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+Project Gutenberg's Between the Dark and the Daylight, by Richard Marsh
+
+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: Between the Dark and the Daylight
+
+Author: Richard Marsh
+
+Release Date: November 9, 2011 [EBook #37966]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN THE DARK AND THE DAYLIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   1. Page scan source:
+      http://books.google.com/books?id=FjMPAAAAQAAJ
+
+   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
+
+
+
+
+
+THIRD IMPRESSION NOW READY
+
+In Crown 8vo, Handsome Pictorial Cloth. Price 6s. With
+Frontispiece by Harold Piffard.
+
+
+                        RICHARD MARSH'S New Book
+
+                       AN ARISTOCRATIC DETECTIVE
+
+                                   BY
+
+                             RICHARD MARSH
+
+                               Author of
+
+          'FRIVOLITIES,' 'THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN,' 'AMUSEMENT
+           ONLY,' 'THE BEETLE,' 'THE CHASE OF THE RUBY,' ETC.
+
+
+Court Circular.--'Mr. Richard Marsh tells in a very agreeable manner a
+number of detective stories of the Sherlock Holmes order.... The plots
+are very ingenious, and are cleverly worked out, and the book
+altogether will enhance the reputation of the author.'
+
+Scotsman.--'Mr. Marsh is a skilled writer ... these tales make a book
+that should not fail to please anyone who can be entertained by
+cleverly made-up mysteries.'
+
+Dundee Advertiser.--'"An Aristocratic Detective" is from the pen of
+Richard Marsh, and displays that writer's customary inventiveness and
+realistic manner. It relates the experiences of the Hon. Augustus
+Champnell, who emulates Sherlock Holmes in the following up of puzzling
+cases. These are very cutely devised and smartly worked out. All
+through Mr. Marsh is thoroughly interesting.'
+
+Eastern Morning News.--'The whole of the sketches are vigorous and
+racy, being told in a lively, up-to-date manner, and some of the
+characters are exceptionally well drawn ... anyone in search of a
+stirring volume will read this one with great interest.'
+
+County Gentleman.--'Mr. Marsh is known to be a skilled craftsman in
+this kind of work, and his Champnell stories are all worth reading.'
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+           London: DIGBY, LONG & CO., 18 Bouverie St., E.C.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                          BETWEEN THE DARK AND
+                              THE DAYLIGHT
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                      POPULAR SIX SHILLING NOVELS.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+By MAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFITHS
+   A Bid for Empire
+
+By J. B. FLETCHER
+   Bonds of Steel
+
+BY MARY E. MANN
+   The Fields of Dulditch
+
+By HELEN MATHERS
+   Venus Victrix
+
+By Mrs. LEITH-ADAMS (Mrs. De Courcy Laffan)
+   What Hector had to Say
+
+By THE COUNTESS DE SULMALLA
+   Under the Sword
+
+By FERGUS HUME
+   The Crime of the Crystal
+   The Pagan's Cup
+
+By Mrs. BAGOT-HARTE
+   In Deep Waters
+   A Daring Spirit
+
+By FLORENCE WARDEN
+   Lady Joan's Companion
+
+By L. T. MEADE
+   Through Peril for a Wife
+
+By SARAH TYTLER
+   Atonement by Proxy
+   Rival Claimants
+
+By DORA RUSSELL
+   A Strange Message
+   A Fatal Past
+
+By FREDERICK W. ROBINSON
+   Anne Judge, Spinster
+   A Bridge of Glass
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                      DIGBY, LONG & CO. Publishers
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "IT IS A BIG ORDER," SHE SAID.
+Page 180.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                          Between the Dark and
+                          the Daylight ...
+
+
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+                             RICHARD MARSH
+
+                               AUTHOR OF
+           "THE BEETLE," "FRIVOLITIES," "AMUSEMENT ONLY," "AN
+                     ARISTOCRATIC DETECTIVE," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 London
+                            DIGBY, LONG & CO
+                 18 Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, E.C.
+                                  1902
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+
+   MY AUNT'S EXCURSION.
+
+   THE IRREGULARITY OF THE JURYMAN.
+
+      Chapter   I.--The Juryman is Startled.
+
+         "     II.--Mrs. Tranmer is Startled.
+
+         "    III.--The Plaintiff is Startled.
+
+         "     IV.--Two Cabmen are Startled.
+
+         "      V.--The Court is Startled.
+
+   MITWATERSTRAAND:--The Story of a Shock.
+
+      Chapter   I.--The Disease.
+
+         "     II.--The Cure.
+
+   EXCHANGE IS ROBBERY.
+
+   THE HAUNTED CHAIR.
+
+   NELLY.
+
+   LA HAUTE FINANCE:--A Tale of the Biggest Coup on
+      Record.
+
+   MRS. RIDDLE'S DAUGHTER.
+
+   MISS DONNE'S GREAT GAMBLE.
+
+   "SKITTLES".
+
+   "EM".
+
+      Chapter   I.--The Major's Instructions.
+
+         "     II.--His Niece's Wooing.
+
+         "    III.--The Lady's Lover.
+
+         "     IV.--The Major's Sorrow.
+
+   A RELIC OF THE BORGIAS.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                   BETWEEN THE DARK AND THE DAYLIGHT.
+
+
+
+
+                          My Aunt's Excursion
+
+
+"Thomas," observed my aunt, as she entered the room, "I have taken you
+by surprise."
+
+She had. Hamlet could scarcely have been more surprised at the
+appearance of the ghost of his father. I had supposed that she was in
+the wilds of Cornwall. She glanced at the table at which I had been
+seated.
+
+"What are you doing?--having your breakfast?"
+
+I perceived, from the way in which she used her glasses, and the marked
+manner in which she paused, that she considered the hour an uncanonical
+one for such a meal. I retained some fragments of my presence of mind.
+
+"The fact is, my dear aunt, that I was at work a little late last
+night, and this morning I find myself with a trifling headache."
+
+"Then a holiday will do you good."
+
+I agreed with her. I never knew an occasion on which I felt that it
+would not.
+
+"I shall be only too happy to avail myself of the opportunity afforded
+by your unexpected presence to relax for a time, the strain of my
+curriculum of studies. May I hope, my dear aunt, that you propose to
+stay with me at least a month?"
+
+"I return to-night."
+
+"To-night! When did you come?"
+
+"This morning."
+
+"From Cornwall?"
+
+"From Lostwithiel. An excursion left Lostwithiel shortly after
+midnight, and returns again at midnight to-day, thus giving fourteen
+hours in London for ten shillings. I resolved to take advantage of the
+occasion, and to give some of my poorer neighbours, who had never even
+been as far as Plymouth in their lives, a glimpse of some of the sights
+of the Great City. Here they are--I filled a compartment with them.
+There are nine."
+
+There were nine--and they were about the most miscellaneous-looking
+nine I ever saw. I had wondered what they meant by coming with my aunt
+into my sitting-room. Now, if anything, I wondered rather more. She
+proceeded to introduce them individually--not by any means by name
+only.
+
+"This is John Eva. He is eighty-two and slightly deaf. Good gracious,
+man! don't stand there shuffling, with your back against the wall: sit
+down somewhere, do. This is Mrs. Penna, sixty-seven, and a little lame.
+I believe you're eating peppermints again. I told you, Mrs. Penna, that
+I can't stand the odour, and I can't. This is her grandson, Stephen
+Treen, aged nine. He cried in the train."
+
+My aunt shook her finger at Stephen Treen, in an admonitory fashion,
+which bade fair, from the look of him, to cause an immediate renewal of
+his sorrows.
+
+"This is Matthew Holman, a converted drunkard who has been the worst
+character in the parish. But we are hoping better things of him now."
+Matthew Holman grinned, as if he were not certain that the hope was
+mutual, "This is Jane, and this is Ellen, two maids of mine. They are
+good girls, in their way, but stupid. You will have to keep your eye on
+them, or they will lose themselves the first chance they get." I was
+not amazed, as I glanced in their direction, to perceive that Jane and
+Ellen blushed.
+
+"This," went on my aunt, and into her voice there came a sort of awful
+dignity, "is Daniel Dyer, I believe that he kissed Ellen in a tunnel."
+
+"Please ma'am," cried Ellen, and her manner bore the hall-mark of
+truth, "it wasn't me, that I'm sure."
+
+"Then it was Jane--which does not alter the case in the least." In
+saying this, it seemed to me that, from Ellen's point of view, my aunt
+was illogical. "I am not certain that I ought to have brought him with
+us; but, since I have, we must make the best of it. I only hope that he
+will not kiss young women when he is in the streets with me."
+
+I also hoped, in the privacy of my own breast, that he would not kiss
+young women while he was in the streets with me--at least, when it
+remained broad day.
+
+"This," continued my aunt, leaving Daniel Dyer buried in the depths of
+confusion, and Jane on the verge of tears, "is Sammy Trevenna, the
+parish idiot. I brought him, trusting that the visit would tend to
+sharpen his wits, and at the same time, teach him the difference
+between right and wrong. You will have, also, to keep an eye upon
+Sammy. I regret to say that he is addicted to picking and stealing.
+Sammy, where is the address card which I gave you?"
+
+Sammy--who looked his character, every inch of it!--was a lanky,
+shambling youth, apparently eighteen or nineteen years old. He fumbled
+in his pockets.
+
+"I've lost it," he sniggered.
+
+"I thought so. That is the third you have lost since we started. Here
+is another. I will pin it to your coat; then when you are lost, someone
+will be able to understand who you are. Last, but not least, Thomas,
+this is Mr. Poltifen. Although this is his first visit to London, he
+has read a great deal about the Great Metropolis. He has brought a few
+books with him, from which he proposes to read selections, at various
+points in our peregrinations, bearing upon the sights we are seeing, in
+order that instruction may be blended with our entertainment."
+
+Mr. Poltifen was a short, thick-set individual, with that in his
+appearance which was suggestive of pugnacity, an iron-grey, scrubby
+beard, and a pair of spectacles--probably something superior in the
+cobbling line. He had about a dozen books fastened together in a
+leather strap, among them being--as, before the day was finished, I had
+good reason to be aware--a "History of London," in seven volumes.
+
+"Mr. Poltifen," observed my aunt, waving her hand towards the gentleman
+referred to, "represents, in our party, the quality of intelligent
+interest."
+
+Mr. Poltifen settled his glasses on his nose and glared at me as if he
+dared me to deny it. Nothing could have been further from my mind.
+
+"Sammy," exclaimed my aunt, "sit still. How many times have I to
+request you not to shuffle?"
+
+Sammy was rubbing his knees together in a fashion the like of which I
+had never seen before. When he was addressed, he drew the back of his
+hand across his mouth, and he sniggered. I felt that he was the sort of
+youth anyone would have been glad to show round town.
+
+My aunt took a sheet of paper from her hand-bag.
+
+"This is the outline programme we have drawn up. We have, of course,
+the whole day in front of us, and I have jotted down the names of some
+of the more prominent places of interest which we wish to see." She
+began to read: "The Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, Woolwich
+Arsenal, the National Gallery, British Museum, South Kensington Museum,
+the Natural History Museum, the Zoological Gardens, Kew Gardens,
+Greenwich Hospital, Westminster Abbey, the Albert Memorial, the Houses
+of Parliament, the Monument, the Marble Arch, the Bank of England, the
+Thames Embankment, Billingsgate Fish Market, Covent Garden Market, the
+Meat Market, some of the birthplaces of famous persons, some of the
+scenes mentioned in Charles Dickens's novels--during the winter we had
+a lecture in the schoolroom on Charles Dickens's London; it aroused
+great interest--and the Courts of Justice. And we should like to finish
+up at the Crystal Palace. We should like to hear any suggestions you
+would care to make which would tend to alteration or improvement--only,
+I may observe, that we are desirous of reaching the Crystal Palace as
+early in the day as possible, as it is there we propose to have our
+midday meal." I had always been aware that my aunt's practical
+knowledge of London was but slight, but I had never realised how slight
+until that moment. "Our provisions we have brought with us. Each person
+has a meat pasty, a potato pasty, a jam pasty, and an apple pasty, so
+that all we shall require will be water."
+
+This explained the small brown-paper parcel which each member of the
+party was dangling by a string.
+
+"And you propose to consume this--little provision at the Crystal
+Palace, after visiting these other places?" My aunt inclined her head.
+I took the sheet of paper from which she had been reading. "May I ask
+how you propose to get from place to place?"
+
+"Well, Thomas, that is the point. I have made myself responsible for
+the entire charge, so I would wish to keep down expenses. We should
+like to walk as much as possible."
+
+"If you walk from Woolwich Arsenal to the Zoological Gardens, and from
+the Zoological Gardens to Kew Gardens, you will walk as far as
+possible--and rather more."
+
+Something in my tone seemed to cause a shadow to come over my aunt's
+face.
+
+"How far is it?"
+
+"About fourteen or fifteen miles. I have never walked it myself, you
+understand, so the estimate is a rough one."
+
+I felt that this was not an occasion on which it was necessary to be
+over-particular as to a yard or so.
+
+"So much as that? I had no idea it was so far. Of course, walking is
+out of the question. How would a van do?"
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A van. One of those vans in which, I understand, children go for
+treats. How much would they charge, now, for one which would hold the
+whole of us?"
+
+"I haven't the faintest notion, aunt. Would you propose to go in a van
+to all these places?" I motioned towards the sheet of paper. She
+nodded. "I have never, you understand, done this sort of thing in a
+van, but I imagine that the kind of vehicle you suggest, with one pair
+of horses, to do the entire round would take about three weeks."
+
+"Three weeks? Thomas!"
+
+"I don't pretend to literal accuracy, but I don't believe that I'm far
+wrong. No means of locomotion with which I am acquainted will enable
+you to do it in a day, of that I'm certain. I've been in London since
+my childhood, but I've never yet had time to see one-half the things
+you've got down upon this sheet of paper."
+
+"Is it possible?"
+
+"It's not only possible, it's fact. You country folk have no notion of
+London's vastness."
+
+"Stupendous!"
+
+"It is stupendous. Now, when would you like to reach the Crystal
+Palace?"
+
+"Well, not later than four. By then we shall be hungry."
+
+I surveyed the nine.
+
+"It strikes me that some of you look hungry now. Aren't you hungry?"
+
+I spoke to Sammy. His face was eloquent.
+
+"I be famished."
+
+I do not attempt to reproduce the dialect: I am no dialectician. I
+merely reproduce the sense; that is enough for me. The lady whom my
+aunt had spoken of as "Mrs. Penna, sixty-seven, and a little lame,"
+agreed with Sammy.
+
+"So be I. I be fit to drop, I be."
+
+On this subject there was a general consensus of opinion--they all
+seemed fit to drop. I was not surprised. My aunt was surprised instead.
+
+"You each of you had a treacle pasty in the train!"
+
+"What be a treacle pasty?"
+
+I was disposed to echo Mrs. Penna's query, "What be a treacle pasty?"
+My aunt struck me as really cutting the thing a little too fine.
+
+"You finish your pasties now--when we get to the Palace I'll see that
+you have something to take their place. That shall be my part of the
+treat."
+
+My aunt's manner was distinctly severe, especially considering that it
+was a party of pleasure.
+
+"Before we started it was arranged exactly what provisions would have
+to be sufficient. I do not wish to encroach upon your generosity,
+Thomas--nothing of the kind."
+
+"Never mind, aunt, that'll be all right. You tuck into your pasties."
+
+They tucked into their pasties with a will. Aunt had some breakfast
+with me--poor soul! she stood in need of it--and we discussed the
+arrangements for the day.
+
+"Of course, my dear aunt, this programme of yours is out of the
+question, altogether. We'll just do a round on a 'bus, and then it'll
+be time to start for the Palace."
+
+"But, Thomas, they will be so disappointed--and, considering how much
+it will cost me, we shall seem to be getting so little for the money."
+
+"My dear aunt, you will have had enough by the time you get back, I
+promise you."
+
+My promise was more than fulfilled--they had had good measure, pressed
+down and running over.
+
+The first part of our programme took the form, as I had suggested,
+of a ride on a 'bus. Our advent in the Strand--my rooms are in the
+Adelphi--created a sensation. I fancy the general impression was that
+we were a party of lunatics, whom I was personally conducting. That my
+aunt was one of them I do not think that anyone doubted. The way in
+which she worried and scurried and fussed and flurried was sufficient
+to convey that idea.
+
+It is not every 'bus which has room for eleven passengers. We could not
+line up on the curbstone, it would have been to impede the traffic. And
+as my aunt would not hear of a division of forces, as we sauntered
+along the pavement we enjoyed ourselves immensely. The "parish idiot"
+would insist on hanging on to the front of every shop-window,
+necessitating his being dragged away by the collar of his jacket. Jane
+and Ellen glued themselves together arm in arm, sniggering at anything
+and everything--especially when Daniel Dyer digged them in the ribs
+from behind. Mrs. Penna, proving herself to be a good deal more than a
+little lame, had to be hauled along by my aunt on one side, and by Mr.
+Holman, the "converted drunkard," on the other. That Mr. Holman did not
+enjoy his position I felt convinced from the way in which, every now
+and then, he jerked the poor old soul completely off her feet. With her
+other hand my aunt gripped Master Treen by the hand, he keeping his
+mouth as wide open as he possibly could; his little trick of
+continually looking behind him resulting in collisions with most of the
+persons, and lamp-posts, he chanced to encounter. The deaf Mr. Eva
+brought up the rear with Mr. Poltifen and his strapful of books that
+gentleman favouring him with totally erroneous scraps of information,
+which he was, fortunately, quite unable to hear.
+
+We had reached Newcastle Street before we found a 'bus which contained
+the requisite amount of accommodation. Then, when I hailed one which
+was nearly empty, the party boarded it. Somewhat to my surprise,
+scarcely anyone wished to go outside. Mrs. Penna, of course, had to be
+lifted into the interior, where Jane and Ellen joined her--I fancy that
+they fought shy of the ladder-like staircase--followed by Daniel Dyer,
+in spite of my aunt's protestations. She herself went next, dragging
+with her Master Treen, who wanted to go outside, but was not allowed,
+and, in consequence, was moved to tears. Messrs. Eva, Poltifen, Holman
+and I were the only persons who made the ascent; and the conductor
+having indulged in some sarcastic comments on things in general and my
+aunt's _prot�g�s_ in particular, which nearly drove me to commit
+assault and battery, the 'bus was started.
+
+We had not gone far before I had reason to doubt the genuineness of Mr.
+Holman's conversion. Drawing the back of his hand across his lips, he
+remarked to Mr. Eva--
+
+"It do seem as if this were going to be a thirsty job. 'Tain't my
+notion of a holiday----"
+
+I repeat that I make no attempt to imitate the dialect. Perceiving
+himself addressed, Mr. Eva put his hand up to his ear.
+
+"Beg pardon--what were that you said?"
+
+"I say that I be perishing for something to drink. I be faint for want
+of it. What's a day's pleasure if you don't never have a chance to
+moisten your lips?"
+
+Although this was said in a tone of voice which caused the
+foot-passengers to stand and stare, the driver to start round in his
+seat, as if he had been struck, and the conductor to come up to inquire
+if anything were wrong, it failed to penetrate Mr. Eva's tympanum.
+
+"What be that?" the old gentleman observed.
+
+"It do seem as if I were more deaf than usual."
+
+I touched Mr. Holman on the shoulder.
+
+"All right--leave him alone. I'll see that you have what you want when
+we get down; only don't try to make him understand while we're on this
+'bus."
+
+"Thank you kindly, sir. There's no denying that a taste of rum would do
+me good. John Eva, he be terrible hard of hearing--terrible; and the
+old girl she ain't a notion of what's fit for a man."
+
+How much the insides saw of London I cannot say. I doubt if any one on
+the roof saw much. In my anxiety to alight on one with room I had not
+troubled about the destination of the 'bus. As, however, it proved to
+be bound for London Bridge, I had an opportunity to point out St.
+Paul's Cathedral, the Bank of England, and similar places. I cannot say
+that my hearers seemed much struck by the privileges they were
+enjoying. When the vehicle drew up in the station-yard, Mr. Holman
+pointed with his thumb--
+
+"There be a public over there."
+
+I admitted that there was.
+
+"Here's a shilling for you--mind you're quickly back. Perhaps Mr.
+Poltifen would like to come with you."
+
+Mr. Poltifen declined.
+
+"I am a teetotaller. I have never touched alcohol in any form."
+
+I felt that Mr. Poltifen regarded both myself and my proceedings with
+austere displeasure. When all had alighted, my aunt, proceeding to
+number the party, discovered that one was missing; also, who it was.
+
+"Where is Matthew Holman?"
+
+"He's--he's gone across the road to--to see the time."
+
+"To see the time! There's a clock up over the station there. What do
+you mean?"
+
+"The fact is, my dear aunt, that feeling thirsty he has gone to get
+something to drink."
+
+"To drink! But he signed the pledge on Monday!"
+
+"Then, in that case, he's broken it on Wednesday. Come, let's get
+inside the station; we can't stop here; people will wonder who we are."
+
+"Thomas, we will wait here for Matthew Holman. I am responsible for
+that man."
+
+"Certainly, my dear aunt; but if we remain on the precise spot on which
+we are at present planted, we shall be prosecuted for obstruction. If
+you will go into the station, I will bring him to you there."
+
+"Where are you going to take us now?"
+
+"To the Crystal Palace."
+
+"But--we have seen nothing of London."
+
+"You'll see more of it when we get to the Palace. It's a wonderful
+place, full of the most stupendous sights; their due examination will
+more than occupy all the time you have to spare."
+
+Having hustled them into the station, I went in search of Mr. Holman.
+"The converted drunkard" was really enjoying himself for the first
+time. He had already disposed of four threepennyworths of rum, and was
+draining the last as I came in.
+
+"Now, sir, if you was so good as to loan me another shilling, I
+shouldn't wonder if I was to have a nice day, after all."
+
+"I dare say. We'll talk about that later on. If you don't want to be
+lost in London, you'll come with me at once."
+
+I scrambled them all into a train; I do not know how. It was a case of
+cram. Selecting an open carriage, I divided the party among the
+different compartments. My aunt objected; but it had to be. By the time
+that they were all in, my brow was damp with perspiration. I looked
+around. Some of our fellow-passengers wore ribbons, about eighteen
+inches wide, and other mysterious things; already, at that hour of the
+day, they were lively. The crowd was not what I expected.
+
+"Is there anything on at the Palace?" I inquired of my neighbour. He
+laughed, in a manner which was suggestive.
+
+"Anything on? What ho! Where are you come from? Why, it's the
+Foresters' Day. It's plain that you're not one of us. More shame to
+you, sonny! Here's a chance for you to join."
+
+Foresters' Day! I gasped. I saw trouble ahead. I began to think that I
+had made a mistake in tearing off to the Crystal Palace in search of
+solitude. I had expected a desert, in which my aunt's friends would
+have plenty of room to knock their heads against anything they pleased.
+But Foresters' Day! Was it eighty or a hundred thousand people who were
+wont to assemble on that occasion? I remembered to have seen the
+figures somewhere. The ladies and gentlemen about us wore an air of
+such conviviality that one wondered to what heights they would attain
+as the day wore on.
+
+We had a delightful journey. It occupied between two and three
+hours--or so it seemed to me. When we were not hanging on to platforms we
+were being shunted, or giving the engine a rest, or something of the kind.
+I know we were stopping most of the time. But the Foresters, male and
+female, kept things moving, if the train stood still. They sang songs,
+comic and sentimental; played on various musical instruments,
+principally concertinas; whistled; paid each other compliments; and so
+on. Jane and Ellen were in the next compartment to mine--as usual,
+glued together; how those two girls managed to keep stuck to each
+other was a marvel. Next to them was the persevering Daniel Dyer. In
+front was a red-faced gentleman, with a bright blue tie and an
+eighteen-inch-wide green ribbon. He addressed himself to Mr. Dyer.
+
+"Two nice young ladies you've got there, sir."
+
+Judging from what he looked like at the back, I should say that Mr.
+Dyer grinned. Obviously Jane and Ellen tittered: they put their heads
+together in charming confusion. The red-faced gentleman continued--
+
+"One more than your share, haven't you, sir? You couldn't spare one of
+them for another gentleman? meaning me."
+
+"You might have Jane," replied the affable Mr. Dyer.
+
+"And which might happen to be Jane?"
+
+Mr. Dyer supplied the information. The red-faced gentleman raised his
+hat. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, miss; hope we shall be better
+friends before the day is over."
+
+My aunt, in the compartment behind, rose in her wrath.
+
+"Daniel Dyer! Jane! How dare you behave in such a manner!"
+
+The red-faced gentleman twisted himself round in his seat.
+
+"Beg pardon, miss--was you speaking to me? If you're alone, I dare say
+there's another gentleman present who'll be willing to oblige. Every
+young lady ought to have a gent to herself on a day like this. Do me
+the favour of putting this to your lips; you'll find it's the right
+stuff."
+
+Taking out a flat bottle, wiping it upon the sleeve of his coat, he
+offered it to my aunt. She succumbed.
+
+When I found myself a struggling unit in the struggling mass on the
+Crystal Palace platform, my aunt caught me by the arm.
+
+"Thomas, where have you brought us to?"
+
+"This is the Crystal Palace, aunt."
+
+"The Crystal Palace! It's pandemonium! Where are the members of our
+party?"
+
+That was the question. My aunt collared such of them as she could lay
+her hands on. Matthew Holman was missing. Personally, I was not sorry.
+He had been "putting his lips" to more than one friendly bottle in the
+compartment behind mine, and was on a fair way to having a "nice day"
+on lines of his own. I was quite willing that he should have it by
+himself. But my aunt was not. She was for going at once for the police
+and commissioning them to hunt for and produce him then and there.
+
+"I'm responsible for the man," she kept repeating. "I have his ticket."
+
+"Very well, aunt--that's all right. You'll find him, or he'll find you;
+don't you trouble."
+
+But she did trouble. She kept on troubling. And her cause for troubling
+grew more and more as the day went on. Before we were in the main
+building--it's a journey from the low level station through endless
+passages, and up countless stairs, placed at the most inconvenient
+intervals--Mrs. Penna was _hors de combat_. As no seat was handy she
+insisted on sitting down upon the floor. Passers-by made the most
+disagreeable comments, but she either could not or would not move. My
+aunt seemed half beside herself. She said to me most unfairly,
+
+"You ought not to have brought us here on a day like this. It is
+evident that there are some most dissipated creatures here. I have a
+horror of a crowd--and with all the members of our party on my
+hands--and such a crowd!"
+
+"How was I to know? I had not the faintest notion that anything
+particular was on till we were in the train."
+
+"But you ought to have known. You live in London."
+
+"It is true that I live in London. But I do not, on that account, keep
+an eye on what is going on at the Palace. I have something else to
+occupy my time. Besides, there is an easy remedy--let us leave the
+place at once. We might find fewer people in the Tower of London--I was
+never there, so I can't say--or on the top of the Monument."
+
+"Without Matthew Holman?"
+
+"Personally, I should say 'Yes.' He, at any rate, is in congenial
+company."
+
+"Thomas!"
+
+I wish I could reproduce the tone in which my aunt uttered my name! it
+would cause the edges of the sheet of paper on which I am writing to
+curl.
+
+Another source of annoyance was the manner in which the red-faced
+gentleman persisted in sticking to us, like a limpet--as if he were a
+member of the party. Jane and Ellen kept themselves glued together. On
+Ellen's right was Daniel Dyer, and on Jane's left was the red-faced
+gentleman. This was a condition of affairs of which my aunt strongly
+disapproved. She remonstrated with the stranger, but without the least
+effect. I tried my hand on him, and failed. He was the best-tempered
+and thickest-skinned individual I ever remember to have met.
+
+"It's this way," I explained--he needed a deal of explanation. "This
+lady has brought these people for a little pleasure excursion to town,
+for the day only; and, as these young ladies are in her sole charge,
+she feels herself responsible for them. So would you just mind leaving
+us?"
+
+It seemed that he did mind; though he showed no signs of having his
+feelings hurt by the suggestion, as some persons might have done.
+
+"Don't you worry, governor; I'll help her look after 'em. I've looked
+after a few people in my time, so the young lady can trust me--can't
+you, miss?"
+
+Jane giggled. My impression is that my aunt felt like shaking her. But
+just then I made a discovery.
+
+"Hallo! Where's the youngster?"
+
+My aunt twirled herself round.
+
+"Stephen! Goodness! where has that boy gone to?"
+
+Jane looked through the glass which ran all along one side of the
+corridor.
+
+"Why, miss, there's Stephen Treen over in that crowd there."
+
+"Go and fetch him back this instant."
+
+I believe that my aunt spoke without thinking. It did seem to me that
+Jane showed an almost criminal eagerness to obey her. Off she flew into
+the grounds, through the great door which was wide open close at hand,
+with Ellen still glued to her arm, and Daniel Dyer at her heels, and
+the red-faced gentleman after him. Almost in a moment they became
+melted, as it were, into the crowd and were lost to view. My aunt
+peered after them through her glasses.
+
+"I can't see Stephen Treen--can you?"
+
+"No, aunt, I can't. I doubt if Jane could, either."
+
+"Thomas! What do you mean? She said she did."
+
+"Ah! there are people who'll say anything. I think you'll find that,
+for a time, at any rate, you've got three more members of the party off
+your hands."
+
+"Thomas! How can you talk like that? After bringing us to this dreadful
+place! Go after those benighted girls at once, and bring them back, and
+that wretched Daniel Dyer, and that miserable child, and Matthew
+Holman, too."
+
+It struck me, from her manner, that my aunt was hovering on the verge
+of hysterics. When I was endeavouring to explain how it was that I did
+not see my way to start off, then and there, in a sort of general hunt,
+an official, sauntering up, took a bird's-eye view of Mrs. Penna.
+
+"Hallo, old lady what's the matter with you? Aren't you well?"
+
+"No, I be not well--I be dying. Take me home and let me die upon my
+bed."
+
+"So bad as that, is it? What's the trouble?"
+
+"I've been up all night and all day, and little to eat and naught to
+drink, and I be lame."
+
+"Lame, are you?" The official turned to my aunt. "You know you didn't
+ought to bring a lame old lady into a crowd like this."
+
+"I didn't bring her. My nephew brought us all."
+
+"Then the sooner, I should say, your nephew takes you all away again,
+the better."
+
+The official took himself off. Mr. Poltifen made a remark. His tone was
+a trifle sour.
+
+"I cannot say that I think we are spending a profitable and pleasurable
+day in London. I understood that the object which we had in view was to
+make researches into Dickens's London, or I should not have brought my
+books."
+
+The "parish idiot" began to moan.
+
+"I be that hungry--I be! I be!"
+
+"Here," I cried: "here's half-a-crown for you. Go to that
+refreshment-stall and cram yourself with penny buns to bursting point."
+
+Off started Sammy Trevenna; he had sense enough to catch my meaning. My
+aunt called after him.
+
+"Sammy! You mustn't leave us. Wait until we come."
+
+But Sammy declined. When, hurrying after him, catching him by the
+shoulder, she sought to detain him, he positively showed signs of
+fight.
+
+Oh! it was a delightful day! Enjoyable from start to finish. Somehow I
+got Mrs. Penna, with my aunt and the remnant, into the main building
+and planted them on chairs, and provided them with buns and similar
+dainties, and instructed them not, on any pretext, to budge from where
+they were until I returned with the truants, of whom, straightway, I
+went in search. I do not mind admitting that I commenced by paying a
+visit to a refreshment-bar upon my own account--I needed something to
+support me. Nor, having comforted the inner man, did I press forward on
+my quest with undue haste. Exactly as I expected, I found Jane and
+Ellen in a sheltered alcove in the grounds, with Daniel Dyer on one
+side, the red-faced gentleman on the other, and Master Stephen Treen
+nowhere to be seen. The red-faced gentleman's friendship with Jane had
+advanced so rapidly that when I suggested her prompt return to my aunt,
+he considered himself entitled to object with such vehemence that he
+actually took his coat off and invited me to fight. But I was not to be
+browbeaten by him; and, having made it clear that if he attempted to
+follow I should call the police, I marched off in triumph with my
+prizes, only to discover that the young women had tongues of their own,
+with examples of whose capacity they favoured me as we proceeded. I
+believe that if I had been my aunt, I should, then and there, have
+boxed their ears.
+
+My aunt received us with a countenance of such gloom that I immediately
+perceived that something frightful must have occurred.
+
+"Thomas!" she exclaimed, "I have been robbed!"
+
+"Robbed? My dear aunt! Of what--your umbrella?"
+
+"Of everything!"
+
+"Of everything? I hope it's not so bad as that."
+
+"It is. I have been robbed of purse, money, tickets, everything, down
+to my pocket-handkerchief and bunch of keys."
+
+It was the fact--she had. Her pocket, containing all she possessed--out
+of Cornwall--had been cut out of her dress and carried clean away. It
+was a very neat piece of work, as the police agreed when we laid the
+case before them. They observed that, of course, they would do their
+best, but they did not think there was much likelihood of any of the
+stolen property being regained; adding that, in a crowd like that,
+people ought to look after their pockets, which was cold comfort for my
+aunt, and rounded the day off nicely.
+
+Ticketless, moneyless, returning to Cornwall that night was out of the
+question. I put "the party" up. My aunt had my bed, Mrs. Penna was
+accommodated in the same room, the others somewhere and somehow. I
+camped out. In the morning, the telegraph being put in motion, funds
+were forthcoming, and "the party" started on its homeward way. The
+railway authorities would listen to nothing about lost excursion
+tickets. My aunt had to pay full fare--twenty-one and twopence
+halfpenny--for each. I can still see her face as she paid.
+
+Two days afterwards Master Stephen Treen and Mr. Matthew Holman were
+reported found by the police, Mr. Holman showing marked signs of a
+distinct relapse from grace. My aunt had to pay for their being sent
+home. The next day she received, through the post, in an unpaid
+envelope, the lost excursion tickets. No comment accompanied them. Her
+visiting-card was in the purse; evidently the thief, having no use for
+old excursion tickets, had availed himself of it to send them back to
+her. She has them to this day, and never looks at them without a qualm.
+That was her first excursion; she tells me that never, under any
+circumstances, will she try another.
+
+
+
+
+                    The Irregularity of the Juryman
+
+
+                               Chapter I
+
+                        THE JURYMAN IS STARTLED
+
+His first feeling was one of annoyance. All-round annoyance.
+Comprehensive disgust. He did not want to be a juryman. He flattered
+himself that he had something better to do with his time. Half-a-dozen
+matters required his attention. Instead of which, here he was obtruding
+himself into matters in which he did not take the faintest interest.
+Actually dragged into interference with other people's most intimate
+affairs. And in that stuffy court. And it had been a principle of his
+life never to concern himself with what was no business of his. Talk
+about the system of trial by jury being a bulwark of the Constitution!
+At that moment he had no opinion of the Constitution; or its bulwarks
+either.
+
+Then there were his colleagues. He had never been associated with
+eleven persons with whom he felt himself to be less in sympathy. The
+fellow they had chosen to be foreman he felt convinced was a
+cheesemonger. He looked it. The others looked, if anything, worse.
+Not, he acknowledged, that there was anything inherently wrong in being
+a cheesemonger. Still, one did not want to sit cheek by jowl with
+persons of that sort for an indefinite length of time. And there were
+cases--particularly in the Probate Court--which lasted days; even weeks.
+If he were in for one of those! The perspiration nearly stood on his
+brow at the horror of the thought.
+
+What was the case about? What was that inarticulate person saying?
+Philip Poland knew nothing about courts--and did not want to--but he
+took it for granted that the gentleman in a wig and gown, with his
+hands folded over his portly stomach, was counsel for one side or the
+other--though he had not the slightest notion which. He had no idea how
+they managed things in places of this sort. As he eyed him he felt that
+he was against him anyhow. If he were paid to speak, why did not the
+man speak up?
+
+By degrees, for sheer want of something else, Mr. Roland found that he
+was listening. After all, the man was audible. He seemed capable, also,
+of making his meaning understood. So it was about a will, was it? He
+might have taken that for granted. He always had had the impression
+that the Probate Court was the place for wills. It seemed that somebody
+had left a will; and this will was in favour of the portly gentleman's
+client; and was as sound, as equitable, as admirable a legal instrument
+as ever yet was executed; and how, therefore, anyone could have
+anything to say against it surprised the portly gentleman to such a
+degree that he had to stop to wipe his forehead with a red silk
+pocket-handkerchief.
+
+The day was warm. Mr. Roland was not fond of listening to speeches. And
+this one was--well, weighty. And about something for which he did not
+care two pins. His attention wandered. It strayed perilously near the
+verge of a dose. In fact, it must have strayed right over the verge.
+Because the next thing he understood was that one of his colleagues was
+digging his elbow into his side, and proffering the information that
+they were going lunch. He felt a little bewildered. He could not think
+how it had happened. It was not his habit to go to sleep in the
+morning. As he trooped after his fellows he was visited by a hazy
+impression that that wretched jury system was at the bottom of it all.
+
+They were shown into an ill-ventilated room. Someone asked him what he
+would have to eat. He told them to bring him what they had. They
+brought some hot boiled beef and carrots. The sight of it nearly made
+him ill. His was a dainty appetite. Hot boiled beef on such a day, in
+such a place, after such a morning, was almost the final straw. He
+could not touch it.
+
+His companion attacked his plate with every appearance of relish. He
+made a hearty meal. Possibly he had kept awake. He commented on the
+fashion in which Mr. Roland had done his duty to his Queen and country.
+
+"Shouldn't think you were able to pronounce much of an opinion on the
+case so far as it has gone, eh?"
+
+"My good sir, the judge will instruct us as to our duty. If we follow
+his instructions we shan't go wrong."
+
+"You think, then, that we are only so many automata, and that the judge
+has but to pull the strings."
+
+Mr. Roland looked about him, contempt in his eye.
+
+"It would be fortunate, perhaps, if we were automata."
+
+"Then I can only say that we take diametrically opposite views of our
+office. I maintain that it is our duty to listen to the evidence, to
+weigh it carefully, and to record our honest convictions in the face of
+all the judges whoever sat upon the Bench."
+
+Mr. Roland was silent. He was not disposed to enter into an academical
+discussion with an individual who evidently had a certain command of
+language. Others, however, showed themselves to be not so averse. The
+luncheon interval was enlivened by some observations on the jury system
+which lawyers--had any been present--would have found instructive.
+There were no actual quarrels. But some of the arguments were of the
+nature of repartees. Possibly it was owing to the beef and carrots.
+
+They re-entered the court. The case recommenced. Mr. Roland had a
+headache. He was cross. His disposition was to return a verdict against
+everything and everyone, as his neighbour had put it, "in the face of
+all the judges who ever sat upon the Bench." But this time he did pay
+some attention to what was going on.
+
+It appeared, in spite of the necessity which the portly gentleman had
+been under to use his red silk pocket-handkerchief, that there were
+objections to the will he represented. It was not easy at that stage to
+pick up the lost threads, but from what Mr. Roland could gather it
+seemed it was asserted that a later will had been made, which was still
+in existence. Evidence was given by persons who had been present at the
+execution of that will; by the actual witnesses to the testator's
+signature; by the lawyer who had drawn the will. And then--!
+
+Then there stepped into the witness-box a person whose appearance
+entirely changed Mr. Roland's attitude towards the proceedings; so
+that, in the twinkling of an eye, he passed from bored indifference to
+the keenest and liveliest interest. It was a young woman. She gave her
+name as Delia Angel. Her address as Barkston Gardens, South Kensington.
+At sight of her things began to hum inside Mr. Roland's brain. Where
+had he seen her before? It all came back in a flash. How could he have
+forgotten her, even for a moment, when from that day to this she had
+been continually present to his mind's eye?
+
+It was the girl of the train. She had travelled with him from Nice to
+Dijon in the same carriage, which most of the way they had had to
+themselves. What a journey it was! And what a girl! During those
+fast-fleeting hours--on that occasion they had fled fast--they had
+discussed all subjects from Alpha to Omega. He had approached closer
+to terms of friendship with a woman than he had ever done in the whole
+course of his life before--or since. He was so taken aback by the
+encounter, so wrapped in recollections of those pleasant hours, that for
+a time he neglected to listen to what she was saying. When he did begin
+to listen he pricked up his ears still higher.
+
+It was in her favour the latest will had been made--at least, partly.
+She had just returned from laying the testator in the cemetery in Nice
+when he met her in the train--actually! He recalled her deep mourning.
+The impression she had given him was that she had lately lost a friend.
+She was even carrying the will in question with her at the time. Then
+she began to make a series of statements which brought Mr. Roland's
+heart up into his mouth.
+
+"Tell us," suggested counsel, "what happened in the train."
+
+She paused as if to collect her thoughts. Then told a little story
+which interested at least one of her hearers more than anything he had
+ever listened to.
+
+"I had originally intended to stop in Paris. On the way, however, I
+decided not to do so but to go straight through."
+
+Mr. Roland remembered he had told her he was going, and wondered; but
+he resolved to postpone his wonder till she had finished.
+
+"When we were nearing Dijon I made up my mind to send a telegram to the
+concierge asking her to address all letters to me in town. When we
+reached the station I got out of the train to do so. In the compartment
+in which I had travelled was a gentleman. I asked him to keep an eye on
+my bag till I returned. He said he would. On the platform I met some
+friends. I stopped to talk to them. The time must have gone quicker
+than I supposed, because when I reached the telegraph office I found I
+had only a minute or two to spare. I scribbled the telegram. As I
+turned I slipped and fell--I take it because of the haste I was in. As
+I fell my head struck upon something; because the next thing I realized
+was that I was lying on a couch in a strange room, feeling very queer
+indeed. I did ask, I believe what had become of the train. They told me
+it was gone. I understand that during the remainder of the day, and
+through the night, I continued more or less unconscious. When next day
+I came back to myself it was too late. I found my luggage awaiting me
+at Paris. But of the bag, or of the gentleman with whom I left it in
+charge, I have heard nothing since. I have advertised, tried every
+means my solicitor advised; but up to the present without result."
+
+"And the will" observed counsel, "was in that bag?"
+
+"It was."
+
+Mr. Roland had listened to the lady's narrative with increasing
+amazement. He remembered her getting out at Dijon; that she had left a
+bag behind. That she had formally intrusted it to his charge he did not
+remember. He recalled the anxiety with which he watched for her return;
+his keen disappointment when he still saw nothing of her as the train
+steamed out of the station. So great was his chagrin that it almost
+amounted to dismay. He had had such a good time; had taken it for
+granted that it would continue for at least a few more hours, and
+perhaps--perhaps all sorts of things. Now, without notice, on the
+instant, she had gone out of his life as she had come into it. He had
+seen her talking to her friends. Possibly she had joined herself to
+them. Well, if she was that sort of person, let her go!
+
+As for the bag, it had escaped his recollection that there was such a
+thing. And possibly would have continued to do so had it not persisted
+in staring at him mutely from the opposite seat. So she had left it
+behind? Serve her right. It was only a rubbishing hand-bag. Pretty old,
+too. It seemed that feather-headed young women could not be even
+depended upon to look after their own rubbish. She would come rushing
+up to the carriage window at one of the stations. Or he would see her
+at Paris. Then she could have the thing. But he did not see her. To be
+frank, as they neared Paris, half obliviously he crammed it with his
+travelling cap into his kit-bag, and to continue on the line of
+candour--ignored its existence till he found it there in town.
+
+And in it was the will! The document on which so much
+hinged--especially for her! The bone of contention which all this pother
+was about. Among all that she said this was the statement which took him
+most aback. Because, without the slightest desire to impugn in any
+detail the lady's veracity, he had the best of reasons for knowing that
+she had--well--made a mistake.
+
+If he had not good reason to know it, who had? He clearly called to
+mind the sensation, almost of horror, with which he had recognised that
+the thing was in his kit-bag. Half-a-dozen courses which he ought to
+have pursued occurred to him--too late. He ought to have handed it over
+to the guard of the train; to the station-master; to the lost property
+office. In short, he ought to have done anything except bring it with
+him in his bag to town. But since he had brought it, the best thing to
+do seemed to be to ascertain if it contained anything which would be a
+clue to its owner.
+
+It was a small affair, perhaps eight inches long. Of stamped brown
+leather. Well worn. Original cost possibly six or seven shillings.
+Opened by pressing a spring lock. Contents: Four small keys on a piece
+of ribbon; two pocket-handkerchiefs, each with an embroidered D in the
+corner; the remains of a packet of chocolate; half a cedar lead-pencil;
+a pair of shoe-laces. And that was all. He had turned that bag upside
+down upon his bed, and was prepared to go into the witness-box and
+swear that there was nothing else left inside. At least he was almost
+prepared to swear. For since here was Miss Delia Angel--how well the
+name fitted the owner!--positively affirming that among its contents
+was the document on which for all he knew all her worldly wealth
+depended, what was he to think?
+
+The bag had continued in his possession until a week or two ago. Then
+one afternoon his sister, Mrs. Tranmer, had come to his rooms, and
+having purchased a packet of hairpins, or something of the kind, had
+wanted something to put them in. Seeing the bag in the corner of one of
+his shelves, in spite of his protestations she had snatched it up, and
+insisted on annexing it to help her carry home her ridiculous purchase.
+Its contents--as described above--he retained. But the bag! Surely
+Agatha was not such an idiot, such a dishonest creature, as to allow
+property which was not hers to pass for a moment out of her hands.
+
+During the remainder of Miss Angel's evidence--so far as it went that
+day--one juryman, both mentally and physically, was in a state of dire
+distress. What was he to do? He was torn in a dozen different ways.
+Would it be etiquette for a person in his position to spring to his
+feet and volunteer to tell his story? He would probably astonish the
+Court. But--what would the Court say to him? Who had ever heard of a
+witness in the jury-box? He could not but suspect that, at the very
+least, such a situation would be in the highest degree irregular. And,
+in any case, what could he do? Give the lady the lie? It will have been
+perceived that his notions of the responsibilities of a juryman were
+his own, and it is quite within the range of possibility that he had
+already made up his mind which way his verdict should go; whether the
+will was in the bag or not--and "in the face of all the judges who ever
+sat upon the Bench."
+
+The bag! the bag! Where was it? If, for once in a way, Agatha had shown
+herself to be possessed of a grain of the common sense with which he
+had never credited her!
+
+At the conclusion of Miss Angel's examination in chief the portly
+gentleman asked to be allowed to postpone his cross-examination to the
+morning. On which, by way of showing its entire acquiescence, the Court
+at once adjourned.
+
+And off pelted one of the jurymen in search of the bag.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+                        MRS. TRANMER IS STARTLED
+
+Mrs. Tranmer was just going up to dress for dinner when in burst her
+brother. Mr. Roland was, as a rule, one of the least excitable of men.
+His obvious agitation therefore surprised her the more. Her feelings
+took a characteristic form of expression--to her, an attentive eye to
+the proprieties of costume was the whole duty of a Christian.
+
+"Philip!--what have you done to your tie?"
+
+Mr. Roland mechanically put up his hand towards the article referred
+to; returning question for question.
+
+"Agatha, where's that bag?"
+
+"Bag? My good man, you're making your tie crookeder!"
+
+"Bother the tie!" Mrs. Tranmer started: Philip was so seldom
+interjectional. "Do you hear me ask where that bag is?"
+
+"My dear brother, before you knock me down, will you permit me to
+suggest that your tie is still in a shocking condition?"
+
+He gave her one look--such a look! Then he went to the looking-glass
+and arranged his tie. Then he turned to her.
+
+"Will that do?"
+
+"It is better."
+
+"Now, will you give me that bag--at once?"
+
+"Bag? What bag?"
+
+"You know very well what bag I mean--the one you took from my room."
+
+"The one I took from your room?"
