing in this house. Just tell
+him so&mdash;whoever he is. I'll have none of it, and if it's that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He broke off at the words, arrested in his banter by the sudden memory
+of a name. As in a flash he perceived the truth. The man Forrest was at the bottom of this.</p>
+
+<p>"Now be plain with me," he cried, "you've seen Willy Forrest again and
+this is his doing. Yes or no, Anna? Don't you tell me a lie. It's
+Forrest&mdash;he took you to Ascot?"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled at his anger.</p>
+
+<p>"I ran a horse named Lodestar under the name of Count Donato. I believed
+that he would win and he lost. That's the story, father. Why drag any names into it?"</p>
+
+<p>He regarded her, too amazed to speak. His daughter, this bit of a
+schoolgirl as he persisted in calling her, she had run a race-horse in
+her own name? What a thing to hear! But was it an evil thing. The girl
+had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> plenty of courage certainly. Very few would have had the pluck to
+do it at all. Of course it was unlucky that she had not won&mdash;but, after
+all, that could soon be put straight.</p>
+
+<p>"You ran a race-horse&mdash;but who trained it for you? where did you keep
+it? Why did I know nothing about it? Look here, Anna, this isn't dealing
+very fair with me. I have never denied you any pleasure&mdash;you know I
+haven't. If you wanted to play this game, why couldn't you have come to
+me and told me so? I wouldn't have denied you&mdash;but five thousand; you're
+not serious about that&mdash;you don't mean to say that you lost five thousand pounds?"</p>
+
+<p>"I lost five thousand pounds, father&mdash;and I must pay the money. They
+will call me a cheat if I do not. It must be paid on Monday&mdash;Willy says so&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He turned upon her with a shout that was almost a roar. She knew in an
+instant how foolish she had been.</p>
+
+<p>"Willy Forrest&mdash;did you lose the money to him? Come, speak out. I shall
+get at the truth somehow&mdash;did you lose the money to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I lost it through him&mdash;he made the bets for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I will not pay a penny of it if it sends you to prison. Not a
+penny as I'm a living man."</p>
+
+<p>She heard him calmly and delivered her answer as calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall marry him if you do not," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Gessner stood quite still and watched her face closely. It had grown
+hard and cold, the face of a woman who has taken a resolution and will
+not be turned from it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p><p>"You will marry Forrest?" he asked quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall marry him and he will pay my debts."</p>
+
+<p>"He&mdash;he hasn't got two brass pieces to rub together. He's a needy
+out-at-elbow adventurer. Do you want to know who William Forrest
+is&mdash;well, my detectives shall tell me in the morning. I'll find out all
+about him for you. And you'd marry him! Well, my lady, there you'll do
+as you please. I've done with a daughter who tells me that to my face.
+Go and marry him. Live in a kennel. But don't come to me for a bone,
+don't think I'm to be talked over, because that's not my habit. If you
+choose such a man as that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not choose him. There are few I would not sooner marry. I am
+thinking of my good name&mdash;of our good name. If I marry Willy Forrest,
+they will say that I helped to cheat the public. Do you not know that it
+is being said already. The horse was pulled&mdash;I believe that I am not to
+be allowed to race again. Poor Mr. Farrier is terribly upset. They say
+that we were all cheats together. What can I do, father? If I pay the
+money and they know that we lost it, that is a good answer to them. If I
+do not, Willy is probably the one man who can put matters straight and I shall marry him."</p>
+
+<p>She rose as though this was the end of the argument. Her words, lightly
+spoken, were so transparently honest that the shrewd man of business
+summed up the whole situation in an instant. The mere possibility that
+his name should be mixed up with a racing scandal staggered him by its
+dangers and its absurdity. Anger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> against his daughter became in some
+measure compassion. Of course she was but a woman and a clever charlatan had entrapped her.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down&mdash;sit down," he said bluffly, motioning her back to her seat.
+"It is perfectly clear that this William Forrest of yours is a rogue,
+and as a rogue we must treat him. I am astonished at what you tell me.
+It is a piece of nonsense, women's sense as ridiculous as the silly
+business which is responsible for it. Of course you must pay them the
+money. I will do the rest, Anna. I have friends who will quickly put
+that matter straight&mdash;and if your rogue finds his way to a race-course
+again, he is a very lucky man. Now sit down and let me speak to you in
+my turn, Anna. I want you to speak about Alban&mdash;I want to hear how you
+like him. He has now been with us long enough for us to know something
+about him. Let us see if your opinion agrees with mine."</p>
+
+<p>His keen scrutiny detected a flush upon her face while he asked the
+question and he understood that all he had suspected had been nothing
+but the truth. Anna had come to love this open-minded lad who had been
+forced upon them by such an odd train of circumstances; her threats
+concerning Willy Forrest were the merest bravado. Gessner would have
+trembled at the knowledge a week ago, but to-night it found him
+singularly complacent. He listened to Anna's response with the air of a
+light-hearted judge who condemned a guilty prisoner out of her own mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Alban Kennedy has many good qualities," she said. "I think he is very
+worthy of your generosity."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p><p>"Ah, you like him, I perceive. Let us suppose, Anna, that my intentions
+toward him were to go beyond anything I had imagined&mdash;suppose, being no
+longer under any compulsion in the matter, the compulsion of an
+imaginary obligation which does not exist, I were still to consider him
+as my own son. Would you be surprised then at my conduct?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would not surprise me," she said. "You have always wished for a son.
+Alban is the most original boy of his age I have ever met. He is clever
+and absurdly honest. I don't think you would regret any kindness you may show to him."</p>
+
+<p>"And you yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"What have I to do with it, father?"</p>
+
+<p>"It might concern you very closely, Anna."</p>
+
+<p>"In what way, father?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the only way which would concern a woman. Suppose that I thought of
+him as your husband?"</p>
+
+<p>She flushed crimson.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you spoken to him on the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but being about to speak to him&mdash;after dinner to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"I should defer my opinion until that has happened."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed as though the idea of it amused him very much.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, he will have nothing to do with us, Anna. What is a fortune
+to such a fine fellow? What is a great house&mdash;and I say it&mdash;a very
+beautiful wife? Of course, he will refuse us. Any boy would do that,
+especially one who has been brought up in Union Street. Now go and look
+for him in the garden. I must tell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> Geary to have that cheque drawn
+out&mdash;and mind you, if I meet that fellow Forrest, I will half kill him
+just to show my good opinion of him. This nonsense must end to-night.
+Remember, it is a promise to me."</p>
+
+<p>She shrugged her shoulders and left the room with slow steps. Gessner,
+still smiling, turned up a lamp by his writing-table and took out his cheque-book.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>FATE IRONICAL</h3>
+
+<p>They were a merry party at the dinner-table, and the Reverend Silas
+Geary amused them greatly by his discussion of that absorbing topic, is
+golf worth playing? He himself, good man, deplored the fact that several
+worthy persons who, otherwise, would have been working ten or twelve
+hours a day as Cabinet ministers, deliberately toiled in the sloughs and
+pits of the golf course.</p>
+
+<p>"The whole nation is chasing a little ball," he said; "we deplore the
+advance of Germany, but, I would ask you, how does the German spend his
+day, what are his needs, where do his amusements lie? There is a country
+for you&mdash;every man a soldier, every worker an intellect. In England
+nowadays our young fellows seem to try and find out how little they can
+do. We live for minimums. We are only happy when we have struck a bat
+with a ball and it has gone far. We reserve our greatest honors for
+those who thus excel."</p>
+
+<p>Alban ventured to say that beer seemed to be the recreation of the
+average German and insolence his amusement. He confessed that the
+Germans beat his own people by hard work; but he asked, is it really a
+good thing that work should be the beginning and the end of all things?
+He had been taught at school that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> the supreme beauty of life lay in
+things apart and chiefly in a man's own soul. To which Gessner himself
+retorted that a woman's soul was what the writer probably meant.</p>
+
+<p>"We have let civilization make us what we are," the banker said
+shrewdly, "and now we complain of her handiwork. Write what you like
+about it, money and love are the only two things left in the world
+to-day. The story has always been the same, but people did not read it
+so often formerly. There have always been ambition, strife, struggle,
+suffering&mdash;why should the historians trouble to tell of them? You
+yourself, Alban, would be a worker if the opportunity came to you. I
+have foreseen that from the first moment I met you. If you were
+interested, you would outdo the Germans and beat them both with your
+head and your hands. But it will be very difficult to interest you. You
+would need some great stimulus, and in your case it would be ambition
+rather than its rewards."</p>
+
+<p>Alban replied that a love of power was probably the strongest influence in the world.</p>
+
+<p>"We all hate work," he said, repeating his favorite dictum, "I don't
+suppose there is one man in a thousand who would do another day's work
+unless he were compelled. The success of Socialism in our time is the
+belief that it will glorify idleness and make it real. The agitators
+themselves never work. They have learned the rich men's secret&mdash;I have
+heard them preaching the dignity of labor a hundred times, but I never
+yet saw one wheeling a barrow. The poor fellows who listen to them think
+that you have only got to pass a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> few acts of Parliament to be happy
+forever after. I pity them, but how are you to teach them that the
+present state of things is just&mdash;and if it is not just, why should you wish it to last?"</p>
+
+<p>Gessner could answer that. A rich man himself, all that concerned the
+new doctrines was of the profoundest interest to him.</p>
+
+<p>"The present state of things is the only state of things&mdash;in the bulk,"
+he said; "it is as old as the world and will go on as long as the world.
+We grumble at our rich men, but those who have amassed their own
+fortunes are properly the nation's bankers. Consider what a sudden gift
+of money would mean to the working-men of England to-day&mdash;drunkenness,
+crime, debauchery. You can legislate to improve the conditions of their
+lives, but to give them creative brains is beyond all legislation. And I
+will tell you this&mdash;that once you have passed any considerable
+socialistic legislation for this kingdom of Great Britain, you have
+decided her destiny. She will in twenty years be in the position of
+Holland&mdash;a country that was but never will be again."</p>
+
+<p>No one disputed the proposition, for no one thoroughly understood it.
+Alban had not the courage to debate his pet theorems at such a time, and
+the parson was too intent upon denouncing the national want of
+seriousness to enter upon such abstruse questions as the banker would
+willingly have discussed. So they fell back upon athletics again, and
+were busy with football and cricket until the time came for Anna to
+withdraw and leave them to their cigars. Silas Geary, quickly imitating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+her, waited but for a glass of port before he made his excuses and
+departed, as he said, upon a "parochial necessity."</p>
+
+<p>"We will go to the Winter Garden," Gessner said to Alban when they were
+alone&mdash;"I will see that Fellows takes our coffee there. Bring some
+cigarettes, Alban&mdash;I wish to have a little private talk with you."</p>
+
+<p>Alban assented willingly, for he was glad of this opportunity to say
+much that he had desired to say for some days past. The night had turned
+very hot and close, but the glass roof of the Winter Garden stood open
+and they sat there almost as in the open air, the great palms and shrubs
+all about them and many lights glowing cunningly amid the giant leaves.
+As earlier in the evening, so now Gessner was in the best of spirits,
+laughing at every trivial circumstance and compelling his guest to see
+how kindly was his desposition toward him.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall be comfortable here," he said, "and far enough away from the
+port wine to save me self-reproach to-morrow. I see that you drink
+little, Alban. It is wise&mdash;all those who have the gout will speak of
+your wisdom. We drink because the wine is there, not because we want it.
+And then in the morning, we say, how foolish. Come now, light another
+cigarette and listen to me. I have great things to talk about, great
+questions to ask you. You must listen patiently, for this concerns your
+happiness&mdash;as closely perhaps as anything will concern it as long as you live."</p>
+
+<p>He did not continue immediately, seeing the footman at his elbow with
+the coffee. Alban, upon his part,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> lighted a cigarette as he had been
+commanded, and waited patiently. He thought that he knew what was coming
+and yet was afraid of the thought. Anna's sudden passion for him had
+been too patent to all the world that he should lightly escape its
+consequences. Indeed, he had never waited for any one to speak with the
+anxiety which attended this interval of service. He thought that the
+footman would never leave them alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said Gessner at last, "now that those fellows are gone we can
+make ourselves comfortable. I shall be very plain, my lad&mdash;I shall not
+deceive you again. When you first came to my house, I did not tell you
+the truth&mdash;I am going to tell it to you to-night, for it is only right
+that you should know it."</p>
+
+<p>He stirred his coffee vigorously and puffed at his cigar until it glowed
+red again. When he resumed he spoke in brief decisive sentences as
+though forbidding question or contradiction until he had finished.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a fellow-countryman of mine&mdash;you know him and know his
+daughter. He believes that I am under some obligation to him and I do
+not contradict him. When we met in London, many years after the business
+transaction of which he complains, I asked him in what way I could be of
+service to him or to his family, as the case might be. He answered that
+he wanted nothing for himself, but that any favor I might be disposed to
+show should be toward his daughter and to you. I took it that you were
+in love with the girl and would marry her. That was what I was given to
+believe. At the same time, this fellow Boriskoff <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>assured me that you
+were well educated, of a singularly independent character, and well
+worthy of being received into this house. I will not deny that the
+fellow made very much of this request, and that it was put to me with
+certain alternatives which I considered impertinent. You, however, had
+no part in that. You came here because the whole truth was not told to
+you&mdash;and you remained because my daughter wished it. There I do not fear
+contradiction. You know yourself that it is true and will not contradict
+me. As the time went on, I perceived that you had established a claim to
+my generosity such as did not exist when first you came here&mdash;the claim
+of my affection and of my daughter's. This, I will confess, has given me
+more pleasure than anything which has happened here for a long time. I
+have no son and I take it as the beneficent work of Providence that one
+should be sent to me as you were sent. My daughter would possibly have
+married a scoundrel if the circumstances had been otherwise. So, you
+see, that while you are now established here by right of our affection,
+I am rewarded twofold for anything I may have done for you. Henceforth
+this happy state of things must become still happier. I have spoken to
+Anna to-night, and I should be very foolish if I could not construe her
+answer rightly. She loves you, my lad, and will take you for her
+husband. It remains for you to say that your happiness shall not be
+delayed any longer than may be reasonable."</p>
+
+<p>It need scarcely be said with what surprise Alban listened to this
+lengthy recital. Some part of the truth had already been made known to
+him&mdash;but this fuller<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> account could not but flatter his vanity while it
+left him silent in his amazement and perplexity. Richard Gessner, he
+understood, had always desired a brilliant match for Anna, and had
+sought an alliance with some of the foremost English families. If he
+abandoned these ambitions, a shrewd belief in the impossibility lay at
+the root of his determination. Anna would never marry as he wished. Her
+birthright and her Eastern blood forbade it. She would be the child of
+whim and of passion always, and it lay upon him to avert the greater
+evil by the lesser. Alban in a vague way understood this, but of his own
+case he could make little. What a world of ease and luxury and delight
+these few simple words opened up to him. He had but to say "yes" to
+become the ultimate master of this man's fortune, the possessor of a
+heritage which would have been considered fabulous but fifty years ago.
+And yet he would not say "yes." It was as though some unknown power
+restrained him, almost as though his own brain tricked him. Of Anna's
+sudden passion for him he had no doubt whatever. She was ready and
+willing to yield her whole self to him and would, it might be, make him
+a devoted wife. None the less, the temptation found him vacillating and
+incapable even of a clear decision. Some voice of the past called to him
+and would not be silenced. Maladroitly, he gave no direct reply, but
+answered the question by another.</p>
+
+<p>"Did Paul Boriskoff tell you that I was about to marry his daughter, Mr. Gessner?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear lad, what Paul Boriskoff said or did can be of little interest
+to you or me to-night. He is no longer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> in England, let me tell you. He
+left for Poland three days ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you saw him or heard from him before he left?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. The less one sees or hears from that kind of person the
+better. You know the fellow and will understand me. He is a firebrand we
+can well do without. I recommended him to go to Poland and he has gone.
+His daughter, I understand, is being educated at Warsaw. Let me advise
+you to forget such acquaintances&mdash;they are no longer of any concern to either of us."</p>
+
+<p>He waved his hand as though to dismiss the subject finally; but his
+words left Alban strangely ill at ease.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Paul is a fanatic," he said presently, "but a very kindly one. I
+think he is very selfish where his daughter is concerned, but he loves
+his country and is quite honest in his opinions. From what I have heard
+in Union Street, he is very unwise to go back to Poland. The Russian
+authorities must be perfectly well aware what he has done in London, and
+are not likely to forget it. Yes, indeed, I am sorry that he has been so foolish."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke as one who regretted sincerely the indiscretions of a friend
+and would have saved him from them. Gessner, upon his side, desired as
+little talk of the Boriskoffs as might be. If he had told the truth, he
+knew that Alban Kennedy would walk out of his house never to return. For
+it had been his own accomplices who had persuaded old Paul to return to
+Poland&mdash;and the Russian police were waiting for him across the frontier.
+Any hour might bring the news of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> arrest. The poor fanatic who
+babbled threats would be under lock and key before many hours had
+passed, on his way to Saghalin perhaps&mdash;and his daughter might starve if
+she were obstinate enough. All this was in Gessner's mind, but he said
+nothing of it. His quick perception set a finger upon Alban's difficulty
+and instantly grappled with it.</p>
+
+<p>"We must do what we can for the old fellow," he said lightly, "I am
+already paying for the daughter's education and will see to her future.
+You would be wise, Alban, to cut all those connections finally. I want
+you to take a good place in the world. You have a fine talent, and when
+you come into my business, as I propose that you shall do, you will get
+a training you could not better in Europe. Believe me, a financier's
+position is more influential in its way than that of kings. Here am I
+living in this quiet way, rarely seen by anybody, following my own
+simple pleasures just as a country gentleman might do, and yet I have
+but to send a telegram over the wires to make thousands rich or to ruin
+them. You will inherit my influence as you will inherit my fortune. When
+you are Anna's husband, you must be my right hand, acting for me,
+speaking for me, learning to think for me. This I foresee and
+welcome&mdash;this is what I offer you to-night. Now go to Anna and speak to
+her for yourself. She is waiting for you in the drawing-room and you
+must not tease her. Go to her, my dear boy, and say that which I know she wishes to hear."</p>
+
+<p>He did not doubt the issue&mdash;who would have done? Standing there with his
+hand upon Alban's shoulder, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> believed that he had found a son and
+saved his daughter from the peril of her heritage.</p>
+
+<p>So is Fate ironical. For as they talked, Fellows appeared in the garden
+and announced the Russian, who carried to Hampstead tidings of a failure
+disastrous beyond any in the eventful story of this man's life.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PLOT HAS FAILED</h3>
+
+<p>The Russian appeared to be a young man, some thirty years of age
+perhaps. His dress was after the French fashion. He wore a shirt with a
+soft embroidered front and a tousled black cravat which added a shade of
+pallor to his unusually pale face. When he spoke in the German tongue,
+his voice had a pleasant musical ring, even while it narrated the story
+of his friend's misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>"We have failed, mein Heir," he said, "I come to you with grievous news.
+We have failed and there is not an hour to lose."</p>
+
+<p>Gessner heard him with that self-mastery to which his whole life had
+trained him. Betraying no sign of emotion whatever, he pulled a chair
+toward the light and invited the stranger to take it.</p>
+
+<p>"This is my young kinsman," he said, introducing Alban who still
+lingered in the garden; "you have heard of him, Count." And then to
+Alban, "Let me present you to my very old friend, Count Zamoyaki. He is
+a cavalry soldier, Alban, and there is no finer rider in Europe."</p>
+
+<p>Alban took the outstretched hand and, having exchanged a word with the
+stranger, would have left the place instantly. This, however, Count
+Zamoyski <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>himself forbade. Speaking rapidly to Gessner in the German
+tongue, he turned to the lad presently and asked him to remain.</p>
+
+<p>"Young heads are wise heads sometimes," he said in excellent English,
+"you may be able to help us, Mr. Kennedy. Please wait until we have
+discussed the matter a little more fully."</p>
+
+<p>To this the banker assented by a single inclination of his head.</p>
+
+<p>"As you say, Count&mdash;we shall know presently. Please tell me the story from the beginning."</p>
+
+<p>The Count lighted a cigarette, and sinking down into the depths of a
+monstrous arm-chair, he began to speak in smooth low tones&mdash;a tragedy
+told almost in whispers; for thus complacently, as the great Frenchman
+has reminded us, do we bear the misfortunes of our neighbors.</p>
+
+<p>"I bring news both of failure and of success," he began, "but the
+failure is of greater moment to us. Your instructions to my Government,
+that the Boriskoffs, father and daughter, were an embarrassment to you
+which must be removed, have been faithfully interpreted and acted upon
+immediately. The father was arrested at Alexandrovf Station, as I
+promised that he should be&mdash;the police have visited the school in Warsaw
+where the daughter was supposed to reside&mdash;this also as I promised
+you&mdash;but their mission has been in vain. So you see that while Paul
+Boriskoff is now in the old prison at Petersburg, the daughter is heaven
+knows where, which I may say is nowhere for our purpose. That we did not
+complete the affair is our misfortune. The girl, we are convinced, is
+still in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> Warsaw, but her friends are hiding her. Remember that the
+police knew the father, but that the daughter is unknown to them. These
+Polish girls&mdash;pardon me, I refer to the peasant classes&mdash;are as alike as
+two roses on a bush. We shall do nothing until we establish
+identity&mdash;and how that is to be done, I do not pretend to say. If you
+can help us&mdash;and it is very necessary for your own safety to do so&mdash;you
+have not a minute to lose. We should act at once, I say, without the loss of a single hour."</p>
+
+<p>Thus did this man of affairs, one who had been deep in many a brave
+intrigue, make known to the man who had employed him the supreme
+misfortune of their adventure. Had he said, "Your life is in such peril
+that you may not have another hour to live," it would have been no more
+than the truth. Their plot had failed and the story of it was abroad.
+This had he come from Paris to tell&mdash;this was the news that Richard
+Gessner heard with less apparent emotion than though one had told him of
+the pettiest event of a common day.</p>
+
+<p>"The matter has been very badly bungled," he said. "I shall write to
+General Trepoff and complain of it. Do you not see how inconvenient this
+is? If the girl has escaped, she will be sheltered by the
+Revolutionaries, and if she knows my story, she will tell it to them. I
+may be followed here&mdash;to this very house. You know that these people
+stick at nothing. They would avenge this man's liberty whatever the
+price. What remains to discover is the precise amount of her knowledge.
+Does she know my name, my story? You must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> find that out,
+Zamoyski&mdash;there is not an hour to lose, as you say."</p>
+
+<p>He repeated his fears, pacing the room and smoking incessantly. The
+whole danger of a situation is not usually realized upon its first
+statement, but every instant added to this man's apprehensions and
+brought the drops of sweat anew to his forehead. He had planned to
+arrest both Boriskoff and his daughter. The Russian Government, seeking
+the financial support of his house, fell in readily with his plans and
+commanded the police to assist him. Paul Boriskoff himself had been
+arrested at the frontier station upon an endeavor to return to Poland.
+His daughter Lois, warned in some mysterious manner, had fled from the
+school where she was being educated and put herself beyond the reach of
+her father's enemies. This was the simple story of the plot. But God
+alone could tell what the price of failure might be.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very easy to say what we must do," the Count observed, "the
+difficulties remain. Identify this girl for us among the twenty thousand
+who answer to her description in Warsaw, and I will undertake that the
+Government shall deal well by her. But who is to identify her? Where is
+your agent to be found? Name him to me and the task begins to-night. We
+can do nothing more. I say again that my Government has done all in its
+power. The rest is with you, Herr Gessner, to direct us where we have failed."</p>
+
+<p>Gessner made no immediate answer. Perhaps he was about to admit the
+difficulties of the Count's position and to agree that identification
+was impossible, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> suddenly his glance fell upon Alban, waiting, as
+he had asked, until the interview should be done. And what an
+inspiration was that&mdash;what an instantaneous revelation of possibilities.
+Let this lad go to Warsaw and he would discover Lois Boriskoff quickly
+enough. The girl had been in love with him and would hold her tongue at
+his bidding. As in a flash, he perceived this spar which should save
+him, and clutched at it. Let the lad go to Warsaw&mdash;let him be the agent.
+If the police arrested the girl after all&mdash;well, that would be an
+accident which he might regret, but certainly would not seek to prevent.
+A man whose life is imperilled must be one in ten thousand if any common
+dictates of faith or conduct guide him. Richard Gessner had a fear of
+death so terrible that he would have dared the uttermost treachery to save himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Count," he exclaimed suddenly, "your agent is here, in this room. He
+will go to Warsaw at your bidding. He will find the girl."</p>
+
+<p>The Count, who knew something of Alban's story already, received the
+intimation as though he had expected it.</p>
+
+<p>"It was for that I asked him to wait. I have been thinking of it. He
+will go to Warsaw and tell the lady that she may obtain her father's
+liberty upon a condition. Let her make a direct appeal to the
+Government&mdash;and we will consider it. Of course you intend an immediate
+departure&mdash;you are not contemplating a delay, Herr Gessner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Delay&mdash;am I the man to delay? He shall go to-morrow by the first train."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p><p>A smile hovered upon the Count's face in spite of himself.</p>
+
+<p>"In a week," he was saying to himself, "Lois Boriskoff shall be flogged
+in the Schusselburg."</p>
+
+<p>In truth, the whip was the weapon he liked best&mdash;when women were to be schooled.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>ALBAN GOES TO WARSAW</h3>
+
+<p>Alban had never been abroad, and it would have been difficult for him to
+give any good account of his journey to Warsaw. The swiftly changing
+scenes, the new countries, the uproar and strife of cities, the glamour
+of the sea, put upon his ripe imagination so heavy a burden that he
+lived as one apart, almost as a dreamer who had forgotten how to dream.
+If he carried an abiding impression it was that of the miracle of travel
+and the wonders that travel could work. In twenty hours he had almost
+forgotten the existence of the England he had left. Chains of bondage
+fell from his willing shoulders. He felt as one released from a prison
+house to all the freedom of a boundless world.</p>
+
+<p>And so at last he came to the beautiful city of Warsaw and his sterner
+task began. Here, as in London, that pleasant person Count Sergius
+Zamoyski reminded him how considerable was the service he could confer,
+not alone upon his patron but upon the friends of his evil days.</p>
+
+<p>"It has all been a mistake," the Count would say with fine protestation
+of regret; "my Government arrested that poor old fellow Boriskoff, but
+it would gladly let him go. To begin with, however, we must have
+pledges. You know perfectly well that the man is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> fanatic and will
+work a great mischief unless some saner head prevents it. We must find
+his daughter and see that she promises to hold her tongue concerning our
+friend at Hampstead. When that is done, we shall pack off the pair to
+London and they will carry a good round sum in their pockets. Herr
+Gessner is not the man to deal ungenerously with them&mdash;nor with you to
+whom he may owe so much."</p>
+
+<p>He was a shrewd man of the world, this amiable diplomat, and who can
+wonder that so simple a youth as Alban Kennedy proved no match for him.
+Alban honestly believed that he would be helping both Gessner and his
+old friends, the Boriskoffs, should he discover little Lois' whereabouts
+and take her back to London. A very natural longing to see her once more
+added to the excitements of the journey. He would not have been willing
+to confess this interest, but it prompted him secretly so that he was
+often reminding himself of the old days when Lois had been his daily
+companion and their mutual confidences had been their mutual pleasure.
+Just as a knight-errant of the old time might set out to seek his
+mistress, so did Alban go to Warsaw determined to succeed. He would find
+Lois in this whirling wonderland of delight, and, finding her, would
+return triumphant to their home.</p>
+
+<p>Now, they arrived in Warsaw upon the Thursday evening after the
+memorable interview at Hampstead; and driving through the crowded
+streets of that pleasant city, by its squares, its gardens, and its
+famous Palaces, they descended at last at the door of the H&ocirc;tel de
+France; and there they heard the fateful news which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> the city itself had
+discussed all day and would discuss far into the night.</p>
+
+<p>General Trubenoff, the new Dictator, had been shot dead at the gate of
+the Arsenal that very afternoon, men said, and the Revolutionaries were
+already armed and abroad. What would happen in the next few hours,
+heaven and the Deputy Governor alone could tell. Were this not
+sufficiently significant, the aspect of the great Square itself was
+menacing enough to awe the imagination even of the least impressionable
+of travellers. Excited crowds passed and repassed; Cossacks were riding
+by at the gallop&mdash;even the reports of distant rifle shots were to be
+heard and, from time to time, the screams and curses of those upon whose
+faces and shoulders the soldiers' whips fell so pitilessly.</p>
+
+<p>In the great hall of the hotel itself pandemonium reigned. Afraid of the
+streets and of their homes, the wives and daughters of many officials
+fled hither as to a haven of refuge which would never be suspected. They
+crowded the passages, the staircases, the reception-rooms. They besieged
+the officers for news of that which befell without. Their terrified
+faces remained a striking tribute to the ferocity of their enemies and
+the reality of the peril.</p>
+
+<p>Let it be said in justice that this majestic spectacle of tragedy found
+Alban Kennedy well prepared to understand its meaning. Had he told the
+truth he would have said that the mob orators of Union Street had
+prepared him for such a state of things as he now beheld. The Cossacks,
+were they not the Cossacks whom old Paul had called "the enemies of the
+human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> race?" The gilt-belarded generals, had he not seen them cast upon
+the screen in England and there heard their names with curses? Just as
+they had told him would be the case, so now he had stumbled upon
+autocracy face to face with its ancient enemy, the people. He saw the
+brutal Cossacks with their puny horses and their terrible whips parading
+beneath his balcony and treating all the poor folk with that insolence
+for which they are famous. He beheld the huddled crowds lifting white
+faces to the sky and cowering before the relentless lash. Not a whit had
+the patriot exiles in London exaggerated these things or misrepresented
+them. Men, and women too, were struck down, their faces ripped by the
+thongs, their shoulders lacerated before his very eyes. And all this, as
+he vaguely understood, that freedom might be denied to this nation and
+justice withheld from her citizens. Truly had he travelled far since he
+left England a few short days ago.</p>
+
+<p>Sergius Zamoyski had engaged a handsome suite of rooms upon the first
+floor of the magnificent modern hotel which looks down upon the Aleja
+Avenue, and to these they went at once upon their arrival. It was
+something at least to escape from the excited throngs below and to stand
+apart, alike from the rabble and the soldiers. Nor was the advantage of
+their situation to be despised; for they had but to step out upon the
+veranda before their sitting-rooms to command the whole prospect of the
+avenue, and there, at their will, to be observers of the conflict. To
+Sergius Zamoyski, familiar with such scenes, Warsaw offered no
+surprises<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> whatever. To Alban it remained a city of whirlwind, and of
+human strife and suffering beyond all imagination terrible. He would
+have been content to remain out there upon that high balcony until the
+last trooper had ridden from the street and the last bitter cry been
+raised. The Count's invitation to dinner seemed grotesque in its
+reversion to commonplace affairs.</p>
+
+<p>"All this is an every-day affair here now," that young man remarked with
+amazing nonchalance; "since the workmen began to shoot the patrols, the
+city has had no peace. I see that it interests you very much. You will
+find it less amusing when you have been in Russia for a month or two.
+Now let us dress and dine while we can. Those vultures down below will
+not leave a bone of the carcass if we don't take care."</p>
+
+<p>He re-entered the sitting-room and thence the two passed to their
+respective dressing-rooms. An obsequious valet offered Alban a cigarette
+while he made his bath, and served a glass of an American cocktail. The
+superb luxury of these apartments did not surprise the young English boy
+as much as they might have done, for he had already stayed one night at
+an almost equally luxurious hotel in Berlin and so approached them
+somewhat familiarly; but the impression, oddly conceived and incurable,
+that he had no right to enjoy such luxuries and was in some way an
+intruder, remained. No one would have guessed this, the silent valet
+least of all; but in truth, Alban dressed shyly, afraid of the splendor
+and the richness; and his feet fell softly upon the thick Persian
+carpets as though some one would spy him out presently and cry, "Here is
+the guest who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> has not the wedding garment." In the dining-room, face to
+face with the gay Count, some of these odd ideas vanished; so that an
+observer might have named them material rather than personal.</p>
+
+<p>They dined with open windows, taking a zakuska in the Russian fashion in
+lieu of hors d'&oelig;uvre, and nibbling at smoked fish, caviar and other
+pickled mysteries. The Count's ability to drink three or four glasses of
+liquor with this prefatory repast astonished Alban not a little&mdash;which
+the young Russian observed and remarked upon.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad that I was born in the East," he said lightly, "you English
+have no digestions. When you have them, your climate ruins them. Here in
+Russia we eat and drink what we please&mdash;that is our compensation. We are
+Tartars, I admit&mdash;but when you remember that a Tartar is a person who
+owns no master, rides like a jockey, and drinks as much as he pleases
+with impunity, the imputation is not serious. None of you Western people
+understand the Russian. None of you understand that we are men in a very
+big sense of the word&mdash;men with none of your feminine Western
+weaknesses&mdash;great fighters, splendid lovers, fine drinkers. You preach
+civilization instead&mdash;and we point to your Whitechapel, your Belleville,
+your Bowery. Just think of it, your upper classes, as you yourselves
+admit, are utterly decadent, alike in brains and in morals; your middle
+classes are smug hypocrites&mdash;your lower classes starve in filthy dens.
+This is what you desire to bring about in Russia under the name of
+freedom and liberty. Do you wonder that those of us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> who have travelled
+will have none of it. Are you surprised that we fight your civilization
+with the whip&mdash;as we are fighting it outside at this moment. If we fail,
+very well, we shall know how to fail. But do not tell me that it would
+be a blessing for this country to imitate your institutions, for I could
+not believe you if you did."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed upon it as though disbelieving his own words and, giving
+Alban no opportunity to reply, fell to talk of that which they must do
+and of the task immediately before them.</p>
+
+<p>"We are better in this hotel than at the Palace Zamoyski, my kinsman's
+house," he said, "for here no inquisitive servants will trouble us.
+Naturally, you think it a strange thing to be brought to a great city
+like this and there asked to identify a face. Let me say that I don't
+think it will be a difficult matter. The Chief of the Police will call
+upon me in the morning and he will be able to tell us in how many houses
+it would be possible for the girl Lois Boriskoff to hide. We shall
+search them and discover her&mdash;and then learn what Herr Gessner desires
+to learn. I confess it amazes me that a man with his extraordinary
+fortune should have dealt so clumsily with these troublesome people. A
+thousand pounds paid to them ten years ago might have purchased his
+security for life. But there's your millionaire all over. He will not
+pay the money and so he risks not only his fortune but his life. Let me
+assure you that he is not mistaken when he declares that there is no
+time to lose. These people, should they discover that he has been aiding
+my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>Government, would follow him to the ends of the earth. They may have
+already sent an assassin after him&mdash;it would be in accord with their
+practice to lose no time, and as you see they are not in a temper to
+procrastinate. The best thing for us to do is to speak of our business
+to no one. When we have discovered the girl, we will promise her
+father's liberty in return for her silence. Herr Gessner must now deal
+with these people once and for all&mdash;generously and finally. I see no
+other chance for him whatever."</p>
+
+<p>Alban agreed to this, although he had some reservations to make.</p>
+
+<p>"I know the Boriskoffs very well," he said, "and they are kindly people.
+We have always considered old Paul a bit of a madman, but a harmless
+one. Even his own countrymen in London laugh when he talks to them. I am
+sure he would be incapable of committing such a crime as you suggest;
+and as for his daughter, Lois, she is quite a little schoolgirl who may
+know nothing about the matter at all. Mr. Gessner undoubtedly owes Paul
+a great deal, and I should be pleased to see the poor fellow in better
+circumstances. But is it quite fair to keep him in prison just because
+you are afraid of what his daughter may say?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is our only weapon. If we give him liberty, will he hold his tongue
+then? By your own admissions a louder talker does not exist. And
+remember that it may cost Herr Gessner many thousand pounds and many
+weeks of hard work to secure his liberty at all. Is he likely to
+undertake this while the daughter is at liberty and harbored among the
+ruffians of this city?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> He would be a madman to do so. I, who know the
+Poles as few of them know themselves, will tell you that they would
+sooner strike at those whom they call 'traitors in exile' than at their
+enemies round about us. If the girl has told them what she knows of Herr
+Gessner and his past, I would not be in his shoes to-night for a million
+of roubles heaped up upon the table. No, no, we have no time to lose&mdash;we
+owe it to him to act with great dispatch."</p>
+
+<p>Alban did not make any immediate reply. Hopeful as the Count was, the
+difficulties of tracking little Lois down in such a city at such a time
+seemed to him well-nigh insuperable. He had seen hundreds of faces like
+hers as they drove through Warsaw that very afternoon. The monstrous
+crowd showed him types both of Anna and of Lois, and he wondered no
+longer at the resemblance he had detected between them when he first saw
+Richard Gessner's daughter on the balcony of the house in St. James'
+Square. None the less, the excitements of the task continued to grow
+upon him. How would it all end, he asked impulsively. And what if they
+were too late after all and his friend and patron were to be the victim
+of old Boriskoff's vengeance? That would be terrible indeed&mdash;it would
+drive him from Lois' friendship forever.</p>
+
+<p>All this was in his mind as the dinner drew toward a conclusion and the
+solemn waiters served them cigars and coffee. There had been some
+cessation of the uproar in the streets during the latter moments; but a
+new outcry arising presently, the Count suggested that they should
+return to the balcony and see what was happening.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span></p><p>"I would have taken you to the theatre," he said laughingly, "but we
+shall see something prettier here. They are firing their rifles, it
+appears. Do not let us miss the play when we can have good seats for
+nothing. And mind you bring that kummel, for it is the best in Europe."</p>
+
+<p>They were just lighting the great arc lamps upon the avenue as the two
+emerged from the dining-room and took up their stations by the railing
+of the balcony. In the roadway below the spectacle had become superb in
+its weird drama and excited ferocity. Great crowds passed incessantly
+upon the broad pavements and were as frequently dispersed by the fiery
+Cossacks who rode headlong as though mad with the lust of slaughter.
+Holding all who were abroad to be their enemies, these fellows slashed
+with their brutal whips at every upturned face and had no pity even for
+the children. Alban saw little lads of ten and twelve years of age
+carried bleeding from the streets&mdash;he beheld gentle women cut and lashed
+until they fell dying upon the pavement&mdash;he heard the death-cry from
+many a human throat. Just as the exiles had related it, so the drama
+went, with a white-faced, terror-stricken mob for the people of its
+scene and these devils upon their little horses for the chief actors.
+When the troopers fell (and from time to time a bullet would find its
+billet and leave a corpse rolling in a saddle) this was but the signal
+for a new outburst, surpassing the old in its diabolical ferocity. A
+very orgy of blood and slaughter; a Carnival of whips cutting deep into
+soft white flesh and drawing from their victims cries so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> awful that
+they might have risen up from hell itself.</p>
+
+<p>And in this crowd, among this people perhaps, little Lois Boriskoff must
+be looked for. Her friends would be the people's friends. Wayward as she
+was, a true child of the streets, Alban did not believe that she would
+remain at home this night or consent to forego the excitements of a
+spectacle so wonderful. Nor in this was he mistaken, for he had been but
+a very few minutes upon the balcony when he perceived Lois herself
+looking up to him from the press below and plainly intimating that she
+had both seen and recognized him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BOY IN THE BLUE BLOUSE</h3>
+
+<p>A sharp exclamation brought the Count to Alban's side.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois is down there," Alban said, "I am sure of it&mdash;she waved to me just
+now. She was walking with a man in a dark blue blouse. I could not have been mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>He was quite excited that he should have discovered her thus, and
+Sergius Zamoyski did not lag behind him in interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you still see her?" he asked&mdash;"is she there now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot see her now&mdash;the soldiers drove the people back. Perhaps if we went down&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The Count laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Even I could not protect you to-night," he exclaimed dryly,
+"no&mdash;whatever is to be done must be done to-morrow. But does not that
+prove to you what eyes and ears these people have. Here we left London
+as secretly as a man on a love affair. With the single exception of our
+friend at Hampstead, not a human being should have known of our
+departure or our destination. And yet we are not three hours in this
+place before this girl is outside our hotel, as well aware that we have
+arrived as we are ourselves. That<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> is what baffles our police. They
+cannot contend with miracles. They are only human, and I tell you that these people are more than human."</p>
+
+<p>Alban, still peering down into the press in the hope that he might see
+Lois' face again, confessed that he could offer no explanation whatever.</p>
+
+<p>"They told me the same thing in London," he said, "but I did not believe
+them. Old Boriskoff used to boast that he knew of things which had
+happened in Warsaw before the Russian Government. They seem to have
+spies in every street and every house. If Lois' presence is not a coincidence&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow, are you also a believer in coincidence&mdash;the idle excuse
+of men who will not reason. Forgive me, but I think very little of
+coincidence. Just figure the chances against such a meeting as this.
+Would it not run into millions&mdash;your first visit to Warsaw; nobody
+expecting you; nobody knowing your name in the city&mdash;and here is the
+girl waiting under your window before you have changed your clothes. Oh,
+no, I will have nothing to do with coincidence. These people certainly
+knew that we had left England&mdash;they have been expecting us; they will do
+their best to baffle us. Yes, and that means that we run some danger. I
+must think of it&mdash;I must see the Chief of the Police to-night. It would
+be foolish to neglect all reasonable precautions."</p>
+
+<p>Alban looked at him with surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"None of those people will do me an injury," he exclaimed, "and you,
+Count, why should you fear them?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p><p>The Count lighted a cigarette very deliberately. "There may be
+reasons," he said&mdash;and that was all.</p>
+
+<p>Had he told the whole truth, revealed the secrets of his work during the
+last three years, Alban would have understood very well what those
+reasons were. A shrewder agent of the Government, a more discreet
+zealous official of the secret service, did not exist. His very bonhomie
+and good-fellowship had hitherto been his surest defence against
+discovery. Men spoke of him as the great gambler and a fine sportsman.
+The Revolutionaries had been persuaded to look upon him as their friend.
+Some day they would learn the truth&mdash;and then, God help him. Meanwhile,
+the work was well enough. He found it even more amusing than making love
+and a vast deal more exciting than big-game hunting.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he repeated anon, "There may be reasons, but it is a little too
+late to remember them. I am sending over to the Bureau now. If the Chief
+is there, he will be able to help me. Of course, you will see or hear
+from this girl again. These people would deliver a letter if you locked
+yourself up in an iron safe. They will communicate with you in the
+morning and we must make up our minds what to do. That is why I want advice."</p>
+
+<p>"If you take mine," said Alban quietly, "you will permit me to see her
+at once. I am the last person in all Warsaw whom Lois Boriskoff will
+desire to injure."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I to understand, then&mdash;but no, it would be impossible. Forgive me
+even thinking of it. I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> really imagined for a moment that you might
+be her lover."</p>
+
+<p>Alban's face flushed crimson.</p>
+
+<p>"She was my little friend in London&mdash;she will be the same in Warsaw, Count."</p>
+
+<p>Count Sergius bowed as though he readily accepted this simple
+explanation and apologized for his own thoughts. A shrewd man of the
+world, he did not believe a word of it, however. These two, boy and girl
+together, had been daily associates in the slums of London. They had
+shared their earnings and their pleasures and passed for those who would
+be man and wife presently. This Richard Gessner had told him when they
+discussed the affair, and he remembered it to his great satisfaction.
+For if Alban were Lois Boriskoff's lover, then might he venture even
+where the police were afraid to go.</p>
+
+<p>"I will talk it all over with the Chief," the Count exclaimed abruptly;
+"you have had a long day and are better in bed. Don't stand on any
+ceremony, but please go directly you feel inclined."</p>
+
+<p>Alban did not demur for he was tired out and that was the truth of it.
+In his own room he recalled the question the Count had put to him and
+wondered that it had so distressed him. Why had his cheeks tingled and
+the words stumbled upon his lips because he had been called Lois
+Boriskoff's lover? It used not to be so when they walked Union Street
+together and all the neighbors regarded the engagement as an
+accomplished fact. He had never resented such a charge then&mdash;what had
+happened that he should resent it now? Was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> it the long weeks of
+temptation he had suffered in Anna Gessner's presence? Had the world of
+riches so changed him that any mention of the old time could make him
+ashamed? He knew not what to think&mdash;the blood rushed to his cheeks again
+and his heart beat quickly when he remembered that but for Count
+Sergius's visit to Hampstead, he might have been Anna's betrothed to-day.</p>
+
+<p>In this he was, as ever, entirely candid with himself, neither condoning
+his faults nor accusing himself blindly. There had been nothing of the
+humbler realities of love in his relations with Richard Gessner's
+daughter; none of the superb spirit of self-sacrifice; none of those
+fine ideals which his boyhood had desired to set up. He had worshipped
+her beauty&mdash;so much he readily admitted; her presence had ever been
+potent to quicken his blood and claim the homage of his senses; but of
+that deeper understanding and mutual sympathy by which love is born she
+had taught him nothing. Why this should have been so, he could not
+pretend to say. Her father's riches and the glamour of the great house
+may have had not a little to do with it. Alban had always seemed to
+stand apart from all which the new world showed to him. He felt that he
+had no title to a place there, no just claim at all to those very favors
+his patron thrust upon him so lavishly.</p>
+
+<p>He was as a man escaped from a prison whose bars were of gold&mdash;a prison
+whereof the jailer had been a beautiful and capricious woman. Here in
+Warsaw he discovered a new world; but one that seemed altogether
+familiar. All this clamor of the streets, this going to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> and fro of
+people, the roar of traffic, the shriek of whistles, the ringing of
+bells&mdash;had he not known them all in London when Lois was his friend and
+old Paul his neighbor? There had been many Poles by Thrawl Street and
+the harsh music of their tongue came to him as an old friend. It is true
+that he was housed luxuriously, in a palace built for millionaires; but
+he had the notion that he would not long continue there and that a newer
+and a stranger destiny awaited him. This thought, indeed, he carried to
+his bedroom and slept upon at last. He would find Lois to-morrow and she would be his messenger.</p>
+
+<p>There had still been excited crowds in the streets when he found his
+bedroom and a high balcony showed him the last phases of a weird
+pageant. Though it was then nearly midnight, Cossacks continued to
+patrol the avenue and the mob to deride them. By here and there, where
+the arc lamps illuminated the pavement, the white faces and slouching
+figures of the more obstinate among the Revolutionaries spoke of dogged
+defiance and an utter indifference to personal safety. Alban could well
+understand why the people had ventured out, but that they should have
+taken women and even young children with them astonished him beyond
+measure. These, certainly, could vindicate no principle when their flesh
+was cut by the brutal whips and the savage horses rode them down to
+emphasize the majesty of the Czar. Such sights he had beheld that
+afternoon and such were being repeated, if the terrible cries which came
+to his ears from time to time were true harbingers. Alban closed his
+windows at last for very shame and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> anger. He tried to shut the city's
+terrible voice from his ears. He wished to believe that his eyes had deceived him.</p>
+
+<p>This would have been about one o'clock in the morning. When he awoke
+from a heavy sleep (and youth will sleep whatever the circumstance) the
+sun was shining into his rooms and the church-bells called the people to
+early Mass. An early riser, long accustomed to be up and out when the
+clock struck six, he dressed himself at once and determined to see
+something of Warsaw before the Count was about. This good resolution led
+him first to the splendid avenue upon which the great hotel was built,
+and here he walked awhile, rejoicing in his freedom and wondering why he
+had ever parted with it. Let a man have self-reliance and courage enough
+and there is no city in all the world which may not become a home to
+him, no land among whose people he may not find friends, no government
+whose laws shall trouble him. Alban's old nomadic habits brought these
+truths to his mind again as he walked briskly down the avenue and filled
+his lungs with the fresh breezes of that sunny morning. Why should he
+return to the Count at all? What was Gessner's money to him now? He
+cared less for it than the stones beneath his feet; he would not have
+purchased an hour's command of a princely fortune for one of these precious moments.</p>
+
+<p>He was not alone in the streets. The electric cars had already commenced
+to run and there were many soberly dressed work-people hurrying to the
+factories. It was difficult to believe that this place had been the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
+scene of a civic battle yesterday, or to picture the great avenues, with
+their pretty trees, tall and stately houses and fine broad pavements, as
+the scene of an encounter bloody beyond all belief. Not a sign now
+remained of all this conflict. The dead had already been carried to the
+mortuaries; the prisoners were safe at the police-stations where, since
+sundown, the whips had been so busy that their lashes were but crimson
+shreds. True there were Cossacks at many a street corner and patrols
+upon some of the broader thoroughfares&mdash;but of Revolutionaries not a
+trace. These, after the patient habits of their race, would go to work
+to-day as though yesterday had never been. Not a tear would be shed
+where any other eye could see it&mdash;not a tear for the children whose
+voices were forever silent or the mothers who had perished that their
+sons might live. Warsaw had become schooled to the necessity of
+sacrifice. Freedom stood upon the heights, but the valley was the valley
+of the shadow of death.</p>
+
+<p>Alban realized this in a dim way, for he had heard the story from many a
+platform in Whitechapel. Perhaps he had enough selfishness in his nature
+to be glad that the evil sights were hidden from his eyes. His old
+craving for journeying amid narrow streets came upon him here in Warsaw
+and held him fascinated. Knowing nothing of the city or its environment,
+he visited the castle, the barracks, the Saxon gardens, watched the
+winding river Vistula and the Praga suburb beyond, and did not fail to
+spy out the old town, lying beneath the guns of the fortress, a maze of
+red roofs and tortuous streets and alleys wherein the outcasts were
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>hiding. To this latter he turned by some good instinct which seemed to
+say that he had an errand there. And here little Lois Boriskoff touched
+him upon the shoulder and bade him follow her&mdash;just as imagination had
+told him would be the case. She had come up to him so silently that even
+a trained ear might not have detected her footstep. Whence she came or
+how he could not say. The street wherein they met was one of the
+narrowest he had yet discovered. The crazy eaves almost touched above
+his head&mdash;the shops were tenanted by Jews already awake and crying their
+merchandise. Had Alban been a traveller he would have matched the scene
+only in Nuremberg, the old German town. As it was, he could but stare open-mouthed.</p>
+
+<p>Lois&mdash;was it Lois? The voice rang familiarly enough in his ears, the
+eyes were those pathetic, patient eyes he had known so well in London.
+But the black hair cut in short and silky curls about the neck, the blue
+engineer's blouse reaching to the knees, the stockings and shoes
+below&mdash;was this Lois or some young relative sent to warn him of her
+hiding-place? For an instant he stared at her amazed. Then he understood.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois&mdash;it is Lois?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked swiftly up and down the street before she answered him.
+He thought her very pale and careworn. He could see that her hands were
+trembling while she spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Go down to the river and ask for Herr Petermann," she said almost in a
+whisper. "I dare not speak to you here, Alb dear. Go down to the river
+and find out the timber-yard&mdash;I shall be there when you come."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></p><p>She ran from him without another word and disappeared in one of the
+rows which diverged from the narrow street and were so many filthy lanes
+in the possession of the scum of Warsaw. To Alban both her coming and
+her going were full of mystery. If Count Sergius had told him the truth,
+the Russian Government wished well not only to her but also to her
+father, the poor old fanatic Paul who was now in the prison at
+Petersburg. Why, then, was it necessary for her to appear in the streets
+of Warsaw disguised as a boy and afraid to exchange a single word with a
+friend from England. The truth astounded him and provoked his curiosity
+intolerably. Was Lois in danger then? Had the Count been lying to him?
+He could come to no other conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>It was not difficult to find Herr Petermann's timber-yard, for many
+Englishmen found their way there and many a ship's captain from Dantzig
+had business with the merry old fellow whom Alban now sought out at
+Lois' bidding. The yard itself might have covered an acre of ground
+perhaps, bordering the river by a handsome quay and showing mighty
+stacks of good wood all ready for the barges or seasoning against next
+year's shipment. Two gates of considerable size admitted the lorries
+that went in from the town, and by them stood the wooden hut at whose
+window inquiries must be made. Here Alban presented himself ten minutes
+after Lois had left him.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to see Herr Petermann," he said in English.</p>
+
+<p>A young Jew clerk took up a scrap of paper and thrust it forward.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p><p>"To write your name, please, mein Herr."</p>
+
+<p>Alban wrote his name without any hesitation whatever. The clerk called a
+boy, who had been playing by a timber stack, and dispatched him in quest of his chief.</p>
+
+<p>"From Dantzig, mein Herr?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Alban civilly, "from London."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," said the clerk, "I think it would be Dantzig. Lot of Englishes
+from Dantzig&mdash;you have not much of the woods in Engerland, mein Herr."</p>
+
+<p>He did not expect a reply and immediately applied himself to the useful
+occupation of killing a blue-bottle with the point of his pen. Two or
+three lorries rolled in and out while Alban waited. He could see ships
+passing upon the river and hear the scream of a steam-saw from a shed
+upon his left hand. A soldier passed the gate, but hardly cast a glance
+at the yard. Five minutes must have elapsed before Herr Petermann
+appeared. He held the paper in a thin cadaverous hand as though quite
+unacquainted with his visitor's name and not at all curious to be enlightened.</p>
+
+<p>"You are Mr. Kennedy," he said in excellent English.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Alban, "a friend of mine told me to come here."</p>
+
+<p>"It would be upon the business of the English ship&mdash;ah, I should have
+remembered it. Please come to my office. I am sorry to have kept you waiting."</p>
+
+<p>He was a short man and very fat, clean shaven and a thorough German in
+appearance. Dressed in a very dirty white canvas suit, he shuffled
+rather than walked across the yard, never once looking to the right
+hand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> or to the left and apparently oblivious of the presence of a
+stranger. This manner had befriended him through all the stormy days
+Warsaw had lately known. Even the police had no suspicion of him. Old
+fat Petermann, who hobnobbed with sailors&mdash;what had revolution to do with him!</p>
+
+<p>"This way, mein Herr&mdash;yonder is my office. When I go to Dantzig by water
+my books go with me. That is very good for the health to live upon the
+water. Now please to cross the plank carefully, for what shall you say
+to me if you fall in? This is my <i>bureau de travail</i>&mdash;you will tell me
+how you like him by and by."</p>
+
+<p>There were two barges of considerable size moored to the quay and a
+substantial plank bridged the abyss between the stone and the combings
+of the great hatchway. Herr Petermann went first, walking briskly in
+spite of his fat; Alban, no less adroit, followed with a lad's nimble
+foot and was upon the old fellow's heels when they stepped on board. The
+barges, he perceived, were fully laden and covered by heavy tarpaulins.
+Commodious cabins at the stern accommodated the crew&mdash;and into one of
+these Herr Petermann now turned, stooping as he went and crying to his guest to take care.</p>
+
+<p>"It is rather dark, my friend, but you soon shall be accustomed to that.
+This is my private room, you see. In England you would not laugh at a
+man who works afloat, for you are all sailors. Now, tell me how you like it?"</p>
+
+<p>The cabin certainly was beautifully furnished. Walls of polished wood
+had their adornment of excellent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>seascapes, many of them bought at the
+Paris salon. A bureau with delightful curves and a clock set at the apex
+above the writing-shelf pleased Alban immensely&mdash;he thought that he had
+seen nothing more graceful even at "Five Gables"; while the chair to
+match it needed no sham expert to declare its worth. The carpet was of
+crimson, without pattern but elegantly bordered. There were many shelves
+for books, but no evidence of commercial papers other than a great
+staring ledger which was the one eyesore.</p>
+
+<p>"I like your room very much indeed," said Alban upon his swift
+survey&mdash;"not many people would have thought of this. We are all afraid
+of the damp in England, and if we talked of a floating office, people
+would think us mad." And then he added&mdash;"But you don't come here in
+winter, Herr Petermann&mdash;this place is no use to you then?"</p>
+
+<p>Herr Petermann smiled as though he were well pleased.</p>
+
+<p>"Every place has its uses sometimes," he rejoined a little vaguely, "we
+never know what is going to happen to us. That is why we should help
+each other when the occasion arises. You, of course, are visiting Warsaw
+merely as a tourist, Mr. Kennedy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, no&mdash;I have come here to find a very old friend, the daughter&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No names, if you please, Mr. Kennedy. You have come here, I think you
+said, to find the son of a very old friend. What makes you suppose that I can help you?"</p>
+
+<p>His change of tone had been a marvellous thing to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> hear&mdash;so swift, so
+masterful that Alban understood in a moment what strength of will and
+purpose lay hidden by this bland smile and benevolent manner. Herr
+Petermann was far from being the simple old fellow he pretended to be.
+You never could have named him that if you had heard him speak as he
+spoke those few stern words. Alban, upon his part, felt as though some
+one had slapped him upon the cheek and called him a fool.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very sorry," he blundered&mdash;and then recovering himself, he said as
+honestly&mdash;"Is there any need to ask me for reasons? Are not our aims the
+same, Herr Petermann?"</p>
+
+<p>"To sell wood, Mr. Kennedy?"</p>
+
+<p>Alban was almost angry.</p>
+
+<p>"I was walking down from the Castle," he began, but again the stern
+voice arrested him.</p>
+
+<p>"Neither names nor history, if your please, Mr. Kennedy. We are here to
+do business together as two honest merchants. All that I shall have to
+ask you is your word, the word of an English gentleman, that nothing
+which transpires upon my premises shall be spoken of outside under any
+circumstances whatever."</p>
+
+<p>"That is very readily given, Herr Petermann."</p>
+
+<p>"Your solemn assurance?"</p>
+
+<p>"My solemn assurance."</p>
+
+<p>The old fellow nodded and smiled. He had become altogether benevolent
+once more and seemed exceedingly pleased with himself and everybody else.</p>
+
+<p>"It is fortunate that you should have applied to me," he exclaimed very
+cheerily&mdash;"since you are thinking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> of taking a Polish servant&mdash;please do
+not interrupt me&mdash;since you are thinking of taking a Polish servant and
+of asking him to accompany you to England, by boat, if you should find
+the journey otherwise inconvenient&mdash;I merely put the idea to you&mdash;there
+is a young man in my employment who might very honestly be recommended
+to your notice. Is it not lucky that he is here at this moment&mdash;on board
+this very barge, Mr. Kennedy?"</p>
+
+<p>Alban looked about him astonished. He half expected to see Lois step out
+of one of the cupboards or appear from the recess beneath Herr
+Petermann's table. The amiable wood merchant enjoyed his perplexity&mdash;as
+others of his race he was easily amused.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I see that I am troubling you," he exclaimed, "and really there is
+not much time to be lost. Let me introduce this amiable young man to you
+without delay, Mr. Kennedy. I am sure he will be very pleased to see you."</p>
+
+<p>He stood up and went to the wall of the cabin nearest to the ship's bow.
+A panel cut in this gave access to the lower deck; he opened it and
+revealed a great empty hold, deftly covered by the tarpaulin and made to
+appear fully loaded to any one who looked at the barge from the shore.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is your friend," he cried with huge delight of his own cleverness,
+"here is the young servant you are looking for, Mr. Kennedy. And mind,"
+he added this in the same stern voice which had exacted the promise,
+"and mind, I have your solemn promise."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>A FIGURE IN THE STRAW</h3>
+
+<p>A little light filtered down through the crevices and betrayed the
+secrets of that strange refuge in all their amazing simplicity. Here was
+neither costly furniture nor any adornment whatsoever. A thick carpet of
+straw, giving flecks of gold wherever the sunlight struck down upon it,
+had been laid to such a depth that a grown man might have concealed
+himself therein. A few empty bales stood here and there as though thrown
+down at hazard; there were coils of rope and great blocks of timber used
+by the stevedores who loaded the barges. But of the common things of
+daily life not a trace. No tables, no chairs, neither bed nor blanket
+adorn this rude habitation. Let a sergeant of police open his lantern
+there and the tousled straw would answer him in mockery. This, for a
+truth, had been the case. Little Lois could tell a tale of Cossacks on
+the barge, even of rifles fired down into the hold, and of a child's
+heart beating so quickly that she thought she must cry out for very pain
+of it. But that was before the men were told that the ship belonged to
+merry Herr Petermann. They went away at once then&mdash;to drink the old
+fellow's beer and to laugh with him.</p>
+
+<p>That had been a terrible day and Lois had never forgotten it. Whenever
+old Petermann opened the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> door of his office now, she would start and
+tremble as though a Cossack's hand already touched her shoulder.
+Sometimes she lay deep down in the straw, afraid to declare herself even
+though a friend's voice called her. And so it was upon that morning of Alban's visit.</p>
+
+<p>Old Petermann had shut the cabin door behind him and discreetly left the
+young people together. Seeing little in the deep gloom and his eyes
+blinking wherever he turned them, Alban stood almost knee-deep in straw
+and cried Lois' name aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois&mdash;where are you, Lois&mdash;why don't you answer me?"</p>
+
+<p>She crept from the depths at his very feet and shaking the straw from
+her pretty hair, she stood upright and put both her hands upon his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I am here, Alb dear, just waiting for you. Won't you kiss me, Alb dear?"</p>
+
+<p>He put his arms about her neck and kissed her at her wish&mdash;just as a
+brother might have kissed a sister in the hour of her peril.</p>
+
+<p>"I came at once, Lois," he said, "of course I did not understand that it
+would be like this. Why are you here? Whatever has happened&mdash;what does
+it all mean? Will you not teach me to understand, Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sit by my side, Alb dear, sit down and listen to me. I want you to know
+what your friends have been doing. Oh, I have been so lonely, so
+frightened, and I don't deserve that. You know that my father is in
+prison, Alb&mdash;the Count told you that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I heard it before I left England, Lois. You did not answer my letters?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p><p>"I was ashamed to, dear. That was the first thing they taught me at the
+school&mdash;to be ashamed to write to you until you would not be ashamed to
+read my letters. Can't you understand, Alb? Wasn't I right to be ashamed?"</p>
+
+<p>She buried her head upon his breast and put a little hot hand into his
+own. A great tenderness toward her filled his whole being and brought a
+sense of happiness very foreign to him lately. How gentle and kindly
+this little waif of fortune had ever been. And how even those few weeks
+of a better schooling had improved her. She had shed all the old
+vulgarities&mdash;she was just a simple schoolgirl as he would have wished her to be.</p>
+
+<p>"We are never right to be ashamed before those who love us," Alban said
+kindly; "you did not write to me and how was I to know what had
+happened? Of course, your father told you what I had been doing and why
+I went away from Union Street? It was all his kindness. I know it now
+and I have come to Russia to thank him&mdash;when he is free. That won't be
+very long now that I have found you. They were frightened of you,
+Lois&mdash;they thought you were going to betray their secrets to the
+Revolutionary party. I knew that you would not do so&mdash;I said so all along."</p>
+
+<p>She looked up at him with glowing eyes, and putting her lips very close
+to his ear she said:</p>
+
+<p>"I loved you, Alb&mdash;I never could have told them while I loved you&mdash;not
+even to save my father, and God knows how much I love him. Did not they
+say that you were very happy with Mr. Gessner? There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> would have been no
+more happiness if I had told them."</p>
+
+<p>"And that is what kept you silent, Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>She would not answer him, but hiding her face again, she asked him a
+question which surprised him greatly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know why the police wished to arrest me, Alb dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"How could I know that, Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was the Count who told them to do so. He is only deceiving you,
+dear. He does not want to release my father and will never do so. If I
+were in prison too, he thinks that Mr. Gessner would be quite safe. Do
+not trust the Count if you would help us. My people understand him and
+they will punish him some day. He has done a great wrong to many in
+Warsaw, and he deserves to be punished. You must remember this, dear,
+when he promises my father's freedom. He is not telling you the
+truth&mdash;he is only asking you to punish me."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Lois, what have you done, what charge can they bring against a
+little schoolgirl?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am my father's daughter," she said proudly, "that is why they would
+punish me. Oh, you don't know, dear. Even the little children are
+criminals in Warsaw. My father escaped from Saghalen and I have no right
+to live in Russia. When he sent me to school here, I did not come under
+my own name, they called me Lois Werner and believed I was a German.
+Then my people heard that Count Sergius wished to have me arrested, and
+they took me away from the school and brought me here. Herr Petermann is
+one of my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> father's oldest friends. He has saved a great many who would
+be in prison but for his kindness. We can trust Herr Petermann, dear&mdash;he
+will never betray us."</p>
+
+<p>Alban understood, but he had no answer ready for her. All that she had
+told him filled him with unutterable contempt toward the men he had but
+lately considered as his patrons and his friends. The polished, courtly
+Sergius, his master Richard Gessner&mdash;to what duplicity had they not
+stooped, nay, to what treachery? For they had sent him into Russia, not
+to befriend this child, but to put the ultimate shame of a Russian
+prison upon her&mdash;the cell, the lash, the unnamable infamy. As in a flash
+he detected the whole conspiracy and laid it bare. He, Alban Kennedy,
+had been chosen as their instrument&mdash;he had been sent to Poland to
+condemn this little friend of the dreadful years to the living death in
+a Russian prison. The blood raced in his veins at the thought. Perhaps
+for the first time in his life he knew the meaning of the word anger.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois," he exclaimed presently, "if Mr. Gessner does not set your father
+free, I myself will tell your people. That is the message I am going to
+send to him to-day. Count Sergius will not lie to me again&mdash;I shall tell
+him so when I return."</p>
+
+<p>She started up in wild alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"You must not do it&mdash;I forbid it," she cried, closing her white arms
+about his neck as though to protect him already from his enemies. "Oh,
+my dear, you do not know the Russian people, you do not know what it
+means to stand against the police here and have them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> for your enemies.
+Mr. Gessner is their friend. The Government would do a great deal to
+serve him&mdash;my father says so. If Count Sergius heard that you had met
+me, we should both be in prison this night&mdash;ah, dear God, what a prison,
+what suffering&mdash;and I have seen it myself, the women cowering from the
+lash, the men beaten so that they cut the flesh from their faces. That's
+what happens to those who go against the Government, dear Alb&mdash;but not
+to you because you love me."</p>
+
+<p>She clung to him hysterically, for this long vigil had tried her nerves
+and the shadow of discovery lay upon her always. It had been no surprise
+to her to find Alban in Warsaw, for the Revolutionary Committee in
+London had informed her friends by cable on the very day that Count
+Sergius had left. She knew exactly how he had come, where he had
+stopped, and when to seek him out. But now that his arms were about her,
+she dreaded a new separation and was almost afraid to release his hand from hers.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not leave me, Alban," she said&mdash;a new dignity coming to her
+suddenly as though some lesson, not of the school, but of life, had
+taught it to her&mdash;"you will take me to London with you&mdash;yes, yes, dear,
+as your servant. That is what my friends wish, they have thought it all
+out. I am to go as your servant and you must get a passport for me&mdash;for
+Lois Werner, and then if you call me by my own name no one will know.
+There we can see Mr. Gessner together and speak of my father. I will
+promise him that his secret shall never be known. He will trust me,
+Alban, because I promise him."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p><p>Alban stooped and kissed her upon the lips.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "the work must be done here in Russia, Lois. I am called
+to do it and I go now. Let me find you at the same time to-morrow, and I
+will tell you what I have done. God bless you, Lois. It is happiness to
+be with you again."</p>
+
+<p>Their lips met, their arms unclasped reluctantly. A single tap upon the
+panel of the cabin brought that merry old fellow, Herr Petermann, to
+open to them. Alban told him in a sentence what had happened and
+hastened back to the hotel.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>AN INSTRUCTION TO THE POLICE</h3>
+
+<p>Count Sergius was a little more than uneasy when Alban returned&mdash;he was
+suspicious. A highly trained agent of Government himself, he rarely
+permitted any circumstance, however trifling, to escape him; and this
+circumstance of tardiness was not trifling.</p>
+
+<p>"He has met the girl," the argument went, "and she is detaining him with
+a fine story of her wrongs. He may learn that we have tricked him and
+that would be troublesome. Certainly I was a fool not to have had him
+watched&mdash;but, then, his first night in Warsaw and he a stranger! We
+shall make up for lost time at once. I will see the Chief and give
+instructions. A dove does not go but once to the nest. We will take
+wings ourselves next time."</p>
+
+<p>By which it will be perceived that he blamed himself for having lost a
+great opportunity and determined not to do so a second time. His whole
+purpose in coming to Warsaw had been to track down Boriskoff's daughter
+and to hand her over to the police. This he owed to his employers, the
+Government, and to his friend, Richard Gessner&mdash;than whom none would pay
+a better price for the service. And when it were done, then he imagined
+that nothing in the world would be easier than to excuse himself to this
+amiable lad and to take him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> back to England without any loss of time
+whatever. In all a pretty plan, lacking only the finer judgment to
+discern the strength of the enemy's force and not to despise them.</p>
+
+<p>Alban entered the sitting-room just as the Count had determined to have
+his breakfast. It was nearly twelve o'clock then and the fierce heat of
+the day made the streets intolerable. Few people were abroad in the
+great avenue&mdash;there was no repetition of the disturbance of yesterday,
+nor any Cossack going at a gallop. Down below in the restaurant a bevy
+of smartly dressed women ate and gossiped to the music of a good
+Hungarian band. From distant streets there came an echo of gongs and the
+muffled hum of wheels; the sirens of the steam-tugs screamed incessantly
+upon the sleepy river.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the Count's curiosity may have been, he had the wit to hide it
+when Alban appeared. Adopting a well-feigned tone of raillery, he spoke
+as men speak when another has been absent and has no good excuse to make.</p>
+
+<p>"I will ask no questions," he said with mock solemnity&mdash;"A man who
+forgets how to breakfast is in a bad way. That is to suppose that you
+have not breakfasted&mdash;ah, forgive me, she makes coffee like a chef,
+perhaps, and there is no Rhine wine to match the gold of her hair. Let
+us talk politics, history, the arts&mdash;anything you like. I am absolutely
+discreet, Mr. Kennedy, I have forgotten already that you were late."</p>
+
+<p>Alban drew a chair to the table and began to eat with good appetite. His
+sense of humor was strong enough to lead him to despise such talk at any
+time,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> but to-day it exasperated him. Understanding perfectly well what
+was in the Count's mind, he was not to be trapped by any such artifice.