+
+"I told you not to take it. I warned you it wasn't mine. I informed you
+that I was its involuntary custodian. And yet, in spite of all I could
+say--of all I could urge, with a woman's lax sense of the difference
+between _meum_ and _tuum_, you insisted on removing it from my custody.
+The sole reparation you can make is to return it at once--upon the
+instant."
+
+She observed him with growing amazement--as well she might. She
+subsided into an armchair.
+
+"May I ask you to inform me from what you're suffering now?"
+
+He was a little disposed towards valetudinarianism, and was apt to
+imagine himself visited by divers diseases. He winced.
+
+"Agatha, the only thing from which I am suffering at this moment
+is--is----"
+
+"Yes; is what?"
+
+"A feeling of irritation at my own weakness in allowing myself to be
+persuaded by you to act in opposition to my better judgment."
+
+"Dear me! You must be ill. That you are ill is shown by the fact that
+your tie is crooked again. Don't consider my feelings, and pray present
+yourself in my drawing-room in any condition you choose. But perhaps
+you will be so good as to let me know if there is any sense in the
+stuff you have been talking about a bag."
+
+"Agatha, you remember that bag you took from my room?"
+
+"That old brown leather thing?"
+
+"It was made of brown leather--a week or two ago?"
+
+"A week or two? Why, it was months ago."
+
+"My dear Agatha, I do assure you----"
+
+"Please don't let us argue. I tell you it was months ago."
+
+"I told you not to take it----"
+
+"You told me not to take it? Why, you pressed it on me. I didn't care
+to be seen with such a rubbishing old thing; but you took it off your
+shelf and said it would do very well. So, to avoid argument, as I
+generally do, I let you have your way."
+
+"I--I don't want to be rude, but a--a more outrageous series of
+statements I never heard. I told you distinctly that it wasn't mine."
+
+"You did nothing of the sort. Of course I took it for granted that such
+a disreputable article, which evidently belonged to a woman, was not
+your property. But as I had no wish to pry into your private affairs I
+was careful not to inquire how such a curiosity found its way upon your
+shelves."
+
+"Agatha, your--your insinuations----"
+
+"I insinuate nothing. I only want to know what this fuss is about. As I
+wish to dress for dinner, perhaps you'll tell me in a couple of words."
+
+"Agatha, where's that bag?"
+
+"How should I know?"
+
+"Haven't you got it?"
+
+"Got it? Do you suppose I have a museum in which I preserve rubbish of
+the kind?"
+
+"But--what have you done with it?"
+
+"You might as well ask me what I've done with last year's gloves."
+
+"Agatha--think! More hinges upon this than you have any conception.
+What did you do with that bag?"
+
+"Since you are so insistent--and I must say, Philip, that your conduct
+is most peculiar--I will think, or I'll try to. I believe I gave
+the bag to Jane. Or else to Mrs. Pettigrew's little girl. Or to my
+needle-woman--to carry home some embroidery she was mending for me; I
+am most particular about embroidery, especially when its good. Or to
+the curate's wife, for a jumble sale. Or I might have given it to
+someone else. Or I might have lost it. Or done something else with it."
+
+"Did you look inside?"
+
+"Of course I did. I must have done. Though I don't remember doing
+anything of the kind."
+
+"Was there anything in it?"
+
+"Do you mean when you gave it me? If there was I never saw it. Am I
+going to be accused of felony?"
+
+"Agatha, I believe you have ruined me."
+
+"Ruined you! Philip, what nonsense are you talking? I insist upon your
+telling me what you mean. What has that wretched old bag, which would
+have certainly been dear at twopence, to do with either you or me?"
+
+"I will endeavour to explain. I believe that I stood towards that bag
+in what the law regards as a fiduciary relation. I was responsible for
+its safety. Its loss will fall on me."
+
+"The loss of a twopenny-halfpenny bag?"
+
+"It is not a question of the bag, but of its contents."
+
+"What were its contents?"
+
+"It contained a will."
+
+"A will?--a real will? Do you mean to say that you gave me that bag
+without breathing a word about there being a will inside?"
+
+"I didn't know myself until to-day."
+
+By degrees the tale was told. Mrs. Tranmer's amazement grew and grew.
+She seemed to have forgotten all about its being time to dress for
+dinner.
+
+"And you are a juryman?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"And you actually have the bag on which the whole case turns?"
+
+"I wish I had."
+
+"But was the will inside?"
+
+"I never saw it."
+
+"Nor I. It was quite an ordinary bag, and if it had been we must have
+seen it. A will isn't written on a scrappy piece of paper which could
+have been overlooked. Philip, the will wasn't in the bag. That young
+woman's an impostor."
+
+"I don't believe it for a moment--not for a single instant. I am
+convinced that she supposes herself to be speaking the absolute truth.
+Even granting that she is mistaken, in what position do I stand? I
+cannot go and say, 'I have lost your bag, but it doesn't matter, for
+the will was not inside.' Would she not be entitled to reply, 'Return
+me the bag in the condition in which I intrusted it to your keeping,
+and I will show that you are wrong'? It will not be enough for me to
+repeat that I have not the bag; my sister threw it into her dust-hole."
+
+"Philip!"
+
+"May she not retort, 'Then, for all the misfortunes which the loss of
+the bag brings on me, you are responsible'? The letter of the law might
+acquit me. My conscience never would. Agatha, I fear you have done me a
+serious injury."
+
+"Don't talk like that! Under the circumstances you had no right to give
+me the bag at all."
+
+"You are wrong; I did not give it you. On the contrary, I implored you
+not to take it. But you insisted."
+
+"Philip, how can you say such a wicked thing? I remember exactly what
+happened. I had been buying some veils. I was saying to you how I hated
+carrying parcels, even small ones----"
+
+"Agatha, don't let us enter into this matter now. You may be called
+upon to make your statement in another place. I can only hope that our
+statements will not clash."
+
+For the first time Mrs. Tranmer showed symptoms of genuine anxiety.
+
+"You don't mean to say that I'm to be dragged into a court of law
+because of that twopenny-halfpenny bag?"
+
+"I think it possible. What else can you expect?
+
+"I must tell this unfortunate young lady how the matter stands. I
+apprehend that I shall have to repeat my statement in open court, and
+that you will be called upon to supplement it. I also take it that no
+stone will be left unturned to induce you to give a clear and
+satisfactory account of what became of the bag after it passed into
+your hands."
+
+"My goodness! And I know no more what became of it than anything."
+
+"I must go to Miss Angel at once."
+
+"Philip!"
+
+"I must. Consider my position. I cannot enter the court as a juryman
+again without explaining to someone how I am placed. The irregularity
+would transgress all limits. I must communicate with Miss Angel
+immediately; she will communicate with her advisers, who will no doubt
+communicate with you."
+
+"My goodness!" repeated Mrs. Tranmer to herself after he had gone.
+Still she did not proceed upstairs to dress.
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+                       THE PLAINTIFF IS STARTLED
+
+Miss Angel was dressed for dinner. She was in the drawing-room with
+other guests of the hotel, waiting for the gong to sound, when she was
+informed that a gentleman wished to see her. On the heels of the
+information entered the gentleman himself. It seemed that Mr. Roland
+had only eyes for her. As if oblivious of others he moved rapidly
+forward. She regarded him askance. He, perceiving her want of
+recognition, introduce himself in a fashion of his own.
+
+"Miss Angel, I'm the man who travelled with you from Nice to Dijon."
+
+At once her face lighted up. Her eyes became as if they were illumined.
+
+"Of course! To think that we should have met again! At last!"
+
+To judge from certain comments which were made by those around one
+could not but suspect that Miss Angel's story was a theme of general
+interest. As a matter of fact, they were being entertained by her
+account of the day's proceedings at the very moment of Mr. Roland's
+entry. People in these small "residential" hotels are sometimes so
+extremely friendly. Altogether unexpectedly Mr. Roland found himself an
+object of interest to quite a number of total strangers. He was not the
+sort of man to shine in such a position, particularly as it was only
+too plain that Miss Angel misunderstood the situation.
+
+"Mr. Roland, you are like a messenger from Heaven. I have prayed for
+you to come, so you must be one. And at this time of all times--just
+when you are most wanted! Really your advent must be miraculous."
+
+"Ye-es." The gentleman glanced around. "Might I speak to you for a
+moment in private?"
+
+She regarded him a little quizzically.
+
+"Everybody here knows my whole strange history; my hopes and fears; all
+about me. You needn't be afraid to add another chapter to the tale,
+especially since you have arrived at so opportune a moment."
+
+"Precisely." His tone was expressive of something more than doubt.
+"Still, if you don't mind, I think I would rather say a few words to
+you alone."
+
+The bystanders commenced to withdraw with some little show of
+awkwardness, as if, since the whole business had so far been public,
+they rather resented the element of secrecy. The gong sounding, Miss
+Angel was moved to proffer a suggestion.
+
+"Come dine with me. We can talk when we are eating."
+
+He shrank back with what was almost a gesture of horror.
+
+"Excuse me--you are very kind--I really couldn't. If you prefer it, I
+will wait here until you have dined."
+
+"Do you imagine that I could wait to hear what you have to say till
+after dinner? You don't know me if you do. The people are going. We
+shall have the room all to ourselves. My dinner can wait."
+
+The people went. They did have the room to themselves. She began to
+overwhelm him with her thanks, which, conscience-striken, he
+endeavoured to parry.
+
+"I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you for coming in this
+spontaneous fashion--at this moment, too, of my utmost need."
+
+"Just so."
+
+"If you only knew how I have searched for you high and low, and now,
+after all, you appear in the very nick of time."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"It would almost seem as if you had chosen the dramatic moment; for
+this is the time of all times when your presence on the scene was most
+desired."
+
+"It's very good of you to say so;--but if you will allow me to
+interrupt you--I am afraid I am not entitled to your thanks. The fact
+is, I--I haven't the bag."
+
+"You haven't the bag?"
+
+Although he did not dare to look at her he was conscious that the
+fashion of her countenance had changed. At the knowledge a chill seemed
+to penetrate to the very marrow in his bones.
+
+"I--I fear I haven't."
+
+"You had it--I left it in your charge!"
+
+"Unfortunately, that is the most unfortunate part of the whole affair."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+He explained. For the second time that night he told his tale. It had
+not rolled easily off his tongue at the first time of telling. He found
+the repetition a task of exquisite difficulty. In the presence of that
+young lady it seemed so poor a story. Especially in the mood in which
+she was. She continually interrupted him with question and
+comment--always of the most awkward kind. By the time he had made an
+end of telling he felt as if most of the vitality had gone out of him.
+She was silent for some seconds--dreadful seconds; Then she drew a long
+breath, and she said:--
+
+"So I am to understand, am I, that your sister has lost the bag--my
+bag?"
+
+"I fear that it would seem so, for the present."
+
+"For the present? What do you mean by for the present? Are you
+suggesting that she will be able to find it during the next few hours?
+Because after that it will be too late."
+
+"I--I should hardly like to go so far as that, knowing my sister."
+
+"Knowing your sister? I see. Of course I am perfectly aware that I had
+no right to intrust the bag to your charge even for a single instant:
+to you, an entire stranger; though I had no notion that you were the
+kind of stranger you seem to be. Nor had I any right to slip, and fall,
+and become unconscious and so allow that train to leave me behind.
+Still--it does seems a little hard. Don't you think it does?"
+
+"I can only hope that the loss was not of such serious importance as
+you would seem to infer."
+
+"It depends on what you call serious. It probably means the difference
+between affluence and beggary. That's all."
+
+"On one point you must allow me to make an observation. The will was
+not in the bag."
+
+"The will was not in the bag!"
+
+There was a quality in the lady's voice which made Mr. Roland quail. He
+hastened to proceed.
+
+"I have here all which it contained."
+
+He produced a neat packet, in which were discovered four keys, two
+handkerchiefs, scraps of what might be chocolate, a piece of pencil, a
+pair of brown shoe-laces. She regarded the various objects with
+unsympathetic eyes.
+
+"It also contained the will."
+
+"I can only assure you that I saw nothing of it; nor my sister either.
+Surely a thing of that kind could hardly have escaped our observation."
+
+"In that bag, Mr. Roland, is a secret pocket; intended to hold--secure
+from observation--banknotes, letters, or private papers. The will was
+there. Did you or your sister, in the course of your investigations,
+light upon the secret of that pocket?"
+
+Something of the sort he had feared. He rubbed his hands together,
+almost as if he were wringing them.
+
+"Miss Angel, I can only hint at my sense of shame; at my consciousness
+of my own deficiencies; and can only reiterate my sincere hope that the
+consequences of your loss may still be less serious than you suppose."
+
+"I imagine that nothing worse than my ruin will result."
+
+"I will do my best to guard against that."
+
+"You!--what can you do--now?"
+
+"I am at least a juryman."
+
+"A juryman?"
+
+"I am one of the jury which is trying the case."
+
+"You!" Her eyes opened wider. "Of course! I thought I had seen you
+somewhere before today! That's where it was! How stupid I am! Is it
+possible?" Exactly what she meant by her disjointed remarks was not
+clear. He did not suspect her of an intention to flatter. "And you
+propose to influence your colleagues to give a decision in my favour?"
+
+"You may smile, but since unanimity is necessary I can, at any rate,
+make sure that it is not given against you."
+
+"I see. Your idea is original. And perhaps a little daring. But before
+we repose our trust on such an eventuality I should like to do
+something. First of all, I should like to interview your sister."
+
+"If you please."
+
+"I do please. I think it possible that when I explain to her how the
+matter is with me her memory may be moved to the recollection of what
+she did with my poor bag. Do you think I could see her if I went to her
+at once?"
+
+"Quite probably."
+
+"Then you and I will go together. If you will wait for me to put a hat
+on, in two minutes I will return to you here."
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+                        TWO CABMEN ARE STARTLED
+
+Hats are uncertain quantities. Sometimes they represent ten minutes,
+sometimes twenty, sometimes sixty. It is hardly likely that any woman
+ever "put a hat on" in two. Miss Angel was quick. Still, before she
+reappeared Mr. Roland had arrived at something which resembled a mental
+resolution. He hurled it at her as soon as she was through the doorway.
+
+"Miss Angel, before we start upon our errand I should like to make
+myself clear to you at least upon one point. I am aware that I am
+responsible for the destruction of your hopes--morally and actually. I
+should like you therefore to understand that, should the case go
+against you, you will find me personally prepared to make good your
+loss so far as in my power lies. I should, of course, regard it as my
+simple duty."
+
+She smiled at him, really nicely.
+
+"You are Quixotic, Mr. Roland. Though it is very good of you all the
+same. But before we talk about such things I should like to see your
+sister, if you don't mind."
+
+At this hint he moved to the door. As they went towards the hall he
+said:--
+
+"I hope you are building no high hopes upon your interview with my
+sister. I know my sister, you understand; and though she is the best
+woman in the world, I fear that she attached so little importance to
+the bag that she has allowed its fate to escape her memory altogether."
+
+"One does allow unimportant matters to escape one's memory, doesn't
+one?"
+
+Her words were ambiguous. He wondered what she meant. It was she who
+started the conversation when they were in the cab.
+
+"Would it be very improper to ask what you think of the case so far as
+it has gone?"
+
+He was sensible that it would be most improper. But, then, there had
+been so much impropriety about his proceedings already that perhaps he
+felt that a little more or less did not matter. He answered as if he
+had followed the proceedings with unflagging attention.
+
+"I think your case is very strong."
+
+"Really? Without the bag?"
+
+It was a simple fact that he had but the vaguest notion of what had
+been stated upon the other side. Had he been called upon to give even a
+faint outline of what the case for the opposition really was he would
+have been unable to do so. But so trivial an accident did not prevent
+his expressing a confident opinion.
+
+"Certainly; as it stands."
+
+"But won't it look odd if I am unable to produce the will?"
+
+Mr. Roland pondered; or pretended to.
+
+"No doubt the introduction of the will would bring the matter to an
+immediate conclusion. But, as it is, your own statement is so clear
+that it seems to me to be incontrovertible."
+
+"Truly? And do your colleagues think so also?"
+
+He knew no more what his "colleagues" thought than the man in the moon.
+But that was of no consequence.
+
+"I think you may take it for granted that they are not all idiots. I
+believe, indeed, that it is generally admitted that in most juries
+there is a preponderance of common sense."
+
+She sighed, a little wistfully, as if the prospect presented by his
+words was not so alluring as she would have desired. She kept her eyes
+fixed on his face--a fact of which he was conscious.
+
+"Oh, I wish I could find the will!"
+
+While he was still echoing her wish with all his heart a strange thing
+happened.
+
+The cabman turned a corner. It was dark. He did not think it necessary
+to slacken his pace. Nor, perhaps, to keep a keen look-out for what was
+advancing in an opposite direction. Tactics which a brother Jehu
+carefully followed. Another hansom was coming round that corner too.
+Both drivers, perceiving that their zeal was excessive, endeavoured to
+avoid disaster by dragging their steeds back upon their haunches. Too
+late! On the instant they were in collision. In that brief, exciting
+moment Mr. Roland saw that the sole occupant of the other hansom was a
+lady. He knew her. She knew him.
+
+"It's Agatha!" he cried.
+
+"Philip!" came in answer.
+
+Before either had a chance to utter another word hansoms, riders, and
+drivers were on the ground. Fortunately the horses kept their heads,
+being possibly accustomed to little diversions of the kind. They merely
+continued still, as if waiting to see what would happen next. In
+consequence he was able to scramble out himself, and to assist Miss
+Angel in following him.
+
+"Are you hurt?" he asked.
+
+"I don't think so; not a bit."
+
+"Excuse me, but my sister's in the other cab."
+
+"Your sister!"
+
+He did not wait to hear. He was off like a flash. From the ruins of the
+other vehicle--which seemed to have suffered most in the contact--he
+gradually extricated the dishevelled Mrs. Tranmer. She seemed to be in
+a sad state. He led her to a chemist's shop, which luckily stood open
+close at hand, accompanied by Miss Angel and a larger proportion of the
+crowd than the proprietor appeared disposed to welcome. He repeated the
+inquiry he had addressed to Miss Angel.
+
+"Are you hurt?"
+
+This time the response was different.
+
+"Of course I'm hurt. I'm shaken all to pieces; every bone in my body's
+broken; there's not a scrap of life left in me. Do you suppose I'm the
+sort of creature who can be thrown about like a shuttlecock and not be
+hurt?"
+
+Something, however, in her tone suggested that her troubles might after
+all be superficial.
+
+"If you will calm yourself, Agatha, perhaps you may find that your
+injuries are not so serious as you imagine."
+
+"They couldn't be, or I should be dead. The worst of it is that this
+all comes of my flying across London to take that twopenny-halfpenny
+bag to that ridiculous young woman of yours."
+
+He started.
+
+"The bag! Agatha! have you found it?"
+
+"Of course I've found it. How do you suppose I could be tearing along
+with it in my hands if I hadn't?" The volubility of her utterance
+pointed to a rapid return to convalescence. "It seems that I gave it to
+Jane, or she says that I did, though I have no recollection of doing
+anything of the kind. As she had already plenty of better bags of her
+own, probably most of them mine, she didn't want it, so she gave it to
+her sister-in-law. Directly I heard that, I dragged her into a cab and
+tore off to the woman's house. The woman was out, and, of course, she'd
+taken the bag with her to do some shopping. I packed off her husband
+and half-a-dozen children to scour the neighbourhood for her in
+different directions, and I thought I should have a fit while I waited.
+The moment she appeared I snatched the bag from her hand, flung myself
+back into the cab--and now the cab has flung me out into the road, and
+heaven only knows if I shall ever be the same woman I was before I
+started."
+
+"And the bag! Where is it?"  She looked about her with bewildered eyes.
+
+"The bag? I haven't the faintest notion. I must have left it in the
+cab."
+
+Mr. Roland rushed out into the street. He gained the vehicle in which
+Mrs. Tranmer had travelled. It seemed that one of the shafts had been
+wrenched right off, but they had raised it to what was as nearly an
+upright position as circumstances permitted.
+
+"Where's the hand-bag which was in that cab?"
+
+"Hand-bag?" returned the driver. "I ain't seen no hand-bag. So far I
+ain't hardly seen the bloomin' cab."
+
+A voice was heard at Mr. Roland's elbows.
+
+"This here bloke picked up a bag--I see him do it."
+
+Mr. Roland's grip fastened on the shoulder of the "bloke" alluded to,
+an undersized youth apparently not yet in his teens. The young
+gentleman resented the attention.
+
+"'Old 'ard, guv'nor! I picked up the bag, that's all right; I was just
+a-wondering who it might belong to."
+
+"It belongs to the lady who was riding in the cab. Kindly hand it
+over."
+
+It was "handed over"; borne back into the chemist's shop; proffered to
+Miss Angel.
+
+"I believe that this is the missing bag, apparently not much the worse
+for its various adventures."
+
+"It is the bag." She opened it. Apparently it was empty. But on her
+manipulating an unseen fastening an inner pocket was disclosed. From it
+she took a folded paper. "And here is the will!"
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+                         THE COURT IS STARTLED
+
+They dined together--it was still not too late to dine--in a private
+room at the Piccadilly Restaurant. Mrs. Tranmer found that she was,
+indeed, not irreparably damaged; and by the time she could be induced
+to look over the fact that she was not what she called "dressed" she
+began to enjoy herself uncommonly well. Delia Angel was in the highest
+spirits, which, on the whole, was not surprising. The recovery of the
+bag and the will had transformed the world into a rose-coloured
+Paradise. The evening was one continuous delight. As for Philip
+Roland--his mood was akin to Miss Angel's. Everything which had begun
+badly was ending well. He was the host. The meal did credit to his
+choice--and to the cook. The wine was worthy of the toasts they drank.
+There was one toast which was not formally proposed, and of which, even
+in his heart he did not dream, but whose presence was answerable for
+not a little of the rapture which crowned the feast--"The Birth of
+Romance." His life had been tolerably commonplace and grey. For the
+first time that night Romance had entered into it. It was just possible
+that, maintaining the place it had gained, it would continue to the end.
+So might it be; for sure, the Spirit is the best of company.
+
+After dinner the three journeyed together to Miss Angel's solicitor. He
+lived in town, not far away from where they were, and though the hour
+was uncanonical it was not so very late. And though he was amazed at
+being required to do business at such a season, the tale they had to
+tell amazed him more. Nor was he indisposed to commend them for coming
+straight away to him with it at once.
+
+He heard them to an end. Then he looked at the bag; then at the will.
+Then once more at the bag; then at the will again. Then he smoothed his
+chin.
+
+"It seems to me--speaking without prejudice--that this ends the matter.
+In the face of this the other side is left without a leg to stand
+upon. With this in your hand"--he was tapping the will with his
+finger-tip--"I cannot but think, Miss Angel, that you must carry all
+before you."
+
+"So I should imagine."
+
+He contemplated Mr. Roland.
+
+"So you, sir, are one of the jury. As at present advised, I cannot see
+how, in the course of action which you have pursued, blame can in any
+way be attached to you. But, at the same time, I am bound to observe
+that in the course of a somewhat lengthy experience I cannot recall a
+single instance of a juryman--an actual juryman--playing such a part as
+you have done. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, the position
+you have taken up is--in a really superlative degree--irregular."
+
+Such, also, seemed to be the opinion of counsel before whom, at a
+matutinal hour, he laid the facts of the case. When, in view of those
+facts, counsel on both sides conferred before the case was opened, the
+general feeling plainly pointed in the same direction. And, on its
+being stated in open court that, in face of the discovery of the
+vanished will, all opposition to Miss Delia Angel would, with
+permission, be at once withdrawn, it was incidentally mentioned how the
+discovery had been brought about. All eyes, turning to the jury-box,
+fastened on Philip Roland, whose agitated countenance pointed the
+allusion. The part which he had played having been made sufficiently
+plain, the judge himself joined in the general stare. His lordship went
+so far as to remark that while he was pleased to accede to the
+application which had been made to him to consider the case at an end,
+being of opinion that the matter had been brought to a very proper
+termination, still he could not conceal from himself that, so far as he
+could gather from what had been said, the conduct of one of the
+jurymen, even allowing some latitude--here his lordship's eyes seemed
+to twinkle--was marked by a considerable amount of irregularity.
+
+
+
+
+                            Mitwaterstraand
+
+                          THE STORY OF A SHOCK
+
+
+                               Chapter I
+
+                              THE DISEASE
+
+On the night before their daughter's Wedding Mr. and Mrs. Staunton gave
+a ball. As the festivities were drawing to a close, Mr. Staunton
+button-holed the bridegroom of the morrow.
+
+"By the way, Burgoyne, there's one thing with reference to Minnie I
+wish to speak to you about. I--I'm not sure I oughtn't to have spoken
+to you before."
+
+In the ball-room they were playing a waltz. Mr. Burgoyne's heart was
+with the dancers.
+
+"About Minnie? What about Minnie? Don't you think that the little I
+don't know about her already, I shall find out soon enough upon my own
+account?"
+
+"This is something--this is something that you ought to be told."
+
+Mr. Staunton hesitated, and the opportunity was lost. The next morning
+Mr. Burgoyne was married.
+
+During their honeymoon the newly-married pair spent a night at Mont St.
+Michel. In the course of that night an unpleasant incident took place.
+There was a bright moon, and the occupants of the bedrooms gathered on
+the balconies of the Maison Blanche to enjoy its radiance. The room
+next to theirs was tenanted by two sisters, Brooklyn girls. The
+costumes of these young ladies, although in that somewhat remote corner
+of the world, would have made an impression on the Boulevards, and
+still more emphatically in the Park. The married one--a Mrs. Homer
+Joy--wore some striking jewellery, in particular a diamond brooch,
+redolent of Tiffany, which would have attracted notice on a Shah night
+at the opera. Mr. Burgoyne had noticed this brooch earlier in the day,
+and had told himself that we must have returned to the days of King
+Alfred--with several points in our favour--if a woman could journey
+round the world with that advertisement in diamond work flashing in
+the sun.
+
+Someone proposed a midnight stroll about the rock. They strolled. In
+the morning there was a terrible to-do. The advertisement in diamond
+work had disappeared!--stolen!--giving satisfactory proof that in those
+parts, at any rate, the days of King Alfred were now no more.
+
+Mrs. Joy stated that, previous to starting for the midnight ramble
+about the Mount, she had placed it on her dressing-table, apparently
+despising the precaution of placing it even in an ordinary box. She was
+not even sure that she had closed her bedroom door, so it had, of
+course, struck the eye of the first person who strolled that way, and,
+in all probability, that person had, in the American sense, "struck
+it." Mont St. Michel was still in a little tumult of excitement when
+Mr. and Mrs. Burgoyne journeyed on their way.
+
+Oddly enough, this discordant note, once struck, was struck again--kept
+on striking, in fact. At almost every place where the honeymooners
+stopped for an appreciable length of time there something was lost.
+It seemed fatality. At Morlaix, a set of quaint, old, hammered
+silver-spoons, which had accompanied their coffee, vanished--not,
+according to the indignant innkeeper, into thin air, but into somebody's
+pockets. It was most annoying. At Brest, Quimper Vannes, Nantes, and
+afterwards through Touraine and up the Loire, it was the same tale, the
+loss of something of appreciable value--somebody else's property, not
+their's--accompanied their visitation. The coincidence was singular.
+However they did seem to have shaken off the long arm of coincidence
+at last. There had been no sort of unpleasantness at either of the last
+two or three places at which they had stopped, and when they reached
+Paris at last, they were so contented with all the world, that each
+seemed to have forgotten everything in the existence of the other.
+
+They stayed at the Grand Hotel--for privacy few places can compete with
+a large hotel--and directly they stayed the annoyances began again. It
+was indeed most singular. On the very morning after their arrival a
+notice was posted in the _salle de lecture_ that the night before a
+lady had lost her fan--something historical in fans, and quite unique.
+She had been seated outside the reading-room--the Burgoynes must have
+been arriving at that very moment--preparatory to going to the opera.
+She laid this wonderful fan on a chair beside her, it was only for an
+instant, yet when she turned it was gone. The administration charitably
+suggested--in their notice--that someone of their lady guests had
+mistaken it for her own.
+
+That same evening a really remarkable tale was whispered about
+the place. A certain lady and gentleman--not our pair, but
+another--happened to be honeymooning in the hotel. Monsieur had left
+Madame asleep in bed. When she got up and began to dress, she discovered
+that the larger and more valuable portion of the jewellery which had
+been given her as wedding presents, and which she, perhaps foolishly,
+had brought abroad, had gone--apparently vanished into air. The
+curious part of the tale was this. She had dreamed that she saw a
+woman--unmistakably a lady--trying on this identical jewellery before
+the looking-glass. Query, was it a dream? Or had she, lying in bed, in
+a half somnolent condition, been the unconscious witness of an actual
+occurrence?
+
+"Upon my word," declared Mr. Burgoyne to his wife, "If the thing
+weren't actually impossible, I should be inclined to believe that we
+were the victims of some elaborate practical joke; that people were in
+a conspiracy to make us believe that ill luck dogged our steps!"
+
+Mrs. Burgoyne smiled. She was putting on her bonnet before the glass.
+They were preparing to sally out for a quiet dinner on the boulevard.
+
+"You silly Charlie! What queer ideas you get in your head. What does it
+matter to us if foolish people lose their things? We have not a mission
+to make folks wiser, or, what amounts to the same thing, to compel them
+to keep valuable things in secure places."
+
+The lady, who had finished her performance at the glass, came and put
+her hands upon her lord's two shoulders,
+
+"My dear child, don't look so black? I shall be much better prepared to
+discuss that, or any subject, when--we have dined."
+
+The lady made a little _moue_ and kissed him on the lips. Then they
+went downstairs. But when they had got so far upon their road, the
+gentleman discovered that he had brought no money in his pockets.
+Leaving his wife in the _salle de lecture_, he returned to his bedroom
+to supply the omission.
+
+The desk in which he kept his loose cash was at that moment standing on
+the chest of drawers. On the top of it was a bag of his wife's--a bag
+on which she set much store. In it she kept her more particular
+belongings, and such care did she take of it that he never remembered
+to have seen it left out of her locked-up trunk before. Now, taking
+hold of it in his haste, he was rather surprised to find that it was
+unlocked--it was not only unlocked, but it flew wide open, and in
+flying open some of the contents fell upon the floor. He stooped to
+pick them up again.
+
+The first thing he picked up was a silver spoon, the next was an ivory
+chessman, the next was a fan, and the next--was a diamond brooch.
+
+He stared at these things in a sort of dream, and at the last
+especially. He had seen the thing before. But where?
+
+Good God! it came upon him in a flash! It was the advertisement in
+diamond work which had been the property of Mrs. Homer Joy!
+
+He was seized with a sort of momentary paralysis, continuing to stare
+at the brooch as though he had lost the power of volition. It was with
+an effort that he obtained sufficient mastery over himself to be able
+to turn his attention to the other articles he held. He knew two of
+them. The spoon was one of the spoons which had been lost at Morlaix;
+the chessman was one of a very curious set of chessmen which had
+disappeared at Vannes. From the notice which had been posted in the
+_salle de lecture_ he had no difficulty in recognising the fan which
+had vanished from the chair.
+
+It was some moments before he realised what the presence of those
+things must mean, and when he did realize it a metamorphosis had taken
+place--the Charles Burgoyne standing there was not the Charles Burgoyne
+who had entered the room. Without any outward display of emotion, in a
+cold, mechanical way he placed the articles he held upon one side, and
+turned the contents of the bag out upon the drawers.
+
+They presented a curious variety at any rate. As he gazed at them he
+experienced that singular phenomenon--the inability to credit the
+evidence of his own eyes. There were the rest of the chessmen, the
+rest of the spoons, nick-nacks, a quaint, old silver cream-jug,
+jewellery--bracelets, rings, ear-rings, necklaces, pins, lockets,
+brooches, half the contents of a jeweller's shop. As he stood staring
+at this very miscellaneous collection, the door opened, and his wife
+came in.
+
+She smiled as she entered.
+
+"Charlie, have they taken your money too? Are you aware, sir, how
+hungry I am?"
+
+He did not turn when he heard her voice. He continued motionless,
+looking at the contents of the bag. She advanced towards him and saw
+what he was looking at. Then he turned and they were face to face.
+
+He never knew what was the fashion of his countenance. He could not
+have analysed his feelings to save his life. But, as he looked at her,
+his wife of yesterday, the woman whom he loved, she seemed to shrivel
+up before his eyes, and sank upon the floor. There was silence. Then
+she made a little gesture towards him with her two hands. She fell
+forward, hiding her face on the ground at his feet, prisoning his legs
+with her arms.
+
+"How came these things into your bag?"
+
+He did not know his own voice, it was so dry and harsh. She made no
+answer.
+
+"Did you steal them?"
+
+Still silence. He felt a sort of rage rising within him.
+
+"There are one or two questions you must answer. I am sorry to have to
+put them; it is not my fault. You had better get up from the floor."
+
+She never moved. For his life he could not have touched her.
+
+"I suppose--." He was choked, and paused. "I suppose that woman's
+jewels are some of these?"
+
+No answer. Recognising the hopelessness of putting questions to her
+now, he gathered the various articles together and put them back into
+the bag.
+
+"I'm afraid you will have to dine alone."
+
+That was all he said to her. With the bag in his hand he left the room,
+leaving her in a heap upon the floor. He sneaked rather than walked out
+of the hotel. Supposing they caught him red-handed, with that thing in
+his hand? He only began to breathe freely when he was out in the
+street.
+
+Possibly no man in Paris spent the night of that twentieth of June more
+curiously than Mr. Burgoyne. When he returned it was four o'clock in
+the morning, and broad day. He was worn-out, haggard, the spectre
+of a man. In the bedroom he found his wife just as he had left her,
+in a heap upon the floor, but fast asleep. She had removed none
+of her clothes, not even her bonnet or her gloves. She had been
+crying--apparently had cried herself to sleep. As he stood looking
+down at her he realised how he loved her--the woman, the creature of
+flesh and blood, apart entirely from her moral qualities. He placed
+the bag within his trunk and locked it up. Then, kneeling beside his
+wife, he stooped and kissed her as she slept. The kiss aroused her. She
+woke as wakes a child, and, putting her arms about his neck, she kissed
+him back again. Not a word was spoken. Then she got up. He helped her to
+undress, and put her into a bed as though she were a child. Then he
+undressed himself, and joined her. And they fell fast asleep locked in
+each other's arms.
+
+That night they returned to London. The bag went with them. On the
+morning after their arrival, Mr. Burgoyne took a cab into the city, the
+fatal bag beside him on the seat. He drove straight to Mr. Staunton's
+office. When he entered, unannounced, his father-in-law started as
+though he were a ghost.
+
+"Burgoyne! What brings you here? I hope there's nothing wrong?"
+
+Mr. Burgoyne did not reply at once. He placed the bag--Minnie's
+bag--upon the table. He kept his eyes fixed upon his father-in-law's
+countenance.
+
+"Burgoyne! Why do you look at me like that?"
+
+"I have something here I wish to show you." That was Mr. Burgoyne's
+greeting. He opened the bag, and turned its contents out upon the
+table. "Not a bad haul from Breton peasants,--eh?"
+
+Mr. Staunton stared at the heap of things thus suddenly disclosed.
+
+"Burgoyne," he stammered, "what's the meaning of this?"
+
+"Are you quite sure you don't know what it means?"
+
+Looking up, Mr. Staunton caught the other's eyes. He seemed to read
+something there which carried dreadful significance to his brain. His
+glance fell and he covered his face with his hands. At last he found
+his voice.
+
+"Minnie?"
+
+The word was gasped rather than spoken. Mr. Burgoyne's reply was
+equally brief.
+
+"Minnie!"
+
+"Good God!"
+
+There was silence for perhaps a minute. Then Mr. Burgoyne locked the
+door of the room and stood before the empty fire-place.
+
+"It is by the merest chance that I am not at this moment booked for the
+_travaux forces_. Some of those jewels were stolen from a woman's
+dressing case at the Grand Hotel, with the woman herself in bed and
+more than half awake at the time. She talked about having every guest
+in the place searched by the police. If she had done so, you would have
+heard from us as soon as the rules of the prison allowed us to
+communicate."
+
+Mr. Burgoyne paused. Mr. Staunton kept his eyes fixed upon the table.
+
+"That's what I wanted to tell you the night before the wedding, only
+you wouldn't stop. She's a kleptomaniac."
+
+Mr. Burgoyne smiled, not gaily.
+
+"Do you mean she's a habitual thief?"
+
+"It's a disease."
+
+"I've no doubt it's a disease. But perhaps you'll be so kind as to
+accurately define what in the present case you understand by disease."
+
+"When she was a toddling child she took things, and secreted them--it's
+a literal fact. When she got into short frocks she continued to capture
+everything that caught her eye. When she exchanged them for long ones
+it was the same. It was not because she wanted the things, because she
+never attempted to use them when she had them. She just put them
+somewhere--as a magpie might--and forget their existence. You had only
+to find out where they were and take them away again, and she was never
+one whit the wiser. In that direction she's irresponsible--it's a
+disease in fact."
+
+"If it is, as you say, a disease, have you ever had it medically
+treated?"
+
+"She has been under medical treatment her whole life long. I suppose we
+have consulted half the specialists in England. Our own man, Muir, has
+given the case his continual attention. He has kept a regular journal,
+and can give you more light upon the subject than I can. You have no
+conception what a life-long torture it has been to me."
+
+"I have a very clear conception indeed. But don't you think you might
+have enlightened me upon the matter before?"
+
+Rising from his seat, Mr. Staunton began to pace the room
+
+"I do! I think so very strongly indeed. But--but--I was over persuaded.
+As you know, I tried at the very last moment; even then I failed.
+Besides, it was suggested to me that marriage might be the turning
+point, and that the woman might be different from the girl. Don't
+misunderstand me! She is not a bad girl; she is a good girl in the best
+possible sense, a girl in a million! No better daughter ever lived; you
+won't find a better wife if you search the whole world through; There
+is just this one point. Some people are somnambulists; in a sense she
+is a somnambulist too. I tell you I might put this watch upon the
+table"--Mr. Staunton produced his watch from his waistcoat pocket--"and
+she would take it from right underneath my nose, and never know what it
+was that she had done. I confess I can't explain it, but so it is!"
+
+"I think," remarked Mr. Burgoyne, with a certain dryness, "that I had
+better see this doctor fellow--Muir."
+
+"See him--by all means, see him. There is one point, Burgoyne. I
+realised from the first that if we kept you in the dark about this
+thing, and it forced itself upon you afterwards, you would be quite
+justified in feeling aggrieved."
+
+"You realised that, did you? You did get so far?"
+
+"And therefore I say this, that, although my child has only been your
+wife these few short days, although she loves you as truly as woman
+ever loved a man--and what strength of love she has I know--still, if
+you are minded to put her from you, I will not only not endeavour to
+change your purpose, but I will never ask you for a penny for her
+support--she shall be to you as though she had never lived."
+
+Mr. Burgoyne looked his father-in-law in the face.
+
+"No man shall part me from my wife, nor anything--but death." Mr.
+Burgoyne turned a little aside. "I believe I love her better because of
+this. God knows I loved her well enough before."
+
+"I can understand that easily. Because of this she is dearer to us,
+too."
+
+There was silence. Moving to the table, Mr. Burgoyne began to replace
+the things in the bag.
+
+"I will go and see this man Muir."
+
+Dr. Muir was at home. His appearance impressed Mr. Burgoyne favourably,
+and Mr. Burgoyne had a keen eye for the charlatan in medicine.
+
+"Dr. Muir, I have come from Mr. Staunton. My name is Burgoyne. You are
+probably aware that I have married Mr. Staunton's daughter, Minnie. It
+is about my wife I wish to consult you." Dr. Muir simply nodded.
+"During our honeymoon in Brittany she has stolen all these things."
+
+Mr. Burgoyne opened the bag sufficiently to disclose its contents. Dr.
+Muir scarcely glanced at them. He kept his eyes fixed on Mr. Burgoyne's
+face. There was a pause before he spoke.
+
+"You were not informed of her--peculiarity?"
+
+"I was not. I don't understand it now. It is because I wish to
+understand it that I have come to you."
+
+"I don't understand it either."
+
+"But I am told that you have always given the matter your attention."
+
+"That is so, but I don't understand it any the more for that. I am not
+a specialist."
+
+"Do you mean that she is mad?"
+
+"I don't say that I mean anything at all; very shortly you will be
+quite as capable of judging of the case as I am. I've no doubt that if
+you wished to place her in an asylum, you would have no difficulty in
+doing so. So much I don't hesitate to say."
+
+"Thank you. I have no intention of doing anything of the kind. Can you
+not suggest a cure?"
+
+"I can suggest ten thousand, but they would all be experiments. In
+fact, I have tried several of them already, and the experiments have
+failed. For instance, I thought marriage might effect a cure. It is
+perhaps yet too early to judge, but it would appear that, so far, the
+thing has been a failure. Frankly, Mr. Burgoyne, I don't think you will
+find a man in Europe who, in this particular case, can give you help.
+You must trust to time. I have always thought myself that a shock might
+do it, though what sort of shock it will have to be is more than I can
+tell you. I thought the marriage shock might serve. Possibly the birth
+shock might prove of some avail. But we cannot experiment in shocks,
+you know. You must trust to time."
+
+On that basis--_trust in time_--Mr. Burgoyne arranged his household.
+The bag with its contents was handed to his solicitor. The stolen
+property was restored to its several owners. It cost Mr. Burgoyne a
+pretty penny before the restoration was complete. A certain Mrs. Deal
+formed part of his establishment. She acted as companion and keeper to
+Mr. Burgoyne's wife. They never knew whether that lady realised what
+Mrs. Deal's presence really meant. And, in spite of their utmost
+vigilance, things were taken--from shops, from people's houses, from
+guests under her own roof. It was Mrs. Deal's business to discover
+where these things were, and to see that they were instantly restored.
+Her life was spent in a continual game of hide and seek.
+
+It was a strange life they lived in that Brompton house, and yet--odd
+though it may sound--it was a happy one. He loved her, she loved
+him--there is a good deal in just that simple fact. There was one good
+thing--and that in spite of Dr. Muir's suggestion that a birth shock
+might effect a cure--there were no children.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+                                THE CURE
+
+They had been married five years. There came an invitation from one
+Arthur Watson, a friend of Mr. Burgoyne's boyhood. After long
+separation they had encountered each other by accident, and Mr. Watson
+had insisted upon Mr. Burgoyne's bringing his wife to spend the
+"week-end" with him in that Mecca of a certain section of modern
+Londoners--up the river. So the married couple went to see the single man.
+
+After dinner conversation rather languished. But their host stirred it
+up again.
+
+"I have something here to show you." Producing a leather case from the
+inner pocket of his coat, he addressed a question to Mr. Burgoyne "Do
+much in mines?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Because, if you do, here's a tip for you, and tips are things in which
+I don't deal as a rule--buy Mitwaterstraand. There is a boom coming
+along, and the foreshadowings of the boom are in this case. Mrs.
+Burgoyne, shut your eyes and you shall see."
+
+Mrs. Burgoyne did not shut her eyes, but Mr. Watson opened the case,
+and she saw! More than a score of cut diamonds of the purest water, and
+of unusual size--lumps of light! With them, side by side, were about
+the same number of uncut stones, in curious contrast to their more
+radiant brethren.
+
+"You see those?" He took out about a dozen of the cut stones, and
+held them loosely in his hand. "Are you a judge of diamonds? Well,
+I am. Hitherto there have been one or two defects about African
+diamonds--they cut badly, and the colour's wrong. But we have changed
+all that. I stake my reputation that you will find no finer diamonds
+than those in the world. Here is the stone in the rough. Here is exactly,
+the same thing after it has been cut; judge for yourself, my boy! And
+those come from the district of Mitwaterstraand, Griqualand West. Take
+my tip, Burgoyne, and look out for Mitwaterstraand."
+
+Mr. Burgoyne did take his tip, and looked out for Mitwaterstraand,
+though not in the sense he meant. He looked out for Mitwaterstraand all
+night, lying in bed with his eyes wide open, his thoughts fixed on his
+wife. Suppose they were stolen, those shining bits of crystal?
+
+In the morning he was up while she still slept. He dressed himself and
+went downstairs. He felt that he must have just one whiff of tobacco,
+and then return--to watch. A little doze in which he had caught himself
+had frightened him. Suppose he fell into slumber as profound as hers,
+what might not happen in his dreams?
+
+Early as was the hour, he was not the first downstairs. As he entered
+the room in which the diamonds had been exhibited, he found Mr. Watson
+standing at the table.
+
+"Hullo, Watson! At this hour of the morning who'd have thought of
+seeing you?"
+
+"I--I've had a shock." There was a perceptible tremor in Mr. Watson's
+voice, as though even yet he had not recovered from the shock of which
+he spoke.
+
+"A shock? What kind of a shock?"
+
+"When I woke this morning I found that I had left the case with the
+diamonds in downstairs. I can't think how I came to do it."
+
+"It was a careless thing." Mr. Burgoyne's tones were even stern. He
+shuddered as he thought of the risk which had been run.
+
+"It was. When I found that it was missing, I was out of bed like a
+flash. I put my things on anyhow, and when I found it was all
+right"--he at that moment was holding the case in his hands--"I felt like
+singing a Te Deum." He did not look like singing a Te Deum, by any
+means. "Let's have a look at you, my beauties." He pressed a spring and
+the case flew open. "My God!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"They're gone!"
+
+"Gone!"
+
+They were, sure enough. The case was empty. The shock was too much for
+Mr. Burgoyne.
+
+"She's taken them after all," he gasped.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"My wife!"
+
+"Your wife!--Burgoyne!--What do you mean?"
+
+"Watson, my wife has stolen them."
+
+"Burgoyne!"
+
+The empty case fell to the ground with a crash. It almost seemed as
+though Mr. Watson would have fallen after it. He seemed even more
+distressed than his friend. His face was clammy, his hands were
+trembling.
+
+"Burgoyne, what--whatever do you mean?"
+
+"My wife's a kleptomaniac, that's what I mean."
+
+"A kleptomaniac! You--you don't mean that she has taken the stones?"
+
+"I do. Sounds like a joke doesn't it?"
+
+"A joke! I don't know what you call a joke! It'll be no joke for me.
+There's to be a meeting, and those stones will have to be produced for
+experts to examine. If they are not forthcoming, I shall have to
+explain what has become of them, and those are not the men to listen to
+any talk of kleptomania. And it isn't the money they will want, it's
+the stones. At this crisis those stones are worth a hundred thousand
+pounds to us, and more! It'll be your ruin, and mine, if they are not
+found."
+
+"They will be found. It is only a little game she plays. She hides, we
+seek and find. I think I may undertake to produce them for you in
+half-an-hour."
+
+"I hope you will," said Mr. Watson, still with clammy face and
+trembling hands. "My God, I hope you will."
+
+Mr. Burgoyne went upstairs. His wife was still asleep; and a prettier
+picture than she presented when asleep it would be hard to find. He put
+his hand upon her shoulder.
+
+"Minnie!" No reply. "Minnie!" Still she slept.
+
+When she did awake it was in the most natural and charming way
+conceivable. She stretched out her arms to her husband leaning over
+her.
+
+"Charlie! Whatever is the time?"
+
+"Where are those stones?"
+
+"What?" With the back of her hands she began to rub her eyes. "Where
+are what?"
+
+"Where are those stones?"
+
+"I don't know what--" yawn--"you mean."
+
+"Minnie!--Don't trifle with me!--Where have you put those diamonds?"
+
+"Charlie! Whatever do you mean?"
+
+Her eyes were wide open now. She lay looking at him in innocent
+surprise.
+
+"What a consummate actress you are!"