+Honesty is a card which a diplomatist rarely expects an opponent to
+hold. Alban held such a card and determined to play it without loss of time.</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen Lois Boriskoff," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Again&mdash;that is quick work."</p>
+
+<p>The Count looked up, still smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you that we should have no difficulties," he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>Alban helped himself to some superb bisque soup and permitted the waiter
+to fill his glass from a flask of Chablis.</p>
+
+<p>"It was quite an accident upon my part. I went up to the Castle as you
+advised me and then down into the old town. Lois is with her friends
+there. I have had a long talk to her and now I understand everything."</p>
+
+<p>The Count nodded his head and sipped his wine. The frankness of all this
+deceived him but not wholly. The boy had discovered something&mdash;it
+remained to be seen how much.</p>
+
+<p>"You are successful beyond hope," he exclaimed presently, "this will be
+great news for Mr. Gessner. Of course, you asked her plainly what had happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"She told me without my asking, Count. Now I understand everything&mdash;for
+the first time."</p>
+
+<p>The tone of the reply arrested Sergius' attention and brought a frown to
+his face. He kept his eyes upon Alban when next he spoke.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span></p><p>"Those people are splendid liars," he remarked as though he had been
+expecting just such a story&mdash;"of course she spoke about me. I can almost
+imagine what she said."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a very great surprise to me," Alban rejoined, and with so simple
+an air that any immediate reply seemed impossible. For five minutes they
+ate and drank in silence. Then Count Sergius, excusing himself, stood up
+and went to the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Is she to come to this hotel?" he asked anon.</p>
+
+<p>"She would be very foolish to do so, Count."</p>
+
+<p>"Foolish, my dear fellow, whatever do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean what I say&mdash;that she would be mad to put herself into your power."</p>
+
+<p>The Count bit his lip. It had been many years since so direct an insult
+had been offered to him, and yet he did not know how to answer it.</p>
+
+<p>"I see that these people have been lying to you as I thought," he
+rejoined sharply, "is it not indiscreet to accept the word of such a person?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know perfectly well that it is not, Count. You brought me to Warsaw
+to help you to arrest Lois Boriskoff. Well, I am not going to do so and that is all."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you prepared to say the same to your friend in London&mdash;will you
+cable that news to Mr. Gessner?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was going to do so without any loss of time. You can send the message
+for me if you like."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing will be easier. Let me take it down at your dictation. Really I
+am not offended. You have been deceived and are right to say what you
+think. Our friend at Hampstead shall judge between us."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span></p><p>He lighted a cigarette with apparent unconcern and sat down before the
+writing-table near the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he asked, "how shall we put it to him?"</p>
+
+<p>Alban came over and stood by his side.</p>
+
+<p>"Say that Paul Boriskoff must be released by his intervention without
+any condition whatever."</p>
+
+<p>"He will never consent to that."</p>
+
+<p>"He will have to consent, Count Sergius. His personal safety depends upon it."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear boy, what of the girl? Are you going to leave her here to
+shout our friend's secret all over Warsaw?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has not spoken and she will not speak, Count."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you are among the credulous. Your confidence flatters her, I fear."</p>
+
+<p>"It is just&mdash;she has never lied to me."</p>
+
+<p>The Count shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I will send your message," he said.</p>
+
+<p>He wrote the cable in a fine pointed hand and duly delivered it to the
+waiter. His own would follow it ten minutes later&mdash;when he had made up
+his mind how to act. A dangerous thought had come to him and begun to
+obsess his mind. This English boy, he was saying, might yet be a more
+dangerous enemy than the girl they had set out to trap. It might yet be
+necessary to clap them both in the same prison until the whole truth
+were known. He resolved to debate it at his leisure. There was plenty of
+time, for the police were watching all the exits from the city, and if
+Lois Boriskoff attempted to pass out, God help her.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span></p><p>"We must not expect an answer to this before dinner," he said, holding
+out the message for the waiter to take it. "If you think it all right,
+we can proceed to amuse ourselves until the reply comes. Warsaw is
+somewhat a remarkable city as you will already have seen. Some of its
+finest monuments have been erected to celebrate the execution of its
+best patriots. Every public square stands for an insurrection. The
+castle is fortified not against the stranger but the citizen&mdash;those guns
+you tell me about were put there by Nicolas to remind us that he would
+stand no nonsense. We are the sons of a nation which, officially, does
+not exist&mdash;but we honor our dead kings everywhere and can show you some
+of Thorwaldsen's finest monuments to them. Let us go out and see these
+wonders if you are willing."</p>
+
+<p>The apparent digression served him admirably, for it permitted him to
+think. As many another in the service of the autocracy, he had a
+sterling love for Poland in its historical aspect, and was as proud as
+any man when he uttered the name of a Sobieski, a Sigismund or a
+Ladislaus. Revolution as a modern phase he despised. To him there were
+but people and nobles, and the former had become vulgar disturbers of
+the Czar's peace who must be chastened with rods. His own career
+depended altogether upon his callous indifference to mere human sympathies.</p>
+
+<p>Alban could offer no objection to visit Warsaw under such a pleasant
+guide and he also welcomed the hours of truce. It came to him that the
+Count might honestly doubt Lois' word and that, knowing nothing of her,
+he would have had little reason to trust her. The morning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> passed in a
+pleasant stroll down the Senatorska where are the chief shops of Moscow.
+Here the Count insisted upon buying his English friend a very beautiful
+amber and gold cigarette-case, to remind him, as he said, of their quarrel.</p>
+
+<p>"It was very natural," he admitted, "I know these people so well. They
+talk like angels and act like devils. You will know more about them in
+good time. If I have interfered, it was at my friend Gessner's wish. I
+shall leave the matter in his hands now. If he accepts the girl's word,
+he is perfectly at liberty to do so. To me it is a matter of absolute indifference."</p>
+
+<p>Alban took the cigarette-case but accepted it reluctantly. He could not
+resist the charm of this man's manner nor had he any abiding desire to
+do so. As far as that went, there was so much to see in these bright
+streets, so many odd equipages, fine horses, prettily dressed women,
+magnificent soldiers, that his interest was perpetually enchained and he
+uttered many exclamations of surprised delight very foreign to his usual manner.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot believe that this is the city we saw yesterday," he declared
+as the Count called a drosky and bade the driver make a tour of the
+avenues and the gardens&mdash;"you would think the people were the happiest
+in the world. I have never seen so many smiling faces before."</p>
+
+<p>The Count understood the situation better.</p>
+
+<p>"Life is sweet to them because of its uncertainty. They live while they
+can. When I used to fish in your English waters, they sent me to a river
+where the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> Mayfly was out&mdash;ah, that beautiful, fluttering creature which
+may live one minute or may live five. He struggles up from the bottom of
+the river, you remember, and then, just as he has extended his splendid
+wings, up comes a great trout and swallows him&mdash;the poor thing of ten or
+twenty or a hundred seconds. Here we struggle up through the social
+ranks, and just when the waters of intrigue fascinate us and we go to
+play Narcissus to them, up comes the official trout and down his throat
+we go. Some day there will be so many of us that the trout will be
+gorged and unable to move. Then he will go to the cooking-pot&mdash;but not
+in our time, I think."</p>
+
+<p>Alban remained silent. That "not in our time" seemed so strange a saying
+when he recalled the threats and the promises of the fanatics of Union
+Street. Was this fine fellow deceiving himself, or was he like the
+Russian bureaucracy, simply ignorant? The lad of twenty could not say,
+but he made a shrewder guess at the truth than the diplomatist by his side.</p>
+
+<p>They visited the Lazienki Park, passing many of Warsaw's famous people
+as they went, and so affording the Count many opportunities for
+delightful little histories in which such men excel. No pretty woman
+escaped his observation, few the rigors of his tongue. He could tell you
+precisely when Madame Latienski began to receive young Prince Nicolas at
+her house and the exact terms in which old Latienski objected to the
+visits. Priests, jockeys, politicians, actors&mdash;for these he had a
+distinguishing gesture of contempt or pity or gracious admiration. The
+actresses invariably <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>recognized him with alluring smiles, which he
+received condescendingly as who should say&mdash;well, you were fortunate.
+When they arrived at the Moktowski barracks, a group of officers quickly
+surrounded them and conducted them to a place where champagne corks
+might pop and cigarettes be lighted. This was but the beginning of a
+round of visits which Alban found tiresome to the last degree. How many
+glasses of wine he sipped, how many cigarettes he lighted, he could not
+have told you for a fortune. It was nearly five o'clock when they
+returned to the hotel and the Count proposed an hour's repose "de travail."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no message from your friend," he said candidly, "no doubt your
+telegram has troubled him. Perhaps we shall get it by dinner-time. You
+must be very tired and perhaps you would like to lie down."</p>
+
+<p>Alban did not demur and he went to his own room, and taking off his
+boots he lay upon his bed and quickly fell fast asleep. Count Sergius,
+however, had no intention of doing any such thing. He was closeted with
+the Chief of the Police ten minutes after they had returned, and in
+twenty he had come to a resolution.</p>
+
+<p>"This young Englishman will meet the girl Lois Boriskoff to-morrow
+morning," he said. "Arrest the pair of them and let me know when it is
+done. But mind you&mdash;treat him as though he were your own son. I have my reasons."</p>
+
+<p>The Chief merely bowed. He quite understood that such a man as Sergius
+Zamoyski would have very good reasons indeed.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DAWN OF THE DAY</h3>
+
+<p>Count Sergius believed that he had settled the affaire Gessner when he
+gave his instructions to the Chief of the Police, and the subsequent
+hours found him exceedingly pleased with himself. An artist in his
+profession, he flattered himself that it had all come about in the
+manner of his own anticipations and that he would be able to carry back
+to London a story which would not only win upon a rich man's gratitude,
+but advance him considerably in the favor of those who could well reward his labors.</p>
+
+<p>This was an amiable reflection and one that ministered greatly to his
+self-content. No cloud stood upon the horizon of his self-esteem nor did
+shadows darken his glowing hopes. He had promised Richard Gessner to
+arrest the girl Lois Boriskoff, and arrested she would be before twelve
+o'clock to-morrow. As for this amiable English lad, so full of fine
+resolutions, so defiant, so self-willed, it would be a good jest enough
+to clap him in a police-station for four-and-twenty hours and to bow him
+out again, with profuse apologies, when the girl was on her way to
+Petersburg to join her amiable father in the Schlusselburg.</p>
+
+<p>For Alban personally he had a warm regard. The very honesty of his
+character, his habit of saying just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> what he meant (so foreign to the
+Count's own practice), his ingenuous delight in all that he saw, his
+modern knight-errantry based upon an absurdly old-fashioned notion of
+right and wrong and justice and all such stuff as that, these were the
+very qualities to win the admiration of a man of the world who possessed
+none of them. Count Sergius said that the lad must suffer nothing. His
+intrigues with the daughter of a Polish anarchist were both dangerous
+and foolish. And was he not already the acknowledged lover of Anna
+Gessner, whom he must marry upon his return to London. Certainly, it
+would be very wrong not to lock him up, and he, Sergius, was not going
+to take the responsibility of any other course upon his already
+over-burdened shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>These being his ideas, he found it amusing enough to meet Alban at the
+dinner-table and to speak of to-morrow and its programme. The reply to
+the cable they had dispatched to London lay already warm in his pocket,
+sent straight to him from the post-office as the police had directed. It
+was fitting that he should open the ball with a lie about this, and add
+thereto any other pleasant fancy which a fertile imagination dictated.</p>
+
+<p>"Gessner does not cable us," he said at that moment of the repast when
+the glasses are first filled and the tongue is loosed. "I suppose he has
+gone over to Paris again as he hinted might be the case. If there is no
+news to-morrow, we must reconsider the arguments and see how we stand.
+You know that I am perfectly willing to be guided by him and will do
+nothing of my own initiative. If he can procure the old man's freedom,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>
+I will be the first to congratulate you. Meanwhile, I am not to forget
+that we have a box at the opera and that <i>Huguenots</i> is on the bill.
+When I am not in musical circles, I confess my enjoyment of <i>Huguenots</i>.
+Meyerbeer always seemed to me a grand old charlatan who should have run
+a modern show in New York. He wrote one masterpiece and some five miles
+of rubbish&mdash;but why decry a great work because there are also those
+which are not great. Besides, I am not musician enough really to enjoy
+the Ring. If it were not for the pretty women who come to my box to
+escape ennui, I would find Wagner intolerable."</p>
+
+<p>Alban, very quiet and not a little excited to-night, differed from this opinion altogether.</p>
+
+<p>"My father was a musician," he said. "I believe that if he had not been
+a parson, he would have been a great musician. I don't know very much
+about music myself, but the first time that Mr. Gessner took me to hear
+one of Wagner's operas, I seemed to live in a new world. It could not
+have been just the desire to like it, for I had made up my mind that it
+would be very dry. There is something in such music as that which is
+better than all argument. I shall never forget the curious sensation
+which came to me when first I heard the overture to Tannh&auml;user played by
+a big orchestra. You will not deny that it is splendid?"</p>
+
+<p>"Undoubtedly it's fine&mdash;especially where the clarinets came in and you
+seem to have five hundred mice running up your back. I am not going to
+be drawn into an argument on the point&mdash;these likes and dislikes are
+purely individual. To me it seems perfectly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> ridiculous that one man
+should quarrel with another because a third person has said or written
+something about which they disagree. In politics, of course, there is
+justification. The Have-Nots want to get money out of the Haves and the
+pockets supply the adjectives. But in the arts, which exist for our
+pleasure,&mdash;why, I might as well fall foul of you because you do not like
+caviar and are more partial to brunettes than to blondes. My taste is
+all the other way&mdash;I dote upon caviar; golden-haired women are to me
+just a little more attractive than the angels. But, of course, that does
+not speak for their tempers."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed at the candor of it, and looking round the brilliant
+restaurant where they dined to-night, he began to speak in a low tone of
+Russian and Polish women generally.</p>
+
+<p>"The Polish ladies are old-fashioned enough to love one man at a
+time&mdash;in their own country, at any rate. The Russians, on the contrary,
+are less selfish. A Russian woman is often the victim of three
+centuries, of suppressed female ambitions. She has large ideas, fierce
+passions, an excellent political sense&mdash;and all these must be cooled by
+the wet blanket of a very ordinary domesticity. In reality, she is not
+domesticated at all and would far sooner be following her lover&mdash;the one
+chosen for the day&mdash;down the street with a flag. Here you have the
+reason why a Russian woman appeals to us. She is rarely beautiful&mdash;some
+of them would themselves admit the deficiency&mdash;but she is never an
+embarrassment. Tell her that you are tired of her and you will discover
+that she was about to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> stagger your vanity by a similar confidence. In
+these days of revolution, she is seen at her best. Fear neither of God
+nor man will restrain her. We have more of the show of religion and less
+of the spirit in Russia than in any other country in the world. Here in
+Poland, it is a little different. Some of our women are as the idealists
+would have them to be. But there are others&mdash;or the city would be intolerable."</p>
+
+<p>Alban had lived too long in a world of mean cynics that this talk should
+either surprise or entertain him. Men in Union Street spoke of women
+much as this careless fellow did, rarely generous to them and often
+exceedingly unjust. His own ideals he had confessed wholly to none, not
+even to Anna Gessner in the moment of their greatest intimacy. That fine
+old-world notion of the perfect womanhood, developed to the point of
+idolatry by the Celts of the West, but standing none the less as a
+witness to the whole world's desire, might remain but as a memory of his
+youth&mdash;he would neither surrender it nor admit that it was unworthy of
+men's homage. When Sergius spoke of his own countrywomen, Alban could
+forgive him all other estimates. And this was as much as to say that the
+image of Lois was with him even in that splendid place, and that some
+sentiment of her humble faith and sacrifice had touched him to the quick.</p>
+
+<p>They went to the opera as the Count had promised and there heard an
+indifferent rendering of the <i>Huguenots</i>. A veritable sisterhood of
+blondes, willing to show off Count Sergius to some advantage, came from
+time to time to his box and was by him visited in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> turn. Officers in
+uniform crowded the foyers and talked in loud tones during the finest
+passages. A general sense of unrest made itself felt everywhere as
+though all understood the danger which threatened the city and the
+precarious existence its defenders must lead. When they quitted the
+theatre and turned into one of the military clubs for supper, the common
+excitement was even more marked and ubiquitous enough to arrest the
+attention even of such a <i>fl&acirc;neur</i> as Sergius.</p>
+
+<p>"These fellows are sitting down to supper with bombs under their
+chairs," he said <i>sotto voce</i>. "That is to say, each thinks that a bomb
+is there and hopes that it will kill his neighbor. We have no sympathy
+in our public life here&mdash;the conditions are altogether against it.
+Imagine five hundred men upon the deck of a ship which has struck a
+rock, and consider what opportunities there would be to deplore the
+drowned. In Russia each plays for his own safety and does not care a
+rouble what becomes of the man next door. Such a fact is both our
+strength and our weakness&mdash;our strength because opportunities make men,
+and our weakness because we have no unity of plan which will enable us
+to fight such a combination as is now being pitted against us. I myself
+believe that the old order is at an end. That is why I have a villa in
+the south of France and some excellent apartments in Paris."</p>
+
+<p>"You believe that the Revolutionaries will be victorious?" Alban asked
+in his quiet way.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe that the power is passing from the hands of all autocratic
+governments, and that some phase of socialism will eventually be the
+policy of all civilized nations."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span></p><p>"Then what is the good of going to England, Count, if you believe that
+it will be the same story there?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is only a step on the road. You will never have a revolution in your
+country, you have too much common sense. But you will tax your bourgeois
+until you make him bankrupt, and that will be your way of having all
+things in common. In America the workingman is too well off and the
+country is too young to permit this kind of thing yet. Its day will be
+much later&mdash;but it will come all the same, and then the deluge. Let us
+rejoice that we shall not see these things in our time. It is something
+to know that our champagne is assured to us."</p>
+
+<p>He lifted a golden glass and drank a vague toast heartily. Others in the
+Club were frankly intoxicated and many a heated scene marked the
+progress of unceremonious and impromptu revels. Young officers, who
+carried their lives in their hands every hour, showed their contempt of
+life in many bottles. Old men, stern and gray at dawn, were so many
+babbling imbeciles at midnight. The waiters ran to and fro ceaselessly,
+their faces dripping with perspiration and their throats hoarse with
+shouting. The musicians fiddled as though the end of all things was at
+hand and must not surprise them at a broken bar. In Russia the scene was
+familiar enough, but to the stranger incomprehensible and revolting.
+Alban felt as one released from a pit of gluttony when at three in the
+morning Sergius staggered to his feet and bade a servant call him in a drosky.</p>
+
+<p>"We have much to do to-morrow," he muttered, "much to do&mdash;and then, ah,
+my friend, if we only knew what we meant when we say 'and then.'"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>COUNT ZAMOYSKI SLEEPS</h3>
+
+<p>A glimmer of wan daylight in the Count's bedroom troubled him while he
+undressed and he drew the curtains with angry fingers. Down there in the
+dismal streets the Cossacks watched the night-birds going home to bed
+and envied them alike their condition and its consequences. If Sergius
+rested a moment at the window, it was to mark the presence of these men
+and to take heart at it. And this is to say that few who knew him in the
+social world had any notion of the life he lived apart or guessed that
+authority stood to him for his shield and buckler against the unknown
+enemies his labors had created. Perhaps he rarely admitted the truth
+himself. Light and laughter and music were his friends in so far as they
+permitted him to forget the inevitable or to deride it.</p>
+
+<p>Here in this room of eloquent shadows he was a different man indeed from
+the fine fellow of the opera and the barracks&mdash;a haunted secret man
+looking deep into the mysteries and weary for the sun. The brilliant
+scene he had but just quitted could now be regretted chiefly because he
+needed the mental an&aelig;sthetic with which society alone could supply him.
+Pale and gaunt and inept in his movements, few would have recognized the
+Sergius Zamoyski of the dressing-room or named him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> for the diplomatist
+whose successes had earned the warmest encomiums of harassed authority.
+Herein lay a testimony to his success which his bitterest enemy would
+not have denied him. None knew better than he that the day of reckoning
+had come for all who opposed revolution in Russia, none had anticipated
+that day with a greater personal dread.</p>
+
+<p>He closed the curtains, thankful that the Cossacks stood sentinels
+without, and hungering for sleep which had been denied to him so often
+lately. If he had any consolation of his thoughts, it lay in the
+comparative secrecy of his present mission and the fact that to-day
+would accomplish its purpose. The girl Lois had not confessed Richard
+Gessner's secret and she would stand presently where confession would
+not help her. As for this agreeable youth, who certainly had been her
+lover, he must be coerced into silence, threatened, cajoled, bought.
+Sergius remembered Alban's fine gospel of life and laughed when he
+recalled it. This devotion to humanity, this belief in great causes,
+what was it worth when a woman laughed and her rosy lips parted for a
+kiss? The world is too busy for the pedants who would stem the social
+revolution, was his argument&mdash;the rich men have too much to do to hide
+their common frailties that they should put on the habits of the friars.
+Let this hot gospeller acquire a fortune and he would become as the
+others before a month had passed. The women would see to that&mdash;for were
+not two of them already about the business?</p>
+
+<p>He closed his curtains and undressed with a clumsy hand upon the buttons
+and many a curse at the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>obstinate things. The intense silence of the
+morning hour depressed him and he wondered that the hotel should sleep
+so soundly. His own door was both locked and bolted&mdash;he had a pistol in
+his travelling-bag and would finger it with grim satisfaction at such
+moments as these. Hitherto he had owed much to his very bravado, to a
+habit of going in and out among the people freely, and deriding all
+politics as a fool's employment. Latterly he had been wondering how far
+this habit would protect him, had made shrewd guesses at the truth and
+had come to the stage of question. Yesterday's work helped him to
+confirm these vague suspicions. How came it that Lois Boriskoff was able
+to warn this young Englishman, why had she come immediately to his hotel
+and followed him to the old quarters of the city? This could only mean
+that her friends had telegraphed the information from London, that every
+step of the journey had been reported and that a promising plan of
+action had been decided upon. Sergius dreaded this more than anything
+that could have happened to him. They will ask what share I had in it,
+he told himself; and he knew what the answer to that must be. Let them
+but suspect a hundredth part of the truth and he might not have twenty hours to live.</p>
+
+<p>It had been a splendid life so far and a sufficient atonement for the
+dreaded hours apart. There in his own room he gave battle to the
+phantoms by recalling the faces of the pretty women he had cajoled and
+defeated, the houses of pride he had destroyed, the triumphs he had
+numbered and the recompense he had enjoyed. To be known to none save as
+a careless idler, to pass as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> figure of vengeance unrecognized across
+the continents, to be the idol of the police in three cities, to have
+men running to and fro at his command though they knew not by whose
+order they were sent, here was wine of life so intoxicating that a man
+might sell his very soul to possess it. Sergius did not believe that
+there was any need for such a bargain as this&mdash;he had been consistently
+successful hitherto in eluding even the paltriest consequences of his
+employment&mdash;but the dark hours came none the less, and coming, they
+whispered a word which even the bravest may shudder to hear.</p>
+
+<p>He slept but fitfully, listening for any sounds from the city without
+and anxious for the hotel to awaken to its daily routine. The cooler
+argument of the passing hour declared it most unlikely that any plan
+would be ventured until Lois Boriskoff's fate were known and Alban had
+visited her this morning. If there were danger to be apprehended, the
+moment of it would arrive when the girl was arrested and the story of
+Alban Kennedy's misadventure made known to her friends. Sergius began to
+perceive that he must not linger an hour in Warsaw when this were done.
+He could direct operations as easily from Paris or London as from this
+conspicuous hotel, and with infinitely less risk to himself and his
+empire. Sometimes he wondered that he had been so foolish as to enter
+Russia at all. Why could he not have telegraphed to the Chief of the
+Police to arrest the girl as soon as might be and to flog her into a
+confession. The whip would have purchased her secret readily enough,
+then the others could have been arrested also and Gessner left reassured
+beyond question. Sergius<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> blamed himself very much that he had permitted
+a finer chivalry to guide his acts. "I came because this young man
+persuaded me to come," he admitted, and added the thought that he had
+been a fool for his pains.</p>
+
+<p>This would have been about four o'clock of the morning. He slept a
+little while upon it, but woke again at five and sat up in bed to mark a
+step on the landing without and to ask himself who had the right to be
+there at such an hour. When he had waited a little while, he came to the
+conclusion that two people were approaching his door and making little
+secret of their coming. Presently a knock informed him that he had
+nothing whatever to fear; and upon asking the question "What do you
+want?" a voice answered immediately, "From the bureau, your excellency,
+with a letter." This he concluded to mean that the Chief of the Police
+had some important news to convey to him and had sent his own messenger to the hotel.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a moment and I will let you in," he replied, and asked, "I suppose
+you can wait a little while?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is very urgent, excellency&mdash;you had better open at once."</p>
+
+<p>The Count sprang up from his bed and drew the curtains back from the
+window. A warm glow of sunlight instantly suffused the cold room and
+warmed it with welcome beams. Down there in the streets the Cossacks
+still nodded upon patient horses as though no event of the night had
+disturbed them. A drosky passed, driving an old man to the railway
+station&mdash;there were porters at the doors of some of the houses and a few
+wagons going down toward the river. All<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> this Sergius perceived
+instantly in one swift vision. Then he opened the door and admitted the officer.</p>
+
+<p>"There were two of you," he exclaimed, peering down the passage.</p>
+
+<p>"It is true, excellency, myself and the night-porter, but he has gone to sleep again."</p>
+
+<p>"And you?"</p>
+
+<p>"From the Chief, excellency, with this letter."</p>
+
+<p>He held out a great square document, grotesquely sealed and carefully
+folded. A small man with a pockmarked face, he wore the uniform of an
+ordinary gendarme and aped that r&ocirc;le to perfection. Saluting gravely, he
+permitted the letter to pass from his hands. Then he closed the door and
+leaned his back against it.</p>
+
+<p>"I am to take an answer to the bureau, excellency."</p>
+
+<p>The Count read a few lines of the document and looked up uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>"You say that you were commanded to wake me up&mdash;for this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Those are my orders."</p>
+
+<p>"Zaniloff must have lost his wits&mdash;there was nothing else?"</p>
+
+<p>The man took one stride forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he cried in a low voice, "there was this, excellency."</p>
+
+<p class="center">*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*</p>
+
+<p>Alban slept no better than his friend; in truth he hardly closed his
+eyes until they waked him and told him of the tragedy. He had said
+little to Sergius during the evening, but the perplexities of the long
+day remained with him and were not to be readily silenced.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p><p>That his patron sent no reply to their urgent telegram he thought a
+little strange. Mr. Gessner's silence could only mean that he had left
+London suddenly, perhaps had set out to join them in Warsaw. Meanwhile
+Alban perceived very clearly in what a position of danger Lois stood and
+how difficult it would be to help her if others did not come to his assistance.</p>
+
+<p>Accustomed to regard all the Revolutionaries from the standpoint of the
+wild creatures who talked nonsense in the East End of London, he could
+not believe in old Herr Petermann's optimism or pay much attention to
+the wild plan of escape he had devised. It must be absurd to think that
+Lois could leave Poland disguised as a servant. Alban himself would
+readily have recognized her in her disguise if he had been seeking her
+at the time, and the police would very soon detect it when their minds
+were set upon the purpose. In his own opinion, and this was shrewd
+enough, their hope of salvation lay in Richard Gessner's frank
+acceptance of the position. The banker had influence enough with the
+Russian authorities to release both Lois and her father. He must do so
+or accept the consequences of his obstinacy.</p>
+
+<p>All this and much more was in Alban's head while he tossed restlessly
+upon his strange bed and waited impatiently for the day. The oddest
+fancies came to him, the most fantastic ideas. Now he would be living in
+London again, a drudge at the works, the nightly companion of little
+Lois, the adventurer of the streets and the slums. Then, as readily, he
+would recall the most trifling incidents of his life in Richard
+Gessner's house,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> the days of the miracles, the wonderful hours when he
+had worshipped Anna Gessner and believed almost in her divinity. This
+had been a false faith, surely. He knew now that he would never marry
+Anna, and that must mean return to the wilderness, the bitter days of
+poverty and all the old-time strife with circumstance. It would have
+been easier, he thought, if those weeks of wonderland had never been.
+Richard Gessner had done him no service&mdash;rich men rarely help those whom
+they patronize for their own ends.</p>
+
+<p>Alban thought of all this, and still being unable to sleep, he fell to
+numbering the hours which stood between him and his meeting with Lois.
+He was sure that she would be ready for him however early his visit
+might be&mdash;and he said that he would ring for his coffee at seven o'clock
+and try to go down to the river at eight. If there were no message from
+Mr. Gessner before he left, he thought it would be wise to counsel
+patience for this day at least. In plain truth he was less concerned
+about the diplomatic side of the affair than the personal. An
+overmastering desire for Lois' companionship, the wish to hear her
+voice, to speak to her, to talk as they had talked in the dark days of
+long ago, prevailed above the calm reckoning of yesterday. His
+resolution to defeat Count Sergius at his own game seemed less heroic
+than it had done twelve hours ago. Alban had conceit enough not to fear
+the Count. That incurable faith in British citizenship still upheld him.</p>
+
+<p>Seven had been the hour named by his intention&mdash;it was a little after
+six o'clock when he heard a knock<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> upon his bedroom door and started up
+wondering who called him at such an hour.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is there, what do you want?" he cried, with the bedclothes still
+about his shoulders. No one answered this, but the knock was repeated, a
+decisive knock as of one who meant to win admittance.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, I will come in a minute," was now his answer; to which he
+added the question&mdash;"Is that you, Count? Do you know it's only just six o'clock?"</p>
+
+<p>He opened the door and found himself face to face with the hotel valet,
+an amiable young Frenchman by the name of Malette.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," said the man, "will you please come at once? There has been
+an accident&mdash;his excellency is very ill."</p>
+
+<p>"An accident to the Count? Is it serious, Malette?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is very serious, monsieur. They say that he will not live. The
+doctors are with him&mdash;I thought that you would wish to know immediately."</p>
+
+<p>Alban turned without a word and began to put on his clothes. His hands
+were quite cold and he trembled as though stricken by an ague. When he
+had found a dressing-gown, he huddled it on anyhow and followed Malette down the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>"When did this happen, Malette?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know, monsieur. One of the servants chanced to pass his
+excellency's door and saw something which frightened him. He called the
+concierge and they waked the Herr Director. Afterwards they sent for the police."</p>
+
+<p>"Do they think that the Count was assassinated, then?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span></p><p>"Ah, that is to find out. The officers will help us to say. Will you go
+in at once, monsieur, or shall I tell the Herr Director?"</p>
+
+<p>Alban said that he would go at once. The young fear to look upon the
+face of death and he was no braver than others of his age. A terrible
+sense of dread overtook him while he stood before the door and heard the
+hushed whispers of those about it. Here a giant police officer had
+already taken up his post as sentinel and he cast a searching glance
+upon all who approached. There were two or three privileged servants
+standing apart and discussing the affair; but a stain upon a crimson
+carpet was more eloquent of the truth than any word. Alban came near to
+swooning as he stepped over it and entered the room without word or knock.</p>
+
+<p>They had laid the Count upon the bed and dragged it to the window to
+husband the light. Two doctors, hastily summoned from a neighboring
+hospital, worked like heroes in their shirt sleeves&mdash;a nurse in a gray
+dress stood behind them holding sponge and bandages. At the first
+glance, the untrained onlooker would have said that Sergius Zamoyski was
+certainly dead. The intense pallor of his face, the set eyes, the
+stiffened limbs, spoke of the rigor mortis and the finality of tragedy.
+None the less, the surgeons went to work as though all might yet be
+saved. Uttering their orders in the calm and measured tones of those
+whom no scene of death could unnerve, they were unconscious of all else
+but the task before them and its immediate achievement. When they had
+need of anything, they spoke to the Herr Director of the hotel who
+passed on his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> commands in a sharp decisive tone to a porter who stood
+at his heels. Near by him stood the Chief of the Police, Zaniloff, a
+short burly man who wore a dark green uniform and held his sheathed
+sword lightly in his left hand. These latter looked up when the door
+opened, but the doctors took no notice whatever. There was an
+overpowering odor of anaesthetics in the room although the windows had
+been thrown wide open.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the Count dead?" Alban asked them in a low voice. He had taken a few
+steps toward the bed and there halted irresolute. "What is it, what has
+happened, sir?" he continued, turning to Zaniloff. That worthy merely
+shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"The Count has been assassinated&mdash;we believe by a woman. The doctors
+will tell us by and by."</p>
+
+<p>Alban shuddered at the words and took another step toward the bed. He
+felt giddy and faint. The words he had just heard were ringing in his
+ears as a sound of rushing waters. "Has Lois done this
+thing?"&mdash;incredible! And yet the man implied as much.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot stay here," he exclaimed presently, "I must go to my room, if you please."</p>
+
+<p>He turned and reeled from the place, ashamed of his weakness, yet unable
+to control it. Outside upon the landing, he discovered that Zaniloff was
+at his elbow and had something to say to him. Speaking sharply and
+autocratically in the Russian tongue, that worthy realized almost
+immediately that he had failed to make himself understood and so called
+the Herr Director to his aid.</p>
+
+<p>"They will require your attendance at the bureau,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> the Director said
+with an obsequious bow toward Alban&mdash;"you must dress at once, sir, and
+accompany this gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>Alban said that he would do so. He was miserably cold and ill and
+trembling still. Knowing nothing of the truth, he believed that they
+were taking him to Lois Boriskoff and that she was already in custody.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>AN INTERLUDE IN PICCADILLY</h3>
+
+<p>Alban had been fifteen days out of England when Anna Gessner met Willy
+Forrest one afternoon as she was driving a pair of chestnut ponies down
+Piccadilly towards the Circus. He, amiable creature, had just left a
+club and a bridge table which had been worth fifteen pounds to him. The
+gray frock suit he wore suited him admirably. He certainly looked very
+smart and wide-awake.</p>
+
+<p>"Anna, by Jupiter," he cried, as he stepped from the pavement at the
+very corner of Dover Street&mdash;"well, if my luck don't beat cock-fighting.
+Where are you off to, Anna&mdash;what have you done with the shoving-machine?
+I thought you never aired the gee-gees now. Something new for you, isn't
+it? May I get in and have a pawt? We shall be fined forty bob and costs
+at Marlborough Street if we hold up the traffic. Say, you look ripping
+in this char &agrave; bancs, upon my soul you're killing."</p>
+
+<p>She had not meant to stop for him, and half against her wish she now
+reined the ponies in and made room for him. There never had been a day
+in her life since she had known him when she was able to resist
+altogether the blandishments of this pleasant rogue, who made so many
+appeals to her interest. To-day sheer curiosity conquered her. She
+wished above all things to hear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> what he had done with the extravagant
+cheque her father had sent him.</p>
+
+<p>"I drove the ponies for a change," she said coldly, "we must not be
+unkind to dumb creatures. Do you know, it is most improper that you
+should be seen with me in this carriage, Willy. Just think what my
+father would say if he heard of it."</p>
+
+<p>Willy Forest, to give him his due, rarely devoted much time to unpleasant thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the good of dragging your father in, Anna?" he asked her sagely.
+"I want to have a talk to you and you want to have a talk to me. Where
+shall we go, now? We can't blow the loud trumpet at a tea-shop and a
+hotel is inquisitive. Why not come round to my rooms? There's an old
+charwoman there who will do very well when rumors arise&mdash;and she'll make
+us a cup of tea. Why not come, Anna?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's out of the question, Willy. You know that it is. Besides, I am
+never going to speak to you again."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's all right&mdash;that's what you used to say when you came over to
+the cottage. We're getting too old for that kind of nonsense, you and I,
+Anna. Suppose I tell your man to wait for us in Berkeley Square. I'll
+say that we are going into the Arcade to look at the motor-cars&mdash;and
+they won't let you keep a carriage waiting in Bond Street now. I can
+tell you what I've heard about your friend Alban Kennedy while you're
+cutting me the bread and butter."</p>
+
+<p>Her attention was arrested in an instant.</p>
+
+<p>"What can you know about Mr. Kennedy?" she asked quickly, while her face
+betrayed her interest.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span></p><p>"Oh, I know a lot more than most. I've struck more than one friend of
+his these later days, and a fine time he seems having with the girls out
+yonder. Come over to my rooms and I'll tell you about it. I'm just
+fitting up a bit of a place in the Albany since your good father began
+to encourage virtue. I say, Anna,&mdash;he should never have sent me that
+cheque, you know he shouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>It was a masterpiece of impudence, but it won upon her favor none the
+less. She had made up her mind a week ago that Willy Forrest was a
+rogue, a thief, and a charlatan. Yet here she was&mdash;for such is
+woman&mdash;tolerating his conversation and not unwilling to hear his
+explanations. Upon it all came his insinuation that he had news of
+Alban. Certainly, she did not know how to refuse him.</p>
+
+<p>"You are sure that there is some one in your rooms&mdash;I will leave them
+instantly if there is not," she exclaimed, surprised at scruples which
+never had troubled her hitherto. Forrest protested by all the gods that
+the very doubt was an outrage.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a hag about fit to knock down a policeman," he rejoined, with a
+feigned indignation fine to see. "Now be sensible, Anna, and let's get
+out. Are we babes and sucklings or what? Don't make a scene about it. I
+don't want you to come if you'd rather not."</p>
+
+<p>She turned the ponies round almost at the door of the Albany, which they
+had just passed while they talked, and drove up to the door of that
+somewhat dismal abode. A word to her groom to be in Berkeley Square in
+half-an-hour did not astonish that worthy, who was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> quite accustomed to
+"Miss Hanna's" vagaries. In the corridor before the chambers, Willy laid
+stress upon the point about the charwoman and made much of her.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll ring the old girl up and you can cross-question her if you like.
+She's a regular beauty. Don't you think that I'd deceive you, Anna. Have
+I ever done it in all my miserable life&mdash;eh, what?" he said at the door.
+"Now walk right in and I'll order tea. It seems like old times to have
+you about, upon my word it does."</p>
+
+<p>She followed him into the chambers, her anxiety about the charwoman
+absolutely at rest. The rooms themselves were in some little confusion,
+but promised to be splendidly furnished presently. Fine suites of
+furniture were all huddled together like policemen at a scene of public
+rejoicing. The rich curtains, unhung, were neatly folded upon chairs and
+sofas&mdash;a few sporting prints relieved the cold monotony of tinted
+walls&mdash;the library boasted Ruff and Wisdom for its chief masterpieces.
+Nothing, however, disconcerted Willy Forrest. He had produced that
+charwoman before you could count five.</p>
+
+<p>"Make us a cup of tea, Mrs. Smiggs, will you?" he asked her
+boisterously. "Here's my cousin come to tell me how to plant the
+furniture. We shan't trouble you long&mdash;just make love to the kettle and
+say we're in a hurry, will you now, there's a good soul."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Smiggs took a sidelong glance at the lady, and tossing a proud but
+tousled head assented to the proposition in far from becoming terms.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p><p>"I'm sure, sir, that I'm always willing to oblige," she said
+condescendingly, "if as the young lady wouldn't like me to step out and
+get no cakes nor nothing&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no cakes, thank you, Mrs. Smiggs&mdash;just a cup of tea as you can
+make it and that's all. My cousin's carriage is waiting&mdash;she won't be
+here ten minutes&mdash;eh, what?"</p>
+
+<p>The good woman left them, carrying a retrouss&eacute; nose at an angle of
+suspicion. Willy Forrest drew an arm-chair towards the window of that
+which would presently be his dining-room, and having persuaded Anna to
+take it, he poised himself elegantly upon the arm of a sofa near by and
+at once invited her confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Anna, now, what's the good of nonsense? Why did you let the old
+man send me that cheque?"</p>
+
+<p>She began to pull off her gloves, slowly and with contemplative deliberation.</p>
+
+<p>"I let him send it because I did not wish to marry you."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what I thought. You got in a huff about a lot of fool's
+talk on the course and turned it round upon me. Just like a woman&mdash;eh,
+what? As if I could prevent your horse going dotty. That was Farrier's business, not mine."</p>
+
+<p>"But you let me back the horse."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I did. He might have won. I was just backing my luck against
+yours. Of course I didn't mean you to lose anything. We were just two
+good pals together, and what I took out of the ring would have been
+yours if you'd asked me. Good Lord, what a mess your father's made of
+it! Me with his five thou<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> in my pocket and you calling me a blackguard.
+You did call me a blackguard&mdash;now didn't you, Anna?"</p>
+
+<p>It was very droll to see him sitting there and for a wonder telling her
+something very like the truth. This, however, had been the keystone of a
+moderately successful life. He had always told people that he was a
+scamp&mdash;a kind of admission the world is very fond of. In Anna's case he
+found the practice quite useful. It rarely failed to win her over.</p>
+
+<p>"What was I to think?" she exclaimed almost as though her perplexity
+distressed her. "The people say that I have cheated them and you win my
+money. If I don't pay you, you say that I must marry you. Will you deny
+that it is the truth? You won this money from me to compel me to marry you?"</p>
+
+<p>Captain Willy Forrest slapped his thigh as though she had told him an excellent joke.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the best thing I've heard for a twelvemonth," cried he; "as if
+you were the sort to be caught that way, Anna&mdash;by an impostor too, as
+your Little Boy Blue told you at Henley. He said I was an impostor,
+didn't he? Well, he's about right there&mdash;I'm not the son of old Sir
+James Forrest&mdash;never was, my dear. He was my father's employer, and a
+devilish good servant he had. But I've some claims on his memory all the
+same&mdash;and why shouldn't I call myself Forrest if I want to? Now, Anna,
+I'll be as plain with you as a parson at a pigeon match. I do want to
+marry you&mdash;I've wanted to marry you ever since I knew you&mdash;but if you
+think I'm such a fool as to go about it in the way you say I've done,
+well, then, I'll put right in for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> Balmy Stakes and win 'em sure and
+certain. Don't you see that the boot's just on the other leg right
+along? I win your money because I want you to think I'm a decent sort of
+chap when I don't take it. As for the bookies who hissed the horse on
+the course&mdash;who's to pity them? Didn't they see the old gee in the
+paddock&mdash;eh, what! Hadn't they as good a chance as any of us to spot
+that dotty leg. If I'd a been born with a little white choker round my
+swan's-down, I'd have shouted the news from the mulberry tree. But I
+wasn't, my dear&mdash;I'm just one of the ruck on the lookout to make a
+bit&mdash;and who'll grease my wheels if I leave my can at home? No, don't
+you think it&mdash;I wanted to marry you right enough, but that wasn't the
+road. What your father's paid me, he's going to have back again and
+pretty soon about. Let him give it to the kid who's playing Peep-bo with
+the Polish Venus&mdash;I shan't take it, no, not if I come down to a
+porcelain bath in the Poplar Union&mdash;and what's more, you know I won't, Anna."</p>
+
+<p>His keen eyes searched her face earnestly, much more earnestly than
+their wont, as he asked her this pointed question. Anna, upon her part,
+knew that he had juggled cleverly with the admitted facts of the case
+and yet her interest in his confession waxed stronger every moment. What
+an odd fascination this man exercised upon her. She felt drawn toward
+him as to some destiny she could not possibly escape. And when he spoke
+of Alban, then he had her finally enmeshed.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you know of Mr. Kennedy?" she asked, sitting up very straight
+and turning flashing eyes upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> him. "He certainly wouldn't write to
+you. How do you know what he is doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little fat bird in a black coat living down Whitechapel way. Oh, I
+don't make any secret of it. I know a man who used to be a parson. He
+began to stick needles into himself, and the Bishop said&mdash;what ho! They
+took off his pinafore and he is now teaching Latin outside Aldgate
+Station. He's in with the Polish crowd&mdash;I beg your pardon, the gentlemen
+refugees from Poland&mdash;who are sewing the buttons on our shirts not far
+from the Commercial Road. Those people knew more about your friend than
+he knows about himself. Ask 'em straight and they'll tell you that he is
+in Warsaw and the girl Lois Boriskoff with him. Whether they've begun to
+keep house, I don't pretend to say. But it's as true as the east wind
+and that's gospel. You ask your father to make his own inquiries. I
+don't want to take it on myself. If he can tell you that Master Alban
+Kennedy is not something like the husband of the Polish lady Lois
+Boriskoff, then I'll give a penny to a hospital. Now go and ask him,
+Anna&mdash;don't you wait a minute, you go and ask him."</p>
+
+<p>"Not until I've had that cup of tea, Willy."</p>
+
+<p>She turned round as the charwoman entered and so hid her face from him.
+Light laughter cloaked at once the deep affront her pride had received,
+and the personal sense of shame his words had left. Not for a moment did
+she question the truth of his story or seek to prove it. As women all
+the world over, she accepted instantly the hint at a man's faithlessness
+and determined that it must be true. And this was to say that her
+passion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> for Alban Kennedy had never been anything but a phase of
+girlish romance acceptable for the moment and to be made permanent only
+by persistence. The Eastern blood, flowing warm in her veins, would
+never have left her long satisfied with the precise and strenuous
+Englishman and the restraint his nationality put upon him. She hungered
+for the warm passionate caress which the East had taught her to desire.
+She was drawn insensibly toward the man who had awakened this instinct
+within her and ministered to it whenever he approached her.</p>
+
+<p>They drank their tea in silence, each perhaps afraid to admit the hazard
+of their task. When the moment came, she had recovered her self-control
+sufficiently to refer again to the question of the cheque and to do so adroitly.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to return that money to my father, Willy?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's just as you like. When you come here for good, we could send it back together."</p>
+
+<p>"What makes you think that I will come here for good, Willy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because when I kiss you&mdash;like this&mdash;you tremble, Anna."</p>
+
+<p>He caught her instantly in his arms and covered her face with passionate
+kisses. Struggling for a moment in his embrace, she lay there presently
+acquiescent as he had known even before his hands touched her. An hour
+had passed before Anna quitted the flat&mdash;and then she knew beyond any
+possibility of question that she was about to become Willy Forrest's wife.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PRISON YARD</h3>
+
+<p>The great gates of the prison yard rolled back to admit the carriage in
+which Alban had been driven from the hotel, and a cordon of
+straight-backed officials immediately surrounded it. Early as the hour
+was, the meanest servant whom Zaniloff commanded had work to do and well
+understood the urgency of his task. The night had been one long story of
+plot and counterplot; of Revolutionaries fleeing from street to street,
+Cossacks galloping upon their heels, houses awakened and doors beaten
+down, the screams and cries of women, the savage anger of men. And all
+this, not upon the famous avenues which knew little of the new &eacute;meute,
+but down in the narrow alleys of the old city where bulging gables hid
+the sight from a clear heaven of stars and the crazy eaves had husbanded the cries.</p>
+
+<p>There had been a civil battle fought and many were the prisoners. Not a
+cell about that great yard but had not its batch of ragged, shivering
+wretches whose backs were still bloody, whose wounds were still unbound.
+The quadrangle itself served, as a Cossack jocularly remarked, for the
+overflow meeting. Here you might perceive many types of men-students,
+still defiant, sage lawyers given to the parley, ragged vermin of the
+slums gathering their rags close about their shoulders as though to
+protect them from the lash;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> timid apostles of the gospel of humanity
+cowering before human fiends&mdash;thus the yard and its environment. For
+Alban, however, the place might not have existed. His eyes knew nothing
+of this grim spectacle. He followed the Chief to the upper rooms,
+remembering only that Lois was here.</p>
+
+<p>They passed down a gloomy corridor and entered a lofty room high up on
+the third floor of the station. Two spacious windows gave them a fine
+view of the yard below with all its gregarious misery. There was a table
+here covered by a green baize cloth, and an officer in uniform writing
+at it. He stood and saluted Zaniloff with a gravity fine to see. The
+Chief, in turn, nodded to him and drew a chair to the table. When he had
+found ink and paper he began the interrogation which should help his dossier.</p>
+
+<p>"You are an Englishman and your age is"&mdash;he waited and turned to Alban.</p>
+
+<p>"My age is just about twenty-one."</p>
+
+<p>"You were born in England?"</p>
+
+<p>"In London; I was born in London."</p>
+
+<p>"And you now live?"</p>
+
+<p>"With Mr. Richard Gessner at Hampstead."</p>
+
+<p>So it went&mdash;interminable question and answer, of the most trivial kind.
+It seemed an age before they came to the vital issue.</p>
+
+<p>"And what do you know of this crime which has been committed?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know nothing&mdash;how could I know anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, you were yesterday in company of the girl who is charged with its commission."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span></p><p>"The charge is absurd&mdash;I am sure of it."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall decide that for ourselves. You visited her upon the barge of
+the German merchant, Petermann. He is now in custody and has confessed
+as much. What did she say to you when you were alone with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"She asked me to help to set her father free."</p>
+
+<p>"An honest admission&mdash;we shall do very well, I see. When she spoke of
+his excellency the Count, she said&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not afraid to tell you. She did not like him and asked me to take
+her away from Warsaw, disguised as my servant."</p>
+
+<p>"That was not clever, sir. As if we should not have known&mdash;but I pass it
+by. You left her and then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I spent the day with the Count and returned with him to the hotel at
+three o'clock in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"There was no one with him, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, his valet was with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you leave them together when you went to bed?"</p>
+
+<p>"He always helped the Count to undress. I cannot remember where I left him."</p>
+
+<p>"You have not a good memory, I perceive."</p>
+
+<p>"Not for that which happened at three o'clock in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>Zaniloff permitted the merest suspicion of a smile to lurk about the
+corners of a sensual mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"It is difficult," he said dryly&mdash;and then, "your memory will be better
+later on. Did the girl tell you that his excellency would be assassinated?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know very well that she did not."</p>
+
+<p>"I know?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span></p><p>"Certainly, you have had too much experience not to know."</p>
+
+<p>"Most flattering&mdash;please do not mistake me. I am asking you these
+questions because I wish that justice shall be done. If you can do
+nothing to clear Lois Boriskoff, I am afraid that we shall have to flog her."</p>
+
+<p>"That would be a cowardly thing to do. It would also be very foolish.
+She has many friends both here and in England. I don't think they will forget her."</p>
+
+<p>"Wild talk, Mr. Kennedy, very wild talk. I see that you will not help
+me. We must let the Governor know as much and he will decide. I warn you
+at the same time that it will go very hard with you if the Count should
+die&mdash;and as for this woman, we will try other measures. She must
+certainly be flogged."</p>
+
+<p>"If you do that, I myself will see that her friends in England know
+about it. The Governor will never be so foolish&mdash;that is, if he wishes
+to save Mr. Gessner."</p>
+
+<p>"Gessner&mdash;Gessner&mdash;I hear the name often&mdash;pardon me, I have not the
+honor of his acquaintance."</p>
+
+<p>"Telegraph to the Minister at St. Petersburg and he will tell you who
+Mr. Gessner is. I think you would be wise to do so."</p>
+
+<p>Zaniloff could make nothing of it. The cool effrontery of this mere
+stripling was unlike anything he had heard at the bureau in all the
+years he had served authority. Why, the bravest men had gone down on
+their knees to him before now and almost shrieked for mercy. And here
+was this bit of an English boy plucking the venerable beard of Terror as
+unconcernedly as though he were a sullen-eyed Cossack with a nagaika in
+his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> hand. Assuredly he could be no ordinary traveller. And why did he
+harp upon this name Gessner, Richard Gessner! Reflection brought it to
+Zaniloff's mind that he had heard the name before. Yes, it had been
+mentioned in a dossier from the Ministry of Justice. He thought again
+and recalled other circumstances. The Government had been anxious to do
+the man a service&mdash;they had commanded the arrest of the Boriskoffs&mdash;why,
+at this very Gessner's bidding! And had not the Count warned him to
+treat the young Englishman as his own son&mdash;merely to play a comedian's
+part and to frighten him before opening the doors with profuse
+apologies. Zaniloff did not like the turn affairs had taken. He
+determined to see the Governor-General without a moment's loss of time.
+Meanwhile there could be no earthly reason why the girl should not be
+flogged. Whatever happened the Minister would approve that.</p>
+
+<p>"It shall be done as you advise," he rejoined presently, the admission
+passing for an excellent joke. "The telegram shall be dispatched
+immediately. While we are waiting for an answer I will command them to
+bring you some breakfast to my own private room. Meanwhile, as I say,
+the girl must be flogged."</p>
+
+<p>Alban shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not believe that you could possibly be so foolish," he said.</p>
+
+<p>It puzzled Zaniloff altogether. Searching that open face with eyes
+accustomed to read many human stories, he could discern neither emotion
+nor anger, but just an honest man's faith in his own cause and a sure
+belief that it must triumph. Whatever Alban might really<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> feel, the
+sickening apprehension of which he was the victim, the almost
+overmastering desire to take this ruffian by the throat and strangle him
+as he sat, not a trace of it could be discerned either in his speech or
+his attitude. "He stood before me like a dog which has barked and is
+waiting to bite," Zaniloff said afterwards. "I might as well have
+threatened to flog the statue of Sobiesky in the Castle gardens." This
+impression, however, he was careful to conceal from the prisoner.
+Official dignity never argues&mdash;especially when it is getting the worst of the deal.</p>
+
+<p>"My wisdom is not for us to discuss," he snapped; "please to remember
+that I am in authority here and allow no one to question what I do. You
+will remain in my room until I return, sir. Afterwards it must be as the Governor decides."</p>
+
+<p>He took up his papers and whispering a few words to the stolid secretary
+he left the room and went clanking down the corridor. The officer who
+remained seemed principally concerned in driving the flies from his bald
+head and from the documents he compiled so laboriously. Stopping from
+time to time to shape a quill pen to his liking, he would write a few
+lines carefully, kill a number of flies, take a peep at Alban from
+beneath his shaggy brows and then resume the cycle of his labors. Alban
+pitied him cynically. This labor of docketing scarred backs seemed
+wretchedly monotonous. He was really glad when the fellow spoke to him,
+in as amazing a combination of tongues as man had ever heard:</p>
+
+<p>"Mein Herr&mdash;pardon&mdash;what shall you say&mdash;comment &agrave; dire&mdash;for the
+English&mdash;Moskowa?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span></p><p>"We say Moscow, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah&mdash;Mosk&mdash;Mosk-nitchevo&mdash;je ne m'en souviens jamais."</p>
+
+<p>He continued to write as though laboring under an incurable
+disappointment. That Alban knew what Moskowa meant was not surprising,
+for he had heard the word so often in Union Street. Here in this very
+courtyard, far below his windows, were the sons and the brothers of
+those who had preached revolution in England. How miserable they
+looked&mdash;great hordes of them, all crouching in the shadow of the wall to
+save their lacerated skins from the burning sunshine. Verily did they
+resemble sheep driven into pens for the slaughter. As for the Cossacks
+who moved in and out among them, there was hardly a moment which found
+their whips at rest. Standing or sitting, you could not escape the
+dreadful thongs&mdash;lashes of raw hide upon a core of wires, leaded at the
+end and cutting as knives. Sometimes they would strike at a huddled form
+as though they resented its mute confession of overwhelming misery. An
+upturned face almost invariably invited a cut which laid it open from
+forehead to chin. And not only this, but there were ordered floggings,
+one of which Alban must witness as he stood at the window above, too
+fascinated by the horror of the spectacle to move away and not unwilling to know the truth.</p>
+
+<p>Many police assisted at this&mdash;driving their victims before them to a
+rude bench in the centre of the yard. There was neither strap nor
+triangle. They threw their man down and held him across the plank,
+gripping his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> wrists and ankles and one forcing his head to the floor.
+The whip of a single lash, wired to cut and leaded everywhere, fell
+across the naked flesh with a sound of a cane upon a board. Great welts
+were left at the very first blow, torn flesh afterwards and sights not
+to be recounted. The most stolid were broken to shrieks and screams
+despite their resolutions. The laugh upon defiant lips became instantly
+a terrible cry seeming to echo the ultimate misery. As they did to these
+poor wretches so would they do to Lois, Alban said. He was giddy when a
+voice called him from the window and he almost reeled as he turned.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what do you want with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am to take you to the cell of the girl Lois Boriskoff, mein Herr. Please to follow me."</p>
+
+<p>An official, well dressed in civilian's clothes, spoke to him this time
+and with a sufficient knowledge of the English language. The bald-headed
+secretary still snapped up the unconsidered insectile trifles which
+troubled his paper. Alban, his heart thumping audibly, followed the
+newcomer from the room and remembered only that he was going to Lois.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MEETING</h3>
+
+<p>They had imprisoned many of the women in one of the stables behind the
+great yard of the station. So numerous were the captives that the common
+cells had been full and overflowing long ago. Zaniloff, charged with the
+command to restore order in the city at any cost, cared not a straw what
+the world without might say of him. The rifle, the bayonet, the
+revolver, the whip&mdash;here were fine tools and proved. Let but a breath of
+suspicion frost the burnish of a reputation and he would have that man
+or woman at the bar, though arrest might cost a hundred lives. Thus it
+came about that those within the gates were a heterogeneous multitude to
+which all classes had contributed. The milliner's assistant crouched
+side by side with the Countess, though she still feared to touch her
+robe. There were professors' daughters and dockers' wives, ladies from
+the avenue and ladies from the hovels. And just as in the great arena
+beyond the walls, so here Pride was the staff of the well-born,
+Prejudice of the weak.</p>
+
+<p>Amid this trembling company, in the second of the stables, the gloom
+shrouding her from suspicious observation, none noticing so humble a
+creature, Alban found Lois and made himself known to her. The amiable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>
+civilian with his two or three hundred words of English seemed as
+guileless as a child when he announced Master Zaniloff's message and
+dwelt upon his honorable master's beneficence.</p>
+
+<p>"You are to see this lady, sir, and to tell her that if she is honest
+with us we shall do our best to clear her of the charge. She knows what
+that will mean to name the others to us and then for herself the
+liberty. That is his excellency my master's decision."</p>
+
+<p>"Much obliged to him," said Alban, dryly, and perhaps it was as well
+that Herr Amiability did not catch the tone of it.</p>
+
+<p>"We have much prisoner," the good man went on, "much prisoner and not so
+much prison. That is as you say a perplexity. But it will be better;
+later in the time after. Here is the girl, this is the place."</p>
+
+<p>He bent his head to enter the stable and Alban followed him, silently
+for very fear of his own excitement. There was so little light in the
+place that he could scarcely distinguish anything at first, nothing,
+indeed, but great beds of straw and black figures huddled upon them. By
+and by these took shape and became figures of women of all ages and
+types. Many, he perceived, were Jewesses, dark as night and as
+mysterious. Their clothes were poor, their attitude courageous and
+quiet. A Circassian, whose hair was the very color of the straw with
+which it mingled, stood out in contrast with the others. She had lately
+been flogged and the clothes, torn from her bleeding shoulders, had not
+been replaced. Near by, the wife of a professor at the University, young
+and distinguished and but yesterday<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> welcomed everywhere, sat dumb in
+misery, her eyes wide open, her thoughts upon the child she had left.
+Not among these did Alban find Lois, but in the second of the great
+stalls still waiting its complement of prisoners. He wondered that he
+found her at all, so dark was this place; but a sure instinct led him to
+her and he stopped before he had even seen her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois dear, I am sure it is Lois."</p>
+
+<p>She started up from the straw, straining wild eyes in the shadows.
+Awakened from her sleep when they arrested her, she wore the dress which
+she had carried to her haven from the school, quite plain and pretty,
+with linen collars and cuffs in the old-fashioned style. Her hair had
+been loosely plaited and was bound about her like a cord. She rested
+upon the palms of her hands turned down to the pavement. There was but
+one other woman near her, and she appeared to be asleep. When she heard
+Alban's voice, she cried out almost as though they had struck her with the whip.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you come here?" she asked him wildly. "Alban, dear, whatever made you come?"</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="f-267.jpg" id="f-267.jpg"></a><img src="images/f-267.jpg" width='485' height='700' alt="Why do you come here? she asked him wildly." /></div>
+
+<h4>"Why do you come here?" she asked him wildly.</h4>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>He stepped forward and kneeling down in the straw he pressed his cold
+lips to hers and held them there for many minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you not wish me to come, Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>She shivered, her big eyes were casting quick glances everywhere, they
+rested at last upon the woman who seemed to sleep almost at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"They will hear every word we say, Alb, dear. That woman is listening, she is a spy."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad of it, she can go and give her master a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> message from me.
+Tell me, Lois, do not be afraid to speak. You knew nothing of Count
+Zamoyski's death. Say that you knew nothing."</p>
+
+<p>She cowered and would not answer him. A dreadful fear came upon Alban.
+He began to tremble and could not keep his hands still upon her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God, Lois, why do you not speak to me? I must know the truth, you didn't kill him."</p>
+
+<p>She shrank back, laughing horribly. The pent-up excitements of the night
+had broken her nerve at last. For an instant he feared almost for her reason.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois, Lois dear, Lois, listen to me; I have come to help you. I can
+help you. Lois, will you not hear me patiently?"</p>
+
+<p>He caught her to him as he spoke and pressed her burning forehead to his
+lips. So she lay for a little while, rocked in his arms as a child that
+would be comforted. A single ray of sunshine filtered through a slit in
+the wall above, dwelt for a moment upon her white face and showed him all the pity of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois, why should you speak like this because I come to you? Is it so
+difficult to tell the truth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did they tell you to ask me that, Alban?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was forced from me, Lois. I don't believe it. I would as soon
+believe it of myself. But don't you see that we must answer them? They
+are saying it, and we must answer them."</p>
+
+<p>She struggled to be free, half resenting the manner of his question, but
+in her heart admitting its necessity.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew nothing of it," she said simply, "you may tell them that, Alban.
+If they offered me all the riches<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> in the world, I could not say more. I
+don't know who did it, dear, and I'd never tell them if I did."</p>
+
+<p>A little cry escaped his lips and he caught her close in his arms again.
+It was not to say that he had believed the darker story at which
+imagination, in a cowardly mood, might hint, but this plain denial, from
+the lips of Lois who had never told him a lie, came as a very message of their salvation.</p>
+
+<p>"You have made me very happy, Lois," he said, "now I can talk to them as
+they deserve. Of course, I shall get you out of here. Mr. Gessner will
+help me to do so. We have the whip hand of him all said and done, for
+don't you see, that if you don't tell your people, I shall, and that
+will be the end of it. Of course, it won't come to that. I know how he
+will act, and what they will do when the time arrives. Perhaps they will
+bundle us both out of Russia, Lois, thankful to see the back of us."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head, looking up to him with a wild face.</p>
+
+<p>"I would not go, Alb dear. Not while my father is a prisoner. Who is
+there to work for him, if I don't? No, my dear, I must not think of it.
+I have my duty to do whatever comes. But you, it is different for you,
+Alban, you would be right to go."</p>
+
+<p>He answered her hotly with a boyish phrase, conventional but true.</p>
+
+<p>"You would make a coward of me, Lois," he said, "just a coward like the
+others. But I am not going to let you. You left me once before; I have
+never forgotten that. You went to Russia, and forgot that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> we had ever
+been friends. Was that very kind, was it your true self that did so?
+I'll never believe, unless you say so now."</p>
+
+<p>She sat a little apart from him, regarding him wistfully as though she
+wondered greatly at his accusation.</p>
+
+<p>"You went to live in another world, dear, and so did I. My father made
+me promise that I would not try to see you for six months, and I kept my
+word. That was better for you and better for me. If money had changed
+you, and money does change most of us, you would have been happier for
+my silence. I have told you about the letters, and that's God's truth.
+If I had not been ashamed, I couldn't have kept my word, for I loved
+you, dear, and I shall always love you. When my father sent you to Mr.
+Gessner's house, I think he wished to find out if his good opinion of
+you was right or not. He said that you were going to carry a sword into
+Wonderland and kill some of the giants. If you came back to us, you were
+to marry me, but if you forgot us, then he would never believe in any
+man again. There's the truth for you, my dear, I tell you because it all
+means nothing to me now. I could not go to London and leave my father in
+prison here, and they will never release him, Alban, they will never do
+it as things are, for they are more frightened of him than of any man in
+Russia. When I go away from here, it will be to Petersburg to try and
+see my father. There's no one else in all the world to help him, and I
+shall go there and try to see him. If they will let me stay with him,
+that will be something, dear. You can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> ask them that for me; when Mr.
+Gessner writes, you can beg it of the Ministry in Mr. Gessner's name."</p>
+
+<p>"Ask them to send you to prison, Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>"To send me to my father, dear."</p>
+
+<p>Alban sat very silent, almost ashamed for himself and his own desires.
+The stupendous sacrifice of which she spoke so lightly revealed to him a
+page in the story of human sympathy which he had often read and as often
+derided. Here in the prison cell he stood face to face with human love
+as Wonderland knew nothing of it. Supreme above all other desires of her
+life, this desire to save her father, to share his sorrows, to stand by
+him to the end, prevailed. The riches of the world could not purchase a
+devotion as precious, or any fine philosophy belittle it. He knew that
+she would go to Petersburg because Paul Boriskoff, her father, had need
+of her. This was her answer to his selfish complaints during the years of their exile.</p>
+
+<p>"And what am I to do if they give you the permission, Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>"To go back to London and marry Anna Gessner. Won't you do that, Alban?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know that I shall never do so."</p>
+
+<p>"There was a time when you would not have said that, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>He was greatly troubled, for the accusation was very just. The
+impossibility of making the whole truth plain to her had stared him in
+the face since the moment of her pathetic confession when he met her on
+the barge. Impossible to say to her, "I had an ideal and pursued it,
+looking to the right and the left for the figure of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> vision and
+suffering it to escape me all the time." This he could not tell her or
+even hint at. The lie cried for a hearing, and the lie was detestable to him.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a time, yes, Lois," he said, turning his face from her, "I am
+ashamed to remember it now, since you have spoken. If you love me, you
+would understand what all the wonders of Mr. Gessner's house meant to a
+poor devil, brought up as I had been. It was another world with strange
+people everywhere. I thought they were more than human and found them
+just like the rest of us. Oh, that's the truth of it, and I know it now.
+Our preachers are always calling upon the rich to do fine things for the
+poor, but the rich man is deaf as often as not, because some little puny
+thing in their own lives is dinning in their ears and will shut out all
+other sounds. I know that it must be so. The man who has millions
+doesn't think about humanity at all. He wages war upon trifles, his
+money-books are his library, he has blinded himself by reading them and
+lost his outlook upon the world. I thought it would all be so different,
+and then somebody touches me upon the shoulder and I look up and see
+that my vision is no vision at all, and that the true heart of it is my
+own all the time. Can you understand that, Lois, is it hidden from you also?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not hidden, Alban, it is just as I said it would be."</p>
+
+<p>"And you did not love me less because of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should never have loved you less, whatever you had done."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall remind you of that when we are in England together."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span></p><p>"That will never be, Alban dear, unless my father is free."</p>
+
+<p>She repeated it again and again. Her manner of speaking had now become
+that of one who understood that this was a last farewell.</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot help us," she said, "why should you suffer because we must?