+
+The words came from his lips almost unawares. They seemed to startle
+her. "Charlie!"
+
+He--loving her with all his heart--was unable to meet her glance, and
+began moving uneasily about the room, talking as he moved.
+
+"Come, Minnie, tell me where they are?"
+
+"Where what are?"
+
+"The diamonds!"
+
+"The diamonds! What diamonds? Whatever do you mean?"
+
+"You know what I mean very well. I mean the Mitwaterstraand diamonds
+which Watson showed us last night, and which you have taken from the
+case."
+
+"Which I have taken from the case!" She rose from the bed, and stood on
+the floor in her night-dress, the embodiment of surprise. "If you will
+leave the room I shall be able to dress."
+
+"Minnie! Do you really think I am a fool? I can make every
+allowance--God knows I have done so often enough before--but you must
+tell me where those stones are before I leave this room."
+
+"Do you mean to suggest that I--I have stolen them?"
+
+"Call it what you please! I am only asking you to tell me where you
+have put them. That is all."
+
+"On what evidence do you suspect me of this monstrous crime?"
+
+"Evidence? What do I need with evidence? Minnie, for God's sake, don't
+let us argue. You know that you are dearer to me than life, but this
+time--even at the sacrifice of life!--I cannot save you from the
+consequence of your own act."
+
+"The consequence of my own act. What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean this, that unless those diamonds are immediately forthcoming,
+this night you will sleep in jail."
+
+"In jail! I sleep in jail! Is this some hideous dream?"
+
+"Oh, my darling, for both our sakes tell me where the diamonds are."
+
+"Charlie, I know no more where they are than the man in the moon."
+
+"Then God help us, for we are lost!"
+
+He ransacked every article of furniture the room contained. Tore open
+the mattresses, ripped up the boards, looked up the chimney. But there
+were no diamonds. And that night she slept in jail. Mr. Watson started
+off to tell his story to the meeting as best he might. Mr. and Mrs.
+Burgoyne remained behind, searching for the missing stones. About one
+o'clock, Mr. Watson still being absent, a telegram was received at the
+local police station containing instructions to detain Mrs. Burgoyne on
+a charge of felony, "warrant coming down by train." Mr. Watson had
+evidently told his story to an unsympathetic audience. Mrs. Burgoyne
+was arrested and taken off to the local lock-up--all idea of bail being
+peremptorily pooh-poohed. Mr. Burgoyne tore up to town in a state of
+semi-madness. When Mr. Staunton heard the story, his affliction was at
+least, equal to his son-in-law's. Dr. Muir was telegraphed for, and a
+hurried conference was held in the office of a famous criminal lawyer.
+That gentleman told them plainly that at present nothing could be done.
+
+"Even suppose the diamonds are immediately forthcoming, the case will
+have to go before a magistrate. You don't suppose the police will allow
+you to compound a felony. That is what it amounts to, you know."
+
+As for the medical point of view, it must be urged, of course; but the
+lawyer made no secret of his belief that if the medical point of view
+was all they had to depend on, the case would, of a certainty, be sent
+to trial.
+
+"But it seems to me that at present there is not a tittle of evidence.
+Your wife, Mr. Burgoyne, has been arrested, I won't say upon your
+information, but on the strength of words which you allowed to escape
+your lips. But they can't put you in the box; you could prove nothing
+if they did. When the case comes on they'll ask for a remand. Probably
+they'll get it, one remand at any rate. I shall offer bail, which
+they'll accept. When the case comes on again, unless they have
+something to go on, which they haven't now, it will be dismissed. Mrs.
+Burgoyne will leave the court without a stain upon her character. We
+shan't even have to hint at kleptomania, or klepto anything."
+
+More than once that night Mr. Burgoyne meditated suicide. All was over.
+She--his beloved!--through his folly--slept in jail. And if, by the
+skin of her teeth, she escaped this time, how would it be the next? She
+was guilty now--they might prove it then! And when he thought of the
+numerous precautions he had hedged her round with heretofore, it seemed
+marvellous that she had gone scot free so long. And suppose she had
+been taken at the outset of her career--in the affair of the jewels at
+the Grand Hotel--what would have availed any plea he might have urged
+before a French tribunal? He shuddered as he thought of it.
+
+He never attempted to go to bed. He paced to and fro in his study like
+a caged wild animal. If he might only have shared her cell! The study
+was on the ground floor. It opened on to the garden. Between two and
+three in the morning he thought he heard a tapping at the pane. With a
+trembling hand he unlatched the window. A man stood without.
+
+"Watson!"
+
+As the name broke from him Mr. Watson staggered, rather than walked,
+into the room.
+
+"I--I saw the light outside. I thought I had better knock at the window
+than disturb the house."
+
+He sank into a chair, putting his arms upon the table, pillowing his
+face upon his hands. There was silence. Mr. Burgoyne, in his surprise,
+was momentarily struck dumb. At last, finding his voice, and eyeing his
+friend, he said--
+
+"This is a bad job for both of us."
+
+Mr. Watson looked up. Mr. Burgoyne, in spite of his own burden which he
+had to bear, was startled by something which he saw written on his
+face.
+
+"As you say, it is a bad job for both of us." Mr. Watson rose as he
+was speaking. "But it is worst for me. Why did you tell me all that
+stuff about your wife?"
+
+"God knows I am not in the mood to talk of anything, but rather than
+that, talk of what you please."
+
+"Why the devil did you put that thought into my head?"
+
+"What thought? I do not understand. I don't think you understand much
+either."
+
+"Why did you tell me she had taken the stones? Why, you damned fool, I
+had them in my pocket all the time."
+
+Mr. Watson took his hand out of his pocket. It was full of what seemed
+little crystals. He dashed these down upon the table with such force
+that they were scattered all over the room. They were some of the
+Mitwaterstraand diamonds.
+
+"Watson! Good God! What do you mean?"
+
+"I was the thief! Not she!"
+
+"You--hound!"
+
+"Don't look as though you'd like to murder me! I tell you I feel like
+murdering you! I am a ruined man. The thought came into my head that if
+I could get off with those Mitwaterstraand diamonds, I should have
+something with which to start afresh. Like an idiot, I took them from
+the case last night, meaning to hatch some cock-and-bull story about
+having forgotten to bring the case upstairs, and their having been
+stolen from it in the night. But on reflection I perceived how
+extremely thin the tale would be. I went downstairs to put them back
+again. I was in the very act of doing it when you came in. I showed you
+the empty box. You immediately cried out that your wife had stolen
+them. It was a temptation straight from hell! I was too astounded at
+first to understand your meaning. When I did, I let you remain in
+possession of your belief. Now, Burgoyne, don't you be a fool."
+
+But Mr. Burgoyne was a fool. He fell on to the floor in a fit; this
+last straw was one too many. When he recovered, Mr. Watson was gone,
+but the diamonds were there, piled in a neat little heap upon the
+table. He had been guilty of a really curious lapse into the paths of
+honesty, for, as he truly said, he was a ruined man. It was one of
+those resonant smashes which are the sensation of an hour.
+
+Mrs. Burgoyne was released--without a stain upon her character. She
+never stole again! She had been guilty so many times, and never been
+accused of crime,--and the first time she was innocent they said she
+was a thief! Dr. Muir said the shock had done it,--he had said that a
+shock would do it, all along.
+
+
+
+
+                          Exchange is Robbery
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"Really, Mr. Ruby, I wish you wouldn't say a thing was impossible when
+I say that it is actually a fact."
+
+Mr. Ruby looked at the Countess of Grinstead, and the Countess of
+Grinstead looked at him.
+
+"But, Countess, if you will just consider for one moment. You are
+actually accusing us of selling to you diamonds which we know to be
+false."
+
+"Whether you knew them to be false or not is more than I can say. All I
+know is that I bought a set of diamond ornaments from you, for which
+you charged me eight hundred pounds, and which Mr. Ahrens says are not
+worth eight hundred pence."
+
+"Mr. Ahrens must be dreaming."
+
+"Oh no, he's not. I don't believe that Mr. Ahrens ever dreams."
+
+Mr. Golden, who was standing observantly by, addressed an inquiry to
+the excited lady. "Where are the diamonds now?"
+
+"The diamonds, as you call them, and which I don't believe are
+diamonds, since Mr. Ahrens says they're not, and I'm sure he ought to
+know, are in this case."
+
+The Countess of Grinstead produced from her muff one of those flat
+leather cases in which jewellers love to enshrine their wares.
+
+Mr. Golden held out his hand for it.
+
+"Permit me for one moment, Countess."
+
+The Countess handed him the case. Mr. Golden opened it. Mr. Ruby,
+leaning back in his chair, watched his partner examine the contents.
+The Countess watched him too. Mr. Golden took out one glittering
+ornament after another. Through a little microscope he peered into its
+inmost depths. He turned it over and over, and peered and peered, as
+though he would read its very heart. When he had concluded his
+examination he turned to the lady.
+
+"How came you to submit these ornaments to Mr. Ahrens?"
+
+"I don't mind telling you. Not in the least! I happened to want some
+money. I didn't care to ask the Earl for it. I thought of those
+things--you had charged me �800 for them, so I thought that he would
+let me have �200 upon them as a loan. When he told me that they were
+nothing but rubbish I thought I should have had a fit."
+
+"Where have they been in the interval between your purchasing them from
+us and your taking them to Mr. Ahrens?"
+
+"Where have they been? Where do you suppose they've been? They have
+been in my jewel case, of course."
+
+Mr. Golden replaced the ornaments in their satin beds. He closed the
+case.
+
+"Every inquiry shall be made into the matter, Countess, you may rest
+assured of that. We cannot afford to lose our money, any more than you
+can afford to lose your diamonds."
+
+Directly the lady's back was turned Mr. Ruby put a question to his
+partner. "Well, are they false?"
+
+"They are. It is a good imitation, one of the best imitations I
+remember to have seen. Still it is an imitation."
+
+"Do you--do you think she did it?"
+
+"That is more than I can say. Still, when a lady buys diamonds on
+Saturday, upon credit, and takes them to a pawnbroker on Tuesday, to
+raise money on them, one may be excused for having one's suspicions."
+
+While the partners were still discussing the matter, the door was
+opened by an assistant. "Mr. Gray wishes to see Mr. Ruby."
+
+Before Mr. Ruby had an opportunity of saying whether or not he wished
+to see Mr. Gray, rather unceremoniously Mr. Gray himself came in.
+
+"I should think I do want to see Mr. Ruby, and while I'm about it, I
+may as well see Mr. Golden too." Mr. Gray turned to the assistant, who
+still was standing at the open door. "You can go."
+
+The assistant looked at Mr. Ruby for instructions. "Yes Thompson, you
+can go."
+
+When Thompson was gone, and the door was closed, Mr. Gray, who wore his
+hat slightly on the side of his head, turned and faced the partners. He
+was a very young man, and was dressed in the extreme of fashion. Taking
+from his coat tail pocket the familiar leather case, he flung it on to
+the table with a bang. "I don't know what you call that, but I tell you
+what I call it. I call it a damned swindle."
+
+Mr. Ruby was shocked.
+
+"Mr. Gray! May I ask of what you are complaining?"
+
+"Complaining! I'm complaining of your selling me a thing for two
+thousand pounds which is not worth two thousand pence!"
+
+"Indeed? Have we been guilty of such conduct as that?" Mr. Golden
+picked up the case which Mr. Gray had flung down upon the table. "Is
+this the diamond necklace which we had the pleasure of selling you the
+other day?"
+
+Mr. Golden opened the case. He took out the necklace which it
+contained. He examined it as minutely as he had examined the Countess
+of Grinstead's ornaments. "This is--very remarkable."
+
+"Remarkable! I should think it is remarkable! I bought that necklace
+for a lady. As some ladies have a way of doing, she had it valued. When
+she found that the thing was trumpery, she, of course, jumped to the
+conclusion that I'd been having her--trying to gain kudos for giving
+her something worth having at the cheapest possible rate. A pretty
+state of things, upon my word!"
+
+"This appears to be a lady of acute commercial instincts, Mr. Gray."
+
+"Never mind about that! If you deny that that is the necklace which you
+sold to me I will prove that it is--in the police court. I am quite
+prepared for it. Men who are capable of selling a necklace of glass
+beads as a necklace of diamonds are capable of denying that they ever
+sold the thing at all."
+
+"Mr. Gray, there is no necessity to use such language to us. If a wrong
+has been done we are ready and willing to repair it."
+
+"Then repair it!"
+
+It took some time to get rid of Mr. Gray. He had a great deal to say,
+and a very strong and idiomatic way of saying it. Altogether it was a
+bad quarter of an hour for Messrs. Ruby and Golden. When, at last, they
+did get rid of him, Mr. Ruby turned to his partner.
+
+"Golden, it's not possible that the stones in that necklace are false.
+Those are the stones which we got from Fungst--you remember?"
+
+"I remember very well indeed. They were the stones which we got from
+Fungst. They are not now. The gems which are at present in this
+necklace are paste, covered with a thin veneer of real stones. It is an
+old trick, but I never saw it better done. The workmanship, both in Mr.
+Gray's necklace and in the Countess of Grinstead's ornaments, is, in
+its way, perfection."
+
+While Mr. Ruby was still staring at his partner, the door opened and
+again Mr. Thompson entered. "The Duchess of Datchet."
+
+"Let's hope," muttered Mr. Golden, "that she's not come to charge us
+with selling any more paste diamonds."
+
+But the Duchess had come to do nothing of the kind. She had come on a
+much more agreeable errand, from Messrs. Ruby and Golden's point of
+view--she had come to buy. As it was Mr. Ruby's special _r�le_ to act
+as salesman to the great--the very great--ladies who patronised that
+famed establishment, Mr. Golden left his partner to perform his duties.
+
+Mr. Ruby found the Duchess, on that occasion, difficult to please. She
+wanted something in diamonds, to present to Lady Edith Linglithgow on
+the occasion of her approaching marriage. As Lady Edith is the Duke's
+first cousin, as all the world knows, almost, as it were, his sister,
+the Duchess wanted something very good indeed. Nothing which Messrs.
+Ruby and Golden had seemed to be quite good enough, except one or two
+things which were, perhaps, too good. The Duchess promised to return
+with the Duke himself to-morrow, or, perhaps, the day after. With that
+promise Mr. Ruby was forced to be content.
+
+The instant the difficult very great lady had vanished, Mr. Golden came
+into the room. He placed upon the table some leather cases.
+
+"Ruby what do you think of those?"
+
+"Why, they're from stock, aren't they?" Mr. Ruby took up some of the
+cases which Mr. Golden had put down. There was quite a heap of them.
+They contained rings, bracelets, necklaces, odds and ends in diamond
+work. "Anything the matter with them, Golden?"
+
+"There's this the matter with them--that they're all paste."
+
+"Golden!"
+
+"I've been glancing through the stock. I haven't got far, but I've come
+upon those already. Somebody appears to be having a little joke at our
+expense. It strikes me, Ruby, that we're about to be the victims of one
+of the greatest jewel robberies upon record."
+
+"Golden!"
+
+"Have you been showing this to the Duchess?"
+
+Mr. Golden picked up a necklace of diamonds from a case which lay open
+on the table, whose charms Mr. Ruby had been recently exhibiting to
+that difficult great lady. "Ruby!--Good Heavens!"
+
+"Wha-what's the matter?"
+
+"They're paste!"
+
+Mr. Golden was staring at the necklace as though it were some hideous
+thing.
+
+"Paste!--G-G-Golden!" Mr. Ruby positively trembled. "That's Kesteeven's
+necklace which he brought in this morning to see if we could find a
+customer for it."
+
+"I'm quite aware that this was Kesteeven's necklace. Now it would be
+dear at a ten-pound note."
+
+"A ten-pound note! He wants ten thousand guineas! It's not more than an
+hour since he brought it--no one can have touched it."
+
+"Ruby, don't talk nonsense! I saw Kesteeven's necklace when he brought
+it, I see this thing now. This is not Kesteeven's necklace--it has been
+changed!"
+
+"Golden!"
+
+"To whom have you shown this necklace?"
+
+"To the Duchess of Datchet."
+
+"To whom else?"
+
+"To no one."
+
+"Who has been in this room?"
+
+"You know who has been in the room as well as I do."
+
+"Then--she did it."
+
+"She?--Who?"
+
+"The Duchess!"
+
+"Golden! you are mad!"
+
+"I shall be mad pretty soon. We shall be ruined! I've not the slightest
+doubt but that you've been selling people paste for diamonds for
+goodness knows how long."
+
+"Golden!"
+
+"You'll have to come with me to Datchet House. I'll see the Duke--I'll
+have it out with him at once." Mr. Golden threw open the door.
+"Thompson, Mr. Ruby and I are going out. See that nobody comes near
+this room until we return."
+
+To make sure that nobody did come near that room Mr. Golden turned the
+key in the lock, and pocketed the key.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+When Messrs. Ruby and Golden arrived at Datchet House they found the
+Duke at home. He received them in his own apartment. On their entrance
+he was standing behind a writing table.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, to what am I indebted for the honour of this visit?"
+
+Mr. Golden took on himself the office of spokesman.
+
+"We have called, your Grace, upon a very delicate matter." The Duke
+inclined his head--he also took a seat. "The Duchess of Datchet has
+favoured us this morning with a visit."
+
+"The Duchess!"
+
+"The Duchess."
+
+Mr. Golden paused. He was conscious that this was a delicate matter.
+"When her Grace quitted our establishment she _accidentally_"--Mr.
+Golden emphasised the adverb; he even repeated it--"_accidentally_ left
+behind some of her property in exchange for ours."
+
+"Mr. Golden!" The Duke stared. "I don't understand you."
+
+Mr. Golden then and there resolved to make the thing quite plain.
+
+"I will be frank with your Grace. When the Duchess left our
+establishment this morning she took with her some twenty thousand
+pounds worth of diamonds--it may be more, we have only been able to
+give a cursory glance at the state of things--and left behind her paste
+imitations of those diamonds instead."
+
+The Duke stood up. He trembled--probably with anger.
+
+"Mr. Golden, am I--am I to understand that you are mad?"
+
+"The case, your Grace, is as I stated. Is not the case as I state it,
+Mr. Ruby?"
+
+Mr. Ruby took out his handkerchief to relieve his brow. His habit of
+showing excessive deference to the feelings and the whims of very great
+people was almost more than he could master.
+
+"I--I'm afraid, Mr. Golden, that it is. Your--your Grace will
+understand that--that we should never have ventured to--to come here
+had we not been most--most unfortunately compelled."
+
+"Pray make no apology, Mr. Ruby. Allow me to have a clear understanding
+with you, gentlemen. Do I understand that you charge the Duchess of
+Datchet--the Duchess of Datchet!"--the Duke echoed his own words, as
+though he were himself unable to believe in the enormity of such a
+thing--"with stealing jewels from your shop?"
+
+"If your Grace will allow me to make a distinction without a
+difference--we charge no one with anything. If your Grace will give us
+your permission to credit the jewels to your account, there is an end
+of the matter."
+
+"What is the value of the articles which you say have gone?"
+
+"On that point we are not ourselves, as yet, accurately informed. I may
+as well state at once--it is better to be frank, your Grace--that this
+sort of thing appears to have been going on for some time. It is only
+an hour or so since we began to have even a suspicion of the extent of
+our losses."
+
+"Then, in effect, you charge the Duchess of Datchet with robbing you
+wholesale?"
+
+Mr. Golden paused. He felt that to such a question as this it would be
+advisable that he should frame his answer in a particular manner.
+
+"Your Grace will understand that different persons have different ways
+of purchasing. Lady A. has her way. Lady B. has her way, and the
+Duchess of Datchet has hers."
+
+"Are you suggesting that the Duchess of Datchet is a kleptomaniac?"
+
+Mr. Golden was silent.
+
+"Do you think that that is a comfortable suggestion to make to a
+husband, Mr. Golden?" Just then someone tapped at the door. "Who's
+there?"
+
+A voice--a feminine voice--enquired without, "Can I come in?"
+
+Before the Duke could deny the right of entry, the door opened and a
+woman entered. A tall woman, and a young and a lovely one. When she
+perceived Messrs. Ruby and Golden she cast an enquiring look in the
+direction of the Duke. "Are you engaged?"
+
+The Duke was eyeing her with a somewhat curious expression of
+countenance. "I believe you know these gentlemen?"
+
+"Do I? I ought to know them perhaps, but I'm afraid I don't."
+
+Mr. Ruby was all affability and bows, and smiles and rubbings of hands.
+
+"I have not had the honour of seeing the lady upon a previous
+occasion."
+
+The Duke of Datchet stared. "You have not had the honour? Then
+what--what the dickens do you mean? This is the Duchess!"
+
+"The Duchess!" cried Messrs. Ruby and Golden.
+
+"Certainly--the Duchess of Datchet."
+
+Messrs. Ruby and Golden looked blue. They looked more than blue--they
+looked several colours of the rainbow all at once. They stared as
+though they could not believe the evidence of their eyes and ears. The
+Duke turned to the Duchess. He opened the door for her.
+
+"Duchess, will you excuse me for a moment? I have something which I
+particularly wish to say to these gentlemen."
+
+The Duchess disappeared. When she had gone the Duke not only closed the
+door behind her, but he stood with his back against the door which he
+had closed. His manner, all at once, was scarcely genial.
+
+"Now, what shall I do with you, gentlemen? You come to my house and
+charge the Duchess of Datchet with having been a constant visitor at
+your shop for the purpose of robbing you, and it turns out that you
+have actually never seen the Duchess of Datchet in your lives until
+this moment."
+
+"But," gasped Mr. Ruby, "that--that is not the lady who came to our
+establishment, and--and called herself the Duchess of Datchet."
+
+"Well, sir, and what has that to do with me? Am I responsible for the
+proceedings of every sharper who comes to your shop and chooses to call
+herself the Duchess of Datchet? I should advise you, in future, before
+advancing reckless charges, to make some enquiries into the _bona
+fides_ of your customers, Mr. Ruby. Now, gentlemen, you may go."
+
+The Duke held the door wide open, invitingly. Mr. Golden caught his
+partner by the sleeve, as though he feared that he would, with undue
+celerity, accept the invitation.
+
+"Hardly, your Grace, there is still something which we wish to say to
+you." The Duke of Datchet shut the door again.
+
+"Then say it. Only say it, if possible, in such a manner as not to
+compel me to--kick you, Mr. Golden."
+
+"Your Grace will believe that in anything I have said, or in anything
+which I am to say, nothing is further from my wish than to cause your
+Grace annoyance. But, on the other hand, surely your Grace is too old,
+and too good a customer of our house, to wish to see us ruined."
+
+"I had rather, Mr. Golden, see you ruined ten thousand times over than
+that you should ruin my wife's fair fame."
+
+Mr. Golden hesitated; he seemed to perceive that the Duke's retort was
+not irrelevant. He turned to Mr. Ruby.
+
+"Mr. Ruby, will you be so good as to explain what reasons we had for
+believing that this person was what she called herself--the Duchess of
+Datchet? Because your Grace must understand that we did not entertain
+that belief without having at least some grounds to go upon."
+
+Mr. Ruby, thus appealed to, began to fidget. He did not seem to relish
+the office which his partner had imposed upon him. The tale which he
+told was rather lame--still, he told it.
+
+"Your Grace will understand that I--I am acquainted, at least by sight,
+with most of the members of the British aristocracy, and--and, indeed,
+of other aristocracies. But it so happened that, at the period of your
+Grace's recent marriage, I happened to be abroad, and--and, not only
+so, but--but the lady your Grace married was--was a lady--from--from
+the country."
+
+"I am perfectly aware, Mr. Ruby, whom I married."
+
+"Quite so, your Grace, quite so. Only--only I was endeavouring to
+explain how it was that I--I did not happen to be acquainted with her
+Grace's personal appearance. So that when a carriage and pair drove up
+to our establishment with your Grace's crest upon the panel----"
+
+"My crest upon the panel!"
+
+"Your Grace's crest upon the panel"--as Mr. Ruby continued, the Duke of
+Datchet bit his lip--"and a lady stepped out of it and said, 'I am the
+Duchess of Datchet; my husband tells me that he is an old customer of
+yours,' I was only too glad to see her Grace, because, as your Grace is
+aware, we have the honour of having your Grace as an old customer of
+ours. 'My husband has given me this cheque to spend with you.' When she
+said that she took a cheque out of her purse, one of your Grace's own
+cheques drawn upon Messrs. Coutts, 'Pay Messrs. Ruby and Golden, or
+order, one thousand pounds,' with your Grace's signature attached. I
+have seen too many of your Grace's cheques not to know them well. She
+purchased goods to the value of a thousand pounds, and she gave us your
+Grace's cheque to pay for them."
+
+"She gave you that cheque, did she?"
+
+Mr. Golden interposed, "We presented the cheque, and it was duly
+honoured. On the face of such proof as that, what could we suppose?"
+
+The Duke was moving about the room--it seemed, a little restlessly.
+
+"It didn't necessarily follow, because a woman paid for her purchases
+with a cheque of mine that that woman was the Duchess of Datchet."
+
+"I think, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, that it did. At
+least, the presumption was strong upon that side. May I ask to whom
+your Grace's cheque was given?"
+
+"You may ask, but I don't see why I should tell you. It was honoured,
+and that is sufficient."
+
+"I don't think it is sufficient, and I don't think that your Grace will
+think so either, if you consider for a moment. If it had not been for
+the strong presumptive evidence of your Grace's cheque, we should not
+have been robbed of many thousand pounds."
+
+The Duke of Datchet paced restlessly to and fro. Messrs. Ruby and
+Golden watched him. At last he moved towards his writing table. He sat
+down on the chair behind it. He stretched out his legs in front of him.
+He thrust his hands into his trousers pockets.
+
+"I'll make a clean breast of it. You fellows can keep a still tongue in
+your heads--keep a still tongue about what I am going to tell you." His
+hearers bowed. They were coming to the point--at last. "Eh"--in spite
+of his announced intention of making a clean breast of it, his Grace
+rather stumbled in his speech. "Before I was married I--I had some
+acquaintance with--with a certain lady. When I married, that
+acquaintance ceased. On the last occasion on which I saw her she
+informed me that she was indebted to you in the sum of a thousand
+pounds for jewellery. I gave her a cheque to discharge her liability to
+you, and to make sure that she did discharge the liability, I made the
+cheque payable to you, which, I now perceive, was perhaps not the
+wisest thing I could have done. But, at the same time, I wish you
+clearly to comprehend that I have every reason to believe that the lady
+referred to is, to put it mildly, a most unlikely person to--to rob any
+one."
+
+"We must request you to furnish us with that lady's name and address.
+And I would advise your Grace to accompany us in an immediate visit to
+that lady."
+
+"That is your advice is it, Mr. Golden? I am not sure that I appreciate
+it quite so much as it may possibly deserve."
+
+"Otherwise, as you will yourself perceive, we shall be compelled to put
+the matter at once in the hands of the police, and, your Grace, there
+will be a scandal."
+
+The Duke of Datchet reflected. He looked at Mr. Golden, he looked at
+Mr. Ruby, he looked at the ceiling, he looked at the floor, he looked
+at his boots--then he looked back again at Mr. Golden. At last he rose.
+He shook himself a little--as if to shake his clothes into their proper
+places. He seemed to have threshed the _pros_ and _cons_ of the matter
+well out, mentally, and to have finally decided.
+
+"As I do not want a scandal, I think I will take your excellent advice,
+Mr. Golden--which I now really do appreciate at its proper value--and
+accompany you upon that little visit. Shall we go at once?"
+
+"At once--if your Grace pleases."
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+The Duke of Datchet's brougham, containing the Duke of Datchet himself
+upon one seat, and Messrs. Ruby and Golden cheek by jowl upon the
+other, drew up in front of a charming villa in the most charming
+part of charming St. John's Wood. The Duke's ring--for the Duke himself
+did ring, and there was no knocker--was answered by a most
+unimpeachable-looking man-servant in livery. The man-servant was not
+only unimpeachable-looking--which every servant ought to look--but
+good-looking, too, which, in a servant, is not regarded as quite so
+indispensable. He was, indeed, so good-looking as to be quite a "beauty
+man." So young, too! A mere youth!
+
+When this man-servant opened the door, and saw to whom he had opened
+it, he started. And not only did he start, but Messrs. Ruby and Golden
+started too, particularly Mr. Golden. The Duke of Datchet, if he
+observed this little by-play, did not condescend to notice it.
+
+"Is Mrs. Mansfield in?"
+
+"I believe so. I will enquire. What name?"
+
+"Never mind the name, and I will make my own enquiries. You needn't
+announce me, I know the way."
+
+The Duke of Datchet seemed to know the way very well indeed. He led the
+way up the staircase; Messrs. Ruby and Golden followed. The man-servant
+remained at the foot of the stairs, as if doubtful whether or not
+he ought to follow. When they had reached the landing, and the
+man-servant, still remaining below, was out of sight, Mr. Golden turned to
+Mr. Ruby.
+
+"Where on earth have I seen that man before?"
+
+"I was just addressing to myself the same enquiry," said Mr. Ruby.
+
+The Duke paused. He turned to the partners.
+
+"What's that? The servant? Have you seen the man before? The plot is
+thickening. I am afraid 'the Duchess' is getting warm."
+
+Apparently the Duke knew his way so well that he did not think it
+necessary to announce himself at the door of the room to which he led
+the partners. He simply turned the handle and went in, Messrs. Ruby and
+Golden close upon his heels. The room which he had entered was a pretty
+room, and contained a pretty occupant. A lady, young and fair, rose
+from a couch which was at the opposite side of the apartment, and, as
+was most justifiable under the circumstances, stared: "Hereward!"
+
+"Mrs. Mansfield!"
+
+"Whatever brings you here?"
+
+"My dear Mrs. Mansfield, I have come to ask you what you think of Mr.
+Kesteeven's necklace."
+
+"Hereward, what do you mean?"
+
+The Duke's manner changed from jest to earnest.
+
+"Rather, Gertrude, what do you mean? What have I done that deserved
+such a return from you? What have I done to you that you should have
+endeavoured to drag my wife's name in the mire?"
+
+The lady stared. "I have no more idea what you are talking about than
+the man in the moon!"
+
+"You dare to tell me so, in the presence of these men?"
+
+"In the presence of what men?"
+
+"In the presence of your victims--of Mr. Ruby and of Mr. Golden?"
+
+Mr. Golden advanced a step or two.
+
+"Excuse me, your Grace--this is not the lady."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"This is not the lady."
+
+"Not what lady?"
+
+"This is not the lady who called herself the Duchess of Datchet."
+
+"What the dickens do you mean? Really, Mr. Ruby and Mr. Golden, you
+seem to be leading me a pretty fine wild goose chase--a pretty fine
+wild goose chase! I know it will end in kicking--someone. You told me
+that the person to whom I had given that cheque was the person who had
+bestowed on you her patronage. This is the person to whom I gave that
+cheque."
+
+"This is not the person who gave that cheque to us."
+
+"Then--then who the devil did?"
+
+"That, your Grace, is the point--will this lady allow me to ask her one
+or two questions?"
+
+"Fire away--ask fifty!"
+
+The lady thus referred to interposed, "This gentleman may ask fifty or
+five hundred questions, but unless you tell me what all this is about I
+very much doubt if I shall answer one."
+
+"Let me manage it, Mr. Golden. Mrs. Mansfield, may I enquire what you
+did with that cheque for a thousand which I gave you? You jade! To tell
+me that Ruby and Golden were dunning you out of your life, when you
+never owed them a stiver! Tell me what you did with that cheque!"
+
+The Duke seemed at last to have said something which had reached the
+lady's understanding. She changed colour. She pressed her lips
+together. She looked at him with defiance in her eyes. A considerable
+pause ensued before she spoke.
+
+"I don't know why I should tell you. What does it matter to you what I
+did with it--you gave it me."
+
+"It does matter to me. As it happens, it matters also to you. If you
+will take my friendly advice, you will tell me what you did with that
+cheque."
+
+The look of defiance about the lady's lips and in her eyes increased.
+
+"I don't mind telling you. Why should I? It was my own. I gave it to
+Alfred."
+
+The Duke emitted an ejaculation--which smacked of profanity.
+
+"To Alfred? And, pray, who may Alfred be?"
+
+The lady's crest rose higher. "Alfred is--is the man to whom I am
+engaged to be married."
+
+The Duke of Datchet whistled. "And you got a cheque out of me for a
+thousand pounds to make a present of it to your intended? That beats
+everything; and pray to whom did Alfred give it?"
+
+"He gave it to no one. He paid it into the bank. He told me so
+himself."
+
+"Then I'm afraid that Alfred lied. Where is Alfred?"
+
+"He's--he's here."
+
+"Here? In this room? Where? Under the couch, or behind the screen?"
+
+"I mean that he's in this house. He's downstairs."
+
+"I won't ask how long he's been downstairs, but would it be too much to
+ask you to request Alfred to walk upstairs."
+
+The lady burst into a sudden tempest of tears.
+
+"I know you'll only laugh at me--I know you well enough to expect you
+to do that--but--I--I know I've not been a good woman, and--and I do
+love him--although--he's only--a--servant!"
+
+"A servant! Gertrude! Was that the man who opened the door?"
+
+Mr. Golden gave vent to an exclamation which positively amounted to a
+shout. "By Jove!--I've got it!--I knew I'd seen the face before--I
+couldn't make out where--it was the man who opened the door. Your
+Grace, might I ask you to have that man who opened the door to us at
+once brought here?"
+
+"Ring the bell, Mr. Golden."
+
+The lady interposed. "You shan't--I won't have it! What do you want
+with him?"
+
+"We wish to ask him one or two questions. If Alfred is an honest man it
+will be better for him that he should have an opportunity of answering
+them. If he is not an honest man, it will be better for you that you
+should know it."
+
+Apparently this reasoning prevailed. Mr. Golden rang the bell; but his
+ring was not by any means immediately attended to. He rang a second and
+a third time, but still no answer came.
+
+"It strikes me," suggested the Duke, "that we had better start on a
+voyage of discovery, and search for Alfred in the regions down below."
+
+Before the Duke's suggestion could be acted on the door was opened--not
+by Alfred; not by a man at all, but by a maid.
+
+"Send Alfred here."
+
+"I can't find him anywhere. I think he must have gone."
+
+"Gone!" gasped Mrs. Mansfield. "Where?"
+
+"I don't know, ma'am. I've been up to his room to look for him, and it
+is all anyhow, and there's no one there. If you please, ma'am, I found
+this on the mat outside the door."
+
+The maid held out an envelope. The Duke of Datchet took it from her
+hand. He glanced at its superscription.
+
+"'Messrs. Ruby and Golden.' Gentlemen, this is for you."
+
+He transferred it to Mr. Golden. It was a long blue envelope. The maid
+had picked it up from the mat which was outside the door of that very
+room in which they were standing. Mr. Golden opened it. It contained an
+oblong card of considerable size, on which were printed three
+photographs, in a sort of series. The first photograph was that of a
+young man--a beautiful young man--unmistakably "Alfred." The second was
+that of "Alfred" with his hair arranged in a fashion which was
+peculiarly feminine. The third was that of "Alfred" with a bonnet and a
+veil on, and a very nice-looking young woman he made. At the bottom of
+the card was written, in a fine, delicate, lady's hand-writing, "With
+the Duchess of Datchet's compliments."
+
+"I knew," gasped Mrs. Mansfield, in the midst of her sorrow, "that he
+was very good at dressing up as a woman, but I never thought he would
+do this!"
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+The Duke of Datchet paid for the diamonds.
+
+
+
+
+                           The Haunted Chair
+
+
+                                CHAPTER I
+
+"Well, that's the most staggering thing I've ever known!"
+
+As Mr. Philpotts entered the smoking-room, these were the words--with
+additions--which fell upon his, not unnaturally, startled ears. Since
+Mr. Bloxham was the only person in the room, it seemed only too
+probable that the extraordinary language had been uttered by him--and,
+indeed, his demeanour went far to confirm the probability. He was
+standing in front of his chair, staring about him in a manner which
+suggested considerable mental perturbation, apparently unconscious of
+the fact that his cigar had dropped either from his lips or his fingers
+and was smoking merrily away on the brand-new carpet which the
+committee had just laid down. He turned to Mr. Philpotts in a state of
+what seemed really curious agitation.
+
+"I say, Philpotts, did you see him?"
+
+Mr. Philpotts looked at him in silence for a moment, before he drily
+said, "I heard you."
+
+But Mr. Bloxham was in no mood to be put off in this manner. He seemed,
+for some cause, to have lost the air of serene indifference for which
+he was famed--he was in a state of excitement, which, for him, was
+quite phenomenal.
+
+"No nonsense, Philpotts--did you see him?"
+
+"See whom?" Mr. Philpotts was selecting a paper from a side table. "I
+see your cigar is burning a hole in the carpet."
+
+"Confound my cigar!" Mr. Bloxham stamped on it with an angry tread.
+"Did Geoff Fleming pass you as you came in?"
+
+Mr. Philpotts looked round with an air of evident surprise.
+
+"Geoff Fleming!--Why, surely he's in Ceylon by now."
+
+"Not a bit of it. A minute ago he was in that chair talking to me."
+
+"Bloxham!" Mr. Philpotts' air of surprise became distinctly more
+pronounced, a fact which Mr. Bloxham apparently resented.
+
+"What are you looking at me like that for pray? I tell you I was
+glancing through the _Field_, when I felt someone touch me on the
+shoulder. I looked round--there was Fleming standing just behind me.
+'Geoff.' I cried, 'I thought you were on the other side of the
+world--what are you doing here?' 'I've come to have a peep at you,' he
+said. He drew a chair up close to mine--this chair--and sat in it. I
+turned round to reach for a match on the table, it scarcely took me a
+second, but when I looked his way again hanged if he weren't gone."
+
+Mr. Philpotts continued his selection of a paper--in a manner which was
+rather marked.
+
+"Which way did he go?"
+
+"Didn't you meet him as you came in?"
+
+"I did not--I met no one. What's the matter now?"
+
+The question was inspired by the fact that a fresh volley of expletives
+came from Mr. Bloxham's lips. That gentleman was standing with his
+hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, his legs wide open, and his
+eyes and mouth almost as wide open as his legs.
+
+"Hang me," he exclaimed, when, as it appeared, he had temporarily come
+to the end of his stock of adjectives, "if I don't believe he's boned
+my purse."
+
+"Boned your purse!" Mr. Philpotts laid a not altogether flattering
+emphasis upon the "boned!" "Bloxham! What do you mean?"
+
+Mr. Bloxham did not immediately explain. He dropped into the chair
+behind him. His hands were still in his trouser pockets, his legs were
+stretched out in front of him, and on his face there was not only an
+expression of amazement, but also of the most unequivocal bewilderment.
+He was staring at the vacant air as if he were trying his hardest to
+read some riddle.
+
+"This is a queer start, upon my word, Philpotts," he spoke in what, for
+him, were tones of unwonted earnestness. "When I was reaching for the
+matches  on the table, what made me turn round so suddenly was because
+I thought I felt someone tugging at my purse--it was in the pocket next
+to Fleming. As I told you, when I did turn round Fleming was gone--and,
+by Jove, it looks as though my purse went with him."
+
+"Have you lost your purse?--is that what you mean?"
+
+"I'll swear that it was in my pocket five minutes ago, and that it's
+not there now; that's what I mean."
+
+Mr. Philpotts looked at Mr. Bloxham as if, although he was too polite
+to say so, he could not make him out at all. He resumed his selection
+of a paper.
+
+"One is liable to make mistakes about one's purse; perhaps you'll find
+it when you get home."
+
+Mr. Bloxham sat in silence for some moments. Then, rising, he shook
+himself as a dog does when he quits the water.
+
+"I say, Philpotts, don't ladle out this yarn of mine to the other
+fellows, there's a good chap. As you say, one is apt to get into a
+muddle about one's purse, and I dare say I shall come across it when I
+get home. And perhaps I'm not very well this afternoon; I am feeling
+out of sorts, and that's a fact. I think I'll just toddle home and take
+a seidlitz, or a pill, or something. Ta ta!"
+
+When Mr. Philpotts was left alone he smiled to himself, that superior
+smile which we are apt to smile when conscious that a man has been
+making a conspicuous ass of himself on lines which may be his, but
+which, we thank Providence, are emphatically not ours. With not one,
+but half a dozen papers in his hand, he seated himself in the chair
+which Mr. Bloxham had recently relinquished. Retaining a single paper,
+he placed the rest on the small round table on his left--the table on
+which wore the matches for which Mr. Bloxham declared he had reached.
+Taking out his case, he selected a cigar almost with the same care
+which he had shewn in selecting his literature, smiling to himself all
+the time that superior smile. Lighting the cigar he had chosen with a
+match from the table, he settled himself at his ease to read.
+
+Scarcely had he done so than he was conscious of a hand laid gently on
+his shoulder from behind.
+
+"What! back again?"
+
+"Hullo, Phil!"
+
+He had taken it for granted, without troubling to look round, that Mr.
+Bloxham had returned, and that it was he who touched him on the
+shoulder. But the voice which replied to him, so far from being Mr.
+Bloxham's was one the mere sound of which caused him not only to lose
+his bearing of indifference but to spring from his seat with the
+agility almost of a jack-in-the-box. When he saw who it was had touched
+him on the shoulder, he stared.
+
+"Fleming! Then Bloxham was right, after all. May I ask what brings you
+here?"
+
+The man at whom he was looking was tall and well-built, in age about
+five and thirty. There were black cavities beneath his eyes; the man's
+whole face was redolent, to a trained perception, of something which
+was, at least, slightly unsavoury. He was dressed from head to foot in
+white duck--a somewhat singular costume for Pall Mall, even on a summer
+afternoon.
+
+Before Mr. Philpotts' gaze, his own eyes sank. Murmuring something
+which was almost inaudible, he moved to the chair next to the one which
+Mr. Philpotts had been occupying, the chair of which Mr. Bloxham had
+spoken.
+
+As he seated himself, Mr. Philpotts eyed him in a fashion which was
+certainly not too friendly.
+
+"What did you mean by disappearing just now in that extraordinary
+manner, frightening Bloxham half out of his wits? Where did you get
+to?"
+
+The new comer was stroking his heavy moustache with a hand which, for a
+man of his size and build, was unusually small and white. He spoke in a
+lazy, almost inaudible, drawl.
+
+"I just popped outside."
+
+"Just popped outside! I must have been coming in just when you went
+out. I saw nothing of you; you've put Bloxham into a pretty state of
+mind."
+
+Re-seating himself, Mr. Philpotts turned to put the paper he was
+holding on to the little table. "I don't want to make myself a brute,
+but it strikes me that your presence here at all requires explanation.
+When several fellows club together to give another fellow a fresh start
+on the other side of the world----"
+
+Mr. Philpotts stopped short. Having settled the paper on the table to
+his perfect satisfaction, he turned round again towards the man he was
+addressing--and as he did so he ceased to address him, and that for the
+sufficiently simple reason that he was not there to address--the man
+had gone! The chair at Mr. Philpotts' side was empty; without a sign or
+a sound its occupant had vanished, it would almost seem, into space.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+Under the really remarkable circumstances of the case, Mr. Philpotts
+preserved his composure to a singular degree. He looked round the room;
+there was no one there. He again fixedly regarded the chair at his
+side; there could be no doubt that it was empty. To make quite sure, he
+passed his hand two or three times over the seat; it met with not the
+slightest opposition. Where could the man have got to? Mr. Philpotts
+had not, consciously, heard the slightest sound; there had not been
+time for him to have reached the door. Mr. Philpotts knocked the ash
+off his cigar. He stood up. He paced leisurely two or three times up
+and down the room.
+
+"If Bloxham is ill, I am not. I was never better in my life. And the
+man who tells me that I have been the victim of an optical delusion is
+talking of what he knows nothing. I am prepared to swear that it was
+Geoffrey Fleming who touched me on the shoulder; that he spoke to me;
+and that he seated himself upon that chair. Where he came from, or
+where he has gone to, are other questions entirely." He critically
+examined his finger nails.
+
+"If those Psychical Research people have an address in town, I think
+I'll have a talk with them. I suppose it's three or four minutes since
+the man vanished. What's the time now? Whatever has become of my
+watch?"
+
+He might well ask--it had gone, both watch and chain--vanished, with
+Mr. Fleming, into air. Mr. Philpotts stared at his waistcoat, too
+astonished for speech. Then he gave a little gasp.
+
+"This comes of playing Didymus! The brute has stolen it! I must
+apologise to Bloxham. As he himself said, this is a queer start, upon
+my honour! Now, if you like, I do feel a little out of sorts; this sort
+of thing is enough to make one. Before I go, I think I'll have a drop
+of brandy."
+
+As he was hesitating, the smoking-room door opened to admit Frank
+Osborne. Mr. Osborne nodded to Mr. Philpotts as he crossed the room.
+
+"You're not looking quite yourself, Philpotts."
+
+Mr. Philpotts seemed to regard the observation almost in the light of
+an impertinence.
+
+"Am I not? I was not aware that there was anything in my appearance to
+call for remark." Smiling, Mr. Osborne seated himself in the chair
+which the other had not long ago vacated. Mr. Philpotts regarded him
+attentively. "You're not looking quite yourself, either."
+
+The smile vanished from Mr. Osborne's face.
+
+"I'm not feeling myself!--I'm not! I'm worried about Geoff Fleming."
+
+Mr. Philpotts slightly started.
+
+"About Geoff Fleming?--what about Fleming?'
+
+"I'm afraid--well, Phil, the truth is that I'm afraid that Geoff's a
+hopeless case."
+
+Mr. Philpotts was once more busying himself with the papers which were
+on the side table.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"As you know, he and I have been very thick in our time, and when he
+came a cropper it was I who suggested that we who were at school with
+him might have a whip round among ourselves to get the old chap a fresh
+start elsewhere. You all of you behaved like bricks, and when I told
+him what you had done, poor Geoff was quite knocked over. He promised
+voluntarily that he would never touch a card again, or make another
+bet, until he had paid you fellows off with thumping interest. Well, he
+doesn't seem to have kept his promise long."
+
+"How do you know he hasn't?"
+
+"I've heard from Deecie."
+
+"From Deecie?--where's Fleming?"
+
+"In Ceylon--they'd both got there before Deecie's letter left."
+
+"In Ceylon!" exclaimed Mr. Philpotts excitedly, staring hard at Mr.
+Osborne. "You are sure he isn't back in town?"
+
+In his turn, Mr. Osborne was staring at Mr. Philpotts.
+
+"Not unless he came back by the same boat which brought Deecie's
+letter. What made you ask?"
+
+"I only wondered."
+
+Mr. Philpotts turned again to the paper. The other went on.
+
+"It seems that a lot of Australian sporting men were on the boat on
+which they went out. Fleming got in with them. They played--he played
+too. Deecie remonstrated--but he says that it only seemed to make bad
+worse. At first Geoff won--you know the usual sort of thing; he wound
+up by losing all he had, and about four hundred pounds beside. He had
+the cheek to ask Deecie for the money." Mr. Osborne paused. Mr.
+Philpotts uttered a sound which might have been indicative of
+contempt--or anything. "Deecie says that when the winners found out
+that he couldn't pay, there was a regular row. Geoff swore, in that
+wild way of his, that if he couldn't pay them before he died, he would
+rise from the dead to get the money."
+
+Mr. Philpotts looked round with a show of added interest.
+
+"What was that he said?"
+
+"Oh, it was only his wild way of speaking--you know that way of his. If
+they don't get their money before he dies, and I fancy that it's rather
+more than even betting that they won't, I don't think that there's much
+chance of his rising from his grave to get it for them. He'll break
+that promise, as he has broken so many more. Poor Geoff! It seems that
+we might as well have kept our money in our pockets; it doesn't seem to
+have done him much good. His prospects don't look very rosy--without
+money, and with a bad name to start with."
+
+"As I fancy you have more than once suspected, Frank, I never have had
+a high opinion of Mr. Geoffrey Fleming. I am not in the least surprised
+at what you tell me, any more than I was surprised when he came his
+cropper. I have always felt that, at a pinch, he would do anything to
+save his own skin." Mr. Osborne said nothing, but he shook his head.
+"Did you see anything of Bloxham when you came in?"
+
+"I saw him going along the street in a cab."
+
+"I want to speak to him! I think I'll just go and see if I can find him
+in his rooms."
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+Mr. Frank Osborne scarcely seemed to be enjoying his own society when
+Mr. Philpotts had left him. As all the world knows, he is a man of
+sentiment--of the true sort, not the false. He has had one great
+passion in his life--Geoffrey Fleming. They began when they were at
+Chilchester together, when he was big, and Fleming still little. He did
+his work for him, fought for him, took his scrapes upon himself,
+believed in him, almost worshipped him. The thing continued when
+Fleming joined him at the University. Perhaps the fact that they both
+were orphans had something to do with it; neither of them had kith nor
+kin. The odd part of the business was that Osborne was not only a
+clear-sighted, he was a hard-headed man. It could not have been long
+before it dawned upon him that the man with whom he fraternised was a
+naturally bad egg. Fleming was continually coming to grief; he would
+have come to eternal grief at the very commencement of his career if it
+had not been for Osborne at his back. He went through his own money; he
+went through as much of his friend's as his friend would let him. Then
+came the final smash. There were features about the thing which made it
+clear, even to Frank Osborne, that in England, at least, for some years
+to come, Geoffrey Fleming had run his course right out. He strained all
+his already strained resources in his efforts to extricate the man from
+the mire. When he found that he himself was insufficient, going to
+his old schoolfellows, he begged them, for his sake--if not for
+Fleming's--to join hands with him in giving the scapegrace still
+another start. As a result, interest was made for him in a Ceylon
+plantation, and Mr. Fleming with, under the circumstances, well-lined
+pockets, was despatched over the seas to turn over a new leaf in a
+sunnier clime.
+
+How he had vowed that he would turn over a new leaf, actually with
+tears upon his knees! And this was how he had done it; before he had
+reached his journey's end, he had gambled away the money which was not
+his, and was in debt besides. Frank Osborne must have been fashioned
+something like the dog which loves its master the more, the more he
+ill-treats it. His heart went out in pity to the scamp across the seas.
+He had no delusions; he had long been conscious that the man was
+hopeless. And yet he knew very well that if he could have had his
+way he would have gone at once to comfort him. Poor Geoff! What an
+all-round mess he seemed to have made of things--and he had had the ball
+at his feet when he started--poor, dear old Geoff! With his knuckles Mr.
+Osborne wiped a suspicious moisture from his eyes. Geoff was all
+right--if he had only been able to prevent money from slipping from
+between his fingers, had been gifted with a sense of _meum et tuum_--not
+a nicer fellow in the world!
+
+Mr. Osborne sat trying to persuade himself into the belief that the man
+was an injured paragon though he knew very well that he was an
+irredeemable scamp. He endeavoured to see only his good qualities,
+which was a task of exceeding difficulty--they were hidden in such a
+cloud of blackness. At least, whatever might be said against Geoff--and
+Mr. Osborne admitted to himself that there might be something--it was
+certain that Geoff loved him almost as much as he loved Geoff. Mr.
+Osborne declared to himself--putting pressure on himself to prevent
+his making a single mental reservation--that Geoff Fleming, in spite
+of all his faults, was the only person in the wide, wide world who
+did love him. And he was a stranger in a strange land, and in trouble
+again--poor dear old Geoff! Once more Mr. Osborne's knuckles went up to
+wipe that suspicious moisture from his eyes.
+
+While he was engaged in doing this, a hand was laid gently on his
+shoulder from behind. It was, perhaps, because he was unwilling to be
+detected in such an act that, at the touch, he rose from his seat with
+a start--which became so to speak, a start of petrified amazement when
+he perceived who it was who had touched him. It was the man of whom he
+had been thinking, the friend of his boyhood--Geoffrey Fleming.
+
+"Geoff!" he gasped. "Dear old Geoff!" He paused, seemingly in doubt
+whether to laugh or cry. "I thought you were in Ceylon!"
+
+Mr. Fleming did exactly what he had done when he came so unexpectedly
+on Mr. Philpotts--he moved to the chair at Mr. Osborne's side. His
+manner was in contrast to his friend's--it was emphatically not
+emotional.
+
+"I've just dropped in," he drawled.
+
+"My dear old boy!" Mr. Osborne, as he surveyed his friend, seemed to
+become more and more torn by conflicting emotions. "Of course I'm very
+glad to see you Geoff, but how did you get in here? I thought that they
+had taken your name off the books of the club." He was perfectly aware
+that Mr. Fleming's name had been taken off the books of the club, and
+in a manner the reverse of complimentary. Mr. Fleming offered no
+remark. He sat looking down at the carpet stroking his moustache. Mr.
+Osborne went stammeringly on--
+
+"As I say, Geoff--and as, of course you know,--I am very glad to see
+you, anywhere; but--we don't want any unpleasantness, do we? If some of
+the fellows came in and found you here, they might make themselves
+nasty. Come round to my rooms; we shall be a lot more comfortable
+there, old man."
+
+Mr. Fleming raised his eyes. He looked his friend full in the face. As
+he met his glance, Mr. Osborne was conscious of a curious sort of
+shiver. It was not only because the man's glance was, to say the least,
+less friendly than it might have been--it was because of something
+else, something which Mr. Osborne could scarcely have defined.
+
+"I want some money."
+
+Mr. Osborne smiled, rather fatuously.
+
+"Ah, Geoff, the same old tale! Deecie has told me all about it. I won't
+reproach you; you know, if I had some, you should have it; but I'm not
+sure that it isn't just as well for both ourselves that I haven't,
+Geoff."
+
+"You have some money in your pocket now."
+
+Mr. Osborne's amazement grew apace--his friend's manner was so very
+strange.
+
+"What a nose you always have for money; however did you find that out?
+But it isn't mine. You know Jim Baker left me guardian to that boy of
+his, and I've been drawing the youngster's dividends--it's only seventy
+pounds, Geoff."
+
+Mr. Fleming stretched out his hand--his reply was brief and to the
+point.
+
+"Give it to me!"
+
+"Give it to you!--Geoff!--young Baker's money!"
+
+Mr. Fleming reiterated his demand.
+
+"Give it to me!"
+
+His manner was not only distinctly threatening, it had a peculiar
+effect upon his friend. Although Mr. Osborne had never before shewn
+fear of any living man, and had, in that respect, proved his
+superiority over Fleming many a time, there was something at that
+moment in the speaker's voice, or words, or bearing, or in all three
+together, which set him shivering, as if with fear, from head to foot.
+
+"Geoff!--you are mad! I'll see what I can find for you, but I can't
+give you young Baker's dividends."
+
+Mr. Osborne was not quite clear as to exactly what it was that
+happened. He only knew that the friend of his boyhood--the man for whom
+he had done so much--the only person in the world who loved him--rose
+and took him by the throat, and, forcing him backwards, began to rifle
+the pocket which contained the seventy pounds. He was so taken by
+surprise, so overwhelmed by a feeling of utter horror, against which he
+was unable even to struggle, that it was only when he felt the money
+being actually withdrawn from his pocket that he made an attempt at
+self-defence. Then, when he made a frantic clutch at his assailant's
+felonious arm, all he succeeded in grasping was the empty air. The
+pressure was removed from his throat. He was able to look about him.
+Mr. Fleming was gone. He thrust a trembling hand into his pocket--the
+seventy pounds had vanished too.
+
+"Geoff! Geoff!" he cried, the tears streaming from his eyes. "Don't
+play tricks with me! Give me back young Baker's dividends!"
+
+When no one answered and there seemed no one to hear, he began to
+searching round and round the room with his eyes, as if he suspected
+Mr. Fleming of concealing himself behind some article of furniture.
+
+"Geoff! Geoff!" he continued crying. "Dear old boy!--give me back young
+Baker's dividends!"
+
+"Hullo!" exclaimed a voice--which certainly was not Mr. Fleming's. Mr.
+Osborne turned. Colonel Lanyon was standing with the handle of the open
+door in his hand. "Frank, are you rehearsing for a five-act tragedy?"
+
+Mr. Osborne replied to the Colonel's question with another.
+
+"Lanyon, did Geoffrey Fleming pass you as you came in?"
+
+"Geoffrey Fleming!" The Colonel wheeled round on his heels like a
+teetotum. He glanced behind him. "What the deuce do you mean, Frank? If
+I catch that thief under the roof which covers me, I'll make a case for
+the police of him."
+
+Then Mr. Osborne remembered what, in his agitation, he had momentarily
+forgotten, that Geoffrey Fleming had had no bitterer, more out-spoken,
+and, it may be added, more well-merited an opponent than Colonel Lanyon
+in the Climax Club. The Colonel advanced towards Mr. Osborne.
+
+"Do you know that that's the blackguard's chair you're standing by?"
+
+"His chair!"
+
+Mr. Osborne was leaning with one hand on the chair on which Mr. Fleming
+had, not long ago, been sitting.
+
+"That's what he used to call it himself,--with his usual impudence. He
+used to sit in it whenever he took a hand. The men would give it up to
+him--you know how you gave everything up to him, all the lot of you. If
+he couldn't get it he'd turn nasty--wouldn't play. It seems that he had
+the cheek to cut his initials on the chair--I only heard of it the
+other day, or there'd have been a clearance of him long ago. Look
+here--what do you think of that for a piece of rowdiness?"
+
+The Colonel turned the chair upside down. Sure enough in the woodwork
+underneath the seat were the letters, cut in good-sized characters--"G.
+F."
+
+"You know that rubbishing way in which he used to talk. When men
+questioned his exclusive right to the chair, I've heard him say he'd
+prove his right by coming and sitting in it after he was dead and
+buried--he swore he'd haunt the chair. Idiot!--What is the matter with
+you Frank? You look as if you'd been in a rough and tumble--your
+necktie's all anyhow."
+
+"I think I must have dropped asleep, and dreamed--yes, I fancy I've
+been dreaming."
+
+Mr. Osborne staggered, rather than walked, to the door, keeping one
+hand in the inside pocket of his coat. The Colonel followed him with
+his eyes.
+
+"Frank's ageing fast," was his mental comment as Mr. Osborne
+disappeared. "He'll be an old man yet before I am."
+
+He seated himself in Geoffrey Fleming's chair.
+
+It was, perhaps, ten minutes afterwards that Edward Jackson went into
+the smoking room--"Scientific" Jackson, as they call him, because of
+the sort of catch phrase he is always using--"Give me science!" He had
+scarcely been in the room a minute before he came rushing to the door
+shouting--
+
+"Help, help!"
+
+Men came hurrying from all parts of the building. Mr. Griffin came from
+the billiard-room, where he is always to be found. He had a cue in one
+hand, and a piece of chalk in the other. He was the first to address
+the vociferous gentleman standing at the smoking-room door.
+
+"Jackson!--What's the matter?"
+
+Mr. Jackson was in such a condition of fluster and excitement that it
+was a little difficult to make out, from his own statement, what was
+the matter.
+
+"Lanyon's dead! Have any of you seen Geoff Fleming? Stop him if you
+do--he's stolen my pocket-book!" He began mopping his brow with his
+bandanna handkerchief, "God bless my soul! an awful thing!--I've been
+robbed--and old Lanyon's dead!"
+
+One thing was quickly made clear--as they saw for themselves when they
+went crowding into the smoking-room--Lanyon was dead. He was kneeling
+in front of Geoffrey Fleming's chair, clutching at either side of it
+with a tenacity which suggested some sort of convulsion. His head was
+thrown back, his eyes were still staring wide open, his face was
+distorted by a something which was half fear, half horror--as if, as
+those who saw him afterwards agreed, he had seen sudden, certain death
+approaching him, in a form which even he, a seasoned soldier, had found
+too horrible for contemplation.
+
+Mr. Jackson's story, in one sense, was plain enough, though it was odd
+enough in another. He told it to an audience which evinced unmistakable
+interest in every word uttered.
+
+"I often come in for a smoke about this time, because generally the
+place is empty, so that you get it all to yourself."
+
+He cast a somewhat aggressive look upon his hearers--a look which could
+hardly be said to convey a flattering suggestion.
+
+"When I first came in I thought that the room was empty. It was only
+when I was half-way across that something caused me to look round. I
+saw that someone was kneeling on the floor. I looked to see who it was.
+It was Lanyon. 'Lanyon!' I cried. 'Whatever are you doing there?' He
+didn't answer. Wondering what was up with him and why he didn't speak,
+I went closer to where he was. When I got there I didn't like the look
+of him at all. I thought he was in some sort of a fit. I was hesitating
+whether to pick him up, or at once to summon assistance, when--"
+
+Mr. Jackson paused. He looked about him with an obvious shiver.
+
+"By George! when I think of it now, it makes me go quite creepy.
+Cathcart, would you mind ringing for another drop of brandy?"
+
+The brandy was rung for. Mr. Jackson went on.
+
+"All of a sudden, as I was stooping over Lanyon, someone touched me on
+the shoulder. You know, there hadn't been a sound--I hadn't heard the
+door open, not a thing which could suggest that anyone was approaching.
+Finding Lanyon like that had make me go quite queer, and when I felt
+that touch on my shoulder it so startled me that I fairly screeched. I
+jumped up to see who it was, And when I saw"--Mr. Jackson's bandanna
+came into play--"who it was, I thought my eyes would have started out
+of my head. It was Geoff Fleming."
+
+"Who?" came in chorus from his auditors.
+
+"It was Geoffrey Fleming. 'Good God!--Fleming!' I cried. 'Where did you
+come from? I never heard you. Anyhow, you're just in the nick of time.
+Lanyon's come to grief--lend me a hand with him.' I bent down, to take
+hold of one side of poor old Lanyon, meaning Fleming to take hold of
+the other. Before I had a chance of touching Lanyon, Fleming, catching
+me by the shoulder, whirled me round--I had had no idea the fellow was
+so strong, he gripped me like a vice. I was just going to ask what the
+dickens he meant by handling me like that, when, before I could say
+Jack Robinson, or even had time to get my mouth open, Fleming, darting
+his hand into my coat pocket, snatched my pocket-book clean out of it."
+
+He stopped, apparently to gasp for breath. "And, pray, what were you
+doing while Mr. Fleming behaved in this exceedingly peculiar way--even
+for Mr. Fleming?" inquired Mr. Cathcart.
+
+"Doing!" Mr. Jackson was indignant. "Don't I tell you I was doing
+nothing? There was no time to do anything--it all happened in a flash.
+I had just come from my bankers--there were a hundred and thirty pounds
+in that pocket-book. When I realised that the fellow had taken it, I
+made a grab at him. And"--again Mr. Jackson looked furtively about him,
+and once more the bandanna came into active play--"directly I did so, I
+don't know where he went to, but it seemed to me that he vanished into
+air--he was gone, like a flash of lightning. I told myself I was
+mad--stark mad! but when I felt for my pocketbook, and found that that
+was also gone, I ran yelling to the door."
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+It was, as the old-time novelists used to phrase it, about three weeks
+after the events transpired which we have recorded in the previous
+chapter. Evening--after dinner. There was a goodly company assembled in
+the smoking room at the Climax Club. Conversation was general. They
+were talking of some of the curious circumstances which had attended
+the death of Colonel Lanyon. The medical evidence at the inquest had
+gone to shew that the Colonel had died of one of the numerous, and,
+indeed, almost innumerable, varieties of heart disease. The finding had
+been in accordance with the medical evidence. It seemed to be felt, by
+some of the speakers, that such a finding scarcely met the case.
+
+"It's all very well," observed Mr. Cathcart, who seemed disposed to
+side with the coroner's jury, "for you fellows to talk, but in such a
+case, you must bring in some sort of verdict--and what other verdict
+could they bring? There was not a trace of any mark of violence to be
+found upon the man.
+
+"It's my belief that he saw Fleming, and that Fleming frightened him to
+death."
+
+It was Mr. Jackson who said this. Mr. Cathcart smiled a rather
+provoking smile.
+
+"So far as I observed, you did not drop any hint of your belief when
+you were before the coroner."
+
+"No, because I didn't want to be treated as a laughing-stock by a lot
+of idiots."
+
+"Quite so; I can understand your natural objection to that, but still I
+don't see your line of argument. I should not have cared to question
+Lanyon's courage to Lanyon's face while he was living. Why should you
+suppose that such a man as Geoffrey Fleming was capable of such a thing
+as, as you put it, actually frightening him to death? I should say it
+was rather the other way about. I have seen Fleming turn green, with
+what looked very much like funk, at the sight of Lanyon."
+
+Mr. Jackson for some moments smoked in silence.
+
+"If you had seen Geoffrey Fleming under the circumstances in which I
+did, you would understand better what it is I mean."
+
+"But, my dear Jackson, if you will forgive my saying so, it seems to me
+that you don't shew to great advantage in your own story. Have you
+communicated the fact of your having been robbed to the police?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"And have you furnished them with the numbers of the notes which were
+taken?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"Then, in that case, I shouldn't be surprised if Mr. Fleming were
+brought to book any hour of any day. You'll find he has been lying
+close in London all the time--he soon had enough of Ceylon."
+
+A new comer joined the group of talkers--Frank Osborne. They noticed,
+as he seated himself, how much he seemed to have aged of late and how
+particularly shabby he seemed just then. The first remark which he made
+took them all aback.
+
+"Geoff Fleming's dead."
+
+"Dead!" cried Mr. Philpotts, who was sitting next to Mr. Osborne.
+
+"Yes--dead. I've heard from Deecie. He died three weeks ago."
+
+"Three weeks ago!"
+
+"On the day on which Lanyon died."
+
+Mr. Cathcart turned to Mr. Jackson, with a smile.
+
+"Then that knocks on the head your theory about his having frightened
+Lanyon to death; and how about your interview with him--eh Jackson?"
+
+Mr. Jackson did not answer. He suddenly went white. An intervention
+came from an unexpected quarter--from Mr. Philpotts.
+
+"It seems to me that you are rather taking things for granted,
+Cathcart. I take leave to inform you that I saw Geoffrey Fleming,
+perhaps less than half-an-hour before Jackson did."
+
+Mr. Cathcart stared.
+
+"You saw him!--Philpotts!"
+
+Then Mr. Bloxham arose and spoke.
+
+"Yes, and I saw him, too--didn't I, Philpott's?"
+
+Any tendency on the part of the auditors to smile was checked by the
+tone of exceeding bitterness in which Frank Osborne was also moved to
+testify.
+
+"And I--I saw him, too!--Geoff!--dear old boy!"
+
+"Deecie says that there were two strange things about Geoff's death. He
+was struck by a fit of apoplexy. He was dead within the hour. Soon
+after he died, the servant came running to say that the bed was empty
+on which the body had been lying. Deecie went to see. He says that,
+when he got into the room, Geoff was back again upon the bed, but it
+was plain enough that he had moved. His clothes and hair were in
+disorder, his fists were clenched, and there was a look upon his face
+which had not been there at the moment of his death, and which, Deecie
+says, seemed a look partly of rage and partly of triumph.
+
+"I have been calculating the difference between Cingalese and Greenwich
+time. It must have been between three and four o'clock when the servant
+went running to say that Geoff's body was not upon the bed--it was
+about that time that Lanyon died."
+
+He paused--and then continued--
+
+"The other strange thing that happened was this. Deecie says that the
+day after Geoff died a telegram came for him, which, of course, he
+opened. It was an Australian wire, and purported to come from the
+Melbourne sporting man of whom I told you." He turned to Mr. Philpotts.
+"It ran, 'Remittance to hand. It comes in rather a miscellaneous form.
+Thanks all the same.' Deecie can only suppose that Geoff had managed,
+in some way, to procure the four hundred pounds which he had lost and
+couldn't pay, and had also managed, in some way, to send it on to
+Melbourne."
+
+There was silence when Frank Osborne ceased to speak--silence which was
+broken in a somewhat startling fashion.
+
+"Who's that touched me?" suddenly exclaimed Mr. Cathcart, springing
+from his seat.
+
+They stared.
+
+"Touched you!" said someone. "No one's within half a mile of you.
+You're dreaming, my dear fellow."
+
+Considering the provocation was so slight, Mr. Cathcart seemed
+strangely moved.
+
+"Don't tell me that I'm dreaming--someone touched me on the
+shoulder!--What's that?"
+
+"That" was the sound of laughter proceeding from the, apparently,
+vacant seat. As if inspired by a common impulse, the listeners
+simultaneously moved back.
+
+"That's Fleming's chair," said Mr. Philpotts, beneath his breath.
+
+
+
+
+                                 Nelly
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+"Why!" Mr. Gibbs paused. He gave a little gasp. He bent still closer.
+Then the words came with a rush: "It's Nelly!"
+
+He glanced at the catalogue. "No. 259--'Stitch! Stitch!
+Stitch!'--Philip Bodenham." It was a small canvas, representing the
+interior of an ill-furnished apartment in which a woman sat, on a
+rickety chair, at a rickety table, sewing. The picture was an
+illustration of "The Song of the Shirt."
+
+Mr. Gibbs gazed at the woman's face depicted on the canvas, with gaping
+eyes.
+
+"It's Nelly!" he repeated. There was a catch in his voice. "Nelly!"
+
+He tore himself away as if he were loth to leave the woman who sat
+there sewing. He went to the price list which the Academicians keep in
+the lobby. He turned the leaves. The picture was unsold. The artist had
+appraised it at a modest figure. Mr. Gibbs bought it there and then.
+Then he turned to his catalogue to discover the artist's address. Mr.
+Bodenham lived in Manresa Road, Chelsea.
+
+Not many minutes after a cab drove up to the Manresa Studios. Mr. Gibbs
+knocked at a door on the panels of which was inscribed Mr. Bodenham's
+name.
+
+"Come in!" cried a voice.
+
+Mr. Gibbs entered. An artist stood at his easel.
+
+"Mr. Bodenham?"
+
+"I am Mr. Bodenham."
+
+"I am Mr. Gibbs. I have just purchased your picture at the Academy,
+'Stitch! Stitch! Stitch!'" Mr. Bodenham bowed. "I--I wish to make a--a
+few inquiries about--about the picture."
+
+Mr. Gibbs was as nervous as a schoolboy. He stammered and he blushed.
+The artist seemed to be amused. He smiled.
+
+"You wish to make a few inquiries about the picture--yes?"
+
+"About the--about the subject of the picture. That is, about--about the
+model."
+
+Mr. Gibbs became a peony red. The artist's smile grew more pronounced.
+
+"About the model?"
+
+"Yes, about the model. Where does she live?"
+
+Although the day was comparatively cool, Mr. Gibbs was so hot that it
+became necessary for him to take out his handkerchief to wipe his brow.
+Mr. Bodenham was a sunny-faced young man. He looked at his visitor with
+laughter in his eyes.
+
+"You are aware, Mr. Gibbs, that yours is rather an unusual question. I
+have not the pleasure of your acquaintance, and we artists are not in
+the habit of giving information about our models to perfect strangers.
+It would not do. Moreover, how do you know that I painted from a model?
+The faces in pictures are sometimes creations of the artist's
+imagination. Perhaps oftener than the public think."
+
+"I know the model in 'Stitch! Stitch! Stitch!'"
+
+"You know her? Then why do you come to me for information?"
+
+"I should have said that I knew her years ago."
+
+Mr. Gibbs looked round the room a little doubtfully. Then he laid his
+hand on the back of a chair, as if for the support, moral and physical,
+which it afforded him. He looked at the artist with his big, grave
+eyes.
+
+"As I say, Mr. Bodenham, I knew her years ago--and I loved her."
+
+There was a catch in his voice. The artist seemed to be growing more
+and more amused. Mr. Gibbs went on:
+
+"I was a younger man then. She was but a girl. We both of us were poor.
+We loved each other dearly. We agreed that I should go abroad and make
+my fortune. When I had made it, I was to come back to her."
+
+The big man paused. His listener was surprised to find how much his
+visitor's curious earnestness impressed him. "I had hard times of it at
+first. Now and then I heard from her. At last her letters ceased. About
+the time her letters ceased, my prospects bettered. Now I'm doing
+pretty well. So I've come to take her back with me to the other side.
+Mr. Bodenham, I've looked for her everywhere. As they say, high and
+low. I've been to her old home, and to mine--I've been just everywhere.
+But no one seems to know anything about her. She has just clean gone,
+vanished out of sight. I was thinking that I should have to go back,
+after all, without her, when I saw your picture in the Academy, and I
+knew the girl you had painted was Nelly. So I bought your picture--her
+picture. And now I want you to tell me where she lives."
+
+There was a momentary silence when the big man finished.
+
+"Yours is a very romantic story, Mr. Gibbs. Since you have done me the
+honour to make of me your confidant, I shall have pleasure in giving
+you the address of the original of my little picture--the address, that
+is, at which I last heard of her. I have reason to believe that her
+address is not infrequently changed. When I last heard of her, she
+was--what shall I say?--hard up."
+
+"Hard up, was she? Was she very hard up, Mr. Bodenham?"
+
+"I'm afraid, Mr. Gibbs, that she was as hard up as she could be--and
+live."
+
+Mr. Gibbs cleared his throat:
+
+"Thank you. Will you give me her address, Mr. Bodenham?"
+
+Mr. Bodenham wrote something on a slip of paper.
+
+"There it is. It is a street behind Chelsea Hospital--about as
+unsavoury a neighbourhood as you will easily find."
+
+Mr. Gibbs found that the artist's words were justified by facts--it was
+an unsavoury neighbourhood into which the cabman found his way. No. 20
+was the number which Mr. Bodenham had given him. The door of No. 20
+stood wide open. Mr. Gibbs knocked with his stick. A dirty woman
+appeared from a room on the left.
+
+"Does Miss Brock live here?"
+
+"Never heard tell of no such name. Unless it's the young woman what
+lives at the top of the 'ouse--third floor back. Perhaps it's her
+you want. Is it a model that you're after? Because, that's what she
+is--leastways I've heard 'em saying so. Top o' the stairs, first door
+to your left."
+
+Mr. Gibbs started to ascend.
+
+"Take care of them stairs," cried the woman after him. "They wants
+knowing."
+
+Mr. Gibbs found that what the woman said was true--they did want
+knowing. Better light, too would have been an assistant to a better
+knowledge. He had to strike a match to enable him to ascertain if he
+had reached the top. A squalid top it was--it smelt! By the light of
+the flickering match he perceived that there was a door upon his left.
+He knocked. A voice cried to him, for the second time that day:
+
+"Come in!"
+
+But this voice was a woman's. At the sound of it, the heart in the
+man's great chest beat, in a sledge-hammer fashion, against his ribs.
+His hand trembled as he turned the handle, and when he had opened the
+door, and stood within the room, his heart, which had been beating so
+tumultuously a moment before, stood still.
+
+The room, which was nothing but a bare attic with raftered ceiling, was
+imperfectly lighted by a small skylight--a skylight which seemed as
+though it had not been cleaned for ages, so obscured was the glass by
+the accumulations of the years. By the light of this skylight Mr. Gibbs
+could see that a woman was standing in the centre of the room.
+
+"Nelly!" he cried.
+
+The woman shrank back with, as it were, a gesture of repulsion. Mr.
+Gibbs moved forward. "Nelly! Don't you know me? I am Tom."
+
+"Tom?"
+
+The woman's voice was but an echo.
+
+"Tom! Yes, my own, own darling, I am Tom."
+
+Mr. Gibbs advanced. He held out his arms. He was just in time to catch
+the woman, or she would have fallen to the floor.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+"Nelly, don't you know me?" The woman was coming to.
+
+"Haven't you a light?" The woman faintly shook her head.
+
+"See, I have your portrait where you placed it; it has never left me
+all the time. But when I saw your picture I did not need your portrait
+to tell me it was you."
+
+"When you saw my picture?"
+
+"Your portrait in Mr. Bodenham's picture at Academy 'Stitch! Stitch!
+Stitch!'"
+
+"Mr. Bodenham's--I see."
+
+The woman's tone was curiously cold.
+
+"Nelly, you don't seem to be very glad to see me."
+
+"Have you got any money?"
+
+"Any money, Nelly?"
+
+"I am hungry."
+
+"Hungry!"
+
+The woman's words seemed to come to him with the force of revelation.
+
+"Hungry!" She turned her head away. "Oh, my God, Nelly." His voice
+trembled. "Wa-wait here, I--I sha'n't be a moment. I've a cab at the
+door."
+
+He was back almost as soon as he went. He brought with him half the
+contents of a shop--among other things, a packet of candles. These he
+lighted, standing them, on their own ends, here and there about the
+room. The woman ate shyly, as if, in spite of her confession of hunger,
+she had little taste for food. She was fingering the faded photograph
+of a girl which Mr. Gibbs had taken from his pocket-book.
+
+"Is this my portrait?"
+
+"Nelly! Don't you remember it?"
+
+"How long is it since it was taken?"
+
+"Why, it's more than seven years, isn't it?"
+
+"Do you think I've altered much?"
+
+Mr. Gibbs went to her. He studied her by the light of the candles.
+
+"Well, you might be plumper, and you might look happier, perhaps, but
+all that we'll quickly alter. For the rest, thank God, you're my old
+Nelly." He took her in his arms. As he did so she drew a long, deep
+breath. Holding her at arms-length, he studied her again. "Nelly, I'm
+afraid you haven't been having the best of times."
+
+She broke from him with sudden passion.
+
+"Don't speak of it! Don't speak of it! The life I've lived----" She
+paused. All at once her voice became curiously hard. "But through it
+all I've been good. I swear it. No one knows what the temptation is, to
+a woman who has lived the life I have, to go wrong. But I never went.
+Tom"--she laid her hand upon Mr. Gibb's arm as, with marked
+awkwardness, his name issued from her lips--"say that you believe that
+I've been good."
+
+His only answer was to take her in his arms again, and to kiss her.
+
+Mr. Gibbs provided his new-found lost love with money. With that money
+she renewed her wardrobe. He found her other lodgings in a more savoury
+neighbourhood at Putney. In those lodgings he once more courted her.
+
+He told himself during those courtship days, that, after all, the years
+had changed her. She was a little hard. He did not remember the Nelly
+of the old time as being hard. But, then, what had happened during the
+years which had come between! Father and mother both had died. She had
+been thrown out into the world without a friend, without a penny! His
+letters had gone astray. In those early days he had been continually
+wandering hither and thither. Her letters had strayed as well as his.
+Struggling for existence, when she saw that no letters reached her, she
+told herself either that he too had died, or that he had forgotten her.
+Her heart hardened. It was with her a bitter striving for daily bread.
+She had tried everything. Teaching, domestic service, chorus singing,
+needlework, acting as an artist's model--she had failed in everything
+alike. At the best she had only been able to keep body and soul
+together. It had come to the worst at last. On the morning on which he
+found her, she had been two days without food. She had decided that,
+that night, if things did not mend during the intervening hours--of
+which she had no hope--that she would seek for better fortune--in the
+Thames.
+
+She told her story, not all at once, but at different times, and in
+answer to her lover's urgent solicitations. She herself at first
+evinced a desire for reticence. The theme seemed too painful a theme
+for her to dwell upon. But the man's hungry heart poured forth such
+copious stores of uncritical sympathy that, after a while, it seemed to
+do her good to pour into his listening ears a particular record of her
+woes. She certainly had suffered. But now that the days of suffering
+were ended, it began almost to be a pleasure to recall the sorrows
+which were past.
+
+In the sunshine of prosperity the woman's heart became young again, and
+softer. It was not only that she became plumper--which she certainly
+did--but she became, inwardly and outwardly, more beautiful. Her lover
+told himself, and her, that she was more beautiful even than she had
+been as a girl. He declared that she was far prettier than she appeared
+in the old-time photograph. She smiled, and she charmed him with an
+infinite charm.
+
+The days drew near to the wedding. Had he had his way he would have
+married her, off-hand, when he found her in the top attic in that
+Chelsea slum. But she said no. Then she would not even talk of
+marriage. To hear her, one would have thought that the trials she had
+undergone had unfitted her for wedded life. He laughed her out of
+that--a day was fixed. She postponed it once, and then again. She had it
+that she needed time to recuperate--that she would not marry with the
+shadow of that grisly past still haunting her at night. He argued that
+the royal road to recuperation was in his arms. He declared that she
+would be troubled by no haunting shadows as his dear wife. And, at
+last, she yielded. A final date was fixed. That day drew near.
+
+As the day drew near, she grew more tender. On the night before the
+wedding-day her tenderness reached, as it were, its culminating point.
+Never before had she been so sweet--so softly caressing. They were but
+to part for a few short hours. In the morning they were to meet, never,
+perhaps, to part again. But it seemed as if he could not tear himself
+away, and as if she could not let him go.
+
+Just before he left her a little dialogue took place between them,
+which if lover-like, none the less was curious.
+
+"Tom" she said, "suppose, after we are married, you should find out
+that I have not been so good as you thought, what would you say?"
+
+"Say?--nothing."
+
+"Oh yes, you would, else you would be less than man. Suppose, for
+instance, that you found out I had deceived you."
+
+"I decline to suppose impossibilities."
+
+She had been circled by his arms. Now she drew herself away from him.
+She stood where the gaslight fell right on her.
+
+"Tom, look at me carefully! Are you sure you know me?"
+
+"Nelly!"
+
+"Are you quite sure you are not mistaking me for some one else? Are you
+quite sure, Tom?"
+
+"My own!"
+
+He took her in his arms again. As he did so, she looked him steadfastly
+in the face.
+
+"Tom, I think it possible that, some day, you may think less of me
+than you do now. But"--she put her hand over his mouth to stop his
+speaking--"whatever you may think of me, I shall always love you"--there
+was an appreciable pause, and an appreciable catching of her
+breath--"better than my life."
+
+She kissed him, with unusual abandonment, long and fervently, upon the
+lips.
+
+The morning of the following day came with the promise of fine weather.
+Theirs had been an unfashionable courtship--it was to be an
+unfashionable wedding. Mr. Gibbs was to call for his bride, at her
+lodgings. They were to drive together, in a single hired brougham, to
+the church.
+
+Even before the appointed hour, the expectant bridegroom drew up to the
+door of the house in which his lady-love resided. His knock was
+answered with an instant readiness which showed that his arrival had
+been watched and waited for. The landlady herself opened the door, her
+countenance big with tidings.
+
+"Miss Brock has gone, sir."
+
+"Gone!" Mr. Gibbs was puzzled by the woman's tone. "Gone where? For a
+walk?"
+
+"No, sir, she's gone away. She's left this letter, sir, for you."
+
+The landlady thrust an envelope into his hand. It was addressed simply,
+"Thomas Gibbs, Esq." With the envelope in his hand, and an odd
+something clutching at his heart, he went into the empty sitting-room.
+He took the letter out of its enclosure, and this is what he read:
+
+"My own, own Tom,--You never were mine, and it is the last time I shall
+ever call you so. I am going back, I have only too good reason to fear,
+to the life from which you took me, because--_I am not your Nelly_."
+
+The words were doubly underlined, they were unmistakable, yet he had to
+read them over and over again before he was able to grasp their
+meaning. What did they mean? Had his darling suddenly gone mad? The
+written sheet swam before his eyes. It was with an effort he read on.
+
+"How you ever came to mistake me for her I cannot understand. The more
+I have thought of it, the stranger it has seemed. I suppose there must
+be a resemblance between us--between your Nelly and me. Though I expect
+the resemblance is more to the face in Mr. Bodenham's picture than it
+is to mine. I never did think the woman in Mr. Bodenham's picture was
+like me--though I was his model. I never could have been the original
+of your photograph of Nelly--it is not in the least like me. I think
+that you came to England with your heart and mind and eyes so full of
+Nelly, and so eager for a sight of her, that, in your great hunger of
+love, you grasped at the first chance resemblance you encountered. That
+is the only explanation I can think of, Tom, of how you can have
+mistaken me for her.
+
+"My part is easier to explain. It is quite true, as I told you, that I
+was starving when you came to me. I was so weak and faint, and sick at
+heart, that your sudden appearance and strange behaviour--in a perfect
+stranger, for you were a perfect stranger, Tom--drove from me the few
+senses I had left. When I recovered I found myself in the arms of a man
+who seemed to know me, and who spoke to me words of love--words which I
+had never heard from the lips of a man before. I sent you to buy me
+food. While you were gone I told myself--wickedly! I know, Tom it was
+wickedly!--what a chance had come at last, which would save me from the
+river, at least for a time, and I should be a fool to let it slip. I
+perceived that you were mistaking me for some one else. I resolved to
+allow you to continue under your misapprehension. I did not doubt that
+you would soon discover your mistake. What would happen then I did not
+pause to think. But events marched quicker than I, in that first moment
+of mad impulse, had bargained for. You never did discover your mistake.
+How that was, even now I do not understand. But you began to talk of
+marriage. That was a prospect I dared not face.
+
+"For one thing--forgive me for writing it, but I must write it, now
+that I am writing to you for the first and for the last time--I began
+to love you. Not for the man I supposed you to be, but for the man I
+knew you were. I loved you--and I love you! I shall never cease to love
+you, with a love of which I did not think I was capable. As I told you,
+Tom, last night--when I kissed you!--I love you better than my own
+life. Better, far better, for my life is worthless, and you--you are
+not worthless, Tom! And I would not--even had I dared!--allow you to
+marry me; not for myself, but for another; not for the present, but for
+the past; not for the thing I was, but for the thing which you supposed
+I had been, once. I would have married you for your own sake; you would
+not have married me for mine. And so, since I dared not undeceive
+you--I feared to see the look which would come in your face and your
+eyes--I am going to steal back, like a thief, to the life from which you
+took me. I have had a greater happiness than ever I expected. I have
+enjoyed those stolen kisses which they say are sweetest. Your happiness
+is still to come. You will find Nelly. Such love as yours will not go
+unrewarded. I have been but an incident, a chapter in your life, which
+now is closed. God bless you, Tom! I am yours, although you are not
+mine--not yours, Nelly Brock--but yours, Helen Reeves."
+
+Mr. Gibbs read this letter once, then twice, and then again. Then he
+rang the bell. The landlady appeared with a suspicious promptitude
+which suggested the possibility of her having been a spectator of his
+proceedings through the keyhole.
+
+"When did Miss Brock go out?"
+
+"Quite early, sir. I'm sure, sir, I was quite taken aback when she said
+that she was going--on her wedding-day and all."
+
+"Did she say where she was going?"
+
+"Not a word, sir. She said: 'Mrs. Horner, I am going away. Give this
+letter to Mr. Gibbs when he comes.' That was every word she says, sir;
+then she goes right out of the front door."
+
+"Did she take any luggage?"
+
+"Just the merest mite of a bag, sir--not another thing."
+
+Mr. Gibbs asked no other questions. He left the room and went out into
+the street. The driver of the brougham was instructed to drive, not to
+church, but--to his evident and unconcealed surprise--to that slum in
+Chelsea. She had written that she was returning to the old life. The
+old life was connected with that top attic. He thought it might be
+worth his while to inquire if anything had been seen or heard of her.
+Nothing had. He left his card, with instructions to write him should
+any tidings come that way. Then, since it was unadvisable to drive
+about all day under the �gis of a Jehu, whose button-hole was adorned
+with a monstrous wedding favour, he dismissed the carriage and sent it
+home.
+
+He turned into the King's Road. He was walking in the direction of
+Sloane Square, when a voice addressed him from behind.
+
+"Tom!"
+
+It was a woman's voice. He turned. A woman was standing close behind
+him, looking and smiling at him--a stout and a dowdy woman. Cheaply and
+flashily dressed in faded finery--not the sort of woman whose
+recognition one would be over-anxious to compel. Mr. Gibbs looked at
+her. There was something in her face and in her voice which struck
+faintly some forgotten chord in his memory.
+
+"Tom! don't you know me? I am Nelly."
+
+He looked at her intently for some instants. Then it all flashed over
+him. This was Nelly, the real Nelly, the Nelly of his younger days, the
+Nelly he had come to find. This dandy sloven, whose shrill voice
+proclaimed her little vulgar soul--so different from that other Nelly,
+whose soft, musical tones had not been among the least of her charms.
+The recognition came on him with the force of a sudden shock. He
+reeled, so that he had to clutch at a railing to help him stand.
+
+"Tom! what's the matter? Aren't you well? Or is it the joy of seeing me
+has sent you silly?"
+
+She laughed, the dissonant laughter of the female Cockney of a certain
+class. Mr. Gibbs recovered his balance and his civility.
+
+"Thank you, I am very well. And you?"
+
+"Oh, I'm all right. There's never much the matter with me. I can't
+afford the time to be ill." She laughed again. "Well, this is a start
+my meeting you. Come and have a bit o' dinner along with us."
+
+"Who is us? Your father and your mother?"
+
+"Why, father, he's been dead these five years, and mother, she's been
+dead these three. I don't want you to have a bit of dinner along with
+them--not hardly." Again she laughed. "It's my old man I mean. Why, you
+don't mean to say you don't know I'm married! Why, I'm the mother of
+five."
+
+He had fallen in at her side. They were walking on together--he like a
+man in a dream.
+
+"We're doing pretty well considering, we manage to live, you know." She
+laughed again. She seemed filled with laughter, which was more than Mr.
+Gibbs was then. "We're fishmongers, that's what we are. William he's
+got a very tidy trade, as good as any in the road. There, here's our
+shop!" She paused in front of a fishmonger's shop. "And there's our
+name"--she pointed up at it. "Nelly Brock I used to be, and now I'm
+Mrs. William Morgan."
+
+She laughed again. She led the way through the shop to a little room
+beyond. A man was seated on the table, reading a newspaper, a man
+without a coat on, and with a blue apron tied about his waist.
+
+"William, who do you think I've brought to see you? You'll never guess
+in a month of Sundays. This is Tom Gibbs, of whom you've heard me speak
+dozens of times."
+
+Mr. Morgan wiped his hand upon his apron.
+
+Then he held it out to Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Gibbs was conscious, as he
+grasped it, that it reeked of fish.
+
+"How are you, Gibbs? Glad to see you!" Mr. Morgan turned to his wife.
+"Where's that George? There's a pair of soles got to be sent up to
+Sydney Street, and there's not a soul about the place to take 'em."
+
+"That George is a dratted nuisance, that's what he is. He never is
+anywhere to be found when you want him. You remember, William, me
+telling you about Tom Gibbs? My old sweetheart, you know, he was. He
+went away to make his fortune, and I was to wait for him till he came
+back, and I daresay I should have waited if you hadn't just happened to
+come along."
+
+"I wish I hadn't just happened, then. I wish she'd waited for you,
+Gibbs. It'd have been better for me, and worse for you, old man."
+
+"That's what they all say, you know, after a time."
+
+Mrs. Morgan laughed. But Mr. Morgan did not seem to be in a
+particularly jovial frame of mind.
+
+"It's all very well for you to talk, you know, but I don't like the way
+things are managed in this house, and so I tell you. There's your new
+lodger come while you've been out, and her room's like a regular
+pig-sty, and I had to show her upstairs myself, with the shop chock-full
+of customers." Mr. Morgan drew his hand across his nose. "See you
+directly, Gibbs; some one must attend to business."
+
+Mr. Morgan withdrew to the shop. Mr. Gibbs and his old love were left
+alone.
+
+"Never you mind, William. He's all right; but he's a bit huffy--men
+will get huffy when things don't go just as they want 'em. I'll just
+run upstairs and send the lodger down here, while I tidy up her room.
+The children slept in it last night. I never expected her till this
+afternoon; she's took me unawares. You wait here; I shan't be half a
+minute. Then we'll have a bit of dinner."
+
+Mr. Gibbs, left alone, sat in a sort of waking dream. Could this be
+Nelly--the Nelly of whom he had dreamed, for whom he had striven, whom
+he had come to find--this mother of five? Why, she must have begun to
+play him false almost as soon as his back was turned. She must have
+already been almost standing at the altar steps with William Morgan
+while writing the last of her letters to him. And had his imagination,
+or his memory, tricked him? Had youth, or distance, lent enchantment to
+the view? Had she gone back, or had he advanced? Could she have been
+the vulgar drab which she now appeared to be, in the days of long ago?
+
+As he sat there, endeavouring to resolve these riddles which had been
+so suddenly presented for solution, the door opened and some one
+entered.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said the voice of the intruder, on perceiving that
+the room was already provided with an occupant.
+
+Mr. Gibbs glanced up. The voice fell like the voice of a magician on
+his ear. He rose to his feet, all trembling. In the doorway was
+standing the other Nelly--the false, and yet the true one. The Nelly of
+his imagination. The Nelly to whom he was to have been married that
+day. He went to her with a sudden cry.
+
+"Nelly!"
+
+"Tom!" She shrank away. But in spite of her shrinking, he took her in
+his arms.
+
+"My own, own darling."
+
+"Tom," she moaned, "don't you understand--I'm not Nelly!"
+
+"I know it, and I thank God, my darling, you are not."
+
+"Tom! What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that I have found Nelly, and I mean that, thank Heaven! I have
+found you too--never, my darling, please Heaven! to lose sight of you
+again."
+
+They had only just time to withdraw from a too suspicious
+neighbourhood, before the door opened again to admit Mrs. Morgan.
+
+"Tom, this is our new lodger. I just asked her if she'd mind stepping
+downstairs while I tidied up her room a bit. Miss Reeves, this is an
+old sweetheart of mine--Mr. Gibbs."
+
+Mr. Gibbs turned to the "new lodger."
+
+"Miss Reeves and I are already acquainted. Miss Reeves, you have heard
+me speak of Mrs. Morgan, though not by that name. This is Nelly."
+
+Miss Reeves turned and looked at Mrs. Morgan, and as she looked--she
+gasped.
+
+
+
+
+                            La Haute Finance
+
+                  A TALE OF THE BIGGEST COUP ON RECORD
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+"By Jove! I believe it could be done!"
+
+Mr. Rodney Railton took the cigarette out of his mouth and sent a puff
+of smoke into the air.
+
+"I believe it could, by Jove!"
+
+Another puff of smoke.
+
+"I'll write to Mac."
+
+He drew a sheet of paper towards him and penned the following:--
+
+"DEAR ALEC,--Can you give me some dinner to-night? Wire me if you have
+a crowd. I shall be in the House till four. Have something to propose
+which will make your hair stand up.
+
+                               "Yours, R. R."
+
+This he addressed "Alexander Macmathers, Esq., 27, Campden Hill
+Mansions." As he went downstairs he gave the note to the
+commissionaire, with instructions that it should be delivered at once
+by hand.
+
+That night Mr. Railton dined with Mr. Macmathers. The party consisted
+of three, the two gentlemen and a lady--Mrs. Macmathers, in fact. Mr.
+Macmathers was an American--a Southerner--rather tall and weedy, with a
+heavy, drooping moustache, like his hair, raven black. He was not
+talkative. His demeanour gave a wrong impression of the man--the
+impression that he was not a man of action. As a matter of fact, he was
+a man of action before all things else. He was not rich, as riches go,
+but certainly he was not poor. His temperament was cosmopolitan, and
+his profession Jack-of-all-trades. Wherever there was money to be made,
+he was there. Sometimes, it must be confessed, he was there, too, when
+there was money to be lost. His wife was English--keen and clever. Her
+chief weakness was that she would persist in looking on existence as a
+gigantic lark. When she was most serious she regarded life least _au
+s�rieux_.