+In England there's a great future before you as Mr. Gessner's adopted
+son. I shall never hear of it, but I shall be proud because I know the
+world will talk about you. That will be something to take with me, dear,
+something they can never rob me of, whatever happens. When you remember
+who Lois was, say that she is thinking of you in Russia far away. They
+cannot separate us, dear Alban, while we love."</p>
+
+<p>He had no word to answer this and could but harp again upon all the
+promise of his fine resolution. When the matter-of-fact official came to
+find him, Lois was close in his embrace and there were tears of regret in his eyes.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>ALBAN RETURNS TO LONDON</h3>
+
+<p>They returned to the great courtyard, but not to Zaniloff's room as the
+promise had been. Here by the gates there stood a passable private
+carriage, and into this Alban perceived that he was to be hustled. The
+bestarred transcriber of the upper story, he who waged the battle of the
+flies, now stood by the carriage door and appeared to be ill at ease.
+Evidently his study of strange tongues still troubled him.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon, mein Herr&mdash;how in English&mdash;khorosho?" he asked very deferentially.</p>
+
+<p>"It means 'that's all right,' sir." Alban answered immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"It means that,&mdash;ah, nitchevo&mdash;je ne m'en souviens jamais."</p>
+
+<p>He held the door open and Alban entered the carriage without a word.
+Apparently they still waited for someone and five minutes passed and
+found their attitudes unchanged. Then Zaniloff himself appeared full of
+bustle and business but in a temper modified toward concession.</p>
+
+<p>"I am taking you back to your hotel, mein Herr," he said to Alban, "it
+is the Governor's order. You will leave Warsaw to-night. Those are our instructions."</p>
+
+<p>He sank back in the cushions and the great gates<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> were shut behind them
+with a sonorous clang. Out in the streets the outbreak of the earlier
+hours had been a veritable battle but was now a truce. The whole city
+seemed to be swarming with troops. Well might Zaniloff think of other things.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the Count better, sir?" Alban ventured presently.</p>
+
+<p>"He will live," was the dry response, "at least the doctors say so."</p>
+
+<p>"And you have discovered the truth about the affair?"</p>
+
+<p>"The man who attacked him was shot on the Rymarska half an hour ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Then that is why you are taking me back to my hotel?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is positively no other reason," said the Chief.</p>
+
+<p>The statement was frank to the point of brutality, but it carried also
+such a message of hope that Alban hardly dared to repeat the words of it
+even to himself; there was no longer any possibility of a capital charge
+against the child he had just left in the wretched stable. Let the other
+facts be as they might, these people could not detain Lois Boriskoff
+upon the Count's affair or add it to the dossier in which her father's
+offences were narrated. Of this Zaniloff's tone convinced him. "He would
+never have admitted it at all if Lois were compromised," the argument
+ran, and was worthy of the wise head which arrived at it.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad that you have found the man," he explained presently, "it
+clears up so much and must be very satisfactory. Would you have any
+objection to telling me what you are going to do with the girl I have just left?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span></p><p>Zaniloff smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no objection at all. When the Ministry at St. Petersburg
+condescends to inform me, you shall share my information. At present I
+am going to keep her under lock and key, and if she is obstinate I am going to flog her."</p>
+
+<p>"Do the people at St. Petersburg wish you to do that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not consult their feelings," was the curt reply.</p>
+
+<p>They fell to silence once more and the carriage rolled on through the
+busy streets. It had escaped Alban's notice hitherto, that an escort of
+Cossacks accompanied them, but as they turned into the great avenue he
+caught a glimpse of bright accoutrements and of horsemen going at a
+gentle canter. The avenue itself was almost deserted save by the
+ever-present infantry who lined its walks as though some great cavalcade
+were to pass. When they had gone another hundred paces, the need for the
+presence of the soldiers declared itself in a heap of blackened ruins
+and a great fire still smouldering. Zaniloff smiled grimly when they passed the place.</p>
+
+<p>"Half an hour ago that was the palace of my namesake, the Grand Duke
+Sergius," he said, almost as though the intelligence were a matter of
+personal satisfaction to him.</p>
+
+<p>Alban looked at the smouldering ruins and could not help remembering the
+strange threats he had heard in Union Street on the very eve of his
+departure from England. Had any of the old mad orators a hand in this?
+Those wild figures of the platforms and the slums, had they achieved so
+much, if indeed it were achievement at all?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span></p><p>"They are fools to make war upon bricks and mortar," Zaniloff remarked
+in his old quiet way.</p>
+
+<p>"I told them so in London, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You told them; do you enjoy the honor of their acquaintance then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know as much about them as any of your people, and that is saying a
+good deal. They are very ignorant men who are suffering great wrongs. If
+your government would make an effort to learn what the world is thinking
+about to-day, you would soon end all this. But you will never do it by
+the whip, and guns will not help you."</p>
+
+<p>Zaniloff laid a hand upon his shoulder almost in a kindly way.</p>
+
+<p>"My honor alone forbids me to believe that," he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>They arrived at the hotel while he spoke and passed immediately to the
+private apartments above. A brief intimation that Alban must consider
+himself still a prisoner and not leave his rooms under any
+circumstances, whatever, found a ready acquiescence from one who had
+heard an echo in Lois' words of his own farewell to Russia. That the
+authorities would detain him he did not believe, and he knew that his
+long task was not here. He must return to England and save Lois. How or
+by what means he could not say; for the ultimate threat, so lightly
+spoken, affrighted him when he was alone and left him a coward. How,
+indeed, if he went to the fanatics of Union Street and said to
+them,&mdash;"Richard Gessner is your enemy; strike at him." There would be
+vengeance surely, but he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> received too many kindnesses at Hampstead
+that he should contemplate such an infamy. And what other course lay
+before him? He could not say, his life seemed lived. Neither ambition
+nor desire, apart from the prison he had left, remained to him.</p>
+
+<p>The French valet Malette waited upon him in his rooms and gave him such
+news of the Count as the sentinels of the sick-room permitted. Oh, yes,
+his excellency was a little better. He had spoken a few words and asked
+for his English friend. Nothing was known of the madman who struck him
+save that which the papers in his pocket told them. The fellow had been
+shot as he left the Grand Duke's palace; some thought that he had been
+formerly in the Count's service and that this was merely an act of
+vengeance, <i>mais terrible</i>, as Malette added with emphasis. Later on his
+excellency would be able to tell the story for himself. His grand
+constitution had meant very much to him to-day.</p>
+
+<p>The interview took place at three o'clock in the afternoon, the doctors
+having left their patient, and the perplexed Zaniloff being again at the
+prison. The bed had now been wheeled a little way from the window and
+the room set in pleasant order by clever and willing hands. The Count
+himself had lost none of his courage. The attack in truth had nerved him
+to believe that he had nothing further to fear in Warsaw, for who would
+think about a man already as good as buried by the newspapers. Here was
+something to help the surgeons and bring some little flush of color to
+the patient's pallid cheeks. He spoke as a man who had been through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> the
+valley of the shadow and had suffered little inconvenience by the journey.</p>
+
+<p>"I am forbidden to talk," he said to Alban, and immediately began to
+talk in defiance of a nurse's protests.</p>
+
+<p>"So you have been to prison, mon vieux; well, it is so much experience
+for you, and experience is useful. I have done a good morning's work, as
+you see. Imagine it. I open my door to a policeman, and when I ask him
+what he has got for me, he whips out a butcher's knife and makes a
+thrust at my ribs. Happily for me, I come from a bony race. The surgeons
+have now gone to fight a duel about it. One is for septic pneumonia, the
+other for the removal of the lungs. I shall be out of Poland in my
+beautiful France by the time they agree."</p>
+
+<p>He flushed with the exertion and cast reproachful eyes upon the nurse
+who stood up to forbid his further eloquence. Alban, in turn, began to
+tell him of the adventure of the morning.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a Jack and Jill business, except that Jill does not come
+tumbling after," he said. "What is going to happen I cannot tell you.
+Lois will not leave Poland until her father is released, and I have it
+from her that he never will be released. Don't you see, Count, that Mr.
+Gessner is a fool to play with fire like this. Does he believe that this
+secret will be kept because these two are in prison? I know that it will
+not. If he is to be saved, it must be by generosity and courage. I
+should have thought he would have known it from the beginning. Let him
+act fairly by old Paul Boriskoff and I will answer for his safety. If he
+does not do so, he must blame himself for the consequences."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span></p><p>"Pride never blames itself, Kennedy, even when it is foolish. I like
+your wisdom and shall give a good account of it. Of course, there is the
+other side of the picture, and that is not very pretty. How can we
+answer for the man, even if he be generously dealt with? More important
+still, how can we answer for the woman?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will answer for her, Count."</p>
+
+<p>"You, my dear boy. How can you do that?"</p>
+
+<p>"By making her my wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you say this seriously?"</p>
+
+<p>"I say it seriously."</p>
+
+<p>"But why not at Hampstead before we left England. That would have made
+it easier for us all."</p>
+
+<p>"I would try to tell you, but you would not understand. Perhaps I did
+not know then what I know now. There are some things which we only learn
+with difficulty, lessons which it needs suffering to teach us."</p>
+
+<p>A sharp spasm, almost of pain, crossed the Count's face.</p>
+
+<p>"That is very true," he exclaimed, "please do not think I am deficient
+in understanding. It has been necessary for you to come to Poland to
+discover where your happiness lay?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it has been necessary."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you understand, that this would mean the termination of your good
+understanding with my friend Gessner. You could not remain in his house naturally."</p>
+
+<p>"I have thought of that. It will be necessary for me to leave him as you
+say. But I have been an interloper from the beginning, and I do not see
+how I could have remained. While everything was new to me,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> while I
+lived in Wonderland, I never gave much thought to it; but here when I
+begin to think, I am no longer in doubt. How could I shut myself up in a
+citadel of riches and know that so many of my poor people were starving
+not ten miles from my door. I would feel as though I had gone into the
+enemy's camp and sold myself for the gratification of a few silly
+desires and a whole pantomime of show which a decent man must laugh at.
+It is better for me to have done with it once and for all and try to get
+my own living. Lois will give me the right to work, if she ever wins her
+liberty, which I doubt. You could help her to do so, if you were willing, Count."</p>
+
+<p>"I, what influence have I?"</p>
+
+<p>"As much as any man in Poland, I should say."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you appeal to my vanity. I wish it could respond. Frankly, my
+Government will be little inclined to clemency, just now at any rate.
+Why should it be? These people are burning down our houses, why should
+we help them to build their own? Your old friend Boriskoff was as
+dangerous a man as any in Poland, why should they let him go just
+because an English banker wishes it."</p>
+
+<p>"They will let him go because he is more dangerous in prison than out of
+it. In London I could answer for him. I could not answer while he is at Petersburg."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear lad, we must really make you Master of all these pretty
+ceremonies. I'll speak to Zaniloff." He laughed lightly, for the idea of
+this mere stripling being of any use to his Government amused him
+greatly. His apologies for the indulgence, however, were not to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>
+spoken, for the blood suddenly rushed from his cheeks, and the good
+nurse intervened in some alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"Please to leave him," she said to Alban in French. He obeyed her
+immediately, seeing that he had been wrong to stay so long.</p>
+
+<p>"I will come again when you permit me. Please let me know when his
+excellency is better."</p>
+
+<p>She promised him that she would do so, and he returned to his own rooms.
+He was not, however, to see the Count again until he met him many years
+afterwards in Paris. The distressed Zaniloff himself carried the amazing
+news, some two hours later.</p>
+
+<p>"You are to leave for London by the evening mail," the Chief said
+shortly, "a berth has been reserved for you, and I myself will see you
+into the train. Do not complain of us, Mr. Kennedy. I can assure you
+that there are many cities more agreeable than Warsaw at the present moment."</p>
+
+<p>Alban was not surprised, nor would he argue upon it. He realized that
+his labors in Poland had been in vain. If he could save Lois from the
+prison, he must do so in London, in the alleys and dens he had so long
+deserted. Not toward Wonderland, not at the shrines of riches, but as an
+exile returned to labor with the humblest, must this journey carry him.</p>
+
+<p>And he bowed his head to destiny and believed that he stood alone against the world.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+
+<h3>WE MEET OLD FRIENDS</h3>
+
+<p>Alban had returned some two months from Poland, when, upon a drear
+October evening, the Archbishop of Bloomsbury, my Lady Sarah, the flower
+girl, and "Betty," the half-witted boy, made their way about half-past
+nine o'clock to the deserted stage of the Regent Theatre, and there by
+the courtesy of the watchman, distantly related to Sarah, began their
+preparations for a homely evening meal.</p>
+
+<p>To be quite candid, this was altogether a more respectable company than
+that which had assembled in the Caves at the springtime of the year. The
+Lady Sarah wore a spruce black silk dress which had adorned the back of
+a Duchess more than three years ago; the Archbishop boasted a coat that
+would have done no discredit to a Canon of St. Paul's; the boy they
+would call "Betty" had a flower at the button-hole of a neat gray suit,
+and carried himself as though all the world belonged to him. This purple
+and fine linen, to be sure, were rather lost upon the empty stage of
+that dismal theatre, nor did the watchman's lantern and two proud
+wax-candles which the Lady Sarah carried do much for their reputation;
+but, as the Archbishop wisely said, "We know that they are there, and
+Sarah has the satisfaction of rustling for us."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span></p><p>Now to be plainer, this was the occasion of a letter just received from
+"the Panorama," who had gone to America since June, and of joyful news
+from that incurable optimism.</p>
+
+<p>"I gather," the Archbishop had said, as he passed the document round,
+"that our young friend, er&mdash;hem&mdash;having exhibited the American nation in
+wax, a symbol of its pliability, surely is now proceeding to melt it
+down and to return to England. That is a wise undertaking. Syrus, the
+philosopher, has told us that Fortune is like glass, when she shines too
+much she is broken. Let our friend take the tide at the flood and not
+complain afterwards that his ship was too frail. The Panorama has
+achieved reputation, and who is of the world does not know the pecuniary
+worth of that? Consider my own case and bear with me. I have the
+misfortune to prick myself with a needle and to suffer certain personal
+inconveniences thereby. The world calls me a villain. Other men,
+differently situated, kill thousands of their fellow-creatures and look
+forward to the day when they will be buried in Westminster Abbey. We
+envy them at the height and the depth of it. This the Panorama should
+remember. A successful showman is here to-day and&mdash;er&mdash;hem&mdash;melted down
+to-morrow. It is something to have left no debts behind him; it is much
+more to have remembered his old friends in these small tokens which we
+shall consume in all thankfulness, according to our happiness and our digestions."</p>
+
+<p>He had seated himself upon a stage chair, gilt and anciently splendid,
+to deliver himself of this fine harangue. The lady Sarah, in her turn,
+hastened to take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> up a commanding position upon the throne that had
+served for a very modern Cleopatra, while the boy "Betty," accustomed to
+hard beds, squatted upon the bare boards and was the happier for his
+liberty. For inward satisfaction, the menu declared a monstrous pie from
+a shop near by; a plentiful supply of fried fish; three dozen oysters in
+a puny barrel, and a half a dozen bottles of stout, three of which
+protruded from the Archbishop's capacious pockets. The occasion was a
+great one, indeed, the memory of their old friend, the Panorama, at its zenith.</p>
+
+<p>"I always did say as he'd make a noise in the world, and that's the
+truth, God knows," Sarah took an early occasion to remark. "Not if he
+were my own brother could I wish him more than I do this night. 'Tisn't
+all of us would care to go 'crost the ocean among the cannibals and take
+the King of Hingerland in a 'amper. I saw him myself, wrapped up in a
+piper box and lookin' beautiful, God's truth, with the crown done up in
+tissue beside him. That was before the Panorama left us. 'Be a good
+boy,' says I, 'and don't fall in love with any of them darkies as you'll
+find in' Mericky. So help me lucky, I'd a good mind ter come after you,'
+says I, 'and marry their Ole Man jess ter set 'em a good example.'"</p>
+
+<p>By which it will be perceived that the Lady Sarah's knowledge of the
+great and mighty Republic beyond the seas was clearly limited. Such
+ignorance had often provoked the Archbishop of Bloomsbury to
+exasperation, it annoyed him not a little to-night.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear child," he protested, "you are laboring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> under a very great
+delusion. Be assured that America is a very great country,
+where&mdash;er&mdash;hem&mdash;they may eat each other, but not as you imagine. I
+believe that the American ladies are very beautiful. I have met some of
+them&mdash;er&mdash;in the old days, when&mdash;hem&mdash;the Bishops showed their
+confidence in me by drinking my claret and finding it to their liking.
+All that we have in England they have in America&mdash;prisons, paupers,
+policemen, palaces. You are thinking of Africa, Sarah, darkest Africa,
+that used to be, but is fast disappearing. Led me add&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Sarah, however, was already busy upon her dozen of oysters and had no
+patience to hear the good man out.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you take on so, Bishop," she intervened, "'Mericky ain't done
+much for me and precious little it's going ter do for you. What I says
+is, let those as have got a good 'ome stop there and be thankful. Yer
+may talk about your oshun wave, but I ain't taking any, no, not though
+there was diamonds on the sea beach the other side and 'ot-'arse roses
+fer nothink. Who ever sees their ole friends as is swallered up by the
+sea? Who ever heard of Alb Kennedy since he went ter Berling as he told
+us for to mike his fortune? Ho, a life on the oshun wave if yer like,
+but not for them as has bread and cheese ashore and a good bed to go to
+arterwards; that's what I shall say as long as I've breath in my body."</p>
+
+<p>"Betty," the boy, answered to this earnest lamentation with a sound word
+of good common sense.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a-goin' to sleep in one o' them boxes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>to-night, ain't you,
+Sarah?" he asked, and she admitted the truth of his conclusions.</p>
+
+<p>"And sweeter dreams I would have if I knew where the Dook was a-layin'
+his 'ed this night," she added.</p>
+
+<p>The Archbishop ate a succulent morsel and drank a long draught from the
+unadorned black bottle.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing is known of Kennedy at Hampstead," he interposed, "I have made
+diligent inquiries of the gardener there, and he assures me that our
+dear friend never returned from Poland and that no one knows anything of
+him, not even Mr. Gessner. Anna, the daughter, I understand, is married
+to an old acquaintance of ours and has taken a little house in Curzon
+Street. She liked to go the&mdash;er&mdash;hem&mdash;pace, as the people say; and she
+is mated to one who will not be afraid of exceeding the legal limits.
+Mr. Gessner himself is on his yacht, and is supposed to be cruising off
+the coast of Norway. That is what they tell me. I have no reason to
+doubt the truth of their information. Would to heaven I had. Kennedy was
+a friend, a true friend, while he was in England. I have known many a
+bitter night since he left us."</p>
+
+<p>He sighed, but valiantly, and applied himself once more to the pewter
+pot. It was a terrible night outside, raining heavily and blowing a
+bitter wind. Even here on the stage of the deserted theatre a chilling
+draught sported with their candles and made fine ghosts for them upon
+the faded canvas. Talk of Alban Kennedy seemed to have depressed them
+all. They uttered no word for many minutes, not indeed until one of the
+iron doors suddenly swung open and Alban himself came in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> among them. He
+was drenched to the skin, for he had carried no umbrella, and wore but a
+light travelling suit, the identical one in which he had returned from
+Poland. Very pale and worn and thin, this, they said, was the ghost of
+the Alban who had left them in the early summer. And his manner was as
+odd as his appearance. You might almost have said that he had thrown the
+last shred of the aristocratic rags to the winds and put on old habits
+so long discarded that they were almost forgotten. When he crossed the
+stage to them, it was with his former air of dogged indifference and
+cynical self-content. Explanations were neither offered nor asked. He
+flung his hat aside and sat upon the corner of a crazy sofa despised by
+the rest of the company. A hungry look, cast upon the inviting
+delicacies, betrayed the fact that he was hungry. Be sure it was not
+lost upon the watchful Sarah.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Gawd, to see him walk in amongst us like that. Why, Mr. Kennedy,
+whatever's up, whatever brings you here a night like this?"</p>
+
+<p>Alban had always admired the Lady Sarah, he admired her more than ever to-night.</p>
+
+<p>"Wind and rain, Sarah," he said shortly, "they brought me here, to say
+nothing of Master Betty cutting across the street as though the cops
+were at his heels. How are you all? How's his reverence? Speak up, my
+lord, how are the affairs of your extensive diocese?"</p>
+
+<p>"My affairs," said the Archbishop, slowly, "are what might be called in
+<i>nubibus</i>&mdash;cloudy, my dear boy, distinctly cloudy. I am, to adopt a
+homely simile, at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> present under a neighbor's umbrella, which is not as
+sound as it might be. Behold me, none the less, in that state of content
+to which the poet Horace has happily referred&mdash;<i>nec vixit male qui natus
+moriensque fefellit</i>. At this moment you discover me upon a pleasant
+bridge which spans an unknown abyss. I eat, drink and am merry. What more shall I desire?"</p>
+
+<p>"And Betty here, does Betty keep out of mischief?"</p>
+
+<p>Sarah answered this.</p>
+
+<p>"I got him a job at Covent Garden, and he's there regular at four
+o'clock every morning sure as the sun's in heaven. Don't you go thinking
+nothink about Betty, Mr. Kennedy, and so I tell you straight."</p>
+
+<p>"And what have you done with the Panorama, Sarah?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed loudly.</p>
+
+<p>"Panorama's among the black men, them's his oysters as we're eatin' now.
+Try one, Mr. Kennedy. You look as if a drop of summat would do you good,
+so help me you do. Take a sup o' stout and rest yourself awhile. It is a
+surprise to see you, I must say."</p>
+
+<p>"A very pleasant surprise, indeed," added the Archbishop, emphatically.
+"There has been no event in my life for many months which has given me
+so much satisfaction. We have not so many friends that we can spare even
+one of them to those higher spheres, which, I must say, he has adorned
+with such conspicuous lustre."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, spare me, reverence, don't talk nonsense to-night. I am tired as
+you see, tired and hungry. And I'm going to beg food and drink from old
+friends who have loved me. Now, Sarah, what's it to be?"</p>
+
+<p>He drew the sofa nearer to the bare table and began<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> to eat with them.
+Sarah's motherly protestations induced him to take off his coat and hang
+it up in the watchman's office to dry. The same tender care served out
+to him the most delicate morsels, from a generous if uncouth table, and
+insisted upon their acceptance. If his old friends were hot with
+curiosity to know whence he came and what he had been doing, they, as
+the poor alone can do successfully, asked no questions nor even hinted
+at their desire. Not until the supper was over and the Archbishop had
+produced a little packet of cigars, did any general conversation
+interrupt that serious business of eating and drinking, so rarely
+indulged in, so sacred when opportunity offered.</p>
+
+<p>This amiable truce to curiosity, dictated by nature, was first broken by
+the Archbishop, who did not possess my Lady Sarah's robust powers of
+self-command. Passing Alban a cigar, he asked him a question which had
+been upon his lips from the beginning.</p>
+
+<p>"You are just returned from Poland, Kennedy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have been in England two months, reverence."</p>
+
+<p>"But not at Hampstead, my dear boy, not at Hampstead, surely?"</p>
+
+<p>"As you say, not at Hampstead, at least not at "Five Gables." Mr.
+Gessner is away yachting; I read it in the newspapers."</p>
+
+<p>"You read it in the newspapers. God bless me! do you mean to say that he
+did not tell you himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"He told me nothing. How could he? He hasn't got my address."</p>
+
+<p>They all stared, open-eyed in wonder. Even the Lady Sarah had a question to ask now.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span></p><p>"You're not back in Whitechapel again."</p>
+
+<p>"True as gold. I am living in Union Street, and going to be married."</p>
+
+<p>"To be married; who's the lidy?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I want to know; perhaps it would be little red-haired Chris
+Denholm. I can't exactly tell you, Sarah."</p>
+
+<p>"Here none of that&mdash;you're pullin'&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Sarah caught the Archbishop's frown, and corrected herself adroitly.</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't true, Mr. Kennedy, is it now?"</p>
+
+<p>"God knows, Sarah, I don't. I'm earning two pounds a week in a motor
+shop and living in the old ken by Union Street. Mr. Gessner has left the
+country and his daughter is married to Willy Forrest. I hope she'll like
+him. They'll make a pretty pair in a crow's nest. Pass the stout and
+let's drink to 'em. I must be off directly; if I don't walk home, it'll
+be pneumonia or something equally pleasant. But I'm glad to see you all,
+you know it, and I wish you luck from the bottom of my heart."</p>
+
+<p>He took a long drink from a newly opened bottle and claiming his coat
+passed out as mysteriously as he had come. The watchman said that a man
+waited for him upon the pavement, but his information seemed vague. The
+others continued to discuss him until weariness overtook them and they
+slept where they lay. His going had taken a friend away from them, and
+their friends were few enough, God knows!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MAN UPON THE PAVEMENT</h3>
+
+<p>A well-meaning stage-door keeper for once had told the plain truth and
+there had been a man upon the pavement when Alban quitted the Regent Theatre.</p>
+
+<p>Little more than six months ago, this identical fellow had been
+commissioned by Richard Gessner to seek Alban out and report upon his
+habits. He had visited the great ship-building yard, had made a hundred
+inquiries in Thrawl Street and the Commercial Road, had tracked his
+quarry to the Caves and carried his news thereafter triumphantly to
+Hampstead and his employer. To-night his purpose was otherwise. He
+sought not gossip but a man, and that man now appeared before him upon
+the pavement, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his head bent, his
+attitude that of utter dejection and despair.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kennedy, if you please."</p>
+
+<p>The stranger spoke beneath the shadow of a great lamp in the Charing
+Cross Road. Not hearing him immediately, Alban had arrived at the next
+lamp before the earnest entreaty arrested him and found him erect and
+watchful in a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, sir; you are Mr. Kennedy, are you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"My name, at least the half of it."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span></p><p>"Mr. Alban Kennedy, shall we say. I have been looking for you for three
+days, sir. It is not often that I search three days for anybody when his
+house is known. Forgive me, it is not my fault that there has been a delay."</p>
+
+<p>Alban knew no more than the man in the moon what he was driving at, and
+he thought it must be all a mistake.</p>
+
+<p>"What's it all about, old chap?" he exclaimed, falling into the manners
+of the street. "Why have you been hurrying yourself on my account?"</p>
+
+<p>"To give you this letter, sir, and to ask you to accompany me."</p>
+
+<p>Alban whistled, but took the note nevertheless and tore it open with
+trembling fingers. He thought that he recognized the handwriting, but
+was not sure. When he had read the letter through, he turned to the man
+and said that he would go with him.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I will call a hansom, sir."</p>
+
+<p>The detective blew a shrill whistle, and a hansom immediately tried to
+cannon an omnibus, and succeeding came skidding to the pavement. The two
+men entered without a word to each other; but to the driver the
+direction was Hampstead Heath. He, wise merchant, demurred with chosen
+phrase of weight, until a fare was named and then lashed his horse triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>"My lucky's in," he cried to a friend upon another box, "it's a quid if
+I ain't bilked."</p>
+
+<p>Alban meanwhile took a cigarette from a paper packet, and asked his
+companion for a light. When he struck it an observer would have noticed
+that his hand was still shaking.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span></p><p>"Did you go down yonder?" he asked, indicating generally the
+neighborhood east of Aldgate.</p>
+
+<p>"Searched every coffee shop in Whitechapel, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you weren't lucky. I have been living three days on Hampstead Heath."</p>
+
+<p>"On Hampstead Heath? My godfather, I wish I'd known."</p>
+
+<p>They were driving through Regent's Park by this time, and the darkness
+of a tempestuous night enshrouded them. Alban recalled that unforgotten
+evening of spring when, with the amiable Silas Geary for his companion,
+he had first driven to Mr. Gessner's house and had heard the story of
+Wonderland, as that very ordinary cleric had described it. What days he
+had lived through since then! And now this news surpassing all the
+miracles! What must it mean to him, and to her! Had they been fooling
+him again or might he dare to accept it for the truth? He knew not what
+to think. A surpassing excitement seized upon him and held him dumb. He
+felt that he would give years of his life to know.</p>
+
+<p>They toiled up the long hill to the Heath and entered the grounds of
+"Five Gables" just as the church clock was striking eleven. There were
+lights in the Italian Garden and in the drawing-room. Just as it had
+been six months ago, so now the obliging Fellows opened the door to
+them. Alban gave him a kindly nod and asked him where Lois was.</p>
+
+<p>"The young lady is there, in the hall, sir. Pardon me saying it, she
+seems much upset to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Gessner is still away?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span></p><p>"On his yacht, sir. We think he is going to visit South America."</p>
+
+<p>Alban waited for no more, but went straight on, his eyes half blinded by
+the glaring lights, his hands outstretched as though feeling for other hands to grasp them.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois, I am here as you wished."</p>
+
+<p>A deep sob answered him, a hot face was pressed close to his own.</p>
+
+<p>"Alban," she said, "my father is dead!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2>
+
+<h3>IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY</h3>
+
+<p>Very early upon the following morning, almost before it was light, Alban
+entered the familiar study at "Five Gables" and read his patron's
+letter. It had been written the day after he himself returned from
+Poland, and had long awaited him, there in that great lonely house. He
+opened it almost as though it had been a message from the dead.</p>
+
+<p>"I am leaving England to-day," the note went on, "and may be many months
+abroad. The unhappy death of Paul Boriskoff in the Schlusselburg will be
+already known to you, and will relieve you of any further anxiety upon
+his daughter's account. I have the assurance of the Minister of St.
+Petersburg that she will be released immediately and sent to "Five
+Gables" as I have wished. There I have made that provision for her
+future which I owe to my own past, and there she will live as your wife
+until the days of my exile are finished.</p>
+
+<p>"You, Alban Kennedy, must henceforth be the agent of my fortunes. To
+you, in the name of humanity, I entrust the realization of those dreams
+which have endeared you to me and made you as my own son. If there be
+salvation for the outcasts of this city by such labors as you will now
+undertake upon their behalf,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> then let yours be the ministering hands,
+and the people's gratitude. I have lived too long in the kingdom of the
+money-changers either to accept your beliefs or to put them into
+practice. Go you out then as an Apostle in my name, that at my coming I
+may help you to reap a rich harvest.</p>
+
+<p>"My agents will be able at all times to tell upon what sea or in what
+haven I am to be found. I go in quest of that peace which the world has
+denied to me. But I carry your name before others in my memory, and if I
+live, I will return to call you my son."</p>
+
+<p>So the letter went on, so Alban read it as the dawn broke and the great
+city woke to the labors of the day.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
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@@ -0,0 +1,8865 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Aladdin of London, by Sir Max Pemberton,
+Illustrated by Frank Parker
+
+
+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: Aladdin of London
+       or Lodestar
+
+
+Author: Sir Max Pemberton
+
+
+
+Release Date: March 15, 2009  [eBook #28326]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALADDIN OF LONDON***
+
+
+E-text prepared by David Garcia, Martin Pettit, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 28326-h.htm or 28326-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/3/2/28326/28326-h/28326-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/3/2/28326/28326-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+ALADDIN OF LONDON
+
+Or
+
+Lodestar
+
+by
+
+MAX PEMBERTON
+
+Author of "The Hundred Days," "A Gentleman's Gentleman," "Doctor
+Xavier," "The Lady Evelyn," etc., etc.
+
+Illustrated by Frank Parker
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York Empire Book Company Publishers
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: A very orgy of blood and slaughter; a carnival of
+whips.--Page 198]
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1907, by Max Pemberton.
+Entered at Stationers' Hall.
+All rights reserved.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                       PAGE
+
+     I. THE HALL BY UNION STREET                 5
+
+    II. ALBAN KENNEDY MAKES A PROMISE           14
+
+   III. WITHOUT THE GATE                        23
+
+    IV. THE CAVES                               33
+
+     V. DISMISSAL                               45
+
+    VI. THE STRANGER                            56
+
+   VII. THE HOUSE OF THE FIVE GABLES            62
+
+  VIII. ALBAN KENNEDY DINES                     71
+
+    IX. ANNA GESSNER                            79
+
+     X. RICHARD GESSNER DEBATES AN ISSUE        90
+
+    XI. WHIRLWIND                              109
+
+   XII. ALBAN SEES LIFE                        121
+
+  XIII. ALBAN REVISITS UNION STREET            132
+
+   XIV. THERE ARE STRANGERS IN THE CAVES       145
+
+    XV. A STUDY IN INDIFFERENCE                152
+
+   XVI. THE INTRUDER                           160
+
+  XVII. FATHER AND DAUGHTER                    167
+
+ XVIII. FATE IRONICAL                          182
+
+   XIX. THE PLOT HAS FAILED                    192
+
+    XX. ALBAN GOES TO WARSAW                   198
+
+   XXI. THE BOY IN THE BLUE BLOUSE             209
+
+  XXII. A FIGURE IN THE STRAW                  224
+
+ XXIII. AN INSTRUCTION TO THE POLICE           231
+
+  XXIV. THE DAWN OF THE DAY                    240
+
+   XXV. COUNT ZAMOYSKI SLEEPS                  247
+
+  XXVI. AN INTERLUDE IN PICCADILLY             259
+
+ XXVII. THE PRISON YARD                        268
+
+XXVIII. THE MEETING                            276
+
+  XXIX. ALBAN RETURNS TO LONDON                285
+
+   XXX. WE MEET OLD FRIENDS                    294
+
+  XXXI. THE MAN UPON THE PAVEMENT              303
+
+ XXXII. IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY                307
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+"You love another woman, Alban Kennedy, and
+you have wished to forget my daughter."        132
+
+A very orgy of blood and slaughter; a
+carnival of whips.                             198
+
+"Why do you come here?" she asked him wildly.  267
+
+
+
+
+ALADDIN OF LONDON
+
+OR
+
+LODESTAR
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE HALL BY UNION STREET
+
+
+The orator was not eloquent; but he had told a human story and all
+listened with respect. When he paused and looked upward it seemed to
+many that a light of justice shone upon his haggard face while the tears
+rolled unwiped down his ragged jerkin. His lank, unkempt hair, caught by
+the draught from the open doors at the far end of the hall, streamed
+behind him in grotesque profusion. His hands were clenched and his lips
+compressed. That which he had told to the sea of questioning faces below
+him was the story of his life. The name which he had uttered with an
+oath upon his lips was the name of the man who had deprived him of
+riches and of liberty. When he essayed to add a woman's name and to
+speak of the wrongs which had been done her, the power of utterance left
+him in an instant and he stood there gasping, his eyes toward the light
+which none but he could see; a prayer of gratitude upon his lips because
+he had found the man and would repay.
+
+Look down upon this audience and you shall see a heterogeneous assembly
+such as London alone of the cities can show you. The hall is a crazy
+building enough, not a hundred yards from the Commercial Road at
+Whitechapel. The time is the spring of the year 1903--the hour is eight
+o'clock at night. Ostensibly a meeting to discuss the news which had
+come that day from the chiefs of the Revolutionaries in Warsaw, the
+discussion had been diverted, as such discussions invariably are, to a
+recital of personal wrongs and of individual resolutions--even to mad
+talk of the conquest of the world and the crowning of King Anarchy. And
+to this the wild Asiatics and the sad-faced Poles listened alike with
+rare murmurs and odd contortions of limbs and body. Let Paul Boriskoff
+of Minsk be the orator and they knew that the red flag would fly. But
+never before has Boriskoff been seen in tears and the spectacle
+enchained their attention as no mere rhetoric could have done.
+
+A man's confession, if it be honest, must ever be a profoundly
+interesting document. Boriskoff, the Pole, did not hold these people
+spellbound by the vigor of his denunciation or the rhythmic chant of his
+anger. He had begun in a quiet voice, welcoming the news from Warsaw and
+the account of the assassination of the Deputy Governor Lebinsky. From
+that he passed to the old question, why does authority remain in any
+city at all? This London that sleeps so securely, does it ever awake to
+remember the unnumbered hosts which pitch their tents in the courts and
+alleys of Whitechapel? "Put rifles into the hands of a hundred thousand
+men who can be found to-night," he had said, "and where is your British
+Government to-morrow? The police--they would be but as dead leaves under
+the feet of a mighty multitude. The soldiers! Friends," he put it to
+them, "do you ever ask yourselves how many soldiers there are in the
+barracks of London to-night and what would happen to them if the people
+were armed? I say to you that the house would fall as a house of cards;
+the rich would flee; the poor would reign. And you who know this for a
+truth, what do you answer to me? That London harbors you, that London
+feeds you--aye, with the food of swine in the kennels of the dogs."
+
+Men nodded their heads to this and some of the women tittered behind
+their ragged shawls. They had heard it all so often--the grand assault
+by numbers; the rifle shots ringing out in the sleeping streets by
+Piccadilly; the sack of Park Lane; the flight of the Government; the
+downfall of what is and the establishment of what might be. If they
+believed it possible, they had sense enough to remember that a sacked
+city of amnesty would be the poorest tribute to their own sagacity. At
+least London did not flog them. Their wives and sisters were not here
+dragged to the police stations to be brutally lashed at the command of
+any underling they had offended. Applause for Boriskoff and his sound
+and fury might be interpreted as a concession to their vanity. "We could
+do all this," they seemed to say; "if we forbear, let London be
+grateful." As for Boriskoff, he had talked so many times in such a
+strain that a sudden change in voice and matter surprised them beyond
+words. What had happened to him, then? Was the fellow mad when he began
+to speak of the copper mines and the days of slavery he had spent
+therein?
+
+A hush fell upon the hall when the demagogue struck this unaccustomed
+note; rude gas flares shed an ugly yellow glow upon faces which
+everywhere asked an unspoken question. What had copper mines to do with
+the news from Warsaw, and what had they to do with this assembly?
+Presently, however, it came to the people that they were listening to
+the story of a wrong, that the pages of a human drama were being
+unfolded before them. In glowing words the speaker painted the miner's
+life and that of the stokers who kept the furnaces. What a living hell
+that labor had been. There were six operations in refining the copper,
+he said, and he had served years of apprenticeship to each of them.
+Hungry and faint and weary he had kept watch half the night at the
+furnace's door and returned to his home at dawn to see white faces half
+buried in the ragged beds of his house or to hear the child he loved
+crying for the food he could not bring. And in those night watches the
+great idea had come to him.
+
+"Friends," he said, "the first conception of the Meltka furnace was
+mine. The white heat of the night gave it to me; a child's cry, 'thou
+art my father and thou wilt save me,' was my inspiration. Some of you
+will have heard that there are smelting works to-day where the
+sulphurous acid, which copper pyrites supplies when it is roasted, is
+used for the manufacture of sulphuric acid. That was my discovery. Many
+have claimed it since, but the Meltka furnace was mine--as God is in
+heaven it was mine. Why, then, do I stand among you wanting bread, I who
+should own the riches of kings? My friends, I will tell you. A devil
+stole my secret from me and has traded it in the markets of the world.
+I trusted him. I was poor and he was rich. 'Sell for me and share my
+gains,' I said. His honor would be my protection, I thought, his
+knowledge my security. Ah, God, what reward had I? He named me to the
+police and their lashes cut the flesh from my body. I lay three years in
+the prison at Irkutsk and five at Saghalin. The white faces were turned
+to the earth they sprang from, my son was heard at the foot of God's
+throne when they bade me go and set my foot in Poland no more. This I
+knew even in that island of blood and death. Letters had come to me from
+my dear wife; the Committee had kept me informed even there at the end
+of the earth. I knew that my home had perished; that of all my family,
+my daughter Lois alone remained to me; I knew that the days of the
+tyranny were numbered and that I, even I, might yet have my work to do.
+Did they keep me from Poland? I tell you that I lived there three years
+in spite of them, searching for the man who should answer me. Maxim
+Gogol, where had he hidden himself? The tale at the mines was that he
+had gone to America, sold his interest and embarked in new ventures. I
+wrote to our friends in New York and they knew nothing of such a man. I
+had search made for him in Berlin, in Vienna and Paris. The years were
+not too swift for my patience, but the harvest went ungathered. I came
+to London and bent my neck to this yoke of starvation and eternal night.
+I have worked sixteen hours a day in the foul holds of ships that I
+might husband my desire and repay. Friends, ten days ago in London I
+passed the man I am seeking and knew him for my own. Maxim Gogol may
+hide from me no more. With these eyes have I seen him--ah, God give me
+strength to speak of it--with these eyes have I seen him, with these
+hands have I touched him, with this voice have I accused him. He lives
+and he is mine--to suffer as I have suffered, to repay as I have
+paid--until the eternal justice of God shall decide between us both."
+
+There would have been loud applause in any other assembly upon the
+conclusion of such an impassioned if verbally conventional an harangue;
+but these Asiatics who heard Paul Boriskoff, who watched the tears
+stream down his hollowed cheeks and beheld the face uplifted as in
+ecstasy, had no applause to give him. Had not they also suffered as he
+had suffered? What wrong of his had not been, in some phase or other, a
+wrong of theirs? How many of them had lost children well beloved, had
+known starvation and the sweater's block? Such sympathy as they had to
+give was rather the cold systematical pity of their order which ever
+made the individual's cause its own. This unknown Maxim Gogol, if he
+were indeed in London so much the worse for him. The chosen hand would
+strike him down when his hour had come--even if it were not the hand of
+the man he had wronged. In so far as Boriskoff betrayed intense emotion
+before them, it may be that they despised him. What nation had been made
+free by tears? How would weeping put bread into the children's mouths?
+This was the sentiment immediately expressed by a lank-haired Pole who
+followed the speaker. Let Paul Boriskoff write out his case and the
+Committee would consider it, he said. If Maxim Gogol were adjudged
+guilty, let him be punished. For himself he would spare neither man,
+woman, or child sheltered in the house of the oppressor. A story had
+been told to them of an unusual order. He did not wholly regret that
+Paul Boriskoff had not made a fortune, for, had he done so, he would not
+be a brother among them to-night. Let him be assured of their sympathy.
+The Committee would hear him when and where he wished.
+
+There were other speakers in a similar mood, but the immediate interest
+in the dramatic recital quickly evaporated. A little desultory talk was
+followed by the serving of vodki and of cups of steaming coffee to the
+women. The younger people at the far end of the hall, who had been
+admitted to hear the music which should justify the gathering, grew
+weary of waiting and pushed their way into the street. There they formed
+little companies to speak, not of the strange entertainment which had
+been provided for them, but of commonplace affairs--the elder women of
+infantile sufferings, the girls of the songs they had heard on Saturday
+at the Aldgate Empire or of the shocking taste in feathers of more
+favored rivals. But here and there a black-eyed daughter of Poland or a
+fair-haired Circassian edged away discreetly from the company and was as
+warily followed by the necessary male. The dirty street caught snatches
+of music-hall melodies. Windows were opened above and wit exchanged. A
+voice, that of a young girl evidently, asked what had become of the
+Hunter, and to this another voice replied immediately, as though
+greatly satisfied, that Alban Kennedy had gone down toward the High
+Street with Lois Boriskoff.
+
+"As if you didn't know, Chris. Gawsh, you should 'ave seen her feathers
+waggin' at the Union jess now. Fawther's took wiv the jumps, I hear, and
+Alb's gone to the Pav to give her hair. Oh, the fine gentleming--I seed
+his poor toes through his bloomin' boots this night, s'welp me Gawd I
+did."
+
+The admission was received with a shout of laughter from the window
+above, where a red-haired girl leaned pensively upon the rail of a
+broken balcony. The speaker, in her turn, moved away with a youth who
+asked her, with much unnecessary emphasis, "what the 'ell she had to do
+with Albey's feet and why she couldn't leave Chris Denham alone."
+
+"If I ain't 'xactly gawn on Russian taller myself, wot's agen Albey
+a-doin' of it," he asked authoritatively. "Leave the lidy alone and
+don't arst no questions. They say as the old man is took with spasms
+round at the Union. S'welp me if Albey ain't in luck--at his time of
+life too."
+
+He winked at the girl, who had put her arm boldly round his waist, and
+marched on with the proud consciousness that his cleverness had not
+failed to make a just impression. The red-haired girl of the pensive
+face still gazed dreamily down the court and her head inclined a little
+toward the earth as though she were listening for the sound of a
+footstep. Not only the dreamer of dreams in that den of squalor, this
+Alban Kennedy was her idol to-night as he had been the idol of fifty of
+her class since he came to live among them. What cared she for his
+ragged shoes or the frayed collar about his neck? Did not the whole
+community admit him to be a very aristocrat of aristocrats, a diamond of
+class in a quarry of ashes, a figure at once mysterious and heroical?
+And this knight of the East, what irony led him away with that
+white-faced Pole, Lois Boriskoff? What did he see in her? What was she
+to him?
+
+The pensive head was withdrawn sadly from the window at last. Silence
+fell in the dismal court. The Russians who had been breathing fire and
+vengeance were now eating smoked sturgeon and drinking vodki. A man
+played the fiddle to them and some danced. After all, life has something
+else than the story of wrong to tell us sometimes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ALBAN KENNEDY MAKES A PROMISE
+
+
+The boy and the girl halted together by one of the great lights at the
+corner of the Commercial Road and there they spoke of the strange
+confession which had just fallen from Paul Boriskoff's lips. Little
+Lois, white-faced as a mime at the theatre, her black hair tousled and
+unkempt, her eyes shining almost with the brightness of fever, declared
+all her heart to the gentle Alban and implored him for God's sake to
+take her from London and this pitiful home. He, as discreet as she was
+rash, pitied her from his heart, but would not admit as much.
+
+"If I could only speak Polish, Lois--but you know I can't," he said.
+"Bread and salt, that's about what I should get in your country--and
+perhaps be able to count the nails in the soles of my boots. What's the
+good of telling me all about it? I saw that your father was angry, but
+you people are always angry. And, little girl, he does his best for you.
+Never forget that--he would sooner lose anything on earth than you."
+
+"I don't believe it," said the girl, tossing her head angrily, "what's
+he care about anything but that ole machine of his which he says they
+stole from him? Ten hours have I been sewing to-day, Alb, and ten it
+will be to-morrow. Truth, dear, upon my soul. What's father care so long
+as the kettle boils and he can read the papers? And you're no
+better--you'd take me away if you were--right away from here to the
+gardens where he couldn't find me, and no one but you would ever find me
+any more. That's what you'd do if you were as I want you to be. But you
+ain't, Alb--you'll never care for any girl--now will you, Alb, dear?"
+
+She clutched his arm and pressed closely to him, regardless of
+passers-by so accustomed to love-making on the pavements that neither
+man nor woman turned a head because of it. Alban Kennedy, however, was
+frankly ashamed of the whole circumstance, and he pushed the girl away
+from him as though her very touch offended.
+
+"Look here, Lois, that's nonsense--let's go and see something, let's go
+into the New Empire for an hour. Your father will be all right when he's
+had a glass or two of vodki. You know he's always like this when there's
+been news from Warsaw. Let's go and hear a turn and then you can tell me
+what you want me to do."
+
+They walked on a little way, she clinging to his arm timidly and looking
+up often into his eyes as though for some expression of that affection
+she hungered for unceasingly. The "Court" had named them for lovers long
+ago, but the women declared that such an aristocrat as Alban Kennedy
+would look twice before he put his neck into Paul Boriskoff's
+matrimonial halter.
+
+"A lot of good the Empire will do me to-night," Lois exclaimed
+presently. "I feel more like dancing on my own grave than seeing other
+people do it. What with father's temper and your cold shoulder, Alb--"
+
+"Lois, that's unfair, dear; you know that I am sorry. But what can I do,
+what can any one do for men who talk such nonsense as those fellows in
+that hall? 'Seize London and the Government'--you said it was that,
+didn't you?--well, they're much more likely to get brain fever and wake
+up in the hospital. That's what I shall tell your father if he asks me.
+And, Lois, how can you and I talk about anything serious when I haven't
+a shilling to call my own and your father won't let you out of his sight
+lest he should want something. It will all be different soon--bad things
+always are. I shall make a fortune myself some day--I'm certain of it as
+though I had the money already in the bank. People who make fortunes
+always know that they are going to do so. I shall make a lot of money
+and then come back for you--just my little Lois sewing at the window,
+the same old dirty court, the same ragged fellows talking about sacking
+London, the same faces everywhere--but Lois unchanged and waiting for
+me--now isn't it that, dear, won't you be unchanged when I come back for
+you?"
+
+They stood for an instant in the shadow of a shuttered shop and, leaping
+up at his question, she lifted warm red lips to his own--and the girl of
+seventeen and the boy of mature twenty kissed as ardently as lovers
+newly sworn to eternal devotion.
+
+"I do love you, Alb," she cried, "I shall never love any other
+man--straight, my dear, though there ain't much use in a-telling you.
+Oh, Alb, if you meant it, you wouldn't leave me in this awful place;
+you'd take me away, darling, where I could see the fields and the
+gardens. I'd come, Alb, as true as death--I'd go this night if you arst
+me, straight away never to come back--if it were to sleep on the hard
+road and beg my bread from house to house--I'd go with you, Alb, as
+heaven hears me, I'd be an honest wife to you and you should never
+regret the day. What's to keep us, Alb, dear? Oh, we're fine rich, ain't
+we, both of us, you with your fifteen shillings from the yard and me
+with nine and six from the fronts. Gawd's truth, Rothschild ain't
+nothink to you and me, Alb, when we've the mind to play the great lidy
+and gentleman. Do you know that I lay abed some nights and try to think
+as it's a kerridge and pair and you a-sittin' beside of me and nothink
+round us but the green fields and the blue sky, and nothink never more
+to do but jess ride on with your hand in mine and the sun to shine upon
+us. Lord, what a thing it is to wake up then, Alb, and 'ear the caller
+cryin' five and see my father like a white ghost at the door. And that's
+wot's got to go on to the end--you know it is; you put me off 'cause you
+think it'll please me, same as you put Chris Denham off when you danced
+with her at the Institoot Ball. You won't never love no girl truly,
+Alb--it isn't in you, my dear. You're born above us and we never shall
+forget it, not none of us as I'm alive to-night."
+
+She turned away her head to hide the tears gathering in her black eyes,
+while Alban's only answer to her was a firm pressure upon the little
+white hand he held in his own and a quicker step upon the crowded
+pavement. Perhaps he understood that the child spoke the truth, but of
+this he could not be a wise judge. His father had been a poor East End
+parson, his mother was the daughter of an obstinate and flinty Sheffield
+steel factor, who first disowned her for marrying a curate and then went
+through the bankruptcy court as a protest against American competition.
+So far Alban knew himself to be an aristocrat--and yet how could he
+forget that among that very company of Revolutionaries he had so lately
+quitted there were sons of men whose nobility was older than Russia
+herself. That he understood so much singled him out immediately as a
+youth of strange gifts and abnormal insight--but such, indeed, he was,
+and as such he knew himself to be.
+
+"I won't quarrel with you, Lois, though I see that you wish it, dear,"
+he said presently, "you know I don't care for Chris Denham and what's
+the good of talking about her. Let's go and cheer up--I'm sure we can do
+with a bit and that's the plain truth, now isn't it, Lois?"
+
+He squeezed her arm and drew her closer to him. At the Empire they found
+two gallery seats and watched a Japanese acrobat balance himself upon
+five hoops and a ladder. A lady in far from immaculate evening dress,
+who sang of a flowing river which possessed eternal and immutable
+qualities chiefly concerned with love and locks and unswerving fidelity,
+appealed to little Lois' sentiment and she looked up at Alb whenever the
+refrain recurred as much as to say, "That is how I should love you." So
+many other couples about them were squeezing hands and cuddling waists
+that no one took any notice of their affability or thought it odd. A
+drunken sailor behind them kept asking the company with maudlin
+reiteration what time the last train left for Plymouth, but beyond
+crying "hush" nobody rebuked him. In truth, the young people had come
+there to make love, and when the lights were turned down and the curtain
+of the biograph revealed, the place seemed paradise itself.
+
+Lois crept very close to Alban during this part of the entertainment,
+nor did he repulse her. Moments there were undeniably when he had a
+great tenderness toward her; moments when she lay in his embrace as some
+pure gift from this haven of darkness and of evil, a fragile helpless
+figure of a girlhood he idolized. Then, perchance, he loved her as Lois
+Boriskoff hungered for love, with the supreme devotion, the abject
+surrender of his manhood.
+
+No meaner taint of passion inspired these outbreaks, nor might the most
+critical student of character have found them blameworthy. Alban
+Kennedy's rule of life defied scrutiny. His ignorance was often that of
+a child, his faith that of a trusting woman--and yet he had traits of
+strength which would have done no dishonor to those in the highest
+places. Lois loved him and there were hours when he responded wholly to
+her love and yet had no more thought of evil in his response than of
+doing any of those forbidding things against which his dead mother had
+schooled him so tenderly. Here were two little outcasts from the
+civilized world--why should they not creep close together for that
+sympathy and loving kindness which destiny had denied them.
+
+"I darsn't be late to-night, Alb," Lois said when the biograph was over
+and they had left the hall, "you know how father was. I must go back and
+get his supper."
+
+"Did he really mean all that about the copper mines and his invention?"
+Alban asked her in his practical way, and added, "Of course I couldn't
+understand much of it, but I think it's pretty awful to see a man
+crying, don't you, Lois?"
+
+"Father does that often," she rejoined, "often when he's alone. I might
+not be in the world at all, Alb, for all he thinks of me. Some one
+robbed him, you know, and just lately he thinks he's found the man in
+London. What's the good of it all--who's goin' to help a poor Pole get
+his rights back? Oh, yer bloomin' law and order, a lot we sees of you in
+Thrawl Street, so help me funny. That's what I tell father when he talks
+about his rights. We'll take ours home with us to Kingdom come and
+nobody know much about 'em when we get there. A sight of good it is
+cryin' out for them in this world, Alb--now ain't it, dear?"
+
+Alban was in the habit of taking questions very seriously, and he took
+this one just as though she had put it in the best of good faith.
+
+"I can't make head or tail of things, Lois," he said stoically, "fact
+is, I've given up trying. Why does my father die without sixpence after
+serving God all his life, and another man, who has served the devil, go
+under worth thousands? That's what puzzles me. And they tell us it will
+all come right some day, just as we're all going to drive motor-cars
+when the Socialists get in. Wouldn't I be selling mine cheap to-night if
+anyone came along and offered me five pounds for it--wouldn't I say
+'take it' and jolly glad to get the money. Why, Lois, dear, think what
+we would do with five pounds."
+
+"Go to Southend for Easter, Alb."
+
+"Buy you a pretty ring and take you to the Crystal Palace."
+
+"Drive a pony to Epping, Alb, and come back in the moonlight."
+
+"Down to Brighton for the Saturday and two in the water together."
+
+"Flash it on 'em in Thrawl Street and make Chris Denham cry."
+
+They laughed together and cuddled joyously at a dream so bewildering.
+Their united wealth that night was three shillings, of which Alb had two
+and four pence. What untold possibilities in five pounds, what sunshine
+and laughter and joy. Ah, that the dark court should be waiting for
+them, the squalor, the misery, the woe of it. Who can wonder that the
+shadows so soon engulfed them?
+
+"Kiss me, Alb," she said at the corner, "shall I see you to-morrow
+night, dear?"
+
+"Outside the Pav at nine. You can tell me how your father took it. Say I
+hope he'll get his rights. I think he always liked me rather, Lois."
+
+"A sight more than ever he liked me, Alb, and that's truth. Ah, my dear,
+you'll take me away from here some day, won't you, Alb? You'll take me
+away where none shall ever know, where I shall see the world and forget
+what I have been. Kiss me, Alb--I'm that low to-night, dear, I could cry
+my heart out."
+
+He obeyed her instantly. A voice of human suffering never failed to make
+an instant appeal to him.
+
+"As true as God's in heaven, if ever I get rich, I'll come first to Lois
+with the story," he said--and so he bent and kissed her on the lips as
+gently as though she had been his little sister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+WITHOUT THE GATE
+
+
+Alban's garret lay within a stone's throw of the tenement occupied by
+the Boriskoffs; but, in truth, it knew very little of him. They called
+him "The Hunter," in the courts and alleys round about; and this was as
+much as to say that his habits were predatory. He loved to roam afar in
+quest, not of material booty, but of mental sensation. An imagination
+that was simply wonderful helped him upon his way. He had but to stand
+at the gate of a palace to become in an instant one of those who peopled
+it. He could create himself king, or prince, or bishop as the mood took
+him. If a holiday sent him to the theatre, he was the hero or villain at
+his choice. In church he would preach well-imagined sermons to
+spellbound listeners. The streets of the West End were his true
+world--the gate without the scene of his mental pleasures.
+
+He had no friends among the youths and lads of Thrawl Street and its
+environment, nor did he seek them. Those who hung about him were soon
+repelled by his secretive manner and a diffidence which was little more
+than natural shyness. If he fell now and then into the speech of the
+alleys, constant association was responsible for the lapse. Sometimes,
+it is true, an acquaintance would defy the snub and thrust himself
+stubbornly upon the unwilling wanderer. Alban was never unkind to such
+as these. He pitied these folk from his very heart; but before them all,
+he pitied himself.
+
+His favorite walk was to the precincts of Westminster School, where he
+had spent two short terms before his father died. The influence of this
+life had never quite passed away. Alban would steal across London by
+night and stand at the gate of Little Dean's Yard as though wondering
+still what justice or right of destiny had driven him forth. He would
+haunt St. Vincent's Square on Saturday afternoons, and, taking his stand
+among all the little ragged boys who watched the cricket or football, he
+would, in imagination, become a "pink" delighting the multitude by a
+century or kicking goals so many that the very Press was startled. In
+the intervals he revisited the Abbey and tried to remember the service
+as he had known it when a schoolboy. The sonorous words of Tudor divines
+remained within his memory, but the heart of them had gone out. What had
+he to be thankful for now? Did he not earn his bitter bread by a task so
+laborious that the very poor might shun it. His father would have made
+an engineer of him if he had lived--so much had been quite decided. He
+could tell you the names of lads who had been at Westminster with him
+and were now at Oxford or Cambridge enjoying those young years which no
+subsequent fortune can recall. What had he done to the God who ruled the
+world that these were denied to him? Was he not born a gentleman, as the
+world understands the term? Had he not worn good clothes, adored a
+loving mother, been educated in his early days in those vain
+accomplishments which society demands from its children? And now he was
+an "East-ender," down at heel and half starved; and there were not three
+people in all the city who would care a straw whether he lived or died.
+
+This was the lad who went westward that night of the meeting in Union
+Street, and such were his frequent thoughts. None would have taken him
+for what he was; few who passed him by would have guessed what his
+earlier years had been. The old gray check suit, frayed at the edges,
+close buttoned and shabby, was just such a suit as any loafer out of
+Union Street might have worn. His hollow cheeks betrayed his poverty. He
+walked with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his shoulders
+slightly bent, his eyes roving from face to face as he numbered the
+wayfarers and speculated upon their fortunes and their future. Two or
+three friends who hailed him were answered by a quickening of his step
+and a curt nod of the handsome head. Alb's "curl," a fair flaxen curl
+upon a broad white forehead, had become a jest in Thrawl Street. "'E
+throws it at yer," the youths said--and this was no untrue description.
+
+Alban walked swiftly up the Whitechapel Road and was going on by Aldgate
+Station when the Reverend "Jimmy" Dale, as all the district called the
+cheery curate of St. Wilfred's Church, slapped him heartily on the
+shoulder and asked why on earth he wasted the precious hours when he
+might be in bed and asleep.
+
+"Now, my dear fellow, do you really think it is wise? I am here because
+I have just been to one of those exhibitions of unadorned gluttony they
+call a City Banquet. Do you know, Alban, that I don't want to hear of
+food and drink again for a month. It's perfectly terrible to think that
+men can do such things when I could name five hundred children who will
+go wanting bread to-morrow."
+
+Alban rejoined in his own blunt way.
+
+"Then why do you go?" was his disconcerting question.
+
+"To beg of them, that's why I go. They are not uncharitable--I will hold
+to it anywhere. And, I suppose, from a worldly point of view, it was a
+very good dinner. Now, let us walk back together, Alban. I want to talk
+to you very much."
+
+"About what, sir?"
+
+"Oh, about lots of things. Why don't you join the cricket club, Alban?"
+
+"I haven't got the money, sir."
+
+"But surely--five shillings, my dear boy--and only once a year."
+
+"If you haven't got the five shillings, it doesn't make any difference
+how many times a year it is."
+
+"Well, well, I think I must write to Sir James Hogg about you. He was
+telling me to-night--"
+
+"If he sent me the money, I'd return it to him. I'm not a beggar, Mr.
+Dale."
+
+"But are you not very proud, Alban?"
+
+"Would you let anybody give you five shillings--for yourself, Mr. Dale?"
+
+"That would depend how he offered it. In the plate I should certainly
+consider it acceptable."
+
+"Yes, but sent to you in a letter because you were hard up, you know.
+I'm certain you wouldn't. No decent fellow would. When I can afford to
+play cricket, I'll play it. Good night, Mr. Dale. I'm not going back
+just now."
+
+The curate shook his head protestingly.
+
+"Do you know it is twelve o'clock, Alban?"
+
+"Just the time the fun begins--in the world--over there, sir."
+
+He looked up at the Western sky aglow with that crimson haze which
+stands for the zenith of London's night. The Reverend "Jimmy" Dale had
+abandoned long ago the idea of understanding Alban Kennedy. "He will
+either die in a lunatic asylum or make his fortune," he said to
+himself--and all subsequent happenings did not alter this dogged
+opinion. The fellow was either a lunatic or an original. "Jimmy" Dale,
+who had rowed in the Trinity second boat, did not wholly appreciate
+either species.
+
+"What is the world to you, Alban--is not sleep better?"
+
+"In a garret, sir, where you cannot breathe?"
+
+"Oh, come, we must all be a little patient in adversity. I saw Mr.
+Browning at the works yesterday. He tells me that the firm is very
+pleased with you--you'll get a rise before long, Alban."
+
+"Half a crown for being good. Enough to sole my boots. When I have shops
+of my own, I'll let the men live to begin with, sir. The shareholders
+can come afterwards."
+
+"It would never do to preach that at a city dinner."
+
+"Ah, sir, what's preached at a city dinner and what's true in Thrawl
+Street, Whitechapel, don't ride a tandem together. Ask a hungry man
+whether he'll have his mutton boiled or roast, and he'll tell you he
+doesn't care a damn. It's just the same with me--whether I sleep in a
+cellar or a garret, what's the odds? I'll be going on now, sir. You must
+feel tired after so much eating."
+
+He turned, but not rudely, and pushing his way adroitly through the
+throng about the station disappeared in a moment. The curate shook his
+head and resumed his way moodily eastward, wondering if his momentary
+lapse from the straight and narrow way of self-sacrificing were indeed a
+sin. After all, it had been a very good dinner, and a man would be
+unwise to be influenced by a boy's argument. The Reverend "Jimmy" was a
+thousand miles from being a hypocrite, as his life's work showed, and
+this matter of the dinner really troubled him exceedingly. How many of
+his parishioners could have been fed for such an expenditure? On the
+other hand, city companies did a very great deal of good, and it would
+be churlish to object to their members dining together two or three
+times a year. In the end, he blamed the lad, Alban, for putting such
+thoughts into his head.
+
+"The fellow's off to sleep in Hyde Park, I suppose," he said to himself,
+"or in one of his pirate's caves. What a story he could write if he had
+the talent. What a freak of chance which set him down here amongst
+us--well born and educated and yet as much a prisoner as the poorest.
+Some day we shall hear of him--I am convinced of it. We shall hear of
+Alban Kennedy and claim his acquaintance as wise people do when a man
+has made a success."
+
+He carried the thought home with him, but laid it aside when he entered
+the clergy house, dark and stony and cheerless at such an hour. Alban
+was just halfway down the Strand by that time and debating whether he
+should sleep in the "caves," as he called those wonderful subterranean
+passages under Pall Mall and the Haymarket, or chance the climate upon a
+bench in Hyde Park. A chilly night of April drove him to the former
+resolution and he passed on quickly; by the theatres now empty of their
+audiences; through Trafalgar Square, where the clubs and the hotels were
+still brilliantly lighted; up dark Cockspur Street; through St. James'
+Square; and so to an abrupt halt at the door of a great house, open to
+the night and dismissing its guests.
+
+Alban despised himself for doing it, but he could never resist the
+temptation of staring through the windows of any mansion where a party
+happened to be held. The light and life of it all made a sure appeal to
+him. He could criticise the figures of beautiful women and remain
+ignorant of the impassable abyss between their sphere and his own.
+Sometimes, he would try to study the faces thus revealed to him, as in
+the focus of a vision, and to say, "That woman is utterly vain," or
+again, "There is a doll who has not the sense of an East End flower
+girl." In a way he despised their ignorance of life and its terrible
+comedies and tragedies. Little Lois Boriskoff, he thought, must know
+more of human nature than any woman in those assemblies where, as the
+half-penny papers told him, cards and horses and motor-cars were the
+subjects chiefly talked about. It delighted him to imagine the abduction
+of one of these society beauties and her forcible detention for a month
+in Thrawl Street. How she would shudder and fear it all--and yet what
+human lessons might not she carry back with her. Let them show him a
+woman who could face such an ordeal unflinchingly and he would fall in
+love with her himself. The impertinence of his idea never once dawned
+upon him. He knew that his father's people had been formerly well-to-do
+and that his mother had often talked of birth and family. "I may be
+better than some of them after all," he reflected; and this was his
+armor against humiliation. What did money matter? The fine idealist of
+twenty, with a few coppers in his pocket, declared stoically that money
+was really of no consequence at all.
+
+He lingered some five minutes outside the great house in St. James'
+Square, watching the couples in the rooms above, and particularly
+interested in one face which appeared in, and disappeared from, a
+brilliantly lighted alcove twice while he was standing there. A certain
+grace of girlhood attended this apparition; the dress was rich and
+costly and exquisitely made; but that which held Alban's closer
+attention was the fact that the wearer of it unquestionably was a Pole,
+and not unlike little Lois Boriskoff herself. He would not say, indeed,
+that the resemblance was striking--it might have been merely that of
+nationality. When the girl appeared for the second time, he admitted
+that the comparison was rather wild. None the less, he liked to think
+that she resembled Lois and might also have heard the news from Warsaw
+to-day. Evidently she was the daughter of some rich foreigner in London,
+for she talked and moved with Continental animation and grace. The type
+of face had always made a sure appeal to Alban. He liked those broad
+contrasts of color; the clear, almost white, skin; the bright red lips;
+the open expressive eyes fringed by deep and eloquent lashes. This
+unknown was taller than little Lois certainly--she had a maturer figure
+and altogether a better carriage; but the characteristics of her
+nationality were as sure--and the boy fell to wondering whether she was
+also capable of that winsome sentiment and jealous frenzy which dictated
+many of the seemingly inconsequent acts of the little heroine of Thrawl
+Street. This he imagined to be quite possible. "They are great as a
+nation," he thought, "but most of them are mad. I will tell Lois
+to-morrow that I have seen her sister in St. James' Square. I shouldn't
+wonder if she knew all about this house and the party--and Boriskoff
+will, if she doesn't."
+
+He contented himself with this; and the girl having disappeared from the
+alcove and a footman announced, in a terrible voice, that Lady Smigg's
+carriage barred the way, he turned from the house and continued upon his
+way to the "caves." It was then nearly one o'clock, and save for an
+occasional hansom making a dash to a club door, St. James' Street was
+deserted. Alban took one swift look up and down, crossed the street at a
+run and disappeared down the court which led to those amazing "tombs"
+of which few in London save the night-birds and the builders so much as
+suspect the existence.
+
+He did not go alone; he was not, as he thought, unwatched. A detective,
+commissioned by an unknown patron to follow him, crossed the road
+directly he had disappeared, and saying, "So that's the game," began to
+wonder if he also might dare the venture.
+
+He, at least, knew well what he was doing and the class of person he
+would be likely to meet down there in the depths of which even the
+police were afraid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE CAVES
+
+
+The "labyrinth" beneath the West End of London was rediscovered in our
+own time when the foundations for the Carlton Hotel and his Majesty's
+Theatre were laid. It is a network of old cellars, subterranean passages
+and, it may even be, of disused conduits, extended from the corner of
+Suffolk Street, Pall Mall, away to the confines of St. James' Park--and,
+as more daring explorers aver, to the river Thames itself. Here is a
+very town of tunnels and arches, of odd angled rooms, of veritable caves
+and depths as dark as Styx. If, in a common way, it be shut by the
+circumstance of the buildings above to the riff-raff and night-hawks who
+would frequent it, there are seasons, nevertheless, when the laying of
+new foundations, the building of hotels and the demolition of ancient
+streets in the name of "improvement" fling its gates open to the more
+cunning of the "destitutes," and they flock there as rooks to a field
+newly sown.
+
+Of these welcome opportunities, the building of the Carlton Hotel is the
+best remembered within recent times; but the erection of new houses off
+St. James' Street in the year 1903 brought the ladies and the gentlemen
+of the road again to its harborage; and they basked there for many weeks
+in undisputed possession. Molesting none and by none molested, it was
+an affair neither for the watchmen (whose glances askance earned them
+many a handsome supper) or for the police who had sufficient to do in
+the light of the street lamps that they should busy themselves with
+supposed irregularities where that light was not. The orgies thus became
+a nightly feature of the vagrant's life. There was no more popular hotel
+in London than the "Coal Hole," as the wits of the company delighted to
+style their habitation.
+
+A city below a city! Indeed imagination might call it that. A replica of
+famous catacombs with horrid faces for your spectres, ghoulish women and
+unspeakable men groping in the darkness as though, vampire-like, afraid
+of the light. Why Alban Kennedy visited this place, he himself could not
+have said. Possibly a certain morbid horror of it attracted him. He had,
+admittedly, such a passport to the caves as may be the reward of a
+shabby appearance and a resolute air. The criminal company he met with
+believed that he also was a criminal. Enjoying their confidence because
+he had never excited their suspicion, they permitted him to lie his
+length before reddened embers and hear tales which fire the blood with
+every passion of anger and of hate. Here, in these caverns, he had seen
+men fight as dogs--with teeth and claws and resounding yells; he had
+heard the screams of a woman and the cries of helpless children. A
+sufficient sense of prudence compelled him to be but an apathetic
+spectator of these infamies. The one battle he had fought had been
+impotent to save the object of his chivalry.
+
+When first he came here, heroic resolutions followed him. He had
+thrashed a ruffian who struck a woman, and narrowly escaped with his
+life for doing so. Henceforth he could but assent to a truce which
+implied mutual toleration; and yet he understood that his presence was
+not without its influence even on these irredeemables. Men called him
+"The Hunter," or in mockery "The Dook." He had done small services for
+one or two of them--even written a begging letter for a rogue who could
+not write at all, but posed as an "old public school man," fallen upon
+evil days. Alban was perfectly well aware that this was a shameless
+imposition, but his ideas of morality as it affected the relations of
+rich and poor were ever primitive and unstable. "If this old thief gets
+half a sovereign, what's it matter?" he would argue; "the other man
+stole his money, I suppose, and can well afford to pay up." Here was a
+gospel preached every day in Thrawl Street. He had never stopped to ask
+its truth.
+
+Alban crossed St. James' Street furtively, and climbed, as an athlete
+should climb, the boarding which defended the entrance to this amazing
+habitation. A contented watchman, dozing by a comfortable fire, cared
+little who came or went and rarely bestirred himself to ask the
+question. There were two entrances to the caves: one cramped and
+difficult, the other broad and open; and you took your choice of them
+according to the position of the policeman on the beat. This night, or
+rather this morning, of the day following upon the meeting in Union
+Street, discovered Alban driven to the more hazardous way. His quick eye
+had detected, on the far side of the enclosure, an amiable flirtation
+between a man of law and a lady of the dusters; and avoiding both
+discreetly, he slipped into a trench of the newly made foundations and
+crawled as swiftly through an aperture which this descent revealed.
+
+Here, laid bare by the picks and shovels of twentieth-century Trade
+Unionism, was a veritable Gothic arch, bricked up to the height of a
+tall man's waist, but open at the tympanum. Alban hoisted himself to the
+aperture and, slipping through, his feet discovered the reeking floor of
+a dank and dripping subway; and guiding himself now by hands
+outstretched and fingers touching the fungi of the walls, he went on
+with confidence until the roof lifted above him and the watch-fires of
+the confraternity were disclosed. He had come by now into a vast cellar
+not very far from the Carlton Hotel itself. There were offshoots
+everywhere, passages more remote, the arches as of crypts, smaller
+apartments, odd corners which had guarded the casks five hundred years
+ago. Each of these could show you its little company safe harbored for
+the night; each had some face from which Master Timidity might well
+avert his eyes. But Alban went in amongst them as though he had been
+their friend. They knew his very footstep, the older "lags" would
+declare.
+
+"All well, Jack?"
+
+"All well, old cove."
+
+"The Panorama come along?"
+
+"Straight art of the coffee shawp, s'help me blind."
+
+"Ship come in?"
+
+"Two tharsand next Toosday--same as usual."
+
+A lanky hawker, lying full length upon a sack, his pipe glowing in the
+darkness, exchanged these pleasantries with Alban at the entrance. There
+were fires by here and there in these depths and the smoke was often
+suffocating. The huddled groups declared all grades of ill-fortune and
+of crime; from that of the "pauper parson" to the hoariest house-breaker
+"resting" for a season. Alban's little set, so far as he had a "set" at
+all, consisted of the sometime curate of a fashionable West End Church,
+known to the company as the Archbishop of Bloomsbury; the Lady Sarah, a
+blooming, red-cheeked girl who sold flowers in Regent Street, "the
+Panorama," an old showman's son who had not a sixpenny piece in his
+pocket, but whose schemes were invariably about to bring him in "two
+thousand next Tuesday morning"; and "Betty," a pretty, fair-haired lad,
+thrown on the streets God knows how or by what callous act of
+indifferent parentage. Regularly as the clock struck, this quartette
+would gather in a tiny "chapel" of the cellars and sleep about a fire
+kindled in a grate which might have baked meats for the Tudors. They
+spoke of the events of the day with moderation and wise philosophy. It
+would be different to-morrow. Such was ever their text.
+
+"My lord the Duke is late. Does aught of fortune keep your nobility?"
+
+The ex-parson made way for Alban, grandiloquently offering a niche upon
+the bare floor and a view of the reddening embers. The boy "Betty" was
+already asleep, while the Lady Sarah and "the Panorama" divided a
+fourpenny pie most faithfully between them. A reeking atmosphere of
+spirit (but not of water) testified to the general conviviality. A hum
+of conversation was borne in upon them from the greater cellar--at odd
+times a rough oath of protest or the mad complainings of a drunkard. For
+the most part, however, the night promised to be uneventful. Alban had
+never seen the Lady Sarah more gracious, and as for "the Panorama" he
+had no doubt whatever that his fortune was made.
+
+"My contract for America's going through and I shall be out there with a
+show in a month," this wild youth said--and added patronizingly, "When I
+come back, it will be dinner upstairs, old chaps--and some of the best.
+Do you suppose that I could forget you? I would as soon forget my
+father's grave."
+
+They heard him with respect--no one differing from him.
+
+"I shall certainly be pleased to accept your kind invitation," said the
+Archbishop, "that is, should circumstance--and Providence--enable me to
+redeem the waistcoat, without which--eh--hem--I understand no visitor
+would be admitted to those noble precincts."
+
+The Lady Sarah expressed her opinion even more decidedly.
+
+"Don't 'e talk," she said pleasantly, "can't you 'ear the thick 'uns a
+rattlin' in his mouse-trap. Poor little man and 'im a horphin. Stun me
+mother if I ain't a goin' ter Jay's termerrer ter buy mournin' in honor
+of him."
+
+"I presume," continued the Archbishop, "that we shall all be admitted to
+this entertainment as it were--that is--as the colloquial expression
+goes--on the nod. It will be enough to mention that we are the
+proprietor's friends."
+
+"You shall have a season-ticket for life, Archbishop. Just you tell me
+where you want a church built and I'll see that it's done. Of course I
+don't mind your chaff--I'm dead in earnest and the money will be there."
+
+"A real contract this time?" Alban suggested kindly.
+
+"A real contract. I saw Philips about it to-day, and he knows a man who
+is Pierpont Morgan's cousin. We are to open in New York in September and
+be in San Francisco the following week."
+
+"Rather a long journey, isn't it, old chap?"
+
+"Oh, they do those things out there. I'm told you play Hamlet one night
+and Othello six hours afterwards, which is really the next night because
+of the long distances and the differences in the latitudes. Ask the
+Archbishop. I expect he hasn't forgotten all his geography."
+
+"A Cambridge man," said the Archbishop, loftily, "despises geography.
+Heat, light, electricity, the pure and the impure mathematics--these are
+his proper study. I rise superior to the occasion and tell you that San
+Francisco is a long way from New York. The paper in which I wrapped a
+ham sandwich yesterday--the advertisement of a shipping company, I may
+inform you--brings that back to my recollection. San Francisco is the
+thickness of two slices of stale bread from the seaport you mention. And
+I believe there are Red Indians in between."
+
+The Lady Sarah murmured lightly the refrain of the old song concerning
+houses which stood in that annoying position; but Alban had already
+lighted a cigarette and was watching the girl's face critically.
+
+"You've had some luck to-day, Sarah?"
+
+"A bloomin' prophet and that I won't deny. Gar'n, Dowie."
+
+"But you did have some luck?"
+
+"Sure and certain. What d'ye fink? A bit of a boy, same as 'Betty' 'ere,
+'e comes up and says, 'What'll ye take fer the whole bloomin' caravan?'
+he says, 'for ter send ter a lidy?' 'Gentleman,' I says, 'I'm only a
+poor girl and a widered muver ter keep, and, gentleman, I can't tike
+less than two pound fer 'em sure and certain as there's a God in 'eaven,
+I can't.' 'Well,' says he, 'it's a blarsted swindle but I'll take
+'em--and mind you deliver 'em ter the lidy yerself.' 'They shall go this
+very minute,' says I, 'and, oh, sir, God bless you both and may yer have
+long life and 'appiness ter-gether.' Strike me dead, wot d'yer think he
+said next? Why he arst me fer my bloomin' name, same as if I wus a
+Countess a steepin' art of a moter-kar at the door of Buckingem Peliss.
+'What's yer name, girl?' says 'e. 'Sarah Geddes, an it please yer
+capting,' says I. 'Then send the bally flowers to Sarah Geddes,' says
+'e, 'and take precious good care as she gets 'em.' Gawd's truth, yer
+could 'ave knocked me darn with a 'at pin. I never was took so suddin in
+all me life."
+
+"I wonder you didn't have your dinner in the Carlton Hotel, Sarah."
+
+"So I would 'a' done if I'd hev bed time ter chinge me dress. You orter
+know, Dook, as no lidy ever goes inter them plices in wot she's bin a
+wearin' afore she cleaned herself. I'ad ter go ter Marlborough 'Ouse ter
+tell the Prince of Wales, and that's wot kept me."
+
+"Better luck next time, Sarah. So it only ran to a 'fourpenny' between
+you and 'the Panorama.'"
+
+"You shall all dine with me next week," said the young man in question.
+"On my honor, I'll give you the best dinner you ever had in your life.
+As for Sarah here, I'm going to put her in a flower shop in Bond
+Street."
+
+"Gar'n, silly, what 'ud I do in Bond Street? Much better buy the
+Archbishop a church."
+
+The erstwhile clergyman did not take the suggestion, in good part.
+
+"I have always doubted my ability to conduct the affairs of a parish
+methodically," he said, "that is--a little habit--a slight partiality to
+the drug called morphia is not in my favor. This, I am aware, is a
+drawback. The world judges my profession very harshly. A man in the city
+who counts the collection indifferently will certainly become Lord
+Mayor. The Establishment has no use for him--he is _de trop_, or as we
+might say, a drop too much. This I recognize in frankly declining our
+young friend's offer--with grateful thanks."
+
+Sarah, the flower girl, seemed particularly amused by this frank
+admission. Feeling in the depth of her shawl she produced a capacious
+flask and a bundle of cigars.
+
+"'Ere, boys," she said, "let's talk 'am and heggs. 'Ere's a drop of the
+best and five bob's worth of chimney afire, stun me mother if there
+ain't. I'm sick of talkin' and so's 'the Panerawma.' Light up yer
+sherbooks and think as you're in Buckingem Peliss. There ain't no 'arm
+thinkin' anyways."
+
+"I dreamed last night," said the Archbishop very sadly, "that this
+cellar had become a cottage and that the sun was shining in it."
+
+"I never dream," said "the Panorama," stoically; "put my head on the
+floor and I won't lift it until the clock strikes ten."
+
+"Then begin now, my dear," exclaimed the Lady Sarah with a sudden
+tenderness, "put it there now and forget what London is ter you and me."
+
+The words were uttered almost with a womanly tenderness, not without its
+influence upon the company. Some phrase spoken of Frivolity's mouth had
+touched this group of outcasts and spoken straight to their hearts. They
+bandied, pleasantries no more, but lighting the cigars--the Lady Sarah
+boldly charging a small clay pipe--they fell to an expressive silence,
+of introspection, it may be, or even of unutterable despair. The woman
+alone amongst them had not been cast down from a comparative altitude to
+this very abyss of destitution. For the others life was a vista far
+behind them; a vista, perchance, of a cottage and the sunshine, as the
+parson had said; an echo of voices from a forgotten world; the memory of
+a hand that was cold and of dead faces reproaching them. Such pauses are
+not infrequent in the conversation of the very poor. Men bend their
+heads to destiny less willingly than we think. The lowest remembers the
+rungs of the ladder he has descended.
+
+Alban had lighted one of the cigars and he smoked it stoically,
+wondering again why the caves attracted him and what there was in this
+company which should not have made him ashamed of such associations.
+That he was not ashamed admitted of no question. In very truth, the
+humanities were conquering him in spite of inherited prejudice. Had the
+full account of it been written down by a philosopher, such a sage would
+have said that the girl Sarah stood for a type of womanly pity, of
+sympathy, and, in its way, of motherhood; qualities which demand no gift
+of birth for their appeal. The unhappy parson, too, was there not much
+of good in him, and might he not yet prove a human field worthy to be
+tilled by a husbandman of souls? His humor was kindly; his disposition
+gentle; his faults punished none but himself. And for what did "the
+Panorama" stand if not for the whole gospel of human hope without which
+no life may be lived at all? Alban had some glimmering of this, but he
+could not have set down his reasons in so many words. As for the little
+lad "Betty"--was not the affection they lavished upon him that which
+manhood ever owes to the weak and helpless. Search London over and you
+will not find elemental goodness in a shape more worthy than it was to
+be found in the caves--nor can we forego a moment's reflection upon the
+cant which ever preaches the vice of the poor and so rarely stops to
+preach their virtues.
+
+This was the human argument of Alban's association, but the romantic
+must not be forgotten. More imaginative than most youths of his age, his
+boyish delight in these grim surroundings was less to him than a real
+and inspiring sense of the power of contrast they typified. Was he not
+this very night sleeping beneath some famous London house, it might be
+below that very temple of the great God Mammon, the Carlton Hotel? Far
+above him were the splendid rooms, fair sleepers in robes of lace, tired
+men who had earned enough that very day perhaps to feed all the hungry
+children in Thrawl Street for a lifetime and to remain rich men
+afterwards. Of what were the dreams of such as those--not of sunshine
+and a cottage as the old parson had dreamed, surely? Not of these nor of
+the devoted sacrifice of motherhood or of that gentle sympathy which the
+unfortunate so readily give their fellows. Not this certainly--and yet
+who should blame them? Alban, at least, had the candor to admit that he
+would be much as they were if his conditions of life were the same. He
+never deceived himself, young as he was, with the false platitudes of
+boastful altruists. "I should enjoy myself if I were rich," he would
+say--and sigh upon it; for what assumption could be more grotesque?
+
+No, indeed, there could be no sunshine for him to-morrow. Nothing but
+the shadows of toil; and, in the background, that grim figure of
+uncertainty which never fails to haunt the lives of the very poor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+DISMISSAL
+
+
+Alban had been a disappointment to his employers, the great engineer of
+the Isle of Dogs, to whom Charity had apprenticed him in his fourteenth
+year. Faithful attempts to improve his position in the works were met,
+as it would seem, by indifference and ingratitude. He did his work
+mechanically but without enthusiasm. Had he confessed the truth, he
+would have said, "I was not born to labor with my hands." A sense of
+inherited superiority, a sure conviction, common to youth, that he would
+become a leader, of men, conduced to a restlessness and a want of
+interest which he could not master. He had the desire but not the will
+to please his employers.
+
+To such a lad these excursions to the West End, these pilgrimages to the
+shrine of the outcast and the homeless were by way of being a mental
+debauch. He arose from them in the morning as a man may arise to the
+remembrance of unjustified excess, which leaves the mind inert and the
+body weary. His daily task presented itself in a revolting attitude. Why
+had he been destined to this slavery? Why must he set out to his work at
+an hour of the chilly morning when the West End was still shuttered and
+asleep and the very footmen still yawned in their beds? If he had any
+consolation, it was that the others were often before him in that
+cunning debauch from the caves which the dawn compelled. The Lady Sarah
+would be at Covent Garden by four o'clock. The Archbishop, who rarely
+seemed to sleep at all, went off to the Serpentine for his morning
+ablutions when the clock struck five. "Betty," the pale-faced infant,
+disappeared as soon as the sun was up--and often, when Alban awoke in
+the cellar, he found himself the only tenant of that grim abode.
+Sometimes, indeed, and this morning following upon the promise to little
+Lois Boriskoff was such an occasion, he overslept himself altogether and
+was shut out from the works for the day. This had happened before and
+had brought frequent reprimands. He feared them and yet had not the will
+to remember them.
+
+Big Ben was striking seven when he quitted the cellar and London was
+awake in earnest. Alban usually spent twopence in the luxury of a "wash
+and brush up" before he went down to the river; but he hastened on this
+morning conscious of his tardiness and troubled at the possible
+consequences. The bright spring day did little to reassure him. Weather
+does not mean very much to those who labor in heated atmospheres, who
+have no profit of the sunshine nor gift of the seasons. Alban thought
+rather of the fateful clock and of the excuses which might pacify the
+timekeeper. He had never stooped to the common lies; he would not stoop
+to them this day. When, at the gate of the works, a heavy jowled man
+with a red beard asked him what he meant by coming there at such an
+hour, he answered as frankly that he did not know.
+
+"Been out to supper with the Earl of Barkin, perhaps," the burly man
+suggested. "Well, young fellow, you go up and see Mr. Tucker. He's
+particularly desirous of making your acquaintance--that he is. Tell him
+how his lordship's doin' and don't you forget the ladies."
+
+Alban made no reply, but crossing the open yard he mounted a little
+flight of stairs and knocked indifferently at the door of the dreaded
+office thus indicated. An angry voice, bidding him "come in," did not
+reassure him. He found the deputy manager frank but determined. There
+could be no doubt whatever of the issue.
+
+"Kennedy," he said quietly, "I hope you understand why I have sent for
+you."
+
+"For being late, sir. I am very sorry--I overslept myself."
+
+"My boy, if your work was as honest as your tongue, your fortune would
+be made. I am afraid I must remember what passed at our last meeting.
+You promised me then--"
+
+"I am quite aware of it, sir. The real truth is that I can't get up. The
+work here is distasteful to me--but I do my best."
+
+The manager shook his head in a deprecating manner.
+
+"We have given you many chances, Kennedy," he rejoined. "If it rested
+with me, I would give you another. But it doesn't rest with me--it rests
+with that necessary person. Example. What would the men say if I treated
+you as a privileged person? You know that the work could not go on. For
+the present, at any rate, you are suspended. I must see my directors
+and take instructions from them. Now, really, Kennedy, don't you think
+that you have been very foolish?"
+
+"I suppose so, sir. That's what foolish people generally think. It must
+make a lot of difference to you whether a man comes at six or seven,
+even if he does a good deal more work than the early ones. I could do
+what you ask me to do in three hours a day. That's what puzzles me."
+
+The amiable Mr. Tucker was up in arms in a moment.
+
+"Now, come, I cannot discuss abstract propositions with you. Our hours
+are from six to six. You do not choose to keep them and, therefore, you
+must go. When you are a little more practically inclined, I will speak
+to the directors for you. You may come and tell me so when that is the
+case."
+
+"I shall never come and tell you so, sir. I wish that I could--but it
+will never be the truth. The work that I could do for you is now what
+you want me to do. I am sure it is better for me to go, sir."
+
+"Then you have something in your mind, Kennedy?"
+
+"So many things, sir, that I could fill a book with them. That is why I
+am foolish. Good-by, Mr. Tucker. I suppose you have all been very kind
+to me--I don't rightly understand, but I think that you have. So good-by
+and thank you."
+
+The discreet manager took the outstretched hand and shook it quite
+limply. There had been a momentary contraction of the brows while he
+asked himself if astute rivals might not have been tampering with this
+young fellow and trying to buy the firm's secrets. An instant's
+reflection, however, reassured him. Alban had no secrets worth the name
+to sell, and did he possess them, money would not buy them. "Half mad
+but entirely honest," was Mr. Tucker's comment, "he will either make a
+fortune or throw himself over London Bridge."
+
+Alban had been quite truthful when he said that he had many things in
+his mind, but this confession did not mean to signify a possibility of
+new employment. In honest truth, he had hardly left the gates of the
+great yard when he realized how hopeless his position was. Of last
+week's wages but a few shillings remained in his pocket. He knew no one
+to whom he might offer such services as he had to give. The works had
+taught him the elements of mechanical engineering, and common sense told
+him that skilled labor rarely went begging if the laborer were worthy
+his hire. None the less, the prospect of touting for such employment
+affrighted him beyond words. He felt that he could not again abase
+himself for a few paltry shillings a week. The ambition to make of this
+misfortune a stepping-stone to better things rested on no greater
+security than his pride and yet it would not be wholly conquered. He
+spent a long morning by the riverside planning schemes so futile that
+even the boy's mind rejected them. The old copybook maxims recurred to
+him and were treated with derision. He knew that he would never become
+Lord Mayor of London--after a prosperous career in a dingy office which
+he had formerly swept out with a housemaid's broom.
+
+The lower reaches of the Thames are a world of themselves; peopled by a
+nation of aliens; endless in the variety of their life; abounding in
+weird and beautiful pictures which even the landsman can appreciate.
+Alban rarely tired of that panorama of swirling waters and drifting
+hulks and the majestic shapes of resting ships. And upon such a day as
+this which had made an idler of him, their interest increased tenfold;
+and to this there was added a wonder which had never come into his life
+before. For surely, he argued, this great river was the high road to an
+El Dorado of which he had often dreamed; to that shadowy land of valley
+and of mountain which his imagination so ardently desired. Let a man
+find employment upon the deck of one of those splendid ships and
+henceforth the whole world would be open to him. Alban debated this as a
+possible career, and as he thought of it the spell of the craving for
+new sights and scenes afar mastered him to the exclusion of all other
+thoughts. Who was to forbid him; who had the right to stand between him
+and his world hunger so irresistibly? When a voice within whispered a
+girl's name in his ear, he could have laughed aloud for very derision. A
+fine thing that he should talk of the love of woman or let his plans be
+influenced for the sake of a pretty face! Why, he would be a beggar
+himself in a week, it might be without a single copper in his pocket or
+a roof to shelter him! And he was just the sort of man to live on a
+woman's earnings--just the one to cast the glove to fortune and of his
+desperation achieve the final madness. No, no, he must leave London. The
+city had done with him--he had never been so sure of anything in all
+his life.
+
+It was an heroic resolution, and shame that hunger should so maltreat
+it. When twelve o'clock struck and Alban remembered how poor a breakfast
+he had made, he did not think it necessary to abandon any of his old
+habits, at least not immediately; and he went, as he usually had done,
+to the shabby dining-room in Union Street where he and Lois had taken
+their dinners together for many a month past. Boriskoff's daughter was
+already at table and waiting for him when he entered; he thought that
+she was unusually pale and that her expectancy was not that of a common
+occasion. Was it possible that she also had news to tell him--news as
+momentous as his own? Alban feared to ask her, and hanging his cap on a
+peg above their table without a word, he sat down and began to study the
+greasy menu.
+
+"What's the luck, Alb, dear--why do you look like that?"
+
+Little Lois asked the question, struck by his odd manner and appearance.
+
+He answered her with surprising candor--for the sudden determination
+came to him that he must tell Lois.
+
+"No luck at all, Lois."
+
+"Why, you don't mean--?"
+
+"I do, and that's straight. There is no further need of my services--"
+
+"You've got the sack?"
+
+"The whole of it, Lois--and now I'm selling it cheap."
+
+The girl laughed aloud, but there were tears in her eyes while she did
+so. What a day for them both. She was angry almost with him for telling
+her.
+
+"Why, if father ain't a-gettin' on the prophet line--he said you would,
+Alb. So help me rummy, I was that angry with him I couldn't hear myself
+speak. And now it's all come true. Why, Alb, dear--and I wanted to tell
+you--"
+
+She could not finish the sentence for a sob that almost choked her. The
+regular customers of the room had turned to stare at the sound of such
+unwonted hilarity. Dinner was far too serious a business for most of
+them that laughter should serve it.
+
+"What was your father saying, Lois?"
+
+"That you were going away, dear, and that the sooner I gave up thinking
+about you the fatter I should be."
+
+"How did he know what was going to happen?"
+
+"Ask me another and don't pay the bill. He's been as queer as white
+rabbits since yesterday--didn't go to work this morning, but sat all day
+over a letter he's received. I shall be frightened of father just now. I
+do really believe he's getting a bit balmy on the crumpet."
+
+"Still talking about the man who stole the furnace?"
+
+"Why, there you've got it. We're going to Buckingham Palace in a donkey
+cart and pretty quick about it. You'll be ashamed of such fine people,
+Alb--father says so. So I'm not to speak to you to begin with--not till
+the dresses come home from Covent Garden and the horses are pawing the
+ground for her lidyship. That's the chorus all day--lots of fun when the
+bricks come home and father with a watch-chain as big as Moses. He knew
+you were going to get the sack and he warned me against it. 'We can't
+afford to associate with those people nowadays'--don't yer know--'so
+mind what you're a-doing, my child.' And I'm minding it all day--I was
+just minding it when you came in, Alb. Don't you see her lidyship is
+taking mutton chops? Couldn't descend to nothink less, my dear--not on
+such a day as this--blimme."
+
+Lois' patter, acquired in the streets, invariably approached the purely
+vulgar when she was either angry or annoyed--for at other times her
+nationality saved her from many of its penalties. Alban quite understood
+that something beyond ordinary must have passed between father and
+daughter to-day; but this was neither the time nor the place to discuss
+it.
+
+"We'll meet outside the Pav to-night and have a good talk, Lois," he
+said; "everybody's listening here. Be there at nine sharp. Who knows, it
+may be the last time we shall ever meet in London--"
+
+"You're not going away, Alb?"
+
+A look of terror had come into the pretty eyes; the frail figure of the
+girl trembled as she asked the question.
+
+"Can't say, Lois--how do I know? Suppose I went as a sailor--"
+
+Lois laughed louder than before.
+
+"You--a blueboy! Lord, how you make me laugh. Fancy the aristocrat being
+ordered about. Oh, my poor funny-bone! Wouldn't you knock the man down
+that did it--oh, can't I see him."
+
+The idea amused her immensely and she dwelt upon it even in the street
+outside. Her Alb as Captain Jack--or should it be the cabin-boy. And, of
+course, he would bring her a parrot from the Brazils and perhaps a
+monkey.
+
+"An' I'll keep a light in the winder for fear you should be shipwrecked
+in High Street, Alb, and won't we go hornpiping together. Oh, you silly
+boy; oh, you dear old Captain Jack--whatever put a sailorman into your
+mind?"
+
+"The water," said Alban, as stolidly--"it leads to somewhere, Lois. This
+is the road to nowhere--good God, how tired I am of it."
+
+"And of those who go with you, Alb."
+
+"I am ashamed of myself because of them, Lois."
+
+"You silly boy, Alb--are they ashamed, Alb? Oh, no, no--people who love
+are never ashamed."
+
+He did not contest the point with her, nor might she linger. Bells were
+ringing everywhere, syrens were calling the people to work. It was a new
+thing for Alban Kennedy to be strolling the streets with his hands in
+his pockets when the clock struck one. And yet there he was become a
+loafer in an instant, just one of the many thousand who stare up idly at
+the sky or gaze upon the windows of the shops they may not patronize, or
+drift on helpless as though a dark stream of life had caught them and
+nevermore would set them on dry land again. Alban realized all this, and
+yet the full measure of his disaster was not wholly understood. It was
+so recent, the consequences yet unfelt, the future, after all, pregnant
+with the possibilities of change. He knew not at all what he should do,
+and yet determined that the shame of which he had spoken should never
+overtake him.
+
+And so determining, he strolled as far as Aldgate Station--and there he
+met the stranger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE STRANGER
+
+
+There is a great deal of fine philanthropic work done east of Aldgate
+Station by numbers of self-sacrificing young men just down from the
+Universities. So, when a slim parson touched Alban upon the arm and
+begged for a word with him, he concluded immediately that he had
+attracted the notice of one of these and become the objective of his
+charity.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said a little stiffly. The idea of stooping to
+such assistance had long been revolting to him. He was within an ace of
+breaking away from the fellow altogether.
+
+"Your name is Alban Kennedy, I think? Will you permit me to have a few
+words with you?"
+
+Alban looked the parson up and down, and the survey did something to
+satisfy him. He found himself face to face with a man, it might be of
+thirty years of age, whose complexion was dark but not unpleasant, whose
+eyes were frank and open, the possessor, too, of fair brown hair and of
+a manner not altogether free from a suspicion of that which scoffers
+call the "wash-hand" basin cult.
+
+"I do not know you, sir."
+
+"Indeed you do not--we are total strangers. My name is Sidney Geary; I
+am the senior curate of St. Philip's Church at Hampstead. If we could go
+somewhere and have a few words, I would be very much obliged to you."
+
+Alban hardly knew what to say to him. The manner was not that of a
+philanthropist desiring him to come to a "pleasant afternoon for the
+people"; he detected no air of patronage, no vulgar curiosity--indeed,
+the curate of St. Philip's was almost deferential.
+
+"Well, sir--if you don't mind a coffee shop--"
+
+"The very place. I have always thought that a coffee shop, properly
+conducted and entirely opposed to the alcoholic principle, is one of the
+most useful works in the civic economy. Let us go to a coffee shop by
+all means."
+
+Alban crossed the road and, leading the stranger a little way eastward,
+turned into a respectable establishment upon the Lockhart plan--almost
+deserted at such an hour and the very place for a confidential chat.
+
+"Will you have anything, sir?"
+
+The curate looked at the thick cups upon the counter, turned his gaze
+for an instant upon a splendid pile of sausages, and shuddered a little
+ominously.
+
+"I suppose the people here have excellent appetites," he reflected
+sagely. "I myself, unfortunately, have just lunched in Mount Street--but
+a little coffee--shall we not drink a little coffee?"
+
+"Suppose I order you two doorsteps and a thick 'un?"
+
+"My dear young fellow, what in heaven's name are 'two doorsteps and a
+thick 'un?'"
+
+Alban smiled a little scornfully.
+
+"Evidently you come from the West. I was only trying you. Shall we have
+two coffees--large? It isn't so bad as it looks by a long way."
+
+The coffee was brought and set steaming before them. In an interval of
+silence Alban studied the curate's face as he would have studied a book
+in which he might read some account of his own fortunes. Why had this
+man stopped him in the street?
+
+"Your first visit to Aldgate, sir?"
+
+"Not exactly, Mr. Kennedy--many years ago I have recollections of a
+school treat at a watering-place near the river's mouth--an exceedingly
+muddy place since become famous, I understand. But I take the children
+to Eastbourne now."
+
+"They find that a bit slow, don't they? Kids love mud, you know."
+
+"They do--upon my word. A child's love of mud is one of the most
+incurable things in nature."
+
+"Then why try to cure it?"
+
+"But what are you to do?"
+
+"Wash them, sir,--you can always do that. My father was a parson, you
+know--"
+
+"Good heavens, a clergyman--and you are come to--that is, you choose to
+live amidst these dreadful surroundings?"
+
+"I do not choose--death chose for me."
+
+"My poor boy--"
+
+"Not at all, sir. Give a man a good appetite and enough to gratify it,
+and I don't know that other circumstances count much."
+
+"Trial has made of you an epicurean, I see. Well, well, so much the
+better. That which I have to offer you will be the more acceptable."
+
+"Employment, sir?"
+
+"Employment--for a considerable term. Good employment, Mr. Kennedy.
+Employment which will take you into the highest society, educate you,
+perhaps, open a great career to you--that is what I came to speak of."
+
+The good man had meant to break the news more dramatically; but it
+flowed on now as a freshet released, while his eyes sparkled and his
+head wagged as though his whole soul were bursting with it. Alban
+thought for a moment that he had met one of those pleasant eccentrics
+who are not less rare in the East End than the West. "This good fellow
+has escaped out of an asylum," he thought.
+
+"What kind of a job would that be, sir?"
+
+"Your own. Name it and it shall be chosen for you. That is what I am
+commissioned to say."
+
+"By whom, sir?"
+
+"By my patron and by yours."
+
+"Does he wish to keep his name back?"
+
+"So little that he is waiting for you at his own house now."
+
+"Then why shouldn't we go and see him, sir?"
+
+He put the question fully believing that it would bring the whole
+ridiculous castle down with a crash, as it were, upon the table before
+him. Its effect, however, was entirely otherwise. The parson stood up
+immediately.
+
+"My carriage is waiting," he said; "nothing could possibly suit me
+better."
+
+Alban, however, remained seated.
+
+"Mr. Geary," he exclaimed, "you have forgotten to tell me something."
+
+"I can think of nothing."
+
+"The conditions of this slap-up job--the high society and all the rest
+of it! What are the conditions?"
+
+He spoke almost with contempt, and deliberately selected a vulgar
+expression. It had come to him by this time that some unknown friend had
+become interested in his career and that this amiable curate desired to
+make either a schoolmaster or an organist of him. "Old Boriskoff knew I
+was going to get the sack and little Lois has been chattering," he
+argued--nor did this line of reasoning at all console him. Sidney Geary,
+meanwhile, felt as though some one had suddenly applied a slab of
+melting ice to those grammatical nerves which Cambridge had tended so
+carefully.
+
+"My dear Mr. Kennedy--not 'slap-up,' I beg of you. If there are any
+conditions attached to the employment my patron has to offer you, is not
+he the best person to state them? Come and hear him for yourself. I
+assure you it will not be waste of time."
+
+"Does he live far from here?"
+
+"At Hampstead Heath--it will take us an hour to drive there."
+
+"And did he send the char a bancs especially for my benefit?"
+
+"Not really--but naturally he did."
+
+"Then I will go with you, sir."
+
+He put on his cap slowly and followed the curate into the street--one of
+the girls racing after them to say that they had forgotten to pay the
+bill. "And a pretty sort of clergyman you must be, to be sure," was her
+reflection--to the curate's blushing annoyance and his quite substantial
+indignation.
+
+"I find much impertinence in this part of the world," he remarked as
+they retraced their steps toward the West; "as if the girl did not know
+that it was an accident."
+
+"We pay for what we eat down here," Alban rejoined dryly; "it's a good
+plan as you would discover if you tried it, sir."
+
+Mr. Geary looked at the boy for an instant as though in doubt whether he
+had heard a sophism or a mere impertinence. This important question was
+not, however, to be decided; for a neat single brougham edged toward the
+pavement at the moment and a little crowd collected instantly to remark
+so signal a phenomenon.
+
+"Your carriage, sir?" Alban asked.
+
+"Yes," said the curate, quietly, "my carriage. And now, if you please,
+we will go and see Mr. Gessner. He is a Pole, Mr. Kennedy, and one of
+the richest men in London to-day."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE HOUSE OF THE FIVE GABLES
+
+
+It was six o'clock as the carriage passed Swiss Cottage station and ten
+minutes later when they had climbed the stiff hill to the Heath. Alban
+had not often ridden in a carriage, but he would have found his
+sensations very difficult to set down. The glossy cushions, the fine
+ivory and silver fittings, were ornaments to be touched with caressing
+fingers as one touches the coat of a beautiful animal or the ripe bloom
+upon fruit. Just to loll back in such a vehicle, to watch the houses and
+the people and the streets, was an experience he had not hitherto
+imagined. The smooth motion was a delight to him. He felt that he could
+continue such a journey to the ends of the earth, resting at his ease,
+untroubled by those never ended questions upon which poverty insisted.
+
+"Is it far yet, sir--is Mr. Gessner's house a long way off?"
+
+He asked the question as one who desired an affirmative reply. The
+parson, however, believed that his charge was already wearied; and he
+said eagerly:
+
+"It is just over there between the trees, my lad. We shall be with our
+good friend in five minutes now. Perhaps you know that you are on
+Hampstead Heath?"
+
+"I came here once with little Lois Boriskoff--on a Bank Holiday. It was
+not like this then. If Mr. Gessner is rich, why does he live in a place
+where people come to keep Bank Holiday? I should have thought he would
+have got away from them."
+
+"He is not able to get away. His business takes him into town every
+day--he goes by motor-car and comes back at night to breathe pure air.
+Bank Holidays do not occur every day, Mr. Kennedy. Fortunately for some
+of us they are but four a year."
+
+"Of course you don't like going amongst all those poor people, Mr.
+Geary. That's natural. I didn't until I had to, and then I found them
+much the same as the rest. You haven't any poor in Hampstead, I am
+told."
+
+Mr. Geary fell into the trap all unsuspectingly.
+
+"Thank heaven"--he began, and then checking himself clumsily, he added,
+"that is to say we are comparatively well off as neighborhoods go. Our
+people are not idlers, however. Some of the foremost manufacturers in
+the country live in Hampstead."
+
+"While their work-people starve in Whitechapel. It's an odd world, isn't
+it, Mr. Geary--and I don't suppose we shall ever know much about it. If
+I had made a fortune by other people's work, I think I should like some
+of them to live in Hampstead too. But you see, I'm prejudiced."
+
+Sidney Geary looked at the boy as though he had heard a heresy. To him
+the gospel of life meant a yearly dole of coals at Christmas and a bout
+of pleasant "charity organizations" during the winter months. He would
+as soon have questioned the social position of the Archbishop of
+Canterbury as have criticised the conduct and the acts of the
+manufacturers who supported his church so generously.
+
+"I am afraid you have received some pernicious teaching down yonder," he
+said, with a shake of his abundant locks. "Mr. Gessner, I may tell you,
+has an abhorrence of socialism. If you wish to please him, avoid the
+topic."
+
+"But I do not wish to please him--I do not even know him. And I'm not a
+socialist, sir. If Mr. Gessner had ever lived in Whitechapel; if he had
+starved in a garret, he would understand me. I don't suppose it matters,
+though, whether he does or not, for we are hardly likely to discuss such
+things together."
+
+"My dear lad, he has not sent for you for that, believe me. His
+conversation will be altogether of a different nature. Let me implore
+you to remember that he desires to be your benefactor--not your judge.
+There is no kinder heart, no more worthy gentleman in all London to-day
+than Richard Gessner. That much I know and my opportunities are unique."
+
+Alban could make no reply to this; nor did he desire one. They had
+passed the Jack Straw's Castle by this time, and now the carriage
+entered a small circular drive upon the right-hand side of the road and
+drew up before a modern red-bricked mansion, by no means ostentatious or
+externally characteristic of the luxury for which its interior was
+famed. Just a trim garden surrounded the house and boasted trees
+sufficient to hide the picturesque gables from the eyes of the curious.
+There were stables in the northern wing and a great conservatory built
+out toward the south. Alban had but an instant to glance at the
+beautiful facade when a young butler opened the door to them and ushered
+them into a vast hall, panelled to the ceiling in oak and dimly lighted
+by Gothic windows of excellent stained glass. Here a silence, amazing in
+its profundity, permitted the very ticking of the clocks to be heard.
+All sounds from without, the hoot of the motors, the laughter of
+children, the grating voices of loafers on the Heath, were instantly
+shut out. An odor of flowers and fine shrubs permeated the apartment.
+The air was cool and clear as though it had passed through a lattice of
+ice.
+
+"Please to wait one moment, Kennedy, and I will go to Mr. Gessner. He
+expects us and we shall not have long to wait. Is he not in the library,
+Fellows--ah, I thought he would be there."
+
+The young butler said "Yes, sir;" but Alban perceived that it was in a
+tone which implied some slight note of contempt. "That fellow," he
+thought, "would have kicked me into the street if I had called here
+yesterday--and his father, I suppose, kept a public-house or a fish
+shop." The reflection flattered his sense of irony; and sitting
+negligently upon a broad settee, he studied the hall closely, its
+wonderful panelling, the magnificently carved balustrades, the great
+organ up there in the gallery--and lastly the portraits. Alban liked
+subject pictures, and these masterpieces of Sargent and Luke Fildes did
+not make an instantaneous appeal to him. Indeed, he had cast but a brief
+glance upon the best of them before his eye fell upon a picture which
+brought the blood to his cheeks as though a hand had slapped them. It
+was the portrait of the supposed Polish girl whom he had seen upon the
+balcony of the house in St. James' Square--last night as he visited the
+caves.
+
+Alban stared at the picture open-mouthed and so lost in amazement that
+all other interests of his visit were instantly lost to his memory. A
+hard dogmatic common-sense could make little of a coincidence so
+amazing. If he had wished to think that the unknown resembled little
+Lois Boriskoff--if he had wished so much last night, the portrait, seen
+in this dim light, flattered his desire amazingly. He knew, however,
+that the resemblance was chiefly one of nationality; and in the same
+instant he remembered that he had been brought to the house of a Pole.
+Was it possible, might he dare to imagine that Paul Boriskoff's
+friendship had contrived this strange adventure. Some excitement
+possessed him at the thought, for his spirit had ever been adventurous.
+He could not but ask himself to whose house had he come then and for
+what ends? And why did he find a portrait of the Polish girl therein?
+
+Alban's eyes were still fixed upon the picture when the young butler
+returned to summon him to the library. He was not a little ashamed to be
+found intent upon such an occupation, and he rose immediately and
+followed the man through a small conservatory, aglow with blooms, and so
+at once into the sanctum where the master of the house awaited him.
+Perfect in its way as the library was, Alban had no eyes for it in the
+presence of Richard Gessner whom thus he met for the first time. Here,
+truly, he might forget even the accident of the portrait. For he stood
+face to face with a leader among men and he was clever enough to
+recognize as much immediately.
+
+Richard Gessner was at that time fifty-three years of age. A man of
+medium height, squarely built and of fine physique, he had the face
+rather of a substantial German than of the usually somewhat cadaverous
+Pole. A tousled black beard hid the jowl almost completely; the eyes
+were very clear and light blue in color; the head massive above the neck
+but a little low at the forehead. Alban noticed how thin and fragile the
+white hand seemed as it rested upon a strip of blotting-paper upon the
+writing-table; the clothes, he thought, were little better than those
+worn by any foreman in Yarrow's works; the tie was absolutely shabby and
+the watch-chain nothing better than two lengths of black silk with a
+seal to keep them together. And yet the mental power, the personal
+magnetism of Richard Gessner made itself felt almost before he had
+uttered a single word.
+
+"Will you take a seat, Mr. Kennedy--I am dining in the city to-night and
+my time is brief. Mr. Geary, I think, has spoken to you of my
+intentions."
+
+Alban looked the speaker frankly in the face and answered without
+hesitation:
+
+"He has told me that you wish to employ me, sir."
+
+"That I wish to employ you--yes, it is not good for us to be idle. But
+he has told you something more than that?"
+
+"Indeed," the curate interrupted, "very much more, Mr. Gessner. I have
+told Kennedy that you are ready and willing to take an interest, the
+greatest possible interest, in his future."
+
+The banker--for as such Richard Gessner was commonly known--received the
+interjection a little impatiently and, turning his back slightly, he
+fixed an earnest look upon Alban's face and watched him critically while
+he spoke.
+
+"Mr. Kennedy," he said, "I never give my reasons. You enter this house
+to confer a personal obligation upon me. You will remain in that spirit.
+I cannot tell you to-night, I may be unable to tell you for many years
+why you have been chosen or what are the exact circumstances of our
+meeting. This, however, I may say--that you are fully entitled to the
+position I offer you and that it is just and right I should receive you
+here. You will for the present remain at Hampstead as one of my family.
+There will be many opportunities of talking over your future--but I wish
+you first to become accustomed to my ways and to this house, and to
+trouble your head with no speculations of the kind which I could not
+assist. I am much in the city, but Mr. Geary will take my place and you
+can speak to him as you would to me. He is my Major Domo, and needless
+to say I in him repose the most considerable confidence."
+
+He turned again toward Mr. Geary and seemed anxious to atone for his
+momentary impatience. The voice in which he spoke was not unpleasant,
+and he used the English language with an accent which did not offend.
+Rare lapses into odd and unusual sentences betrayed him occasionally to
+the keen hearer, but Alban, in his desire to know the man and to
+understand him, made light of these.
+
+"I am to remain in this house, sir--but why should I remain, what right
+have I to be here?" he asked very earnestly.
+
+The banker waved the objection away a little petulantly.
+
+"The right of every man who has a career offered to him. Be content with
+that since I am unable to tell you more."
+
+"But, sir, I cannot be content. Why should I stay here as your guest
+when I do not know you at all?"
+
+"My lad, have I not said that the obligation is entirely on my side. I
+am offering you that to which you have every just claim. Children do not
+usually refuse the asylum which their father's door opens to them. I am
+willing to take you into this house as a son--would it not be a little
+ungrateful to argue with me? From what I know of him, Alban Kennedy is
+not so foolish. Let Mr. Geary show you the house while I am dressing. We
+shall meet at breakfast and resume this pleasant conversation."
+
+He stood up as he spoke and began to gather his papers together. To
+Alban the scene was amazingly false and perplexing. He was perfectly
+aware that this stranger had no real interest in him at all; he felt,
+indeed, that his presence was almost resented and that he was being
+received into the house as upon compulsion. All the talk of obligation
+and favor and justice remained powerless to deceive. The key to the
+enigma did not lie therein; nor was it to be found in the churchman's
+suavity and the fairy tale which he had recited. Had the meeting
+terminated less abruptly, Alban believed that his own logic would have
+carried the day and that he would have left the house as he had come to
+it. But the clever suggestion of haste on the banker's part, his hurried
+manner and his domineering gestures, left a young lad quite without
+idea. Such an old strategist as Richard Gessner should have known how to
+deal with that honest original, Alban Kennedy.
+
+"We will meet at breakfast," the banker repeated; "meanwhile, consider
+Mr. Geary as your friend and counsellor. He shall by me so be appointed.
+I have a great work for you to do, Mr. Kennedy, but the education, the
+books, the knowledge--they must come first. Go now and think about
+dinner--or perhaps you would like to walk about the grounds a little
+while. Mr. Geary will show you the way--I leave you in his hands."
+
+He folded the papers up and thrust them quickly in a drawer as he spoke.
+The interview was plainly at an end. He had welcomed a son as he would
+have welcomed any stranger who had brought a letter of introduction
+which decency compelled him to read.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+ALBAN KENNEDY DINES
+
+
+Silas Geary led the way through the hall and thence to the winter
+garden. Here the display of plants was quite remarkable and the building
+one that had cost many thousands of pounds. Designed, as all that
+Richard Gessner touched, to attract the wonder of the common people and
+to defy the derision of the connoisseur, this immense garden had been
+the subject of articles innumberable and of pictures abundant. Vast in
+size, classic in form, it served many purposes, but chiefly as a gallery
+for the safe custody of a collection of Oriental china which had no
+rival in Europe.
+
+"It is our patron's hobby," said the curate, mincingly, as he indicated
+the treasures of cloisonne and of porcelain; "he does not frivol away
+his money as so many do, on idle dissipations and ephemeral pleasures.
+On the contrary, he devotes it to the beautiful objects--"
+
+"Do you call them beautiful, sir?" Alban asked ingenuously. "They seem
+to me quite ugly. I don't think that if I had money I should spend it on
+plates and jars which nobody uses. I would much sooner buy a battle ship
+and give it to the nation." And then he asked, "Did Mr. Gessner put up
+all this glass to keep out the fresh air? Does he like being in a
+hot-house? I should have thought a garden would have been better."
+
+Silas Geary could make nothing of such criticism as this.
+
+"My dear lad," he protested, "you are very young and probably don't know
+what sciatica means. When I was your age, I could have slept upon a
+board and risen therefrom refreshed. At fifty it is otherwise. We study
+the barometer then and dust before we sit. This great glass house is Mr.
+Gessner's winter temple. It is here that he plans and conceives so many
+of those vast schemes by which the world is astonished."
+
+Alban looked at him curiously.
+
+"Is the world really astonished by rich men?" he asked.
+
+Mr. Geary stood still in amazement at the question.
+
+"Rank and birth rule the nation," he declared vehemently; "it is fit and
+proper that it should be so. Our aristocracy is rightly recruited from
+those who have accumulated the wealth necessary to such a position.
+Riches, Kennedy, mean power. You will know that some day when you are
+the master of riches."
+
+Alban walked on a little way without saying anything. Then almost as one
+compelled to reply he exclaimed:
+
+"In the East End, they don't speak of money like that. I suppose it is
+their ignorance--and after all it is a very great thing to be able to
+compel other people to starve for you. Some day, I'll take you down to
+the sweating-shops, Mr. Geary. You'll see a lot of old china there, but
+I don't think it would be worth much. And all our flowers are for
+sale--poor devils, we get little enough for supper if we don't sell
+them."
+
+The curate expressed no profound desire to accept this promising
+invitation, and desiring to change so thorny a subject entered a
+delightful old-world garden and invited Alban's attention to a superb
+view of Harrow and the Welsh Harp. In the hall, to which at last they
+returned, he spoke of that more substantial reality, dinner.
+
+"I am sorry to say that I have a Dorcas meeting to-night and cannot
+possibly dine with you," he explained to the astonished lad. "I shall
+return at nine o'clock, however, to see that all is as Mr. Gessner
+wishes. The servants have told you, perhaps, that Miss Anna is in the
+country and does not return until to-morrow. This old house is very dull
+without her, Kennedy. It is astonishing how much difference a pretty
+face makes to any house."
+
+"Is that Miss Anna's portrait over the fireplace, sir?"
+
+"You know her, Kennedy?"
+
+"I have seen her once, on the balcony of a house in St. James' Square.
+That was last night when I was on my way to sleep in a cellar."
+
+"My poor, poor boy, and to-night you will sleep in one of the most
+beautiful rooms in England. How wonderful is fortune, how
+amazing--er--how very--is not that seven o'clock by the way? I think
+that it is, and here is Fellows come to show you your room. You will
+find that we have done our best for you in the matter of
+clothes--guesswork, I fear, Kennedy, but still our best. To-morrow
+Westman the tailor is to come--I think and hope you will put up with
+borrowed plumes until he can fit you up. In the meantime, Fellows has
+charge of your needs. I am sure that he will do his very best for you."
+
+The young butler said that he would--his voice was still raised to a
+little just dignity, and he, in company with Silas Geary, the
+housekeeper and the servants' hall had already put the worst
+construction possible upon Alban's reception into the house. His
+determination to patronize the "young man" however received an abrupt
+check when Alban suddenly ordered him to show the way upstairs. "He
+spoke like a Duke," Fellows said in the kitchen afterwards. "There I was
+running up the stairs just as though the Guv'ner were behind me. Don't
+you think that you can come it easy with him--he ain't the sort by a
+long way. I tell you, I never was so astonished since the Guv'ner raised
+my wages."
+
+Alban, of course, was sublimely unconscious of this. He had been
+conducted to an enormous bedroom on the first floor, superbly furnished
+with old Chippendale and excellent modern Sevres--and there he had been
+left to realize for the first time that he was alone and that all which
+had happened since yesterday was not a dream but a hard invincible truth
+so full of meaning, so wonderful, so sure that the eyes of his brain did
+not dare to look at it unflinchingly. Boyishly and with a boy's gesture
+he had thrown himself upon the bed and hidden his face from the light as
+though the very atmosphere of this wonder world were insupportable. Good
+God, that it should have happened to him, Alban Kennedy; that it should
+have been spoken of as his just right; that he should have been told
+that he had a claim which none might refute! A hundred guesses afforded
+no clue to the solution of the mystery. He could not tell himself that
+he was in some way related to Richard Gessner, the banker; he could not
+believe that his dead parents had any claim upon this foreigner who
+received him coldly and yet would hear nothing of his departure. Pride
+had little share in this, for the issues were momentous. It was
+sufficient to know that a hand had suddenly drawn him from the abyss,
+had put him on this pinnacle--beyond all, had placed him in Anna
+Gessner's home as the first-born, there to embark upon a career whose
+goal lay beyond the City Beautiful of his dreams.
+
+He rose from the bed at length, and trying to put every thought but that
+of the moment from his head, he remembered that he was expected to dine
+alone in the great room below, and to dress himself for such an ordeal
+in the clothes which the reverend gentleman's wit had provided for him.
+Courageous in all things, he found himself not a little afraid of all
+the beautiful objects which he touched, afraid to lift the Sevres
+pitcher, afraid to open the long doors of the inlaid wardrobe, timid
+before the dazzling mirror--a reluctant guest who, for the time being,
+would have been thankful to escape to a carpetless floor and glad to
+wash in a basin of the commonest kind. When this passed, and it was but
+momentary, the delusion that a trick was being played upon him succeeded
+to it and he stood to ask himself if he had not been a fool to believe
+their story at all, a fool thus to be made sport of by one who would
+relate the circumstance with relish to-morrow. This piece of nonsense,
+however, was as quick to give way to the somewhat cynical common sense
+with which, Alban Kennedy had rightly been credited as the other. He
+turned from it impatiently and began to dress himself. He had last
+dressed in black clothes and a white waistcoat for a school concert at
+Westminster when he was quite a little lad--but his youth had taught him
+the conventions, and he had never forgotten those traditions of what his
+dead father used to call the "decent life." In his case the experience
+was but a reversion to the primitive, and he dressed with every
+satisfaction, delighted to put off the shabby old clothes and no less
+content with his new appearance as a mirror revealed it to him.
+
+The dining room at "Five Gables" was normally a little dark in the
+daytime, for it looked upon the drive where ancient trees shaded its
+lofty latticed windows. At night, however, Richard Gessner's fine silver
+set off the veritable black oak to perfection, and the room had an air
+of dignity and richness neither artificial nor offensive. When Alban
+came down to dinner he perceived that a cover had been set for him at
+the end of a vast table, and that he was expected to take the absent
+master's place; nor could he forbear to smile at the solemn exercises
+performed by Fellows the young butler, and two footmen who were to wait
+upon him. These rascals, whatever they might say in the kitchen
+afterwards, served him at the table as though he had been an eldest son
+of the house. If they had expected that the ragged, shabby fellow, who
+entered the house so stealthily an hour ago, would provide food for
+their exquisitely delicate sense of humor, they were wofully
+disappointed. Alban ate his dinner without uttering a single remark.
+
+And last night it had been supper in the caves! There must be no charge
+of inconsistency brought against him if a momentary shudder marked this
+recollection of an experience. A man may bridge a great gulf in a single
+instant of time. Alban had no less affection for, no less interest
+to-night in those pitiful lives than yesterday, but he understood that a
+flood of fortune had carried him for the time being away from them, and
+that his desire must be to help but not to regret them. Indeed, he could
+not resist, nor did he wish to resist a great content in this
+well-being, which overtook him in so subtle a manner. The sermons of the
+old days, preached by many a mad fanatic of Union Street, declared that
+any alliance between the rich and the poor must be false and impossible.
+Alban believed it to be so. A mere recollection of the shame of poverty
+could already bring the blood to his cheeks, and yet he would have
+defended poverty with all the logic of which his clever brain was
+capable.
+
+So in a depressing silence the long dinner was eaten. Methodically and
+with velvet steps the footmen put dish after dish before him, the butler
+filled his rarely lifted glass, the whole ceremony of dining performed.
+For his own part he would have given much to have escaped after the fish
+had been served, and to have gone out and explored the garden which had
+excited Mr. Geary to such poetic thoughts. Not a large eater (for the
+East End does not dare to cultivate an appetite), he was easily
+satisfied; and he found the mere length of the menu to be an ordeal
+which he would gladly have been spared. Why did people want all these
+dishes, he asked himself. Why, in well-to-do circles, is it considered
+necessary to serve precisely similar portions of fish and flesh and fowl
+every night at eight o'clock? Men who work eat when they are disposed.
+Alban wondered what would happen if such a custom were introduced into
+the House of the Five Gables. A cynical reverie altogether--from which
+the butler's purring voice awakened him.
+
+"Will you have your coffee in the Winter Garden, sir? Mr. Gessner always
+does."
+
+"Cannot I have it in the garden?"
+
+"Oh, yes, if you like, sir. We'll carry out a chair--the seats are very
+damp at night, sir."
+
+Alban smiled. Was he not sleeping on the reeking floor of the caves but
+twenty hours ago.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+ANNA GESSNER
+
+
+They set a table in the vestibule overlooking the trim lawn, and thither
+they carried cigars and coffee. Alban had learned to smoke fiercely--one
+of the few lessons the East End had taught him thoroughly--and Richard
+Gessner's cigars had a just reputation among all who frequented the
+House of the Five Gables--some of these, it must be confessed, coming
+here for no other particular reason than to smoke them. Alban did not
+quite understand what it was that differentiated this particular cigar
+from any he had ever smoked, but he enjoyed it thoroughly and inhaled
+every whiff of its fragrant bouquet as though it had been a perfume of
+morning-roses.
+
+A profound stillness, broken at rare intervals by the rustling of young
+leaves, prevailed in the garden. Night had come down, but it was a night
+of spring, clear and still and wonderful of stars. Distantly across a
+black waste of heath and meadow, the spire of Harrow Church stood up as
+a black point against an azure sky. The waters of the Welsh Harp were as
+a shimmering lake of silver in the foreground; the lights of Hendon and
+of Cricklewood spoke of suburban life, but might just as well have
+conjured up an Italian scene to one who had the wit to imagine it. Alban
+knew nothing of Italy, he had never set foot out of England in his
+life, but the peace and the beauty of the picture impressed him
+strangely, and he wondered that he had so often visited the Caves when
+such a fairyland stood open to his pleasure. Let it not be hidden that
+he would have been easily pleased this night. Youth responds quickly to
+excitements of whatever nature they may be. He was as far from realizing
+the truth of his position as ever, but the complete change of
+environment, the penetrating luxury of the great house, the mystery
+which had carried him there and the promise of the morrow, conspired to
+elate him and to leave him, in the common phrase, as one who is walking
+upon air. Even an habitual cynicism stood silent now. What mattered it
+if he awoke to-morrow to a reality of misunderstanding or of jest? Had
+not this night opened a vista which nothing hereafter might shut out?
+And the truth might be as Richard Gessner had promised--a truth of
+permanence, of the continued possession of this wonderland. Who shall
+blame him if his heart leaped at the mere contemplation of this
+possibility?
+
+It would have been about nine o'clock when they carried his coffee to
+the garden--it was just half-past nine when Anna Gessner returned
+unexpectedly to the house. Alban heard the bell in the courtyard ring
+loudly, and upon that the throttled purr of a motor's heavy engine. He
+had expected Silas Geary, but such a man, he rightly argued, would not
+come with so much pomp and circumstance, and he stood at once, anxious
+and not a little abashed. Perhaps some suspicion of the truth had
+flashed upon him unwittingly. He heard the voice of Fellows the butler
+raised in some voluble explanation, there were a few words spoken in a
+pleasing girlish tone, and then, the boudoir behind him flashed its
+colors suddenly upon his vision, and he beheld Anna Gessner herself--a
+face he would have recognized in ten thousand, a figure of yesternight
+that would never be forgotten.
+
+She had cast aside her motor veil, and held it in her hand while she
+spoke to the butler. A heavy coat bordered and lined with fur stood open
+to reveal a gray cloth dress; her hair had been blown about by the fresh
+breezes of the night and covered her forehead in a disorder far from
+unbecoming. Alban thought that the cold light in the room and the heavy
+bright panelling against which she stood gave an added pallor to her
+usually pale face, exaggerating the crimson of her lips and the dark
+beauty of her eyes. The hand which held the veil appeared to him to be
+ridiculously small; her attitudes were so entirely graceful that he
+could not imagine a picture more pleasing. If he remembered that he had
+likened her to little Lois Boriskoff, he could now admit the
+preposterous nature of the comparison. True it was that nationality
+spoke in the contour of the face, in its coloring and its expression,
+but these elementals were forgotten in the amazing grace of the girl's
+movements, the dignity of her gestures and the vitality which animated
+her. Returning to the house unexpectedly, even a lad was shrewd enough
+to see that she returned also under the stress of an agitation she could
+conceal from none. Her very questions to the servants were so quick and
+incoherent that they could not be answered. The letters which the
+butler put into her hands were torn from the envelopes but were not
+read. When she opened the boudoir window and so permitted Alban to
+overhear her hurried words, it was as one who found the atmosphere of a
+house insupportable and must breathe fresh air at any cost.
+
+"Has my father returned, Fellows?"
+
+"No, miss, he is not expected until late."
+
+"Why did you not send the carriage to the station?"
+
+"Mr. Gessner said that you were coming to-morrow, miss."
+
+She flushed slightly at the retort and made as though to step out into
+the garden--but hesitating an instant, she said:
+
+"I have had nothing to eat since one o'clock, Fellows. I must have some
+supper."
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+"Anything will do--tell cook it does not matter. Has Lord Portcullis
+called?"
+
+"No, miss--not since yesterday."
+
+"Or Mrs. Melville?"
+
+"This afternoon. She asked for your address, miss--but I did not give
+it."
+
+"Quite right--I suppose that Captain Forrest did not come?" She turned
+away as though not wishing to look the man in the face--a gesture which
+Alban's quick eyes instantly perceived.
+
+Fellows, on the other hand, permitted a smile to lurk for an instant
+about the corners of his mouth before he said--
+
+"I understood that Captain Forrest was at Brighton, miss."
+
+The girl's face clouded perceptibly, and she loosened her cloak and
+threw it from her shoulders as though it had become an insupportable
+burden.
+
+"If he calls to-morrow, I do not wish to see him. Please tell them
+all--I will not see him."
+
+The butler smiled again, but answered, "Yes, miss."
+
+Anna Gessner herself, still hesitating upon the threshold suddenly
+remembered another interest and referred to it with no less ardor.
+
+"Oh, that reminds me, Fellows. Has my father spoken again of that
+dreadful silly business?"
+
+"Concerning the young gentleman, miss?"
+
+She heard him with unutterable contempt.
+
+"The beggar-boy that he wishes to bring to this house. Did he speak of
+him to-night?"
+
+Fellows came a step nearer and, hushing his voice, he said, with a
+servant's love of a dramatic reply:
+
+"Mr. Kennedy is in the garden now, miss--indeed, I think he's sitting
+near the vestibule."
+
+She looked at him astonished. Ugly passions of disappointment and
+thwarted desire betrayed themselves in the swift turn and the angry
+pursing of her lips. Of her father's intentions in bringing this
+beggar-boy to the house, she knew nothing at all. It seemed to her one
+of those mad acts for which no sane apology could be offered.
+
+"He is here now, Fellows! Who brought him then?"
+
+"Mr. Geary--at six o'clock."
+
+"Mr. Geary is a hateful busybody--I suppose I must speak to the boy."
+
+"I think that Mr. Gessner would wish it, miss."
+
+She hesitated a brief instant, her annoyance giving battle to her
+father's well-known desire. Curiosity in the end helped her decision.
+She must see the object of a charity so eccentric.
+
+"You say that he is in the garden?" she continued, taking two steps
+across the vestibule.
+
+But this time Alban answered her himself.
+
+"The beggar-boy is here," he said.
+
+He had risen from his chair and the two confronted each other in the
+aureole of light cast out from the open window. Just twenty-four hours
+ago, Alban had been sitting by little Lois Boriskoff's side in the
+second gallery at the Aldgate Empire. To-night he wore a suit of good
+dress clothes, had dined at a millionaire's table and already recovered
+much of that polish and confident manner which an English public school
+rarely fails to bestow. Anna Gessner, in her turn, regarded him as
+though he were the agent of a trick which had been played upon her. To
+her amazement a hot flush of anger succeeded. She knew not how to meet
+him or what excuses to make.
+
+"My father has not told me the truth," she exclaimed presently. "I am
+sorry that you overheard me--but I said what I meant. If he had told me
+that you were coming--"
+
+Alban stood before her quite unabashed. He understood the circumstances
+and delighted in them.
+
+"I am glad that you meant it," he rejoined, "of course, it is in some
+way true. Those who have no money are always beggars to those who have.
+Let me say that I don't know at all why I am here, and that I shall go
+unless I find out. We need not quarrel about it at all."
+
+Anna, however, had recovered her composure. Mistress of herself to a
+remarkable degree when her passions were not aroused, she suddenly held
+out her hand to Alban as though she would apologize--but not by the
+spoken word.
+
+"They have played a trick upon me," she cried. "I shall have it out with
+Mr. Geary when he comes. Of course I am very sorry. My father said that
+you were a distant relative, but he tried to frighten me by telling me
+that you lived in Whitechapel and were working in a factory. I was silly
+enough to believe it--you would have done so yourself."
+
+"Most certainly--for it is quite true. I have been living in Whitechapel
+since my mother died, and I worked in a factory until yesterday. If you
+had come here a few hours back, you would have run away from the
+beggar-boy or offered him sixpence. I wonder which it would have been."
+
+She would not admit the truth of it, and a little peevishly contested
+her point.
+
+"I shall never believe it. This is just the kind of thing Mr. Geary
+would do. He is the most foolish man I have ever known. To leave you all
+alone here when he brought you as a stranger to our house. I wonder what
+my father would say to that."
+
+She had drawn her cloak about her white throat again and seated herself
+near Alban's chair. Imitating her, he sat again and began to talk to her
+as naturally as though he had known her all her life. Not a trace of
+vexation at the manner of her reception remained to qualify that rare
+content he found in her company. Alban had long acquired the sense which
+judges every word and act by the particular circumstances under which it
+is spoken. He found it natural that Anna Gessner should resent his
+presence in the house. He liked her for telling him that it was so.
+
+"My father says that he is going to make an engineer of you--is that
+just what you wish, Mr. Kennedy?"
+
+"That's what I don't know," he replied as frankly. "You see, I have
+always wanted to get on, but how to do so is what beats me. Engineering
+is a big profession and I'm not sure that I have the gifts. There you
+have a candid confession. I'm one of those fellows who can do everything
+up to a certain point, but a certain point isn't good enough nowadays.
+And a man wants money to get on. I'm sure it's easy enough to make a
+fortune if you have a decent share of brains and a bigger one capital. I
+want to make money and yet the East End has taught me to hate money. If
+Mr. Gessner can convince me that I have any claim upon his patronage, I
+shall go right into something and see if I cannot come out on top. You,
+I suppose, don't think much of the dirty professions. You'd like your
+brother to be a soldier, wouldn't you--or if not that, in the navy. Half
+the fellows at Westminster wanted to go into the army, just as though
+killing other people were the chief business in life. Of course, I
+wouldn't run it down--but what I mean to say is, that I never cared at
+all about it myself and so I'm not quite the best judge."
+
+His little confession ended somewhat abruptly, for he observed that his
+words appeared to distress Anna Gessner beyond all reason. For many
+minutes she remained quite silent. When she spoke her eyes were turned
+away and her confusion not altogether to be concealed.
+
+"I'm afraid you take your ideas of us from the cheap story-books," she
+said in a low voice; "women, nowadays, have their own ambitions and
+think less of men's. My dearest friend is a soldier, but I'm sure he
+would be a very foolish one if war broke out. They say he worked
+terribly hard in South Africa, but I don't think he ever killed any one.
+So you see--I shouldn't ask you to go into the army, and I'm sure my
+father would not wish it either."
+
+"It would do no good if he did," said Alban as bluntly. "I should only
+make a fool of myself. Your friend must have told you that you want a
+pretty good allowance to do upon--and fancy begging from your people
+when you were twenty-one. Why, in the East End many a lad of nineteen
+keeps a whole family and doesn't think himself ill-used. Isn't it rot
+that there should be so much inequality in life, Miss Gessner? I don't
+suppose, though, that one would think so if one had money."