+
+Mr. Railton, who had invited himself to dinner, was a hybrid--German
+mother, English father. He was quite a young man--say thirty. His host
+was perhaps ten, his hostess five years older than himself. He was a
+stockjobber--ostensibly in the Erie market. All that he had he had
+made, for he had, as a boy, found himself the situation of a clerk. But
+his clerkly days were long since gone. No one anything like his age had
+a better reputation in the House; it was stated by those who had best
+reason to know that he had never once been left, and few had a larger
+credit. Lately he had wandered outside his markets to indulge in little
+operations in what he called _La Haute Finance_. In these Mr.
+Macmathers had been his partner more than once, and in him he had found
+just the man he wished to find.
+
+When they had finished dinner, the lady withdrew, and the gentlemen
+were left alone.
+
+"Well," observed Mr. Macmathers, "what's going to make my hair stand
+up?"
+
+Mr. Railton stroked his chin as he leaned both his elbows on the board.
+
+"Of course, Mac, I can depend on you. I'm just giving myself away. It's
+no good my asking you to observe strict confidence, for, if you won't
+come in, from the mere fact of your knowing it the thing's just busted
+up, that's all."
+
+"Sounds like a mystery-of-blood-to-thee-I'll-now-unfold sort of thing."
+
+"I don't know about mystery, but there'll be plenty of blood."
+
+Mr. Railton stopped short and looked at his friend.
+
+"Blood, eh? I say, Rodney, think before you speak."
+
+"I have thought. I thought I'd play the game alone. But it's too big a
+game for one."
+
+"Well, if you have thought, out with it, or be silent evermore."
+
+"You know Plumline, the dramatist?"
+
+"I know he's an ass."
+
+"Ass or no ass, it's from him I got the idea."
+
+"Good Heavens! No wonder it smells of blood."
+
+"He's got an idea for a new play, and he came to me to get some local
+colouring. I'll just tell you the plot--he was obliged to tell it me,
+or I couldn't have given him the help he wanted."
+
+"Is it essential? I have enough of Plumline's plots when I see them on
+the stage."
+
+"It is essential. You will see."
+
+Mr. Railton got up, lighted a cigar, and stood before the fireplace.
+When he had brought the cigar into good going order he unfolded Mr.
+Plumline's plot.
+
+"I'm not going to bore you. I'm just going to touch upon that part
+which gave me my idea. There's a girl who dreams of boundless wealth--a
+clever girl, you understand."
+
+"Girls who dream of boundless wealth sometimes are clever," murmured
+his friend. Perhaps he had his wife in his mind's eye.
+
+"She is wooed and won by a financier. Not wooed and won by a tale of
+love, but by the exposition of an idea."
+
+"That's rather new--for Plumline."
+
+"The financier has an idea for obtaining the boundless wealth of which
+she only dreams."
+
+"And the idea?"
+
+"Is the bringing about of a war between France and Germany."
+
+"Great snakes!" The cigarette dropped from between Mr. Macmather's
+lips. He carefully picked it up again. "That's not a bad idea--for
+Plumline."
+
+"It's my idea as well. In the play it fails. The financier comes to
+grief. I shouldn't fail. There's just that difference."
+
+Mr. Macmathers regarded his friend in silence before he spoke again.
+
+"Railton, might I ask you to enlarge upon your meaning? I want to see
+which of us two is drunk."
+
+"In the play the man has a big bear account--the biggest upon record. I
+need hardly tell you that a war between France and Germany would mean
+falling markets. Supposing we were able to calculate with certainty the
+exact moment of the outbreak--arrange it, in fact--we might realise
+wealth beyond the dreams of avarice--hundreds of thousands of millions,
+if we chose."
+
+"I suppose you're joking?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"That's what I want to know--how."
+
+"It does sound, at first hearing, like a joke, to suppose that a couple
+of mere outsiders can, at their own sweet will and pleasure, stir up a
+war between two Great Powers."
+
+"A joke is a mild way of describing it, my friend."
+
+"Alec, would you mind asking Mrs. Macmathers to form a third on this
+occasion?"
+
+Mr. Macmathers eyed his friend for a moment, then got up and left the
+room. When he returned his wife was with him. It was to the lady Mr.
+Railton addressed himself.
+
+"Mrs. Macmathers, would you like to be possessed of wealth compared to
+which the wealth of the Vanderbilts, the Rothschilds, the Mackays, the
+Goulds, would shrink into insignificance?"
+
+"Why, certainly."
+
+It was a peculiarity of the lady's that, while she was English, she
+affected what she supposed to be American idioms.
+
+"Would you stick at a little to obtain it?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"It would be worth one's while to run a considerable risk."
+
+"I guess."
+
+"Mrs. Macmathers, I want to go a bear, a large bear, to win, say--I
+want to put it modestly--a hundred millions."
+
+"Pounds?"
+
+"Pounds."
+
+It is to be feared that Mrs. Macmathers whistled.
+
+"Figures large," she said.
+
+"All the world knows that war is inevitable between France and
+Germany."
+
+"Proceed."
+
+"I want to arrange that it shall break out at the moment when it best
+suits me."
+
+"I guess you're a modest man," she said.
+
+Her husband smiled.
+
+"If you consider for a moment, it would not be so difficult as it first
+appears. It requires but a spark to set the fire burning. There is at
+least one party in France to whom war would mean the achievement of all
+their most cherished dreams. It is long odds that a war would bring
+some M. Quelquechose to the front with a rush. He will be at least
+untried. And, of late years, it is the untried men who have the
+people's confidence in France. A few resolute men, my dear Mrs.
+Macmathers, have only to kick up a shindy on the Alsatian
+borders--Europe will be roused, in the middle of the night, by the
+roaring of the flames of war."
+
+There was a pause. Mrs. Macmathers got up and began to pace the room.
+
+"It's a big order," she said.
+
+"Allowing the feasibility of your proposition, I conclude that you have
+some observations to make upon it from a moral point of view. It
+requires them, my friend."
+
+Mr. Macmathers said this with a certain dryness.
+
+"Moral point of view be hanged! It could be argued, mind, and defended;
+but I prefer to say candidly, the moral point of view be hanged!"
+
+"Has it not occurred to you to think that the next Franco-German war
+may mean the annihilation of one of the parties concerned?"
+
+"You mistake the position. I should have nothing to do with the war. I
+should merely arrange the date for its commencement. With or without me
+they would fight."
+
+"You would merely consign two or three hundred thousand men to die at
+the moment which would best suit your pocket."
+
+"There is that way of looking at it, no doubt. But you will allow me to
+remind you that you considered the possibility of creating a corner in
+corn without making unpleasant allusions to the fact that it might have
+meant starvation to thousands."
+
+The lady interposed.
+
+"Mr. Railton, leaving all that sort of thing alone, what is it that you
+propose?"
+
+"The details have still to be filled in. Broadly I propose to arrange a
+series of collisions with the German frontier authorities. I propose to
+get them boomed by the Parisian Press. I propose to give some M.
+Quelquechose his chance."
+
+"It's the biggest order ever I heard."
+
+"Not so big as it sounds. Start to-morrow, and I believe that we should
+be within measureable distance of war next week. Properly managed, I
+will at least guarantee that all the Stock Exchanges of Europe go down
+with a run."
+
+"If the thing hangs fire, how about carrying over?"
+
+"Settle. No carrying over for me. I will undertake that there is a
+sufficient margin of profit. Every account we will do a fresh bear
+until the trick is made. Unless I am mistaken, the trick will be made
+with a rapidity of which you appear to have no conception."
+
+"It is like a dream of the Arabian nights," the lady said.
+
+"Before the actual reality the Arabian nights pale their ineffectual
+fires. It is a chance which no man ever had before, which no man may
+ever have again. I don't think, Macmathers, we ought to let it slip."
+
+They did not let it slip.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+Mr. Railton was acquainted with a certain French gentleman who rejoiced
+in the name--according to his own account--of M. Hippolyte de
+Vrai-Castille. The name did not sound exactly French--M. de Vrai-Castille
+threw light on this by explaining that his family came originally from
+Spain. But, on the other hand, it must be allowed that the name did not
+sound exactly Spanish, either. London appeared to be this gentleman's
+permanent place of residence. Political reasons--so he stated--rendered
+it advisable that he should not appear too prominently upon
+his--theoretically--beloved _boulevards_. Journalism--always following
+this gentleman's account of himself--was the profession to which he devoted
+the flood-tide of his powers. The particular journal or journals which
+were rendered famous by the productions of his pen were rather
+difficult to discover--there appeared to be political reasons, too, for
+that.
+
+"The man is an all-round bad lot." This was what Mr. Railton said when
+speaking of this gentleman to Mr. and Mrs. Macmathers. "A type of
+scoundrel only produced by France. Just the man we want."
+
+"Flattering," observed his friend. "You are going to introduce us to
+high company."
+
+Mr. Railton entertained this gentleman to dinner in a private room at
+the Hotel Continental. M. de Vrai-Castille did not seem to know exactly
+what to make of it. Nothing in his chance acquaintance with Mr. Railton
+had given him cause to suppose that the Englishman regarded him as a
+respectable man, and this sudden invitation to fraternise took him a
+little aback. Possibly he was taken still more aback before the evening
+closed. Conversation languished during the meal; but when it was
+over--and the waiters gone--Mr. Railton became very conversational indeed.
+
+"Look here, What's-your-name"--this was how Mr. Railton addressed M. de
+Vrai-Castille--"I know very little about you, but I know enough to
+suspect that you have nothing in the world excepting what you steal."
+
+"M. Railton is pleased to have his little jest."
+
+If it was a jest, it was not one, judging from the expression of M. de
+Vrai-Castille's countenance which he entirely relished.
+
+"What would you say if I presented you with ten thousand pounds?"
+
+"I should say----"
+
+What he said need not be recorded, but M. de Vrai-Castille used some
+very bad language indeed, expressive of the satisfaction with which the
+gift would be received.
+
+"And suppose I should hint at your becoming possessed of another
+hundred thousand pounds to back it?"
+
+"Pardon me, M. Railton, but is it murder? If so, I would say frankly at
+once that I have always resolved that in those sort of transactions I
+would take no hand."
+
+"Stuff and nonsense! It is nothing of the kind! You say you are a
+politician. Well, I want you to pose as a patriot--a French patriot,
+you understand."
+
+Mr. Railton's eyes twinkled. M. de Vrai-Castille grinned in reply.
+
+"The profession is overcrowded," he murmured, with a deprecatory
+movement of his hands.
+
+"Not on the lines I mean to work it. Did you lose any relatives in the
+war?"
+
+"It depends."
+
+"I feel sure you did. And at this moment the bodies of those patriots
+are sepultured in Alsatian soil. I want you to dig them up again."
+
+"_Mon Dieu! Ce charmant homme!_"
+
+"I want you to form a league for the recovery of the remains of those
+noble spirits who died for their native land, and whose bones now lie
+interred in what was France, but which now, alas! is France no more. I
+want you to go in for this bone recovery business as far as possible on
+a wholesale scale."
+
+"_Ciel! Maintenant j'ai trouv� un homme extraordinaire!_"
+
+"You will find no difficulty in obtaining the permission of the
+necessary authorities sanctioning your schemes; but at the very last
+moment, owing to some stated informality, the German brigands will
+interfere even at the edge of the already open grave; patriot bones
+will be dishonoured, France will be shamed in the face of all the
+world."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"The great heart of France is a patient heart, my friend, but even
+France will not stand that. There will be war."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"On the day on which war is declared, one hundred thousand pounds will
+be paid to you in cash."
+
+"And supposing there is no war?"
+
+"Should France prefer to cower beneath her shame, you shall still
+receive ten thousand pounds."
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+The following extract is from the _Times'_ Parisian correspondence--
+
+"The party of La Revanche is taking a new departure. I am in a position
+to state that certain gentlemen are putting their heads together. A
+league is being formed for the recovery of the bodies of various
+patriots who are at present asleep in Alsace. I have my own reasons for
+asserting that some remarkable proceedings may be expected soon. No man
+knows better than myself that there is nothing some Frenchmen will not
+do."
+
+On the same day there appeared in _La Patrie_ a really touching
+article. It was the story of two brothers--one was, the other was not;
+in life they had been together, but in death they were divided. Both
+alike had fought for their native land. One returned--_d�sol�!_--to
+Paris. The other stayed behind. He still stayed behind. It appeared
+that he was buried in Alsace, in a nameless grave! But they had vowed,
+these two, that they would share all things--among the rest, that sleep
+which even patriots must know, the unending sleep of death. "It is
+said," said the article in conclusion, "that that nameless grave, in
+what was France, will soon know none--or two!" It appeared that the
+surviving brother was going for that "nameless grave" on the principle
+of double or quits.
+
+The story appeared, with variations, in a considerable number of
+journals. The _Daily Telegraph_ had an amusing allusion to the fondness
+displayed by certain Frenchmen for their relatives--dead, for the
+"bones" of their fathers. But no one was at all prepared for the events
+which followed.
+
+One morning the various money articles alluded to heavy sales which had
+been effected the day before, "apparently by a party of outside
+speculators." In particular heavy bear operations were reported from
+Berlin. Later in the day the evening papers came out with telegrams
+referring to "disturbances" at a place called Pont-sur-Leaune.
+Pont-sur-Leaune is a little Alsatian hamlet. The next day the tale was
+in everybody's mouth. Certain misguided but well-meaning Frenchmen had
+been "shot down" by the German authorities. Particulars had not yet
+come to hand, but it appeared, according to the information from Paris,
+that a party of Frenchmen had journeyed to Alsace with the intention of
+recovering the bodies of relatives who had been killed in the war; on
+the very edge of the open graves German soldiers had shot them down.
+Telegrams from Berlin stated that a party of body-snatchers had been
+caught in the very act of plying their nefarious trade; no mention of
+shooting came from there. Although the story was doubted in the City,
+it had its effect on the markets--prices fell. It was soon seen, too,
+that the bears were at it again. Foreign telegrams showed that their
+influence was being felt all round; very heavy bear raids were again
+reported from Berlin. Markets became unsettled, with a downward
+tendency, and closing prices were the worst of the day.
+
+Matters were not improved by the news of the morrow. A Frenchman had
+been shot--his name was Hippolyte de Vrai-Castille, and a manifesto
+from his friends had already appeared in Paris. According to this, they
+had been betrayed by the German authorities. They had received
+permission from those authorities to take the bodies of certain of
+their relatives and lay them in French soil. While they were acting on
+this permission they were suddenly attacked by German soldiers, and he,
+their leader, that patriot soul, Hippolyte de Vrai-Castille, was dead.
+But there was worse than that. They had prepared flags in which to wrap
+the bodies of the dead. Those flags--emblems of France--had been seized
+by the rude German soldiers, torn into fragments, trampled in the dust.
+The excitement in Paris appeared to be intense. All that day there was
+a falling market.
+
+The next day's papers were full of contradictory telegrams. From Berlin
+the affair was pooh-poohed. The story of permission having been
+accorded by the authorities was pure fiction--there had been a scuffle
+in which a man had been killed, probably by his own friends--the tale
+of the dishonoured flags was the invention of an imaginative brain. But
+these contradictions were for the most part frantically contradicted by
+the Parisian Press. There was a man in Paris who had actually figured
+on the scene. He had caught M. de Vrai-Castille in his arms as he fell,
+he had been stained by his heart's blood, his cheek had been torn open
+by the bullet which killed his friend. Next his heart he at that moment
+carried portions of the flags--emblems of France!--which had been
+subjected to such shame.
+
+But it was on the following day that the situation first took a
+definitely serious shape. Placards appeared on every dead wall in
+Paris, small bills were thrust under every citizen's door--on the bills
+and placards were printed the same words. They were signed
+"Quelquechose." They pointed out that France owed her present
+degradation--like all her other degradations--to her Government. The
+nation was once more insulted; the Army was once more betrayed; the
+national flag had been trampled on again, as it had been trampled on
+before. Under a strong Government these things could not be, but under
+a Government of cowards----! Let France but breathe the word, "La
+Grande Nation" would exist once more. Let the Army but make a sign,
+there would be "La Grande Arm�e" as of yore.
+
+That night there was a scene in the Chamber. M. de Caragnac--_� propos
+des botte_--made a truly remarkable speech. He declared that permission
+had been given to these men. He produced documentary evidence to that
+effect. He protested that these men--true citizens of France!--had been
+the victims of a "Prussian" plot. As to the outrage to the national
+flag, had it been perpetrated, say, in Tonkin, "cannons would be
+belching forth their thunders now." But in Alsace--"this brave
+Government dare only turn to the smiters the other cheek." In the
+galleries they cheered him to the echo. On the tribune there was
+something like a free fight. When the last telegrams were despatched to
+London, Paris appeared to be approaching a state of riot.
+
+The next day there burst a thunderbolt. Five men had been detained by
+the German authorities. They had escaped--had been detected in the act
+of flight--had been shot at while running. Two of them had been killed.
+A third had been fatally wounded. The news--flavoured to taste--was
+shouted from the roofs of the houses. Paris indulged in one of its
+periodical fits of madness. The condition of the troops bore a strong
+family likeness to mutiny. And in the morning Europe was electrified by
+the news that a revolution had been effected in the small hours of the
+morning, that the Chambers had been dissolved, and that with the Army
+were the issues of peace and war.
+
+                   *   *   *   *   *
+
+On the day of the declaration of the war between France and
+Germany--that heavy-laden day--an individual called on Mr. Rodney Railton
+whose appearance caused that gentleman to experience a slight sensation
+of surprise.
+
+"De Vrai-Castille! I was wondering if you had left any instructions as
+to whom I was to pay that hundred thousand pounds. I thought that you
+were dead."
+
+"Monsieur mistakes. My name is Henri Kerchrist, a name not unknown in
+my native Finist�re. M. Hippolyte de Vrai-Castille is dead. I saw him
+die. It was to me he directed that you should pay that hundred thousand
+pounds."
+
+As he made these observations, possibly owing to some local weakness,
+"Henri Kerchrist" winked the other eye.
+
+
+
+
+                        Mrs. Riddle's Daughter
+
+
+When they asked me to spend the Long with them, or as much of it as I
+could manage, I felt more than half disposed to write and say that I
+could not manage any of it at all. Of course a man's uncle and aunt are
+his uncle and aunt, and as such I do not mean to say that I ever
+thought of suggesting anything against Mr. and Mrs. Plaskett. But then
+Plaskett is fifty-five if he's a day, and not agile, and Mrs. Plaskett
+always struck me as being about ten years older. They have no children,
+and the idea was that, as Mrs. Plaskett's niece--Plaskett is my
+mother's brother, so that Mrs. Plaskett is only my aunt by marriage--as
+I was saying, the idea was that, as Mrs. Plaskett's niece was going to
+spend her Long with them, I, as it were, might take pity on the girl,
+and see her through it.
+
+I am not saying that there are not worse things than seeing a girl,
+single-handed, through a thing like that, but then it depends upon the
+girl. In this case, the mischief was her mother. The girl was Mrs.
+Plaskett's brother's child; his name was Riddle. Riddle was dead. The
+misfortune was, his wife was still alive. I had never seen her, but I
+had heard of her ever since I was breeched. She is one of those awful
+Anti-Everythingites. She won't allow you to smoke, or drink, or breathe
+comfortably, so far as I understand. I dare say you've heard of her.
+Whenever there is any new craze about, her name always figures in the
+bills.
+
+So far as I know, I am not possessed of all the vices. At the same
+time, I did not look forward to being shut up all alone in a country
+house with the daughter of a "woman Crusader." On the other hand, Uncle
+Plaskett has behaved, more than once, like a trump to me, and as I felt
+that this might be an occasion on which he expected me to behave like a
+trump to him, I made up my mind that, at any rate, I would sample the
+girl and see what she was like.
+
+I had not been in the house half an hour before I began to wish I
+hadn't come. Miss Riddle had not arrived, and if she was anything like
+the picture which my aunt painted of her, I hoped that she never would
+arrive--at least, while I was there. Neither of the Plasketts had seen
+her since she was the merest child. Mrs. Riddle never had approved of
+them. They were not Anti-Everythingite enough for her. Ever since the
+death of her husband she had practically ignored them. It was only
+when, after all these years, she found herself in a bit of a hole, that
+she seemed to have remembered their existence. It appeared that Miss
+Riddle was at some Anti-Everythingite college or other. The term was at
+an end. Her mother was in America, "Crusading" against one of her
+aversions. Some hitch had unexpectedly occurred as to where Miss Riddle
+was to spend her holidays. Mrs. Riddle had amazed the Plasketts by
+telegraphing to them from the States to ask if they could give her
+house-room. And that forgiving, tender-hearted uncle and aunt of mine
+had said they would.
+
+I assure you, Dave, that when first I saw her you might have knocked me
+over with a feather. I had spent the night seeing her in nightmares--a
+lively time I had had of it. In the morning I went out for a stroll, so
+that the fresh air might have a chance of clearing my head at least of
+some of them. And when I came back there was a little thing sitting in
+the morning-room talking to aunt--I give you my word that she did not
+come within two inches of my shoulder. I do not want to go into
+raptures. I flatter myself I am beyond the age for that. But a
+sweeter-looking little thing I never saw! I was wondering who she might
+be, she seemed to be perfectly at home, when my aunt introduced us.
+
+"Charlie, this is your cousin, May Riddle. May, this is your cousin,
+Charles Kempster."
+
+She stood up--such a dot of a thing! She held out her hand--she found
+fours in gloves a trifle loose. She looked at me with her eyes all
+laughter--you never saw such eyes, never! Her smile, when she spoke,
+was so contagious, that I would have defied the surliest man alive to
+have maintained his surliness when he found himself in front of it.
+
+"I am very glad to see you--cousin."
+
+Her voice! And the way in which she said it! As I have written, you
+might have knocked me down with a feather.
+
+I found myself in clover. And no man ever deserved good fortune better.
+It was a case of virtue rewarded. I had come to do my duty, expecting
+to find it bitter, and, lo, it was very sweet. How such a mother came
+to have such a child was a mystery to all of us. There was not a trace
+of humbug about her. So far from being an Anti-Everythingite, she went
+in for everything, strong. That hypocrite of an uncle of mine had
+arranged to revolutionise the habits of his house for her. There
+were to be family prayers morning and evening, and a sermon, and
+three-quarters of an hour's grace before meat, and all that kind of thing.
+I even suspected him of an intention of locking up the billiard-room, and
+the smoke-room, and all the books worth reading, and all the music that
+wasn't "sacred," and, in fact, of turning the place into a regular
+mausoleum. But he had not been in her company five minutes when bang
+went all ideas of that sort. Talk about locking the billiard-room
+against her! You should have seen the game she played. Though she was
+such a dot, you should have seen her use the jigger. And sing! She sang
+everything. When she had made our hearts go pit-a-pat, and brought the
+tears into our eyes, she would give us comic songs--the very latest.
+Where she got them from was more than we could understand; but she
+made us laugh till we cried--aunt and all. She was an Admirable
+Crichton--honestly. I never saw a girl play a better game of tennis.
+She could ride like an Amazon. And walk--when I think of the walks we
+had together through the woods, I doing my duty towards her to the best
+of my ability, it all seems to have been too good a time to have happened
+in anything but a dream.
+
+Do not think she was a rowdy girl, one of these "up-to-daters," or
+fast. Quite the other way. She had read more books than I had--I am not
+hinting that that is saying much, but still she had. She loved books,
+too; and, you know, speaking quite frankly, I never was a bookish man.
+Talking about books, one day when we were out in the woods alone
+together--we nearly always were alone together!--I took it into my head
+to read to her. She listened for a page or two; then she interrupted
+me.
+
+"Do you call that reading?" I looked at her surprised. She held out her
+hand. "Now, let me read to you. Give me the book."
+
+I gave it to her. Dave, you never heard such reading. It was not only a
+question of elocution; it was not only a question of the music that was
+in her voice. She made the dry bones live. The words, as they proceeded
+from between her lips, became living things. I never read to her again.
+After that, she always read to me. Many an hour have I spent, lying at
+her side, with my head pillowed in the mosses, while she materialised
+for me "the very Jew, which Shakespeare drew." She read to me all sorts
+of things. I believe she could even have vivified a leading article.
+
+One day she had been reading to me a pen picture of a famous dancer.
+The writer had seen the woman in some Spanish theatre. He gave an
+impassioned description--at least, it sounded impassioned as she read
+it--of how the people had followed the performer's movements, with
+enraptured eyes and throbbing pulses, unwilling to lose the slightest
+gesture. When she had done reading, putting down the book, she stood up
+in front of me. I sat up to ask what she was going to do.
+
+"I wonder," she said, "if it was anything like this--the dance which
+that Spanish woman danced."
+
+She danced to me. Dave, you are my "fidus Achates," my other self, my
+chum, or I would not say a word to you of this. I never shall forget
+that day. She set my veins on fire. The witch! Without music, under the
+greenwood tree, all in a moment, for my particular edification, she
+danced a dance which would have set a crowded theatre in a frenzy.
+While she danced, I watched her as if mesmerised; I give you my word I
+did not lose a gesture. When she ceased--with such a curtsy!--I sprang
+up and ran to her. I would have caught her in my arms; but she sprang
+back. She held me from her with her outstretched hand.
+
+"Mr. Kempster!" she exclaimed. She looked up at me as demurely as you
+please.
+
+"I was only going to take a kiss," I cried. "Surely a cousin may take a
+kiss."
+
+"Not every cousin--if you please."
+
+With that she walking right off, there and then, leaving me standing
+speechless, and as stupid as an owl.
+
+The next morning as I was in the hall, lighting up for an after
+breakfast smoke, Aunt Plaskett came up to me. The good soul had trouble
+written all over her face. She had an open letter in her hand. She
+looked up at me in a way which reminded me oddly of my mother.
+
+"Charlie," she said, "I'm so sorry."
+
+"Aunt, if you're sorry, so am I. But what's the sorrow?"
+
+"Mrs. Riddle's coming."
+
+"Coming? When?"
+
+"To-day--this morning. I am expecting her every minute."
+
+"But I thought she was a fixture in America for the next three months."
+
+"So I thought. But it seems that something has happened which has
+induced her to change her mind. She arrived in England yesterday. She
+writes to me to say that she will come on to us as early as possible
+to-day. Here is the letter. Charlie, will you tell May?"
+
+She put the question a trifle timidly, as though she were asking me to
+do something from which she herself would rather be excused. The fact
+is, we had found that Miss Riddle would talk of everything and
+anything, with the one exception of her mother. Speak of Mrs. Riddle,
+and the young lady either immediately changed the conversation, or she
+held her peace. Within my hearing, her mother's name had never escaped
+her lips. Whether consciously or unconsciously, she had conveyed to our
+minds a very clear impression that, to put it mildly, between her and
+her mother there was no love lost. I, myself, was persuaded that, to
+her, the news of her mother's imminent presence would not be pleasant
+news. It seemed that my aunt was of the same opinion.
+
+"Dear May ought to be told, she ought not to be taken unawares. You
+will find her in the morning-room, I think."
+
+I rather fancy that Aunt and Uncle Plaskett have a tendency to shift
+the little disagreeables of life off their own shoulders on to other
+people's. Anyhow, before I could point out to her that the part which
+she suggested I should play was one which belonged more properly to
+her, Aunt Plaskett had taken advantage of my momentary hesitation to
+effect a strategic movement which removed her out of my sight.
+
+I found Miss Riddle in the morning-room. She was lying on a couch,
+reading. Directly I entered she saw that I had something on my mind.
+
+"What's the matter? You don't look happy."
+
+"It may seem selfishness on my part, but I'm not quite happy. I have
+just heard news which, if you will excuse my saying so, has rather
+given me a facer."
+
+"If I will excuse you saying so! Dear me, how ceremonious we are! Is
+the news public, or private property?"
+
+"Who do you think is coming?"
+
+"Coming? Where? Here?" I nodded. "I have not the most remote idea. How
+should I have?"
+
+"It is some one who has something to do with you."
+
+Until then she had taken it uncommonly easily on the couch. When I said
+that, she sat up with quite a start.
+
+"Something to do with me? Mr. Kempster! What do you mean? Who can
+possibly be coming here who has anything to do with me?"
+
+"May, can't you guess?"
+
+"Guess! How can I guess? What do you mean?"
+
+"It's your mother."
+
+"My--mother!"
+
+I had expected that the thing would be rather a blow to her, but I had
+never expected that it would be anything like the blow it seemed. She
+sprang to her feet. The book fell from her hands, unnoticed, on to the
+floor. She stood facing me, with clenched fists and staring eyes.
+
+"My--mother!" she repeated, "Mr. Kempster, tell me what you mean."
+
+I told myself that Mrs. Riddle must be more, or less, of a mother even
+than my fancy painted her, if the mere suggestion of her coming could
+send her daughter into such a state of mind as this. Miss Riddle had
+always struck me as being about as cool a hand as you would be likely
+to meet. Now all at once, she seemed to be half beside herself with
+agitation. As she glared at me, she made me almost feel as if I had
+been behaving to her like a brute.
+
+"My aunt has only just now told me."
+
+"Told you what?"
+
+"That Mrs. Riddle arrived----"
+
+She interrupted me.
+
+"Mrs. Riddle? My mother? Well, go on?"
+
+She stamped on the floor. I almost felt as if she had stamped on me. I
+went on, disposed to feel that my back was beginning to rise.
+
+"My aunt has just told me that Mrs. Riddle arrived in England
+yesterday. She has written this morning to say that she is coming on at
+once."
+
+"But I don't understand!" She really looked as if she did not
+understand. "I thought--I was told that--she was going to remain abroad
+for months."
+
+"It seems that she has changed her mind."
+
+"Changed her mind!" Miss Riddle stared at me as if she thought that
+such a thing was inconceivable. "When did you say that she was coming?"
+
+"Aunt tells me that she is expecting her every moment."
+
+"Mr. Kempster, what am I to do?"
+
+She appealed to me, with outstretched hands, actually trembling, as it
+seemed to me with passion, as if I knew--or understood her either.
+
+"I am afraid, May, that Mrs. Riddle has not been to you all that a
+mother ought to be. I have heard something of this before. But I did
+not think that it was so bad as it seems."
+
+"You have heard? You have heard! My good sir, you don't know what
+you're talking about in the very least. There is one thing very
+certain, that I must go at once."
+
+"Go? May!"
+
+She moved forward. I believe she would have gone if I had not stepped
+between her and the door. I was beginning to feel slightly bewildered.
+It struck me that, perhaps, I had not broken the news so delicately as
+I might have done. I had blundered somehow, somewhere. Something must
+be wrong, if, after having been parted from her, for all I knew, for
+years, immediately on hearing of her mother's return, her first impulse
+was towards flight.
+
+"Well?" she cried, looking up at me like a small, wild thing.
+
+"My dear May, what do you mean? Where are you going? To your room?"
+
+"To my room? No! I am going away! away! Right out of this, as quickly
+as I can!"
+
+"But, after all, your mother is your mother. Surely she cannot have
+made herself so objectionable that, at the mere thought of her arrival,
+you should wish to run away from her, goodness alone knows where. So
+far as I understand she has disarranged her plans, and hurried across
+the Atlantic, for the sole purpose of seeing you."
+
+She looked at me in silence for a moment. As she looked, outwardly, she
+froze.
+
+"Mr. Kempster, I am at a loss to understand your connection with my
+affairs. Still less do I understand the grounds on which you would
+endeavour to regulate my movements. It is true that you are a man, and
+I am a woman; that you are big and I am little; but--are those the only
+grounds?"
+
+"Of course, if you look at it like that----"
+
+Shrugging my shoulders, I moved aside. As I did so, some one entered
+the room. Turning, I saw it was my aunt. She was closely followed by
+another woman.
+
+"My dear May," said my aunt, and unless I am mistaken, her voice was
+trembling, "here is your mother."
+
+The woman who was with my aunt was a tall, loosely-built person, with
+iron-grey hair, a square determined jaw, and eyes which looked as if
+they could have stared the Sphinx right out of countenance. She was
+holding a pair of pince-nez in position on the bridge of her nose.
+Through them she was fixedly regarding May. But she made no forward
+movement. The rigidity of her countenance, of the cold sternness which
+was in her eyes, of the hard lines which were about her mouth, did not
+relax in the least degree. Nor did she accord her any sign of greeting.
+I thought that this was a comfortable way in which to meet one's
+daughter, and such a daughter, after a lengthened separation. With a
+feeling of the pity of it, I turned again to May. As I did so, a sort
+of creepy-crawly sensation went all up my back. The little girl really
+struck me as being frightened half out of her life. Her face was white
+and drawn; her lips were quivering; her big eyes were dilated in a
+manner which uncomfortably recalled a wild creature which has suddenly
+gone stark mad with fear.
+
+It was a painful silence. I have no doubt that my aunt was as conscious
+of it as any one. I expect that she felt May's position as keenly as if
+it had been her own. She probably could not understand the woman's
+cold-bloodedness, the girl's too obvious shrinking from her mother. In
+what, I am afraid, was awkward, blundering fashion, she tried to smooth
+things over.
+
+"May, dear, don't you see it is your mother?"
+
+Then Mrs. Riddle spoke. She turned to my aunt.
+
+"I don't understand you. Who is this person?"
+
+I distinctly saw my aunt give a gasp. I knew she was trembling.
+
+"Don't you see that it is May?"
+
+"May? Who? This girl?"
+
+Again Mrs. Riddle looked at the girl who was standing close beside me.
+Such a look! And again there was silence. I do not know what my aunt
+felt. But from what I felt, I can guess. I felt as if a stroke of
+lightning, as it were, had suddenly laid bare an act of mine, the
+discovery of which would cover me with undying shame. The discovery had
+come with such blinding suddenness, "a bolt out of the blue," that, as
+yet, I was unable to realise all that it meant. As I looked at the
+girl, who seemed all at once to have become smaller even that she
+usually was, I was conscious that, if I did not keep myself well in
+hand, I was in danger of collapsing at the knees. Rather than have
+suffered what I suffered then, I would sooner have had a good sound
+thrashing any day, and half my bones well broken.
+
+I saw the little girl's body swaying in the air. For a moment I thought
+that she was going to faint. But she caught herself at it just in time.
+As she pulled herself together, a shudder went all over her face. With
+her fists clenched at her side, she stood quite still. Then she turned
+to my aunt.
+
+"I am not May Riddle," she said, in a voice which was at one and the
+same time strained, eager, and defiant, and as unlike her ordinary
+voice as chalk is different from cheese. Raising her hands, she covered
+her face. "Oh, I wish I had never said I was!"
+
+She burst out crying; into such wild grief that one might have been
+excused for fearing that she would hurt herself by the violence of her
+own emotion. Aunt and I were dumb. As for Mrs. Riddle--and, if you come
+to think of it, it was only natural--she did not seem to understand the
+situation in the least. Turning to my aunt, she caught her by the arm.
+
+"Will you be so good as to tell me what is the meaning of these
+extraordinary proceedings?"
+
+"My dear!" seemed to be all that my aunt could stammer in reply.
+
+"Answer me!" I really believe that Mrs. Riddle shook my aunt. "Where is
+my daughter--May?"
+
+"We thought--we were told that this was May." My aunt addressed herself
+to the girl, who was still sobbing as if her heart would break. "My
+dear, I am very sorry, but you know you gave us to understand that you
+were--May."
+
+Then some glimmering of the meaning of the situation did seem to dawn
+on Mrs. Riddle's mind. She turned to the crying girl; and a look came
+on her face which conveyed the impression that one had suddenly lighted
+on the key-note of her character. It was a look of uncompromising
+resolution. A woman who could summon up such an expression at will
+ought to be a leader. She never could be led. I sincerely trust that my
+wife--if I ever have one--when we differ, will never look like that. If
+she does, I am afraid it will have to be a case of her way, not mine.
+As I watched Mrs. Riddle, I was uncommonly glad she was not my mother.
+She went and planted herself right in front of the crying girl. And she
+said, quietly, but in a tone of voice the hard frigidity of which
+suggested the nether millstone:
+
+"Cease that noise. Take your hands from before your face. Are you one
+of that class of persons who, with the will to do evil, lack the
+courage to face the consequences of their own misdeeds? I can assure
+you that, so far as I am concerned, noise is thrown away. Candour is
+your only hope with me. Do you hear what I say? Take your hands from
+before your face."
+
+I should fancy that Mrs. Riddle's words, and still more her manner,
+must have cut the girl like a whip. Anyhow, she did as she was told.
+She took her hands from before her face. Her eyes were blurred with
+weeping. She still was sobbing. Big tears were rolling down her cheeks.
+I am bound to admit that her crying had by no means improved her
+personal appearance. You could see she was doing her utmost to regain
+her self-control. And she faced Mrs. Riddle with a degree of assurance,
+which, whether she was in the right or in the wrong, I was glad to see.
+That stalwart representative of the modern Women Crusaders continued to
+address her in the same unflattering way.
+
+"Who are you? How comes it that I find you passing yourself off as my
+daughter in Mrs. Plaskett's house?"
+
+The girl's answer took me by surprise.
+
+"I owe you no explanation, and I shall give you none."
+
+"You are mistaken. You owe me a very frank explanation. I promise you
+you shall give me one before I've done with you."
+
+"I wish and intend to have nothing whatever to say to you. Be so good
+as to let me pass."
+
+The girl's defiant attitude took Mrs. Riddle slightly aback. I was
+delighted. Whatever she had been crying for, it had evidently not been
+for want of pluck. It was plain that she had pluck enough for fifty. It
+did me good to see her.
+
+"Take my advice, young woman, and do not attempt that sort of thing
+with me--unless, that is, you wish me to give you a short shrift, and
+send at once for the police."
+
+"The police? For me? You are mad!"
+
+For a moment Mrs. Riddle looked a trifle mad. She went quite green. She
+took the girl by the shoulder roughly. I saw that the little thing was
+wincing beneath the pressure of her hand. That was more than I could
+stand.
+
+"Excuse me, Mrs. Riddle, but--if you would not mind!"
+
+Whether she did or did not mind, I did not wait for her to tell me. I
+removed her hand, with as much politeness as was possible, from where
+she had placed it. She looked at me, not nicely.
+
+"Pray, sir, who are you?"
+
+"I am Mrs. Plaskett's nephew, Charles Kempster, and very much at your
+service, Mrs. Riddle."
+
+"So you are Charles Kempster? I have heard of you." I was on the point
+of remarking that I also had heard of her. But I refrained. "Be so
+good, young man, as not to interfere."
+
+I bowed. The girl spoke to me.
+
+"I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Kempster." She turned to my aunt.
+One could see that every moment she was becoming more her cool
+collected self again. "Mrs. Plaskett, it is to you I owe an
+explanation. I am ready to give you one when and where you please. Now,
+if it is your pleasure."
+
+My aunt was rubbing her hands together in a feeble, purposeless,
+undecided sort of way. Unless I err, she was crying, for a change. With
+the exception of my uncle, I should say that my aunt was the most
+peace-loving soul on earth. I believe that the pair of them would flee
+from anything in the shape of dissension as from the wrath to come.
+
+"Well, my dear, I don't wish to say anything to pain you--as you must
+know!--but if you can explain, I wish you would. We have grown very
+fond of you, your uncle and I."
+
+It was not a very bright speech of my aunt's, but it seemed to please
+the person for whom it was intended immensely. She ran to her, she took
+hold of both her hands, she kissed her on either cheek.
+
+"You dear darling! I've been a perfect wretch to you, but not such a
+villain as your fancy paints me. I'll tell you all about it--now."
+Clasping her hands behind her back, she looked my aunt demurely in the
+face. But in spite of her demureness, I could see that she was full of
+mischief to the finger tips. "You must know that I am Daisy Hardy. I am
+the daughter of Francis Hardy, of the Corinthian Theatre."
+
+Directly the words had passed her lips, I knew her. You remember how
+often we saw her in "The Penniless Pilgrim?" And how good she was? And
+how we fell in love with her, the pair of us? All along, something
+about her, now and then, had filled me with a sort of overwhelming
+conviction that I must have seen her somewhere before. What an ass I
+had been! But then to think of her--well, modesty--in passing herself
+off as Mrs. Riddle's daughter. As for Mrs. Riddle, she received the
+young lady's confession with what she possibly intended for an air of
+crushing disdain.
+
+"An actress!" she exclaimed.
+
+She switched her skirts on one side, with the apparent intention of
+preventing their coming into contact with iniquity. Miss Hardy paid no
+heed.
+
+"May Riddle is a very dear friend of mine."
+
+"I don't believe it," cried Mrs. Riddle, with what, to say the least of
+it, was perfect frankness. Still Miss Hardy paid no heed.
+
+"It is the dearest wish of her life to become an actress."
+
+"It's a lie!"
+
+This time Miss Hardy did pay heed. She faced the frankly speaking lady.
+
+"It is no lie, as you are quite aware. You know very well that, ever
+since she was a teeny weeny child, it has been her continual dream."
+
+"It was nothing but a childish craze."
+
+Miss Hardy shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Mrs. Riddle uses her own phraseology; I use mine. I can only say that
+May has often told me that, when she was but a tiny thing, her mother
+used to whip her for playing at being an actress. She used to try and
+make her promise that she would never go inside a theatre, and when she
+refused, she used to beat her cruelly. As she grew older, her mother
+used to lock her in her bedroom, and keep her without food for days and
+days----"
+
+"Hold your tongue, girl! Who are you that you should comment on my
+dealings with my child? A young girl, who, by her own confession, has
+already become a painted thing, and who seems to glory in her shame, is
+a creature with whom I can own no common womanhood. Again I insist upon
+your telling me, without any attempt at rhodomontade, how it is that I
+find a creature such as you posing as my child."
+
+The girl vouchsafed her no direct reply. She looked at her with a
+curious scorn, which I fancy Mrs. Riddle did not altogether relish.
+Then she turned again to my aunt.
+
+"Mrs. Plaskett, it is as I tell you. All her life May has wished to be
+an actress. As she has grown older her wish has strengthened. You see
+all my people have been actors and actresses. I, myself, love acting.
+You could hardly expect me, in such a matter, to be against my friend.
+And then--there was my brother."
+
+She paused. Her face became more mischievous; and, unless I am
+mistaken, Mrs. Riddle's face grew blacker. But she let the girl go on.
+
+"Claud believed in her. He was even more upon her side than I was. He
+saw her act in some private theatricals----"
+
+Then Mrs. Riddle did strike in.
+
+"My daughter never acted, either in public or in private, in her life.
+Girl, how dare you pile lie upon lie?"
+
+Miss Hardy gave her look for look. One felt that the woman knew that
+the girl was speaking the truth, although she might not choose to own
+it.
+
+"May did many things of which her mother had no knowledge. How could it
+be otherwise? When a mother makes it her business to repress at any
+cost the reasonable desires which are bound up in her daughter's very
+being, she must expect to be deceived. As I say, my brother Claud saw
+her act in some private theatricals. And he was persuaded that, for
+once in a way, hers was not a case of a person mistaking the desire to
+be, for the power to be, because she was an actress born. Then things
+came to a climax. May wrote to me to say that she was leaving college,
+that her mother was in America, and that so far as her ever becoming an
+actress was concerned, so far as she could judge, it was a case of now
+or never. I showed her letter to Claud. He at once declared that it
+should be a case of now. A new play was coming out, in which he was to
+act, and in which, he said, there was a part which would fit May like a
+glove. It was not a large part; still, there it was. If she chose, he
+would see she had it. I wrote and told her what Claud said. She jumped
+for joy--through the post, you understand. Then they began to draw me
+in. Until her mother's return, May was to have gone, for safe keeping,
+to one of her mother's particular friends. If she had gone, the thing
+would have been hopeless. But, at the last moment, the plan fell
+through. It was arranged, instead, that she should go to her aunt--to
+you, Mrs. Plaskett. You had not seen her since her childhood; you had
+no notion of what she looked like. I really do not know from whom the
+suggestion came, but it was suggested that I should come to you,
+pretending to be her. And I was to keep on pretending till the rubicon
+was passed and the play produced. If she once succeeded in gaining a
+footing on the stage, though it might be never so slight a one, May
+declared that wild horses should not drag her back again. And I knew
+her well enough to be aware that, when she said a thing, she meant
+exactly what she said. Mrs. Plaskett, I should have made you this
+confession of my own initiative next week. Indeed, May would have come
+and told you the tale herself, if Mrs. Riddle had not returned all
+these months before any one expected her. Because, as it happens, the
+play was produced last night----"
+
+Mrs. Riddle had been listening, with a face as black as a
+thunder-cloud. Here she again laid her hand upon Miss Hardy's shoulder.
+
+"Where? Tell me! I will still save her, though, to do so, I have to
+drag her through the streets."
+
+Miss Hardy turned to her with a smile.
+
+"May does not need saving, she already has attained salvation. I hear,
+not only that the play was a great success, but that May's part, as she
+acted it, was the success of the play. As for dragging her through the
+streets, you know that you are talking nonsense. She is of an age to do
+as she pleases. You have no more power to put constraint upon her, than
+you have to put constraint upon me."
+
+All at once Miss Hardy let herself go, as it were.
+
+"Mrs. Riddle, you have spent a large part of your life in libelling all
+that I hold dearest; you will now be taught of how great a libel you
+have been guilty. You will learn from the example of your daughter's
+own life, that women can, and do, live as pure and as decent lives upon
+one sort of stage, as are lived, upon another sort of stage, by 'Women
+Crusaders.'"
+
+She swept the infuriated Mrs. Riddle such a curtsy.... Well, there's
+the story for you, Dave. There was, I believe, a lot more talking. And
+some of it, I dare say, approached to high faluting. But I had had
+enough of it, and went outside. Miss Hardy insisted on leaving the
+house that very day. As I felt that I might not be wanted, I also left.
+We went up to town together in the same carriage. We had it to
+ourselves. And that night I saw May Riddle, the real May Riddle. I
+don't mind telling you in private, that she is acting in that new thing
+of Pettigrewe's, "The Flying Folly," under the name of Miss Lyndhurst.
+She only has a small part; but, as Miss Hardy declares her brother said
+of her, she plays it like an actress born. I should not be surprised if
+she becomes all the rage before long.
+
+One could not help feeling sorry for Mrs. Riddle, in a kind of a way. I
+dare say she feels pretty bad about it all. But then she only has
+herself to blame. When a mother and her daughter pull different ways,
+it is apt to become a question of pull butcher, pull baker. The odds
+are that, in the end, you will prevail. Especially when the daughter
+has as much resolution as the mother.
+
+As for Daisy Hardy, whatever else one may say of her proceedings, one
+cannot help thinking of her--at least, I can't--as, as they had it in
+the coster ballad, "such a pal." I believe she is going to the
+Plasketts again next week. If she does I have half a mind----though I
+know she will only laugh at me, if I do go. I don't care. Between you
+and me, I don't believe she's half so wedded to the stage as she
+pretends she is.
+
+
+
+
+                      Miss Donne's Great Gamble
+
+
+You cannot keep on meeting the same man by accident--not in that way.
+To suggest such a possibility would be to carry the doctrine of
+probabilities too far. Miss Donne began herself to think that such
+might be the case. She had first encountered him at Geneva--at the
+Pension Dupont. There his bearing had not only been extremely
+deferential, but absolutely distant. Possibly this was in some measure
+owing to Miss Donne herself, who, at that stage of her travels, was the
+most unapproachable of human beings. During the last few days of her
+stay he had sat next to her at table, in which position it had seemed
+to her that a certain amount of conversation was not to be avoided. He
+had informed her, in the course of the remarks which the situation
+necessitated, that he was an American and a bachelor, and also that his
+name was Huhn.
+
+So far as Miss Donne was concerned the encounter would merely have been
+pigeon-holed among the other noticeable incidents of that memorable
+journey had it not been that two days after her arrival at Lausanne she
+met him in the open street--to be exact, in the Place de la Gare. Not
+only did he bow, but he stopped to talk with the air of quite an old
+acquaintance.