+
+She smiled at his question, but diverted the subject cleverly.
+
+"Are you very self-willed, Mr. Kennedy?"
+
+"Do you mean that I get what I want--or try to?"
+
+"I mean that you have your own way in everything. If you were in love
+you would carry the poor thing off by force."
+
+"If I were in love and guessed that she was, I should certainly be
+outside to time. That's East End, you know, for punctuality."
+
+"You would marry in haste and repent at leisure?"
+
+"It would be yes or no, and that would be the end of it. Girls like a
+man who compels them--they like to obey, at least when they are young. I
+don't believe any girl ever loved a coward yet. Do you think so
+yourself?"
+
+She astonished him by rising suddenly and breaking off the conversation
+as abruptly.
+
+"God help me, I don't know what I think," she said; and then, with half
+a laugh to cover it, "Here is Mr. Geary come to take care of you. I will
+say good-night. We shall meet at breakfast and talk of all this
+again--if you get up in time."
+
+He made no answer and she disappeared with just a flash of her ample
+skirts into the boudoir and so to the hall beyond. The curate appeared a
+minute later, full of apologies and of the Dorcas meeting he had so
+lately illuminated with his intellectual presence. A mild cigarette and
+a glass of mineral water found him quite ready for bed.
+
+"There will be so much to speak of to-morrow, my dear boy," he said in
+that lofty tone which attended his patronage, "there is so much for you
+to be thankful for to-day. Let us go and dream of it all. The reality
+must be greater than anything we can imagine."
+
+"I'll tell you in a week's time," said Alban, dryly.
+
+A change had come upon him already. For Anna Gessner had betrayed her
+secret, and he knew that she had a lover.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+RICHARD GESSNER DEBATES AN ISSUE
+
+
+Richard Gessner returned to "Five Gables" as the clock of Hampstead
+Parish Church was striking one. A yawning footman met him in the hall
+and asked him if he wished for anything. To the man's astonishment, he
+was ordered to carry brandy and Vichy water to the bedroom immediately.
+
+"To your room, sir?"
+
+"To my room--are you deaf?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir. Miss Gessner has returned."
+
+"My daughter--when?"
+
+"After dinner, sir."
+
+"Was there any one with her?"
+
+"I didn't rightly see, sir. Fellows opened the door--he could tell you,
+sir."
+
+Gessner cast a searching glance upon the man's face And then mounted the
+great staircase with laborious steps. Passing the door of the room in
+which Alban slept, he listened intently for a moment as though half of a
+mind to enter; but abandoning the intention, went on to his apartment
+and there, when the footman had attended to his requirements, he locked
+the door and helped himself liberally to the brandy. An observer would
+have remarked that drops of sweat stood upon his brow and that his hand
+was shaking.
+
+He had dined with a city company; but had dined as a man who knew
+little of the dinner or of those who ate it. Ten days ago his energy,
+his buoyant spirits, and his amazing vitality had astonished even his
+best friends. To-night these qualities were at their lowest ebb--and he
+had been so silent, so self-concentrated, so obviously distressed, that
+even a casual acquaintance had remarked the change. To say that a just
+Nemesis had overtaken him would be less than the truth. He knew that he
+stood accused, not by a man, but by a nation. And to a nation he must
+answer.
+
+He locked the door of his room and, drawing a chair to a little Buhl
+writing-table, set in the window, he opened a drawer and took therefrom
+a little bundle of papers, upon which he had spent nine sleepless nights
+and, apparently, would spend still another. They were odd scraps--now of
+letters, now of legal documents--the _precis_ of a past which could be
+recited in no court of justice, but might well be told aloud to an
+unsympathetic world. Had an historian been called upon to deal with such
+documents, he would have made nothing whatever of them--but Richard
+Gessner could rewrite the story in every line, could garnish it with
+passions awakened, fears unnamable, regrets that could not save, despair
+that would suffer no consolations.
+
+He had stolen Paul Boriskoff's secret from him and thereby had made a
+fortune. Let it be admitted that the first conception of the new furnace
+for the refining of copper had come from that white-faced whimpering
+miner, who could talk of nothing but his nation's wrongs and had no
+finer ambition in life than to feed his children. He, Richard Gessner,
+had done what such a fellow never could have done. He had made the
+furnace commercially possible and had exploited it through the copper
+mines of the world. Such had been the first rung of that magnificent
+pecuniary ladder he had afterwards climbed so adroitly. Money he had
+amassed beneath his grasping hand as at a magician's touch. He
+regretted, he had always regretted, that misfortune overtook Paul
+Boriskoff's family--he would have helped them had he been in Poland at
+the time; but their offences were adjudged to be political; and if the
+wretched woman suffered harm at the hands of the police, what share had
+he in it? To this point he charged himself lightly--as men will in
+justifying themselves before the finger of an hoary accusation. Gessner
+cared neither for God nor man. His only daughter had been at once his
+divinity and his religion. Let men call him a rogue, despot, or thief,
+and he would shrug his shoulders and glance aside at his profit and loss
+account. But let them call him "fool" and the end of his days surely was
+at hand.
+
+And so this self-examination to-night troubled itself with no thought of
+wrongs committed, with no desire to repay, but only with that supreme
+act of folly, to which the sleeping lad in the room near by was the
+surest witness. What would the threats of such a pauper as Paul
+Boriskoff have mattered if the man had stood alone against him? A word
+to the police, a hundred pounds to a score of ruffians, and he would
+have been troubled no more. But his quarrel was not with a man but a
+nation. Perceiving that the friendship of the Russian Government was
+necessary to many of his mining schemes in the East, he had changed his
+name as lightly as another would have changed his coat, had cast the
+garments of a sham patriotism and emerged an enemy to all that he had
+hitherto befriended, a foe to Poland, a servant to Russia.
+
+Acting secretly and with a strong man's discretion, no bruit of this odd
+conversion had been made public, no whisper of it heard in the camp of
+the Revolutionaries. Many knew Maxim Gogol--none had heard of Richard
+Gessner. His desire for secrecy was in good accord with the plans of a
+police he assisted and the bureaucracy he bribed. He lived for a while
+in Vienna, then at Tiflis--he came at length to England where his
+daughter had been educated; and there he established himself, ostensibly
+as a wealthy banker, in reality as the secret director of one of the
+greatest conspiracies against the liberty of a little nation that the
+world had ever seen.
+
+Upon such a man, the blow of discovery fell with, stunning force.
+Gessner had grown so accustomed to the security of this suburban life
+that he could imagine no circumstance which might disturb it. All that
+he did for the satisfaction of the Russian Government had been cleverly
+done by agents and deputies. Entitled by his years to leisure, he had
+latterly almost abandoned politics for a culture of the arts and the
+sciences, in some branches of which he was a master. His leisure he gave
+almost entirely to his daughter. To contrive for her an alliance worthy
+of his own fortune and of her beauty had become the absorbing passion of
+his life. He studied the Peerage as other men study a balance-sheet.
+All sorts and conditions of possible husbands appeared at "Five Gables;"
+were dined, discussed, and dismissed. The older families despised him
+and would not be appeased. To crown his vexation, his daughter named a
+lover for herself. He had twice shown Captain Willy Forrest from the
+door and twice had the man returned. Anna seemed fascinated by this
+showy adventurer as by none other who visited them. Gessner, for his
+part, would sooner have lost the half of his fortune than that she
+should have married him.
+
+These vexations had been real enough ten days ago; but, to-night, a
+greater made light of them and now they were almost forgotten. Detection
+had stalked out of the slums to humble this man in an instant and bring
+him to his knees. Gessner could have recited to you the most trivial
+detail attending the reception of Paul Boriskoff's letter and the claim
+it made upon him--how a secretary had passed it to him with a suggestion
+that Scotland Yard should know of it; how he had taken up the scrawl
+idly enough to flush before them all an instant later and to feel his
+heart sink as in an abyss of unutterable dismay. He had crumpled the
+dirty paper in his hand, he remembered, and thrown it to the ground--to
+pick it up immediately and smooth it out as though it were a precious
+document. To his secretary he tried to explain that the writer was an
+odd fanatic who must be humored. Determined at the first blush to face
+the matter out, to answer and to defy this pauper Pole who had dared to
+threaten him, he came ultimately to see that discretion would best serve
+him. Paul Boriskoff had named Kensington Gardens as a rendezvous where
+matters might be discussed. Gessner was there to the minute--without
+idea, without hope, seeking only that pity which he himself had never
+bestowed upon any human being.
+
+Paul Boriskoff did not hurry to the Gardens, so sure was he of the
+success of his undertaking. The frowsy black coat, in which he made his
+bow to the millionaire, had not seen the light for many years--his hat
+was a wide-brimmed eccentricity in soft felt which greatly delighted the
+nursemaids who passed him by. Gessner would never have recognized, in
+the hollow-cheeked, pale-faced, humble creature the sturdy young Pole
+who had come to him nearly a generation ago and had said, "Our fortunes
+are made; this is my discovery." Believing at the moment that money
+would buy such a derelict, body and soul, he opened the negotiations
+firmly and in that lofty tone which suited Throgmorton Street so well.
+But five minutes had not passed before he understood his mistake and
+realized that Boriskoff, the lad who had trusted him, and Boriskoff, the
+Pole who now threatened him, were one and the same after all.
+
+"I remember you perfectly," he said; "it would be idle to say that I do
+not. You had some claim in the matter of a certain furnace. Yes, I
+remember that and would willingly admit it. But, my friend, you fell
+into trouble with the Government, and what could I do then? Was not I
+also compelled to leave Poland? Did not I change my name for that very
+reason? How could I repay the debt? Here in England it is different.
+You make your existence known to me and I respond at once. Speak
+freely, then, for I shall hear you patiently."
+
+They were seated on a bench beneath a chestnut in full bloom. Distantly,
+through a vista of giant trunks, the waters of the Round Pond glimmered
+in the evening light. Children, worn out by the day, sat idle in groups
+on the benches of the Long Walk or lagged through a fitful game on the
+open spaces between the trees. Few observed these two men who thus
+earnestly recalled the drama of their lives; none remarked their odd
+association, for were not both obviously foreigners, and who shall
+dictate a fashion to such as they? Indeed, they conversed without any
+animation of gesture; the one convulsed by fears he did not dare to
+express, the other by hopes on the threshold of realization.
+
+"I speak freely," said Boriskoff with unaffected candor, "for to do that
+I have come here. And first I must set your memory right in a matter
+that concerns us both. You did not leave Poland to serve your country;
+you left it to betray us. Spare your words, for the story has been told
+many times in Warsaw and in London. Shall I give you the list of those
+who are tortured to-day at Saghalien because of what you did? It would
+be vain, for if you have any feeling, even that of a dog, they are
+remembered by you. You betrayed the man who trusted you; you betrayed
+your country--for what? Shall I say that it was for this asylum in a
+strange land; for power, for the temptations which all must suffer? No,
+no. You have had but one desire in all your life, and that is money. So
+much even I understand. You are ready now to part with a little of that
+money--so little that it would be as a few grains from the sands of the
+sea--to save your neck from the rope, to escape the just punishment
+which is about to fall upon you. Do not believe that you can do so. I
+hold your secret, but at any hour, at any minute, others may share it
+with me. Maxim Gogol--for I shall call you by your true name--if one
+word of this were spoken to the Committee at Warsaw, how long would you
+have to live? You know the answer to that question. Do not compel me to
+dwell upon it."
+
+He spoke in a soft purring tone, an echo of a voice, as it were, beneath
+the rustling leaves; but, none the less, Richard Gessner caught every
+word as though it had been the voice of an oracle. A very shrewd man, he
+had feared this knowledge, and fear had brought him to this covert
+interview. The Pole could betray him and betrayal must mean death--and
+what a death, reluctant, procrastinating, the hour of it unknown, the
+manner of it beyond any words terrible. Such had been the end of many
+who had left Poland as he had done. He had read their story and
+shuddered even in his imagined security. And now this accusation was
+spoken, not as a whisper of a voice in the hours of the night, but as
+the truth of an inevitable day.
+
+And what should he answer? Would it profit him to speak of law; to
+retort with a threat; to utter the commonplaces concerning Scotland Yard
+and a vigilant police? He was far too wise even to contemplate such
+folly. Let him have this man arrested, and what then? Would any country
+thereafter shelter the informer from the vengeance of the thousands
+whom no law could arrest? Would any house harbor him against the dagger
+of the assassin, the swift blow, it might even be the lingering justice
+of such fanatics as sought to rule Poland. He knew that there was none.
+Abject assent could be the only reply. He must yield to any humiliation,
+suffer any extortion rather than speak the word which would be as
+irrevocable as the penalty it invited.
+
+"I shall not dispute with you, Paul Boriskoff," he said, with a last
+attempt to save his dignity; "yes, it would be in your power to do me a
+great injury even in this country which gives you liberty. It is your
+own affair. You did not come here to threaten me, but to seek a favor.
+Name it to me and I shall be prepared to answer you. I am not an
+ungenerous man as some of our countrymen know. Tell me what you wish and
+I shall know how to act."
+
+Boriskoff's answer astonished him by its impetuosity.
+
+"For myself nothing," he exclaimed contemptuously--and these brief words
+echoed in Gessner's ears almost as a message of salvation--"for myself
+nothing, but for my children much. Yes, your money can make even Paul
+Boriskoff despise himself--but it is for the children's sake. I sell my
+honor that they may profit by it. I ask for them that which is due to
+me, but which I have sworn to forego. Maxim Gogol, it is for the
+children that I ask it. You have done me a great wrong, but they shall
+profit by it. That is what I am come here to say to-day--that you shall
+repay, not to me but to my children."
+
+The words appeared to cost him much, as though he had deliberately
+sacrificed a great vengeance that those he loved might profit. Leaping
+to the hope of it, and telling himself that this after all was but a
+question of pounds, shillings, and pence, Gessner answered with an
+eagerness beyond all bounds ridiculous.
+
+"There could be nothing I would do more willingly. Yes, I remember--you
+left a daughter in Warsaw and she was not to be discovered by those of
+us who would have befriended her. Believe me when I say that I will help
+her very gladly. Anything, my friend, anything that is humbly
+reasonable--"
+
+Boriskoff did not permit him to finish.
+
+"My daughter will be educated in Germany at your cost," he said curtly.
+"I would speak first of one who is as a son to me because of her
+affection for him. There is a young Englishman living in Union Street,
+the son of a poor clergyman who died in the service of the poor. This
+lad you will take into your own house and treat as your own son. It is
+my desire and must be gratified. Remember that he is the son of a
+gentleman and treat him as such. There will be time enough afterwards to
+tell you how you must act in the interests of our people at Warsaw. This
+affair is our own and not of politics at all. As God is in heaven, but
+for my daughter you, Maxim Gogol, would not be alive this night."
+
+Gessner's heart sank again at the hint of further requests subsequently
+to come. The suggestion that he should adopt into his own house a youth
+of whom he knew nothing seemed in keeping with the circumstances of this
+dread encounter and the penalty that must be paid for it. After all, it
+was but a small price to pay for comparative security and the silence of
+a tongue which could work such ill. Accustomed to deal with men of all
+natures, honest and simple, clever and foolish, secretive and
+loquacious, there ran in his mind the desperate idea that he would
+temporize with Paul Boriskoff and ultimately destroy him. Let the
+Russian Government be informed of the activity of this Pole and of his
+intention to visit the Continent of Europe again, and what were
+Boriskoff's chances? Such were the treacherous thoughts which stood in
+Gessner's mind while he framed an answer which should avert the final
+hour of reckoning and give him that opportunity for the counter-stroke
+which might yet save all.
+
+"Your youth will profit little in my house," he said with some pretense
+of earnestness. "Had you asked an education abroad for him, that would
+have been a wiser thing in these days. Frankly, I do not understand your
+motive, but I am none the less willing to humor it. Let me know
+something more of the lad, let me have his history and then I shall be
+able to say what is the best course. I live a very quiet life and my
+daughter is much away. There is the possibility also that the boy, if he
+be the son of a clergyman, would do much better at Oxford or at
+Cambridge than at Hampstead, as you yourself must see. Let us speak of
+it afterwards. There will be time enough."
+
+"The time is to-day," rejoined Boriskoff, firmly, "Alban Kennedy will
+live under your roof as your own son. I have considered the matter and
+am determined upon it. When the time comes for him to marry my
+daughter, I will inform you of it. Understand, he knows nothing of your
+story or of mine. He will not hear of me in my absence from England. I
+leave the burden of this to you. He is a proud lad and will accept no
+charity. It must be your task to convince him that he has a title to
+your benevolence. Be wise and act discreetly. Our future requisitions
+will depend upon your conduct of this affair--and God help you, Maxim
+Gogol, if you fail in it."
+
+Something of the fanatic, almost of the madman, spoke in this vehement
+utterance. If Gessner had been utterly at a loss as yet to account for a
+request so unusual, he now began to perceive in it the instrument of his
+own humiliation. Would not this stranger be a perpetual witness to the
+hazard of his life, a son who stood also as a hostage, the living voice
+of Paul Boriskoff's authority? And what of his own daughter Anna and of
+the story he must tell her? These facts he realized clearly but had no
+answer to them. The reluctant assent, wrung from his unwilling lips, was
+the promise of a man who stood upon the brink of ruin and must answer as
+his accusers wished or pay the ultimate penalty. All his common
+masterfulness, the habit of autocracy, the anger of the bully and the
+tyrant, trembled before the clear cold eyes of this man he had wronged.
+He must answer or pay the price, humiliate himself or suffer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And to-night Alban Kennedy slept beneath his roof; the bargain had been
+clinched, the word spoken. Twenty thousand pounds had he paid to Paul
+Boriskoff that morning for the education of his daughter and in part
+satisfaction of the ancient claim. But the witness of his degradation
+had come to him and must remain.
+
+Aye, and there the strife of it began. When he put detectives upon the
+lad's path, had him followed from Union Street to the caves and from the
+caves to his place of employment, the report came to him that he was
+interesting himself in a callous ne'er-do-well, the friend of rogues and
+vagabonds, the companion of sluts, the despair of the firm which
+employed him. He had expected something of the kind, but the seeming
+truth dismayed him. In a second interview with Boriskoff he used all his
+best powers of argument and entreaty to effect a compromise. He would
+send the lad to the University, have him educated abroad, establish him
+in chambers--do anything, in fact, but that which the inexorable Pole
+demanded of him. This he protested with a humility quite foreign to him
+and an earnestness which revealed the depth of the indignity he
+suffered; but Boriskoff remained inflexible.
+
+"I am determined upon it," was the harsh retort; "the boy shall be as a
+link between us. Keep him from this hell in which he has lived and I
+will set so much to your credit. I warn you that you have a difficult
+task. Do not fail in it as you value your own safety."
+
+The manner of this reply left Gessner no alternative, and he sent Silas
+Geary to Whitechapel as we have seen. A less clever man, perhaps, would
+have fenced alike with the proposal and the threat; but he knew his own
+countrymen too well for that. Perhaps a hope remained that any kindness
+shown to this vagrant lad would win back ultimately his ancient
+freedom. Alone in his room this night, a single light rebutting the
+darkness, he understood into what an abyss of discovery he had fallen,
+the price that must be paid, the debt that he owed to forgotten years.
+
+"This man is a devil," he said, "he will rob me shilling by shilling
+until I am a beggar. Good God! that it should have come to this after
+twenty years; twenty years which have achieved so much; twenty years of
+such slavery as few men have known. And I am helpless; and this beggar
+is here to remind me of my enemies, to tell me that I walk in chains and
+that their eyes are following me."
+
+He threw himself upon his bed dressed as he was and tried to sleep. The
+stillness of the house gave fruitful visions, magnifying all his fears
+and bringing him to an unspeakable terror of the days which must come
+after. He had many ambitions yet to achieve, great ideas which remained
+ideas, masterly projects which must bring him both fame and riches, but
+he would have abandoned them all this night if freedom had been offered
+him. Years ago, he remembered, Boriskoff, the young miner, had earned
+his hatred, he knew not why unless it were a truth that men best hate
+those who have served them best. To-night found that old hatred
+increased a thousand fold and shaping itself in schemes which he would
+not even whisper aloud. He had always been looked upon as a man of good
+courage and that courage prompted him to a hundred mad notions--to swift
+assassination or to slow intrigue--last of all to self destruction
+should his aims miscarry. He would kill himself and cheat them after
+all. Many another in Petersburg had sacrificed his life rather than
+suffer those years of torture which discovery brought. He knew that he
+would not shrink even from the irrevocable if he were driven far enough.
+
+A man may take such a resolution as this and yet a great desire of life
+may remain to thwart it. Gessner found himself debating the issues more
+calmly as the night wore on, and even asking himself if the presence of
+a stranger in his house might be so intolerable as he had believed. He
+had seen little of Alban and that little had not been to the young man's
+disadvantage. If the youth were not all that report had painted him, if
+the amenities of the house should civilize him and kindness win his
+favor, then even he might be an advocate for those to whom he owed such
+favors. This new phase set Gessner thinking more hopefully than at any
+time since the beginning of it. He rose from his bed and turning on the
+lamps began to recall all that the Pole had demanded of him. The terms
+of the compact were not so very unreasonable, surely, he argued. Let
+this young Kennedy consent to remain at "Five Gables" and he, Richard
+Gessner, would answer for the rest. But would he consent to
+remain--would that wild life of the slums call him back to its freedom
+and its friendships? He knew not what to think. A great fear came to
+him, not that the lad would remain but that he would go. Had it been at
+a reasonable hour, he would have talked to him there and then, for the
+hours of that night were beyond all words intolerable. He must see
+Kennedy and convince him. In the end, unable to support the doubt, he
+quitted his own room, and crossed the landing, irresolute, trembling,
+hardly knowing what he did.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It would have been about five o'clock of the morning when he entered
+Alban's room and discovered him to be still sleeping. A sound of heavy
+breathing followed by a restless movement had deceived him and he
+knocked upon the door gently, quite expecting to be answered. When no
+reply came, he ventured in as one who would not willingly pry upon
+another but is compelled thereto by curiosity. The room itself should
+have been in darkness, but Alban had deliberately drawn the heavy
+curtains back from the windows before he slept, and the wan gray light
+of dawn struck down upon his tired face as though seeking out him alone
+of all that slept in the house. A lusty figure of shapely youth, a
+handsome face which the finger of the World had touched already, these
+the light revealed. He slept upon his back, his head turned toward the
+light, his arm outstretched and almost touching the floor.
+
+Gessner stood very still, afraid to wake the sleeper and by him to be
+thus discovered. No good nationalist at any time, he had always admired
+that product of a hard-drinking, hard-fighting ancestry, the British
+boy; and in Alban it seemed to him that he discovered an excellent type.
+Undoubtedly the lad was both handsome and strong. For his brains, Silas
+Geary would answer, and he had given evidence of good wit in their brief
+encounter last night. Gessner drew a step nearer and asked himself again
+if the detective's reports were true. Was this the friend of vagabonds,
+the companion of sluts--this clean-limbed, virile fellow with the fair
+face and the flaxen curls and the head of a thinker and a sage? A judge
+of men himself, he said that the words were a lie, and then he
+remembered Boriskoff's account, the story of a father who had died to
+serve an East End Mission, and of a devoted mother worsted in her youth
+by those gathering hosts of poverty she had set out so bravely to
+combat. Could the son of such as these be all that swift espionage would
+have him? Gessner did not believe it. New hopes, as upon a great freshet
+of content, came to him to give him comfort. He had no son. Let this lad
+be the son whom he had desired so ardently. Let them live together, work
+together in a mutual affection of gratitude and knowledge. Who could
+prevail against such an alliance? What rancor of Boriskoff's would harm
+the lad he desired to be the husband of his daughter. Aye, and this was
+the supreme consolation--that if Alban would consent, he, Gessner, would
+so earn his devotion and his love that therein he might arm himself
+against all the world.
+
+But would he consent? How if this old habit of change asserted itself
+and took him back to the depths? Gessner breathed quickly when he
+remembered that such might be the end of it. No law could compel the
+boy, no guardian claim him. Twice already he had expressed in this house
+his contempt for the riches which should have tempted him. Gessner began
+to perceive that his fate depended upon a word. It must be "yes" or "no"
+to-morrow--and while "yes" would save him, the courage of a hundred men
+would not have faced the utmost possibilities of "no."
+
+This simple truth kept the man to the room as though therein lay all his
+hopes of salvation. At one time he was upon the point of waking Alban
+and putting the question to him. Or again, he tried to creep back to the
+landing, determined, in his own room, to suffer as best he could the
+hours of uncertainty. Distressed by irresolution he crossed to the
+window at last and breathed the cool sweet air of morning as one being a
+stranger to such a scene at such an hour. The sun had risen by this time
+and all the landscape stood revealed in its morning beams. Not yet had
+London stirred to the murmur of the coming day--no smoke rose from her
+forest of chimneys, no haze drifted above the labyrinth. Far below she
+lay, a maze of empty streets, of shuttered shops, of vast silent
+buildings--a city of silence, hiding her cares from the glory of the
+dawn, veiling her sorrow and her suffering, hushing her children to
+rest, deaf to the morning voices; rich and poor alike turning from the
+eyes of the day to Mother Sleep upon whose heart is eternal rest. Such a
+city Gessner beheld while he looked from the window, and the golden
+beams lighted his pallid face and the sweet air of day called him to
+deed and resolution. What victories he had won upon that grimy field;
+what triumphs he had known; what hours of pomp and vanity--what bitter
+anguish! And now he might rule there no longer. Detection had stalked
+out of the unknown and touched him upon the shoulder. Somewhere in that
+labyrinth his enemies were sleeping. But one human being could shield
+him from them, and he a lad--without home or friends, penniless and a
+wanderer.
+
+He drew back from the window, saying that the hours of suspense must be
+brief and that his will should prevail with this lad, at whatever
+sacrifice. Believing that his old shrewdness would help him, and that in
+Alban not only the instrument of his salvation but of his vengeance
+should be found, he would have quitted the room immediately, had not his
+eye lighted at hazard upon a rough paper, lying upon the floor by the
+bed, and a pencil which had tumbled from Alban's tired hand. Perceiving
+that the lad had been drawing, and curious beyond ordinary to know the
+subject of his picture, he picked the paper up to discover thereon a
+rude portrait which he recognized instantly for that of his daughter,
+Anna. Such a discovery, thrusting into his schemes as it did an idea
+which hitherto had escaped him, held him for an instant spellbound with
+wonder. A clever man, accustomed to arrive at conclusions swiftly, the
+complexity of his thoughts, the strife of arguments now unnerved him
+utterly. For he perceived both a great possibility and a great danger.
+
+He is "to marry Lois Boriskoff" was the silent reflection--"to marry the
+daughter. And this--this--good God, the man would never forgive me
+this!"
+
+The paper tumbled from his hands. Alban, turning upon his pillow, sighed
+in his sleep. A neighboring church clock struck six; there were workmen
+going down to the city which must now awake to the labors of the day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+WHIRLWIND
+
+
+Captain Willy Forrest admitted that he had few virtues, but he never
+charged himself with the vice of idleness. In town or out of it, his
+trim man-servant, Abel, would wake him at seven o'clock and see that he
+had a cup of tea and the morning papers by a quarter-past. Fine physical
+condition was one of the ambitions of this lithe shapely person, whose
+father had been a jockey and whose mother had not forgotten to the day
+of her death the manner in which measurements are taken upon a counter.
+
+Willy Forrest, by dint of perseverance, had really come to believe that
+these worthy parents never existed but in his imagination. To the world
+he was the second son of the late Sir John Forrest, Bart., whose
+first-born, supposed to be in Africa, had remained beyond the pale for
+many years. Society, which rarely questions pleasant people, took him at
+his word and opened many doors to him. In short, he was a type of
+adventurer by no means uncommon, and rarely unsuccessful when there are
+brains to back the pretensions.
+
+He was not a particularly evil rascal, and women found him charming.
+Possessed of a merry face, a horsey manner and a vocabulary which would
+have delighted a maker of slang dictionaries, he pushed his my
+everywhere, not hoping for something to turn up, but determined that his
+own cleverness should contrive that desirable arrival. When he met Anna
+Gessner at Ascot a year ago, the propitious moment seemed at hand. "The
+girl is a gambler to her very boots," he told himself, while he
+reflected that a seat upon the box of such a family coach would
+certainly make his fortune. Willy Forrest resolved to secure such a seat
+without a moment's loss of time.
+
+This determination taken, the ardor with which he pursued it was
+surprising. A cunning fox-like instinct led him to read Anna Gessner's
+character as few others who had known her. Believing greatly in the
+gospel of heredity, he perceived that Anna owed much to her father and
+more to her nationality. "She is selfish and passionate, a little devil
+in single harness who would be worse in double"--this was his reading of
+her; to which he added the firm resolution to put the matter to the
+proof without loss of time.
+
+"I shall weigh in immediately and the weights will be light," he
+thought. "She likes a bit of a flutter and I'll see that she gets it.
+There is plenty of corn in the old man's manger, and if it comes to
+bursting the bag, I will carry home the pieces. There's where I drive
+the car. She shall play and I will be her pet lamb. Great Jupiter, what
+a catch!"
+
+The result of this pretty conclusion is next to be seen in a cottage in
+Hampshire, not far removed from the racing stables of the great John
+Farrier, who, as all the world knows, is one of the most honest and the
+most famous trainers in the country. This cottage had Willy Forrest
+furnished (indirectly at Anna's expense) in a manner worthy of all the
+artistic catalogues. And hither would Anna come, driving over from her
+father's country-house near Basingstoke, and caring not a fig what the
+grooms might think of her.
+
+"Captain Forrest is my trainer," she told the men, bidding them to be
+secret.
+
+For any other explanation they cared not at all. To run a horse in a
+great race seemed to them the highest of human achievements, and great
+was their wonder that this fragile girl should dare it. "She be a rare
+good 'un and a stayer. Derned if I don't put my last button on
+Whirlwind." This was the extent of the scandal that she caused.
+
+Anna motored over to "The Nest" some three weeks after Alban had been
+received at Hampstead, and found Willy Forrest anxiously waiting for her
+at the gate. She had brought with her one of those obliging dependents
+who act so cheerfully as unnecessary chaperones, and this "person" she
+left in the smart car while she entered the cottage and told the owner
+that he was forgiven. Their quarrel had been vehement and tempestuous
+while it lasted--and the Captain remembered that she had struck him with
+her whip.
+
+"I knew you'd come, Anna," he said good-humoredly while he opened the
+gate for her. "Of course, I don't bear you any grudge. Good Lord, how
+you went it last time. I might have been a hair-trunk that had let you
+down at a gate. Eh, what--do you remember it? And the old chin-pot which
+cost me twenty guineas. Why, you smashed it all to bits with your
+whip--eh, what? I've laughed till I cried every time I tried to stick it
+together again. Come right in and let's shake hands. You've got an
+oddish looking lot in the car--bought her in at the sale, I suppose--eh,
+what? Well, I'm glad to see you really."
+
+She looked a little downcast, he thought, but prettier than he had ever
+seen her before. It was quite early in the morning and his table had
+been set out for breakfast, with dainty old-fashioned china and a silver
+kettle singing over a lamp. Anna took her favorite arm-chair, and
+drawing it close to the table permitted him to give her a cup of tea.
+
+"You wanted to make a cheat of me," she said calmly enough. "Oh, yes, I
+have heard all about it. There's nothing whatever the matter with
+Whirlwind. He must win the cup--John Farrier says so. You are the person
+who does not wish him to win."
+
+Adventurers never blush when they are found out, and Willy Forrest was
+no exception to the rule.
+
+"Oh, there you are," he cried boisterously, "just the same old
+kettle-drum and the same old sticks. Do you think I don't know as much
+about a horse as Farrier? Good Lord, he makes me sick--I'd sooner hear a
+Salvation Army Band playing 'Jumping Jerusalem' on the trombone than old
+John Farrier talking honest. Are we running nags to pay the brokers out
+or to make a bit on our sweet little own--eh, what? Are we
+white-chokered philanthropists or wee wee baby mites on the nobbly
+nuggets? Don't you listen to him, Anna. You'll have to sell your boots
+if you follow old John."
+
+She stirred her tea and sipped it slowly.
+
+"You said Whirlwind was going lame on the near fore-leg, and it isn't
+true," she exclaimed upon a pause. "What was your object in telling me
+that?"
+
+"I said it before the grooms and you didn't give me a chance of blowing
+the smoke away afterwards. You say you are racing to make money and
+what's the good of hymns and milk? This horse will start at eleven to
+four on unless you're careful--where's my gold-lined shower bath then?
+Don't you see that you must put the market back--frighten the backers
+off and then step in? That's what I was trying to teach you all the
+time. Give out on the loud trumpet that the horse has gone dickey and
+leave 'em uncertain for a week whether he's running or sticking. Your
+money's on through a third party in the 'tween times and your cheeks are
+as red as roses when the flag goes down."
+
+"And if the horse should not win after you have cheated the people?"
+
+"You'll be some five thousand out of pocket--that's all. Now, Anna,
+don't let us have any mumble-pie between us. I'm not the dark man of the
+story-books who lures the beautiful heroine on to play, and you're not
+the wonderful Princess who breaks her old pa and marries because he's
+stony. You can't get overmuch out of the old man and you're going to
+make the rest at Tattersalls. If you listen to me, you'll make it--but
+if you don't, if you play the giddy goat with old John Farrier in the
+pulpit; well, then, the sooner you write cheques the better. That's the
+plain truth and you may take it or leave it. There are not three honest
+men racing and Willy Forrest don't join the trinity. We'll do as all
+the crowd does and leave 'em to take care of themselves. You make a book
+that they know how to do it. Oh, my stars, don't they--eh, what?"
+
+Anna did not reply immediately to this odd harangue. She knew a good
+deal about horses, but nothing whatever about the knavery of betting,
+the shoddy tricks of it and the despicable spirit in which this great
+game is often played. Something of her father's cunning, inherited and
+ineradicable, led her to condone the Captain's sporting creed and not to
+seek understanding. The man's high spirits made a sure appeal to her.
+She could not comprehend it wholly--but she had to admit that none of
+all her father's widening circle had ever appealed to her as this
+nimble-tongued adventurer, who could make her heart quicken every time
+their hands touched.
+
+"I don't like it," she said anon, "and I don't want anything to do with
+it. You make Whirlwind win the race and nobody will be hurt. If they bet
+against the horse, what is that to me? How can I help what they
+think--and I don't care either if they are so foolish. Didn't you
+promise me that I should see him gallop this morning? I wouldn't have
+motored over otherwise. You said that there was to be a Trial--"
+
+"Divine angel, we are at your feet always. Of course, there's a Trial.
+Am I so foolish as to suppose that you came over to see Willy
+Forrest--eh, what? Have I lost the funny-bone up above? Farrier is going
+to gallop the nags in half an hour's time. Your smoke-machine can take
+us up the hill and there we'll form our own conclusions. You leave the
+rest to me. It will be a bright sunny morning when they put any salt on
+Willy Forrest's tail--eh, what?"
+
+She admitted the truth with the first smile he had seen since she
+entered the cottage. His quick bustling manner, the deference he always
+paid to her, despite his odd phrases, won upon her good humor and led
+her to open her heart to him.
+
+"My father is going mad," she said quietly--his startled "eh, what" not
+preventing her; "we are making our house a home for the destitute, and
+the first arrived just three weeks ago. Imagine a flaxen-haired image of
+righteousness, who draws my portrait on the covers of books and puts
+feathers in my hat. He is in love with me, Willy, and he is to be my big
+brother. Yesterday I took him to Ranalegh and heard a discourse upon the
+beauties of nature and the wonders of the air and the sky. Oh, my dear
+man--what a purgatory and what an event. We are going to sell our jewels
+presently and to live in Whitechapel. My father, I must tell you, seems
+afraid of this beautiful apparition and implores him every day not to go
+away. I know that he stops because he is inclined to make love to me.
+
+"Whew--so it's only 'inclined' at present?"
+
+"Absolutely as you say. There appear to be two of us. I have been
+expecting a passionate declaration--but the recollections of a feathered
+beauty who once lived in a fairy palace, in a wonderland where you dine
+upon red herrings--she is my hated rival. I am more beautiful,
+observe--that is conceded, but he cannot understand me. The feathered
+hat has become my salvation. My great big brother can't get over
+it--and oh, the simplicity of the child, the youthful verdant
+confidence, my Willy. Don't you see that the young man thinks I am an
+angel and is wondering all the time where the wings have gone to."
+
+"Ha, ha--he'd better ask Paquin. Are you serious, Anna?"
+
+"As serious as the Lord High Executioner himself. My father has adopted
+a youth--and I have a big brother. He has consented to dwell in our
+house and to spend our savings because he believes that by so doing he
+is in some way helping me. I don't in the least want his help, but my
+father is determined that I shall have it. I am not to bestow my young
+affections upon him--nor, upon the other hand, am I to offend him. Admit
+that the situation is delightful. Pity a poor maiden in her distress."
+
+Willy Forrest did not like the sound of it at all.
+
+"The old chap must have gone dotty," he remarked presently; "they're
+often taken this way when they get to a certain age. You'll have to sit
+tight and see about it, Anna. He isn't too free with the ready as it
+is--and if you've a boy hanging about, God help you. Why don't you be
+rude to him? You know the way as well as most--eh, what?"
+
+"I'm positively afraid to. Do you know, my dear man, that if this
+Perfect Angel left us, strange things would happen. My father says so,
+and I believe he speaks the truth. There is a mystery--and I hate
+mysteries."
+
+"Get hold of the feathered lady and hear what she has to say."
+
+"Impossible but brilliant. She has gone to Germany."
+
+"Oh, damn--then he'll be making love to you. I say, Anna, there's not
+going to be any billing and cooing or anything of that sort. I'm not
+very exacting, but the way you look at men is just prussic acid to me.
+If this kid should begin--"
+
+She laughed drolly.
+
+"He is my great big brother," she said--and then jumping up--"let us go
+and see the horses. You'll be talking nonsense if we don't. And, Willy,
+I forbid you to talk nonsense."
+
+She turned and faced him in mock anger, and he, responding instantly,
+caught her in his arms and kissed her ardently.
+
+"What a pair of cherubs," he exclaimed, "what a nest of cooing doves--I
+say, Anna, I must kill that kid--or shall it be the fatted calf?
+There'll be murder done somewhere if he stops at Hampstead."
+
+"If it were done, then when it were done--O let me go, Willy, your arms
+are crushing me."
+
+He released her instantly and, snatching up a cap, set out with her to
+the downs where the horses were being stripped for the gallop. The
+morning of early summer was delightfully fragrant--a cool breeze came up
+from the sea and every breath invigorated. Old John Farrier, mounted on
+a sturdy cob, met them at the foot of a great grassy slope and
+complained that it was over late in the day for horses to gallop, but,
+as he added, "they'll have to do it at Ascot and they may as well do it
+here." A silent man, old John had once accompanied Willy Forrest to a
+dinner at the Carlton which Anna gave to a little sporting circle. Then
+he uttered but one remark, seeming to think some observation necessary,
+and it fell from his lips in the pause of a social discussion. "I always
+eat sparrer-grass with my fingers," he had said, and wondered at the
+general hilarity.
+
+Old John was unusually silent upon this morning of the trial, and when
+he named the weights at which the horses would gallop, his voice sank to
+a sepulchral whisper. "The old 'oss is giving six pounds," he said, "he
+should be beat a length. If it's more, go cautious, miss, and save your
+money for another day. He hasn't been looking all I should like of him
+for a long time--that's plain truth; and when a horse isn't looking all
+I should like of him, 'go easy' say I and keep your money under the
+bed."
+
+Anna laughed at the kindly advice, and leaving the car she walked to the
+summit of the hill and there watched the horses--but three pretty specks
+they appeared--far down in the hollow. The exhilaration of the great
+open spaces, the wide unbroken grandeur of the downs, the sweetness of
+the air, the freshness of the day, brought blood to her pallid cheeks
+and a sparkle of life to her eyes. How free it all was, how
+unrestrained, how suggestive of liberty and of a boundless kingdom! And
+then upon it all the excitements of the gallop, the thunder of hoofs
+upon the soft turf, the bent figures of the jockeys, the raking strides
+of the beautiful horses--Anna no longer wondered why sport could so
+fascinate its devotees. She felt at such a moment that she would have
+gladly put her whole fortune upon Whirlwind.
+
+"He wins--he wins--he wins," she cried as the three drew near, and Willy
+Forrest, watching her with cunning eyes, said that the trap was closed
+indeed and the key in his possession. Whirlwind, a magnificent chestnut
+four-year-old, came striding up the hill as though the last furlong of
+the mile and a half he had galloped were his chief delight. He was a
+winner by a short head as they passed the post, and old John Farrier
+could not hide his satisfaction.
+
+"He's the best plucked 'un in England to-day, lady, and you may put your
+wardrobe on him after that. Be quick about it though, for there'll be no
+odds to speak of when the touts have written to-day's work in the
+newspapers. Go and telegraph your commissions now. There isn't a minute
+to lose."
+
+Willy Forrest seconded the proposal eagerly.
+
+"I should back him for five thou," he said as they left the course
+together, "what's the good of half measures? You might as well play
+dominoes in a coffee shop. And I can always break the news to your
+father if you lose."
+
+Anna hardly knew what to say. When she consented finally to risk the
+money, she did not know that Willy Forrest was the man who laid against
+her horse, and that if she lost it would be to him.
+
+"The boss is good enough," he told himself, "but the near-off is dicky
+or I never saw one. She'll lose the money and the old boy will pay
+up--if I compel her to ask him. That depends on the kid. She couldn't
+help making eyes at him if her life depended on it. Well--she's going to
+marry me, and that's the long and short of it. Fancy passing a certainty
+at my time of life. Do I see it--eh, what?"
+
+And so they went their ways: Anna back to London to the solemn routine
+of the big house; Willy Forrest to Epsom to try, as he said, "and pick
+up the nimble with a pencil."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+ALBAN SEES LIFE
+
+
+Alban had been five weeks at Hampstead when he met Willy Forrest for the
+first time, and was able to gratify his curiosity concerning one whom he
+believed to be Anna's lover.
+
+The occasion was Richard Gessner's absence in Paris upon a business of
+great urgency and the immediate appearance of the dashing captain at
+"Five Gables." True, Anna behaved with great discretion, but, none the
+less, Alban understood that this man was more to her than others, and he
+did not fail to judge him with that shrewd scrutiny even youth may
+command.
+
+Willy Forrest, to give him his due, took an instinctive liking to the
+new intruder and was not to be put off, however much his attentions were
+displeasing to Anna. A cunning foresight, added to a fecund imagination
+and a fine taste for all _chroniques scandaleuses_, led him to determine
+that Alban Kennedy might yet inherit the bulk of Gessner's fortune and
+become the plumpest of all possible pigeons. Should this be the case,
+those who had been the young man's friends in the beginning might well
+remain so to the end. He resolved instantly to cultivate an acquaintance
+so desirable, and lost not a moment in the pursuit of his aims.
+
+"My dear chap," he said on the third day of their association, "you are
+positively growing grass in this place. Do you never go anywhere? Has no
+one taught you how to amuse yourself?"
+
+Alban replied that everything was so new to him that he desired no other
+amusement than its enjoyment.
+
+"It was almost years since I saw a tree that was not black," he said;
+"the water used to drip through the roof of my garret, and there was a
+family in the room on the opposite side of the landing. I don't think
+you can understand what this house means to me. Perhaps I don't
+understand myself. I'm almost afraid to go to sleep at night for fear I
+should wake up in Union Street and find it all a fairy story. Mr.
+Gessner says I am to stop with them always--but he might change his mind
+and then it would be Commercial Road again--if I had the courage to go
+back there."
+
+Forrest had known evil times himself, and he could honestly appreciate
+the possibility.
+
+"Stick by the old horse while he sticks by you," was his candid advice.
+"I expect he's under a pretty stiff obligation to some of your people
+who are gone, and this is how he's paying it. You take all the corn you
+can get and put it in your nose-bag. Anna herself tells me that the old
+man is only happy while you are in the house. Play up to it, old chap,
+and grease your wheels while the can's going round."
+
+This very worldy advice fell upon ears strikingly deficient in
+understanding subtleties. Alban could not dislike Forrest, though he
+tried his best to do so. There was something sympathetic about the
+fellow, rogue that he was, and even shrewd men admitted his
+fascination. When the Captain proposed that they should go down to the
+West End of London and see a little of life together, Alban consented
+gladly. New experiences set him hungering after those supposed delights
+which were made so much of in the newspapers. He reflected how very
+little he really knew of the world and its people.
+
+It was a day of early June when they set off in that very single
+brougham which had carried Silas Geary to Whitechapel. The Captain,
+having first ascertained the amount of money in his friend's possession,
+proposed a light lunch in the restaurant of the Savoy, and there, to do
+him justice, he was amusing enough.
+
+"People are all giving up houses and living in restaurants nowadays," he
+said as they sat at table. "I don't blame 'em either. Just think of the
+number of nags in those big stables, all eating their heads off and
+smoking your best cigars--eh, what? Why, I kept myself in weeds a few
+years ago--got 'em for twopence halfpenny from a butler in Curzon Street
+and never smoked better. You don't want to do that, for you can bottle
+old Bluebeard's and try 'em on the dog--eh, what? When you marry, don't
+you take a house. A man who lives in a hotel doesn't seem as though he
+were married and that's good for the filly. Look at these angels here.
+Why, half of them sold the family oak tree a generation ago, and
+Attenborough down the street will tell you what their Tiffanies are
+worth. They live in hotels because it's cheaper, and they wear French
+paste because the other is at uncle's. That's the truth, my boy, and all
+the world knows it."
+
+Alban listened with an odd cynical smile upon his face, but he did not
+immediately reply. This famous hotel had seemed a cavern of all the
+wonders when first he entered it, and he would not willingly abandon his
+illusions. The beautifully dressed women, the rustling gowns, the
+chiffon, the lace, the feathers, the diamonds--might he not have thought
+that they stood for all that pomp and circumstance of life which the
+East End denounced so vehemently and the West End as persistently
+demanded? Of the inner lives of these people he knew absolutely nothing.
+And, after all, he remembered, men and women are much the same whatever
+the circumstance.
+
+"I like to be in beautiful places," he confessed in his turn, "and this
+place seems to me very beautiful. Does it really matter to us, Forrest,
+what the people do or what they are so long as they don't ask us to be
+the same? Jimmy Dale, a parson in Whitechapel, used to say that a man
+was just what his conscience made him. I don't see how the fact of
+living in or out of a hotel would matter anyway--unless you leave your
+conscience in a cab. The rest is mostly talk, and untrue at that, they
+say. You yourself know that you don't believe half of it."
+
+"My dear man, what would life be if one were incredulous? How would the
+newspaper proprietors buy bread and cheese, to say nothing of pate de
+foie gras and ninety-two Pommery if the world desired the truth? This
+crowd is mostly on the brink of a precipice, and a man or a woman goes
+over every day. Then you have the law report and old Righteousness in a
+white wig, who has not been found out, to pronounce a judgment. I'd
+like to wager that not one in three of these people ever did an honest
+day's work in a lifetime. One half is rank idle--the other half is
+trying to live on the remainder. Work it out and pass me the wine--and
+mind you don't get setting up any images for time to knock down--eh,
+what?"
+
+Alban would not wrangle with him, and for a little while he ate in
+silence, watching the sparkling throng and listening to such scraps of
+conversation as floated to him from merry tables. Down in Union Street
+it had been the fashion to decry idleness and the crimes of the
+rich--the orators having it that leisure was criminal and ease a heinous
+sin. Alban had never believed in any such fallacy. "We are all born
+lazy," he had said, "and few of us would work unless we had to. Vanity
+is at the bottom of all that we do. If no one were vain, the world would
+stand still." In the Savoy, his arguments seemed to be justified a
+hundredfold. A sense of both content and dignity came to him. He began
+almost to believe that money could ennoble as well as satisfy.
+
+Willy Forrest, of course, knew nothing whatever of thoughts such as
+these. He was a past master in the art of killing time and he boasted
+that he rarely knew an "idle hour." His programme for this day seemed
+altogether beyond criticism.
+
+"We'll look in at the club afterwards and play a game of bridge--you can
+stand by me and see me win--or perhaps you'd like a side bet. Then we
+might turn into the park to give the girls a treat--eh, what?--and go
+on to the New Bridge Club to dress. After that there's the old sporting
+shanty and a bit of a mill between Neddy Tinker and Marsh Hill. You
+never saw a fight, I suppose? Man, but your education has been
+neglected."
+
+Alban smiled and admitted his deficiencies.
+
+"I've seen many a set-to in Commercial Road and taken a hand sometimes.
+Is it really quite necessary to my education?"
+
+"Absolutely indispensable. You must do everything and be seen
+everywhere. If I had time, I'd give you the personal history of half the
+light-weights in this room. Look at that black crow in the corner there.
+He's a Jew parson from Essex--as rich as bottled beer and always stops
+here. Last time I rode a welter down his way they told me his favorite
+text was "Blessed are the poor." He's a pretty figurehead for a
+bean-feast, isn't he? That chirpy barrister next door has a practice of
+fifteen thou. The blighter once cross-examined me in a card-sharping
+case and made me look the biggest damned fool in Europe. Did I rest on
+my laurels--eh, what? Why, sir, he can't cross a race-course now without
+having his pocket picked. My doing, my immortal achievement. The little
+Countess next door used to do stunts at the _Nouveau Cirque_. Lord
+Saxe-Holt married her when he was hazy and is taming her. That old chap,
+who eats like a mule, is Lord Whippingham. He hasn't got a sixpence, and
+if you ask me how he lives--well, there are ways and means foreign to
+your young and virgin mind. The old geezer used to run after little
+Betty Sine at the Apollo--but she put an ice down his back at supper
+here one night and then there were partings. Some day I'll take you to
+the Blenheim and show you England's aristocracy in arm-chairs--we
+haven't time to-day and here's the coffee coming. Pay up and be thankful
+that your new pa isn't overdrawn, and has still a shekel or two in his
+milk jug. My godfather!--but you are a lucky young man, and so you are
+beginning to think, I suppose."
+
+Alban did not condescend to answer a question so direct. He was still
+quite uncertain as to his future, and he would not discuss it with this
+irresponsible, who had undertaken to be his worldly mentor. When they
+left the Savoy it was to visit a club in Trafalgar Square and there
+discover the recumbent figures of aged gentlemen who had lunched not
+wisely but too well. Of all that he had seen in the kingdoms of money,
+Alban found this club least to his liking. The darkness of its great
+rooms, the insolence of its members toward the servants who waited upon
+them, the gross idleness, the trivial excitements of the card-room, the
+secret drinking in remote corners--he had never imagined that men of
+brains could so abase themselves, and he escaped ultimately to Hyde Park
+with a measure of thankfulness he would not conceal.
+
+"Why do people go to places like that, Forrest?" he asked as they went.
+"What enjoyment do they get out of them?"
+
+Willy Forrest, who had taken a "mahogany one" in the club and was
+getting mighty confidential, answered him as candidly.
+
+"Half of 'em go to get away from their wives, the other half to win
+money--eh, what?"
+
+"But why do they never speak to each other?"
+
+"Put two game-cocks in a pen and then ask again. It's a club, my boy,
+and so they think every other man a rogue or a fool."
+
+"And do they pay much for the privilege?"
+
+"That depends on the airs they give themselves. I've been pilled for
+half the clubs in town and so, I suppose, I'm rather a decent sort of
+chap. It used to be a kind of hall-mark to get in a good club, but we
+live at hotels nowadays and don't care a dump for them. That's why half
+of 'em are on the verge of bankruptcy. Don't you trouble about them,
+unless you get a filly that bolts. I shall have to give up clubs
+altogether, I suppose, when I marry Anna--eh, what?"
+
+He laughed at the idea, and Alban remaining silent, he whistled a hansom
+in a way that would have done credit to a railway porter, and continued
+affably.
+
+"You knew that I was going to marry Anna, didn't you? She told you on
+the strict q.t., didn't she? Oh, my stars, how she can talk! I shall buy
+an ear-trumpet when we're in double harness. But Anna told you, now
+didn't she?"
+
+"I have only once heard her mention your name--she certainly did not
+speak of being engaged."
+
+"They never do when the old man bucks--eh, what? Gessner don't like me,
+and I'd poison him for a shilling. Why shouldn't I marry her? I can ride
+a horse and point a gun and throw a fly better than most. Can Old
+Bluebeard go better--eh, what? The old pot-hook, I'd play him any game
+you like to name for a pony aside and back myself to the Day of
+Judgment. And he's the man who talks about bagging a Duke for his girl!
+Pshaw, Anna would kick the coronet downstairs in three days and the
+owner after it. You must know that for yourself--she's a little devil to
+rear and you can't touch her on the curb--eh, what, you've noticed it
+yourself?"
+
+Alban declared quite frankly that he had noticed nothing whatever. Not
+for a fortune would he have declared his heart to this man, the hopes,
+the perplexities, and the self-reproach which had attended ever these
+early weeks in wonderland. Just as Anna's shrewdness had perceived, so
+was it the truth that an image of perfect womanhood dazzled his
+imagination and left him without any clear perception whatever. For
+little Lois of the slums he had a sterling affection, begotten of long
+association and of mutual sympathy--but the vision of Anna had been the
+beatification of his love dream, so to speak, deceiving him by its
+immense promise and leading him to credit Gessner's daughter with all
+those qualities of womanhood which stood nearest to his heart's desire.
+Here was a Lois become instantly more beautiful, more refined, more
+winning. If he remained true to the little friend of his boyish years,
+his faith had been obscured for a moment by this superb apparition of a
+young girl's beauty, enshrined upon the altar of riches and endowed with
+those qualities which wealth alone could purchase. Anna, indeed, held
+him for a little while spellbound, and now he listened to Forrest as
+though a heresy against all women were spoken.
+
+"I did not know you were engaged," he said quite frankly. "Anna
+certainly has never told me. Of course, I congratulate you. She is a
+very beautiful girl, Forrest."
+
+"That's true, old chap. You might see her in the paddock and pick her at
+a glance--eh, what? But it's mum at present--not a whistle to the old
+man until the south wind blows. And don't you tell Anna either. She'd
+marry somebody else if she thought I was really in love with her--eh,
+what?"
+
+Alban shrugged his shoulders but had nothing to say. They had now come
+to the famous Achilles Statue in Hyde Park, and there they walked for
+half an hour amidst the showily dressed women on the lawn. Willy Forrest
+was known to many of these and everywhere appeared sure of a familiar
+welcome. The very men, who would tell you aside that he was a "wrong
+'un," nodded affably to him and sometimes stopped to ask him what was
+going to win the Oaks. He patronized a few pretty girls with
+condescending recognition and immediately afterwards would relate to
+Alban the more intimate and often scandalous stories of their families.
+At a later moment they espied Anna herself in a superb victoria drawn by
+two strawberry roans. And to their intense astonishment they perceived
+that she had the Reverend Silas Geary in the carriage by her side.
+
+"A clever little devil, upon my soul," said the Captain, ecstatically,
+"to cart that fire-escape round and show him to the crowd. She must
+have done it to annoy me--eh, what? She thinks I'm not so much an angel
+as I look and is going to make me good. Oh, my stars--let's get. I shall
+be saying the catechism if I stop here any longer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+ALBAN REVISITS UNION STREET
+
+
+Alban escaped from the Sporting Club at a quarter to eleven, sick of its
+fetid atmosphere and wearied by its mock brutalities. He made no
+apologies for quitting Willy Forrest--for, truth to tell, that merry
+worthy was no longer capable of understanding them. Frequent calls for
+whisky-and-soda, added to a nice taste for champagne at dinner, left the
+Captain in that maudlin condition in which a man is first cousin to all
+the world--at once garrulous and effusive and generally undesirable.
+Alban had, above all things, a contempt for a drunken man; and leaving
+Forrest to the care of others of his kind, he went out into the street
+and made his way slowly eastward.
+
+It was an odd thing to recall; but he had hardly set foot east of the
+Temple, he remembered, since the day when the bronze gates of Richard
+Gessner's house first closed upon him and the vision of wonderland burst
+upon his astonished eyes. The weeks had been those of unending kindness,
+of gifts showered abundantly, of promises for the future which might
+well overwhelm him by their generosity. Let him but consent to claim his
+rights, Gessner had said, and every ambition should be gratified. No
+other explanation than that of a lagging justice could he obtain--and no
+other had he come to desire. If he remained at Hampstead, the image of
+Anna Gessner, of a perfect womanhood as he imagined it, kept him to the
+house. He did not desire his patron's money; he began to discover how
+few were his wants and how small the satisfaction of their gratification
+could be. But the image he worshipped ever--and at its feet all other
+desires were forgotten.
+
+And now reality had come with its sacrilegious hand, warring upon the
+vision and bidding him open his eyes and see. It was easy enough to
+estimate this adventurer Willy Forrest at his true worth, less easy to
+bind the wounds imagination had received and to set the image once more
+upon its ancient pedestal. Could he longer credit Anna with those
+qualities with which his veneration had endowed her? Must there not be
+heart searchings and rude questionings, the abandonment of the dream and
+the stern corrections of truth? He knew not what to think. A voice of
+reproach asked him if he also had not forgotten. The figure of little
+Lois Boriskoff stood by him in the shadows, and he feared to speak with
+her lest she should accuse him.
+
+Let it be said in justice that he had written to Lois twice, and heard
+but lately that she had left Union Street and gone, none knew whither.
+His determination to do his utmost for her and her father, to bid them
+share his prosperity and command him as they would, had been strong with
+him from the first and delayed only by the amazing circumstances of his
+inheritance. He did not understand even yet that he had the right to
+remain at "Five Gables," but this right had so often been insisted upon
+that he began at last to believe in its reality and to accept the
+situation as a _chose jugee_. And with the conviction, there came an
+intense longing to revisit the old scenes--who knows, it may have been
+but the promptings of a vanity after all.
+
+It was a great thing, indeed, to be walking there in the glare of the
+lamps and telling himself that fortune and a future awaited him, that
+the instrument of mighty deeds would be his inheritance, and that the
+years of his poverty were no more. How cringingly he had walked
+sometimes in the old days when want had shamed him and wealth looked
+down upon him with contempt. To-night he might stare the boldest in the
+face, nurse fabulous desires and know that they would be gratified, peer
+through the barred windows of the shops and say all he saw was at his
+command. A sense of might and victory attended his steps. He understood
+what men mean when they say that money is power and that it rules the
+world.
+
+He turned eastward, and walking with rapid strides made his way down the
+Strand and thence by Ludgate Circus to Aldgate and the mean streets he
+knew so well. It was nearly midnight when he arrived there, and yet he
+fell in with certain whom he knew and passed them by with a genial nod.
+His altered appearance, the black overcoat and the scarf which hid his
+dress clothes, called for many a "Gor blime" or "Strike me dead." Women
+caught his arm and wrestled with him, roughs tried to push him from the
+pavement and were amazed at his good humor. In Union Street he first met
+little red-haired Chris Denham and asked of her the news. She shrank
+back from him as though afraid, and answered almost in a whisper.
+
+"Lois gone--she went three weeks ago. I thought you'd have know'd it--I
+thought you was sweet on her, Alban. And now you come here like
+that--what's happened to you, whatever have you been doing of?"
+
+He told her gaily that he had found new friends.
+
+"But I haven't forgotten the old ones, Chris, and I'm coming down to see
+you all some day soon. How's your mother--what's she doing now?"
+
+The girl shrugged her shoulders and the glance she turned upon him
+seemed to say that she would sooner speak on any other subject.
+
+"What should she be doin'--what's any of us doin' but slave our bones
+off and break our hearts. You've come to see Lois' father, haven't you?
+Oh, yes, I know how much you want to talk about my mother. The old man's
+up there in the shop--I saw him as I came by."
+
+Alban stood an instant irresolute. How much he would have liked to offer
+some assistance to this poor girl, to speak of real pecuniary help and
+friendship. But he knew the people too well. The utmost delicacy would
+be necessary.
+
+"Well," he said, "I'm sorry things are not better, Chris. I've had a
+good Saturday night, you see, and if I can do anything, don't you mind
+letting me know. We'll talk of it when we have more time. I'm going on
+to see Boriskoff now, and I doubt that I'll find him out of bed."
+
+She laughed a little wildly, still turning almost pathetic eyes upon
+him.
+
+"Is it true that it's all off between you and Lois--all the Court says
+it is. That's why she went away, they say--is it true, Alb, or are they
+telling lies? I can't believe it myself. You're not the sort to give a
+girl over--not one that's stood by you as well as Lois. Tell me it ain't
+true or I shall think the worse of you."
+
+The question staggered him and he could not instantly answer it. Was it
+true or false? Did he really love little Lois and had he still an
+intention to marry her? Alban had never looked the situation straight in
+the face until this moment.
+
+"I never tell secrets," he exclaimed a little lamely, and turning upon
+his heel, he shut his ears to the hard laugh which greeted him and went
+on, as a man in a dream, to old Boriskoff's garret. A lamp stood in the
+window there and the tap of a light hammer informed him that the
+indefatigable Pole was still at work. In truth, old Paul was bending
+copper tubing--for a firm which said that he had no equal at the task
+and paid him a wage which would have been despised by a
+crossing-sweeper.
+
+Alban entered the garret quietly and was a little startled by the sharp
+exclamation which greeted him. He knew nothing, of course, of the part
+this crafty Pole had played or what his own change of circumstance owed
+to him. To Alban, Paul Boriskoff was just the same mad revolutionary as
+before--at once fanatic and dreamer and, before then, the father of Lois
+who had loved him. If the old fellow had no great welcome for the young
+Englishman to-night, let that be set down to his sense of neglect and,
+in some measure, to his daughter's absence.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Boriskoff, you are working very late to-night."
+
+Alban stood irresolute at the door, watching the quick movements of the
+shaggy brows and wondered what had happened to old Paul that he should
+be received so coolly. Had he known what was in the Pole's mind he would
+have as soon have jumped off London Bridge as have braved the anger of
+one who judged him so mercilessly in that hour. For Boriskoff had heard
+the stories which Hampstead had to tell, and he had said, "He will ruin
+Lois' life and I have put the power to do so in his hands."
+
+"The poor do not choose their hours, Alban Kennedy. Sit down, if you
+please, and talk to me. I have much to say to you."
+
+He did not rise from his chair, but indicated a rude seat in the corner
+by the chimney and waited until his unwilling guest had taken it. Alban
+judged that his own altered appearance and his absence from Union Street
+must be the cause of his displeasure. He could guess no other reason.
+
+"Do you love my daughter, Alban Kennedy?"
+
+"You know that I do, Paul. Have we not always been good friends? I came
+to tell you about a piece of great good fortune which has happened to me
+and to find out why Lois had not written to me. You see for yourself
+that there is a great change in me. One of the richest men in London
+considers that I have a claim, to some of his money--through some
+distant relative, it appears--and I am living at his house almost as
+his own son."
+
+"Is that why you forget your old friends so quickly?"
+
+"I have never forgotten them. I wrote to Lois twice."
+
+"Did you speak of marriage in your letters?"
+
+The lad's face flushed crimson. He knew that he could not tell Paul
+Boriskoff the truth.
+
+"I did not speak of marriage--why should I?" he exclaimed; "it was never
+your wish that we should speak of it until Lois is twenty-one. She will
+not be that for more than three years--why do you ask me the question
+to-night?"
+
+"Because you have learned to love another woman."
+
+A dead silence fell in the room. The old man continued to tap gently
+upon the coil of tube, rapidly assuming a fantastic shape under the
+masterly touch of a trained hand. A candle flickered by him upon a crazy
+table where stood a crust of bread and a lump of coarse cheese. Not
+boastfully had he told Richard Gessner that he would accept nothing for
+himself. He was even poorer than he had been six weeks ago when he
+discovered that his old enemy was alive.
+
+[Illustration: "You love another woman, Alban Kennedy, and you have
+wished to forget my daughter."]
+
+"You love another woman, Alban Kennedy, and you have wished to forget my
+daughter. Do not say that it is not the truth, for I read it upon your
+face. You should be ashamed to come here unless you can deny it. Fortune
+has been kind to you, but how have you rewarded those for whom she has
+nothing? I say that you have forgotten them--been ashamed of them as
+they have now the right to be ashamed of you."
+
+He put his hammer down and looked the lad straight in the face. Upon
+Alban's part there was an intense desire to confess everything and to
+tell his old friend of all those distressing doubts and perplexities
+which had so harassed him since he went to Hampstead. If he could have
+done so, much would have been spared him in the time to come. But he
+found it impossible to open his heart to an alien,--nor did he believe
+Paul Boriskoff capable of appreciating the emotions which now tortured
+him.
+
+"I have never been ashamed of any of my friends," he exclaimed hotly;
+"you know that it is not true, Paul Boriskoff. Where are the letters
+which I wrote to Lois? Why has she not answered them? If I had been
+ashamed, would they have been written? Cannot you understand that all
+which has happened to me has been very distracting. I have seen a new
+life--a new world, and it is not as our world. Perhaps there is no more
+happiness in it than in these courts and alleys where we have suffered
+so much. I cannot tell you truly. It is all too new to me and naturally
+I feel incapable of judging it. When I came to you to-night it was to
+speak of our old friendship. Should I have done so if I had forgotten?"
+
+Old Paul heard him with patience, but his anger none the less remained.
+The shaggy eyebrows were at rest now, but the eyes were never turned
+from Alban's face.
+
+"You are in love with Anna Gessner," he said quietly; "why do you not
+tell Lois so?"
+
+"I cannot tell her so--it would not be true. She will always be the
+same little Lois to me, and when she is twenty-one I will marry her."
+
+"Ha--when she is twenty-one. That seems a long time off to one who is
+your age. You will marry her, you say--a promise to keep her quiet while
+you make love to this fine lady who befools you. No, Alban Kennedy, I
+shall not let Lois imagine any such thing; I shall tell her the truth.
+She will choose another husband--that is my wish and she will obey it."
+
+"You are doing me a great injustice, Paul Boriskoff. I do not love
+Anna--perhaps for a moment I thought that I did, but I know now that I
+was deceiving myself. She is not one who is worthy of being loved. I
+believed her very different when first I went to Hampstead."
+
+"Tell me no such thing. I am an old man and I know men's hearts. What
+shall my daughter and her rags be to you now that you have fine clothes
+upon your back? You are as the others--you have knelt down at the shrine
+of money and there you worship. This woman in her fine clothes--she is
+your idol. All your past is forgotten immediately you see her. A great
+gulf is set between you and us. Think not that I do not know, for there
+are those who bring me the story every day. You worship Anna Gessner,
+but you live in a fool's paradise, for the father will forbid you to
+marry her. I say it and I know. Be honest and speak to my daughter as I
+have spoken to you to-night."
+
+He raised his hammer as though he would resume his work, and Alban began
+to perceive how hopeless an argument would be with him while in such a
+mood. Not deficient in courage, the lad could not well defend himself
+from so direct an attack, and he had the honesty to admit as much.
+
+"I shall tell Lois the truth," he said: "she will then judge me and say
+whether you are right or wrong. I came here to-night to see if I could
+help you both. You know, Paul Boriskoff, how much I wish to do so. While
+I have money, it is yours also. Have not Lois and I always been as your
+children? You cannot forbid me to act as a son should, just because I
+have come into my inheritance. Let me find you a better home and take
+you away from this dismal place. Then I shall be doing right to worship
+money. Will you not let me do so? There is nothing in life half so good
+as helping those we love--I am sure of it already, and it is only five
+weeks since I came into my inheritance. Give me the right and let me
+still call you father."
+
+Old Paul was much affected, but he would not let the lad see as much.
+Avoiding the question discreetly but not unkindly, he muttered, "No, no,
+I need no help. I am an old man and what happens to me does not matter."
+And then turning the subject swiftly, he asked, "Your patron, he has
+left England, has he not?"
+
+"He has gone to Paris, I believe."
+
+"Did he speak of the business that took him there?"
+
+"He never speaks of business to me. He has asked me once or twice about
+the poor people down here and I have tried to tell him. Such a fortune
+as his could redeem thousands of lives, Paul. I have told him that when
+he spoke to me."
+
+"Such a man will never redeem one life. All the money in the world will
+never buy him rest. He has eaten his harvest and the fields are bare.
+Did you mention my name to him?"