+
+But it was at Lucerne that the situation began to assume a really
+curious phase. Miss Donne left Lausanne on a Thursday. On the day
+before she told Mr. Huhn she was going, and where she intended to stop.
+Mr. Huhn made no comment on the information, which was given casually
+while they waited among a crowd of other persons for the steamer. No
+one could have inferred from his manner that it was not his intention
+to end his days at Lausanne. When therefore, on the morning after her
+arrival, she found him seated by her side at lunch she was thrown into
+a flurry of surprise. As he seemed, however, to conclude that she would
+take his appearance for granted--not attempting to offer the slightest
+explanation of how it was that he was where he was--she presently found
+herself talking to him as if his presence there was quite in accordance
+with the order of Nature. But when, afterwards, she went upstairs to
+put her hat on, she--well, she found herself disposed to try her best
+not to ask herself a question.
+
+Those four weeks at Lucerne were the happiest she had known. A sociable
+set was staying in the house just then. Everyone behaved to her with
+surprising kindness. Scarcely an excursion was got up without her being
+attached to it. Another invariable pendant was Mr. Huhn. It was
+impossible to conceal from herself the fact that when the parties were
+once started it was Mr. Huhn who personally conducted her. A better
+conductor she could not have wished. Without being obtrusive, when he
+was wanted he was always there. Unostentatiously he studied her little
+idiosyncrasies, making it his especial business to see that nothing was
+lacking which made for her own particular enjoyment. As a
+conversationalist she had never met his equal. But then, as she
+admitted with that honesty which was her ruling passion, she never had
+had experience of masculine discourse. Nor, perhaps, was the position
+rendered less enjoyable by the fact that she was haunted by misgivings
+as to whether her relations with Mr. Huhn were altogether in accordance
+with strict propriety. She was a lady travelling alone. He was a
+stranger; self-introduced. Whether, under any circumstances, a lady in
+her position ought to allow herself to be on terms of vague familiarity
+with a gentleman in his, was a point on which she could hardly be said
+to have doubts. She was convinced that she ought not. Theoretically,
+that was a principle for which she would have been almost willing to
+have died. When she reflected on what she had preached to others,
+metaphorically she shivered in her shoes. She was half alarmed by the
+necessity she was under to acknowledge that it was a kind of shivering
+which could not be correctly described as disagreeable.
+
+The domain of the extraordinary was entered on after her departure from
+Lucerne. At the Pension Emeritus her plans were public property. It was
+generally known that she proposed to return to England by way of Paris
+and Dieppe. In Paris she was to spend a few days, and in Dieppe a week
+or two. Practically the whole pension was at the station to see her
+off. She was overwhelmed with confectionery and flowers. Mr. Huhn, in
+particular, gave her a gorgeous bouquet, and a box of what purported to
+be chocolates. It was only after she had started that she discovered
+the chocolates were a sham; and that, hidden in the very midst of them,
+was another package. The very sight of it filled her with singular
+qualms. Other people were in the carriage. She deemed it prudent to
+ignore its existence in the presence of what quite possibly were
+observant eyes. But directly she had a moment of comparative privacy
+she removed it from its hiding-place with what--positively!--were
+trembling fingers. It was secured by pink baby-ribbon tied in a
+true-lover's knot. Within was a leather case. In the case was a flexible
+gold bracelet, with on one side a circular ornament which was incrusted
+with diamonds. As she was fingering this she must have touched a hidden
+spring, because all at once the glittering toy sprang open, revealing
+inside--of all things in the world--a portrait of Mr. Huhn!
+
+She gazed at it in bewildered amazement. All the way to Paris she was
+rent by conflicting emotions. That a perfect stranger should have dared
+to take such a liberty! Because, after all, she knew nothing of
+him--absolutely nothing, except that he was an American; which one piece
+of knowledge was, perhaps, a sufficient explanation. For all she knew,
+the Americans might have ideas of their own upon such subjects. This sort
+of behaviour might be in complete accord with their standard of
+propriety. The contemplation of such a possibility made her sigh. She
+actually nearly regretted that her standard was the English one, so
+strongly did she feel that there was something to be said for the
+American point of view, if, that is, it truly was the American point of
+view; which, of course, had still to be determined.
+
+Had the bracelet been trumpery trash, costing say, fifteen or twenty
+francs, the case would have been altered. Of that there could be no
+doubt. But this triumph of the jeweller's art, with its costly diamond
+ornaments! She herself had never owned a decent trinket. Her personal
+knowledge of values was nil. Yet her instincts told her that this cost
+money. Then there was the name of "Tiffany" on the case. She had a dim
+consciousness of having heard of Tiffany. It might have cost one
+hundred--even two hundred--pounds! At the thought she burned. Who was
+she, and what had she done, that wandering males--the merest casual
+acquaintances--should feel themselves at liberty to throw bank notes
+into her lap? As if she were a beggar--or worse. There was a moment in
+which she was inclined to throw the bracelet out of the carriage
+window.
+
+The mischief was that she did not know where to return it. She had Mr.
+Huhn's own assurance that he also was leaving Lucerne on that same day.
+Where he was going she had not the faintest notion. At least, she
+assured herself that she had not the faintest notion. To return it, by
+post, to Ezra G. Huhn, America, would be absurd. She might send it back
+to the person whose name was on the case--to Tiffany. She would.
+
+Then there was the portrait--hidden in the bracelet--which he had had
+the capital audacity to palm off on to her under cover of a box of
+chocolates. It was excellent--that was certain.
+
+The shrewd face, with the kindly eyes in which there always seemed to
+be a twinkle, looked up at her out of the little gold frame like an old
+familiar friend. How pleasant he had been to her; how good. How she
+always felt at ease with him; never once afraid. Although he had never
+by so much as a single question sought to gain her confidence, what a
+curious feeling she had had that he knew all about her, that he
+understood her. How she had been impressed by his way of doing things;
+his quick resource; his capacity of getting--without any fuss--the best
+that was obtainable. How she had come to rely upon him--in an
+altogether indescribable sort of way--when he was at hand; she saw it
+now. How, in spite of herself, she had grown to feel at peace with all
+the world when he was near. How curious it seemed. As she thought of
+its exceeding curiousness, fancying that she perceived in the portrayed
+glance the twinkle which she had begun to know so well, her eyes filled
+with tears, so that she had to use her handkerchief to prevent them
+trickling down her cheeks. During the remainder of her journey to Paris
+that bracelet was about her wrist, covered by her jacket-sleeve. More
+than once she caught herself in the act of crying.
+
+She found it impossible to remain in Paris. The weather was hot. In the
+brilliant sunshine the streets were one continuous glare. They seemed
+difficult to breathe in. They made her head ache. She longed for the
+sea. Within three days of her arrival she was hurrying towards Dieppe.
+In Dieppe she alighted at the Hotel de Paris. The first person she saw
+as she crossed the threshold was Annie Moriarty--at least, she used to
+be Annie Moriarty until she became Mrs. Palmer. The two rushed into
+each other's arms--Mrs. Palmer going upstairs with Miss Donne to assist
+in the unpacking. When they descended Miss Donne was introduced to Mr.
+Palmer, who had been Annie's one topic in the epistolary communications
+with which Miss Donne was regularly favoured. Mr. Palmer, who was a
+husband of twelve months' standing, proved to be a sort of under-study
+for a giant, towering above Miss Donne's head in a manner which
+inspired her with awe. While she was wonderful whether, when he desired
+to kiss his wife and retain his perpendicular position, he always
+lifted her upon a chair--for Annie was a mere pigmy in petticoats--who
+should come down the staircase into the hall but Mr. Huhn!
+
+At that sight not only did Miss Donne's cheeks flame, but she was
+overwhelmed with confusion to such an extent that it was impossible to
+conceal the fact from the sharp-eyed person who was in front of her.
+Although Mr. Huhn merely raised his hat as he passed into the street,
+her distress continued after he was gone. She accompanied the
+Palmers--in an only partial state of consciousness--into the Etablissement
+grounds. While her husband continued with them Annie was discretion
+itself; but when Mr. Palmer, going into the building--it is within the
+range of possibility on a hint from her--left the two women seated on
+the terrace, she assailed Miss Donne in a fashion which in a moment
+laid all her defences low.
+
+The whole story was told before its narrator was conscious of an
+intention to do anything of the kind. It plunged the hearer into
+raptures. Although, with a delicacy which well became her, she
+concealed the larger half of them, she revealed enough to throw Miss
+Donne into a state of agitation which was half pathetic and altogether
+delightful. As she sat there, listening to Annie's innuendoes,
+conscious of her delighted scrutiny, the heroine of all these strange
+adventures discovered herself hazily wondering whether this was the
+same world in which she had been living all these years, and whether
+she was awake in it or dreaming. After all the miracles which had
+lately changed the whole fashion of her life, was the greatest still
+upon the way?
+
+Eva Donne was thirty-eight and three-quarters, as the children say. For
+over twenty years she had been a governess--without kith or kin. All
+the time she was haunted by a fear that the fat season was with her
+now, and that the lean one was coming soon. She was not a scholar; she
+was just the sweetest woman in the world. But while of the second fact
+she had no notion, of the first she was hideously sure. She had
+strained every nerve to improve her mental equipment; to keep herself
+abreast of the educational requirements of the day; to pass
+examinations; to win those certificates which teachers ought to have.
+Always and ever in vain. The dullest of her scholars was not more dull
+than she. How, under these circumstances, she found employment was
+beyond her comprehension. Why, for instance, Miss Law should have kept
+her upon her teaching staff for nearly thirteen consecutive years was
+to her, indeed a mystery. That Miss Law should consider it well worth
+her while to retain in her establishment a well-mannered, dainty lady;
+possessed of infinite patience, kindliness, and tact; the soul of
+honour; considering her employer's interests before her own; willing to
+work late and early: who was liked by every pupil with whom she came
+into contact, and so was able to smooth the head mistress's path in a
+hundred different ways; that the shrewd proprietress of St. Cecilia's
+College should esteem these qualifications as a sufficient set-off for
+certain scholastic deficiencies never entered into Miss Donne's
+philosophy. Therefore, though she said not a word of it to anyone, she
+was tortured by a continual fear that each term would be her last.
+Dismissed for inefficiency at her age, what should she do? For she was
+growing old; she knew she was. She was grey--almost!--behind the ears;
+her hair was thinner than it used to be; there were tell-tale wrinkles
+about her eyes; she was conscious of a certain stiffness in her joints.
+A governess so soon grows old, especially if she is not clever. Many a
+time she lay awake all through the night thinking, with horror, of the
+future which was in store for her. What should she do? She had saved so
+little. Out of such a salary how could she save?--with her soft,
+generous heart which could not resist a temptation to give. She
+sometimes wondered, when the morning dawned, how it was that she had
+not turned quite grey, after the racking anxieties of the sleepless
+night.
+
+And then the miracle came--the god out of the machine. A cousin of her
+mother, of whom she had only heard, died in America, in Pittsburg--a
+bachelor, as alone in the world as she was--and left everything he had
+to his far-off kinswoman. Eight hundred sterling pounds a year it came
+to, actually, when everything was realized, and everything had been
+left in an easy realizable form. What a difference it made when she
+understood that the incredible had come to pass, and what it meant. She
+was rich, independent, secure from want and from the fear of it, thank
+God. And she thanked Him--how she thanked Him!--pouring out her heart
+before Him like some simple child. And she ceased to grow old; nay, she
+all at once grew young again. She was nearly persuaded that the
+greyness had vanished from behind her ears; her hair certainly did seem
+thicker. The wrinkles were so faint as to be not worth mentioning,
+while, as for the stiffness of her joints, she was suddenly conscious
+of an absurd and even improper inclination to run up the stairs and
+down them.
+
+Then there came the wonderful journey. She, a solitary spinster, who
+had never been out of England in her life, made up her mind, after not
+more than six month's consideration, to go all by herself to
+Switzerland. And she went. After the strange happenings which, in such
+a journey, were naturally to be expected, to crown everything, here, on
+the terrace at Dieppe, sat Annie Moriarty that was--and a troublesome
+child she used to be--telling her--her!--the young woman's former and
+ought-to-be-revered preceptress--that a certain person--to wit, an
+American gentleman--was in love with her--with her! Miss Eva Donne. Not
+the least extraordinary part of it was that, instead of correcting the
+presumptuous Annie, Miss Donne beamed and blushed, and blushed and
+beamed, and was conscious of the most singular sensations.
+
+A remark, however, which Mrs. Palmer apparently inadvertently made,
+brought her back to earth with a sudden jolt.
+
+"I suppose that whoever does become Mrs. Huhn will become an American."
+
+It was just a second or so before she comprehended. When she did it was
+with a quick sinking of the heart. Something, all at once, seemed to
+have gone out of the world. Perhaps because a cloud had crept over the
+sun.
+
+Was it possible? A thing not to be avoided? An inevitable consequence?
+Of course, Mr. Huhn was an American; she did know so much. And
+although--as she had gathered--this was by no means his first visit to
+Europe, it might reasonably be imagined that he spent most of his time
+in his native country. It was equally fair to assume that his wife
+would be expected to stop there with him. Would she, therefore,
+perforce lose her nationality, her birthright, her title to call
+herself an Englishwoman? To say the least of it, that would be an
+extraordinary position for--for an Englishwoman to find herself in.
+Mischievous Annie could not have succeeded better had it been her
+deliberate intention to make Miss Donne's confusion worse confounded.
+
+She dined with the Palmers at a little table by themselves. Mr. Huhn
+was at the long table round the corner, hidden from her sight by the
+peculiar construction of the room. Mrs. Palmer announced that he had
+gone there before she entered. Miss Donne took care that she went
+before he reappeared. She spent the evening in her bedroom, in spite of
+Mrs. Palmer's vigorous protestations, writing letters, so she said. It
+is true that she did write some letters. She began half-a-dozen to Mr.
+Huhn. Among a thousand and one other things, that bracelet was on her
+mind. Her wish was to return it, accompanied by a note which would
+exactly meet the occasion. But the construction of the note she wanted
+proved to be beyond her powers. It was far from her desire to wound his
+feelings; she was only too conscious how easy it is for the written
+word to do that. At the same time it was necessary that she should make
+her meaning plain, on which account it was a misfortune that she
+herself was not altogether clear as to what she did precisely mean. She
+did not want the bracelet; certainly not. Yet, while she did not wish
+to throw it at him, or lead him to suppose that she despised his gift,
+or was unconscious of his kindness in having made it, or liked him less
+because of his kindness, it was not her intention to allow him to
+suspect that she liked him at all, or appreciated his kindness to
+anything like the extent she actually did do, or indeed, leave him an
+excuse of any sort or kind on to which he might fasten to ask her to
+reconsider her refusal. How to combine these opposite desires and
+intentions within the four corners of one short note was a puzzle.
+
+It was a nice bracelet--a beauty. No one could call it unbecoming on
+her wrist. She had had no idea that a single ornament could have made
+such a difference. She was convinced that it made her hand seem much
+smaller than it really was. She wondered if he had sent for it
+specially to New York, or if he had been carrying it about with him in
+his pocket. But that was not the point. The point was that, since she
+could not frame a note which, in all respects, met her views, she would
+herself see Mr. Huhn to-morrow and return him his gift with her own
+hands. Then the incident would be closed. Having arrived at which
+decision she slept like a top all night, with the bracelet under her
+pillow.
+
+In the morning she dressed herself with unusual care--with so much
+care, indeed, that Mrs. Palmer greeted her with a torrent of
+ejaculations.
+
+"You look lovelier than ever, my dear. Just like What's-his-name's
+picture, only ever so much sweeter. Dosen't she look a darling, Dick?"
+
+"Dick" was Mr. Palmer. As this was said not only in the presence of
+that gentleman, but in the hearing of several others, Miss Donne was so
+distressed that she found herself physically incapable of telling the
+speaker that, as she was perfectly aware, she intensely disliked
+personal remarks, which were always in the very worst possible taste.
+
+Nothing was seen of Mr. Huhn. She went with the Palmers to the market;
+to the man who carved grotesque heads out of what he called vegetable
+ivory; to watch the people bathe, while listening to the band upon the
+terrace; then to lunch. All the time she had that bracelet on her
+person. After lunch she accompanied her friends on a queer sort of
+vehicle, which was not exactly a brake or quite anything else, on what
+its proud proprietor called a "fashionable excursion" to the forest of
+Arques. It was nearly five when they returned. The Palmers went
+upstairs. She sat down on one of the chairs which were on the pavement
+in front of the hotel. She had been there for some minutes in a sort of
+waking dream when someone occupied the chair beside her.
+
+It was Mr. Huhn. His appearance was so unexpected that it found her
+speechless. The foolish tremors to which she seemed to have been so
+liable of late seemed to paralyze her. She gazed at the shabby theatre
+on the other side of the square, trying to think of what she ought to
+say--but failed. No greetings were exchanged.
+
+Presently he said, in his ordinary tone of voice:--
+
+"Come with me into the Casino."
+
+That was his way; a fair example of his habit of taking things for
+granted. She felt that if, after a prolonged absence, she met him on
+the other side of the world, he would just ask if she liked sugar in
+her tea, and discuss the sugar question generally, and take it for
+granted that that was all the situation demanded. That was not her
+standpoint. She considered that when explanations were required they
+ought to be given, and was distinctly of opinion that an explanation
+was required here. She intended that the remark she made should be
+regarded as a suggestion to that effect.
+
+"I didn't expect to see you at Dieppe."
+
+He looked at her--just looked--and she was a conscience-stricken
+wretch. Had he accused her, at the top of his voice, of deliberate
+falsehood, he could not have shamed her more.
+
+"I meant to come to Dieppe. I thought you knew it."
+
+She had known it; all pretence to the contrary was brushed away like so
+much cobweb. And she knew that he knew she knew it. It was dreadful.
+What could she say to this extraordinary man? She blundered from bad to
+worse. Fumbling with the buttons of her little jacket she took out from
+some inner receptacle a small flat leather case.
+
+"I think this got into that box of chocolates by mistake."
+
+He glanced at it out of the corner of his eye, then continued to draw
+figures on the pavement with the ferrule of his stick.
+
+"No mistake. I put it there. I thought you'd understand."
+
+Thought she would understand! What did he think she would understand?
+Did the man suppose that everyone took things for granted?
+
+"I think it was a mistake."
+
+"How? When I sent to New York for it specially for you?" So that
+question was solved. She was conscious of a small flutter of
+satisfaction. "Don't you think it's pretty?"
+
+"It's beautiful." She gathered her courage.
+
+"But you must take it back."
+
+"Take it back! Take it back! I didn't think you were the kind of woman
+that would want to make a man unhappy."
+
+Nothing was further from her desire.
+
+"I am not in the habit of accepting presents from strangers."
+
+"That's just it. It's because I knew you weren't that I gave it to
+you."
+
+"But you're a stranger to me."
+
+"I didn't look at it in just that way."
+
+"I know nothing of you."
+
+"I'm sorry. I thought you knew what kind of man I am, as I know what
+kind of woman you are--and am glad to know it. If it's my record you'd
+like to be acquainted with, I'm ready to set forth the life and
+adventures of Ezra G. Huhn at full length whenever you've an hour or
+two or a day or two to spare. Or I can refer you for them to my lawyer,
+or to my banker, or to my doctor, according to what part of me it is on
+which you'd like to have accurate information."
+
+She could not hint that she would like to listen to a chapter or two of
+his adventures there and then, though some such idea was at the back of
+her mind. While she was groping for words he stood up, repeating his
+original suggestion.
+
+"Come with me into the Casino."
+
+She rose also. Not because she wished to; but because--such was the
+confusion of her mental processes--she found it easier to agree than to
+differ. They moved across the square. The flat leather case was in her
+hand.
+
+"Have you found the locket?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She blushed; but she was a continual blush.
+
+"Good portrait of me, isn't it?"
+
+"Excellent."
+
+"I had it done for my mother. When she was dying I wanted it to be
+buried with her. But she wouldn't have it. She said I was to give it
+to--someone else one day. Then I didn't think there ever would be a
+someone else. But when I met you I sent it to New York and had it
+mounted in that bracelet--for you."
+
+It was absurd what a little self-control she had. Instead of retorting
+with something smart, or pretty, or sentimental, she was tongue-tied.
+Her eyes filled with tears. But he did not seem to notice it. He went
+on.
+
+"You'll have to give me one of yours."
+
+"I--I haven't one."
+
+"Then we'll have to set about getting one. I'll have to look round for
+someone who'll be likely to do you justice, though it isn't to be
+expected that we shall find anyone who'll be able to do quite that."
+
+It was the nearest approach to a compliment he had paid her; probably
+the first pretty thing which had been said to her by any man. It set
+her trembling so that, for a moment, she swayed as if she would fall.
+They were passing through the gate into the Casino grounds. He looked
+at the case which she still had in her hand.
+
+"Put that in your pocket."
+
+"I haven't one."
+
+She was the personification of all meekness.
+
+"Then where did you have it?"
+
+"Inside my jacket."
+
+"Put it back there. I can't carry it. That's part of the burden you'll
+have to carry, henceforward, all alone."
+
+She did not stop to think what he meant. She simply obeyed. When the
+jacket was buttoned the case showed through the cloth. Even in the
+midst of her tremors she was aware that his eyes kept travelling
+towards the tell-tale patch. For some odd reason she was glad they did.
+
+They passed from the radiance of the autumn afternoon into the chamber
+of the "little horses." The change was almost dramatic in its
+completeness. From this place the sunshine had been for some time
+excluded. The blinds were drawn. It was garishly lighted. Although the
+room was large and lofty, owing to the absence of ventilation, the
+abundance of gas, the crowd of people, the atmosphere was horrible.
+There was a continual buzz; an unresting clatter. The noise of people
+in motion; the hum of their voices; the strident tones of the
+_tourneur_, as he made his various monotonous announcements; all these
+assisted in the formation of what, to an unaccustomed ear, was a
+strange cacophony. She shrank towards Mr. Huhn as if afraid.
+
+"What are they doing?" she asked.
+
+Instead of answering he led her forward to the dais on which the nine
+little horses were the observed of all observers, where the _tourneur_
+stood with his assistant with, in front and on either side of him, the
+tables about which the players were grouped. At the moment the leaden
+steeds were whirling round. She watched them, fascinated. People were
+speaking on their right.
+
+"_C'est le huit qui gagne_."
+
+"_Non; le huit est mort. C'est le six_."
+
+Someone said behind her, in English:--
+
+"Jack's all right; one wins. Confound the brute, he's gone right on!"
+
+The horses ceased to move.
+
+"_Le num�ro cinq!_" shouted the _tourneur_, laying a strong nasal
+stress upon the numeral.
+
+There were murmurs of disgust from the bettors on the columns. Miss
+Donne perceived that money was displayed upon baize-covered tables. The
+croupiers thrust out wooden rakes to draw it towards them. At the
+table on her right there seemed to be only a single winner. Several
+five-franc pieces were passed to a woman who was twiddling a number of
+them between her fingers.
+
+"Are they gambling?" asked Miss Donne.
+
+"Well, I shouldn't call it gambling. This is a little toy by means of
+which the proprietor makes a good and regular income out of public
+contributions. These are some of the contributors."
+
+Miss Donne did not understand him--did not even try to. She was all
+eyes for what was taking place about her. Money was being staked
+afresh. The horses were whirling round again. This time No. 7 was the
+winning horse. There were acclamations. Several persons had staked on
+seven. It appeared that that particular number was "overdue." Someone
+rose from a chair beside her.
+
+Mr. Huhn made a sudden suggestion.
+
+"Sit down." She sat down. "Let's contribute a franc or two to the
+support of this deserving person's wife and family. Where's your
+purse?" She showed that her purse--a silver chain affair--was attached
+to her belt. "Find a franc." Whether or not she had a coin of that
+denomination did not appear. She produced a five-franc piece. "That's a
+large piece of money. What shall we put it on?"
+
+Someone who was seated on the next chair said:--
+
+"The run's on five."
+
+"Then let's be on the run. That's it, in the centre there. That's the
+particular number which enables the owner of this little toy to keep a
+roof above his head."
+
+As she held the coin in front of her with apparently uncertain fingers,
+as if still doubtful what it was she had to do, her neighbour, taking
+it from her with a smile, laid it upon five.
+
+"_Le jeu est fait!_" cried the _tourneur_. "_Rien ne va plus!_"
+
+He started the horses whirling round.
+
+Then with a shock, she seemed to wake from a dream. She sprang from her
+chair, staring at her five-franc piece with wide-open eyes. People
+smiled. The croupiers gazed at her indulgently. There was that about
+her which made it obvious that to such a scene she was a stranger. They
+supposed that, like some eager child, she could not conceal her anxiety
+for the safety of her stake. Although surprised at her display of a
+degree of interest which was altogether beyond what the occasion seemed
+to warrant, Mr. Huhn thought with them.
+
+"Don't be alarmed," he murmured in her ear. "You may take it for
+granted that it's gone, and may console yourself with the reflection
+that it goes to minister to the wants of a mother and her children.
+That's the philosophical point of view. And it may be the right one."
+
+Her hand twitched, as if she found the temptation to snatch back her
+stake before it was gone for ever almost more than she could bear. Mr.
+Huhn caught her arm.
+
+"Hush! That sort of thing is not allowed."
+
+The horses stopped. The _tourneur_ proclaimed the winner.
+
+"_Le num�ro cinq!_"
+
+"Bravo!" exclaimed the neighbour who had placed the stake for her. "You
+have won. I told you the run was on five."
+
+"Shorn the shearers," commented Mr. Huhn. "You see, that's the way to
+make a fortune, only I shouldn't advise you to go further than the
+initiatory lesson."
+
+The croupier pushed over her own coin and seven others. Her neighbour
+held them up to her.
+
+"Your winnings."
+
+She drew back.
+
+"It's not mine."
+
+Her neighbour laughed outright. People were visibly smiling. Mr. Huhn
+took the pile of coins from the stranger's hand.
+
+"They are yours; take them." Him she obeyed with the docility of a
+child. "Come let us go."
+
+He led the way to the door which opened on to the terrace. She
+followed, meekly. It seemed that the eight coins were more than she
+could conveniently carry in one hand; for, as she went, she dropped one
+on to the floor. An attendant, picking it up, returned it to her with a
+grin. Indeed, the whole room was on the titter, the incident was so
+very amusing. They asked themselves if she was mad, or just a
+simpleton. And, in a fashion, considering that her first youth was
+passed, she really was so pretty! Mr. Huhn was more moved than, in that
+place, he would have cared to admit. Something in her attitude in the
+way she looked at him when he bade her take the money, had filled him
+with a sense of shame.
+
+Between their going in and coming out the sky had changed. The shadows
+were lowering. The autumnal day was drawing to a close. September had
+brought more than a suggestion of winter's breath. A grey chill
+followed the departing sun. They went up, then down, the terrace,
+without exchanging a word; then, moving aside, he offered her one of
+the wicker-seated chairs which stood against the wall. She sat on it.
+He sat opposite, leaning on the handle of his stick. The thin mist
+which was stealing across the leaden sea did not invite lounging out of
+doors. They had the terrace to themselves. She let her five-franc
+pieces drop with a clinking sound on to her lap. He, conscious of
+something on her face which he was unwilling to confront, looked
+steadily seaward. Presently she gave utterance to her pent-up feelings.
+
+"I am a gambler."
+
+Had she accused herself of the unforgivable sin she could not have
+seemed more serious. Somewhere within him was a laughing sprite. In
+view of her genuine distress he did his best to keep it in subjection.
+
+"You exaggerate. Staking a five-franc piece--for the good of the
+house--on the _petits chevaux_ does not make you that, any more than
+taking a glass of wine makes you a drunkard."
+
+"Why did you make me, why did you let me, do it?"
+
+"I didn't know you felt that way."
+
+"And yet you said you knew me!"
+
+He winched. He had told a falsehood. He did know her--there was the
+sting. In mischievous mood he had induced her to do the thing which he
+suspected that she held to be wrong. He had not supposed that she would
+take it so seriously, especially if she won, being aware that there are
+persons who condemn gambling when they or those belonging to them lose,
+but who lean more towards the side of charity when they win. He did not
+know what to say to her, so he said nothing.
+
+"My father once lost over four hundred pounds on a horse-race. I don't
+quite know how it was, I was only a child. He was in business at the
+time. I believe it ruined him, and it nearly broke my mother's heart. I
+promised her that I would never gamble--and now I have."
+
+He felt that this was one of those women whose moral eye is
+single--with whom it is better to be frank.
+
+"I confess I felt that you might have scruples on the point; but I
+thought you would look upon a single stake of a single five-franc piece
+as a jest. Many American women--and many Englishwomen--who would be
+horrified if you called them gamblers, go into the rooms at Monte Carlo
+and lose or win a louis or two just for the sake of the joke."
+
+"For the sake of the joke! Gamble for the sake of the joke! Are you a
+Jesuit?" The question so took him by surprise that he turned and stared
+at her. "I have always understood that that is how Jesuits reason--that
+they try to make out that black is white. I hope--I hope you don't do
+that?"
+
+He smiled grimly, his thoughts recurring to some of the "deals" in
+which his success had made him the well-to-do man he was.
+
+"Sometimes the two colours merge so imperceptibly into one another that
+it's hard to tell just where the conjunction begins. You want keen
+sight to do it. But here you're right and I'm wrong; there's no two
+words about it. It was I who made you stake that five-franc piece; and
+I'd no right to make you stake buttons if it was against your
+principles. Your standard's like my mother's. I hope that mine will
+grow nearer to it. I ask you to forgive me for leading you astray."
+
+"I ought not to have been so weak."
+
+"You had to--when I was there to make you."
+
+She was still; though it is doubtful if she grasped the full meaning
+his words conveyed. If he had been watching her he would have seen that
+by degrees something like the suggestion of a smile seem to wrinkle the
+corners of her lips. When she spoke again it was in half a whisper.
+
+"I'm sorry, I should seem to you to be so silly."
+
+"You don't. You mustn't say it. You seem to me to be the wisest woman I
+ever met."
+
+"That must be because you've known so few--or else you're laughing. No
+one who has ever known me has thought me wise. If I were wise I should
+know what to do with this."
+
+"She motioned towards the money on her lap.
+
+"Throw it into the sea."
+
+"But it isn't mine."
+
+"It's yours as much as anyone else's. If you come to first causes
+you'll find it hard to name the rightful owner--in God's sight--for any
+one thing. There's been too much swapping of horses. You'll find plenty
+who are in need."
+
+"It would carry a curse with it. Money won in gambling!"
+
+He looked at his watch.
+
+"It's time that you and I thought about dinner. We'll adjourn the
+discussion as to what is to be done with the fruit of our iniquity. I
+say 'our,' because that I'm the principal criminal is as plain as
+paint. Sleep on it; perhaps you'll see clearer in the morning. Put it
+in your pocket."
+
+"Haven't I told you already that I haven't a pocket? And if I had I
+shouldn't put this money in it. I should feel that that was half-way
+towards keeping it."
+
+"Then let me be the bearer of the burden."
+
+"No; I don't wish the taint to be conveyed to you." He laughed
+outright. "There now you are laughing!"
+
+"I was laughing because--" he was on the verge of saying "because I
+love you;" but something induced him to substitute--"because I love to
+hear you talking."
+
+She glanced at him with smiling eyes. His gaze was turned towards what
+was now the shrouded sea. Neither spoke during the three minutes of
+brisk walking which was required to reach the Hotel de Paris, she
+carrying the money, four five-franc pieces, gripped tightly in either
+hand.
+
+In his phrase, she slept on it, though the fashion of the sleeping was
+a little strange. The next morning she sallied forth to put into
+execution the resolve at which she had arrived. I was early, though not
+so early as she would have wished, because, concluding that all Dieppe
+did not rise with the lark, she judged it as well to take her coffee
+and roll before she took the air. It promised to be a glorious day. The
+atmosphere was filled with a golden haze, through which the sun was
+gleaming. As she went through the gate of the Port d'Ouest she came
+upon a man who was selling little metal effigies of the flags of
+various nations. From him she made a purchase--the Stars and Stripes.
+This she pinned inside her blouse, on the left, smiling to herself as
+she did so. Then she marched straight off into the Casino.
+
+The _salle de jeu_ had but a single occupant, a _tourneur_ who was
+engaged in dusting the little horses. To enable him to perform the
+necessary offices he removed the steeds from their places one after the
+other. As it chanced he was the identical individual who had been
+responsible for the _course_ which had crowned 'Miss Doone' with victory.
+With that keen vision which is characteristic of his class the man
+recognised her on the instant. Bowing and smiling he held out to her
+the horse which he was holding.
+
+"_Vl� madame, le num�ro cinq! C'est lui qui a port� le bonheur �
+madame_."
+
+It was, indeed, the horse which represented the number on which she had
+staked her five-franc piece. By an odd accident she had arrived just as
+its toilet was being performed. She observed what an excellent model it
+was with somewhat doubtful eyes, as if fearful of its being warranted
+neither steady nor free from vice.
+
+"I have brought back the seven five-franc pieces which I--took away
+with me."
+
+She held out the coins. As if at a loss he looked from them to her.
+
+"But, madame, I do not understand."
+
+"I can have nothing to do with money which is the fruit of gambling."
+
+"But madame played."
+
+"It was a misunderstanding. A mistake. It was not my intention. It is
+on that account I have come to return this money."
+
+"Return?--to whom?--the administration? The administration will not
+accept it. It is impossible. What it has lost it has lost; there is an
+end."
+
+"But I insist on returning it; and if I insist it must be accepted;
+especially when I tell you it is all a mistake."
+
+The _tourneur_ shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"If madame does not want the money, and will give it to me, I will see
+what I can do with it." She handed him the coins; he transferred them
+to the board at his back. Then he held out to her the horse which he
+had been dusting. "See, madame, is it not a perfect model? And feel how
+heavy--over three kilos, more than six English pounds. When you
+consider that there are nine horses, all exactly the same weight, you
+will perceive that it is not easy work to be a _tourneur_. That toy
+horse is worth much more to the administration than if it were a real
+horse; it is from the Number Five that all this comes."
+
+He waved his hand as if to denote the entire building.
+
+"I thought that public gambling was prohibited in France and in all
+Christian countries, and that it was only permitted in such haunts of
+wickedness as Monte Carlo."
+
+"Gambling? Ah, the little horses is not gambling! It is an amusement."
+
+A voice addressed her from the other side of the table. It was Mr.
+Huhn.
+
+"Didn't I tell you it wasn't gambling? It's as this gentleman says--an
+amusement; especially for the administration."
+
+"Ah, yes--in particular for the administration."
+
+The _tourneur_ laughed. Miss Donne and Mr. Huhn went out together by
+the same door through which they had gone the night before. They sat on
+the low wall. He had some towels on his arm; he had been bathing.
+Already the sea was glowing with the radiance of the sun.
+
+"So you've relieved yourself of your ill-gotten gains?"
+
+"I have returned them to the administration."
+
+"To the ---- did that gentleman say he would hand those five-franc
+pieces to the administration?"
+
+"He said that he would see what he could do with them."
+
+"Just so. There's no doubt that that is what he will do. So you did
+sleep upon that burning question?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Then you got the better of me; because I didn't sleep at all."
+
+"I am sorry."
+
+"You ought to be, since the fault was yours."
+
+"Mine! My fault that you didn't sleep!"
+
+"Do you see what I've got here?"
+
+He made an upward movement with his hand. For the first time she
+noticed that in his buttonhole he had a tiny copy of the Union Jack.
+
+"Did you buy that of the man outside the town gate?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"Why, it was of that very same man that I bought this."
+
+From the inside of her blouse she produced that minute representation
+of the colours he knew so well. They looked at each other, and....
+
+
+When some time after they were lunching, he forming a fourth at the
+small table which belonged of right to Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, he said to
+Annie Moriarty, that was:--
+
+"Since you're an old friend of Miss Donne you may be interested in
+knowing that there's likely soon to be an International Alliance."
+
+He motioned to the lady at his side and then to himself, as if to call
+attention to the fact that in his buttonhole was the Union Jack, while
+on Miss Donne's blouse was pinned the American flag. But keen-witted
+Mrs. Palmer had realized what exactly was the condition of affairs some
+time before.
+
+
+
+
+                               "Skittles"
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+Mr. Plumber was a passable preacher. Not an orator, perhaps--though it
+is certain that they had had less oratorical curates at Exdale. His
+delivery was not exactly good. But then the matter was fair, at times.
+Though Mr. Ingledew did say that Mr. Plumber's sermons were rather in
+the nature of reminiscences--tit-bits collated from other divines.
+According to this authority, listening to Mr. Plumber preaching was a
+capital exercise for the memory. His pulpit addresses might almost be
+regarded in the light of a series of examination papers. One might take
+it for granted that every thought was borrowed from some one, the
+question--put by the examiner, as it were--being from whom? On the
+other hand, it must be granted that Mr. Ingledew's character was well
+understood in Exdale. He was one of those persons who are persuaded
+that there is no such thing as absolute originality in the present year
+of grace. From his point of view, all the moderns are thieves. He read
+a new book, not for the pleasure of reading it, but for the pleasure of
+finding out, as a sort of anemonic exercise, from whom its various
+parts had been pilfered. He held that, nowadays, nothing new is being
+produced, either in prose or verse; and that the only thing which the
+latter day writer does need, is the capacity to use the scissors and
+the paste. So it was no new thing for the Exdale congregation to be
+informed that the sermon which they had listened to had been preached
+before.
+
+Nor, Mrs. Manby declared, in any case, was that the point. She wanted a
+preacher to do her good. If he could not do her good out of his own
+mouth, then, by all means, let him do her good out of the mouths of
+others. All gifts are not given to all men. If a man was conscious of
+his incapacity in one direction, then she, for one, had no objection to
+his availing himself, to the best of his ability, of his capacity in
+another. But--and here Mrs. Manby held up her hands in the manner which
+is so well known to her friends--when a man told her, from the pulpit,
+on the Sunday, that life was a solemn and a serious thing, and then on
+the Monday wrote for a comic paper--and such a comic paper!--that was
+the point, and quite another matter entirely.
+
+How the story first was told has not been clearly ascertained. The
+presumption is, that a proof was sent to Mr. Plumber in one of those
+wrappers which are open at both ends in which proofs sometimes are
+sent; and that on the front of this wrapper was imprinted, by way of
+advertisement, the source of its origin: "_Skittles: Not to mention the
+Beer. A Comic Croaker for the Cultured Classes_."
+
+The presumption goes on to suggest that, while it was still in the post
+office, the proof fell out of the wrapper,--they sometimes are most
+insecurely enclosed, and the thing might have been the purest accident.
+One of the clerks--it is said, young Griffen--noticing it, happened to
+read the proof--just glanced over it, that is--also, of course, by
+accident. And then, on purchasing a copy of a particular issue of the
+periodical in question, this clerk--whoever he was--perceived that it
+contained the, one could not call it poem, but rhyming doggerel, proof
+of which had been sent to the Reverend Reginald Plumber. He probably
+mentioned it to a friend, in the strictest confidence. This friend
+mentioned it to another friend, also in the strictest confidence. And
+so everybody was told by everybody else, in the strictest confidence;
+and the thing which was meant to be hid in a hole found itself
+displayed on the top of the hill.
+
+It was felt that something ought lo be done. This feeling took form and
+substance at an informal meeting which was held at Mrs. Manby's in the
+guise of a tea, and which was attended by the churchwardens, Mr.
+Ingledew, and others, who might be expected to do something, when, from
+the point of view of public policy, it ought to be done. The _pi�ces de
+conviction_ were not, on that particular occasion, actually produced in
+evidence, because it was generally felt that the paper, "_Skittles: Not
+to mention the Beer, etc_." was not a paper which could be produced in
+the presence of ladies.
+
+"And that," Mrs. Manby observed, "is what makes the thing so very
+dreadful. It is bad enough that such papers should be allowed to
+appear. But that they should be supported by the contributions of our
+spiritual guides and teachers, opens a vista which cannot but fill
+every proper-minded person with dismay."
+
+Miss Norman mildly hinted that Mr. Plumber might have intended, not so
+much to support the journal in question, either with his contributions
+or otherwise, as that it should aid in supporting him. But this was an
+aspect of the case which the meeting simply declined to even consider.
+Because Mr. Plumber chose to have an ailing wife and a horde of
+children that was no reason, but very much the contrary, why, instead
+of elevating, he should assist in degrading public morals. So the
+resolution was finally arrived at that, without loss of time, the
+churchwardens should wait upon the Vicar, make a formal statement of
+the lamentable facts of the case, and that the Vicar should then be
+requested to do the something which ought to be done.
+
+So, in accordance with this resolution, the churchwardens waited on the
+vicar. The Rev. Henry Harding was, at that time, the Vicar of Exdale.
+He was not only an easy-going man and possessed of large private means,
+but he was also one of those unfortunately constituted persons who are
+with difficulty induced to make themselves disagreeable to any one. The
+churchwardens quite anticipated that they might find it hard to
+persuade him, even in so glaring a case as the present one, to do the
+something which ought to be done. Nor were their expectations, in this
+respect, doomed to meet with disappointment.
+
+"Am I to understand," asked the vicar, when, to a certain extent, the
+lamentable facts of the case had been laid before him, and as he leaned
+back in his easy chair he pushed his spectacles up on his forehead,
+"that you have come to complain to me because a gentleman, finding
+himself in straitened circumstances, desires to add to his income by
+means of contributions to the press?"
+
+That was not what they wished him to understand at all. Mr. Luxmare,
+the people's warden, endeavoured to explain.
+
+"It is this particular paper to which we object. It is a vile, and a
+scurrilous rag. Its very name is an offence. You are, probably, not
+acquainted with its character. I have here----"
+
+Mr. Luxmare was producing a copy of the offensive publication from his
+pocket, when the vicar stopped him.
+
+"I know the paper very well indeed," he said.
+
+Mr. Luxmare seemed slightly taken aback. But he continued--.
+
+"In that case you are well aware that it is a paper with which no
+decent person would allow himself to be connected."
+
+"I am by no means so sure of that." Mr. Harding pressed the tips of his
+fingers together, with that mild, but occasionally exasperating, air of
+beaming affability for which he was peculiar. "I have known some very
+decent persons who have allowed themselves to become connected with
+some extremely curious papers."
+
+As the people's warden, Mr. Luxmare, was conscious of an almost
+exaggerated feeling of responsibility. He felt that, in a peculiar
+sense, he represented the parish. It was his duty to impress the
+feelings of the parish upon the vicar. And he meant to impress the
+feeling of the parish upon the vicar now. Moreover, by natural
+constitution he was almost as much inclined to aggressiveness as the
+vicar was inclined to placability. He at once assumed what might be
+called the tone and manner of a prosecuting counsel.
+
+"This is an instance," and he banged his right fist into his left palm,
+"of a clergyman--a clergyman of our church, the national church,
+associating himself with a paper, the avowed and ostensible purpose of
+which is to pander to the depraved instincts of the lowest of the low.
+I say, sir, and I defy contradiction, that such an instance in such a
+man is an offence against good morals."
+
+Mr. Harding smiled--which was by no means what the people's warden had
+intended he should do.
+
+"By the way," he said, "has Mr. Plumber been writing under his own
+name?"
+
+"Not he. The stuff is anonymous. It is inconceivable that any one could
+wish to be known as its author?"
+
+"Then may I ask how you know that Mr. Plumber is its author?"
+
+Mr. Luxmare appeared to be a trifle non-plussed--as did his associate.
+But the people's warden stuck to his guns.
+
+"It is common report in the parish that Mr. Plumber is a contributor to
+a paper which would not be admitted to a decent house. We are here as
+church officers to acquaint you with that report, and to request you to
+ascertain from Mr. Plumber whether or not it is well founded."
+
+"In other words, you wish me to associate myself with vague scandal
+about Queen Elizabeth, and to play the part of Paul Pry in the private
+affairs of my friend and colleague."
+
+Mr. Luxmare rose from his chair.
+
+"If, sir, you decline to accede to our request, we shall go from you to
+Mr. Plumber. We shall put to him certain questions. Should he decline
+to answer them, or should his replies not be satisfactory, we shall
+esteem it our duty to report the matter to the Bishop. For my own part,
+I say, without hesitation, that it would be a notorious scandal that a
+contributor to such a paper as _Skittles_ should be a minister in our
+beloved parish church."
+
+The vicar still smiled, though it is conceivable that, for once in a
+way, his smile was merely on the surface.
+
+"Then, in that case, Mr. Luxmare, you will take upon yourself a great
+responsibility."
+
+"Mr. Harding, I took upon myself a great responsibility when I suffered
+myself to be made the people's warden. It is not my intention to
+attempt to shirk that responsibility in one jot or in one tittle. To
+the best of my ability, at any cost, I will do my duty, though the
+heavens fall."
+
+The vicar meditated some moments before he spoke again. Then he
+addressed himself to both his visitors.
+
+"I tell you what I will do, gentlemen. I will go to Mr. Plumber and
+tell him what you say. Then I will acquaint you with his answer."
+
+"Very good!" It was Mr. Luxmare who took upon himself to reply. "At
+present that is all we ask. I would only suggest, that the sooner your
+visit is paid the better."
+
+"Certainly. There I do agree with you; it is always well to rid oneself
+of matters of this sort as soon as possible. I will make a point of
+calling on Mr. Plumber directly you are gone."
+
+Possibly, when his visitors had gone, the vicar was inclined to the
+opinion that he had promised rather hastily. Not only did he not start
+upon his errand with the promptitude which his own words had suggested,
+but even when he did start, he pursued such devious ways that several
+hours elapsed between his arrival at the curate's and the departure of
+the deputation.
+
+Mr. Plumber lived in a cottage. It might have not been without its
+attractions as a home for a newly-married couple, but as a residence
+for a man of studious habits, possessed of a large and noisy family, it
+had its disadvantages. It was the curate himself who opened the door.
+Directly he did so the vicar became conscious that, within, there was a
+colourable imitation of pandemonium. Some young gentlemen appeared to
+be fighting upstairs; other young gentlemen appeared to be rehearsing
+some unmusical selections of the nature of a Christy Minstrel chorus on
+the ground floor at the back; somewhere else small children were
+crying; while occasionally, above the hubbub, were heard the shrill
+tones of a woman's agitated voice, raised in heartsick--because
+hopeless,--expostulation. Mr. Plumber seemed to be unconscious of there
+being anything strange in such discord of sweet sounds. Possibly he had
+become so used to living in the midst of a riot that it never occurred
+to him that there was anything in mere uproar for which it might be
+necessary to apologise. He led the way to his study--a small room at
+the back of the house, which was in uncomfortable proximity to the
+Christy Minstrel chorus. Small though the room was, it was
+insufficiently furnished. As he entered it, the vicar was struck, by no
+means for the first time, by an unpleasant sense of the contrast which
+existed between the curate's study and the luxurious apartment which
+was his study at the vicarage. The vicar seated himself on one of the
+two chairs which the apartment contained. A few desultory remarks were
+exchanged. Then Mr. Harding endeavoured to broach the subject which had
+brought him there. He began a little awkwardly.
+
+"I hope that you know me well enough to be aware, Mr. Plumber, that I
+am not a person who would wish to thrust myself into the affairs of
+others."
+
+The curate nodded. He was standing up before the empty fireplace. A
+tall, sparely-built man, with scanty iron-grey hair, a pronounced
+stoop, and a face which was a tragedy--it said so plainly that he was a
+man who had abandoned hope. Its careful neatness accentuated the
+threadbare condition of his clerical costume--it was always a mystery
+to the vicar how the curate contrived to keep himself so neat,
+considering his slender resources, and the life of domestic drudgery
+which he was compelled to lead.