+
+"I do not think that I have done so yet."
+
+"Naturally, you would have been a little ashamed to speak of us. It is
+very rarely that one who becomes rich remembers those who were poor with
+him. His money only teaches him to judge them. Those who were formerly
+his friends are now spendthrifts, extravagant folk who should not be
+injured by assistance. The rich man makes their poverty an excuse for
+deserting them, and he cloaks his desertion beneath lofty moral
+sentiments. You are too young to do so, but the same spirit is already
+leading you. Beware of it, Alban Kennedy, for it will lead you to
+destruction."
+
+Alban did not know how to argue with him. He resented the accusation
+hotly and yet could make no impression of resentment upon the imagined
+grievance which old Paul nursed almost affectionately. It were better,
+he thought, to hold his tongue and to let the old man continue.
+
+"Your patron has gone to Paris, you say? Are you sure it is to Paris?"
+
+"How could I be sure. I am telling you what was told to me. He is to be
+back in a few days' time. It is not to be expected that he would share
+his plans with me."
+
+"Certainly not--he would tell you nothing. Do you know that he is a
+Pole, Alban?"
+
+"A Pole? No! Indeed he gives it out that he was born in Germany and is
+now a naturalized British subject."
+
+"He would do so, but he is a Pole--and because he is a Pole he tells
+you that he has gone to Paris when the truth is that he is at Berlin all
+the time."
+
+"But why should he wish to deceive me, Paul--what am I to him?"
+
+"You are one necessary to his salvation--perhaps it is by you alone that
+he will live. I could see when I first spoke to you how much you were
+astonished that I knew anything about it, but remember, every Pole in
+London knows all about his fellow-countrymen, and so it is very natural
+that I know something of Richard Gessner. You who live in his house can
+tell me more. See what a gossip I am where my own people are concerned.
+You have been living in this man's house and you can tell me all about
+it--his tastes, his books, his friends. There would be many friends
+coming, of course?"
+
+"Not very many, Paul, and those chiefly city men. They eat a great deal
+and talk about money. It's all money up there--the rich, the rich, the
+rich--I wonder how long I shall be able to stand it."
+
+"Oh, money's a thing most people get used to very quickly. They can
+stand a lot of it, my boy. But are there not foreigners at your
+house--men of my own country?"
+
+"I have never seen any--once, I think, Mr. Gessner was talking to a
+stranger in the garden and he looked like a foreigner. You don't think I
+would spy upon him Paul?"
+
+"That would be the work of a very ungrateful fellow. None the less, if
+there are foreigners at Hampstead--I should wish to know of it."
+
+"You--and why?"
+
+"That I may save your kind friend from certain perils which I think are
+about to menace him. Yes, yes, he has been generous to you and I
+wish to reward him. He must not know--he must never hear my name in
+the matter, but should there be strangers at Hampstead let me know
+immediately--write to me if you cannot come here. Do not delay or you
+may rue it to the end of your days. Write to me, Alban, and I shall know
+how to help your friend."
+
+He had spoken under a spell of strong excitement, but his message
+delivered, he fell again to his old quiet manner; and having exchanged a
+few commonplaces with the astonished lad plainly intimated that he would
+be alone. Alban, surprised beyond measure, perceived in his turn that no
+amount of questioning would help him to a better understanding; and so,
+in a state of perplexity which defied expression, he said "Good night"
+and went out into the quiet street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THERE ARE STRANGERS IN THE CAVES
+
+
+It was some time after midnight when Alban reached Broad Street Station
+and discovered that the last train for Hampstead had left. A certain
+uneasiness as to what his new friends would think of him did not deter
+him from his sudden determination to turn westward and seek out his old
+haunts. He had warned Richard Gessner that no house would ever make a
+prisoner of him, and this quick desire for liberty now burned in his
+veins as a fever. It would be good, he thought, to sleep under the stars
+once more and to imagine himself that same Alban Kennedy who had not
+known whither to look for bread--could it be but five short weeks ago!
+
+The city was very still as he passed through it and, save for a
+broken-down motor omnibus with a sleepy conductor for its guardian,
+Cheapside appeared to be almost destitute of traffic. The great
+buildings, wherein men sought the gold all day, were now given over to
+watchmen and the rats, as the bodies of the seekers would one day be
+given over to the earth whence they sprang. Alban depicted a great army
+of the servants of money asleep in distant homes, and he could not but
+ask what happiness they carried there, what capacities for rest and true
+enjoyment.
+
+Was it true, as he had begun to believe, that the life of pleasure had
+cares of its own, hardly less supportable than those which crushed the
+poor to the very earth? Was the daily round of abundance, of lights and
+music and wine and women--was it but the basest of shams, scarce
+deceiving those who practised it? His brief experience seemed to answer
+the question in the affirmative. He wondered if he had known such an
+hour of true happiness as that which had come to him upon the last night
+he had spent in the Caves. Honesty said that he had not--and to the
+Caves he now turned as one who would search out forgotten pleasures.
+
+The building in St. James' Street had made great advance since last he
+saw it, but he observed to his satisfaction that the entrance to the
+subterranean passages were not absolutely closed, and he did not doubt
+that many of the old night-hawks were still in possession. His
+astonishment, therefore, was considerable when, upon dropping into the
+first of the passages, a figure sprang up and clutched him by the
+throat, while a hand thrust a lantern into his face and a pair of black
+eyes regarded him with amazed curiosity.
+
+"A slap-up toff, so help me Jimmy! And what may your Royal Highness be
+doing this way--what brings you to this pretty parlor? Now, speak up, my
+lad, or it will go queer with you."
+
+Alban knew in an instant--his long experience taught him--that he had
+fallen into the hands of the police, and his first alarms were very
+real.
+
+"What right have you to question me?"
+
+"Oh, we'll show our right sharp enough. Now, you be brisk--what's your
+name and what are you doing here?"
+
+"I am the son of Mr. Richard Gessner of Hampstead and I used to know
+this place. I came down to have a look at it before the building is
+finished. If you doubt me, let us go to Mr. Gessner's house together and
+he will tell you who I am."
+
+It was a proud thing to say and he said it with pride. That thrill of
+satisfaction which attends a fine declaration of identity came to Alban
+then as it has done to many a great man in the hour of his vanity. The
+son of Richard Gessner--yes, his patron would acknowledge him for that!
+The police themselves admitted the title by almost instant capitulation.
+
+"Well, sir, it's a queer place to come to, I must say, and not very safe
+either for a gentleman in your position. Why didn't you ask one of us to
+bring you down? We'd have done it right enough, though not to-night
+perhaps."
+
+"Then you're out on business?"
+
+"You couldn't have guessed better, sir. We're here with the nets and
+there will be herrings to salt in the morning. If you care to wait five
+minutes, you may look into the bundle. Here's two or three of them
+coming along now and fine music they're making, I must say. Just step
+aside a minute, sir, while we give a hand. That's a woman's voice and
+she's not been to the Tabernacle. I shouldn't wonder if it was the
+flower girl that hobnobs with the parson--oh, by no means, oh dear, no."
+
+He raised his lantern and turned the light of it full on the passage,
+disclosing a spectacle which brought a flush of warm blood to Alban's
+cheeks and filled him with a certain sense of shame he could not defend.
+For there were three of his old friends, no others than Sarah and the
+Archbishop of Bloomsbury with the boy "Betty," the latter close in the
+custody of the police who dragged him headlong, regardless of the girl's
+shrieks and the ex-clergyman's protests upon their cruelty. For an
+instant Alban was tempted to flee the place, to deny his old friends and
+to surrender to a base impulse of his pride; but a better instinct
+saving him, he intervened boldly and immediately declared himself to the
+astonished company.
+
+"These people are friends of mine," he said, to the complete
+bewilderment of the constables, "please to tell me why you are charging
+them?"
+
+"Gawd Almighty--if it ain't Mr. Kennedy!"--this from the woman.
+
+"Indeed," said the clergyman, with a humility foreign to him, "I am very
+glad to see you, Alban. Our friend 'Betty' here is accused of theft. I
+am convinced--I feel assured that the charge is misplaced and that you
+will be able to help us. Will you not tell these men that you know us
+and can answer for our honesty?"
+
+The lad "Betty" said nothing at all. His eyes were very wide open, a
+heavy hand clutched his ragged collar, and the police stood about him as
+though in possession of a convicted criminal.
+
+"A young lad, sir, that stole a gold match-box from a gentleman and has
+got it somewhere about him now. Stand up, you young devil--none of your
+blarney. Where's the box now and what have you done with it?"
+
+"I picked it up and give it to Captain Forrest--so help me Gawd, it's
+true. Arst him if I didn't."
+
+The sergeant laughed openly at the story.
+
+"He run two of our men from the National Sporting right round Covent
+Garden and back, sir," he said to Alban. "The gentleman dropped the box
+and couldn't wait. But we'll see about all that in the morning."
+
+"If you mean Captain Forrest of the Trafalgar Club, I have just left
+him," interposed Alban, quickly; "this lad has been known to me for some
+years and I am positively sure he is not a thief. Indeed, I will answer
+for him anywhere--and if he did pick up the box, I can promise you that
+Captain Forrest will not prosecute."
+
+He turned to "Betty" and asked him an anxious question.
+
+"Is it true, Betty--did you pick up the box?"
+
+"I picked it up and put it into the gentleman's hand. He couldn't stand
+straight and he dropped it again. Then a cab runner found it and some
+one cried 'stop thief.' I was frightened and ran away. That's the truth,
+Mr. Alban, if I die for it--"
+
+"We must search you, Betty, to satisfy the officers."
+
+"Oh, yes, sir--I'm quite willing to be searched."
+
+He turned out all his pockets there and then, was pinched and pushed and
+cuffed to no avail. The indignant Sarah shaking her clothes in the
+sergeant's face dared him to do the same for her and to take the
+consequences of his curiosity. The Archbishop obligingly offered his
+pockets, which, as he said, were open at all times to the inspection of
+his Majesty's authorized servants. A few words aside between Alban and
+the assembled police, the crisp rustle of a bank-note in the darkness,
+helped conviction to a final victory. There were other ferrets in that
+dark warren and bigger game to be had.
+
+"Well, sir," said the sergeant, "if you'll answer for Captain
+Forrest--and he'll want a lot of answering for to-night--I'll leave the
+lad in your hands. But don't let me find any of 'em down here again, or
+it will go hard with them. Now, be off all of you, for we have work to
+do. And mind you remember what I say."
+
+It was a blessed release and all quitted the place without an instant's
+delay. Out in the open street, the Archbishop of Bloomsbury took Alban
+aside and congratulated him upon his good fortune.
+
+"So your old friend Boriskoff has found you a job?" he said, laying a
+patronizing hand on the lad's stout shoulder. "Well, well, I knew
+Richard Gessner when I was--er--hem--on duty in Kensington, and in all
+matters of public charity I certainly found him to be an example. You
+know, of course, that he is a Pole and that his real name is Maxim
+Gogol. General Kaulbars told me as much when he was visiting England
+some years ago. Your friend is a Pole who would find himself singularly
+inconvenienced if he were called upon to return to Poland. Believe me,
+how very much astonished I was to hear that you had taken up your
+residence in his house."
+
+"Then you heard about it--from whom?" Alban asked.
+
+"Oh, 'Betty' followed you, on the day the person who calls himself
+Willy Forrest, but is really the son of a jockey named Weston, returned
+from Winchester. We were anxious about you, Alban--we questioned the
+company into which you had fallen. I may say, indeed, that our hearths
+were desolate and crape adorned our spears. We thought that you had
+forgotten us--and what is life when those who should remember prefer to
+forget."
+
+Alban answered at hazard, for he knew perfectly well what was coming.
+The boy "Betty," still frightened out of his wits, clung close to the
+skirts of the homeless Sarah and walked with her, he knew not whither. A
+drizzle of rain had begun to fall; the streets were shining as desolate
+rivers of the night--the Caves behind them stood for a house of the
+enemy which none might enter again. But Alban alone was silent--for his
+generosity had loosened the pilgrims' tongues, and they spoke as they
+went of a morrow which should give them bread.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A STUDY IN INDIFFERENCE
+
+
+There are many spurs to a woman's vanity, but declared indifference is
+surely the sharpest of them all. When Anna Gessner discovered that Alban
+was not willing to enroll himself in the great band of worshippers who
+knelt humbly at her golden shrine, she set about converting him with a
+haste which would have been dangerous but for its transparent
+dishonesty. In love herself, so far as such a woman could ever be in
+love at all, with the dashing and brainless jockey who managed her
+race-horses, she was quite accustomed, none the less, to add the
+passionate confessions and gold-sick protestations of others to her
+volume of amatory recollections, and it was not a little amazing that a
+mere youth should be discovered, so obstinate, so chilly and so
+indifferent as to remain insensible both to her charms and their value,
+in what her father had called "pounds sterling."
+
+When Alban first came to "Five Gables," his honesty amused her greatly.
+She liked to hear him speak of the good which her father's money could
+do in the slums and alleys he had left. It was a rare entertainment for
+her to be told of those "dreadful people" who sewed shirts all day and
+were frequently engaged in the same occupation when midnight came. "I
+shall call you the Missionary," she had said, and would sit at his feet
+while he confessed some of the wild hopes which animated him, or
+justified his desire for that great humanity of the East whose supreme
+human need was sympathy. Anna herself did not understand a word of
+it--but she liked to have those clear blue eyes fixed upon her, to hear
+the soft musical voice and to wonder when this pretty boy would speak of
+his love for her.
+
+But the weeks passed and no word of love was spoken, and the woman in
+her began to ask why this should be. She was certain as she could be
+that her beauty had dazzled the lad when first he came to "Five Gables."
+She remembered what fervid glances he had turned upon her when first
+they met, how his eyes had expressed unbounded admiration, nay worship
+such as was unknown in the circles in which she moved. If this silent
+adoration flattered her for the moment, honesty played no little part in
+its success--for though there had been lovers who looked deep into her
+heart before, the majority carried but liabilities to her feet and,
+laying them there, would gladly have exchanged them for her father's
+cheques to salve their financial wounds. In Alban she had met for the
+first time a natural English lad who had no secrets to hide from her.
+"He will worship the ground upon which I walk," she had said in the mood
+of sundry novelettes borrowed from her maid. And this, in truth, the lad
+might very well have come to do.
+
+But the weeks passed and Alban remained silent, and the declaration she
+had desired at first as an amusement now became a vital necessity to her
+fasting vanity. Believing that their surroundings at Hampstead, the
+formality, the servants, the splendor of "Five Gables," forbade that
+little comedy of love for which she hungered, she went off, in her
+father's absence, to their cottage at Henley, and compelling Alban to
+follow her, she played Phyllis to his Corydon with an ardor which could
+not have been surpassed. Aping the schoolgirl, she would wear her hair
+upon her shoulders, carry her gown shortened, and bare her sleeves to
+the suns of June. The rose garden became the arbor of her delights. "You
+shall love me," she said to herself--and in the determination a passion
+wholly vain and not a little hazardous found its birth and prospered.
+
+For hours together now, she would compel this unconscious slave to row
+her in the silent reaches or to hide with her in backwaters to which the
+mob rarely came. Deluding him by the promise that her father was
+returning shortly from Paris and would come to Henley immediately upon
+his arrival, she led Alban to forget the days of waiting, petted him as
+though he had been her lover through the years, invited him a hundred
+times a day to say, "I love you--you shall be my wife."
+
+In his turn, he remained silent and amazed, tempted sorely by her
+beauty, not understanding and yet desiring to understand why he could
+not love her. True, indeed, that the image of another would intervene
+sometimes--a little figure in rags, wan and pitiful and alone; but the
+environment in which the vision of the past had moved, the slums, the
+alleys, the mean streets, these would hedge the picture about and then
+leave the dreamer averse and shuddering. Not there could liberty be
+found again. The world must show its fields to the wanderer when again
+he dared it alone.
+
+Alban remembered one night above all others of this strange seclusion,
+and that was a night of a woman's humiliation. There had been great
+bustle all day, the coming of oarsmen and of coaches to Henley, and all
+the aquatic renaissance which prefaces the great regatta. Their own
+cottage, lying just above the bridge with a shady garden extending to
+the water's edge, was no longer the place apart that it had been.
+Strangers now anchored a little way from their boat-house and consumed
+monstrous packets of sandwiches and the contents of abundant bottles.
+There were house-boats being tugged up and down the river, little groups
+of rowing men upon the bridge all day, the music of banjos by night, and
+lanterns glowing in the darkness. Anna watched this pretty scene as one
+who would really take a young girl's part in it. She simulated an
+interest in the rowing about which she knew nothing at all--visited the
+house-boats of such of her friends as had come down for the regatta, and
+was, in Willy Forrest's words, as "skittish as a two-year-old that had
+slipped its halter." Forrest had been to and fro from the stable near
+Winchester on several occasions. "He comes to tell me that I am about to
+lose a fortune, and I am beginning to hate him," Anna said; and on this
+occasion she enjoyed that diverting and unaccustomed recreation known as
+speaking the truth.
+
+There had been such a visit as this upon the morning of the day when
+Anna spoke intimately to Alban of his future and her own. Her mood now
+abandoned itself utterly to her purpose. The close intimacy of these
+quiet days had brought her to the point where a real if momentary
+passion compelled her to desire this boy's love as she had never desired
+anything in all her life. To bring him to that declaration she sought so
+ardently, to feel his kisses upon her lips, to play the young lover's
+part if it were but for a day, to this folly her vanity had driven her.
+And now the opportunities for words were not denied. She had spent the
+afternoon in the backwaters up by Shiplake; there had been a little
+dinner afterwards with the old crone who served them so usefully as
+chaperone--a dependent who had eyes but did not see, ears which, as she
+herself declared, "would think scorn to listen." Amiable dame, she was
+in bed by nine o'clock, while Alban and Anna were lying in a punt at the
+water's edge, listening to the music of a distant guitar and watching
+the twinkling lights far away below the bridge where the boat-houses
+stand.
+
+A Chinese lantern suspended upon a short boat-hook cast a deep crimson
+glow upon the faces of those who might well have been young lovers. The
+river rippled musically against the square bows of their ugly but
+comfortable craft. But few passed them by and those were also seekers
+after solitude, with no eyes for their co-religionists in the amatory
+gospel. Alban, wholly fascinated by the silence and the beauty of the
+scene, lay at Anna's feet, so full of content that he did not dare to
+utter his thoughts aloud. The girl caught the tiny wavelets in her
+outstretched hand and said that Corydon had become blind.
+
+"Do you like Willy Forrest?" she asked, "do you think he is clever,
+Alban?"--a question, the answer to which would not interest her at all
+if it did not lead to others. Alban, in his turn, husbanding the
+secrets, replied evasively:
+
+"Why should I think about him? He is not a friend of mine. You are the
+one to answer that, Anna. You like him--I have heard you say so."
+
+"Never believe what a girl says. I adore Willy Forrest because he makes
+me laugh. I am like the poor little white rabbit which is fascinated by
+the great black wriggly snake. Some day it will swallow me up--perhaps
+on Thursday--after Ascot. I wish I could tell you. Pandora seems to have
+dropped everything out of her basket except the winner of the Gold Cup.
+If Willy Forrest is right, I shall win a fortune. But, of course, he
+doesn't tell the truth any more than I do."
+
+Alban was silent a little while and then he asked her:
+
+"Do you know much about him, Anna? Did you ever meet his people or
+anything?"
+
+She looked at him sharply.
+
+"He is the son of Sir John Forrest, who died in India. His brother was
+lost at sea. What made you ask me?"
+
+He laughed as though it had not been meant.
+
+"You say that he doesn't tell the truth. Suppose it were so about
+himself. He might be somebody else--not altogether the person he
+pretends to be. Would it matter if he were? I don't think so, Anna--I
+would much rather know something about a man himself than about his
+name."
+
+She sat up in the punt and rested her chin upon the knuckles of her
+shapely hands. This kind of talk was little to her liking. She had often
+doubted Willy Forrest, but had never questioned his title to the name he
+bore.
+
+"Have they ever told you anything about us, Alban?" she continued, "did
+you ever hear any stories which I should not hear?"
+
+"Only from Captain Forrest himself; he told me that he was engaged to
+you. That was when I went to the Savoy Hotel."
+
+"All those weeks ago. And you never mentioned it?"
+
+"Was it any business of mine? What right had I to speak to you about
+it?"
+
+She flushed deeply.
+
+"A secret for a secret," she said. "When you first came to Hampstead, I
+thought that you liked me a little Alban. Now, I know that you do not.
+Suppose there were a reason why I let Willy Forrest say that he was
+engaged to me. Suppose some one else had been unkind when I wished him
+to be very kind to me. Would you understand then?"
+
+This was in the best spirit of the coquette and yet a great earnestness
+lay behind it. Posing in that romantic light, the thick red lips
+pouting, the black eyes shining as with the clear flame of a soul
+awakened, the head erect as that of a deer which has heard a sound afar,
+this passionate little actress, half Pole, half Jewess, might well have
+set a man's heart beating and brought him, suppliant, to her feet. To
+Alban there returned for a brief instant all that spirit of homage and
+of awe with which he had first beheld her on the balcony of the house
+in St. James' Square. The cynic in him laid down his robe and stood
+before her in the garb of youth spellbound and fascinated. He dared to
+say to himself, she loves me--it is to me that these words are spoken.
+
+"I cannot understand you, Anna," he exclaimed, tortured by some plague
+of a sudden memory, held back from a swift embrace he knew not by what
+instinct. "You say that you only let Willy Forrest call himself engaged
+to you. Don't you love him then--is it all false that you have told
+him?"
+
+"It is quite false, Alban--I do not love him as you would understand the
+meaning of the word. If he says that I am engaged to him, is it true
+because he says it? There are some men who marry women simply because
+they are persevering. Willy Forrest would be one of them if I were weak
+enough. But I do not love him--I shall never love him, Alban."
+
+She bent low and almost whispered the words in his ear. Her hand covered
+his fingers caressingly. His forehead touched the lace upon her robe and
+he could hear her heart beating. An impulse almost irresistible came
+upon him to take her in his arms and hold her there, and find in her
+embrace that knowledge of the perfect womanhood which had been his dream
+through the years. He knew not what held him back.
+
+Anna watched him with a hope that was almost as an intoxication of doubt
+and curiosity. She loved him in that moment with all a young girl's
+ardor. She believed that the whole happiness of her life lay in the
+words he was about to speak.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE INTRUDER
+
+
+A man's voice, calling to them from the lawn, sent them instantly apart
+as though caught in some guilty confidence. Anna knew that something
+unwonted had happened and that Willy Forrest had returned.
+
+"What has brought him back?" she exclaimed a little wildly; and then,
+"Don't go away, Alban, I shall want you. My father would never forgive
+me if he heard of it. Of course he cannot stop here."
+
+Alban made no reply, but he helped her to the bank and they crossed the
+lawn together. In the light of the veranda, they recognized Forrest,
+carrying a motor cap in his hand and wearing a dust coat which almost
+touched his heels. He had evidently dined and was full of the story of
+his mishap.
+
+"Hello, Anna, here's a game," he began, "my old fumigator's broke down
+and I'm on the cold, cold world. Never had such a time in my life.
+Shoved the thing from Taplow and nothing but petrol to drink--eh, what,
+can't you see me? I say, Anna, you'll have to put me up to-night. There
+isn't a billiard table to let in the town, and I can't sleep on the
+grass--eh, what--you wouldn't put me out to graze, now would you?"
+
+He entered the dining-room with them, and they stood about the table
+while the argument was continued.
+
+"Billy says the nag--what-d'yer-call-it's gone lame in the off
+fore-leg. She went down at the distance like a filly that's been
+hocussed. There were the two of us in the bally dust--and look at my
+fingers where I burned 'em with matches. After that a parson came along
+in a gig. I asked him if he had a whisky-and-soda aboard and he didn't
+quote the Scriptures. We couldn't get the blighter to move, and I ground
+the handle like Signor Gonedotti of Saffron Hill in the parish of High
+Holborn. You'd have laughed fit to split if you'd have been there,
+Anna--and, oh my Sammy, what a thing it is to have a thirst and to bring
+it home with you. Do I see myself before a mahogany one or do I not--eh,
+what? Do I dream, do I sleep, or is visions about? You'll put us up, of
+course, Anna? I've told Billy as much and he's shoving the car into the
+coach-house now."
+
+He stalked across the room and without waiting to be asked helped
+himself to a whisky-and-soda. Anna looked quickly at Alban as though to
+say, "You must help me in this." Twenty-four hours ago she would not
+have protested at this man's intrusion, but to-night the glamor of the
+love-dream was still upon her, the idyll of her romance echoed in her
+ears and would admit no other voice.
+
+"Willy," she said firmly, "you know that you cannot stop. My father
+would never forgive me. He has absolutely forbidden you the house."
+
+He turned round, the glass still in his hand and the soda from the
+siphon running in a fountain over the table-cloth.
+
+"Your father! He's in Paris, ain't he? Are we going to telegraph about
+it? What nonsense you are talking, Anna!"
+
+"I am telling you what I mean. You cannot stop here and you must go to
+the hotel immediately."
+
+He looked at her quite gravely, cast an ugly glance upon Alban and
+instantly understood.
+
+"Oh, so that's the game. I've tumbled into the nest and the young birds
+are at home. Say it again, Anna. You show me the door because this young
+gentleman doesn't like my company. Is it that or something else? Perhaps
+I'll take it that the old girl upstairs is going to ask me my
+intentions. The sweet little Anna Gessner of my youth has got the
+megrims and is off to Miss Bolt-up-Right to have a good cry
+together--eh, what, are you going to cry, Anna? Hang me if you wouldn't
+give the crocodiles six pounds and a beating--eh, what, six pounds and a
+beating and odds on any day."
+
+He approached her step by step as he spoke, while the girl's face
+blanched and her fear of him was to be read in every look and gesture.
+Alban had been but a spectator until this moment, but Anna's distress
+and the bullying tone in which she had been addressed awakened every
+combative instinct he possessed, and he thrust himself into the fray
+with a resolute determination to make an end of it.
+
+"Look here, Forrest," he exclaimed, "we've had about enough of this. You
+know that you can't stop here--why do you make a fuss about it? Go over
+to the hotel. There's plenty of room there--they told me so this
+afternoon."
+
+Forrest laughed at the invitation, but there was more than laughter in
+his voice when he replied:
+
+"Thank you for your good intentions, my boy. I am very much obliged to
+your worship. A top-floor attic and a marble bath. Eh, what--you want to
+put me in a garret? I'll see you the other side of Jordan first. Oh,
+come, it's a nice game, isn't it? Papa away and little Anna canoodling
+with the Whitechapel boy. Are we downhearted? No. But I ain't going, old
+pal, and that's a fact."
+
+He almost fell into an arm-chair and looked upon them with that bland
+air of patronage which intoxication inspires. Anna, very pale and
+frightened, was upon the point of summoning the servants; but Alban,
+wiser in his turn, forbade her to do so.
+
+"You go to bed, Anna," he said quietly, "Captain Forrest and I will have
+a talk. I'm sure he doesn't expect you to sit up. Eh, Forrest, don't you
+think that Anna had better go?"
+
+"By all means, old chap. Nothing like bed--I'm going myself in a minute
+or two. Don't you sit up, Anna. Anywhere's good enough for me. I'll
+sleep in the greenhouse--eh, what? Your gardener'll find a new specimen
+in the morning and get fits. Mind he don't prune me, though. I can't
+afford to lose much at my time of life. You go to bed, Anna, and dream
+of little Willy. He's going to make your fortune on Thursday--good old
+Lodestar, some of 'em'll feel the draught, you bet. Don't spoil your
+complexion on my account, Anna. You go to bed and keep young."
+
+He rambled on, half good-humoredly, wholly determined in his resolution
+to stay. Anna had never found him obstinate or in opposition to her will
+before, and blazing cheeks and flashing eyes expressed her resentment at
+an attitude so changed.
+
+"Alban," she said quietly, "Captain Forrest will not stay. Will you
+please see that he does not."
+
+She withdrew upon the words and left the two men alone. They listened
+and heard her mounting the stairs with slow steps. While Forrest was
+still disposed to treat the matter as a joke, Alban had enough
+discretion to avoid a scene if it could be avoided. He was quite calm
+and willing to forget the insult that had been offered to him.
+
+"Why not make an end of it, Forrest?" he said presently. "I'll go to the
+hotel with you--you know perfectly well that you can get a bed there.
+What's the good of playing the fool?"
+
+"I was never more serious in my life, old man. Here I am and here I
+stay. There's no place like home--eh, what? Why should you do stunts
+about it? What's it to do with you after all? Suppose you think you're
+master here. Then give us a whisky-and-soda for luck, my boy."
+
+"I shall not give you a whisky-and-soda and I do not consider myself the
+master here. That has nothing to do with it. You know that Anna wishes
+you to go, and go you shall. What's to be gained by being obstinate."
+
+Forrest looked at him cunningly.
+
+"Appears that I intrude," he exclaimed with a sudden flash which
+declared his real purpose, "little Anna Gessner and the boy out of
+Whitechapel making a match of it together--eh, what? Don't let's have
+any rotten nonsense, old man. You're gone on the girl and you don't want
+me here. Say so and be a man. You've played a low card on me and you
+want to see the hand out. Isn't it that? Say so and be honest if you
+can."
+
+"It's a lie," retorted Alban, quietly--and then unable to restrain
+himself he added quickly, "a groom's lie and you know it."
+
+Forrest, sobered in a moment by the accusation, sprang up from his chair
+as though stung by the lash of a whip.
+
+"What's that," he cried, "what do you say?"
+
+"That you are not the son of Sir John Forrest at all. Your real name is
+Weston--your father was a jockey and you were born at Royston near
+Cambridge. That's what I say. Answer it when you like--but not in this
+house, for you won't have the opportunity. There's the door and that's
+your road. Now step out before I make you."
+
+He pointed to the open door and drew a little nearer to his slim
+antagonist. Forrest, a smile still upon his face, stood for an instant
+irresolute--then recovering himself, he threw the glass he held as
+though it had been a ball, and the missile, striking Alban upon the
+forehead, cut him as a knife would have done.
+
+"You puppy, you gutter-snipe--I'll show you who I am. Wipe that off if
+you can;" and then almost shouting, he cried, "Here, Anna, come down and
+see what I've done to your little ewe lamb, come down and comfort
+him--Anna, do you hear?"
+
+He said no more, for Alban had him by the throat, leaping upon him with
+the ferocity of a wild beast and carrying him headlong to the lawn
+before the windows. Never in his life had such a paroxysm of anger
+overtaken the boy or one which mastered him so utterly. Blindly he
+struck; his blows rained upon the cowering face as though he would beat
+it out of all recognition. He knew not wholly why he thus acted if not
+upon some impulse which would avenge the wrongs good women had suffered
+at the hands of such an impostor as this. When he desisted, the man lay
+almost insensible upon the grass at his feet--and he, drawing apart,
+felt the hot tears running down his face and could not restrain them.
+
+For in a measure he felt that his very chivalry had been faithless to
+one who had loved him well--and in the degradation of that violent scene
+he recalled the spirit of the melancholy years, the atmosphere of the
+mean streets, and the figure of little Lois Boriskoff asking both his
+pity and his love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+FATHER AND DAUGHTER
+
+
+Richard Gessner returned to Hampstead on the Friday in Ascot week and
+upon the following morning Anna and Alban came back from Henley. They
+said little of their adventures there, save to tell of quiet days upon
+sunny waters; nor did the shrewdest questioning add one iota to the
+tale. Indeed, Gessner's habitual curiosity appeared, for the time being,
+to have deserted him, and they found him affable and good-humored almost
+to the point of wonder.
+
+It had been a very long time, as Anna declared, since anything of this
+kind had shed light upon the commonly gloomy atmosphere of "Five
+Gables." For weeks past Gessner had lived as a man who carried a secret
+which he dared to confess to none. Night or day made no difference to
+him. He lived apart, seeing many strangers in his study and rarely
+visiting the great bank in Lombard Street where so many fortunes lay. To
+Alban he was the same mysterious, occasionally gracious figure which had
+first welcomed him to the magnificent hospitality of his house. There
+were days when he appeared to throw all restraint aside and really to
+desire this lad's affection as though he had been his own son--other
+days when he shrank from him, afraid to speak lest he should name him
+the author of his vast misfortunes. And now, as it were in an instant,
+he had cast both restraint and fear aside, put on his ancient bonhomie
+and given full rein to that natural affection of which he was very
+capable. Even the servants remarked a change so welcome and so manifest.
+
+Let it be written down as foreordained in the story of this unhappy
+house, that in like measure as the father recovered his self-possession,
+so, as swiftly, had the daughter journeyed to the confines of tragedy
+and learned there some of those deeper lessons which the world is ever
+ready to teach. Anna returned from Henley so greatly changed that her
+altered appearance rarely escaped remark. Defiant, reckless, almost
+hysterical, her unnatural gaiety could not cloak her anxiety nor all her
+artifice disguise it. If she had told the truth, it would have been to
+admit a position, not only of humiliation but of danger. A whim, by
+which she would have amused herself, had created a situation from which
+she could not escape. She loved Alban and had not won his love. The
+subtle antagonist against whom she played had turned her weapons
+adroitly and caught her in the deadly meshes of his fatal net. Not for
+an instant since she stood upon the lawn at Ascot and witnessed the
+defeat of her great horse Lodestar had she ceased to tell herself that
+the world pointed the finger at her and held up her name to scorn. "They
+say that I cheated them," she would tell herself and that estimate of
+the common judgment was entirely true.
+
+It had been a great race upon a brilliant day of summer. Alban had
+accompanied her to the enclosure and feasted his eyes upon that rainbow
+scene, so amazing in its beauty, so bewildering in its glow of color
+that it stood, to his untrained imagination, for the whole glory of the
+world. Of the horses or their meaning he knew nothing at all. This
+picture of radiant women, laughing, feasting, flirting at the heart of a
+natural forest; the vast concourse of spectators--the thousand hues of
+color flashing in the sunshine, the stands, the music, the royal
+procession, the superbly caparisoned horses, the State carriages--what a
+spectacle it was, how far surpassing all that he had been led to expect
+of Money and its kingdom. Let Anna move excitedly amid the throng,
+laughing with this man, changing wit with another--he was content just
+to watch the people, to reflect upon their happy lives, it may be to ask
+himself what justification they had when the children were wanting bread
+and the great hosts of the destitute lay encamped beyond the pale. Such
+philosophy, to be sure, had but a short shrift on such a day. The
+intoxication of the scene quickly ran hot in his veins and he
+surrendered to it willingly. These were hours to live, precious every
+one of them--and who would not worship the gold which brought them, who
+would not turn to it as to the lodestar of desire?
+
+And then the race! Anna had talked of nothing else since they set out in
+the motor to drive over to the course. Her anger against Willy Forrest
+appeared to be forgotten for the time being--he, on his part, eying
+Alban askance, but making no open complaint against him, met her in the
+paddock and repeated his assurances that Lodestar could not lose.
+
+"They run him down to evens, Anna," he said, "and precious lucky we
+were to get the price we did. There'll be some howls to-night, but
+what's that to us? Are we a philanthropic society, do we live to endow
+the multitude? Not much, by no means, oh dear, no. We live to make an
+honest bit--and we'll make it to-day if ever we did. You go easy and
+don't butt in. I've laid all that can be got at the price and the rest's
+best in your pocket. You'll want a bit for the other races--eh, what?
+You didn't come here to knit stockings, now did you, Anna?"
+
+She laughed with him and returned to see the race. Her excitement gave
+her a superb color, heightened her natural beauty and turned many
+admiring eyes upon her. To Alban she whispered that she was going to
+make a fortune, and he watched her curiously, almost afraid for himself
+and for her. When the great thrill passed over the stands and "they're
+off" echoed almost as a sound of distant thunder, he crept closer to her
+as though to share the excitement of which she was mistress. The specks
+upon the green were nothing to him--those dots of color moving swiftly
+across the scene, how odd to think that they might bring riches or
+beggary in their train! This he knew to be the stern fact, and when men
+began to shout hoarsely, to press together and crane their necks, when
+that very torrent of sound which named the distance arose, he looked
+again at Anna and saw that she was smiling. "She has won," he said, "she
+will be happy to-night."
+
+The horses passed the post in a cluster. Alban, unaccustomed to the
+objects of a race-course, had not an eye so well trained that he could
+readily distinguish the colors or locate with certainty the position of
+the "pink--green sleeves--white cap"--the racing jacket of "Count
+Donato," as Anna was known to the Jockey Club. He could make out nothing
+more than a kaleidoscope of color changing swiftly upon a verdant arena,
+this and an unbroken line of people stretching away to the very confines
+of the woodlands and a rampart wall of stands and boxes and tents. For
+him there were no niceties of effort and of counter-effort. The jockeys
+appeared to be so many little monkeys clinging to the necks of wild
+chargers who rolled in their distress as though to shake off the imps
+tormenting them. The roar of voices affrighted him--he could not
+understand that lust of gain which provoked the mad outcry, the sudden
+forgetfulness of self and dignity and environment, the absolute
+surrender to the desire of victory. Nor was the succeeding silence less
+mysterious. It came as the hush in an interval of tempests. The crowd
+drew back from the railings and moved about as quietly as though nothing
+of any consequence had happened. Anna herself, smiling still, stood just
+where she was; but her back was now toward the winning-post and she
+seemed to have forgotten its existence.
+
+"Do you know," she said very slowly, "my horse has lost."
+
+"What does that mean?" Alban asked with real earnestness.
+
+She laughed again, looking about her a little wildly as though to read
+something of the story upon other faces.
+
+"What does it mean--oh, lots of things. I wonder if we could get a cup
+of tea, Alban--I think I should like one."
+
+He said that he would see and led her across the enclosure toward the
+marquee. As they went a sybilant sound of hissing arose. The "Alright"
+had come from the weighing-in room and the people were hissing the
+winner. Presently, from the far side of the course, a louder outcry
+could be heard. That which the men in the gray frock-coats were telling
+each other in whispers was being told also by the mob in stentorian
+tones. "The horse was pulled off his feet," said the knowing ones; "they
+ought to warn the whole crowd off."
+
+Anna heard these cries and began dimly to understand them. She knew that
+Willy Forrest had done this in return for the slight she had put upon
+him at Henley. He had named his own jockey for the race and chosen one
+who had little reputation to lose. Between them they would have reason
+to remember the Royal Hunt Cup for many a day. Their gains could have
+been little short of thirty thousand pounds--and of this sum, Anna owed
+them nearly five thousand.
+
+She heard the people's cries and the sounds affrighted her. Not an
+Englishwoman, none the less she had a good sense of personal honor, and
+her pride was wounded, not only because of this affront but that a
+strange people should put it upon her. Had it been any individual
+accusation, she would have faced it gladly--but this intangible judgment
+of the multitude, the whispering all about her, the sidelong glances of
+the men and the open contempt of the women, these she could not meet.
+
+"Let us go back to the bungalow to tea," she exclaimed suddenly, as
+though it were but a whim of the moment; "this place makes my head ache.
+Let us start now and avoid the crush. Don't you think it would be a
+great idea, Alban?"
+
+He said that it would be--but chancing to look at her while she spoke,
+he perceived the tears gathering in her eyes and knew that she had
+suffered a great misfortune.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Richard Gessner knew nothing of Anna's racing escapades, nor had he any
+friend who made it his business to betray them. The day was rare when he
+made an inquiry concerning her amusements or the manner of them. Women
+were in his eyes just so many agreeable decorations for the tables at
+which men dined. Of their mental capacity he had no opinion whatever,
+and it was a common jest for him to declare their brain power
+consistently inferior to that of the male animal.
+
+"There has been no woman financial genius since the world began," he
+would observe, and if those who contradicted him named the arts, he
+waved them aside. "What is art when finance is before us?" That Anna
+should amuse herself was well and proper. He wished her to marry well
+that he might have spoken of "my daughter, Lady Anna"--not with pride as
+most men would speak, but ironically as one far above such petty titles
+and able from his high place to deride them.
+
+Of her daily life, it must be confessed that he knew very little. A
+succession of worthy if incompetent dependants acted the chaperones part
+for him and satisfied his conscience upon that score. He heard of her
+at this social function or at that, and was glad that she should go. Men
+would say, "There's a catch for you--old Gessner's daughter; he must be
+worth a million if he's worth a penny." Her culpable predisposition
+toward that pleasant and smooth-tongued rascal, Willy Forrest, annoyed
+him for the time being but was soon forgotten. He believed that the man
+would not dare to carry pursuit farther, and if he did, the remedy must
+be drastic.
+
+"I will buy up his debts and send him through the Court," Gessner said.
+"If that does not do, we must find out his past and see where we can
+have him. My daughter may not marry as I wish, but if she marries a
+jockey, I have done with her." And this at hazard, though he had not the
+remotest idea who Forrest really was and had not taken the trouble to
+find out. When the man ceased to visit "Five Gables" he forgot him
+immediately. He was the very last person in all London whom he suspected
+when Anna, upon the day following his return from Paris, asked that they
+might have a little talk together and named the half-hour immediately
+before dinner for that purpose. He received her in his study, whither
+Fellows had already carried him a glass of sherry and bitters, and being
+in the best of good humor, he frankly confessed his pleasure that she
+should so appeal to him.
+
+"Come in, Anna, come in, my dear. What's the matter now--been getting
+into mischief? Oh, you girls--always the same story, a man or a
+milliner, and the poor old father to get you out of it. What is it this
+time--Paquin or Worth? Don't mind me, Anna. I can always live in a
+cottage on a pound a week. The doctor says I should be the better for
+it. Perhaps I should. Half the complaints we suffer from are just 'too
+much.' Think that over and add it up. You look very pale, my girl.
+You're not ill, are you?"
+
+The sudden change of tone occurred as Anna advanced into the light and
+seated herself in the bow-window overlooking the rose garden. She wore a
+delicate skirt of pink satin below a superb gown of chiffon and real
+lace. A single pink rose decorated her fine black hair which she had
+coiled upon her neck to betray a shapely contour of dazzlingly white
+skin beneath it. Her jewels were few but remarkable. The pearls about
+her neck had been called bronze in tint and were perfect in their shape.
+She carried a diamond bracelet upon her right arm, and its glitter
+flashed about her as a radiant spirit of the riches whose emblems she
+wore. The pallor of her face was in keeping with the picture. The wild
+black eyes seemed alight with all the fires of tragedy unconfessed.
+
+"I am not ill, father," she said, "but there is something about which I
+must speak to you."
+
+"Yes, yes, Anna--of course. And this is neither Paquin nor Worth, it
+appears. Oh, you little rogue. To come to me like this--to come to your
+poor old father and bring him a son-in-law for dinner. Ha, ha,--I'll
+remember that--a son-in-law to dinner. Well, I sha'n't eat him, Anna, if
+he's all right. It wouldn't be Alban Kennedy now?"
+
+He became serious in an instant, putting the question as though his
+favor depended upon her answer in the negative. Anna, however, quite
+ignored the suggestion when she replied.
+
+"I came to speak to you about Ascot, father--"
+
+"About Ascot--who's Ascot?"
+
+"The races at Ascot. I ran a horse there and lost five thousand pounds."
+
+"What--you lost--come, Anna, my dear child--you lost--think of it
+again--you lost fifty pounds? And who the devil took you there, I want
+to know--who's been playing the fool? I don't agree with young girls
+betting. I'll have none of that sort of thing in this house. Just tell
+him so--whoever he is. I'll have none of it, and if it's that--"
+
+He broke off at the words, arrested in his banter by the sudden memory
+of a name. As in a flash he perceived the truth. The man Forrest was at
+the bottom of this.
+
+"Now be plain with me," he cried, "you've seen Willy Forrest again and
+this is his doing. Yes or no, Anna? Don't you tell me a lie. It's
+Forrest--he took you to Ascot?"
+
+She smiled at his anger.
+
+"I ran a horse named Lodestar under the name of Count Donato. I believed
+that he would win and he lost. That's the story, father. Why drag any
+names into it?"
+
+He regarded her, too amazed to speak. His daughter, this bit of a
+schoolgirl as he persisted in calling her, she had run a race-horse in
+her own name? What a thing to hear! But was it an evil thing. The girl
+had plenty of courage certainly. Very few would have had the pluck to
+do it at all. Of course it was unlucky that she had not won--but, after
+all, that could soon be put straight.
+
+"You ran a race-horse--but who trained it for you? where did you keep
+it? Why did I know nothing about it? Look here, Anna, this isn't dealing
+very fair with me. I have never denied you any pleasure--you know I
+haven't. If you wanted to play this game, why couldn't you have come to
+me and told me so? I wouldn't have denied you--but five thousand; you're
+not serious about that--you don't mean to say that you lost five
+thousand pounds?"
+
+"I lost five thousand pounds, father--and I must pay the money. They
+will call me a cheat if I do not. It must be paid on Monday--Willy says
+so--"
+
+He turned upon her with a shout that was almost a roar. She knew in an
+instant how foolish she had been.
+
+"Willy Forrest--did you lose the money to him? Come, speak out. I shall
+get at the truth somehow--did you lose the money to him?"
+
+"I lost it through him--he made the bets for me."
+
+"Then I will not pay a penny of it if it sends you to prison. Not a
+penny as I'm a living man."
+
+She heard him calmly and delivered her answer as calmly.
+
+"I shall marry him if you do not," she said.
+
+Gessner stood quite still and watched her face closely. It had grown
+hard and cold, the face of a woman who has taken a resolution and will
+not be turned from it.
+
+"You will marry Forrest?" he asked quietly.
+
+"I shall marry him and he will pay my debts."
+
+"He--he hasn't got two brass pieces to rub together. He's a needy
+out-at-elbow adventurer. Do you want to know who William Forrest
+is--well, my detectives shall tell me in the morning. I'll find out all
+about him for you. And you'd marry him! Well, my lady, there you'll do
+as you please. I've done with a daughter who tells me that to my face.
+Go and marry him. Live in a kennel. But don't come to me for a bone,
+don't think I'm to be talked over, because that's not my habit. If you
+choose such a man as that--"
+
+"I do not choose him. There are few I would not sooner marry. I am
+thinking of my good name--of our good name. If I marry Willy Forrest,
+they will say that I helped to cheat the public. Do you not know that it
+is being said already. The horse was pulled--I believe that I am not to
+be allowed to race again. Poor Mr. Farrier is terribly upset. They say
+that we were all cheats together. What can I do, father? If I pay the
+money and they know that we lost it, that is a good answer to them. If I
+do not, Willy is probably the one man who can put matters straight and I
+shall marry him."
+
+She rose as though this was the end of the argument. Her words, lightly
+spoken, were so transparently honest that the shrewd man of business
+summed up the whole situation in an instant. The mere possibility that
+his name should be mixed up with a racing scandal staggered him by its
+dangers and its absurdity. Anger against his daughter became in some
+measure compassion. Of course she was but a woman and a clever charlatan
+had entrapped her.
+
+"Sit down--sit down," he said bluffly, motioning her back to her seat.
+"It is perfectly clear that this William Forrest of yours is a rogue,
+and as a rogue we must treat him. I am astonished at what you tell me.
+It is a piece of nonsense, women's sense as ridiculous as the silly
+business which is responsible for it. Of course you must pay them the
+money. I will do the rest, Anna. I have friends who will quickly put
+that matter straight--and if your rogue finds his way to a race-course
+again, he is a very lucky man. Now sit down and let me speak to you in
+my turn, Anna. I want you to speak about Alban--I want to hear how you
+like him. He has now been with us long enough for us to know something
+about him. Let us see if your opinion agrees with mine."
+
+His keen scrutiny detected a flush upon her face while he asked the
+question and he understood that all he had suspected had been nothing
+but the truth. Anna had come to love this open-minded lad who had been
+forced upon them by such an odd train of circumstances; her threats
+concerning Willy Forrest were the merest bravado. Gessner would have
+trembled at the knowledge a week ago, but to-night it found him
+singularly complacent. He listened to Anna's response with the air of a
+light-hearted judge who condemned a guilty prisoner out of her own
+mouth.
+
+"Alban Kennedy has many good qualities," she said. "I think he is very
+worthy of your generosity."
+
+"Ah, you like him, I perceive. Let us suppose, Anna, that my intentions
+toward him were to go beyond anything I had imagined--suppose, being no
+longer under any compulsion in the matter, the compulsion of an
+imaginary obligation which does not exist, I were still to consider him
+as my own son. Would you be surprised then at my conduct?"
+
+"It would not surprise me," she said. "You have always wished for a son.
+Alban is the most original boy of his age I have ever met. He is clever
+and absurdly honest. I don't think you would regret any kindness you may
+show to him."
+
+"And you yourself?"
+
+"What have I to do with it, father?"
+
+"It might concern you very closely, Anna."
+
+"In what way, father?"
+
+"In the only way which would concern a woman. Suppose that I thought of
+him as your husband?"
+
+She flushed crimson.
+
+"Have you spoken to him on the matter?"
+
+"No, but being about to speak to him--after dinner to-night."
+
+"I should defer my opinion until that has happened."
+
+He laughed as though the idea of it amused him very much.
+
+"Of course, he will have nothing to do with us, Anna. What is a fortune
+to such a fine fellow? What is a great house--and I say it--a very
+beautiful wife? Of course, he will refuse us. Any boy would do that,
+especially one who has been brought up in Union Street. Now go and look
+for him in the garden. I must tell Geary to have that cheque drawn
+out--and mind you, if I meet that fellow Forrest, I will half kill him
+just to show my good opinion of him. This nonsense must end to-night.
+Remember, it is a promise to me."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders and left the room with slow steps. Gessner,
+still smiling, turned up a lamp by his writing-table and took out his
+cheque-book.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+FATE IRONICAL
+
+
+They were a merry party at the dinner-table, and the Reverend Silas
+Geary amused them greatly by his discussion of that absorbing topic, is
+golf worth playing? He himself, good man, deplored the fact that several
+worthy persons who, otherwise, would have been working ten or twelve
+hours a day as Cabinet ministers, deliberately toiled in the sloughs and
+pits of the golf course.
+
+"The whole nation is chasing a little ball," he said; "we deplore the
+advance of Germany, but, I would ask you, how does the German spend his
+day, what are his needs, where do his amusements lie? There is a country
+for you--every man a soldier, every worker an intellect. In England
+nowadays our young fellows seem to try and find out how little they can
+do. We live for minimums. We are only happy when we have struck a bat
+with a ball and it has gone far. We reserve our greatest honors for
+those who thus excel."
+
+Alban ventured to say that beer seemed to be the recreation of the
+average German and insolence his amusement. He confessed that the
+Germans beat his own people by hard work; but he asked, is it really a
+good thing that work should be the beginning and the end of all things?
+He had been taught at school that the supreme beauty of life lay in
+things apart and chiefly in a man's own soul. To which Gessner himself
+retorted that a woman's soul was what the writer probably meant.
+
+"We have let civilization make us what we are," the banker said
+shrewdly, "and now we complain of her handiwork. Write what you like
+about it, money and love are the only two things left in the world
+to-day. The story has always been the same, but people did not read it
+so often formerly. There have always been ambition, strife, struggle,
+suffering--why should the historians trouble to tell of them? You
+yourself, Alban, would be a worker if the opportunity came to you. I
+have foreseen that from the first moment I met you. If you were
+interested, you would outdo the Germans and beat them both with your
+head and your hands. But it will be very difficult to interest you. You
+would need some great stimulus, and in your case it would be ambition
+rather than its rewards."
+
+Alban replied that a love of power was probably the strongest influence
+in the world.
+
+"We all hate work," he said, repeating his favorite dictum, "I don't
+suppose there is one man in a thousand who would do another day's work
+unless he were compelled. The success of Socialism in our time is the
+belief that it will glorify idleness and make it real. The agitators
+themselves never work. They have learned the rich men's secret--I have
+heard them preaching the dignity of labor a hundred times, but I never
+yet saw one wheeling a barrow. The poor fellows who listen to them think
+that you have only got to pass a few acts of Parliament to be happy
+forever after. I pity them, but how are you to teach them that the
+present state of things is just--and if it is not just, why should you
+wish it to last?"
+
+Gessner could answer that. A rich man himself, all that concerned the
+new doctrines was of the profoundest interest to him.
+
+"The present state of things is the only state of things--in the bulk,"
+he said; "it is as old as the world and will go on as long as the world.
+We grumble at our rich men, but those who have amassed their own
+fortunes are properly the nation's bankers. Consider what a sudden gift
+of money would mean to the working-men of England to-day--drunkenness,
+crime, debauchery. You can legislate to improve the conditions of their
+lives, but to give them creative brains is beyond all legislation. And I
+will tell you this--that once you have passed any considerable
+socialistic legislation for this kingdom of Great Britain, you have
+decided her destiny. She will in twenty years be in the position of
+Holland--a country that was but never will be again."
+
+No one disputed the proposition, for no one thoroughly understood it.
+Alban had not the courage to debate his pet theorems at such a time, and
+the parson was too intent upon denouncing the national want of
+seriousness to enter upon such abstruse questions as the banker would
+willingly have discussed. So they fell back upon athletics again, and
+were busy with football and cricket until the time came for Anna to
+withdraw and leave them to their cigars. Silas Geary, quickly imitating
+her, waited but for a glass of port before he made his excuses and
+departed, as he said, upon a "parochial necessity."
+
+"We will go to the Winter Garden," Gessner said to Alban when they were
+alone--"I will see that Fellows takes our coffee there. Bring some
+cigarettes, Alban--I wish to have a little private talk with you."
+
+Alban assented willingly, for he was glad of this opportunity to say
+much that he had desired to say for some days past. The night had turned
+very hot and close, but the glass roof of the Winter Garden stood open
+and they sat there almost as in the open air, the great palms and shrubs
+all about them and many lights glowing cunningly amid the giant leaves.
+As earlier in the evening, so now Gessner was in the best of spirits,
+laughing at every trivial circumstance and compelling his guest to see
+how kindly was his desposition toward him.
+
+"We shall be comfortable here," he said, "and far enough away from the
+port wine to save me self-reproach to-morrow. I see that you drink
+little, Alban. It is wise--all those who have the gout will speak of
+your wisdom. We drink because the wine is there, not because we want it.
+And then in the morning, we say, how foolish. Come now, light another
+cigarette and listen to me. I have great things to talk about, great
+questions to ask you. You must listen patiently, for this concerns your
+happiness--as closely perhaps as anything will concern it as long as you
+live."
+
+He did not continue immediately, seeing the footman at his elbow with
+the coffee. Alban, upon his part, lighted a cigarette as he had been
+commanded, and waited patiently. He thought that he knew what was coming
+and yet was afraid of the thought. Anna's sudden passion for him had
+been too patent to all the world that he should lightly escape its
+consequences. Indeed, he had never waited for any one to speak with the
+anxiety which attended this interval of service. He thought that the
+footman would never leave them alone.
+
+"Now," said Gessner at last, "now that those fellows are gone we can
+make ourselves comfortable. I shall be very plain, my lad--I shall not
+deceive you again. When you first came to my house, I did not tell you
+the truth--I am going to tell it to you to-night, for it is only right
+that you should know it."
+
+He stirred his coffee vigorously and puffed at his cigar until it glowed
+red again. When he resumed he spoke in brief decisive sentences as
+though forbidding question or contradiction until he had finished.
+
+"There is a fellow-countryman of mine--you know him and know his
+daughter. He believes that I am under some obligation to him and I do
+not contradict him. When we met in London, many years after the business
+transaction of which he complains, I asked him in what way I could be of
+service to him or to his family, as the case might be. He answered that
+he wanted nothing for himself, but that any favor I might be disposed to
+show should be toward his daughter and to you. I took it that you were
+in love with the girl and would marry her. That was what I was given to
+believe. At the same time, this fellow Boriskoff assured me that you
+were well educated, of a singularly independent character, and well
+worthy of being received into this house. I will not deny that the
+fellow made very much of this request, and that it was put to me with
+certain alternatives which I considered impertinent. You, however, had
+no part in that. You came here because the whole truth was not told to
+you--and you remained because my daughter wished it. There I do not fear
+contradiction. You know yourself that it is true and will not contradict
+me. As the time went on, I perceived that you had established a claim to
+my generosity such as did not exist when first you came here--the claim
+of my affection and of my daughter's. This, I will confess, has given me
+more pleasure than anything which has happened here for a long time. I
+have no son and I take it as the beneficent work of Providence that one
+should be sent to me as you were sent. My daughter would possibly have
+married a scoundrel if the circumstances had been otherwise. So, you
+see, that while you are now established here by right of our affection,
+I am rewarded twofold for anything I may have done for you. Henceforth
+this happy state of things must become still happier. I have spoken to
+Anna to-night, and I should be very foolish if I could not construe her
+answer rightly. She loves you, my lad, and will take you for her
+husband. It remains for you to say that your happiness shall not be
+delayed any longer than may be reasonable."
+
+It need scarcely be said with what surprise Alban listened to this
+lengthy recital. Some part of the truth had already been made known to
+him--but this fuller account could not but flatter his vanity while it
+left him silent in his amazement and perplexity. Richard Gessner, he
+understood, had always desired a brilliant match for Anna, and had
+sought an alliance with some of the foremost English families. If he
+abandoned these ambitions, a shrewd belief in the impossibility lay at
+the root of his determination. Anna would never marry as he wished. Her
+birthright and her Eastern blood forbade it. She would be the child of
+whim and of passion always, and it lay upon him to avert the greater
+evil by the lesser. Alban in a vague way understood this, but of his own
+case he could make little. What a world of ease and luxury and delight
+these few simple words opened up to him. He had but to say "yes" to
+become the ultimate master of this man's fortune, the possessor of a
+heritage which would have been considered fabulous but fifty years ago.
+And yet he would not say "yes." It was as though some unknown power
+restrained him, almost as though his own brain tricked him. Of Anna's
+sudden passion for him he had no doubt whatever. She was ready and
+willing to yield her whole self to him and would, it might be, make him
+a devoted wife. None the less, the temptation found him vacillating and
+incapable even of a clear decision. Some voice of the past called to him
+and would not be silenced. Maladroitly, he gave no direct reply, but
+answered the question by another.
+
+"Did Paul Boriskoff tell you that I was about to marry his daughter, Mr.
+Gessner?"
+
+"My dear lad, what Paul Boriskoff said or did can be of little interest
+to you or me to-night. He is no longer in England, let me tell you. He
+left for Poland three days ago."
+
+"Then you saw him or heard from him before he left?"
+
+"Not at all. The less one sees or hears from that kind of person the
+better. You know the fellow and will understand me. He is a firebrand we
+can well do without. I recommended him to go to Poland and he has gone.
+His daughter, I understand, is being educated at Warsaw. Let me advise
+you to forget such acquaintances--they are no longer of any concern to
+either of us."
+
+He waved his hand as though to dismiss the subject finally; but his
+words left Alban strangely ill at ease.
+
+"Old Paul is a fanatic," he said presently, "but a very kindly one. I
+think he is very selfish where his daughter is concerned, but he loves
+his country and is quite honest in his opinions. From what I have heard
+in Union Street, he is very unwise to go back to Poland. The Russian
+authorities must be perfectly well aware what he has done in London, and
+are not likely to forget it. Yes, indeed, I am sorry that he has been so
+foolish."
+
+He spoke as one who regretted sincerely the indiscretions of a friend
+and would have saved him from them. Gessner, upon his side, desired as
+little talk of the Boriskoffs as might be. If he had told the truth, he
+knew that Alban Kennedy would walk out of his house never to return. For
+it had been his own accomplices who had persuaded old Paul to return to
+Poland--and the Russian police were waiting for him across the frontier.
+Any hour might bring the news of his arrest. The poor fanatic who
+babbled threats would be under lock and key before many hours had
+passed, on his way to Saghalin perhaps--and his daughter might starve if
+she were obstinate enough. All this was in Gessner's mind, but he said
+nothing of it. His quick perception set a finger upon Alban's difficulty
+and instantly grappled with it.
+
+"We must do what we can for the old fellow," he said lightly, "I am
+already paying for the daughter's education and will see to her future.
+You would be wise, Alban, to cut all those connections finally. I want
+you to take a good place in the world. You have a fine talent, and when
+you come into my business, as I propose that you shall do, you will get
+a training you could not better in Europe. Believe me, a financier's
+position is more influential in its way than that of kings. Here am I
+living in this quiet way, rarely seen by anybody, following my own
+simple pleasures just as a country gentleman might do, and yet I have
+but to send a telegram over the wires to make thousands rich or to ruin
+them. You will inherit my influence as you will inherit my fortune. When
+you are Anna's husband, you must be my right hand, acting for me,
+speaking for me, learning to think for me. This I foresee and
+welcome--this is what I offer you to-night. Now go to Anna and speak to
+her for yourself. She is waiting for you in the drawing-room and you
+must not tease her. Go to her, my dear boy, and say that which I know
+she wishes to hear."
+
+He did not doubt the issue--who would have done? Standing there with his
+hand upon Alban's shoulder, he believed that he had found a son and
+saved his daughter from the peril of her heritage.
+
+So is Fate ironical. For as they talked, Fellows appeared in the garden
+and announced the Russian, who carried to Hampstead tidings of a failure
+disastrous beyond any in the eventful story of this man's life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE PLOT HAS FAILED
+
+
+The Russian appeared to be a young man, some thirty years of age
+perhaps. His dress was after the French fashion. He wore a shirt with a
+soft embroidered front and a tousled black cravat which added a shade of
+pallor to his unusually pale face. When he spoke in the German tongue,
+his voice had a pleasant musical ring, even while it narrated the story
+of his friend's misfortune.
+
+"We have failed, mein Heir," he said, "I come to you with grievous news.
+We have failed and there is not an hour to lose."
+
+Gessner heard him with that self-mastery to which his whole life had
+trained him. Betraying no sign of emotion whatever, he pulled a chair
+toward the light and invited the stranger to take it.
+
+"This is my young kinsman," he said, introducing Alban who still
+lingered in the garden; "you have heard of him, Count." And then to
+Alban, "Let me present you to my very old friend, Count Zamoyaki. He is
+a cavalry soldier, Alban, and there is no finer rider in Europe."
+
+Alban took the outstretched hand and, having exchanged a word with the
+stranger, would have left the place instantly. This, however, Count
+Zamoyski himself forbade. Speaking rapidly to Gessner in the German
+tongue, he turned to the lad presently and asked him to remain.
+
+"Young heads are wise heads sometimes," he said in excellent English,
+"you may be able to help us, Mr. Kennedy. Please wait until we have
+discussed the matter a little more fully."
+
+To this the banker assented by a single inclination of his head.
+
+"As you say, Count--we shall know presently. Please tell me the story
+from the beginning."
+
+The Count lighted a cigarette, and sinking down into the depths of a
+monstrous arm-chair, he began to speak in smooth low tones--a tragedy
+told almost in whispers; for thus complacently, as the great Frenchman
+has reminded us, do we bear the misfortunes of our neighbors.
+
+"I bring news both of failure and of success," he began, "but the
+failure is of greater moment to us. Your instructions to my Government,
+that the Boriskoffs, father and daughter, were an embarrassment to you
+which must be removed, have been faithfully interpreted and acted upon
+immediately. The father was arrested at Alexandrovf Station, as I
+promised that he should be--the police have visited the school in Warsaw
+where the daughter was supposed to reside--this also as I promised
+you--but their mission has been in vain. So you see that while Paul
+Boriskoff is now in the old prison at Petersburg, the daughter is heaven
+knows where, which I may say is nowhere for our purpose. That we did not
+complete the affair is our misfortune. The girl, we are convinced, is
+still in Warsaw, but her friends are hiding her. Remember that the
+police knew the father, but that the daughter is unknown to them. These
+Polish girls--pardon me, I refer to the peasant classes--are as alike as
+two roses on a bush. We shall do nothing until we establish
+identity--and how that is to be done, I do not pretend to say. If you
+can help us--and it is very necessary for your own safety to do so--you
+have not a minute to lose. We should act at once, I say, without the
+loss of a single hour."
+
+Thus did this man of affairs, one who had been deep in many a brave
+intrigue, make known to the man who had employed him the supreme
+misfortune of their adventure. Had he said, "Your life is in such peril
+that you may not have another hour to live," it would have been no more
+than the truth. Their plot had failed and the story of it was abroad.
+This had he come from Paris to tell--this was the news that Richard
+Gessner heard with less apparent emotion than though one had told him of
+the pettiest event of a common day.
+
+"The matter has been very badly bungled," he said. "I shall write to
+General Trepoff and complain of it. Do you not see how inconvenient this
+is? If the girl has escaped, she will be sheltered by the
+Revolutionaries, and if she knows my story, she will tell it to them. I
+may be followed here--to this very house. You know that these people
+stick at nothing. They would avenge this man's liberty whatever the
+price. What remains to discover is the precise amount of her knowledge.
+Does she know my name, my story? You must find that out,
+Zamoyski--there is not an hour to lose, as you say."
+
+He repeated his fears, pacing the room and smoking incessantly. The
+whole danger of a situation is not usually realized upon its first
+statement, but every instant added to this man's apprehensions and
+brought the drops of sweat anew to his forehead. He had planned to
+arrest both Boriskoff and his daughter. The Russian Government, seeking
+the financial support of his house, fell in readily with his plans and
+commanded the police to assist him. Paul Boriskoff himself had been
+arrested at the frontier station upon an endeavor to return to Poland.
+His daughter Lois, warned in some mysterious manner, had fled from the
+school where she was being educated and put herself beyond the reach of
+her father's enemies. This was the simple story of the plot. But God
+alone could tell what the price of failure might be.
+
+"It is very easy to say what we must do," the Count observed, "the
+difficulties remain. Identify this girl for us among the twenty thousand
+who answer to her description in Warsaw, and I will undertake that the
+Government shall deal well by her. But who is to identify her? Where is
+your agent to be found? Name him to me and the task begins to-night. We
+can do nothing more. I say again that my Government has done all in its
+power. The rest is with you, Herr Gessner, to direct us where we have
+failed."
+
+Gessner made no immediate answer. Perhaps he was about to admit the
+difficulties of the Count's position and to agree that identification
+was impossible, when suddenly his glance fell upon Alban, waiting, as
+he had asked, until the interview should be done. And what an
+inspiration was that--what an instantaneous revelation of possibilities.
+Let this lad go to Warsaw and he would discover Lois Boriskoff quickly
+enough. The girl had been in love with him and would hold her tongue at
+his bidding. As in a flash, he perceived this spar which should save
+him, and clutched at it. Let the lad go to Warsaw--let him be the agent.
+If the police arrested the girl after all--well, that would be an
+accident which he might regret, but certainly would not seek to prevent.
+A man whose life is imperilled must be one in ten thousand if any common
+dictates of faith or conduct guide him. Richard Gessner had a fear of
+death so terrible that he would have dared the uttermost treachery to
+save himself.
+
+"Count," he exclaimed suddenly, "your agent is here, in this room. He
+will go to Warsaw at your bidding. He will find the girl."
+
+The Count, who knew something of Alban's story already, received the
+intimation as though he had expected it.
+
+"It was for that I asked him to wait. I have been thinking of it. He
+will go to Warsaw and tell the lady that she may obtain her father's
+liberty upon a condition. Let her make a direct appeal to the
+Government--and we will consider it. Of course you intend an immediate
+departure--you are not contemplating a delay, Herr Gessner?"
+
+"Delay--am I the man to delay? He shall go to-morrow by the first
+train."
+
+A smile hovered upon the Count's face in spite of himself.
+
+"In a week," he was saying to himself, "Lois Boriskoff shall be flogged
+in the Schusselburg."
+
+In truth, the whip was the weapon he liked best--when women were to be
+schooled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+ALBAN GOES TO WARSAW
+
+
+Alban had never been abroad, and it would have been difficult for him to
+give any good account of his journey to Warsaw. The swiftly changing
+scenes, the new countries, the uproar and strife of cities, the glamour
+of the sea, put upon his ripe imagination so heavy a burden that he
+lived as one apart, almost as a dreamer who had forgotten how to dream.
+If he carried an abiding impression it was that of the miracle of travel
+and the wonders that travel could work. In twenty hours he had almost
+forgotten the existence of the England he had left. Chains of bondage
+fell from his willing shoulders. He felt as one released from a prison
+house to all the freedom of a boundless world.
+
+And so at last he came to the beautiful city of Warsaw and his sterner
+task began. Here, as in London, that pleasant person Count Sergius
+Zamoyski reminded him how considerable was the service he could confer,
+not alone upon his patron but upon the friends of his evil days.
+
+"It has all been a mistake," the Count would say with fine protestation
+of regret; "my Government arrested that poor old fellow Boriskoff, but
+it would gladly let him go. To begin with, however, we must have
+pledges. You know perfectly well that the man is a fanatic and will
+work a great mischief unless some saner head prevents it. We must find
+his daughter and see that she promises to hold her tongue concerning our
+friend at Hampstead. When that is done, we shall pack off the pair to
+London and they will carry a good round sum in their pockets. Herr
+Gessner is not the man to deal ungenerously with them--nor with you to
+whom he may owe so much."
+
+He was a shrewd man of the world, this amiable diplomat, and who can
+wonder that so simple a youth as Alban Kennedy proved no match for him.
+Alban honestly believed that he would be helping both Gessner and his
+old friends, the Boriskoffs, should he discover little Lois' whereabouts
+and take her back to London. A very natural longing to see her once more
+added to the excitements of the journey. He would not have been willing
+to confess this interest, but it prompted him secretly so that he was
+often reminding himself of the old days when Lois had been his daily
+companion and their mutual confidences had been their mutual pleasure.
+Just as a knight-errant of the old time might set out to seek his
+mistress, so did Alban go to Warsaw determined to succeed. He would find
+Lois in this whirling wonderland of delight, and, finding her, would
+return triumphant to their home.
+
+Now, they arrived in Warsaw upon the Thursday evening after the
+memorable interview at Hampstead; and driving through the crowded
+streets of that pleasant city, by its squares, its gardens, and its
+famous Palaces, they descended at last at the door of the Hotel de
+France; and there they heard the fateful news which the city itself had
+discussed all day and would discuss far into the night.
+
+General Trubenoff, the new Dictator, had been shot dead at the gate of
+the Arsenal that very afternoon, men said, and the Revolutionaries were
+already armed and abroad. What would happen in the next few hours,
+heaven and the Deputy Governor alone could tell. Were this not
+sufficiently significant, the aspect of the great Square itself was
+menacing enough to awe the imagination even of the least impressionable
+of travellers. Excited crowds passed and repassed; Cossacks were riding
+by at the gallop--even the reports of distant rifle shots were to be
+heard and, from time to time, the screams and curses of those upon whose
+faces and shoulders the soldiers' whips fell so pitilessly.
+
+In the great hall of the hotel itself pandemonium reigned. Afraid of the
+streets and of their homes, the wives and daughters of many officials
+fled hither as to a haven of refuge which would never be suspected. They
+crowded the passages, the staircases, the reception-rooms. They besieged
+the officers for news of that which befell without. Their terrified
+faces remained a striking tribute to the ferocity of their enemies and
+the reality of the peril.
+
+Let it be said in justice that this majestic spectacle of tragedy found
+Alban Kennedy well prepared to understand its meaning. Had he told the
+truth he would have said that the mob orators of Union Street had
+prepared him for such a state of things as he now beheld. The Cossacks,
+were they not the Cossacks whom old Paul had called "the enemies of the
+human race?" The gilt-belarded generals, had he not seen them cast upon
+the screen in England and there heard their names with curses? Just as
+they had told him would be the case, so now he had stumbled upon
+autocracy face to face with its ancient enemy, the people. He saw the
+brutal Cossacks with their puny horses and their terrible whips parading
+beneath his balcony and treating all the poor folk with that insolence
+for which they are famous. He beheld the huddled crowds lifting white
+faces to the sky and cowering before the relentless lash. Not a whit had
+the patriot exiles in London exaggerated these things or misrepresented
+them. Men, and women too, were struck down, their faces ripped by the
+thongs, their shoulders lacerated before his very eyes. And all this, as
+he vaguely understood, that freedom might be denied to this nation and
+justice withheld from her citizens. Truly had he travelled far since he
+left England a few short days ago.
+
+Sergius Zamoyski had engaged a handsome suite of rooms upon the first
+floor of the magnificent modern hotel which looks down upon the Aleja
+Avenue, and to these they went at once upon their arrival. It was
+something at least to escape from the excited throngs below and to stand
+apart, alike from the rabble and the soldiers. Nor was the advantage of
+their situation to be despised; for they had but to step out upon the
+veranda before their sitting-rooms to command the whole prospect of the
+avenue, and there, at their will, to be observers of the conflict. To
+Sergius Zamoyski, familiar with such scenes, Warsaw offered no
+surprises whatever. To Alban it remained a city of whirlwind, and of
+human strife and suffering beyond all imagination terrible. He would
+have been content to remain out there upon that high balcony until the
+last trooper had ridden from the street and the last bitter cry been
+raised. The Count's invitation to dinner seemed grotesque in its
+reversion to commonplace affairs.
+
+"All this is an every-day affair here now," that young man remarked with
+amazing nonchalance; "since the workmen began to shoot the patrols, the
+city has had no peace. I see that it interests you very much. You will
+find it less amusing when you have been in Russia for a month or two.
+Now let us dress and dine while we can. Those vultures down below will
+not leave a bone of the carcass if we don't take care."
+
+He re-entered the sitting-room and thence the two passed to their
+respective dressing-rooms. An obsequious valet offered Alban a cigarette
+while he made his bath, and served a glass of an American cocktail. The
+superb luxury of these apartments did not surprise the young English boy
+as much as they might have done, for he had already stayed one night at
+an almost equally luxurious hotel in Berlin and so approached them
+somewhat familiarly; but the impression, oddly conceived and incurable,
+that he had no right to enjoy such luxuries and was in some way an
+intruder, remained. No one would have guessed this, the silent valet
+least of all; but in truth, Alban dressed shyly, afraid of the splendor
+and the richness; and his feet fell softly upon the thick Persian
+carpets as though some one would spy him out presently and cry, "Here is
+the guest who has not the wedding garment." In the dining-room, face to
+face with the gay Count, some of these odd ideas vanished; so that an
+observer might have named them material rather than personal.
+
+They dined with open windows, taking a zakuska in the Russian fashion in
+lieu of hors d'oeuvre, and nibbling at smoked fish, caviar and other
+pickled mysteries. The Count's ability to drink three or four glasses of
+liquor with this prefatory repast astonished Alban not a little--which
+the young Russian observed and remarked upon.
+
+"I am glad that I was born in the East," he said lightly, "you English
+have no digestions. When you have them, your climate ruins them. Here in
+Russia we eat and drink what we please--that is our compensation. We are
+Tartars, I admit--but when you remember that a Tartar is a person who
+owns no master, rides like a jockey, and drinks as much as he pleases
+with impunity, the imputation is not serious. None of you Western people
+understand the Russian. None of you understand that we are men in a very
+big sense of the word--men with none of your feminine Western
+weaknesses--great fighters, splendid lovers, fine drinkers. You preach
+civilization instead--and we point to your Whitechapel, your Belleville,
+your Bowery. Just think of it, your upper classes, as you yourselves
+admit, are utterly decadent, alike in brains and in morals; your middle
+classes are smug hypocrites--your lower classes starve in filthy dens.
+This is what you desire to bring about in Russia under the name of
+freedom and liberty. Do you wonder that those of us who have travelled
+will have none of it. Are you surprised that we fight your civilization
+with the whip--as we are fighting it outside at this moment. If we fail,
+very well, we shall know how to fail. But do not tell me that it would
+be a blessing for this country to imitate your institutions, for I could
+not believe you if you did."
+
+He laughed upon it as though disbelieving his own words and, giving
+Alban no opportunity to reply, fell to talk of that which they must do
+and of the task immediately before them.
+
+"We are better in this hotel than at the Palace Zamoyski, my kinsman's
+house," he said, "for here no inquisitive servants will trouble us.
+Naturally, you think it a strange thing to be brought to a great city
+like this and there asked to identify a face. Let me say that I don't
+think it will be a difficult matter. The Chief of the Police will call
+upon me in the morning and he will be able to tell us in how many houses
+it would be possible for the girl Lois Boriskoff to hide. We shall
+search them and discover her--and then learn what Herr Gessner desires
+to learn. I confess it amazes me that a man with his extraordinary
+fortune should have dealt so clumsily with these troublesome people. A
+thousand pounds paid to them ten years ago might have purchased his
+security for life. But there's your millionaire all over. He will not
+pay the money and so he risks not only his fortune but his life. Let me
+assure you that he is not mistaken when he declares that there is no
+time to lose. These people, should they discover that he has been aiding
+my Government, would follow him to the ends of the earth. They may have
+already sent an assassin after him--it would be in accord with their
+practice to lose no time, and as you see they are not in a temper to
+procrastinate. The best thing for us to do is to speak of our business
+to no one. When we have discovered the girl, we will promise her
+father's liberty in return for her silence. Herr Gessner must now deal
+with these people once and for all--generously and finally. I see no
+other chance for him whatever."
+
+Alban agreed to this, although he had some reservations to make.
+
+"I know the Boriskoffs very well," he said, "and they are kindly people.
+We have always considered old Paul a bit of a madman, but a harmless
+one. Even his own countrymen in London laugh when he talks to them. I am
+sure he would be incapable of committing such a crime as you suggest;
+and as for his daughter, Lois, she is quite a little schoolgirl who may
+know nothing about the matter at all. Mr. Gessner undoubtedly owes Paul
+a great deal, and I should be pleased to see the poor fellow in better
+circumstances. But is it quite fair to keep him in prison just because
+you are afraid of what his daughter may say?"
+
+"It is our only weapon. If we give him liberty, will he hold his tongue
+then? By your own admissions a louder talker does not exist. And
+remember that it may cost Herr Gessner many thousand pounds and many
+weeks of hard work to secure his liberty at all. Is he likely to
+undertake this while the daughter is at liberty and harbored among the
+ruffians of this city? He would be a madman to do so. I, who know the
+Poles as few of them know themselves, will tell you that they would
+sooner strike at those whom they call 'traitors in exile' than at their
+enemies round about us. If the girl has told them what she knows of Herr
+Gessner and his past, I would not be in his shoes to-night for a million
+of roubles heaped up upon the table. No, no, we have no time to lose--we
+owe it to him to act with great dispatch."
+
+Alban did not make any immediate reply. Hopeful as the Count was, the
+difficulties of tracking little Lois down in such a city at such a time
+seemed to him well-nigh insuperable. He had seen hundreds of faces like
+hers as they drove through Warsaw that very afternoon. The monstrous
+crowd showed him types both of Anna and of Lois, and he wondered no
+longer at the resemblance he had detected between them when he first saw
+Richard Gessner's daughter on the balcony of the house in St. James'
+Square. None the less, the excitements of the task continued to grow
+upon him. How would it all end, he asked impulsively. And what if they
+were too late after all and his friend and patron were to be the victim
+of old Boriskoff's vengeance? That would be terrible indeed--it would
+drive him from Lois' friendship forever.
+
+All this was in his mind as the dinner drew toward a conclusion and the
+solemn waiters served them cigars and coffee. There had been some
+cessation of the uproar in the streets during the latter moments; but a
+new outcry arising presently, the Count suggested that they should
+return to the balcony and see what was happening.
+
+"I would have taken you to the theatre," he said laughingly, "but we
+shall see something prettier here. They are firing their rifles, it
+appears. Do not let us miss the play when we can have good seats for
+nothing. And mind you bring that kummel, for it is the best in Europe."
+
+They were just lighting the great arc lamps upon the avenue as the two
+emerged from the dining-room and took up their stations by the railing
+of the balcony. In the roadway below the spectacle had become superb in
+its weird drama and excited ferocity. Great crowds passed incessantly
+upon the broad pavements and were as frequently dispersed by the fiery
+Cossacks who rode headlong as though mad with the lust of slaughter.
+Holding all who were abroad to be their enemies, these fellows slashed
+with their brutal whips at every upturned face and had no pity even for
+the children. Alban saw little lads of ten and twelve years of age
+carried bleeding from the streets--he beheld gentle women cut and lashed
+until they fell dying upon the pavement--he heard the death-cry from
+many a human throat. Just as the exiles had related it, so the drama
+went, with a white-faced, terror-stricken mob for the people of its
+scene and these devils upon their little horses for the chief actors.
+When the troopers fell (and from time to time a bullet would find its
+billet and leave a corpse rolling in a saddle) this was but the signal
+for a new outburst, surpassing the old in its diabolical ferocity. A
+very orgy of blood and slaughter; a Carnival of whips cutting deep into
+soft white flesh and drawing from their victims cries so awful that
+they might have risen up from hell itself.
+
+And in this crowd, among this people perhaps, little Lois Boriskoff must
+be looked for. Her friends would be the people's friends. Wayward as she
+was, a true child of the streets, Alban did not believe that she would
+remain at home this night or consent to forego the excitements of a
+spectacle so wonderful. Nor in this was he mistaken, for he had been but
+a very few minutes upon the balcony when he perceived Lois herself
+looking up to him from the press below and plainly intimating that she
+had both seen and recognized him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE BOY IN THE BLUE BLOUSE
+
+
+A sharp exclamation brought the Count to Alban's side.
+
+"Lois is down there," Alban said, "I am sure of it--she waved to me just
+now. She was walking with a man in a dark blue blouse. I could not have
+been mistaken."
+
+He was quite excited that he should have discovered her thus, and
+Sergius Zamoyski did not lag behind him in interest.
+
+"Do you still see her?" he asked--"is she there now?"
+
+"I cannot see her now--the soldiers drove the people back. Perhaps if we
+went down--"
+
+The Count laughed.
+
+"Even I could not protect you to-night," he exclaimed dryly,
+"no--whatever is to be done must be done to-morrow. But does not that
+prove to you what eyes and ears these people have. Here we left London
+as secretly as a man on a love affair. With the single exception of our
+friend at Hampstead, not a human being should have known of our
+departure or our destination. And yet we are not three hours in this
+place before this girl is outside our hotel, as well aware that we have
+arrived as we are ourselves. That is what baffles our police. They
+cannot contend with miracles. They are only human, and I tell you that
+these people are more than human."
+
+Alban, still peering down into the press in the hope that he might see
+Lois' face again, confessed that he could offer no explanation whatever.
+
+"They told me the same thing in London," he said, "but I did not believe
+them. Old Boriskoff used to boast that he knew of things which had
+happened in Warsaw before the Russian Government. They seem to have
+spies in every street and every house. If Lois' presence is not a
+coincidence--"
+
+"My dear fellow, are you also a believer in coincidence--the idle excuse
+of men who will not reason. Forgive me, but I think very little of
+coincidence. Just figure the chances against such a meeting as this.
+Would it not run into millions--your first visit to Warsaw; nobody
+expecting you; nobody knowing your name in the city--and here is the
+girl waiting under your window before you have changed your clothes. Oh,
+no, I will have nothing to do with coincidence. These people certainly
+knew that we had left England--they have been expecting us; they will do
+their best to baffle us. Yes, and that means that we run some danger. I
+must think of it--I must see the Chief of the Police to-night. It would
+be foolish to neglect all reasonable precautions."
+
+Alban looked at him with surprise.
+
+"None of those people will do me an injury," he exclaimed, "and you,
+Count, why should you fear them?"
+
+The Count lighted a cigarette very deliberately. "There may be
+reasons," he said--and that was all.
+
+Had he told the whole truth, revealed the secrets of his work during the
+last three years, Alban would have understood very well what those
+reasons were. A shrewder agent of the Government, a more discreet
+zealous official of the secret service, did not exist. His very bonhomie
+and good-fellowship had hitherto been his surest defence against
+discovery. Men spoke of him as the great gambler and a fine sportsman.
+The Revolutionaries had been persuaded to look upon him as their friend.
+Some day they would learn the truth--and then, God help him. Meanwhile,
+the work was well enough. He found it even more amusing than making love
+and a vast deal more exciting than big-game hunting.
+
+"Yes," he repeated anon, "There may be reasons, but it is a little too
+late to remember them. I am sending over to the Bureau now. If the Chief
+is there, he will be able to help me. Of course, you will see or hear
+from this girl again. These people would deliver a letter if you locked
+yourself up in an iron safe. They will communicate with you in the
+morning and we must make up our minds what to do. That is why I want
+advice."
+
+"If you take mine," said Alban quietly, "you will permit me to see her
+at once. I am the last person in all Warsaw whom Lois Boriskoff will
+desire to injure."
+
+"Am I to understand, then--but no, it would be impossible. Forgive me
+even thinking of it. I had really imagined for a moment that you might
+be her lover."
+
+Alban's face flushed crimson.
+
+"She was my little friend in London--she will be the same in Warsaw,
+Count."
+
+Count Sergius bowed as though he readily accepted this simple
+explanation and apologized for his own thoughts. A shrewd man of the
+world, he did not believe a word of it, however. These two, boy and girl
+together, had been daily associates in the slums of London. They had
+shared their earnings and their pleasures and passed for those who would
+be man and wife presently. This Richard Gessner had told him when they
+discussed the affair, and he remembered it to his great satisfaction.
+For if Alban were Lois Boriskoff's lover, then might he venture even
+where the police were afraid to go.
+
+"I will talk it all over with the Chief," the Count exclaimed abruptly;
+"you have had a long day and are better in bed. Don't stand on any
+ceremony, but please go directly you feel inclined."
+
+Alban did not demur for he was tired out and that was the truth of it.
+In his own room he recalled the question the Count had put to him and
+wondered that it had so distressed him. Why had his cheeks tingled and
+the words stumbled upon his lips because he had been called Lois
+Boriskoff's lover? It used not to be so when they walked Union Street
+together and all the neighbors regarded the engagement as an
+accomplished fact. He had never resented such a charge then--what had
+happened that he should resent it now? Was it the long weeks of
+temptation he had suffered in Anna Gessner's presence? Had the world of
+riches so changed him that any mention of the old time could make him
+ashamed? He knew not what to think--the blood rushed to his cheeks again
+and his heart beat quickly when he remembered that but for Count
+Sergius's visit to Hampstead, he might have been Anna's betrothed
+to-day.
+
+In this he was, as ever, entirely candid with himself, neither condoning
+his faults nor accusing himself blindly. There had been nothing of the
+humbler realities of love in his relations with Richard Gessner's
+daughter; none of the superb spirit of self-sacrifice; none of those
+fine ideals which his boyhood had desired to set up. He had worshipped
+her beauty--so much he readily admitted; her presence had ever been
+potent to quicken his blood and claim the homage of his senses; but of
+that deeper understanding and mutual sympathy by which love is born she
+had taught him nothing. Why this should have been so, he could not
+pretend to say. Her father's riches and the glamour of the great house
+may have had not a little to do with it. Alban had always seemed to
+stand apart from all which the new world showed to him. He felt that he
+had no title to a place there, no just claim at all to those very favors
+his patron thrust upon him so lavishly.
+
+He was as a man escaped from a prison whose bars were of gold--a prison
+whereof the jailer had been a beautiful and capricious woman. Here in
+Warsaw he discovered a new world; but one that seemed altogether
+familiar. All this clamor of the streets, this going to and fro of
+people, the roar of traffic, the shriek of whistles, the ringing of
+bells--had he not known them all in London when Lois was his friend and
+old Paul his neighbor? There had been many Poles by Thrawl Street and
+the harsh music of their tongue came to him as an old friend. It is true
+that he was housed luxuriously, in a palace built for millionaires; but
+he had the notion that he would not long continue there and that a newer
+and a stranger destiny awaited him. This thought, indeed, he carried to
+his bedroom and slept upon at last. He would find Lois to-morrow and she
+would be his messenger.
+
+There had still been excited crowds in the streets when he found his
+bedroom and a high balcony showed him the last phases of a weird
+pageant. Though it was then nearly midnight, Cossacks continued to
+patrol the avenue and the mob to deride them. By here and there, where
+the arc lamps illuminated the pavement, the white faces and slouching
+figures of the more obstinate among the Revolutionaries spoke of dogged
+defiance and an utter indifference to personal safety. Alban could well
+understand why the people had ventured out, but that they should have
+taken women and even young children with them astonished him beyond
+measure. These, certainly, could vindicate no principle when their flesh
+was cut by the brutal whips and the savage horses rode them down to
+emphasize the majesty of the Czar. Such sights he had beheld that
+afternoon and such were being repeated, if the terrible cries which came
+to his ears from time to time were true harbingers. Alban closed his
+windows at last for very shame and anger. He tried to shut the city's
+terrible voice from his ears. He wished to believe that his eyes had
+deceived him.
+
+This would have been about one o'clock in the morning. When he awoke
+from a heavy sleep (and youth will sleep whatever the circumstance) the
+sun was shining into his rooms and the church-bells called the people to
+early Mass. An early riser, long accustomed to be up and out when the
+clock struck six, he dressed himself at once and determined to see
+something of Warsaw before the Count was about. This good resolution led
+him first to the splendid avenue upon which the great hotel was built,
+and here he walked awhile, rejoicing in his freedom and wondering why he
+had ever parted with it. Let a man have self-reliance and courage enough
+and there is no city in all the world which may not become a home to
+him, no land among whose people he may not find friends, no government
+whose laws shall trouble him. Alban's old nomadic habits brought these
+truths to his mind again as he walked briskly down the avenue and filled
+his lungs with the fresh breezes of that sunny morning. Why should he
+return to the Count at all? What was Gessner's money to him now? He
+cared less for it than the stones beneath his feet; he would not have
+purchased an hour's command of a princely fortune for one of these
+precious moments.
+
+He was not alone in the streets. The electric cars had already commenced
+to run and there were many soberly dressed work-people hurrying to the
+factories. It was difficult to believe that this place had been the
+scene of a civic battle yesterday, or to picture the great avenues, with
+their pretty trees, tall and stately houses and fine broad pavements, as
+the scene of an encounter bloody beyond all belief. Not a sign now
+remained of all this conflict. The dead had already been carried to the
+mortuaries; the prisoners were safe at the police-stations where, since
+sundown, the whips had been so busy that their lashes were but crimson
+shreds. True there were Cossacks at many a street corner and patrols
+upon some of the broader thoroughfares--but of Revolutionaries not a
+trace. These, after the patient habits of their race, would go to work
+to-day as though yesterday had never been. Not a tear would be shed
+where any other eye could see it--not a tear for the children whose
+voices were forever silent or the mothers who had perished that their
+sons might live. Warsaw had become schooled to the necessity of
+sacrifice. Freedom stood upon the heights, but the valley was the valley
+of the shadow of death.
+
+Alban realized this in a dim way, for he had heard the story from many a
+platform in Whitechapel. Perhaps he had enough selfishness in his nature
+to be glad that the evil sights were hidden from his eyes. His old
+craving for journeying amid narrow streets came upon him here in Warsaw
+and held him fascinated. Knowing nothing of the city or its environment,
+he visited the castle, the barracks, the Saxon gardens, watched the
+winding river Vistula and the Praga suburb beyond, and did not fail to
+spy out the old town, lying beneath the guns of the fortress, a maze of
+red roofs and tortuous streets and alleys wherein the outcasts were
+hiding. To this latter he turned by some good instinct which seemed to
+say that he had an errand there. And here little Lois Boriskoff touched
+him upon the shoulder and bade him follow her--just as imagination had
+told him would be the case. She had come up to him so silently that even
+a trained ear might not have detected her footstep. Whence she came or
+how he could not say. The street wherein they met was one of the
+narrowest he had yet discovered. The crazy eaves almost touched above
+his head--the shops were tenanted by Jews already awake and crying their
+merchandise. Had Alban been a traveller he would have matched the scene
+only in Nuremberg, the old German town. As it was, he could but stare
+open-mouthed.
+
+Lois--was it Lois? The voice rang familiarly enough in his ears, the
+eyes were those pathetic, patient eyes he had known so well in London.
+But the black hair cut in short and silky curls about the neck, the blue
+engineer's blouse reaching to the knees, the stockings and shoes
+below--was this Lois or some young relative sent to warn him of her
+hiding-place? For an instant he stared at her amazed. Then he
+understood.
+
+"Lois--it is Lois?" he said.
+
+The girl looked swiftly up and down the street before she answered him.
+He thought her very pale and careworn. He could see that her hands were
+trembling while she spoke.
+
+"Go down to the river and ask for Herr Petermann," she said almost in a
+whisper. "I dare not speak to you here, Alb dear. Go down to the river
+and find out the timber-yard--I shall be there when you come."
+
+She ran from him without another word and disappeared in one of the
+rows which diverged from the narrow street and were so many filthy lanes
+in the possession of the scum of Warsaw. To Alban both her coming and
+her going were full of mystery. If Count Sergius had told him the truth,
+the Russian Government wished well not only to her but also to her
+father, the poor old fanatic Paul who was now in the prison at
+Petersburg. Why, then, was it necessary for her to appear in the streets
+of Warsaw disguised as a boy and afraid to exchange a single word with a
+friend from England. The truth astounded him and provoked his curiosity
+intolerably. Was Lois in danger then? Had the Count been lying to him?
+He could come to no other conclusion.
+
+It was not difficult to find Herr Petermann's timber-yard, for many
+Englishmen found their way there and many a ship's captain from Dantzig
+had business with the merry old fellow whom Alban now sought out at
+Lois' bidding. The yard itself might have covered an acre of ground
+perhaps, bordering the river by a handsome quay and showing mighty
+stacks of good wood all ready for the barges or seasoning against next
+year's shipment. Two gates of considerable size admitted the lorries
+that went in from the town, and by them stood the wooden hut at whose
+window inquiries must be made. Here Alban presented himself ten minutes
+after Lois had left him.
+
+"I wish to see Herr Petermann," he said in English.
+
+A young Jew clerk took up a scrap of paper and thrust it forward.
+
+"To write your name, please, mein Herr."
+
+Alban wrote his name without any hesitation whatever. The clerk called a
+boy, who had been playing by a timber stack, and dispatched him in quest
+of his chief.
+
+"From Dantzig, mein Herr?" he asked.
+
+"No," said Alban civilly, "from London."
+
+"Ah," said the clerk, "I think it would be Dantzig. Lot of Englishes
+from Dantzig--you have not much of the woods in Engerland, mein Herr."
+
+He did not expect a reply and immediately applied himself to the useful
+occupation of killing a blue-bottle with the point of his pen. Two or
+three lorries rolled in and out while Alban waited. He could see ships
+passing upon the river and hear the scream of a steam-saw from a shed
+upon his left hand. A soldier passed the gate, but hardly cast a glance
+at the yard. Five minutes must have elapsed before Herr Petermann
+appeared. He held the paper in a thin cadaverous hand as though quite
+unacquainted with his visitor's name and not at all curious to be
+enlightened.
+
+"You are Mr. Kennedy," he said in excellent English.
+
+"Yes," said Alban, "a friend of mine told me to come here."
+
+"It would be upon the business of the English ship--ah, I should have
+remembered it. Please come to my office. I am sorry to have kept you
+waiting."
+
+He was a short man and very fat, clean shaven and a thorough German in
+appearance. Dressed in a very dirty white canvas suit, he shuffled
+rather than walked across the yard, never once looking to the right
+hand or to the left and apparently oblivious of the presence of a
+stranger. This manner had befriended him through all the stormy days
+Warsaw had lately known. Even the police had no suspicion of him. Old
+fat Petermann, who hobnobbed with sailors--what had revolution to do
+with him!
+
+"This way, mein Herr--yonder is my office. When I go to Dantzig by water
+my books go with me. That is very good for the health to live upon the
+water. Now please to cross the plank carefully, for what shall you say
+to me if you fall in? This is my _bureau de travail_--you will tell me
+how you like him by and by."
+
+There were two barges of considerable size moored to the quay and a
+substantial plank bridged the abyss between the stone and the combings
+of the great hatchway. Herr Petermann went first, walking briskly in
+spite of his fat; Alban, no less adroit, followed with a lad's nimble
+foot and was upon the old fellow's heels when they stepped on board. The
+barges, he perceived, were fully laden and covered by heavy tarpaulins.
+Commodious cabins at the stern accommodated the crew--and into one of
+these Herr Petermann now turned, stooping as he went and crying to his
+guest to take care.
+
+"It is rather dark, my friend, but you soon shall be accustomed to that.
+This is my private room, you see. In England you would not laugh at a
+man who works afloat, for you are all sailors. Now, tell me how you like
+it?"
+
+The cabin certainly was beautifully furnished. Walls of polished wood
+had their adornment of excellent seascapes, many of them bought at the
+Paris salon. A bureau with delightful curves and a clock set at the apex
+above the writing-shelf pleased Alban immensely--he thought that he had
+seen nothing more graceful even at "Five Gables"; while the chair to
+match it needed no sham expert to declare its worth. The carpet was of
+crimson, without pattern but elegantly bordered. There were many shelves
+for books, but no evidence of commercial papers other than a great
+staring ledger which was the one eyesore.
+
+"I like your room very much indeed," said Alban upon his swift
+survey--"not many people would have thought of this. We are all afraid
+of the damp in England, and if we talked of a floating office, people
+would think us mad." And then he added--"But you don't come here in
+winter, Herr Petermann--this place is no use to you then?"
+
+Herr Petermann smiled as though he were well pleased.
+
+"Every place has its uses sometimes," he rejoined a little vaguely, "we
+never know what is going to happen to us. That is why we should help
+each other when the occasion arises. You, of course, are visiting Warsaw
+merely as a tourist, Mr. Kennedy?"
+
+"Indeed, no--I have come here to find a very old friend, the daughter--"
+
+"No names, if you please, Mr. Kennedy. You have come here, I think you
+said, to find the son of a very old friend. What makes you suppose that
+I can help you?"
+
+His change of tone had been a marvellous thing to hear--so swift, so
+masterful that Alban understood in a moment what strength of will and
+purpose lay hidden by this bland smile and benevolent manner. Herr
+Petermann was far from being the simple old fellow he pretended to be.
+You never could have named him that if you had heard him speak as he
+spoke those few stern words. Alban, upon his part, felt as though some
+one had slapped him upon the cheek and called him a fool.
+
+"I am very sorry," he blundered--and then recovering himself, he said as
+honestly--"Is there any need to ask me for reasons? Are not our aims the
+same, Herr Petermann?"
+
+"To sell wood, Mr. Kennedy?"
+
+Alban was almost angry.
+
+"I was walking down from the Castle," he began, but again the stern
+voice arrested him.
+
+"Neither names nor history, if your please, Mr. Kennedy. We are here to
+do business together as two honest merchants. All that I shall have to
+ask you is your word, the word of an English gentleman, that nothing
+which transpires upon my premises shall be spoken of outside under any
+circumstances whatever."
+
+"That is very readily given, Herr Petermann."
+
+"Your solemn assurance?"
+
+"My solemn assurance."
+
+The old fellow nodded and smiled. He had become altogether benevolent
+once more and seemed exceedingly pleased with himself and everybody
+else.
+
+"It is fortunate that you should have applied to me," he exclaimed very
+cheerily--"since you are thinking of taking a Polish servant--please do
+not interrupt me--since you are thinking of taking a Polish servant and
+of asking him to accompany you to England, by boat, if you should find
+the journey otherwise inconvenient--I merely put the idea to you--there
+is a young man in my employment who might very honestly be recommended
+to your notice. Is it not lucky that he is here at this moment--on board
+this very barge, Mr. Kennedy?"
+
+Alban looked about him astonished. He half expected to see Lois step out
+of one of the cupboards or appear from the recess beneath Herr
+Petermann's table. The amiable wood merchant enjoyed his perplexity--as
+others of his race he was easily amused.
+
+"Ah, I see that I am troubling you," he exclaimed, "and really there is
+not much time to be lost. Let me introduce this amiable young man to you
+without delay, Mr. Kennedy. I am sure he will be very pleased to see
+you."
+
+He stood up and went to the wall of the cabin nearest to the ship's bow.
+A panel cut in this gave access to the lower deck; he opened it and
+revealed a great empty hold, deftly covered by the tarpaulin and made to
+appear fully loaded to any one who looked at the barge from the shore.
+
+"Here is your friend," he cried with huge delight of his own cleverness,
+"here is the young servant you are looking for, Mr. Kennedy. And mind,"
+he added this in the same stern voice which had exacted the promise,
+"and mind, I have your solemn promise."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A FIGURE IN THE STRAW
+
+
+A little light filtered down through the crevices and betrayed the
+secrets of that strange refuge in all their amazing simplicity. Here was
+neither costly furniture nor any adornment whatsoever. A thick carpet of
+straw, giving flecks of gold wherever the sunlight struck down upon it,
+had been laid to such a depth that a grown man might have concealed
+himself therein. A few empty bales stood here and there as though thrown
+down at hazard; there were coils of rope and great blocks of timber used
+by the stevedores who loaded the barges. But of the common things of
+daily life not a trace. No tables, no chairs, neither bed nor blanket
+adorn this rude habitation. Let a sergeant of police open his lantern
+there and the tousled straw would answer him in mockery. This, for a
+truth, had been the case. Little Lois could tell a tale of Cossacks on
+the barge, even of rifles fired down into the hold, and of a child's
+heart beating so quickly that she thought she must cry out for very pain
+of it. But that was before the men were told that the ship belonged to
+merry Herr Petermann. They went away at once then--to drink the old
+fellow's beer and to laugh with him.
+
+That had been a terrible day and Lois had never forgotten it. Whenever
+old Petermann opened the door of his office now, she would start and
+tremble as though a Cossack's hand already touched her shoulder.
+Sometimes she lay deep down in the straw, afraid to declare herself even
+though a friend's voice called her. And so it was upon that morning of
+Alban's visit.
+
+Old Petermann had shut the cabin door behind him and discreetly left the
+young people together. Seeing little in the deep gloom and his eyes
+blinking wherever he turned them, Alban stood almost knee-deep in straw
+and cried Lois' name aloud.
+
+"Lois--where are you, Lois--why don't you answer me?"
+
+She crept from the depths at his very feet and shaking the straw from
+her pretty hair, she stood upright and put both her hands upon his
+shoulders.
+
+"I am here, Alb dear, just waiting for you. Won't you kiss me, Alb
+dear?"
+
+He put his arms about her neck and kissed her at her wish--just as a
+brother might have kissed a sister in the hour of her peril.
+
+"I came at once, Lois," he said, "of course I did not understand that it
+would be like this. Why are you here? Whatever has happened--what does
+it all mean? Will you not teach me to understand, Lois?"
+
+"Sit by my side, Alb dear, sit down and listen to me. I want you to know
+what your friends have been doing. Oh, I have been so lonely, so
+frightened, and I don't deserve that. You know that my father is in
+prison, Alb--the Count told you that?"
+
+"I heard it before I left England, Lois. You did not answer my letters?"
+
+"I was ashamed to, dear. That was the first thing they taught me at the
+school--to be ashamed to write to you until you would not be ashamed to
+read my letters. Can't you understand, Alb? Wasn't I right to be
+ashamed?"
+
+She buried her head upon his breast and put a little hot hand into his
+own. A great tenderness toward her filled his whole being and brought a
+sense of happiness very foreign to him lately. How gentle and kindly
+this little waif of fortune had ever been. And how even those few weeks
+of a better schooling had improved her. She had shed all the old
+vulgarities--she was just a simple schoolgirl as he would have wished
+her to be.
+
+"We are never right to be ashamed before those who love us," Alban said
+kindly; "you did not write to me and how was I to know what had
+happened? Of course, your father told you what I had been doing and why
+I went away from Union Street? It was all his kindness. I know it now
+and I have come to Russia to thank him--when he is free. That won't be
+very long now that I have found you. They were frightened of you,
+Lois--they thought you were going to betray their secrets to the
+Revolutionary party. I knew that you would not do so--I said so all
+along."
+
+She looked up at him with glowing eyes, and putting her lips very close
+to his ear she said:
+
+"I loved you, Alb--I never could have told them while I loved you--not
+even to save my father, and God knows how much I love him. Did not they
+say that you were very happy with Mr. Gessner? There would have been no
+more happiness if I had told them."
+
+"And that is what kept you silent, Lois?"
+
+She would not answer him, but hiding her face again, she asked him a
+question which surprised him greatly.
+
+"Do you know why the police wished to arrest me, Alb dear?"
+
+"How could I know that, Lois?"
+
+"It was the Count who told them to do so. He is only deceiving you,
+dear. He does not want to release my father and will never do so. If I
+were in prison too, he thinks that Mr. Gessner would be quite safe. Do
+not trust the Count if you would help us. My people understand him and
+they will punish him some day. He has done a great wrong to many in
+Warsaw, and he deserves to be punished. You must remember this, dear,
+when he promises my father's freedom. He is not telling you the
+truth--he is only asking you to punish me."
+
+"But, Lois, what have you done, what charge can they bring against a
+little schoolgirl?"
+
+"I am my father's daughter," she said proudly, "that is why they would
+punish me. Oh, you don't know, dear. Even the little children are
+criminals in Warsaw. My father escaped from Saghalen and I have no right
+to live in Russia. When he sent me to school here, I did not come under
+my own name, they called me Lois Werner and believed I was a German.
+Then my people heard that Count Sergius wished to have me arrested, and
+they took me away from the school and brought me here. Herr Petermann is
+one of my father's oldest friends. He has saved a great many who would
+be in prison but for his kindness. We can trust Herr Petermann, dear--he
+will never betray us."
+
+Alban understood, but he had no answer ready for her. All that she had
+told him filled him with unutterable contempt toward the men he had but
+lately considered as his patrons and his friends. The polished, courtly
+Sergius, his master Richard Gessner--to what duplicity had they not
+stooped, nay, to what treachery? For they had sent him into Russia, not
+to befriend this child, but to put the ultimate shame of a Russian
+prison upon her--the cell, the lash, the unnamable infamy. As in a flash
+he detected the whole conspiracy and laid it bare. He, Alban Kennedy,
+had been chosen as their instrument--he had been sent to Poland to
+condemn this little friend of the dreadful years to the living death in
+a Russian prison. The blood raced in his veins at the thought. Perhaps
+for the first time in his life he knew the meaning of the word anger.
+
+"Lois," he exclaimed presently, "if Mr. Gessner does not set your father
+free, I myself will tell your people. That is the message I am going to
+send to him to-day. Count Sergius will not lie to me again--I shall tell
+him so when I return."
+
+She started up in wild alarm.
+
+"You must not do it--I forbid it," she cried, closing her white arms
+about his neck as though to protect him already from his enemies. "Oh,
+my dear, you do not know the Russian people, you do not know what it
+means to stand against the police here and have them for your enemies.
+Mr. Gessner is their friend. The Government would do a great deal to
+serve him--my father says so. If Count Sergius heard that you had met
+me, we should both be in prison this night--ah, dear God, what a prison,
+what suffering--and I have seen it myself, the women cowering from the
+lash, the men beaten so that they cut the flesh from their faces. That's
+what happens to those who go against the Government, dear Alb--but not
+to you because you love me."
+
+She clung to him hysterically, for this long vigil had tried her nerves
+and the shadow of discovery lay upon her always. It had been no surprise
+to her to find Alban in Warsaw, for the Revolutionary Committee in
+London had informed her friends by cable on the very day that Count
+Sergius had left. She knew exactly how he had come, where he had
+stopped, and when to seek him out. But now that his arms were about her,
+she dreaded a new separation and was almost afraid to release his hand
+from hers.
+
+"You will not leave me, Alban," she said--a new dignity coming to her
+suddenly as though some lesson, not of the school, but of life, had
+taught it to her--"you will take me to London with you--yes, yes, dear,
+as your servant. That is what my friends wish, they have thought it all
+out. I am to go as your servant and you must get a passport for me--for
+Lois Werner, and then if you call me by my own name no one will know.
+There we can see Mr. Gessner together and speak of my father. I will
+promise him that his secret shall never be known. He will trust me,
+Alban, because I promise him."
+
+Alban stooped and kissed her upon the lips.
+
+"No," he said, "the work must be done here in Russia, Lois. I am called
+to do it and I go now. Let me find you at the same time to-morrow, and I
+will tell you what I have done. God bless you, Lois. It is happiness to
+be with you again."
+
+Their lips met, their arms unclasped reluctantly. A single tap upon the
+panel of the cabin brought that merry old fellow, Herr Petermann, to
+open to them. Alban told him in a sentence what had happened and
+hastened back to the hotel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+AN INSTRUCTION TO THE POLICE
+
+
+Count Sergius was a little more than uneasy when Alban returned--he was
+suspicious. A highly trained agent of Government himself, he rarely
+permitted any circumstance, however trifling, to escape him; and this
+circumstance of tardiness was not trifling.
+
+"He has met the girl," the argument went, "and she is detaining him with
+a fine story of her wrongs. He may learn that we have tricked him and
+that would be troublesome. Certainly I was a fool not to have had him
+watched--but, then, his first night in Warsaw and he a stranger! We
+shall make up for lost time at once. I will see the Chief and give
+instructions. A dove does not go but once to the nest. We will take
+wings ourselves next time."
+
+By which it will be perceived that he blamed himself for having lost a
+great opportunity and determined not to do so a second time. His whole
+purpose in coming to Warsaw had been to track down Boriskoff's daughter
+and to hand her over to the police. This he owed to his employers, the
+Government, and to his friend, Richard Gessner--than whom none would pay
+a better price for the service. And when it were done, then he imagined
+that nothing in the world would be easier than to excuse himself to this
+amiable lad and to take him back to England without any loss of time
+whatever. In all a pretty plan, lacking only the finer judgment to
+discern the strength of the enemy's force and not to despise them.
+
+Alban entered the sitting-room just as the Count had determined to have
+his breakfast. It was nearly twelve o'clock then and the fierce heat of
+the day made the streets intolerable. Few people were abroad in the
+great avenue--there was no repetition of the disturbance of yesterday,
+nor any Cossack going at a gallop. Down below in the restaurant a bevy
+of smartly dressed women ate and gossiped to the music of a good
+Hungarian band. From distant streets there came an echo of gongs and the
+muffled hum of wheels; the sirens of the steam-tugs screamed incessantly
+upon the sleepy river.
+
+Whatever the Count's curiosity may have been, he had the wit to hide it
+when Alban appeared. Adopting a well-feigned tone of raillery, he spoke
+as men speak when another has been absent and has no good excuse to
+make.
+
+"I will ask no questions," he said with mock solemnity--"A man who
+forgets how to breakfast is in a bad way. That is to suppose that you
+have not breakfasted--ah, forgive me, she makes coffee like a chef,
+perhaps, and there is no Rhine wine to match the gold of her hair. Let
+us talk politics, history, the arts--anything you like. I am absolutely
+discreet, Mr. Kennedy, I have forgotten already that you were late."
+
+Alban drew a chair to the table and began to eat with good appetite. His
+sense of humor was strong enough to lead him to despise such talk at any
+time, but to-day it exasperated him. Understanding perfectly well what
+was in the Count's mind, he was not to be trapped by any such artifice.
+Honesty is a card which a diplomatist rarely expects an opponent to
+hold. Alban held such a card and determined to play it without loss of
+time.
+
+"I have seen Lois Boriskoff," he said.
+
+"Again--that is quick work."
+
+The Count looked up, still smiling.
+
+"I told you that we should have no difficulties," he exclaimed.
+
+Alban helped himself to some superb bisque soup and permitted the waiter
+to fill his glass from a flask of Chablis.
+
+"It was quite an accident upon my part. I went up to the Castle as you
+advised me and then down into the old town. Lois is with her friends
+there. I have had a long talk to her and now I understand everything."
+
+The Count nodded his head and sipped his wine. The frankness of all this
+deceived him but not wholly. The boy had discovered something--it
+remained to be seen how much.
+
+"You are successful beyond hope," he exclaimed presently, "this will be
+great news for Mr. Gessner. Of course, you asked her plainly what had
+happened?"
+
+"She told me without my asking, Count. Now I understand everything--for
+the first time."
+
+The tone of the reply arrested Sergius' attention and brought a frown to
+his face. He kept his eyes upon Alban when next he spoke.
+
+"Those people are splendid liars," he remarked as though he had been
+expecting just such a story--"of course she spoke about me. I can almost
+imagine what she said."
+
+"It was a very great surprise to me," Alban rejoined, and with so simple
+an air that any immediate reply seemed impossible. For five minutes they
+ate and drank in silence. Then Count Sergius, excusing himself, stood up
+and went to the window.
+
+"Is she to come to this hotel?" he asked anon.
+
+"She would be very foolish to do so, Count."
+
+"Foolish, my dear fellow, whatever do you mean?"
+
+"I mean what I say--that she would be mad to put herself into your
+power."
+
+The Count bit his lip. It had been many years since so direct an insult
+had been offered to him, and yet he did not know how to answer it.
+
+"I see that these people have been lying to you as I thought," he
+rejoined sharply, "is it not indiscreet to accept the word of such a
+person?"
+
+"You know perfectly well that it is not, Count. You brought me to Warsaw
+to help you to arrest Lois Boriskoff. Well, I am not going to do so and
+that is all."
+
+"Are you prepared to say the same to your friend in London--will you
+cable that news to Mr. Gessner?"
+
+"I was going to do so without any loss of time. You can send the message
+for me if you like."
+
+"Nothing will be easier. Let me take it down at your dictation. Really I
+am not offended. You have been deceived and are right to say what you
+think. Our friend at Hampstead shall judge between us."
+
+He lighted a cigarette with apparent unconcern and sat down before the
+writing-table near the window.
+
+"Now," he asked, "how shall we put it to him?"
+
+Alban came over and stood by his side.
+
+"Say that Paul Boriskoff must be released by his intervention without
+any condition whatever."
+
+"He will never consent to that."
+
+"He will have to consent, Count Sergius. His personal safety depends
+upon it."
+
+"But, my dear boy, what of the girl? Are you going to leave her here to
+shout our friend's secret all over Warsaw?"
+
+"She has not spoken and she will not speak, Count."
+
+"Ah, you are among the credulous. Your confidence flatters her, I fear."
+
+"It is just--she has never lied to me."
+
+The Count shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I will send your message," he said.
+
+He wrote the cable in a fine pointed hand and duly delivered it to the
+waiter. His own would follow it ten minutes later--when he had made up
+his mind how to act. A dangerous thought had come to him and begun to
+obsess his mind. This English boy, he was saying, might yet be a more
+dangerous enemy than the girl they had set out to trap. It might yet be
+necessary to clap them both in the same prison until the whole truth
+were known. He resolved to debate it at his leisure. There was plenty of
+time, for the police were watching all the exits from the city, and if
+Lois Boriskoff attempted to pass out, God help her.
+
+"We must not expect an answer to this before dinner," he said, holding
+out the message for the waiter to take it. "If you think it all right,
+we can proceed to amuse ourselves until the reply comes. Warsaw is
+somewhat a remarkable city as you will already have seen. Some of its
+finest monuments have been erected to celebrate the execution of its
+best patriots. Every public square stands for an insurrection. The
+castle is fortified not against the stranger but the citizen--those guns
+you tell me about were put there by Nicolas to remind us that he would
+stand no nonsense. We are the sons of a nation which, officially, does
+not exist--but we honor our dead kings everywhere and can show you some
+of Thorwaldsen's finest monuments to them. Let us go out and see these
+wonders if you are willing."
+
+The apparent digression served him admirably, for it permitted him to
+think. As many another in the service of the autocracy, he had a
+sterling love for Poland in its historical aspect, and was as proud as
+any man when he uttered the name of a Sobieski, a Sigismund or a
+Ladislaus. Revolution as a modern phase he despised. To him there were
+but people and nobles, and the former had become vulgar disturbers of
+the Czar's peace who must be chastened with rods. His own career
+depended altogether upon his callous indifference to mere human
+sympathies.
+
+Alban could offer no objection to visit Warsaw under such a pleasant
+guide and he also welcomed the hours of truce. It came to him that the
+Count might honestly doubt Lois' word and that, knowing nothing of her,
+he would have had little reason to trust her. The morning passed in a
+pleasant stroll down the Senatorska where are the chief shops of Moscow.
+Here the Count insisted upon buying his English friend a very beautiful
+amber and gold cigarette-case, to remind him, as he said, of their
+quarrel.
+
+"It was very natural," he admitted, "I know these people so well. They
+talk like angels and act like devils. You will know more about them in
+good time. If I have interfered, it was at my friend Gessner's wish. I
+shall leave the matter in his hands now. If he accepts the girl's word,
+he is perfectly at liberty to do so. To me it is a matter of absolute
+indifference."
+
+Alban took the cigarette-case but accepted it reluctantly. He could not
+resist the charm of this man's manner nor had he any abiding desire to
+do so. As far as that went, there was so much to see in these bright
+streets, so many odd equipages, fine horses, prettily dressed women,
+magnificent soldiers, that his interest was perpetually enchained and he
+uttered many exclamations of surprised delight very foreign to his usual
+manner.
+
+"I cannot believe that this is the city we saw yesterday," he declared
+as the Count called a drosky and bade the driver make a tour of the
+avenues and the gardens--"you would think the people were the happiest
+in the world. I have never seen so many smiling faces before."
+
+The Count understood the situation better.
+
+"Life is sweet to them because of its uncertainty. They live while they
+can. When I used to fish in your English waters, they sent me to a river
+where the Mayfly was out--ah, that beautiful, fluttering creature which
+may live one minute or may live five. He struggles up from the bottom of
+the river, you remember, and then, just as he has extended his splendid
+wings, up comes a great trout and swallows him--the poor thing of ten or
+twenty or a hundred seconds. Here we struggle up through the social
+ranks, and just when the waters of intrigue fascinate us and we go to
+play Narcissus to them, up comes the official trout and down his throat
+we go. Some day there will be so many of us that the trout will be
+gorged and unable to move. Then he will go to the cooking-pot--but not
+in our time, I think."
+
+Alban remained silent. That "not in our time" seemed so strange a saying
+when he recalled the threats and the promises of the fanatics of Union
+Street. Was this fine fellow deceiving himself, or was he like the
+Russian bureaucracy, simply ignorant? The lad of twenty could not say,
+but he made a shrewder guess at the truth than the diplomatist by his
+side.
+
+They visited the Lazienki Park, passing many of Warsaw's famous people
+as they went, and so affording the Count many opportunities for
+delightful little histories in which such men excel. No pretty woman
+escaped his observation, few the rigors of his tongue. He could tell you
+precisely when Madame Latienski began to receive young Prince Nicolas at
+her house and the exact terms in which old Latienski objected to the
+visits. Priests, jockeys, politicians, actors--for these he had a
+distinguishing gesture of contempt or pity or gracious admiration. The
+actresses invariably recognized him with alluring smiles, which he
+received condescendingly as who should say--well, you were fortunate.
+When they arrived at the Moktowski barracks, a group of officers quickly
+surrounded them and conducted them to a place where champagne corks
+might pop and cigarettes be lighted. This was but the beginning of a
+round of visits which Alban found tiresome to the last degree. How many
+glasses of wine he sipped, how many cigarettes he lighted, he could not
+have told you for a fortune. It was nearly five o'clock when they
+returned to the hotel and the Count proposed an hour's repose "de
+travail."
+
+"There is no message from your friend," he said candidly, "no doubt your
+telegram has troubled him. Perhaps we shall get it by dinner-time. You
+must be very tired and perhaps you would like to lie down."
+
+Alban did not demur and he went to his own room, and taking off his
+boots he lay upon his bed and quickly fell fast asleep. Count Sergius,
+however, had no intention of doing any such thing. He was closeted with
+the Chief of the Police ten minutes after they had returned, and in
+twenty he had come to a resolution.
+
+"This young Englishman will meet the girl Lois Boriskoff to-morrow
+morning," he said. "Arrest the pair of them and let me know when it is
+done. But mind you--treat him as though he were your own son. I have my
+reasons."
+
+The Chief merely bowed. He quite understood that such a man as Sergius
+Zamoyski would have very good reasons indeed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE DAWN OF THE DAY
+
+
+Count Sergius believed that he had settled the affaire Gessner when he
+gave his instructions to the Chief of the Police, and the subsequent
+hours found him exceedingly pleased with himself. An artist in his
+profession, he flattered himself that it had all come about in the
+manner of his own anticipations and that he would be able to carry back
+to London a story which would not only win upon a rich man's gratitude,
+but advance him considerably in the favor of those who could well reward
+his labors.
+
+This was an amiable reflection and one that ministered greatly to his
+self-content. No cloud stood upon the horizon of his self-esteem nor did
+shadows darken his glowing hopes. He had promised Richard Gessner to
+arrest the girl Lois Boriskoff, and arrested she would be before twelve
+o'clock to-morrow. As for this amiable English lad, so full of fine
+resolutions, so defiant, so self-willed, it would be a good jest enough
+to clap him in a police-station for four-and-twenty hours and to bow him
+out again, with profuse apologies, when the girl was on her way to
+Petersburg to join her amiable father in the Schlusselburg.
+
+For Alban personally he had a warm regard. The very honesty of his
+character, his habit of saying just what he meant (so foreign to the
+Count's own practice), his ingenuous delight in all that he saw, his
+modern knight-errantry based upon an absurdly old-fashioned notion of
+right and wrong and justice and all such stuff as that, these were the
+very qualities to win the admiration of a man of the world who possessed
+none of them. Count Sergius said that the lad must suffer nothing. His
+intrigues with the daughter of a Polish anarchist were both dangerous
+and foolish. And was he not already the acknowledged lover of Anna
+Gessner, whom he must marry upon his return to London. Certainly, it
+would be very wrong not to lock him up, and he, Sergius, was not going
+to take the responsibility of any other course upon his already
+over-burdened shoulders.
+
+These being his ideas, he found it amusing enough to meet Alban at the
+dinner-table and to speak of to-morrow and its programme. The reply to
+the cable they had dispatched to London lay already warm in his pocket,
+sent straight to him from the post-office as the police had directed. It
+was fitting that he should open the ball with a lie about this, and add
+thereto any other pleasant fancy which a fertile imagination dictated.
+
+"Gessner does not cable us," he said at that moment of the repast when
+the glasses are first filled and the tongue is loosed. "I suppose he has
+gone over to Paris again as he hinted might be the case. If there is no
+news to-morrow, we must reconsider the arguments and see how we stand.
+You know that I am perfectly willing to be guided by him and will do
+nothing of my own initiative. If he can procure the old man's freedom,
+I will be the first to congratulate you. Meanwhile, I am not to forget
+that we have a box at the opera and that _Huguenots_ is on the bill.
+When I am not in musical circles, I confess my enjoyment of _Huguenots_.
+Meyerbeer always seemed to me a grand old charlatan who should have run
+a modern show in New York. He wrote one masterpiece and some five miles
+of rubbish--but why decry a great work because there are also those
+which are not great. Besides, I am not musician enough really to enjoy
+the Ring. If it were not for the pretty women who come to my box to
+escape ennui, I would find Wagner intolerable."
+
+Alban, very quiet and not a little excited to-night, differed from this
+opinion altogether.
+
+"My father was a musician," he said. "I believe that if he had not been
+a parson, he would have been a great musician. I don't know very much
+about music myself, but the first time that Mr. Gessner took me to hear
+one of Wagner's operas, I seemed to live in a new world. It could not
+have been just the desire to like it, for I had made up my mind that it
+would be very dry. There is something in such music as that which is
+better than all argument. I shall never forget the curious sensation
+which came to me when first I heard the overture to Tannhaeuser played by
+a big orchestra. You will not deny that it is splendid?"
+
+"Undoubtedly it's fine--especially where the clarinets came in and you
+seem to have five hundred mice running up your back. I am not going to
+be drawn into an argument on the point--these likes and dislikes are
+purely individual. To me it seems perfectly ridiculous that one man
+should quarrel with another because a third person has said or written
+something about which they disagree. In politics, of course, there is
+justification. The Have-Nots want to get money out of the Haves and the
+pockets supply the adjectives. But in the arts, which exist for our
+pleasure,--why, I might as well fall foul of you because you do not like
+caviar and are more partial to brunettes than to blondes. My taste is
+all the other way--I dote upon caviar; golden-haired women are to me
+just a little more attractive than the angels. But, of course, that does
+not speak for their tempers."
+
+He laughed at the candor of it, and looking round the brilliant
+restaurant where they dined to-night, he began to speak in a low tone of
+Russian and Polish women generally.
+
+"The Polish ladies are old-fashioned enough to love one man at a
+time--in their own country, at any rate. The Russians, on the contrary,
+are less selfish. A Russian woman is often the victim of three
+centuries, of suppressed female ambitions. She has large ideas, fierce
+passions, an excellent political sense--and all these must be cooled by
+the wet blanket of a very ordinary domesticity. In reality, she is not
+domesticated at all and would far sooner be following her lover--the one
+chosen for the day--down the street with a flag. Here you have the
+reason why a Russian woman appeals to us. She is rarely beautiful--some
+of them would themselves admit the deficiency--but she is never an
+embarrassment. Tell her that you are tired of her and you will discover
+that she was about to stagger your vanity by a similar confidence. In
+these days of revolution, she is seen at her best. Fear neither of God
+nor man will restrain her. We have more of the show of religion and less
+of the spirit in Russia than in any other country in the world. Here in
+Poland, it is a little different. Some of our women are as the idealists
+would have them to be. But there are others--or the city would be
+intolerable."
+
+Alban had lived too long in a world of mean cynics that this talk should
+either surprise or entertain him. Men in Union Street spoke of women
+much as this careless fellow did, rarely generous to them and often
+exceedingly unjust. His own ideals he had confessed wholly to none, not
+even to Anna Gessner in the moment of their greatest intimacy. That fine
+old-world notion of the perfect womanhood, developed to the point of
+idolatry by the Celts of the West, but standing none the less as a
+witness to the whole world's desire, might remain but as a memory of his
+youth--he would neither surrender it nor admit that it was unworthy of
+men's homage. When Sergius spoke of his own countrywomen, Alban could
+forgive him all other estimates. And this was as much as to say that the
+image of Lois was with him even in that splendid place, and that some
+sentiment of her humble faith and sacrifice had touched him to the
+quick.
+
+They went to the opera as the Count had promised and there heard an
+indifferent rendering of the _Huguenots_. A veritable sisterhood of
+blondes, willing to show off Count Sergius to some advantage, came from
+time to time to his box and was by him visited in turn. Officers in
+uniform crowded the foyers and talked in loud tones during the finest
+passages. A general sense of unrest made itself felt everywhere as
+though all understood the danger which threatened the city and the
+precarious existence its defenders must lead. When they quitted the
+theatre and turned into one of the military clubs for supper, the common
+excitement was even more marked and ubiquitous enough to arrest the
+attention even of such a _flaneur_ as Sergius.
+
+"These fellows are sitting down to supper with bombs under their
+chairs," he said _sotto voce_. "That is to say, each thinks that a bomb
+is there and hopes that it will kill his neighbor. We have no sympathy
+in our public life here--the conditions are altogether against it.
+Imagine five hundred men upon the deck of a ship which has struck a
+rock, and consider what opportunities there would be to deplore the
+drowned. In Russia each plays for his own safety and does not care a
+rouble what becomes of the man next door. Such a fact is both our
+strength and our weakness--our strength because opportunities make men,
+and our weakness because we have no unity of plan which will enable us
+to fight such a combination as is now being pitted against us. I myself
+believe that the old order is at an end. That is why I have a villa in
+the south of France and some excellent apartments in Paris."
+
+"You believe that the Revolutionaries will be victorious?" Alban asked
+in his quiet way.
+
+"I believe that the power is passing from the hands of all autocratic
+governments, and that some phase of socialism will eventually be the
+policy of all civilized nations."
+
+"Then what is the good of going to England, Count, if you believe that
+it will be the same story there?"
+
+"It is only a step on the road. You will never have a revolution in your
+country, you have too much common sense. But you will tax your bourgeois
+until you make him bankrupt, and that will be your way of having all
+things in common. In America the workingman is too well off and the
+country is too young to permit this kind of thing yet. Its day will be
+much later--but it will come all the same, and then the deluge. Let us
+rejoice that we shall not see these things in our time. It is something
+to know that our champagne is assured to us."
+
+He lifted a golden glass and drank a vague toast heartily. Others in the
+Club were frankly intoxicated and many a heated scene marked the
+progress of unceremonious and impromptu revels. Young officers, who
+carried their lives in their hands every hour, showed their contempt of
+life in many bottles. Old men, stern and gray at dawn, were so many
+babbling imbeciles at midnight. The waiters ran to and fro ceaselessly,
+their faces dripping with perspiration and their throats hoarse with
+shouting. The musicians fiddled as though the end of all things was at
+hand and must not surprise them at a broken bar. In Russia the scene was
+familiar enough, but to the stranger incomprehensible and revolting.
+Alban felt as one released from a pit of gluttony when at three in the
+morning Sergius staggered to his feet and bade a servant call him in a
+drosky.
+
+"We have much to do to-morrow," he muttered, "much to do--and then, ah,
+my friend, if we only knew what we meant when we say 'and then.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+COUNT ZAMOYSKI SLEEPS
+
+
+A glimmer of wan daylight in the Count's bedroom troubled him while he
+undressed and he drew the curtains with angry fingers. Down there in the
+dismal streets the Cossacks watched the night-birds going home to bed
+and envied them alike their condition and its consequences. If Sergius
+rested a moment at the window, it was to mark the presence of these men
+and to take heart at it. And this is to say that few who knew him in the
+social world had any notion of the life he lived apart or guessed that
+authority stood to him for his shield and buckler against the unknown
+enemies his labors had created. Perhaps he rarely admitted the truth
+himself. Light and laughter and music were his friends in so far as they
+permitted him to forget the inevitable or to deride it.
+
+Here in this room of eloquent shadows he was a different man indeed from
+the fine fellow of the opera and the barracks--a haunted secret man
+looking deep into the mysteries and weary for the sun. The brilliant
+scene he had but just quitted could now be regretted chiefly because he
+needed the mental anaesthetic with which society alone could supply him.
+Pale and gaunt and inept in his movements, few would have recognized the
+Sergius Zamoyski of the dressing-room or named him for the diplomatist
+whose successes had earned the warmest encomiums of harassed authority.
+Herein lay a testimony to his success which his bitterest enemy would
+not have denied him. None knew better than he that the day of reckoning
+had come for all who opposed revolution in Russia, none had anticipated
+that day with a greater personal dread.
+
+He closed the curtains, thankful that the Cossacks stood sentinels
+without, and hungering for sleep which had been denied to him so often
+lately. If he had any consolation of his thoughts, it lay in the
+comparative secrecy of his present mission and the fact that to-day
+would accomplish its purpose. The girl Lois had not confessed Richard
+Gessner's secret and she would stand presently where confession would
+not help her. As for this agreeable youth, who certainly had been her
+lover, he must be coerced into silence, threatened, cajoled, bought.
+Sergius remembered Alban's fine gospel of life and laughed when he
+recalled it. This devotion to humanity, this belief in great causes,
+what was it worth when a woman laughed and her rosy lips parted for a
+kiss? The world is too busy for the pedants who would stem the social
+revolution, was his argument--the rich men have too much to do to hide
+their common frailties that they should put on the habits of the friars.
+Let this hot gospeller acquire a fortune and he would become as the
+others before a month had passed. The women would see to that--for were
+not two of them already about the business?
+
+He closed his curtains and undressed with a clumsy hand upon the buttons
+and many a curse at the obstinate things. The intense silence of the
+morning hour depressed him and he wondered that the hotel should sleep
+so soundly. His own door was both locked and bolted--he had a pistol in
+his travelling-bag and would finger it with grim satisfaction at such
+moments as these. Hitherto he had owed much to his very bravado, to a
+habit of going in and out among the people freely, and deriding all
+politics as a fool's employment. Latterly he had been wondering how far
+this habit would protect him, had made shrewd guesses at the truth and
+had come to the stage of question. Yesterday's work helped him to
+confirm these vague suspicions. How came it that Lois Boriskoff was able
+to warn this young Englishman, why had she come immediately to his hotel
+and followed him to the old quarters of the city? This could only mean
+that her friends had telegraphed the information from London, that every
+step of the journey had been reported and that a promising plan of
+action had been decided upon. Sergius dreaded this more than anything
+that could have happened to him. They will ask what share I had in it,
+he told himself; and he knew what the answer to that must be. Let them
+but suspect a hundredth part of the truth and he might not have twenty
+hours to live.
+
+It had been a splendid life so far and a sufficient atonement for the
+dreaded hours apart. There in his own room he gave battle to the
+phantoms by recalling the faces of the pretty women he had cajoled and
+defeated, the houses of pride he had destroyed, the triumphs he had
+numbered and the recompense he had enjoyed. To be known to none save as
+a careless idler, to pass as a figure of vengeance unrecognized across
+the continents, to be the idol of the police in three cities, to have
+men running to and fro at his command though they knew not by whose
+order they were sent, here was wine of life so intoxicating that a man
+might sell his very soul to possess it. Sergius did not believe that
+there was any need for such a bargain as this--he had been consistently
+successful hitherto in eluding even the paltriest consequences of his
+employment--but the dark hours came none the less, and coming, they
+whispered a word which even the bravest may shudder to hear.
+
+He slept but fitfully, listening for any sounds from the city without
+and anxious for the hotel to awaken to its daily routine. The cooler
+argument of the passing hour declared it most unlikely that any plan
+would be ventured until Lois Boriskoff's fate were known and Alban had
+visited her this morning. If there were danger to be apprehended, the
+moment of it would arrive when the girl was arrested and the story of
+Alban Kennedy's misadventure made known to her friends. Sergius began to
+perceive that he must not linger an hour in Warsaw when this were done.
+He could direct operations as easily from Paris or London as from this
+conspicuous hotel, and with infinitely less risk to himself and his
+empire. Sometimes he wondered that he had been so foolish as to enter
+Russia at all. Why could he not have telegraphed to the Chief of the
+Police to arrest the girl as soon as might be and to flog her into a
+confession. The whip would have purchased her secret readily enough,
+then the others could have been arrested also and Gessner left reassured
+beyond question. Sergius blamed himself very much that he had permitted
+a finer chivalry to guide his acts. "I came because this young man
+persuaded me to come," he admitted, and added the thought that he had
+been a fool for his pains.
+
+This would have been about four o'clock of the morning. He slept a
+little while upon it, but woke again at five and sat up in bed to mark a
+step on the landing without and to ask himself who had the right to be
+there at such an hour. When he had waited a little while, he came to the
+conclusion that two people were approaching his door and making little
+secret of their coming. Presently a knock informed him that he had
+nothing whatever to fear; and upon asking the question "What do you
+want?" a voice answered immediately, "From the bureau, your excellency,
+with a letter." This he concluded to mean that the Chief of the Police
+had some important news to convey to him and had sent his own messenger
+to the hotel.
+
+"Wait a moment and I will let you in," he replied, and asked, "I suppose
+you can wait a little while?"
+
+"It is very urgent, excellency--you had better open at once."
+
+The Count sprang up from his bed and drew the curtains back from the
+window. A warm glow of sunlight instantly suffused the cold room and
+warmed it with welcome beams. Down there in the streets the Cossacks
+still nodded upon patient horses as though no event of the night had
+disturbed them. A drosky passed, driving an old man to the railway
+station--there were porters at the doors of some of the houses and a few
+wagons going down toward the river. All this Sergius perceived
+instantly in one swift vision. Then he opened the door and admitted the
+officer.
+
+"There were two of you," he exclaimed, peering down the passage.
+
+"It is true, excellency, myself and the night-porter, but he has gone to
+sleep again."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"From the Chief, excellency, with this letter."
+
+He held out a great square document, grotesquely sealed and carefully
+folded. A small man with a pockmarked face, he wore the uniform of an
+ordinary gendarme and aped that role to perfection. Saluting gravely, he
+permitted the letter to pass from his hands. Then he closed the door and
+leaned his back against it.
+
+"I am to take an answer to the bureau, excellency."
+
+The Count read a few lines of the document and looked up uneasily.
+
+"You say that you were commanded to wake me up--for this?"
+
+"Those are my orders."
+
+"Zaniloff must have lost his wits--there was nothing else?"
+
+The man took one stride forward.
+
+"Yes," he cried in a low voice, "there was this, excellency."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Alban slept no better than his friend; in truth he hardly closed his
+eyes until they waked him and told him of the tragedy. He had said
+little to Sergius during the evening, but the perplexities of the long
+day remained with him and were not to be readily silenced.
+
+That his patron sent no reply to their urgent telegram he thought a
+little strange. Mr. Gessner's silence could only mean that he had left
+London suddenly, perhaps had set out to join them in Warsaw. Meanwhile
+Alban perceived very clearly in what a position of danger Lois stood and
+how difficult it would be to help her if others did not come to his
+assistance.