+
+"Are you acquainted with a publication called _Skittles?_"
+
+Mr. Plumber nodded again; Mr. Harding would rather he had spoken.  "May
+I ask if you are a contributor to such a publication?"
+
+"May I inquire why you ask?"
+
+"It is reported in the parish that you are. The parish does not relish
+the report. And you must know yourself that it is not a paper"--the
+vicar hesitated--"not a paper with which a gentleman would wish it to
+be known that he was associated."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, without entering into questions of the past, I hope you will
+give me to understand that, at any rate, in the future, you will not
+contribute to its pages."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Is it necessary to explain? Are we not both clergymen?"
+
+"Are you suggesting that a clergyman should pay occasional visits to a
+debtor's prison rather than contribute to the pages of a comic paper?"
+
+"It is not a question of a comic paper, but of this particular comic
+paper."
+
+The curate looked intently at the vicar. He had dark eyes which, at
+times, were curiously full of meaning. Mr. Harding felt that they were
+very full of meaning then. He so sympathised with the man, so realised
+the burdens which he had to bear, that he never found himself alone
+with him without becoming conscious of a sensation which was almost
+shyness. At that moment, as the curate continued to fixedly regard him,
+he was not only shy, but ashamed.
+
+"Mr. Harding you are not here of your own initiative."
+
+"That is so. But that will not help you. If you take my advice, of two
+evils you will choose what I believe to be the lesser."
+
+"And that is?"
+
+"You will have no further connection with this paper."
+
+"Mr. Harding, look here." Going to a cupboard which was in a corner of
+the room, the curate threw the door wide open. Within were shelves. On
+the shelves were papers. The cupboard seemed full of them, shelf above
+shelf. "You see these. They are MSS.--my MSS. They have travelled
+pretty well all round the world. They have been rejected everywhere. I
+have paid postage for them which I could very ill afford, only to have
+them sent back upon my hands, at last, for good. I show them to you
+merely because I wish you to understand that I did not apply to the
+editor of _Skittles_ until I had been rejected by practically every
+other editor the world contains." The Vicar fidgetted on his chair.
+
+"Surely, now that reading has become almost universal, it is always
+possible to find an opening for good work."
+
+"For good work, possibly. Though, even then, I suspect that the thing
+is not so easy as you imagine. But mine is not good work. Very often it
+is not even good hack work, as good hack work goes. I may have been
+capable of good work once. But the capacity, if it ever existed, has
+gone--crushed perhaps by the burdens which have crushed me. Nowadays I
+am only too glad to do any work which will bring in for us a few extra
+crumbs of bread."
+
+"I sympathise with you, with all my heart."
+
+"Thank you." The curate smiled, the vicar would almost have rather he
+had cried. "There is one other point. If the paper were a bad paper, in
+a moral or in a religious sense, under no sense of circumstances would
+I consent to do its work or to take its wage. But if any one has told
+you that it is a bad paper, in that sense, you have been misinformed.
+It is simply a cheap so-called humorous journal. Perhaps not
+over-refined. It is intended for the _olla podrida_. It is printed on poor
+paper, and the printing is not good. The illustrations are not always
+in the best of taste and are sometimes simply smudges. But looking at
+the reading matter as a whole, it is probably equal to that which is
+contained, week after week, in some of the high-priced papers which
+find admission to every house."
+
+"I am bound to say that sometimes when I have been travelling I have
+purchased the paper myself, and I have never seen anything in it which
+could be justly called improper."
+
+"Nor I. I submit, sir, that we curates are already sufficiently
+cribbed, cabined, and confined. If narrow-minded, non-literary persons
+are to have the power to forbid our working for decent journals to
+which they themselves, for some reason, may happen to object, our case
+is harder still."
+
+The vicar rose from his chair.
+
+"Quite so. There is a great deal in what you say--I quite realise it,
+Mr. Plumber. The laity are already too much disposed to trample on us
+clerics. I will think the matter over--think the matter over, Mr.
+Plumber. My dear sir, what is that?"
+
+There was a crashing sound on the floor overhead, which threatened to
+bring the study ceiling down. It was followed by such a deafening din,
+as if an Irish faction fight was taking place upstairs, that even the
+curate seemed to be disturbed.
+
+"Some of the boys have been making themselves a pair of boxing gloves,
+and I am afraid they are practising with them in their bedroom."
+
+"Oh," said the vicar. That was all he did say, but the "Oh" was
+eloquent.
+
+"To think," he told himself as he departed, "that a scholar and a
+gentleman should be compelled to live in a place like that, with a
+helpless wife and a horde of unruly lads, and should be driven to
+scribble nonsense for such a rag as _Skittles_ in order to provide
+himself with the means to keep them all alive--it seems to me that it
+must be, in some way, a disgrace to the English Church that such things
+should be."
+
+He not only said this to himself, but, later on, he said it to his
+wife. His words had weight with Mrs. Harding, but not the sort of
+weight which he desired. The fact is Mrs. Harding had views of her own
+on the subject of curates. She held that curates ought not to marry.
+Vicars, rectors, and the higher clergy might; but curates, no. For a
+poor curate to marry was nothing else than a crime. Had she had her
+way, Mr. Plumber would long ago have vanished from Exdale. But though
+the vicar was ruled to a considerable extent by his wife, there was a
+point at which he drew the line. That a man should be turned adrift on
+to the world to quite starve simply because he was nearly starving
+already was an idea which actually filled him with indignation.
+
+If he supposed that his interview with Mr. Plumber had resulted in a
+manner which was likely to appease those of his parishioners who had
+objections to a curate who wrote for comic papers, he was destined soon
+to learn his error. The following morning one of his churchwardens paid
+another visit to the vicarage--the duty-loving Mr. Luxmare. Mr. Harding
+was conscious of an uncomfortable twinge when that gentleman's name was
+brought to him; he seemed to be still more uncomfortable when he found
+himself constrained to meet the warden's eye. The story he had to tell
+was not only in itself a slightly lame one, its lameness was emphasised
+by the way in which he told it. It was plain that it was not going to
+have the effect of inducing Mr. Luxmare to move one hair's breadth from
+the path which he felt that duty required him to tread.
+
+"Am I to understand, Mr. Harding, that Mr. Plumber, conscious of his
+offence, has promised to offend no more? In other words, has he
+undertaken to have no further connection with this off-scouring of the
+press?"
+
+Mr. Harding put his spectacles on his nose. He took them off again. He
+fidgetted and fumbled with them with his fingers.
+
+"The fact is, Mr. Luxmare--and this is entirely between ourselves--Mr.
+Plumber is in such straitened circumstances----"
+
+"Quite so. But because a man is a pauper, does that justify him in
+becoming a thief?"
+
+"Gently, Mr. Luxmare, let us consider our words before we utter them.
+Here is no question of anything even distantly approaching to felony.
+To be frank with you, I think you are unnecessarily hard on this
+particular journal. The paper is merely a vulgar paper----"
+
+"And Mr. Plumber is merely an ordained minister of the Established
+Church. Are we, then, as churchmen, to expect our clergy to encourage,
+not only passively, but, also, actively, the already superabundant
+vulgarity of the public press?"
+
+The vicar had the worst of it; when he was once more alone he felt that
+there was no sort of doubt upon that point.
+
+Whether, intentionally or not, Mr. Luxmare managed to convey the
+impression that, in his opinion, the curate, while pretending to save
+souls with one hand, was doing his best to destroy them with the other,
+and that, in that singular course of procedure, he was being aided and
+abetted by the vicar. Mr. Harding had strong forebodings that the
+trouble, so far from being ended, was only just beginning. Those
+forebodings became still stronger when, scarcely an hour after Mr.
+Luxmare had left him, Mrs. Harding, entering the study like a passable
+imitation of a hurricane, laid a printed sheet in front of her husband
+with the air almost of a Jove hurling thunderbolts from the skies.
+
+"Mr. Harding, have you seen that paper?"
+
+It was the unescapable _Skittles_. The vicar groaned in spirit. He
+regarded it with weary eyes.
+
+"A copy of it now and then, my dear."
+
+"I have just discovered its existence with feelings of horror. That
+such a thing should be permitted to be is a national disgrace. Mr.
+Harding, you will be astounded to learn that the curate of Exdale is
+one of its chief contributors.
+
+"Scarcely, I think, one of its chief contributors."
+
+Mrs. Harding struck an attitude.
+
+"Is it possible that you are already aware that your ostensible
+colleague in the great task of snatching souls from the burning has all
+the time been doing Satan's work?"
+
+"My dear!--really!"
+
+"You know very well that I have objected to Mr. Plumber from the first.
+I have suspected the man. Now that my suspicions are more than
+verified, it is certain that he must go. The question is, when? Of
+course, before next Sunday."
+
+"You move too fast, Sophia."
+
+"In such a matter as this it is impossible to move too fast. Read
+that."
+
+Turning over a page of the paper, Mrs. Harding pointed to a "copy of
+verses."
+
+"Thank you, my dear, but, if you will permit me, I prefer to remain
+excused. I have no taste for that species of literature just now."
+
+"So I should imagine--either now or ever! The shameful and shameless
+rubbish has been written by your curate. I am told that it has been cut
+out and framed, and that it at present hangs in the taproom of 'The Pig
+and Whistle,' with these words scrawled beneath it: 'The Curate's
+Latest! Real Jam!' Is that the sort of handle which you wish to offer
+to the scoffers? I shall not leave this room until you promise me that
+before next Sunday Exdale Parish Church shall have seen the last of
+him."
+
+He did not promise that, but he promised something--with his fatal
+facility for promising. He promised that a meeting should be held at
+the vicarage before the following Sunday. That Mr. Plumber, the
+churchwardens, and the sidesmen should be invited to attend. That
+certain questions should be put to the curate. That he should be asked
+what he had to say for himself. And, although the vicar did not
+distinctly promise, in so many words, that the sense of the meeting
+should then be allowed to decide his fate, the lady certainly inferred
+as much.
+
+The meeting was held. Mr. Harding wrote to the curate, explaining
+matters as best he could--he felt that in trusting to his pen he would
+be safer than in trusting to word of mouth. Probably because he was
+conscious that he really had no choice, Mr. Plumber agreed to come. And
+he came. Besides the clergy and officers of the church, the only person
+present was the aforementioned Mr. Ingledew. He was a person of light
+and leading in the parish, and when he asked permission to attend, the
+vicar saw no sufficient ground to say him nay.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+That was one of the unhappiest days of Mr. Harding's life. He was one
+of those people who are possessed of the questionable faculty of being
+able to see both sides of a question at once. He saw, too plainly for
+his own peace of mind, what was to be said both for and against the
+curate. He feared that the meeting would only see what was only to be
+said against him. That the man would come prejudiced. And he felt--and
+that was the worst of all!--that, for the sake of a peace which was no
+peace, he was giving his colleague into the hands of his enemies, and
+shifting on to the shoulders of others the authority which was his own.
+
+The churchwardens were the first to arrive. It was plain, from the
+start, that, so far as the people's warden was concerned, the curate's
+fate was already signed and sealed. The sidesmen followed, one by one.
+The vicar had had no personal communication with them on the matter;
+but he took it for granted, from his knowledge of their characters,
+that though they lacked his power of expression, they might be expected
+to think as Mr. Luxmare thought. Mr. Ingledew's position was not
+clearly defined, but everybody knew the point of view from which he
+would judge the curate. He would pose as a critic of Literature--with a
+capital L!--and Mr. Harding feared that, in that character, the
+unfortunate Mr. Plumber might fare even worse with him than with the
+others.
+
+The curate was the last to arrive. He came into the room with his hat
+and stick in his hand. Going straight up to the vicar, he addressed to
+him a question which brought the business for which they were assembled
+immediately to the front.
+
+"What is it that you would wish to say to me, sir?"
+
+"It is about your contributions to the well-advertised _Skittles_, Mr.
+Plumber. There seems to be a strong feeling on the subject in the
+parish. I thought that we might meet together here and arrive at a
+common understanding."
+
+Mr. Plumber bowed. He turned to the others. He bowed to them. There was
+a pause, as if of hesitation as to what ought to be done. Then Mr.
+Luxmare spoke.
+
+"May I ask Mr. Plumber some questions?"
+
+The vicar beamed, or endeavoured to.
+
+"You had better, Mr. Luxmare, address that inquiry to Mr. Plumber."
+
+Mr. Luxmare addressed himself to Mr. Plumber--not genially.
+
+"The first question I would ask you, sir, is, whether it is true that
+you are a contributor to the paper which the vicar has named. The
+second question I would ask you, sir----"
+
+The curate interrupted him.
+
+"One moment, Mr. Luxmare. On what ground do you consider yourself
+entitled to question me?"
+
+"You are one of the parish clergy. I am one of its churchwardens. As
+such, I speak to you in the name of the parish."
+
+"I fail to understand you. Because I am one of the parish clergy it
+does not follow that I am in any way responsible for my conduct to the
+parish. My life would be not worth living if that were so. I am
+responsible to my vicar alone. So long as he is satisfied that I am
+doing my duty to him, you have no concern with me, and I have none with
+you."
+
+"Quite right, Mr. Plumber," struck in the vicar. "I have hinted as much
+to Mr. Luxmare already."
+
+The people's warden listened with lowering brows.
+
+"Then why have you brought us here, sir?--to be played with?"
+
+"The truth is, Mr. Luxmare--and you must forgive my speaking
+plainly--you have an exaggerated conception of the magnitude of your
+office. A churchwarden has certain duties to perform, but among them
+is not the duty of sitting in judgment on his clergy."
+
+"Then am I to understand that Mr. Plumber declines to answer my
+questions?"
+
+"It depends," said Mr. Plumber, "upon what your questions are. I trust
+that I may be always found ready, and willing, to respond to any
+inquiries, not savouring of impertinence, which may be addressed to me.
+I have no objection, for instance, to inform you, or any one, that I
+am, or rather, I have been, a contributor to _Skittles_."
+
+"Oh, you have, have you! May I ask if you intend to continue to
+contribute to that scandalous rag?"
+
+"Now you go too far. I am unable to bind myself by any promise as to my
+future intentions."
+
+"Then, sir, I say that you ought to be ashamed of yourself."
+
+"Mr. Luxmare!" cried the vicar.
+
+But the people's warden had reached the explosive point; he was bound
+to explode.
+
+"I am not to be put down, nor am I to be frightened from doing what I
+conceive to be my bounden duty. I tell you again, Mr. Plumber, sir,
+that you ought to be ashamed of yourself. And I say further, that it is
+to me a monstrous proposition, that a clergyman is to be at liberty to
+contribute to the rising flood of public immorality, and that his
+parishioners are not to be allowed to offer even a word of
+remonstrance. You may take this from me, Mr. Plumber, that so long as
+you continue one of its clergy, the parish church will be deserted. You
+will minister, if you are to minister at all, to a beggarly array of
+empty pews. And, since the parish is not to be permitted to speak its
+mind in private, I will see that an opportunity is given it to speak
+its mind in public. I will see that a public meeting is held. I promise
+you that it will be attended by every decent-minded man and woman in
+Exdale. Some home truths will be uttered which, I trust, will enlighten
+you as to what is, and what is not, the duty of a parish clergyman."
+
+"Have you quite finished, Mr. Luxmare?"
+
+The vicar asked the question in a tone of almost dangerous quiet.
+
+"Do not think," continued Mr. Luxmare, ignoring Mr. Harding, "that in
+this matter I speak for myself. I speak for the whole parish." He
+turned to his colleague, "Is that not so?"
+
+The vicar's warden did not seem to be completely at his ease. He looked
+appealingly at the vicar. He shuffled with his feet. But he spoke at
+last, prefacing his remarks with a sort of deprecatory little cough.
+
+"I am bound to admit that I consider it somewhat unfortunate that Mr.
+Plumber should have contributed to a publication of this particular
+class."
+
+Mr. Luxmare turned to the sidesmen.
+
+"What do you think?"
+
+The sidesmen did not say much, but they managed, with what they did
+say, to convey the impression that they thought as the churchwardens
+thought.
+
+"You see," exclaimed the triumphant Mr. Luxmare, "that here we are
+unanimous, and I give you my word that our unanimity is but typical of
+the unanimous feeling which pervades the entire parish."
+
+"Has anybody else anything which he would wish to say?"
+
+The vicar asked the question in the same curiously quiet tone of voice.
+Mr. Ingledew stood up.
+
+"Yes, vicar, I have something which I should rather like to say. I am
+not pretending to have, in this matter, any _locus standi_. Nor do I
+intend to assail Mr. Plumber on the lines which Mr. Luxmare has
+followed. To me it seems to be a matter of comparative indifference to
+which journal a man, be he cleric or layman, may choose to send his
+contributions. Journals nowadays are very much of a muchness, their
+badness is merely a question of degree. There is, however, one point on
+which I should like to be enlightened by Mr. Plumber. I am told that he
+is the author of some verses which were published in the issue of
+_Skittles_, dated July 11th, and entitled 'The Lingering Lover.' Is
+that so, Mr. Plumber?"
+
+As Mr. Ingledew asked his question, the curate, for the first time,
+showed signs of obvious uneasiness.
+
+"That is so," he said.
+
+Mr. Ingledew smiled. His smile did not seem to add to the curate's
+comfort.
+
+"I do not intend to criticise those verses. Probably Mr. Plumber will
+admit that by no standard of criticism can they be adjudged first rate.
+But, in this connection, I would make one remark--and here I think you
+will agree with me, vicar--that even a clergyman should be decently
+honest."
+
+"Pray," asked the vicar, who possibly had noticed Mr. Plumber's
+uneasiness, and had, thereupon, become uneasy himself, "what has
+honesty to do with the matter?"
+
+"A good deal, as I am about to show. Mr. Luxmare asked Mr. Plumber if
+he intended to continue to contribute to _Skittles_. Mr. Plumber
+declined to answer that question. I could have answered it; and now do.
+No more of Mr. Plumber's contributions will appear in _Skittles_."
+
+The curate started--indeed, everybody started--vicar, churchwardens,
+sidesmen and all.
+
+"What do you mean?" stammered Mr. Plumber.
+
+"I base my statement on a letter which I have this morning received
+from the editor of _Skittles_. In it that great man informs me that he
+will take care that no more of Mr. Plumber's contributions appear in
+the paper which he edits."
+
+Mr. Plumber went white to the lips.
+
+"What do you mean?" he repeated.
+
+Mr. Ingledew looked the curate full in the face. As Mr. Plumber met his
+glance, he cowered as if Mr. Ingledew's words had been so many blows
+with a stick.
+
+"Can you not guess my meaning, Mr. Plumber? Were you not aware that
+there are such things as literary detectives? In future, I would advise
+you to remember that there are. Directly I saw those verses I knew that
+you had stolen them. I happened to have the original in my possession.
+I sent that original to the editor of _Skittles_. The letter to which I
+have referred is his response. The verses which you sent to him as
+yours are no more yours than my watch is. Are you disposed contradict
+me, Mr. Plumber?"
+
+The curate was silent--with a silence which was eloquent.
+
+"Mr. Plumber has given a sufficient answer," said Mr. Ingledew, as the
+curate continued speechless. He turned to the vicar. "This is not one
+of those cases of remote plagiarism which abound: it is a case of clear
+theft, which are not so frequent. Mr. Plumber sent to this paper what
+was, to all intents and purposes, a copy of another man's work. He
+claimed it as his own. He received payment for it as if it had been his
+own. If he chooses, the editor of _Skittles_ can institute against him
+a criminal prosecution. If he does, Mr. Plumber will certainly be
+sentenced to a turn of imprisonment. As an example of impudent
+pilfering the affair is instructive. Perhaps, vicar, you would like to
+study it. Here are what Mr. Plumber calls his verses, and here are the
+verses from which his verses are stolen. As you will perceive, from a
+literary point of view, Mr. Plumber has merely perpetrated a new
+edition of another man's crime. Which is the worse, the original or the
+copy, is more than I can say. Here are the verses as they appeared in
+the peculiarly named paper of which you have, perhaps, already heard
+too much, and which, while it professes to be humorous, at least
+succeeds in being vulgar."
+
+Mr. Ingledew handed Mr. Harding what was evidently a marked copy of the
+paper which, no doubt, has its attractions for those who like that kind
+of thing. Mr. Plumber remained silent. He leant on his stick. His eyes
+were fixed on the floor. The vicar seemed almost afraid to glance in
+his direction.
+
+"And this," continued the softly speaking gentleman, who in spite of
+his carefully modulated tones, seemed destined to work the curate more
+havoc than the noisy parish mouthpiece, "is the publication in which the
+verses originally appeared. As you will see, it is a copy of a
+once-talked-of University magazine which is long since dead and done for.
+Possibly Mr. Plumber relied upon that fact to shield him from exposure."
+
+The vicar received the second paper with an air of what was
+unmistakably amazement. He stared at it as if in doubt that he was not
+being tricked by his eyes, or his spectacles, or something.
+
+"What--what's this?" he said.
+
+Mr. Ingledew explained,
+
+"It is a copy of _Cam-Isis_; a magazine which was edited and written by
+a body of Camford undergraduates some forty years ago."
+
+The more the vicar stared at the paper, the more his amazement seemed
+to grow. He was beginning to turn quite red.
+
+"Good gracious!" he exclaimed.
+
+"The original of Mr. Plumber's verses you will find on the page which I
+have marked. They are quite equal to their title, 'The Lass and the
+Lout.'"
+
+The Vicar's hand which held the paper dropped to his side. He looked up
+at the ceiling seemingly in a state of mind approaching stupefaction.
+As if unaware, words came from his lips.
+
+"It's a judgment."
+
+Mr. Ingledew rubbed his chin. He seemed to be pleased.
+
+"It certainly is a judgment, and one for which, I am afraid, Mr.
+Plumber was not prepared. But I flatter myself that no man, if the
+thing comes within my cognisance, is able to print another man's works
+as his own without my being able to detect and convict him of his
+guilt. I have not been on the look out for plagiarists all my life for
+nothing."
+
+The vicar's glance came down. He seemed all at once to become conscious
+of his surroundings. He looked about him with a startled air, as if he
+had been roused from a trance. He seemed quite curiously agitated. The
+words which he uttered were spoken a little wildly, as if he himself
+was not quite certain what it was that he was saying.
+
+"I have to thank you for all that you have said, gentlemen, and I can
+only assure you that the remarks which you have made demand, and shall
+receive, my most serious consideration. With regard to the papers"--he
+glanced at the two papers which he still was holding--"with regard to
+these papers, with your permission, Mr. Ingledew, I will retain them
+for the present. They shall be returned to you later." The owner of the
+papers nodded assent. "And now that all has been said which there is to
+say, I have to ask you, gentlemen, to leave me, and--and I wish you all
+good-day."
+
+The vicar himself opened the study door. He seemed almost to be
+hustling his visitors out of the room, his anxiety to be rid of them
+was so wholly undisguised. It is possible that both Mr. Luxmare and Mr.
+Ingledew would have liked to have made a few concluding observations,
+but neither of them was given a shred of opportunity. When, however,
+Mr. Plumber made a movement as if to go, Mr. Harding motioned to him
+with his hand to stay. And the vicar and the curate were left alone.
+
+A stranger would have found it difficult to decide which of the two
+seemed the more shame-faced. The curate still stood where he had been
+standing all through, leaning on his stick, with his eyes on the
+ground; while the vicar, with his grasp still on the handle of the
+door, stood with his face turned towards the wall. It was with an
+apparent effort that, moving towards his writing table, placing Mr.
+Ingledew's two papers in front of him, he seated himself in his
+accustomed chair. Taking off his spectacles, with his hands he gently
+rubbed his eyes as if they were tired.
+
+"Dear, dear!" he muttered, as if to himself. He sighed. He added, still
+more to himself, "The Lord's ways are past our finding out." Then he
+addressed himself to the curate.
+
+"Mr. Plumber!" Although the vicar spoke so softly, his hearer seemed to
+shrink away from him. "I have a confession which I must make to you."
+The curate looked up furtively, as if in fear.
+
+"When I was a young man I did many things of which I have since had
+good reason to be ashamed. Among the things, I used to write what Mr.
+Ingledew would say correctly enough it would be flattering to call
+nonsense. I regret to have to tell you that I wrote those verses to
+which Mr. Ingledew has just called our attention in that dead and gone
+Camford magazine."
+
+The curate stood up almost straight.
+
+"Sir!--Mr. Harding!"
+
+"I did. To my shame, I own it. I had nearly forgotten them. I had not
+seen a copy for years and years. I had hoped that there was none in
+existence. But it seems that that which a man does, which he would
+rather have left undone, is sure to rise, and confront him, we will
+trust, by the grace of God, not in eternity, but certainly in time."
+
+Mr. Plumber was trembling. The vicar continued, in a voice, and with a
+manner, the exquisite delicacy of which was indescribable.
+
+"I have esteemed it my duty to make you this confession in order that
+you may understand that I, too, have done that of which I have cause to
+be ashamed. And in making you this confession I must ask you to respect
+my confidence, as I shall respect yours."
+
+Mr. Plumber made a movement as if to speak. But, possibly his tongue
+was parched and refused its office. At any rate, he did nothing but
+stare at the vicar, with blanched cheeks, and strangely distended eyes.
+When Mr. Harding went on, his glance, which had hitherto been fixed
+upon the curate, fell--it may be that he wished to avoid the other's
+dreadful gaze.
+
+"I think, Mr. Plumber, you might prefer to leave Exdale and seek
+another sphere of duty. As it chances, I have had a recent inquiry from
+a friend who desires to know if I am acquainted with a gentleman who
+would care to accept a chaplaincy at a health resort in the Pyrenees.
+One moment." The curate made another movement as if to speak; the vicar
+checked him. "The stipend is guaranteed to be at least �200 a year;
+and, as there are also tutorial possibilities, on such an income, in
+that part of the world, a gentleman would be able to bring up his
+family in decent comfort. If you like, I will mention your name, and,
+in that case, I think I am in a position to promise that the post shall
+be place at your disposal."
+
+The curate's hat and stick dropped from his trembling hands. He seemed
+unconscious of their fate. He moved, or rather, it would be more
+correct to say, he lurched towards the vicar's table.
+
+"Sir!" he gasped. "Mr. Harding."
+
+It seemed that he would say more--much more; but that still his tongue
+was tied. His weight was on the table, as if, without the aid of its
+support, he would not be able to stand. Rising, leaning forward, the
+vicar gently laid his two hands upon the curate's. His voice quavered
+as he spoke.
+
+"Believe me, Mr. Plumber, we clergymen are no more immaculate than
+other men."
+
+The curate still was speechless. But he sank on his knees, and laying
+his face on the vicar's writing table, he cried like a child.
+
+
+
+
+                            "Em"
+
+
+                          CHAPTER I
+
+                  THE MAJOR'S INSTRUCTIONS
+
+"Don't tell me, miss; don't tell me, I say."
+
+And Major Clifford stood up, and shook his fist and stamped his foot in
+a way suggestive of the Black Country and wife beating. But Miss
+Maynard, who sat opposite to him, meek and mild, being used to his
+eccentric behaviour, was quite equal to the occasion. When he got very
+red in the face and seemed on the point of breaking a blood vessel, she
+just stood up, moved across the room, and put her hands upon his
+shoulders.
+
+"Uncle," she said, and her face was very close to his, "I'm sure I'm
+very much obliged to you."
+
+"It's all very well," the Major replied, pretending to struggle from
+her grasp. "It's all very well, but I say----"
+
+"Of course. That's exactly what you do say."
+
+And she kissed him. Then it was all over.
+
+When a young woman of a certain kind kisses an elderly gentleman of a
+certain temperament, it soothes his savage breast, like oil upon the
+troubled waters. And as Miss Maynard was a young woman whose influence
+was not likely to be ineffective with any man whether young or old,
+Major Clifford was tolerably helpless in her hands.
+
+Now, they called her "Em." Emily was her name, Emily Maynard, but from
+her babyhood the concluding syllables had been forgotten, and by
+general consent among her intimates she was "Em." There could be no
+doubt whether you called her Em or whether you did not, she was a young
+woman it was not unpleasant to know.
+
+She was pretty tall and pretty slender, quiet, like still waters
+running deep. She never made a noise herself, being a model of good
+behaviour, but she created in some people an irresistible inclination
+to look upon life as a first-rate joke.
+
+She had a tendency to throw everything into inextricable confusion by
+the depth of her enthusiasm. She managed many things, and with complete
+impartiality managed them all wrong. In that unassuming way of hers she
+took the lead in all well-directed efforts, and had a wonderful genius
+for setting her colleagues by the ears.
+
+At the present moment things had occurred which were the cause to her
+of no little sorrow. She was the treasurer of the District Visitor's
+Fund, and at the same time of the Coal and Clothing Clubs. In that
+capacity she had taken a view of the duties of her office which had
+caused some dissatisfaction to her friends.
+
+Being possessed of a bad memory, it had been her misfortune to receive
+several subscriptions to the District Visitors' Fund, of which she had
+forgotten to make any entry, and which she had paid away in a manner of
+which she was totally incapable of giving any account. In moments of
+generosity, too, she had bestowed the greater portion of the Coal Fund
+on unfortunate persons who were not of her parish, nor, it was to be
+feared, of any creed either. And in moments still more generous, the
+funds of the Clothing Club she had applied to the purchase of books for
+her Sunday School Library. Therefore, when the quarter ended and a
+request was made to examine her accounts and rectify them, she was in a
+position which was not exactly pleasant.
+
+Now there happened to be at St. Giles's a curate who was a Low
+Churchman. Miss Maynard had a tendency to "High;" and between these two
+there was no good feeling lost. It was this curate who was causing all
+the trouble. He had not only made some uncomfortable remarks, but he
+had gone so far as to suggest that Miss Maynard should resign her
+office, and on this particular morning he had made an appointment to
+call in order that, as he said, some decision might be arrived at.
+
+Major Clifford, I regret to say, was no churchgoer. In addition to
+which he had an unreasonable objection to what he called "parsons," and
+was wont to boast that he knew none of them, except the vicar, who was
+a sociable gentleman of a somewhat older school, even by sight.
+However, when he heard that the Rev. Philip Spooner was calling, and
+what was the purport of his intended visit, he announced his intention
+to favour the reverend gentleman with a personal interview, and to
+present him with a piece of his mind. Hence the strong words which head
+this chapter.
+
+Miss Maynard was not at all unwilling that he should see the Rev.
+Spooner, but she was exceedingly anxious that he should not wait for
+him as he would for a deadly enemy.
+
+"Uncle, promise me that you will be calm and gentle."
+
+"Calm and gentle!" cried the Major, banging his fist upon the table.
+"Calm and gentle! Do you mean to say, miss, that I would harm a fly!"
+
+"But I am afraid, uncle, that Mr. Spooner will not understand you so
+well as I do."
+
+"Then," said the Major, "if the man doesn't understand me, he must be a
+fool!"
+
+In which Miss Maynard begged to differ, so put her hands upon his
+shoulders, which was a favourite trick of hers, and said:
+
+"Uncle, you do love me, don't you? And I am sure you wouldn't hurt my
+feelings. You will be kind to Mr. Spooner for my sake, won't you?"
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+                           HIS NIECE'S WOOING
+
+It was a warm morning in a pleasant country lane, and a young
+gentleman, with a very broad brimmed hat, a very long frock-coat, and a
+very small, stiff shirt collar, was pacing meditatively to and fro,
+evidently waiting for someone. Every now and then he glanced up the
+lane which seemed deserted by ordinary passengers, and if he had not
+been a clergyman would no doubt have whistled.
+
+At last his patience was rewarded. Over the top of the low hedge a
+coquettish hat appeared sailing along, and presently a young woman came
+meekly round the corner, enjoying the fresh country air. It was Miss
+Maynard. The young gentleman advanced. He seemed to know her, for
+taking off his broad-brimmed hat, he kissed her, much in the same
+fashion as a short time before she had kissed the Major, only much more
+forcibly, and apparently with much enjoyment.
+
+"Em, I thought you were never coming."
+
+"I don't know," she said, and sighed. "I don't know. It's all vanity. I
+was thinking of your last Sunday's sermon," she continued as they
+wandered on, seemingly unconscious that his arm was round her waist.
+"It was so true."
+
+They walked on till they reached a gate which opened into a little
+woodland copse. Here, under the mighty trees, the shade was pleasant,
+and the grass cool and refreshing to the eye. They sat at the foot of a
+great old oak.
+
+"Em," said Mr. Roland--by the way, the Rev. John Roland was the young
+gentleman's name--"these meetings are very pleasant."
+
+"Yes," said Em, who was always truthful, "they are."
+
+"Therefore, I am afraid to run the risk of ending them."
+
+"What do you mean?" cried she.
+
+To be candid, four mornings out of five were taken up by these pleasant
+little meetings, and to end them would be to rob her of one of her most
+important occupations.
+
+"Em, you know what I mean."
+
+"I don't," said she.
+
+"You do," said he.
+
+"I do not," she said, and looked the other way.
+
+"Then I'll tell you." And he told her. "Em, I can keep silence no
+longer. I must tell your uncle all. And if he forbids me--"
+
+"I don't mind saying," she observed, taking advantage of the pause,
+"that I don't care if he does."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"John," she whispered.
+
+"Call me Jack."
+
+"No; it's so undignified for a clergyman." Some people would call it
+undignified for a young woman to lay her hand on a clergyman's
+shoulder. "What do I care if he says no? He never does say what he
+means the first time. I can just turn him round my finger. Whatever he
+said to you he would never dare to say no to me; at least, when I had
+done with him."
+
+"Let us hope so," said Mr. Roland. "But whatever happens, I feel that I
+have already been too long silent."
+
+"I don't know," murmured Em, with a saintlike expression in her eyes.
+"I rather like meeting you upon the sly."
+
+Mr. Roland, as a curate and so on, perceived this to be a sentiment in
+which, under any circumstances, it was impossible for him to
+acquiesce--at least, verbally.
+
+"No," he declared; "it must not be. This is a matter in which delay is
+almost worse than dangerous. I must go to him at once and tell him all."
+
+Miss Maynard yielded. She was not disinclined to have their little
+mutual understanding publicly announced, if only to gratify Miss Gigsby
+and one or two other young ladies.
+
+"Yes, Em," he continued, "I will go at once, and doubt will be ended."
+
+They went together to the end of the lane, then she departed to do a
+few little errands in the town, and the Rev. John Roland went on his
+visit to Major Clifford.
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+                            THE LADY'S LOVER
+
+The Major waited for his visitor--waited in a mood which, in spite of
+his promise to Miss Maynard, promised unpleasantness for Mr. Spooner.
+Time passed on, and he did not come. The Major paced up and down
+stairs, to and from the windows, and from room to room. Finally, he
+took a large meerschaum pipe from the mantelshelf in the smoking-room
+and smoked it in the drawing-room, a thing he would not have dared to
+do--very properly--if Miss Maynard had been at home.
+
+"I promised young Trafford I'd go and see what I thought of that new
+gun of his," growled the Major, "and here's that jackanapes keeping me
+in to listen to his insulting twaddle."
+
+The Major probably forgot that at any rate the jackanapes in question
+had no appointment with him.
+
+At last he threw open the window, and thrusting his head out, looked up
+and down the street to see if he could catch a glimpse of the expected
+Spooner.
+
+"The fellow's playing with me!" he told himself considerably above a
+whisper. "Like his confounded impudence!"
+
+Suddenly he caught sight of a shovel hat and clerical garments turning
+the street corner, and re-entering the room with some loss of dignity,
+commenced reading the "Broad Arrow" upside down. Presently there was a
+knock at the street door, and a stranger was shown upstairs
+unannounced.
+
+"I have called," he began.
+
+The Major rose.
+
+"I am perfectly aware why you have called," said he. "My niece is not
+at home."
+
+"No," said the visitor. "I am aware--"
+
+"But," continued the Major, who meant to carry the thing with a high
+hand, and give Mr. Spooner clearly to understand what his opinions
+were, "she has commissioned me to deal with the matter in her name."
+
+The Rev. John Roland--for it was the Rev. John Roland--looked somewhat
+mystified. He failed to see the drift of the Major's observation, and
+also did not fail to see that, for some reason, his reception was not
+exactly what he would have wished it to be.
+
+"I regret," he began, with the Major standing bolt upright, glancing at
+him with an air of a martinet lecturing an unfortunate sub for neglect
+of duty, "that it is my painful duty--"
+
+"Sir," said the Major, stiff as a poker, "you need regret nothing."
+
+The Rev. John Roland looked at him. It was very kind of him to say so,
+but a little premature.
+
+"I was about to say," he went on, feeling more awkward than he had
+intended to feel, "that owing to circumstances----"
+
+"On which we need not enter," said the Major. "Quite so--quite so!"
+
+He rose upon his toes, and sank back on his heels. Mr. Roland began to
+blush. He was not a particularly shy man, but under the circumstances
+the Major was trying.
+
+"But I was about to remark that----"
+
+"Sir," said the Major, shooting out his right hand towards Mr. Ronald
+in an unexpected manner, "once for all, sir, I say that I know all
+about it--once for all, sir! And the sooner we come to the point the
+better."
+
+"Really," murmured Mr. Roland, "I am at a loss--"
+
+"Then," cried the Major, suddenly flaring up in a way that was even
+startling, "let me tell you that I wonder you have the impertinence to
+say so. And I may further remark that the sooner you say what you have
+to say, and have done with it, the better for both sides."
+
+Thereupon he went stamping up and down the room with heavy strides. Mr.
+Roland was so taken aback, that for a moment he was inclined to think
+that the Major had been drinking.
+
+"Major Clifford," he said, with an air of dignity which he fondly hoped
+would tell, "I came here to speak to you on a matter intimately
+connected with your niece's future happiness."
+
+"What the dickens do you mean by your confounded impudence? Do you mean
+to insinuate, sir, that my niece's happiness can be affected by your
+trumpery nonsense?"
+
+"Sir," said Mr. Roland. "Major!"
+
+There was no doubt about it, the Major must be intoxicated. It was
+painful to witness in a man of his years, but what could you expect
+from a person of his habits of life? He began to wish he had postponed
+his visit to another day.
+
+"Don't Major me! Don't attempt any of your palavering with me! I'm not
+a fool, sir, and I am not an idiot, sir, and that's plain, sir!"
+
+"Major," he said--"Major Clifford, I will not tell you----"
+
+"You will not tell me, sir! What the dickens do you mean by you will
+not tell me? Do you mean to insult me in my own house, sir?"
+
+Mr. Roland was disposed to think that the insult was all on the other
+side, and inclined to fancy that a man who abused another before he
+knew either his name or errand, could be nothing but a hopeless
+lunatic.
+
+"This pains me," he observed--"pains me more than I can express."
+
+"Well, upon my life!" shouted the Major. "A fellow comes to my house
+with the deliberate intention of insulting me and mine, and yet he has
+the confounded insolence to tell me that it pains him!"
+
+"Major," Mr. Roland was naturally beginning to feel a little warm, "you
+are not sober."
+
+"Sober!" roared the Major. "Not sober! Confound it! this is too much!"
+
+And before the curate knew what was coming, the Major took him by the
+collar of his coat, led him from the room, and--let us say, assisted
+him down the stairs. The front door was flung open, and, in broad
+daylight, the astonished neighbours saw the Rev. John Roland, M.A., of
+Caius College, Cambridge, what is commonly called "kicked-out," of
+Major Clifford's house.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+                           THE MAJOR'S SORROW
+
+After the Major had disposed of his offensive visitor, he went upstairs
+to think the matter over. It began to suggest itself to him that, upon
+the whole, he had not, perhaps, been so kind and gentle as Miss Maynard
+had advised. But then, as he phrased it, the fellow had been so
+confoundedly impertinent.
+
+"Bully me, sir! Bully me!" cried the Major, taking a strong view of Mr.
+Roland's, under the circumstances, exceedingly mild deportment. "And
+the fellow said I wasn't sober! I never was so insulted in my life."
+
+The Major felt the insinuation keenly, because--for prudential reasons
+only--he was rigidly abstemious.
+
+When Miss Maynard returned, she was met at the door by the respected
+housekeeper, Mrs. Phillips, and her own maid, Mary Ann.
+
+"Oh, Miss," began Mrs. Phillips, directly the door was opened, "such
+goings on I never see in all my life--never in all my days. I thought I
+should have fainted."
+
+Miss Maynard turned pale. She thought of the mild, if aggravating,
+Spooner, and was fearful that her affectionate relative might in some
+degree have forgotten her emphasised directions.
+
+"Oh, Miss Em!" chimed in Mary Ann. "Whatever will come to us I don't
+know. If the police were to come and lock us all up, I shouldn't be
+surprised. Not a bit, I shouldn't."
+
+"Pray shut the door," observed Miss Maynard, who was still upon the
+doorstep. "Come in here, Phillips, and tell me what is the matter."
+
+Miss Maynard looked disturbed. Mr. Spooner was bad enough before, but
+he might make things very unpleasant indeed if anything had occurred to
+annoy him further.
+
+"Oh, Miss Em, Mr. Roland has been here."
+
+"Mr. Roland!"
+
+"Yes, miss. And there was the Major and he a-shouting at each other,
+and the next thing I see was the Major dragging of him downstairs and
+a-shoving of him down the front steps."
+
+Miss Maynard sank upon a chair. She seemed nearly fainting.
+
+"Mrs. Phillips, this is awful."
+
+"Awful ain't the word for it, miss. It's a case for the police."
+
+"Mrs. Phillips, this is worse than you can possibly conceive. I must
+see the Major."
+
+"The Major's in the drawing-room. Can't you hear him, miss?"
+
+Miss Maynard could hear him stamping overhead as though he were doing
+his best to bring the ceiling down.
+
+"Thank you; I will go to him."
+
+She did go to him. But first she went to her own room, shutting the
+door carefully behind her. Going to the dressing-table she put her arms
+upon it and hid her face within her hands.
+
+"Oh!" she said, "whatever shall I do?" Then she cried. "It's the most
+dreadful thing I ever heard of. Oh, how could he find it in his heart
+to treat me so?" She ceased crying and dried her eyes, "Never mind,
+it's not over yet. If he drives me to despair he shall know it was his
+doing."
+
+Then she stood up, took off her hat and coat, washed her face and eyes,
+and entered the drawing-room in her best manner.
+
+The Major was alone. He was perfectly aware that Miss Maynard had
+returned. He had seen her come up the street, he had heard her enter
+the house, but for reasons of his own he had not gone to meet her with
+that exuberant warmth with which, occasionally, it was his custom to
+greet her. He was in a towering passion. At least, he fully intended to
+be in a towering passion, but at the same time he was fully conscious
+that, under the circumstances, a towering passion was a very difficult
+thing to keep properly towering. And when Miss Maynard entered with the
+expression of her countenance so sweet and saintlike, he knew that
+there was trouble in the air. He looked at his watch.
+
+"Five-and-twenty minutes to two. Five-and-twenty minutes to two. And we
+lunch at half-past one. Those servants are disgraceful!"
+
+And he crossed the room to ring the bell.
+
+"Please don't ring," said Miss Maynard, quite up to the man[oe]uvre. "I
+wish to speak to you."
+
+"Oh, oh! Then perhaps you'll remember it is luncheon-time, and when
+we're likely to have any regularity in this establishment, perhaps
+you'll let me know."
+
+Miss Maynard drew herself up.
+
+"Pray don't attack me," she observed. "I don't wish to be kicked out of
+the house."
+
+The Major turned crimson. It was true that someone had been so kicked
+that morning, but it was unkind of Miss Maynard to insinuate that he
+had any desire to kick her.
+
+"Look here!" he cried, actually shaking his fist at her.
+
+"Don't threaten me," remarked Miss Maynard.
+
+"Threaten you! You leave me at home to meet a scoundrel!"
+
+"How dare you!" exclaimed Miss Maynard, who had momentarily forgotten
+whom it was she had left him there to meet.
+
+"How dare I. Well, upon my soul, this is a pretty thing!"
+
+"I had never thought that in a matter in which my happiness was so
+involved, my existence so bound up, you could have treated me so
+cruelly!"
+
+The Major stared. Like Mr. Roland, he was a little puzzled.
+
+"You tell me that your existence is bound up in that fellow's?"
+
+"Fellow! The fellow is worth twenty thousand such gentleman as you!"
+
+The Major was astounded. The remark amazed him. He really thought Miss
+Maynard must be demented, not knowing that Mr. Roland had thought the
+same thing of him not long before.
+
+"Oh, Major Clifford, when I am broken-hearted, and you follow me, if
+you ever do, to a miserable tomb, then--then may you never know what it
+is to be a savage!"
+
+The Major began to be alarmed. He feared Miss Maynard must be seriously
+unwell.
+
+"Eh! ah! you--you're not well. You--you don't take enough care.
+It's--it's indigestion."
+
+"Indigestion!" cried Miss Maynard, and she sank upon the couch.
+"Indigestion! He breaks my heart, and he says it's indigestion!"
+
+She burst into a flood of tears. The Major was terrified.
+
+"Mrs. Philips!" he shouted. "Mary Ann!"
+
+"Don't!" exclaimed Miss Maynard. "Call no one. Let me die alone! You
+have robbed me of the man I love!"
+
+"Love!" cried the Major, racking his brains to think where the tinge of
+insanity came in the family. "You love Spooner!"
+
+"Spooner!" replied Miss Maynard with contempt. "I love John Roland."
+
+"John Roland!" yelled the Major, thinking that he must be going mad as
+well. "Who the deuce is he?"
+
+"He asks me who he is, and he kicked him from his house this morning!"
+
+"I kicked him!" cried the Major, indignant at the charge. "I kicked
+Spooner!"
+
+"You did not!" persisted Miss Maynard between her tears. "You kicked
+Roland!"
+
+"I kicked Spooner!" said the Major.
+
+"Do you mean to say," enquired Miss Maynard, on whom a light was dimly
+breaking, "that you didn't know the gentleman you kicked was Mr.
+Roland?"
+
+"Roland!" exclaimed the Major, staggered. "Roland! I swear I thought
+the man was Spooner."
+
+"Oh!" gasped Miss Maynard, overwhelmed by the discovery, "Major
+Clifford, what have you done?"
+
+"Heaven knows!" groaned the Major as he sank into a chair. "Chanced six
+months' hard labour."
+
+There was silence for a few moments then the Major spoke again:
+
+"I know what I'll do, I'll write."
+
+Miss Maynard was agreeable. Getting pens, ink and paper he sat down and
+commenced his composition.
+
+"My Dear Sir,
+
+"As an unmitigated idiot and an ungentlemanly ruffian, I am only too
+conscious that I am an ass----"
+
+"I don't think I would put unmitigated idiot and ungentlemanly
+ruffian," suggested Miss Maynard mildly. "Perhaps Mr. Roland would not
+care to marry into a family which contained such characters as that."
+
+"Marry?" said the Major, arresting his pen.
+
+"Yes," replied Miss Maynard. "I think I would put it in this way: 'My
+Dear Mr. Roland----'"
+
+"But I never saw the man before. I don't know him from Adam."
+
+"Never mind," said Miss Maynard; "I do."
+
+So the Major wrote as he was told.
+
+"My Dear Mr. Roland,
+
+"I have to apologise for my conduct of this morning, which was entirely
+owing to a gross misconception on my part. If you will kindly call at
+your earliest convenience I will explain fully. I may say that your
+proposition has my heartiest approval--"
+
+"But I don't know what his proposition is," protested the Major.
+
+"Mr. Roland's proposition is that he should marry me," explained Miss
+Maynard. There was silence. Miss Maynard prepared to raise her
+pocket-handkerchief to her eyes. "Of course, if you wish to break my
+heart----"
+
+Then the Major succumbed, and Miss Maynard continued her dictation.