+
+Accustomed to regard all the Revolutionaries from the standpoint of the
+wild creatures who talked nonsense in the East End of London, he could
+not believe in old Herr Petermann's optimism or pay much attention to
+the wild plan of escape he had devised. It must be absurd to think that
+Lois could leave Poland disguised as a servant. Alban himself would
+readily have recognized her in her disguise if he had been seeking her
+at the time, and the police would very soon detect it when their minds
+were set upon the purpose. In his own opinion, and this was shrewd
+enough, their hope of salvation lay in Richard Gessner's frank
+acceptance of the position. The banker had influence enough with the
+Russian authorities to release both Lois and her father. He must do so
+or accept the consequences of his obstinacy.
+
+All this and much more was in Alban's head while he tossed restlessly
+upon his strange bed and waited impatiently for the day. The oddest
+fancies came to him, the most fantastic ideas. Now he would be living in
+London again, a drudge at the works, the nightly companion of little
+Lois, the adventurer of the streets and the slums. Then, as readily, he
+would recall the most trifling incidents of his life in Richard
+Gessner's house, the days of the miracles, the wonderful hours when he
+had worshipped Anna Gessner and believed almost in her divinity. This
+had been a false faith, surely. He knew now that he would never marry
+Anna, and that must mean return to the wilderness, the bitter days of
+poverty and all the old-time strife with circumstance. It would have
+been easier, he thought, if those weeks of wonderland had never been.
+Richard Gessner had done him no service--rich men rarely help those whom
+they patronize for their own ends.
+
+Alban thought of all this, and still being unable to sleep, he fell to
+numbering the hours which stood between him and his meeting with Lois.
+He was sure that she would be ready for him however early his visit
+might be--and he said that he would ring for his coffee at seven o'clock
+and try to go down to the river at eight. If there were no message from
+Mr. Gessner before he left, he thought it would be wise to counsel
+patience for this day at least. In plain truth he was less concerned
+about the diplomatic side of the affair than the personal. An
+overmastering desire for Lois' companionship, the wish to hear her
+voice, to speak to her, to talk as they had talked in the dark days of
+long ago, prevailed above the calm reckoning of yesterday. His
+resolution to defeat Count Sergius at his own game seemed less heroic
+than it had done twelve hours ago. Alban had conceit enough not to fear
+the Count. That incurable faith in British citizenship still upheld him.
+
+Seven had been the hour named by his intention--it was a little after
+six o'clock when he heard a knock upon his bedroom door and started up
+wondering who called him at such an hour.
+
+"Who is there, what do you want?" he cried, with the bedclothes still
+about his shoulders. No one answered this, but the knock was repeated, a
+decisive knock as of one who meant to win admittance.
+
+"All right, I will come in a minute," was now his answer; to which he
+added the question--"Is that you, Count? Do you know it's only just six
+o'clock?"
+
+He opened the door and found himself face to face with the hotel valet,
+an amiable young Frenchman by the name of Malette.
+
+"Monsieur," said the man, "will you please come at once? There has been
+an accident--his excellency is very ill."
+
+"An accident to the Count? Is it serious, Malette?"
+
+"It is very serious, monsieur. They say that he will not live. The
+doctors are with him--I thought that you would wish to know
+immediately."
+
+Alban turned without a word and began to put on his clothes. His hands
+were quite cold and he trembled as though stricken by an ague. When he
+had found a dressing-gown, he huddled it on anyhow and followed Malette
+down the corridor.
+
+"When did this happen, Malette?"
+
+"I do not know, monsieur. One of the servants chanced to pass his
+excellency's door and saw something which frightened him. He called the
+concierge and they waked the Herr Director. Afterwards they sent for the
+police."
+
+"Do they think that the Count was assassinated, then?"
+
+"Ah, that is to find out. The officers will help us to say. Will you go
+in at once, monsieur, or shall I tell the Herr Director?"
+
+Alban said that he would go at once. The young fear to look upon the
+face of death and he was no braver than others of his age. A terrible
+sense of dread overtook him while he stood before the door and heard the
+hushed whispers of those about it. Here a giant police officer had
+already taken up his post as sentinel and he cast a searching glance
+upon all who approached. There were two or three privileged servants
+standing apart and discussing the affair; but a stain upon a crimson
+carpet was more eloquent of the truth than any word. Alban came near to
+swooning as he stepped over it and entered the room without word or
+knock.
+
+They had laid the Count upon the bed and dragged it to the window to
+husband the light. Two doctors, hastily summoned from a neighboring
+hospital, worked like heroes in their shirt sleeves--a nurse in a gray
+dress stood behind them holding sponge and bandages. At the first
+glance, the untrained onlooker would have said that Sergius Zamoyski was
+certainly dead. The intense pallor of his face, the set eyes, the
+stiffened limbs, spoke of the rigor mortis and the finality of tragedy.
+None the less, the surgeons went to work as though all might yet be
+saved. Uttering their orders in the calm and measured tones of those
+whom no scene of death could unnerve, they were unconscious of all else
+but the task before them and its immediate achievement. When they had
+need of anything, they spoke to the Herr Director of the hotel who
+passed on his commands in a sharp decisive tone to a porter who stood
+at his heels. Near by him stood the Chief of the Police, Zaniloff, a
+short burly man who wore a dark green uniform and held his sheathed
+sword lightly in his left hand. These latter looked up when the door
+opened, but the doctors took no notice whatever. There was an
+overpowering odor of anaesthetics in the room although the windows had
+been thrown wide open.
+
+"Is the Count dead?" Alban asked them in a low voice. He had taken a few
+steps toward the bed and there halted irresolute. "What is it, what has
+happened, sir?" he continued, turning to Zaniloff. That worthy merely
+shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"The Count has been assassinated--we believe by a woman. The doctors
+will tell us by and by."
+
+Alban shuddered at the words and took another step toward the bed.
+He felt giddy and faint. The words he had just heard were ringing
+in his ears as a sound of rushing waters. "Has Lois done this
+thing?"--incredible! And yet the man implied as much.
+
+"I cannot stay here," he exclaimed presently, "I must go to my room, if
+you please."
+
+He turned and reeled from the place, ashamed of his weakness, yet unable
+to control it. Outside upon the landing, he discovered that Zaniloff was
+at his elbow and had something to say to him. Speaking sharply and
+autocratically in the Russian tongue, that worthy realized almost
+immediately that he had failed to make himself understood and so called
+the Herr Director to his aid.
+
+"They will require your attendance at the bureau," the Director said
+with an obsequious bow toward Alban--"you must dress at once, sir, and
+accompany this gentleman."
+
+Alban said that he would do so. He was miserably cold and ill and
+trembling still. Knowing nothing of the truth, he believed that they
+were taking him to Lois Boriskoff and that she was already in custody.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+AN INTERLUDE IN PICCADILLY
+
+
+Alban had been fifteen days out of England when Anna Gessner met Willy
+Forrest one afternoon as she was driving a pair of chestnut ponies down
+Piccadilly towards the Circus. He, amiable creature, had just left a
+club and a bridge table which had been worth fifteen pounds to him. The
+gray frock suit he wore suited him admirably. He certainly looked very
+smart and wide-awake.
+
+"Anna, by Jupiter," he cried, as he stepped from the pavement at the
+very corner of Dover Street--"well, if my luck don't beat cock-fighting.
+Where are you off to, Anna--what have you done with the shoving-machine?
+I thought you never aired the gee-gees now. Something new for you, isn't
+it? May I get in and have a pawt? We shall be fined forty bob and costs
+at Marlborough Street if we hold up the traffic. Say, you look ripping
+in this char a bancs, upon my soul you're killing."
+
+She had not meant to stop for him, and half against her wish she now
+reined the ponies in and made room for him. There never had been a day
+in her life since she had known him when she was able to resist
+altogether the blandishments of this pleasant rogue, who made so many
+appeals to her interest. To-day sheer curiosity conquered her. She
+wished above all things to hear what he had done with the extravagant
+cheque her father had sent him.
+
+"I drove the ponies for a change," she said coldly, "we must not be
+unkind to dumb creatures. Do you know, it is most improper that you
+should be seen with me in this carriage, Willy. Just think what my
+father would say if he heard of it."
+
+Willy Forest, to give him his due, rarely devoted much time to
+unpleasant thoughts.
+
+"What's the good of dragging your father in, Anna?" he asked her sagely.
+"I want to have a talk to you and you want to have a talk to me. Where
+shall we go, now? We can't blow the loud trumpet at a tea-shop and a
+hotel is inquisitive. Why not come round to my rooms? There's an old
+charwoman there who will do very well when rumors arise--and she'll make
+us a cup of tea. Why not come, Anna?"
+
+"It's out of the question, Willy. You know that it is. Besides, I am
+never going to speak to you again."
+
+"Oh, that's all right--that's what you used to say when you came over to
+the cottage. We're getting too old for that kind of nonsense, you and I,
+Anna. Suppose I tell your man to wait for us in Berkeley Square. I'll
+say that we are going into the Arcade to look at the motor-cars--and
+they won't let you keep a carriage waiting in Bond Street now. I can
+tell you what I've heard about your friend Alban Kennedy while you're
+cutting me the bread and butter."
+
+Her attention was arrested in an instant.
+
+"What can you know about Mr. Kennedy?" she asked quickly, while her face
+betrayed her interest.
+
+"Oh, I know a lot more than most. I've struck more than one friend of
+his these later days, and a fine time he seems having with the girls out
+yonder. Come over to my rooms and I'll tell you about it. I'm just
+fitting up a bit of a place in the Albany since your good father began
+to encourage virtue. I say, Anna,--he should never have sent me that
+cheque, you know he shouldn't."
+
+It was a masterpiece of impudence, but it won upon her favor none the
+less. She had made up her mind a week ago that Willy Forrest was a
+rogue, a thief, and a charlatan. Yet here she was--for such is
+woman--tolerating his conversation and not unwilling to hear his
+explanations. Upon it all came his insinuation that he had news of
+Alban. Certainly, she did not know how to refuse him.
+
+"You are sure that there is some one in your rooms--I will leave them
+instantly if there is not," she exclaimed, surprised at scruples which
+never had troubled her hitherto. Forrest protested by all the gods that
+the very doubt was an outrage.
+
+"There's a hag about fit to knock down a policeman," he rejoined, with a
+feigned indignation fine to see. "Now be sensible, Anna, and let's get
+out. Are we babes and sucklings or what? Don't make a scene about it. I
+don't want you to come if you'd rather not."
+
+She turned the ponies round almost at the door of the Albany, which they
+had just passed while they talked, and drove up to the door of that
+somewhat dismal abode. A word to her groom to be in Berkeley Square in
+half-an-hour did not astonish that worthy, who was quite accustomed to
+"Miss Hanna's" vagaries. In the corridor before the chambers, Willy laid
+stress upon the point about the charwoman and made much of her.
+
+"I'll ring the old girl up and you can cross-question her if you like.
+She's a regular beauty. Don't you think that I'd deceive you, Anna. Have
+I ever done it in all my miserable life--eh, what?" he said at the door.
+"Now walk right in and I'll order tea. It seems like old times to have
+you about, upon my word it does."
+
+She followed him into the chambers, her anxiety about the charwoman
+absolutely at rest. The rooms themselves were in some little confusion,
+but promised to be splendidly furnished presently. Fine suites of
+furniture were all huddled together like policemen at a scene of public
+rejoicing. The rich curtains, unhung, were neatly folded upon chairs and
+sofas--a few sporting prints relieved the cold monotony of tinted
+walls--the library boasted Ruff and Wisdom for its chief masterpieces.
+Nothing, however, disconcerted Willy Forrest. He had produced that
+charwoman before you could count five.
+
+"Make us a cup of tea, Mrs. Smiggs, will you?" he asked her
+boisterously. "Here's my cousin come to tell me how to plant the
+furniture. We shan't trouble you long--just make love to the kettle and
+say we're in a hurry, will you now, there's a good soul."
+
+Mrs. Smiggs took a sidelong glance at the lady, and tossing a proud but
+tousled head assented to the proposition in far from becoming terms.
+
+"I'm sure, sir, that I'm always willing to oblige," she said
+condescendingly, "if as the young lady wouldn't like me to step out and
+get no cakes nor nothing--"
+
+"No, no, no cakes, thank you, Mrs. Smiggs--just a cup of tea as you can
+make it and that's all. My cousin's carriage is waiting--she won't be
+here ten minutes--eh, what?"
+
+The good woman left them, carrying a retrousse nose at an angle of
+suspicion. Willy Forrest drew an arm-chair towards the window of that
+which would presently be his dining-room, and having persuaded Anna to
+take it, he poised himself elegantly upon the arm of a sofa near by and
+at once invited her confidence.
+
+"Say, Anna, now, what's the good of nonsense? Why did you let the old
+man send me that cheque?"
+
+She began to pull off her gloves, slowly and with contemplative
+deliberation.
+
+"I let him send it because I did not wish to marry you."
+
+"That's just what I thought. You got in a huff about a lot of fool's
+talk on the course and turned it round upon me. Just like a woman--eh,
+what? As if I could prevent your horse going dotty. That was Farrier's
+business, not mine."
+
+"But you let me back the horse."
+
+"Of course I did. He might have won. I was just backing my luck against
+yours. Of course I didn't mean you to lose anything. We were just two
+good pals together, and what I took out of the ring would have been
+yours if you'd asked me. Good Lord, what a mess your father's made of
+it! Me with his five thou in my pocket and you calling me a blackguard.
+You did call me a blackguard--now didn't you, Anna?"
+
+It was very droll to see him sitting there and for a wonder telling her
+something very like the truth. This, however, had been the keystone of a
+moderately successful life. He had always told people that he was a
+scamp--a kind of admission the world is very fond of. In Anna's case he
+found the practice quite useful. It rarely failed to win her over.
+
+"What was I to think?" she exclaimed almost as though her perplexity
+distressed her. "The people say that I have cheated them and you win my
+money. If I don't pay you, you say that I must marry you. Will you deny
+that it is the truth? You won this money from me to compel me to marry
+you?"
+
+Captain Willy Forrest slapped his thigh as though she had told him an
+excellent joke.
+
+"That's the best thing I've heard for a twelvemonth," cried he; "as if
+you were the sort to be caught that way, Anna--by an impostor too, as
+your Little Boy Blue told you at Henley. He said I was an impostor,
+didn't he? Well, he's about right there--I'm not the son of old Sir
+James Forrest--never was, my dear. He was my father's employer, and a
+devilish good servant he had. But I've some claims on his memory all the
+same--and why shouldn't I call myself Forrest if I want to? Now, Anna,
+I'll be as plain with you as a parson at a pigeon match. I do want to
+marry you--I've wanted to marry you ever since I knew you--but if you
+think I'm such a fool as to go about it in the way you say I've done,
+well, then, I'll put right in for the Balmy Stakes and win 'em sure and
+certain. Don't you see that the boot's just on the other leg right
+along? I win your money because I want you to think I'm a decent sort of
+chap when I don't take it. As for the bookies who hissed the horse on
+the course--who's to pity them? Didn't they see the old gee in the
+paddock--eh, what! Hadn't they as good a chance as any of us to spot
+that dotty leg. If I'd a been born with a little white choker round my
+swan's-down, I'd have shouted the news from the mulberry tree. But I
+wasn't, my dear--I'm just one of the ruck on the lookout to make a
+bit--and who'll grease my wheels if I leave my can at home? No, don't
+you think it--I wanted to marry you right enough, but that wasn't the
+road. What your father's paid me, he's going to have back again and
+pretty soon about. Let him give it to the kid who's playing Peep-bo with
+the Polish Venus--I shan't take it, no, not if I come down to a
+porcelain bath in the Poplar Union--and what's more, you know I won't,
+Anna."
+
+His keen eyes searched her face earnestly, much more earnestly than
+their wont, as he asked her this pointed question. Anna, upon her part,
+knew that he had juggled cleverly with the admitted facts of the case
+and yet her interest in his confession waxed stronger every moment. What
+an odd fascination this man exercised upon her. She felt drawn toward
+him as to some destiny she could not possibly escape. And when he spoke
+of Alban, then he had her finally enmeshed.
+
+"What do you know of Mr. Kennedy?" she asked, sitting up very straight
+and turning flashing eyes upon him. "He certainly wouldn't write to
+you. How do you know what he is doing?"
+
+"A little fat bird in a black coat living down Whitechapel way. Oh, I
+don't make any secret of it. I know a man who used to be a parson. He
+began to stick needles into himself, and the Bishop said--what ho! They
+took off his pinafore and he is now teaching Latin outside Aldgate
+Station. He's in with the Polish crowd--I beg your pardon, the gentlemen
+refugees from Poland--who are sewing the buttons on our shirts not far
+from the Commercial Road. Those people knew more about your friend than
+he knows about himself. Ask 'em straight and they'll tell you that he is
+in Warsaw and the girl Lois Boriskoff with him. Whether they've begun to
+keep house, I don't pretend to say. But it's as true as the east wind
+and that's gospel. You ask your father to make his own inquiries. I
+don't want to take it on myself. If he can tell you that Master Alban
+Kennedy is not something like the husband of the Polish lady Lois
+Boriskoff, then I'll give a penny to a hospital. Now go and ask him,
+Anna--don't you wait a minute, you go and ask him."
+
+"Not until I've had that cup of tea, Willy."
+
+She turned round as the charwoman entered and so hid her face from him.
+Light laughter cloaked at once the deep affront her pride had received,
+and the personal sense of shame his words had left. Not for a moment did
+she question the truth of his story or seek to prove it. As women all
+the world over, she accepted instantly the hint at a man's faithlessness
+and determined that it must be true. And this was to say that her
+passion for Alban Kennedy had never been anything but a phase of
+girlish romance acceptable for the moment and to be made permanent only
+by persistence. The Eastern blood, flowing warm in her veins, would
+never have left her long satisfied with the precise and strenuous
+Englishman and the restraint his nationality put upon him. She hungered
+for the warm passionate caress which the East had taught her to desire.
+She was drawn insensibly toward the man who had awakened this instinct
+within her and ministered to it whenever he approached her.
+
+They drank their tea in silence, each perhaps afraid to admit the hazard
+of their task. When the moment came, she had recovered her self-control
+sufficiently to refer again to the question of the cheque and to do so
+adroitly.
+
+"Are you going to return that money to my father, Willy?"
+
+"That's just as you like. When you come here for good, we could send it
+back together."
+
+"What makes you think that I will come here for good, Willy?"
+
+"Because when I kiss you--like this--you tremble, Anna."
+
+He caught her instantly in his arms and covered her face with passionate
+kisses. Struggling for a moment in his embrace, she lay there presently
+acquiescent as he had known even before his hands touched her. An hour
+had passed before Anna quitted the flat--and then she knew beyond any
+possibility of question that she was about to become Willy Forrest's
+wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE PRISON YARD
+
+
+The great gates of the prison yard rolled back to admit the carriage in
+which Alban had been driven from the hotel, and a cordon of
+straight-backed officials immediately surrounded it. Early as the hour
+was, the meanest servant whom Zaniloff commanded had work to do and well
+understood the urgency of his task. The night had been one long story of
+plot and counterplot; of Revolutionaries fleeing from street to street,
+Cossacks galloping upon their heels, houses awakened and doors beaten
+down, the screams and cries of women, the savage anger of men. And all
+this, not upon the famous avenues which knew little of the new emeute,
+but down in the narrow alleys of the old city where bulging gables hid
+the sight from a clear heaven of stars and the crazy eaves had husbanded
+the cries.
+
+There had been a civil battle fought and many were the prisoners. Not a
+cell about that great yard but had not its batch of ragged, shivering
+wretches whose backs were still bloody, whose wounds were still unbound.
+The quadrangle itself served, as a Cossack jocularly remarked, for the
+overflow meeting. Here you might perceive many types of men-students,
+still defiant, sage lawyers given to the parley, ragged vermin of the
+slums gathering their rags close about their shoulders as though to
+protect them from the lash; timid apostles of the gospel of humanity
+cowering before human fiends--thus the yard and its environment. For
+Alban, however, the place might not have existed. His eyes knew nothing
+of this grim spectacle. He followed the Chief to the upper rooms,
+remembering only that Lois was here.
+
+They passed down a gloomy corridor and entered a lofty room high up on
+the third floor of the station. Two spacious windows gave them a fine
+view of the yard below with all its gregarious misery. There was a table
+here covered by a green baize cloth, and an officer in uniform writing
+at it. He stood and saluted Zaniloff with a gravity fine to see. The
+Chief, in turn, nodded to him and drew a chair to the table. When he had
+found ink and paper he began the interrogation which should help his
+dossier.
+
+"You are an Englishman and your age is"--he waited and turned to Alban.
+
+"My age is just about twenty-one."
+
+"You were born in England?"
+
+"In London; I was born in London."
+
+"And you now live?"
+
+"With Mr. Richard Gessner at Hampstead."
+
+So it went--interminable question and answer, of the most trivial kind.
+It seemed an age before they came to the vital issue.
+
+"And what do you know of this crime which has been committed?"
+
+"I know nothing--how could I know anything."
+
+"Pardon me, you were yesterday in company of the girl who is charged
+with its commission."
+
+"The charge is absurd--I am sure of it."
+
+"We shall decide that for ourselves. You visited her upon the barge of
+the German merchant, Petermann. He is now in custody and has confessed
+as much. What did she say to you when you were alone with her?"
+
+"She asked me to help to set her father free."
+
+"An honest admission--we shall do very well, I see. When she spoke of
+his excellency the Count, she said--"
+
+"I am not afraid to tell you. She did not like him and asked me to take
+her away from Warsaw, disguised as my servant."
+
+"That was not clever, sir. As if we should not have known--but I pass it
+by. You left her and then--"
+
+"I spent the day with the Count and returned with him to the hotel at
+three o'clock in the morning."
+
+"There was no one with him, then?"
+
+"Yes, his valet was with him."
+
+"Did you leave them together when you went to bed?"
+
+"He always helped the Count to undress. I cannot remember where I left
+him."
+
+"You have not a good memory, I perceive."
+
+"Not for that which happened at three o'clock in the morning."
+
+Zaniloff permitted the merest suspicion of a smile to lurk about the
+corners of a sensual mouth.
+
+"It is difficult," he said dryly--and then, "your memory will be better
+later on. Did the girl tell you that his excellency would be
+assassinated?"
+
+"You know very well that she did not."
+
+"I know?"
+
+"Certainly, you have had too much experience not to know."
+
+"Most flattering--please do not mistake me. I am asking you these
+questions because I wish that justice shall be done. If you can do
+nothing to clear Lois Boriskoff, I am afraid that we shall have to flog
+her."
+
+"That would be a cowardly thing to do. It would also be very foolish.
+She has many friends both here and in England. I don't think they will
+forget her."
+
+"Wild talk, Mr. Kennedy, very wild talk. I see that you will not help
+me. We must let the Governor know as much and he will decide. I warn you
+at the same time that it will go very hard with you if the Count should
+die--and as for this woman, we will try other measures. She must
+certainly be flogged."
+
+"If you do that, I myself will see that her friends in England know
+about it. The Governor will never be so foolish--that is, if he wishes
+to save Mr. Gessner."
+
+"Gessner--Gessner--I hear the name often--pardon me, I have not the
+honor of his acquaintance."
+
+"Telegraph to the Minister at St. Petersburg and he will tell you who
+Mr. Gessner is. I think you would be wise to do so."
+
+Zaniloff could make nothing of it. The cool effrontery of this mere
+stripling was unlike anything he had heard at the bureau in all the
+years he had served authority. Why, the bravest men had gone down on
+their knees to him before now and almost shrieked for mercy. And here
+was this bit of an English boy plucking the venerable beard of Terror as
+unconcernedly as though he were a sullen-eyed Cossack with a nagaika in
+his hand. Assuredly he could be no ordinary traveller. And why did he
+harp upon this name Gessner, Richard Gessner! Reflection brought it to
+Zaniloff's mind that he had heard the name before. Yes, it had been
+mentioned in a dossier from the Ministry of Justice. He thought again
+and recalled other circumstances. The Government had been anxious to do
+the man a service--they had commanded the arrest of the Boriskoffs--why,
+at this very Gessner's bidding! And had not the Count warned him to
+treat the young Englishman as his own son--merely to play a comedian's
+part and to frighten him before opening the doors with profuse
+apologies. Zaniloff did not like the turn affairs had taken. He
+determined to see the Governor-General without a moment's loss of time.
+Meanwhile there could be no earthly reason why the girl should not be
+flogged. Whatever happened the Minister would approve that.
+
+"It shall be done as you advise," he rejoined presently, the admission
+passing for an excellent joke. "The telegram shall be dispatched
+immediately. While we are waiting for an answer I will command them to
+bring you some breakfast to my own private room. Meanwhile, as I say,
+the girl must be flogged."
+
+Alban shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I did not believe that you could possibly be so foolish," he said.
+
+It puzzled Zaniloff altogether. Searching that open face with eyes
+accustomed to read many human stories, he could discern neither emotion
+nor anger, but just an honest man's faith in his own cause and a sure
+belief that it must triumph. Whatever Alban might really feel, the
+sickening apprehension of which he was the victim, the almost
+overmastering desire to take this ruffian by the throat and strangle him
+as he sat, not a trace of it could be discerned either in his speech or
+his attitude. "He stood before me like a dog which has barked and is
+waiting to bite," Zaniloff said afterwards. "I might as well have
+threatened to flog the statue of Sobiesky in the Castle gardens." This
+impression, however, he was careful to conceal from the prisoner.
+Official dignity never argues--especially when it is getting the worst
+of the deal.
+
+"My wisdom is not for us to discuss," he snapped; "please to remember
+that I am in authority here and allow no one to question what I do. You
+will remain in my room until I return, sir. Afterwards it must be as the
+Governor decides."
+
+He took up his papers and whispering a few words to the stolid secretary
+he left the room and went clanking down the corridor. The officer who
+remained seemed principally concerned in driving the flies from his bald
+head and from the documents he compiled so laboriously. Stopping from
+time to time to shape a quill pen to his liking, he would write a few
+lines carefully, kill a number of flies, take a peep at Alban from
+beneath his shaggy brows and then resume the cycle of his labors. Alban
+pitied him cynically. This labor of docketing scarred backs seemed
+wretchedly monotonous. He was really glad when the fellow spoke to him,
+in as amazing a combination of tongues as man had ever heard:
+
+"Mein Herr--pardon--what shall you say--comment a dire--for the
+English--Moskowa?"
+
+"We say Moscow, sir."
+
+"Ah--Mosk--Mosk-nitchevo--je ne m'en souviens jamais."
+
+He continued to write as though laboring under an incurable
+disappointment. That Alban knew what Moskowa meant was not surprising,
+for he had heard the word so often in Union Street. Here in this very
+courtyard, far below his windows, were the sons and the brothers of
+those who had preached revolution in England. How miserable they
+looked--great hordes of them, all crouching in the shadow of the wall to
+save their lacerated skins from the burning sunshine. Verily did they
+resemble sheep driven into pens for the slaughter. As for the Cossacks
+who moved in and out among them, there was hardly a moment which found
+their whips at rest. Standing or sitting, you could not escape the
+dreadful thongs--lashes of raw hide upon a core of wires, leaded at the
+end and cutting as knives. Sometimes they would strike at a huddled form
+as though they resented its mute confession of overwhelming misery. An
+upturned face almost invariably invited a cut which laid it open from
+forehead to chin. And not only this, but there were ordered floggings,
+one of which Alban must witness as he stood at the window above, too
+fascinated by the horror of the spectacle to move away and not unwilling
+to know the truth.
+
+Many police assisted at this--driving their victims before them to a
+rude bench in the centre of the yard. There was neither strap nor
+triangle. They threw their man down and held him across the plank,
+gripping his wrists and ankles and one forcing his head to the floor.
+The whip of a single lash, wired to cut and leaded everywhere, fell
+across the naked flesh with a sound of a cane upon a board. Great welts
+were left at the very first blow, torn flesh afterwards and sights not
+to be recounted. The most stolid were broken to shrieks and screams
+despite their resolutions. The laugh upon defiant lips became instantly
+a terrible cry seeming to echo the ultimate misery. As they did to these
+poor wretches so would they do to Lois, Alban said. He was giddy when a
+voice called him from the window and he almost reeled as he turned.
+
+"Well, what do you want with me?"
+
+"I am to take you to the cell of the girl Lois Boriskoff, mein Herr.
+Please to follow me."
+
+An official, well dressed in civilian's clothes, spoke to him this time
+and with a sufficient knowledge of the English language. The bald-headed
+secretary still snapped up the unconsidered insectile trifles which
+troubled his paper. Alban, his heart thumping audibly, followed the
+newcomer from the room and remembered only that he was going to Lois.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE MEETING
+
+
+They had imprisoned many of the women in one of the stables behind the
+great yard of the station. So numerous were the captives that the common
+cells had been full and overflowing long ago. Zaniloff, charged with the
+command to restore order in the city at any cost, cared not a straw what
+the world without might say of him. The rifle, the bayonet, the
+revolver, the whip--here were fine tools and proved. Let but a breath of
+suspicion frost the burnish of a reputation and he would have that man
+or woman at the bar, though arrest might cost a hundred lives. Thus it
+came about that those within the gates were a heterogeneous multitude to
+which all classes had contributed. The milliner's assistant crouched
+side by side with the Countess, though she still feared to touch her
+robe. There were professors' daughters and dockers' wives, ladies from
+the avenue and ladies from the hovels. And just as in the great arena
+beyond the walls, so here Pride was the staff of the well-born,
+Prejudice of the weak.
+
+Amid this trembling company, in the second of the stables, the gloom
+shrouding her from suspicious observation, none noticing so humble a
+creature, Alban found Lois and made himself known to her. The amiable
+civilian with his two or three hundred words of English seemed as
+guileless as a child when he announced Master Zaniloff's message and
+dwelt upon his honorable master's beneficence.
+
+"You are to see this lady, sir, and to tell her that if she is honest
+with us we shall do our best to clear her of the charge. She knows what
+that will mean to name the others to us and then for herself the
+liberty. That is his excellency my master's decision."
+
+"Much obliged to him," said Alban, dryly, and perhaps it was as well
+that Herr Amiability did not catch the tone of it.
+
+"We have much prisoner," the good man went on, "much prisoner and not so
+much prison. That is as you say a perplexity. But it will be better;
+later in the time after. Here is the girl, this is the place."
+
+He bent his head to enter the stable and Alban followed him, silently
+for very fear of his own excitement. There was so little light in the
+place that he could scarcely distinguish anything at first, nothing,
+indeed, but great beds of straw and black figures huddled upon them. By
+and by these took shape and became figures of women of all ages and
+types. Many, he perceived, were Jewesses, dark as night and as
+mysterious. Their clothes were poor, their attitude courageous and
+quiet. A Circassian, whose hair was the very color of the straw with
+which it mingled, stood out in contrast with the others. She had lately
+been flogged and the clothes, torn from her bleeding shoulders, had not
+been replaced. Near by, the wife of a professor at the University, young
+and distinguished and but yesterday welcomed everywhere, sat dumb in
+misery, her eyes wide open, her thoughts upon the child she had left.
+Not among these did Alban find Lois, but in the second of the great
+stalls still waiting its complement of prisoners. He wondered that he
+found her at all, so dark was this place; but a sure instinct led him to
+her and he stopped before he had even seen her face.
+
+"Lois dear, I am sure it is Lois."
+
+She started up from the straw, straining wild eyes in the shadows.
+Awakened from her sleep when they arrested her, she wore the dress which
+she had carried to her haven from the school, quite plain and pretty,
+with linen collars and cuffs in the old-fashioned style. Her hair had
+been loosely plaited and was bound about her like a cord. She rested
+upon the palms of her hands turned down to the pavement. There was but
+one other woman near her, and she appeared to be asleep. When she heard
+Alban's voice, she cried out almost as though they had struck her with
+the whip.
+
+"Why do you come here?" she asked him wildly. "Alban, dear, whatever
+made you come?"
+
+[Illustration: "Why do you come here?" she asked him wildly.]
+
+He stepped forward and kneeling down in the straw he pressed his cold
+lips to hers and held them there for many minutes.
+
+"Did you not wish me to come, Lois?"
+
+She shivered, her big eyes were casting quick glances everywhere, they
+rested at last upon the woman who seemed to sleep almost at her feet.
+
+"They will hear every word we say, Alb, dear. That woman is listening,
+she is a spy."
+
+"I am glad of it, she can go and give her master a message from me.
+Tell me, Lois, do not be afraid to speak. You knew nothing of Count
+Zamoyski's death. Say that you knew nothing."
+
+She cowered and would not answer him. A dreadful fear came upon Alban.
+He began to tremble and could not keep his hands still upon her
+shoulders.
+
+"Good God, Lois, why do you not speak to me? I must know the truth, you
+didn't kill him."
+
+She shrank back, laughing horribly. The pent-up excitements of the night
+had broken her nerve at last. For an instant he feared almost for her
+reason.
+
+"Lois, Lois dear, Lois, listen to me; I have come to help you. I can
+help you. Lois, will you not hear me patiently?"
+
+He caught her to him as he spoke and pressed her burning forehead to his
+lips. So she lay for a little while, rocked in his arms as a child that
+would be comforted. A single ray of sunshine filtered through a slit in
+the wall above, dwelt for a moment upon her white face and showed him
+all the pity of it.
+
+"Lois, why should you speak like this because I come to you? Is it so
+difficult to tell the truth?"
+
+"Did they tell you to ask me that, Alban?"
+
+"It was forced from me, Lois. I don't believe it. I would as soon
+believe it of myself. But don't you see that we must answer them? They
+are saying it, and we must answer them."
+
+She struggled to be free, half resenting the manner of his question, but
+in her heart admitting its necessity.
+
+"I knew nothing of it," she said simply, "you may tell them that, Alban.
+If they offered me all the riches in the world, I could not say more. I
+don't know who did it, dear, and I'd never tell them if I did."
+
+A little cry escaped his lips and he caught her close in his arms again.
+It was not to say that he had believed the darker story at which
+imagination, in a cowardly mood, might hint, but this plain denial, from
+the lips of Lois who had never told him a lie, came as a very message of
+their salvation.
+
+"You have made me very happy, Lois," he said, "now I can talk to them as
+they deserve. Of course, I shall get you out of here. Mr. Gessner will
+help me to do so. We have the whip hand of him all said and done, for
+don't you see, that if you don't tell your people, I shall, and that
+will be the end of it. Of course, it won't come to that. I know how he
+will act, and what they will do when the time arrives. Perhaps they will
+bundle us both out of Russia, Lois, thankful to see the back of us."
+
+She shook her head, looking up to him with a wild face.
+
+"I would not go, Alb dear. Not while my father is a prisoner. Who is
+there to work for him, if I don't? No, my dear, I must not think of it.
+I have my duty to do whatever comes. But you, it is different for you,
+Alban, you would be right to go."
+
+He answered her hotly with a boyish phrase, conventional but true.
+
+"You would make a coward of me, Lois," he said, "just a coward like the
+others. But I am not going to let you. You left me once before; I have
+never forgotten that. You went to Russia, and forgot that we had ever
+been friends. Was that very kind, was it your true self that did so?
+I'll never believe, unless you say so now."
+
+She sat a little apart from him, regarding him wistfully as though she
+wondered greatly at his accusation.
+
+"You went to live in another world, dear, and so did I. My father made
+me promise that I would not try to see you for six months, and I kept my
+word. That was better for you and better for me. If money had changed
+you, and money does change most of us, you would have been happier for
+my silence. I have told you about the letters, and that's God's truth.
+If I had not been ashamed, I couldn't have kept my word, for I loved
+you, dear, and I shall always love you. When my father sent you to Mr.
+Gessner's house, I think he wished to find out if his good opinion of
+you was right or not. He said that you were going to carry a sword into
+Wonderland and kill some of the giants. If you came back to us, you were
+to marry me, but if you forgot us, then he would never believe in any
+man again. There's the truth for you, my dear, I tell you because it all
+means nothing to me now. I could not go to London and leave my father in
+prison here, and they will never release him, Alban, they will never do
+it as things are, for they are more frightened of him than of any man in
+Russia. When I go away from here, it will be to Petersburg to try and
+see my father. There's no one else in all the world to help him, and I
+shall go there and try to see him. If they will let me stay with him,
+that will be something, dear. You can ask them that for me; when Mr.
+Gessner writes, you can beg it of the Ministry in Mr. Gessner's name."
+
+"Ask them to send you to prison, Lois?"
+
+"To send me to my father, dear."
+
+Alban sat very silent, almost ashamed for himself and his own desires.
+The stupendous sacrifice of which she spoke so lightly revealed to him a
+page in the story of human sympathy which he had often read and as often
+derided. Here in the prison cell he stood face to face with human love
+as Wonderland knew nothing of it. Supreme above all other desires of her
+life, this desire to save her father, to share his sorrows, to stand by
+him to the end, prevailed. The riches of the world could not purchase a
+devotion as precious, or any fine philosophy belittle it. He knew that
+she would go to Petersburg because Paul Boriskoff, her father, had need
+of her. This was her answer to his selfish complaints during the years
+of their exile.
+
+"And what am I to do if they give you the permission, Lois?"
+
+"To go back to London and marry Anna Gessner. Won't you do that, Alban?"
+
+"You know that I shall never do so."
+
+"There was a time when you would not have said that, my dear."
+
+He was greatly troubled, for the accusation was very just. The
+impossibility of making the whole truth plain to her had stared him in
+the face since the moment of her pathetic confession when he met her on
+the barge. Impossible to say to her, "I had an ideal and pursued it,
+looking to the right and the left for the figure of the vision and
+suffering it to escape me all the time." This he could not tell her or
+even hint at. The lie cried for a hearing, and the lie was detestable to
+him.
+
+"There was a time, yes, Lois," he said, turning his face from her, "I am
+ashamed to remember it now, since you have spoken. If you love me, you
+would understand what all the wonders of Mr. Gessner's house meant to a
+poor devil, brought up as I had been. It was another world with strange
+people everywhere. I thought they were more than human and found them
+just like the rest of us. Oh, that's the truth of it, and I know it now.
+Our preachers are always calling upon the rich to do fine things for the
+poor, but the rich man is deaf as often as not, because some little puny
+thing in their own lives is dinning in their ears and will shut out all
+other sounds. I know that it must be so. The man who has millions
+doesn't think about humanity at all. He wages war upon trifles, his
+money-books are his library, he has blinded himself by reading them and
+lost his outlook upon the world. I thought it would all be so different,
+and then somebody touches me upon the shoulder and I look up and see
+that my vision is no vision at all, and that the true heart of it is my
+own all the time. Can you understand that, Lois, is it hidden from you
+also?"
+
+"It is not hidden, Alban, it is just as I said it would be."
+
+"And you did not love me less because of it?"
+
+"I should never have loved you less, whatever you had done."
+
+"I shall remind you of that when we are in England together."
+
+"That will never be, Alban dear, unless my father is free."
+
+She repeated it again and again. Her manner of speaking had now become
+that of one who understood that this was a last farewell.
+
+"You cannot help us," she said, "why should you suffer because we must?
+In England there's a great future before you as Mr. Gessner's adopted
+son. I shall never hear of it, but I shall be proud because I know the
+world will talk about you. That will be something to take with me, dear,
+something they can never rob me of, whatever happens. When you remember
+who Lois was, say that she is thinking of you in Russia far away. They
+cannot separate us, dear Alban, while we love."
+
+He had no word to answer this and could but harp again upon all the
+promise of his fine resolution. When the matter-of-fact official came to
+find him, Lois was close in his embrace and there were tears of regret
+in his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+ALBAN RETURNS TO LONDON
+
+
+They returned to the great courtyard, but not to Zaniloff's room as the
+promise had been. Here by the gates there stood a passable private
+carriage, and into this Alban perceived that he was to be hustled. The
+bestarred transcriber of the upper story, he who waged the battle of the
+flies, now stood by the carriage door and appeared to be ill at ease.
+Evidently his study of strange tongues still troubled him.
+
+"Pardon, mein Herr--how in English--khorosho?" he asked very
+deferentially.
+
+"It means 'that's all right,' sir." Alban answered immediately.
+
+"It means that,--ah, nitchevo--je ne m'en souviens jamais."
+
+He held the door open and Alban entered the carriage without a word.
+Apparently they still waited for someone and five minutes passed and
+found their attitudes unchanged. Then Zaniloff himself appeared full of
+bustle and business but in a temper modified toward concession.
+
+"I am taking you back to your hotel, mein Herr," he said to Alban, "it
+is the Governor's order. You will leave Warsaw to-night. Those are our
+instructions."
+
+He sank back in the cushions and the great gates were shut behind them
+with a sonorous clang. Out in the streets the outbreak of the earlier
+hours had been a veritable battle but was now a truce. The whole city
+seemed to be swarming with troops. Well might Zaniloff think of other
+things.
+
+"Is the Count better, sir?" Alban ventured presently.
+
+"He will live," was the dry response, "at least the doctors say so."
+
+"And you have discovered the truth about the affair?"
+
+"The man who attacked him was shot on the Rymarska half an hour ago."
+
+"Then that is why you are taking me back to my hotel?"
+
+"There is positively no other reason," said the Chief.
+
+The statement was frank to the point of brutality, but it carried also
+such a message of hope that Alban hardly dared to repeat the words of it
+even to himself; there was no longer any possibility of a capital charge
+against the child he had just left in the wretched stable. Let the other
+facts be as they might, these people could not detain Lois Boriskoff
+upon the Count's affair or add it to the dossier in which her father's
+offences were narrated. Of this Zaniloff's tone convinced him. "He would
+never have admitted it at all if Lois were compromised," the argument
+ran, and was worthy of the wise head which arrived at it.
+
+"I am glad that you have found the man," he explained presently, "it
+clears up so much and must be very satisfactory. Would you have any
+objection to telling me what you are going to do with the girl I have
+just left?"
+
+Zaniloff smiled.
+
+"I have no objection at all. When the Ministry at St. Petersburg
+condescends to inform me, you shall share my information. At present I
+am going to keep her under lock and key, and if she is obstinate I am
+going to flog her."
+
+"Do the people at St. Petersburg wish you to do that?"
+
+"I do not consult their feelings," was the curt reply.
+
+They fell to silence once more and the carriage rolled on through the
+busy streets. It had escaped Alban's notice hitherto, that an escort of
+Cossacks accompanied them, but as they turned into the great avenue he
+caught a glimpse of bright accoutrements and of horsemen going at a
+gentle canter. The avenue itself was almost deserted save by the
+ever-present infantry who lined its walks as though some great cavalcade
+were to pass. When they had gone another hundred paces, the need for the
+presence of the soldiers declared itself in a heap of blackened ruins
+and a great fire still smouldering. Zaniloff smiled grimly when they
+passed the place.
+
+"Half an hour ago that was the palace of my namesake, the Grand Duke
+Sergius," he said, almost as though the intelligence were a matter of
+personal satisfaction to him.
+
+Alban looked at the smouldering ruins and could not help remembering the
+strange threats he had heard in Union Street on the very eve of his
+departure from England. Had any of the old mad orators a hand in this?
+Those wild figures of the platforms and the slums, had they achieved so
+much, if indeed it were achievement at all?
+
+"They are fools to make war upon bricks and mortar," Zaniloff remarked
+in his old quiet way.
+
+"I told them so in London, sir."
+
+"You told them; do you enjoy the honor of their acquaintance then?"
+
+"I know as much about them as any of your people, and that is saying a
+good deal. They are very ignorant men who are suffering great wrongs. If
+your government would make an effort to learn what the world is thinking
+about to-day, you would soon end all this. But you will never do it by
+the whip, and guns will not help you."
+
+Zaniloff laid a hand upon his shoulder almost in a kindly way.
+
+"My honor alone forbids me to believe that," he exclaimed.
+
+They arrived at the hotel while he spoke and passed immediately to the
+private apartments above. A brief intimation that Alban must consider
+himself still a prisoner and not leave his rooms under any
+circumstances, whatever, found a ready acquiescence from one who had
+heard an echo in Lois' words of his own farewell to Russia. That the
+authorities would detain him he did not believe, and he knew that his
+long task was not here. He must return to England and save Lois. How or
+by what means he could not say; for the ultimate threat, so lightly
+spoken, affrighted him when he was alone and left him a coward. How,
+indeed, if he went to the fanatics of Union Street and said to
+them,--"Richard Gessner is your enemy; strike at him." There would be
+vengeance surely, but he had received too many kindnesses at Hampstead
+that he should contemplate such an infamy. And what other course lay
+before him? He could not say, his life seemed lived. Neither ambition
+nor desire, apart from the prison he had left, remained to him.
+
+The French valet Malette waited upon him in his rooms and gave him such
+news of the Count as the sentinels of the sick-room permitted. Oh, yes,
+his excellency was a little better. He had spoken a few words and asked
+for his English friend. Nothing was known of the madman who struck him
+save that which the papers in his pocket told them. The fellow had been
+shot as he left the Grand Duke's palace; some thought that he had been
+formerly in the Count's service and that this was merely an act of
+vengeance, _mais terrible_, as Malette added with emphasis. Later on his
+excellency would be able to tell the story for himself. His grand
+constitution had meant very much to him to-day.
+
+The interview took place at three o'clock in the afternoon, the doctors
+having left their patient, and the perplexed Zaniloff being again at the
+prison. The bed had now been wheeled a little way from the window and
+the room set in pleasant order by clever and willing hands. The Count
+himself had lost none of his courage. The attack in truth had nerved him
+to believe that he had nothing further to fear in Warsaw, for who would
+think about a man already as good as buried by the newspapers. Here was
+something to help the surgeons and bring some little flush of color to
+the patient's pallid cheeks. He spoke as a man who had been through the
+valley of the shadow and had suffered little inconvenience by the
+journey.
+
+"I am forbidden to talk," he said to Alban, and immediately began to
+talk in defiance of a nurse's protests.
+
+"So you have been to prison, mon vieux; well, it is so much experience
+for you, and experience is useful. I have done a good morning's work, as
+you see. Imagine it. I open my door to a policeman, and when I ask him
+what he has got for me, he whips out a butcher's knife and makes a
+thrust at my ribs. Happily for me, I come from a bony race. The surgeons
+have now gone to fight a duel about it. One is for septic pneumonia, the
+other for the removal of the lungs. I shall be out of Poland in my
+beautiful France by the time they agree."
+
+He flushed with the exertion and cast reproachful eyes upon the nurse
+who stood up to forbid his further eloquence. Alban, in turn, began to
+tell him of the adventure of the morning.
+
+"It was a Jack and Jill business, except that Jill does not come
+tumbling after," he said. "What is going to happen I cannot tell you.
+Lois will not leave Poland until her father is released, and I have it
+from her that he never will be released. Don't you see, Count, that Mr.
+Gessner is a fool to play with fire like this. Does he believe that this
+secret will be kept because these two are in prison? I know that it will
+not. If he is to be saved, it must be by generosity and courage. I
+should have thought he would have known it from the beginning. Let him
+act fairly by old Paul Boriskoff and I will answer for his safety. If he
+does not do so, he must blame himself for the consequences."
+
+"Pride never blames itself, Kennedy, even when it is foolish. I like
+your wisdom and shall give a good account of it. Of course, there is the
+other side of the picture, and that is not very pretty. How can we
+answer for the man, even if he be generously dealt with? More important
+still, how can we answer for the woman?"
+
+"I will answer for her, Count."
+
+"You, my dear boy. How can you do that?"
+
+"By making her my wife."
+
+"Do you say this seriously?"
+
+"I say it seriously."
+
+"But why not at Hampstead before we left England. That would have made
+it easier for us all."
+
+"I would try to tell you, but you would not understand. Perhaps I did
+not know then what I know now. There are some things which we only learn
+with difficulty, lessons which it needs suffering to teach us."
+
+A sharp spasm, almost of pain, crossed the Count's face.
+
+"That is very true," he exclaimed, "please do not think I am deficient
+in understanding. It has been necessary for you to come to Poland to
+discover where your happiness lay?"
+
+"Yes, it has been necessary."
+
+"Do you understand, that this would mean the termination of your good
+understanding with my friend Gessner. You could not remain in his house
+naturally."
+
+"I have thought of that. It will be necessary for me to leave him as you
+say. But I have been an interloper from the beginning, and I do not see
+how I could have remained. While everything was new to me, while I
+lived in Wonderland, I never gave much thought to it; but here when I
+begin to think, I am no longer in doubt. How could I shut myself up in a
+citadel of riches and know that so many of my poor people were starving
+not ten miles from my door. I would feel as though I had gone into the
+enemy's camp and sold myself for the gratification of a few silly
+desires and a whole pantomime of show which a decent man must laugh at.
+It is better for me to have done with it once and for all and try to get
+my own living. Lois will give me the right to work, if she ever wins her
+liberty, which I doubt. You could help her to do so, if you were
+willing, Count."
+
+"I, what influence have I?"
+
+"As much as any man in Poland, I should say."
+
+"Ah, you appeal to my vanity. I wish it could respond. Frankly, my
+Government will be little inclined to clemency, just now at any rate.
+Why should it be? These people are burning down our houses, why should
+we help them to build their own? Your old friend Boriskoff was as
+dangerous a man as any in Poland, why should they let him go just
+because an English banker wishes it."
+
+"They will let him go because he is more dangerous in prison than out of
+it. In London I could answer for him. I could not answer while he is at
+Petersburg."
+
+"My dear lad, we must really make you Master of all these pretty
+ceremonies. I'll speak to Zaniloff." He laughed lightly, for the idea of
+this mere stripling being of any use to his Government amused him
+greatly. His apologies for the indulgence, however, were not to be
+spoken, for the blood suddenly rushed from his cheeks, and the good
+nurse intervened in some alarm.
+
+"Please to leave him," she said to Alban in French. He obeyed her
+immediately, seeing that he had been wrong to stay so long.
+
+"I will come again when you permit me. Please let me know when his
+excellency is better."
+
+She promised him that she would do so, and he returned to his own rooms.
+He was not, however, to see the Count again until he met him many years
+afterwards in Paris. The distressed Zaniloff himself carried the amazing
+news, some two hours later.
+
+"You are to leave for London by the evening mail," the Chief said
+shortly, "a berth has been reserved for you, and I myself will see you
+into the train. Do not complain of us, Mr. Kennedy. I can assure you
+that there are many cities more agreeable than Warsaw at the present
+moment."
+
+Alban was not surprised, nor would he argue upon it. He realized that
+his labors in Poland had been in vain. If he could save Lois from the
+prison, he must do so in London, in the alleys and dens he had so long
+deserted. Not toward Wonderland, not at the shrines of riches, but as an
+exile returned to labor with the humblest, must this journey carry him.
+
+And he bowed his head to destiny and believed that he stood alone
+against the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+WE MEET OLD FRIENDS
+
+
+Alban had returned some two months from Poland, when, upon a drear
+October evening, the Archbishop of Bloomsbury, my Lady Sarah, the flower
+girl, and "Betty," the half-witted boy, made their way about half-past
+nine o'clock to the deserted stage of the Regent Theatre, and there by
+the courtesy of the watchman, distantly related to Sarah, began their
+preparations for a homely evening meal.
+
+To be quite candid, this was altogether a more respectable company than
+that which had assembled in the Caves at the springtime of the year. The
+Lady Sarah wore a spruce black silk dress which had adorned the back of
+a Duchess more than three years ago; the Archbishop boasted a coat that
+would have done no discredit to a Canon of St. Paul's; the boy they
+would call "Betty" had a flower at the button-hole of a neat gray suit,
+and carried himself as though all the world belonged to him. This purple
+and fine linen, to be sure, were rather lost upon the empty stage of
+that dismal theatre, nor did the watchman's lantern and two proud
+wax-candles which the Lady Sarah carried do much for their reputation;
+but, as the Archbishop wisely said, "We know that they are there, and
+Sarah has the satisfaction of rustling for us."
+
+Now to be plainer, this was the occasion of a letter just received from
+"the Panorama," who had gone to America since June, and of joyful news
+from that incurable optimism.
+
+"I gather," the Archbishop had said, as he passed the document round,
+"that our young friend, er--hem--having exhibited the American nation in
+wax, a symbol of its pliability, surely is now proceeding to melt it
+down and to return to England. That is a wise undertaking. Syrus, the
+philosopher, has told us that Fortune is like glass, when she shines too
+much she is broken. Let our friend take the tide at the flood and not
+complain afterwards that his ship was too frail. The Panorama has
+achieved reputation, and who is of the world does not know the pecuniary
+worth of that? Consider my own case and bear with me. I have the
+misfortune to prick myself with a needle and to suffer certain personal
+inconveniences thereby. The world calls me a villain. Other men,
+differently situated, kill thousands of their fellow-creatures and look
+forward to the day when they will be buried in Westminster Abbey. We
+envy them at the height and the depth of it. This the Panorama should
+remember. A successful showman is here to-day and--er--hem--melted down
+to-morrow. It is something to have left no debts behind him; it is much
+more to have remembered his old friends in these small tokens which we
+shall consume in all thankfulness, according to our happiness and our
+digestions."
+
+He had seated himself upon a stage chair, gilt and anciently splendid,
+to deliver himself of this fine harangue. The lady Sarah, in her turn,
+hastened to take up a commanding position upon the throne that had
+served for a very modern Cleopatra, while the boy "Betty," accustomed to
+hard beds, squatted upon the bare boards and was the happier for his
+liberty. For inward satisfaction, the menu declared a monstrous pie from
+a shop near by; a plentiful supply of fried fish; three dozen oysters in
+a puny barrel, and a half a dozen bottles of stout, three of which
+protruded from the Archbishop's capacious pockets. The occasion was a
+great one, indeed, the memory of their old friend, the Panorama, at its
+zenith.
+
+"I always did say as he'd make a noise in the world, and that's the
+truth, God knows," Sarah took an early occasion to remark. "Not if he
+were my own brother could I wish him more than I do this night. 'Tisn't
+all of us would care to go 'crost the ocean among the cannibals and take
+the King of Hingerland in a 'amper. I saw him myself, wrapped up in a
+piper box and lookin' beautiful, God's truth, with the crown done up in
+tissue beside him. That was before the Panorama left us. 'Be a good
+boy,' says I, 'and don't fall in love with any of them darkies as you'll
+find in' Mericky. So help me lucky, I'd a good mind ter come after you,'
+says I, 'and marry their Ole Man jess ter set 'em a good example.'"
+
+By which it will be perceived that the Lady Sarah's knowledge of the
+great and mighty Republic beyond the seas was clearly limited. Such
+ignorance had often provoked the Archbishop of Bloomsbury to
+exasperation, it annoyed him not a little to-night.
+
+"My dear child," he protested, "you are laboring under a very great
+delusion. Be assured that America is a very great country,
+where--er--hem--they may eat each other, but not as you imagine. I
+believe that the American ladies are very beautiful. I have met some of
+them--er--in the old days, when--hem--the Bishops showed their
+confidence in me by drinking my claret and finding it to their liking.
+All that we have in England they have in America--prisons, paupers,
+policemen, palaces. You are thinking of Africa, Sarah, darkest Africa,
+that used to be, but is fast disappearing. Led me add--"
+
+Sarah, however, was already busy upon her dozen of oysters and had no
+patience to hear the good man out.
+
+"Don't you take on so, Bishop," she intervened, "'Mericky ain't done
+much for me and precious little it's going ter do for you. What I says
+is, let those as have got a good 'ome stop there and be thankful. Yer
+may talk about your oshun wave, but I ain't taking any, no, not though
+there was diamonds on the sea beach the other side and 'ot-'arse roses
+fer nothink. Who ever sees their ole friends as is swallered up by the
+sea? Who ever heard of Alb Kennedy since he went ter Berling as he told
+us for to mike his fortune? Ho, a life on the oshun wave if yer like,
+but not for them as has bread and cheese ashore and a good bed to go to
+arterwards; that's what I shall say as long as I've breath in my body."
+
+"Betty," the boy, answered to this earnest lamentation with a sound word
+of good common sense.
+
+"You're a-goin' to sleep in one o' them boxes to-night, ain't you,
+Sarah?" he asked, and she admitted the truth of his conclusions.
+
+"And sweeter dreams I would have if I knew where the Dook was a-layin'
+his 'ed this night," she added.
+
+The Archbishop ate a succulent morsel and drank a long draught from the
+unadorned black bottle.
+
+"Nothing is known of Kennedy at Hampstead," he interposed, "I have made
+diligent inquiries of the gardener there, and he assures me that our
+dear friend never returned from Poland and that no one knows anything of
+him, not even Mr. Gessner. Anna, the daughter, I understand, is married
+to an old acquaintance of ours and has taken a little house in Curzon
+Street. She liked to go the--er--hem--pace, as the people say; and she
+is mated to one who will not be afraid of exceeding the legal limits.
+Mr. Gessner himself is on his yacht, and is supposed to be cruising off
+the coast of Norway. That is what they tell me. I have no reason to
+doubt the truth of their information. Would to heaven I had. Kennedy was
+a friend, a true friend, while he was in England. I have known many a
+bitter night since he left us."
+
+He sighed, but valiantly, and applied himself once more to the pewter
+pot. It was a terrible night outside, raining heavily and blowing a
+bitter wind. Even here on the stage of the deserted theatre a chilling
+draught sported with their candles and made fine ghosts for them upon
+the faded canvas. Talk of Alban Kennedy seemed to have depressed them
+all. They uttered no word for many minutes, not indeed until one of the
+iron doors suddenly swung open and Alban himself came in among them. He
+was drenched to the skin, for he had carried no umbrella, and wore but a
+light travelling suit, the identical one in which he had returned from
+Poland. Very pale and worn and thin, this, they said, was the ghost of
+the Alban who had left them in the early summer. And his manner was as
+odd as his appearance. You might almost have said that he had thrown the
+last shred of the aristocratic rags to the winds and put on old habits
+so long discarded that they were almost forgotten. When he crossed the
+stage to them, it was with his former air of dogged indifference and
+cynical self-content. Explanations were neither offered nor asked. He
+flung his hat aside and sat upon the corner of a crazy sofa despised by
+the rest of the company. A hungry look, cast upon the inviting
+delicacies, betrayed the fact that he was hungry. Be sure it was not
+lost upon the watchful Sarah.
+
+"Good Gawd, to see him walk in amongst us like that. Why, Mr. Kennedy,
+whatever's up, whatever brings you here a night like this?"
+
+Alban had always admired the Lady Sarah, he admired her more than ever
+to-night.
+
+"Wind and rain, Sarah," he said shortly, "they brought me here, to say
+nothing of Master Betty cutting across the street as though the cops
+were at his heels. How are you all? How's his reverence? Speak up, my
+lord, how are the affairs of your extensive diocese?"
+
+"My affairs," said the Archbishop, slowly, "are what might be called in
+_nubibus_--cloudy, my dear boy, distinctly cloudy. I am, to adopt a
+homely simile, at present under a neighbor's umbrella, which is not as
+sound as it might be. Behold me, none the less, in that state of content
+to which the poet Horace has happily referred--_nec vixit male qui natus
+moriensque fefellit_. At this moment you discover me upon a pleasant
+bridge which spans an unknown abyss. I eat, drink and am merry. What
+more shall I desire?"
+
+"And Betty here, does Betty keep out of mischief?"
+
+Sarah answered this.
+
+"I got him a job at Covent Garden, and he's there regular at four
+o'clock every morning sure as the sun's in heaven. Don't you go thinking
+nothink about Betty, Mr. Kennedy, and so I tell you straight."
+
+"And what have you done with the Panorama, Sarah?"
+
+She laughed loudly.
+
+"Panorama's among the black men, them's his oysters as we're eatin' now.
+Try one, Mr. Kennedy. You look as if a drop of summat would do you good,
+so help me you do. Take a sup o' stout and rest yourself awhile. It is a
+surprise to see you, I must say."
+
+"A very pleasant surprise, indeed," added the Archbishop, emphatically.
+"There has been no event in my life for many months which has given me
+so much satisfaction. We have not so many friends that we can spare even
+one of them to those higher spheres, which, I must say, he has adorned
+with such conspicuous lustre."
+
+"Oh, spare me, reverence, don't talk nonsense to-night. I am tired as
+you see, tired and hungry. And I'm going to beg food and drink from old
+friends who have loved me. Now, Sarah, what's it to be?"
+
+He drew the sofa nearer to the bare table and began to eat with them.
+Sarah's motherly protestations induced him to take off his coat and hang
+it up in the watchman's office to dry. The same tender care served out
+to him the most delicate morsels, from a generous if uncouth table, and
+insisted upon their acceptance. If his old friends were hot with
+curiosity to know whence he came and what he had been doing, they, as
+the poor alone can do successfully, asked no questions nor even hinted
+at their desire. Not until the supper was over and the Archbishop had
+produced a little packet of cigars, did any general conversation
+interrupt that serious business of eating and drinking, so rarely
+indulged in, so sacred when opportunity offered.
+
+This amiable truce to curiosity, dictated by nature, was first broken by
+the Archbishop, who did not possess my Lady Sarah's robust powers of
+self-command. Passing Alban a cigar, he asked him a question which had
+been upon his lips from the beginning.
+
+"You are just returned from Poland, Kennedy?"
+
+"I have been in England two months, reverence."
+
+"But not at Hampstead, my dear boy, not at Hampstead, surely?"
+
+"As you say, not at Hampstead, at least not at "Five Gables." Mr.
+Gessner is away yachting; I read it in the newspapers."
+
+"You read it in the newspapers. God bless me! do you mean to say that he
+did not tell you himself?"
+
+"He told me nothing. How could he? He hasn't got my address."
+
+They all stared, open-eyed in wonder. Even the Lady Sarah had a question
+to ask now.
+
+"You're not back in Whitechapel again."
+
+"True as gold. I am living in Union Street, and going to be married."
+
+"To be married; who's the lidy?"
+
+"That's what I want to know; perhaps it would be little red-haired Chris
+Denholm. I can't exactly tell you, Sarah."
+
+"Here none of that--you're pullin'--"
+
+Sarah caught the Archbishop's frown, and corrected herself adroitly.
+
+"It ain't true, Mr. Kennedy, is it now?"
+
+"God knows, Sarah, I don't. I'm earning two pounds a week in a motor
+shop and living in the old ken by Union Street. Mr. Gessner has left the
+country and his daughter is married to Willy Forrest. I hope she'll like
+him. They'll make a pretty pair in a crow's nest. Pass the stout and
+let's drink to 'em. I must be off directly; if I don't walk home, it'll
+be pneumonia or something equally pleasant. But I'm glad to see you all,
+you know it, and I wish you luck from the bottom of my heart."
+
+He took a long drink from a newly opened bottle and claiming his coat
+passed out as mysteriously as he had come. The watchman said that a man
+waited for him upon the pavement, but his information seemed vague. The
+others continued to discuss him until weariness overtook them and they
+slept where they lay. His going had taken a friend away from them, and
+their friends were few enough, God knows!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE MAN UPON THE PAVEMENT
+
+
+A well-meaning stage-door keeper for once had told the plain truth and
+there had been a man upon the pavement when Alban quitted the Regent
+Theatre.
+
+Little more than six months ago, this identical fellow had been
+commissioned by Richard Gessner to seek Alban out and report upon his
+habits. He had visited the great ship-building yard, had made a hundred
+inquiries in Thrawl Street and the Commercial Road, had tracked his
+quarry to the Caves and carried his news thereafter triumphantly to
+Hampstead and his employer. To-night his purpose was otherwise. He
+sought not gossip but a man, and that man now appeared before him upon
+the pavement, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his head bent, his
+attitude that of utter dejection and despair.
+
+"Mr. Kennedy, if you please."
+
+The stranger spoke beneath the shadow of a great lamp in the Charing
+Cross Road. Not hearing him immediately, Alban had arrived at the next
+lamp before the earnest entreaty arrested him and found him erect and
+watchful in a moment.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir; you are Mr. Kennedy, are you not?"
+
+"My name, at least the half of it."
+
+"Mr. Alban Kennedy, shall we say. I have been looking for you for three
+days, sir. It is not often that I search three days for anybody when his
+house is known. Forgive me, it is not my fault that there has been a
+delay."
+
+Alban knew no more than the man in the moon what he was driving at, and
+he thought it must be all a mistake.
+
+"What's it all about, old chap?" he exclaimed, falling into the manners
+of the street. "Why have you been hurrying yourself on my account?"
+
+"To give you this letter, sir, and to ask you to accompany me."
+
+Alban whistled, but took the note nevertheless and tore it open with
+trembling fingers. He thought that he recognized the handwriting, but
+was not sure. When he had read the letter through, he turned to the man
+and said that he would go with him.
+
+"Then I will call a hansom, sir."
+
+The detective blew a shrill whistle, and a hansom immediately tried to
+cannon an omnibus, and succeeding came skidding to the pavement. The two
+men entered without a word to each other; but to the driver the
+direction was Hampstead Heath. He, wise merchant, demurred with chosen
+phrase of weight, until a fare was named and then lashed his horse
+triumphantly.
+
+"My lucky's in," he cried to a friend upon another box, "it's a quid if
+I ain't bilked."
+
+Alban meanwhile took a cigarette from a paper packet, and asked his
+companion for a light. When he struck it an observer would have noticed
+that his hand was still shaking.
+
+"Did you go down yonder?" he asked, indicating generally the
+neighborhood east of Aldgate.
+
+"Searched every coffee shop in Whitechapel, sir."
+
+"Ah, you weren't lucky. I have been living three days on Hampstead
+Heath."
+
+"On Hampstead Heath? My godfather, I wish I'd known."
+
+They were driving through Regent's Park by this time, and the darkness
+of a tempestuous night enshrouded them. Alban recalled that unforgotten
+evening of spring when, with the amiable Silas Geary for his companion,
+he had first driven to Mr. Gessner's house and had heard the story of
+Wonderland, as that very ordinary cleric had described it. What days he
+had lived through since then! And now this news surpassing all the
+miracles! What must it mean to him, and to her! Had they been fooling
+him again or might he dare to accept it for the truth? He knew not what
+to think. A surpassing excitement seized upon him and held him dumb. He
+felt that he would give years of his life to know.
+
+They toiled up the long hill to the Heath and entered the grounds of
+"Five Gables" just as the church clock was striking eleven. There were
+lights in the Italian Garden and in the drawing-room. Just as it had
+been six months ago, so now the obliging Fellows opened the door to
+them. Alban gave him a kindly nod and asked him where Lois was.
+
+"The young lady is there, in the hall, sir. Pardon me saying it, she
+seems much upset to-night."
+
+"Mr. Gessner is still away?"
+
+"On his yacht, sir. We think he is going to visit South America."
+
+Alban waited for no more, but went straight on, his eyes half blinded by
+the glaring lights, his hands outstretched as though feeling for other
+hands to grasp them.
+
+"Lois, I am here as you wished."
+
+A deep sob answered him, a hot face was pressed close to his own.
+
+"Alban," she said, "my father is dead!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY
+
+
+Very early upon the following morning, almost before it was light, Alban
+entered the familiar study at "Five Gables" and read his patron's
+letter. It had been written the day after he himself returned from
+Poland, and had long awaited him, there in that great lonely house. He
+opened it almost as though it had been a message from the dead.
+
+"I am leaving England to-day," the note went on, "and may be many months
+abroad. The unhappy death of Paul Boriskoff in the Schlusselburg will be
+already known to you, and will relieve you of any further anxiety upon
+his daughter's account. I have the assurance of the Minister of St.
+Petersburg that she will be released immediately and sent to "Five
+Gables" as I have wished. There I have made that provision for her
+future which I owe to my own past, and there she will live as your wife
+until the days of my exile are finished.
+
+"You, Alban Kennedy, must henceforth be the agent of my fortunes. To
+you, in the name of humanity, I entrust the realization of those dreams
+which have endeared you to me and made you as my own son. If there be
+salvation for the outcasts of this city by such labors as you will now
+undertake upon their behalf, then let yours be the ministering hands,
+and the people's gratitude. I have lived too long in the kingdom of the
+money-changers either to accept your beliefs or to put them into
+practice. Go you out then as an Apostle in my name, that at my coming I
+may help you to reap a rich harvest.
+
+"My agents will be able at all times to tell upon what sea or in what
+haven I am to be found. I go in quest of that peace which the world has
+denied to me. But I carry your name before others in my memory, and if I
+live, I will return to call you my son."
+
+So the letter went on, so Alban read it as the dawn broke and the great
+city woke to the labors of the day.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALADDIN OF LONDON***
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