+
+----"and I shall have the greatest pleasure in welcoming you as my
+nephew.
+
+       "Believe me, with repeated apologies,
+                     Very faithfully yours,
+
+                                 "Arthur Clifford."
+
+Miss Maynard possessed herself of the epistle, and while the Major was
+addressing the envelope, added a postscript of her own:
+
+"My Dear Jack,
+
+"You see, I call you Jack for once--my silly old uncle has made a goose
+of himself. Please, please come this instant to your own Em, because--I
+will not say I want to kiss you. It would be most unseemly in the
+afternoon.
+
+                  "Ever, ever your own
+
+                                    "Em."
+
+This choice epistle, containing additions of which he was unconscious,
+the Major packed into an envelope, and, under Miss Maynard's
+supervision, dispatched to its destination by a maid. Then they went
+down, models of propriety, to luncheon.
+
+It was after that meal, when they were again in the drawing-room, that
+there came a knock at the street door. Steps were heard coming up the
+stairs.
+
+"It is he!" cried Miss Maynard, with that intuition bestowed upon true
+love preparing to receive him in her arms.
+
+Fortunately, however, he eluded her embrace, because the visitor
+happened to be Mr. Spooner.
+
+"Mr. Spooner!" cried Miss Maynard.
+
+"Miss--Miss Maynard," said Mr. Spooner, "I--I beg your pardon."
+
+"The Rev. William Spooner--Major Clifford."
+
+Miss Maynard introduced them. The gentlemen looked at each other. At
+least, the Major looked at Mr. Spooner. Mr. Spooner, after the first
+shy glance, seemed to be studying the pattern of the carpet.
+
+"With regard to the purport of your visit," went on Miss Maynard, using
+her finest dictionary words, "I have to place in your hands my
+resignation of the offices I have hitherto so unworthily held. With
+reference to the unfortunately mismanaged--er--book-keeping, to make
+that all right"--it was rather a comedown--"Major Clifford wishes to
+present you with a donation of," she paused, "of twenty-five guineas."
+
+"Fifty," growled the Major, much disgusted. "For goodness sake, make it
+fifty while you are about it!"
+
+"Just so," said Miss Maynard blandly. "The Major is particularly
+anxious to make it fifty guineas."
+
+The Major glared at her. If they had been alone, and the circumstances
+had been different, he would no doubt have given her a small piece of
+his mind. As it was--well, discretion is the better part of valour.
+
+Mr. Spooner began his speech:
+
+"I--I am sure we shall be very happy; I--I should say we shall
+exceedingly; that is, no doubt the donation is--is-- At the same time,
+Miss--Miss Maynard's services, though--though--"
+
+He went blundering on, Miss Maynard looking at him stonily, raising not
+a finger to his help. The Major took his bearings. He was a tall, thin
+young gentleman with a white face--which, however, was just now
+pinkish--white hair upon the top of his head, and a faint suspicion of
+more white hair upon his upper lip. It would have been cruel to apply
+assault and battery to one so innocent.
+
+While Mr. Spooner was still stammering, and stuttering there came
+another knock at the street door. Miss Maynard gave a slight jump.
+There was no mistake about it this time. Somebody came bolting up the
+stairs apparently three steps at a time. The door was thrown open.
+Somebody entered the room, and in about two seconds in spite of the
+assembled company Miss Maynard and the Rev. John Roland were locked
+breast to breast. To do the young man justice it was not his idea of
+things at all. He was plainly taken a little aback. But the young
+woman's enthusiasm was not to be restrained.
+
+"This," explained Miss Maynard, holding Mr. Roland by his coat sleeve,
+"this is the Rev. John Roland. John, this is my uncle."
+
+There was a striking difference between the tones in which she made the
+two announcements. The two gentlemen bowed. They had had the pleasure
+of meeting before. One, if not both, felt a little awkward. But Miss
+Maynard did not care two pins how they felt. She transferred her
+attentions to Mr. Spooner.
+
+"I am going to leave St. Giles's," she observed; "the service is too
+low. I am going to St. Simon Stylites. I suppose, John, I may as well
+tell Mr. Spooner that you are going to be my husband."
+
+John was silent. So was Mr. Spooner. The latter was gentleman amazed
+not to say indignant. In his heart of hearts he had been persuaded that
+Miss Maynard was consumed by a hopeless passion for William Spooner.
+
+"Perhaps Miss Maynard will become treasurer of the Clothing Club at St.
+Simon Stylites."
+
+Had it not been a case of two clergyman, Mr. Roland might possibly have
+liked to have had a try at knocking Mr. Spooner down. As it was he
+refrained.
+
+"If Miss Maynard does so honour us, she at least need fear no insults
+from the clergy."
+
+Miss Maynard favoured him with a lovely smile, and Mr. Spooner was
+annihilated.
+
+Since then Mr. Roland and Miss Maynard have been united in the bonds of
+holy matrimony. The ceremony was performed at St. Simon Stylites, and
+the Rev. William Spooner was, after all, one of the officiating clergy.
+Mr. Roland is at present Vicar of a parish in the neighbourhood of
+Stoke-cum-Poger, of which parish Mrs. Roland is also Vicaress. He is
+very "High," and it is darkly whispered that certain courts possessing
+very nicely defined spiritual powers have their eyes upon him. Of that
+we know nothing, but we do know that he is possessed of a promising
+family, and that, not so very long ago, Mrs. Roland presented him with
+a second Em.
+
+
+
+
+                         A Relic of the Borgias
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+Vernon's door was opened, hastily, from within, just as I had my hand
+upon the knocker. Someone came dashing out into the street. It was not
+until he had almost knocked me backwards into the gutter that I
+perceived that the man rushing out of Vernon's house was Crampton.
+
+"My dear Arthur!" I exclaimed. "Whither away so fast?"
+
+He stood and stared at me, the breath coming from him with great
+palpitations. Never had I seen him so seriously disturbed.
+
+"Benham," he gasped, "our friend, Vernon, is a scoundrel."
+
+I did not doubt it. I had had no reason to suppose the contrary. But I
+did not say so. I held my tongue. Crampton went on, gesticulating, as
+he spoke, with both fists clenched; dilating on the cause of his
+disorder with as much freedom as if the place had been as private as
+the matters of which he treated; apparently forgetful that, all the
+time, he stood at the man's street door.
+
+"You know he stole from me my Lilian--promised she should be his wife!
+They were to have been married in a month. And now he's jilted
+her--thrown her over--as if she were a thing of no account. Made her the
+laughing stock of all the town! And for whom do you think, of all the
+women in the world? Mary Hartopp--a widow that should know better! It's
+not an hour since I was told. I came here straight. And now Mr. Vernon
+knows something of my mind."
+
+I could not help but think, as he went striding away, as if he were
+beside himself with rage--without giving me a chance to say a
+word--that all the world would quickly learn something of it too.
+
+The moment seemed scarcely to be a propitious one for interviewing
+Decimus Vernon. He would hardly be in a mood to receive a visitor. But,
+as the matter of which I wished to speak to him was of pressing
+importance, and another opportunity might not immediately occur, I
+decided to approach him as if unconscious of anything untoward having
+happened.
+
+As I began to mount the stairs there came stealing, rather than walking
+down them, Vernon's man, John Parkes. At sight of me, the fellow
+started.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Benham, sir, it's you! I thought it was Mr. Crampton back
+again."
+
+I looked at Parkes, who seemed sufficiently upset. I had known the
+fellow for years.
+
+"There's been a little argument, eh, Parkes?"
+
+Parkes raised both his hands.
+
+"A little argument, sir! There's been the most dreadful quarrel I ever
+heard."
+
+"Where is Mr. Vernon?"
+
+"He's in the library, sir, where Mr. Crampton left him. Shall I go and
+tell him that you would wish to see him?"
+
+Parkes eyed me in a manner which plainly suggested that, if he were in
+my place, he should wish to do nothing of the kind. I declined his
+unspoken suggestion, preferring, also, to announce myself.
+
+I rapped with my knuckles at the library door. There was no answer. I
+rapped again. As there was still no response, I opened the door and
+entered.
+
+"Vernon?" I cried.
+
+I perceived at a glance that the room was empty. I was aware that,
+adjoining this apartment was a room which he fitted up as a bedroom,
+and in which he often slept. I saw that the door of this inner room was
+open. Concluding that he had gone in there, I went to the threshold and
+called "Vernon!"
+
+My call remained unanswered. A little wondering where the man could he,
+I peeped inside. My first impression was that this room, like the
+other, was untenanted. A second glance, however, revealed a booted
+foot, toe upwards, which was thrust out from the other side of the bed.
+Thinking that he might be in one of his wild moods, and was playing me
+some trick, I called out to him again.
+
+"Vernon, what little game are you up to now?"
+
+Silence. And in the silence there was, as it were, a quality which set
+my heart in a flutter. I became conscious of there being, in the air,
+something strange. I went right into the room, and I looked down on
+Decimus Vernon.
+
+I thought that I had never seen him look more handsome than he did
+then, as he lay on his back on the floor, his right arm raised above
+his head, his left lying lightly across his breast, an expression on
+his face which was almost like a smile, looking, for all the world as
+if he were asleep. But I was enough of a physician to feel sure that he
+was dead.
+
+For a moment or two I hesitated. I glanced quickly about the room. What
+had been his occupation when death had overtaken him seemed plain. On
+the dressing table was an open case of rings. Three or four of them lay
+in a little heap upon the table. He had, apparently, been trying them
+on. I called out, with unintentional loudness--indeed, so loudly, that,
+in that presence, I was startled by the sound of my own voice.
+
+"Parkes?"
+
+Parkes came hurrying in.
+
+"Did you call, sir?"
+
+He knew I had called. The muscles of the fellow's face were trembling.
+
+"Mr. Vernon's dead."
+
+"Dead!"
+
+Parkes' jaw dropped open. He staggered backwards.
+
+"Come and look at him."
+
+He did as I told him, unwillingly enough. He stood beside me, looking
+down at his master as he lay upon the floor. Words dropped from his
+lips.
+
+"Mr. Crampton didn't do it."
+
+I caught the words up quickly.
+
+"Of course he didn't, but--how do you know?"
+
+"I heard Mr. Vernon shout 'Go to the devil' to him as he went
+downstairs. Besides, I heard Mr. Vernon moving about the room after Mr.
+Crampton had gone."
+
+I gave a sigh of relief. I had wondered. I knelt at Vernon's side. He
+was quite warm, but I could detect no pulsation.
+
+"Perhaps, Mr. Benham, sir," suggested Parkes, "Mr. Vernon has fainted,
+or had a fit, or something."
+
+"Hurry and fetch a doctor. We shall see."
+
+Parkes vanished. Although my pretensions to medical knowledge are but
+scanty, I had no doubt whatever that a doctor would pronounce that
+Decimus Vernon was no longer to be numbered with the living. How he had
+come by his death was another matter. His expression was so tranquil,
+his attitude, as of a man lying asleep upon his back, so natural; that
+it almost seemed as if death had come to him in one of those
+commonplace forms in which it comes to all of us. And yet----
+
+I looked about me to see if there was anything unusual which
+might catch the eye. A scrap of paper, a bottle, a phial, a
+syringe--something which might have been used as a weapon. I could detect
+no sign of injury on Vernon's person; no bruise upon his head or face; no
+flow of blood. Stooping over him, I smelt his lips. There are certain
+poisons the scent of which is unmistakable, the odour of some of those
+whose effect is the most rapid lingers long after death has intervened.
+I have a keen sense of smell, but about the neighbourhood of Decimus
+Vernon's mouth there was no odour of any sort or kind. As I rose, there
+was the sound of some one entering the room beyond.
+
+"Decimus?"
+
+The voice was a woman's. I turned. Lilian Trowbridge was standing at
+the bedroom door. We exchanged stares, apparently startled by each
+other's appearance into momentary speechlessness. She seemed to be in a
+tremor of excitement. Her lips were parted. Her big, black eyes seemed
+to scorch my countenance. She leaned with one hand against the side of
+the door, as if seeking for support to enable her to stand while she
+regained her breath.
+
+"Mr. Benham--You! Where is Decimus? I wish to speak to him."
+
+Her unexpected entry had caused me to lose my presence of mind. The
+violence of her manner did not assist me in regaining it. I stumbled in
+my speech.
+
+"If you will come with me into the other room, I will give you an
+explanation."
+
+I made an awkward movement forward, my impulse being to conceal from
+her what was lying on the floor. She detecting my uneasiness,
+perceiving there was something which I would conceal, swept into the
+room, straight to where Vernon lay.
+
+"Decimus! Decimus!"
+
+She called to him. Had the tone in which she spoke, then, been in her
+voice when she enacted her parts in the dramas of the mimic stage, her
+audiences would have had no cause to complain that she was wooden. She
+turned to me, as if at a loss to comprehend her lover's silence.
+
+"Is he sleeping?" I was silent. Then, with a little gasp, "Is he dead?"
+I still made no reply. She read my meaning rightly. Even from where I
+was standing, I could see her bosom rise and fall. She threw out both
+her arms in front of her. "I am glad!" she cried, "I am glad that he is
+dead!"
+
+She took me, to say the least of it, aback.
+
+"Why should you be glad?"
+
+"Why? Because, now, she will not have him!"
+
+I had forgotten, for the instant, what Crampton had spluttered out upon
+the doorstep. Her words recalled it to my mind. "Don't you know that he
+lied to me, and I believed his lies."
+
+She turned to Vernon with a gesture of scorn so frenzied, so intense,
+that it might almost have made the dead man writhe.
+
+"Now, at any rate, if he does not marry me, he will marry no one else."
+
+Her vehemence staggered me. Her imperial presence, her sonorous voice,
+always were, theatrically, among her finest attributes. I had not
+supposed that she had it in her to display them to such terrible
+advantage. Feeling, as I did feel, that I shared my manhood with the
+man who had wronged her, the almost personal application of her fury I
+found to be more than a trifle overwhelming. It struck me, even then,
+that, perhaps, after all, it was just as well for Vernon that he had
+died before he had been compelled to confront, and have it out with,
+this latest illustration of a woman scorned.
+
+Suddenly, her mood changed. She knelt beside the body of the man who so
+recently had been her lover. She lavished on him terms of even fulsome
+endearment.
+
+"My loved one! My darling! My sweet! My all in all!"
+
+She showered kisses on his lips and cheeks, and eyes, and brow. When
+the paroxysm had passed--it was a paroxysm--she again stood up.
+
+"What shall I have of his, for my very own? I will have something to
+keep his memory green. The things which he gave me--the things which he
+called the tokens of his love--I will grind into powder, and consume
+with flame."
+
+In spite of herself, her language smacked of the theatre. She looked
+round the room, as if searching for something portable, which it might
+be worth her while to capture. Her glance fell upon the open case of
+rings. With eager eyes she scanned the dead man's person. Kneeling down
+again, she snatched at the left hand, which lay lightly on his breast.
+On one of the fingers was a cameo ring. On this her glances fastened.
+She tore, rather than took it from its place.
+
+"I'll have that! Yes! That!"
+
+She broke into laughter. Rising she held out the ring towards me. I
+regarded it intently. At the time, I scarcely knew why. It was, as I
+have said, a cameo ring. There was a woman's head cut in white relief,
+on a cream ground. It reminded me of Italian work which I had seen, of
+about the sixteenth century. The cameo was in a plain, and somewhat
+clumsy, gold setting. The whole affair was rather a curio, not the sort
+of ring which a gentleman of the present day would be likely to care to
+wear.
+
+"Look at it. Observe it closely! Keep it in your mind, so that you may
+be sure to know it should you ever chance on it again. Isn't it a
+pretty ring--the prettiest ring you ever saw? In memory of him"--she
+pointed to what was on the floor behind her--"I will keep it till I
+die!"
+
+Again she burst into that hideous, and, as it seemed to me, wholly
+meaningless laughter. Her bearing, her whole behaviour, was rather that
+of a mad woman, than a sane one. She affected me most unpleasantly. It
+was with feelings of unalloyed relief that I heard footsteps entering
+the library, and turning, perceived that Parkes had arrived with the
+doctor.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+When Vernon's death became generally known, a great hubbub arose. Mrs.
+Hartopp went almost, if not quite, out of her senses. If I remember
+rightly, nearly twelve months elapsed before she was sufficiently
+recovered to marry Phillimore Baines. The cause of Vernon's death was
+never made clear. The doctors agreed to differ; the post-mortem
+revealed nothing. There were suggestions of heart-disease; the jury
+brought it in valvular disease of the heart. There were whispers of
+poison, which, as no traces of any were found in the body, the coroner
+pooh-poohed. And, though there were murmurs of its being a case of
+suicide, no one, so far as I am aware, hinted at its being a case of
+murder.
+
+To the surprise of many people, and to the amusement of more, Arthur
+Crampton married Lilian Trowbridge. He had been infatuated with her
+all along. His infatuation even survived her yielding to Decimus
+Vernon--bitter blow though that had been--and I have reason to believe
+that, on the very day on which Vernon was buried, he asked her to be
+his wife. Whether she cared for him one snap of her finger is more than
+I should care to say; I doubt it, but, at least, she consented. At very
+short notice she quitted the stage, and, as Mrs. Arthur Crampton, she
+retired into private life. Her married life was a short, if not a merry
+one. Within twelve months of her marriage, in giving birth to a daughter,
+Mrs. Crampton died.
+
+I had seen nothing since their marriage either of her or her husband. I
+was therefore the more surprised when, about a fortnight after her
+death, there came to me a small package, accompanied by a note from
+Arthur Crampton. The note was brief almost to the point of curtness.
+
+Dear Benham,--
+
+My wife expressed a wish that you should have, as a memorial of her, a
+sealed packet which would be found in her desk.
+
+I hand you the packet precisely as I found it.
+
+                  Yours sincerely,
+
+                               Arthur Crampton.
+
+Within an outer wrapper of coarse brown paper was an inner covering of
+cartridge paper, sealed with half a dozen seals. Inside the second
+enclosure was a small, duodecimo volume, in a tattered binding. Half a
+dozen leaves at the beginning were missing. There was nothing on the
+cover. What the book was about, or why Mrs. Crampton had wished that I
+should have it, I had not the faintest notion. The book was printed in
+Italian--my acquaintance with Italian is colloquial, of the most
+superficial kind. It was probably a hundred years old, and more. Nine
+pages about the middle of the volume were marked in a peculiar fashion
+with red ink, several passages being trebly underscored. My curiosity
+was piqued. I marched off with the volume there and then, to a bureau
+of translation.
+
+There they told me that the book was an old, and possibly, valuable
+treatise, on Italian poisons and Italian poisoners. They translated for
+me the passages which were underscored. The passages in question dealt
+with the pleasant practice with which the Borgias were credited of
+having destroyed their victims by means of rings--poison rings. One
+passage in particular purported to be a minute description of a famous
+cameo ring which was supposed to have belonged to the great Lucrezia
+herself.
+
+As I read a flood of memory swept over me--what I was reading was an
+exact description, so far as externals went at any rate, of the cameo
+ring, which I had seen Lilian Trowbridge remove after he was dead from
+one of the fingers of Decimus Vernon's left hand. I recalled the
+frenzied exultation with which she had thrust it on my notice, her
+almost demoniac desire that I should impress it on my recollection.
+What did it mean? What was I to understand? For three or four days I
+was in a state of miserable indecision. Then I resolved I would keep
+still. The man and the woman were both dead. No good purpose would be
+served by exposing old sores. I put the book away, and I never looked
+at it again for nearly eighteen years.
+
+The consciousness that his wife had spoken to me, with such a voice
+from the grave, did not tend to increase my desire to cultivate an
+acquaintance with Arthur Crampton. But I found that circumstances
+proved stronger than I. Crampton was a lonely man, his marriage had
+estranged him from many of his friends; now that his wife had gone he
+seemed to turn more and more to me as the one person on whose friendly
+offices he could implicitly rely. I learned that I was incapable of
+refusing what he so obviously took for granted.  The child, which had
+cost the mother her life, grew and flourished. In due course of time
+she became a young woman, with all her mother's beauty, and more
+than her mother's charms: for she had what her mother had always
+lacked--tenderness, sweetness, femininity. Before she was eighteen she
+was engaged to be married. The engagement was in all respects an ideal
+one. On her eighteenth birthday, it was to be announced to the world.
+A ball was to be given, at which half the county was expected to be
+present, and the day before, I went down, prepared to take my share in
+the festivities.
+
+In the evening, Crampton, his daughter, Charlie Sandys, which was the
+name of the fortunate young gentleman, and I were together in the
+drawing-room. Crampton, who had vanished for some seconds, re-appeared,
+bearing in both his hands, with something of a flourish, a large
+leather case. It looked to me like an old-fashioned jewel case. Which,
+indeed, it was. Crampton turned to his daughter.
+
+"I am going to give you part of your birthday present to-day,
+Lilian--these are some of your mother's jewels."
+
+The girl was in an ecstacy of delight, as what girl of her age would
+not have been? The case contained jewels enough to stock a shop. I
+wondered where some of them had come from--and if Crampton knew more of
+the source of their origin than I did. Wholly unconscious that there
+might be stories connected with some of the trinkets which might not be
+pleasant hearing, the girl, girl-like, proceeded to try them on. By the
+time she had finished they were all turned out upon the table. The box
+was empty. She announced the fact.
+
+"There! That's all!"
+
+Her lover took up the empty case.
+
+"No secret repositories, or anything of that sort? Hullo!--speak of
+angels!--what's this?"
+
+"What's what?"
+
+The young girl's head and her lover's were bent together over the empty
+box. Sandys' fingers were feeling about inside it.
+
+"Is this a dent in the leather, or is there something concealed beneath
+it?"
+
+What Sandys referred to was sufficiently obvious. The bottom of the box
+was flat, except in one corner, where a slight protuberance suggested,
+as Sandys said, the possibility of there being something concealed
+beneath. Miss Crampton, already excited by her father's gift, at once
+took it for granted that it was the case.
+
+"How lovely!" she exclaimed. She clapped her hands. "I do believe
+there's a secret hiding-place."
+
+If there was, it threatened to baffle our efforts at discovery. We all
+tried our hands at finding, it, but tried in vain. Crampton gave it up.
+
+"I'll have the case examined by an expert. He'll soon be able to find
+your secret hiding-place, though, mind you, I don't say that there is
+one."
+
+There was an exclamation from young Sandys.
+
+"Don't you? Then you'd be safe if you did, because there is!"
+
+Miss Crampton looked eagerly over his shoulder.
+
+"Have you found it? Yes! Oh, Charlie! Is there anything inside?"
+
+"Rather, there's a ring. What a queer old thing! Whatever made your
+mother keep it hidden away in there?"
+
+I knew, in an instant. I recognised it, although I had only seen it
+once in my life, and that once was sundered by the passage of nineteen
+years. Mr. Sandys was holding in his hand the cameo ring which I had
+seen Lilian Trowbridge remove from Decimus Vernon's finger, and which
+was own brother to the ring described in the tattered volume, which she
+had directed her husband to send me--"as a memory"--as having been one
+of Lucrezia Borgia's pretty playthings. I was so confounded by the rush
+of emotions occasioned by its sudden discovery, that, for the moment, I
+was tongue-tied.
+
+Sandys turned to Miss. Crampton.
+
+"It's too large for you. It's large enough for me. May I try it on?"
+
+I hastened towards him. The prospect of what might immediately ensue
+spurred me to inarticulate speech.
+
+"Don't! For God's sake, don't! Give that ring to me, sir!"
+
+They stared at me, as well they might. My sudden and, to them,
+meaningless agitation was a bolt from the blue. Young Sandys withdrew
+from me the hand which held the ring.
+
+"Give it to you?--why?--is it, yours?"
+
+As I confronted the young fellow's smiling countenance, I felt myself
+to be incapable, on the instant, of arranging my thoughts in sufficient
+order to enable me to give them adequate expression. I appealed for
+help to Crampton.
+
+"Crampton, request Mr. Sandys to give me that ring. I implore you to do
+as I ask you. Any explanation which you may require, I will give you
+afterwards."
+
+Crampton looked at me, open-mouthed, in silence. He never was
+quick-witted. My excitement seemed to amuse his daughter.
+
+"What is the matter with you, Mr. Benham?" She turned to her lover.
+"Charlie, do let me see this marvellous ring."
+
+I renewed my appeal to her father.
+
+"Crampton, by all that you hold dear, I entreat you not to allow your
+daughter to put that ring upon her finger."
+
+Crampton assumed a judicial air--or what he intended for such.
+
+"Since Benham appears to be so very much in earnest--though I confess
+that I don't know what there is about the ring to make a fuss
+for--perhaps, Lilian, by way of a compromise, you will give the ring
+to me."
+
+"One moment, papa: I think that, as Charley says, it is too large for
+me."
+
+I dashed forward. Mr. Sandys, mistaking my purpose, or, possibly,
+supposing I was mad, interposed; and, in doing so, killed the girl he
+was about to marry. Before I could do anything to prevent her, she had
+slipped the ring upon her finger. She held out her hand for us to see.
+
+"It is too large for me--look."
+
+She touched the ring with the fingers of her other hand. In doing so,
+no doubt, unconsciously, she pressed the cameo. A startled look came on
+her face. She gazed about her with a bewildered air. And she cried, in
+a tone of voice which, long afterwards, was ringing in my ears.
+
+"Mamma!"
+
+Ere we could reach her, she had fallen to the ground. We bent over her,
+all three of us, by this time, sufficiently in earnest. She lay on her
+back, her right hand above her head; her left, on one of the fingers of
+which was the ring, resting lightly on her breast. There was the
+expression of something like a smile upon her face, and she looked as
+if she slept. But she was dead.
+
+
+
+                                THE END
+
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+                   W. JOLLY & SONS PRINTERS ABERDEEN
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Between the Dark and the Daylight, by Richard Marsh
+
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+
+Project Gutenberg's Between the Dark and the Daylight, by Richard Marsh
+
+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: Between the Dark and the Daylight
+
+Author: Richard Marsh
+
+Release Date: November 9, 2011 [EBook #37966]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN THE DARK AND THE DAYLIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1">Transcriber's Notes:<br>
+<br>
+1. Page scan source:<br>
+http://books.google.com/books?id=FjMPAAAAQAAJ</p>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="continue"><b>THIRD IMPRESSION NOW READY</b></p>
+
+<p class="center"><b>In Crown 8vo, Handsome Pictorial Cloth. Price 6s. With<br>
+Frontispiece by Harold Piffard.</b></p>
+<br>
+
+<h4>RICHARD MARSH'S New Book</h4>
+
+<h2>AN ARISTOCRATIC DETECTIVE</h2>
+
+<h5>BY</h5>
+
+<h3>RICHARD MARSH</h3>
+
+<h5>Author of</h5>
+
+<h4>'FRIVOLITIES,' 'THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN,' 'AMUSEMENT ONLY,'<br>
+'THE BEETLE,' 'THE CHASE OF THE RUBY,' ETC.</h4>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="normal"><b>Court Circular.</b>--'Mr. Richard Marsh tells in a very agreeable manner a
+number of detective stories of the Sherlock Holmes order.... The plots
+are very ingenious, and are cleverly worked out, and the book
+altogether will enhance the reputation of the author.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><b>Scotsman.</b>--'Mr. Marsh is a skilled writer ... these tales make a book
+that should not fail to please anyone who can be entertained by
+cleverly made-up mysteries.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><b>Dundee Advertiser.</b>--'&quot;An Aristocratic Detective&quot; is from the pen of
+* Richard Marsh, and displays that writer's customary inventiveness and
+realistic manner. It relates the experiences of the Hon. Augustus
+Champnell, who emulates Sherlock Holmes in the following up of puzzling
+cases. These are very cutely devised and smartly worked out. All
+through Mr. Marsh is thoroughly interesting.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><b>Eastern Morning News.</b>--'The whole of the sketches are vigorous and
+racy, being told in a lively, up-to-date manner, and some of the
+characters are exceptionally well drawn ... anyone in search of a
+stirring volume will read this one with great interest.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><b>County Gentleman.</b>--'Mr. Marsh is known to be a skilled craftsman in
+this kind of work, and his Champnell stories are all worth reading.'</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<h4>London: DIGBY, LONG &amp; CO., 18 Bouverie St., E.C.</h4>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>BETWEEN THE DARK AND<br>
+THE DAYLIGHT</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<table cellpadding="20px" style="width:50%; margin-left:25%; border:2px solid black">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<h4>POPULAR SIX SHILLING NOVELS.</h4>
+
+<hr class="W10">
+
+<p class="continue"><b>By MAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFITHS</b></p>
+<p class="hang2" style="margin-top:-9px">A Bid for Empire</p>
+
+<p class="continue"><b>By J. B. FLETCHER</b></p>
+<p class="hang2" style="margin-top:-9px">Bonds of Steel</p>
+
+<p class="continue"><b>BY MARY E. MANN</b></p>
+<p class="hang2" style="margin-top:-9px">The Fields of Dulditch</p>
+
+<p class="continue"><b>By HELEN MATHERS</b></p>
+<p class="hang2" style="margin-top:-9px">Venus Victrix</p>
+
+<p class="continue"><b>By Mrs. LEITH-ADAMS</b> (Mrs. De Courcy Laffan)</p>
+<p class="hang2" style="margin-top:-9px">What Hector had to Say</p>
+
+<p class="continue"><b>By THE COUNTESS DE SULMALLA</b></p>
+<p class="hang2" style="margin-top:-9px">Under the Sword</p>
+
+<p class="continue"><b>By FERGUS HUME</b></p>
+<p class="hang2" style="margin-top:-9px">The Crime of the Crystal<br>
+The Pagan's Cup</p>
+
+<p class="continue"><b>By Mrs. BAGOT-HARTE</b></p>
+<p class="hang2" style="margin-top:-9px">In Deep Waters<br>
+A Daring Spirit</p>
+
+<p class="continue"><b>By FLORENCE WARDEN</b></p>
+<p class="hang2" style="margin-top:-9px">Lady Joan's Companion</p>
+
+<p class="continue"><b>By L. T. MEADE</b></p>
+<p class="hang2" style="margin-top:-9px">Through Peril for a Wife</p>
+
+<p class="continue"><b>By SARAH TYTLER</b></p>
+<p class="hang2" style="margin-top:-9px">Atonement by Proxy<br>
+Rival Claimants</p>
+
+<p class="continue"><b>By DORA RUSSELL</b></p>
+<p class="hang2" style="margin-top:-9px">A Strange Message<br>
+A Fatal Past</p>
+
+<p class="continue"><b>By FREDERICK W. ROBINSON</b></p>
+<p class="hang2" style="margin-top:-9px">Anne Judge, Spinster<br>
+A Bridge of Glass</p>
+
+<hr class="W10">
+
+<h4>DIGBY, LONG &amp; CO. <span class="sc">Publishers</span></h4>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="center"><img border="0" src="images/frontispiece.png"
+alt="'Its a big order,' she said.">
+
+<p style="text-indent:60%">Page 180.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>Between the Dark and<br>
+the Daylight ...</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h5>BY</h5>
+
+<h3>RICHARD MARSH</h3>
+
+<h5>AUTHOR OF<br>
+&quot;THE BEETLE,&quot; &quot;FRIVOLITIES,&quot; &quot;AMUSEMENT ONLY,&quot; &quot;AN
+ARISTOCRATIC DETECTIVE,&quot; ETC.</h5>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>London</h4>
+<h3>DIGBY, LONG &amp; CO</h3>
+<h3>18 Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, E.C.</h3>
+<h4>1902</h4>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<br>
+<table cellpadding="10px" style="width:80%; margin-left:10%">
+<colgroup><col style="width:20%; text-align:right"><col style="width:75%"></colgroup>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2" style="text-align:left"><a name="div1Ref_aunt" href="#div1_aunt"><b>MY AUNT'S EXCURSION.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" style="text-align:left"><a name="div1Ref_irregularity" href="#div1_irregularity"><b>THE IRREGULARITY OF THE JURYMAN.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td style="text-align:right">Chapter I.--</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_irreg01" href="#div1_irreg01">The Juryman is Startled.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td style="text-align:right">&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;II.--</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_irreg02" href="#div1_irreg02">Mrs. Tranmer is Startled.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td style="text-align:right">&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp;III.--</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_irreg03" href="#div1_irreg03">The Plaintiff is Startled.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td style="text-align:right">&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;IV.--</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_irreg04" href="#div1_irreg04">Two Cabmen are Startled.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td style="text-align:right">&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;V.--</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_irreg05" href="#div1_irreg05">The Court is Startled.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" style="text-align:left"><a name="div1Ref_mitwater" href="#div1_mitwater"><b>MITWATERSTRAAND:--The Story of a Shock.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td style="text-align:right">Chapter I.--</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_mit01" href="#div1_mit01">The Disease.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td style="text-align:right">&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;II.--</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_mit02" href="#div1_mit02">The Cure.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" style="text-align:left"><a name="div1Ref_exchange" href="#div1_exchange"><b>EXCHANGE IS ROBBERY.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" style="text-align:left"><a name="div1Ref_haunted" href="#div1_haunted"><b>THE HAUNTED CHAIR.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" style="text-align:left"><a name="div1Ref_nelly" href="#div1_nelly"><b>NELLY.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" style="text-align:left"><a name="div1Ref_haute" href="#div1_haute"><b>LA HAUTE FINANCE:--A Tale of the Biggest Coup on
+Record</b>.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" style="text-align:left"><a name="div1Ref_riddle" href="#div1_riddle"><b>MRS. RIDDLE'S DAUGHTER.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" style="text-align:left"><a name="div1Ref_donne" href="#div1_donne"><b>MISS DONNE'S GREAT GAMBLE.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" style="text-align:left"><a name="div1Ref_skittles" href="#div1_skittles"><b>&quot;SKITTLES&quot;.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" style="text-align:left"><a name="div1Ref_em" href="#div1_em"><b>&quot;EM&quot;.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td style="text-align:right">Chapter I.--</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_em01" href="#div1_em01">The Major's Instructions.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td style="text-align:right">&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;II.--</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_em02" href="#div1_em02">His Niece's Wooing.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td style="text-align:right">&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp;III.--</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_em03" href="#div1_em03">The Lady's Lover.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td style="text-align:right">&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;IV.--</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_em04" href="#div1_em04">The Major's Sorrow.</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan="2" style="text-align:left"><a name="div1Ref_relic" href="#div1_relic"><b>A RELIC OF THE BORGIAS.</b></a></td>
+</tr></table>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>BETWEEN THE DARK AND THE DAYLIGHT.</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_aunt" href="#div1Ref_aunt">My Aunt's Excursion</a></h2>
+
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thomas,&quot; observed my aunt, as she entered the room, &quot;I have taken you
+by surprise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had. Hamlet could scarcely have been more surprised at the
+appearance of the ghost of his father. I had supposed that she was in
+the wilds of Cornwall. She glanced at the table at which I had been
+seated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What are you doing?--having your breakfast?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I perceived, from the way in which she used her glasses, and the marked
+manner in which she paused, that she considered the hour an uncanonical
+one for such a meal. I retained some fragments of my presence of mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The fact is, my dear aunt, that I was at work a little late last
+night, and this morning I find myself with a trifling headache.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then a holiday will do you good.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I agreed with her. I never knew an occasion on which I felt that it
+would not.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall be only too happy to avail myself of the opportunity afforded
+by your unexpected presence to relax for a time, the strain of my
+curriculum of studies. May I hope, my dear aunt, that you propose to
+stay with me at least a month?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I return to-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To-night! When did you come?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;From Cornwall?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;From Lostwithiel. An excursion left Lostwithiel shortly after
+midnight, and returns again at midnight to-day, thus giving fourteen
+hours in London for ten shillings. I resolved to take advantage of the
+occasion, and to give some of my poorer neighbours, who had never even
+been as far as Plymouth in their lives, a glimpse of some of the sights
+of the Great City. Here they are--I filled a compartment with them.
+There are nine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were nine--and they were about the most miscellaneous-looking
+nine I ever saw. I had wondered what they meant by coming with my aunt
+into my sitting-room. Now, if anything, I wondered rather more. She
+proceeded to introduce them individually--not by any means by name
+only.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is John Eva. He is eighty-two and slightly deaf. Good gracious,
+man! don't stand there shuffling, with your back against the wall: sit
+down somewhere, do. This is Mrs. Penna, sixty-seven, and a little lame.
+I believe you're eating peppermints again. I told you, Mrs. Penna, that
+I can't stand the odour, and I can't. This is her grandson, Stephen
+Treen, aged nine. He cried in the train.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My aunt shook her finger at Stephen Treen, in an admonitory fashion,
+which bade fair, from the look of him, to cause an immediate renewal of
+his sorrows.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is Matthew Holman, a converted drunkard who has been the worst
+character in the parish. But we are hoping better things of him now.&quot;
+Matthew Holman grinned, as if he were not certain that the hope was
+mutual, &quot;This is Jane, and this is Ellen, two maids of mine. They are
+good girls, in their way, but stupid. You will have to keep your eye on
+them, or they will lose themselves the first chance they get.&quot; I was
+not amazed, as I glanced in their direction, to perceive that Jane and
+Ellen blushed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This,&quot; went on my aunt, and into her voice there came a sort of awful
+dignity, &quot;is Daniel Dyer, I believe that he kissed Ellen in a tunnel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Please ma'am,&quot; cried Ellen, and her manner bore the hall-mark of
+truth, &quot;it wasn't me, that I'm sure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then it was Jane--which does not alter the case in the least.&quot; In
+saying this, it seemed to me that, from Ellen's point of view, my aunt
+was illogical. &quot;I am not certain that I ought to have brought him with
+us; but, since I have, we must make the best of it. I only hope that he
+will not kiss young women when he is in the streets with me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I also hoped, in the privacy of my own breast, that he would not kiss
+young women while he was in the streets with me--at least, when it
+remained broad day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This,&quot; continued my aunt, leaving Daniel Dyer buried in the depths of
+confusion, and Jane on the verge of tears, &quot;is Sammy Trevenna, the
+parish idiot. I brought him, trusting that the visit would tend to
+sharpen his wits, and at the same time, teach him the difference
+between right and wrong. You will have, also, to keep an eye upon
+Sammy. I regret to say that he is addicted to picking and stealing.
+Sammy, where is the address card which I gave you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Sammy--who looked his character, every inch of it!--was a lanky,
+shambling youth, apparently eighteen or nineteen years old. He fumbled
+in his pockets.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I've lost it,&quot; he sniggered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought so. That is the third you have lost since we started. Here
+is another. I will pin it to your coat; then when you are lost, someone
+will be able to understand who you are. Last, but not least, Thomas,
+this is Mr. Poltifen. Although this is his first visit to London, he
+has read a great deal about the Great Metropolis. He has brought a few
+books with him, from which he proposes to read selections, at various
+points in our peregrinations, bearing upon the sights we are seeing, in
+order that instruction may be blended with our entertainment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Poltifen was a short, thick-set individual, with that in his
+appearance which was suggestive of pugnacity, an iron-grey, scrubby
+beard, and a pair of spectacles--probably something superior in the
+cobbling line. He had about a dozen books fastened together in a
+leather strap, among them being--as, before the day was finished, I had
+good reason to be aware--a &quot;History of London,&quot; in seven volumes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Poltifen,&quot; observed my aunt, waving her hand towards the gentleman
+referred to, &quot;represents, in our party, the quality of intelligent
+interest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Poltifen settled his glasses on his nose and glared at me as if he
+dared me to deny it. Nothing could have been further from my mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sammy,&quot; exclaimed my aunt, &quot;sit still. How many times have I to
+request you not to shuffle?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Sammy was rubbing his knees together in a fashion the like of which I
+had never seen before. When he was addressed, he drew the back of his
+hand across his mouth, and he sniggered. I felt that he was the sort of
+youth anyone would have been glad to show round town.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My aunt took a sheet of paper from her hand-bag.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is the outline programme we have drawn up. We have, of course,
+the whole day in front of us, and I have jotted down the names of some
+of the more prominent places of interest which we wish to see.&quot; She
+began to read: &quot;The Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, Woolwich
+Arsenal, the National Gallery, British Museum, South Kensington Museum,
+the Natural History Museum, the Zoological Gardens, Kew Gardens,
+Greenwich Hospital, Westminster Abbey, the Albert Memorial, the Houses
+of Parliament, the Monument, the Marble Arch, the Bank of England, the
+Thames Embankment, Billingsgate Fish Market, Covent Garden Market, the
+Meat Market, some of the birthplaces of famous persons, some of the
+scenes mentioned in Charles Dickens's novels--during the winter we had
+a lecture in the schoolroom on Charles Dickens's London; it aroused
+great interest--and the Courts of Justice. And we should like to finish
+up at the Crystal Palace. We should like to hear any suggestions you
+would care to make which would tend to alteration or improvement--only,
+I may observe, that we are desirous of reaching the Crystal Palace as
+early in the day as possible, as it is there we propose to have our
+midday meal.&quot; I had always been aware that my aunt's practical
+knowledge of London was but slight, but I had never realised how slight
+until that moment. &quot;Our provisions we have brought with us. Each person
+has a meat pasty, a potato pasty, a jam pasty, and an apple pasty, so
+that all we shall require will be water.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This explained the small brown-paper parcel which each member of the
+party was dangling by a string.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you propose to consume this--little provision at the Crystal
+Palace, after visiting these other places?&quot; My aunt inclined her head.
+I took the sheet of paper from which she had been reading. &quot;May I ask
+how you propose to get from place to place?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, Thomas, that is the point. I have made myself responsible for
+the entire charge, so I would wish to keep down expenses. We should
+like to walk as much as possible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you walk from Woolwich Arsenal to the Zoological Gardens, and from
+the Zoological Gardens to Kew Gardens, you will walk as far as
+possible--and rather more.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Something in my tone seemed to cause a shadow to come over my aunt's
+face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How far is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;About fourteen or fifteen miles. I have never walked it myself, you
+understand, so the estimate is a rough one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I felt that this was not an occasion on which it was necessary to be
+over-particular as to a yard or so.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So much as that? I had no idea it was so far. Of course, walking is
+out of the question. How would a van do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A van. One of those vans in which, I understand, children go for
+treats. How much would they charge, now, for one which would hold the
+whole of us?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I haven't the faintest notion, aunt. Would you propose to go in a van
+to all these places?&quot; I motioned towards the sheet of paper. She
+nodded. &quot;I have never, you understand, done this sort of thing in a
+van, but I imagine that the kind of vehicle you suggest, with one pair
+of horses, to do the entire round would take about three weeks.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Three weeks? Thomas!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't pretend to literal accuracy, but I don't believe that I'm far
+wrong. No means of locomotion with which I am acquainted will enable
+you to do it in a day, of that I'm certain. I've been in London since
+my childhood, but I've never yet had time to see one-half the things
+you've got down upon this sheet of paper.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it possible?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's not only possible, it's fact. You country folk have no notion of
+London's vastness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stupendous!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is stupendous. Now, when would you like to reach the Crystal
+Palace?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, not later than four. By then we shall be hungry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I surveyed the nine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It strikes me that some of you look hungry now. Aren't you hungry?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I spoke to Sammy. His face was eloquent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I be famished.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I do not attempt to reproduce the dialect: I am no dialectician. I
+merely reproduce the sense; that is enough for me. The lady whom my
+aunt had spoken of as &quot;Mrs. Penna, sixty-seven, and a little lame,&quot;
+agreed with Sammy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So be I. I be fit to drop, I be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On this subject there was a general consensus of opinion--they all
+seemed fit to drop. I was not surprised. My aunt was surprised instead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You each of you had a treacle pasty in the train!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What be a treacle pasty?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was disposed to echo Mrs. Penna's query, &quot;What be a treacle pasty?&quot;
+My aunt struck me as really cutting the thing a little too fine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You finish your pasties now--when we get to the Palace I'll see that
+you have something to take their place. That shall be my part of the
+treat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My aunt's manner was distinctly severe, especially considering that it
+was a party of pleasure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Before we started it was arranged exactly what provisions would have
+to be sufficient. I do not wish to encroach upon your generosity,
+Thomas--nothing of the kind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never mind, aunt, that'll be all right. You tuck into your pasties.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They tucked into their pasties with a will. Aunt had some breakfast
+with me--poor soul! she stood in need of it--and we discussed the
+arrangements for the day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course, my dear aunt, this programme of yours is out of the
+question, altogether. We'll just do a round on a 'bus, and then it'll
+be time to start for the Palace.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, Thomas, they will be so disappointed--and, considering how much
+it will cost me, we shall seem to be getting so little for the money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear aunt, you will have had enough by the time you get back, I
+promise you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My promise was more than fulfilled--they had had good measure, pressed
+down and running over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first part of our programme took the form, as I had suggested,
+of a ride on a 'bus. Our advent in the Strand--my rooms are in the
+Adelphi--created a sensation. I fancy the general impression was that
+we were a party of lunatics, whom I was personally conducting. That my
+aunt was one of them I do not think that anyone doubted. The way in
+which she worried and scurried and fussed and flurried was sufficient
+to convey that idea.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is not every 'bus which has room for eleven passengers. We could not
+line up on the curbstone, it would have been to impede the traffic. And
+as my aunt would not hear of a division of forces, as we sauntered
+along the pavement we enjoyed ourselves immensely. The &quot;parish idiot&quot;
+would insist on hanging on to the front of every shop-window,
+necessitating his being dragged away by the collar of his jacket. Jane
+and Ellen glued themselves together arm in arm, sniggering at anything
+and everything--especially when Daniel Dyer digged them in the ribs
+from behind. Mrs. Penna, proving herself to be a good deal more than a
+little lame, had to be hauled along by my aunt on one side, and by Mr.
+Holman, the &quot;converted drunkard,&quot; on the other. That Mr. Holman did not
+enjoy his position I felt convinced from the way in which, every now
+and then, he jerked the poor old soul completely off her feet. With her
+other hand my aunt gripped Master Treen by the hand, he keeping his
+mouth as wide open as he possibly could; his little trick of
+continually looking behind him resulting in collisions with most of the
+persons, and lamp-posts, he chanced to encounter. The deaf Mr. Eva
+brought up the rear with Mr. Poltifen and his strapful of books that
+gentleman favouring him with totally erroneous scraps of information,
+which he was, fortunately, quite unable to hear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We had reached Newcastle Street before we found a 'bus which contained
+the requisite amount of accommodation. Then, when I hailed one which
+was nearly empty, the party boarded it. Somewhat to my surprise,
+scarcely anyone wished to go outside. Mrs. Penna, of course, had to be
+lifted into the interior, where Jane and Ellen joined her--I fancy that
+they fought shy of the ladder-like staircase--followed by Daniel Dyer,
+in spite of my aunt's protestations. She herself went next, dragging
+with her Master Treen, who wanted to go outside, but was not allowed,
+and, in consequence, was moved to tears. Messrs. Eva, Poltifen, Holman
+and I were the only persons who made the ascent; and the conductor
+having indulged in some sarcastic comments on things in general and my
+aunt's <i>prot�g�s</i> in particular, which nearly drove me to commit
+assault and battery, the 'bus was started.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We had not gone far before I had reason to doubt the genuineness of Mr.
+Holman's conversion. Drawing the back of his hand across his lips, he
+remarked to Mr. Eva--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It do seem as if this were going to be a thirsty job. 'Tain't my
+notion of a holiday----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I repeat that I make no attempt to imitate the dialect. Perceiving
+himself addressed, Mr. Eva put his hand up to his ear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Beg pardon--what were that you said?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I say that I be perishing for something to drink. I be faint for want
+of it. What's a day's pleasure if you don't never have a chance to
+moisten your lips?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Although this was said in a tone of voice which caused the
+foot-passengers to stand and stare, the driver to start round in his
+seat, as if he had been struck, and the conductor to come up to inquire
+if anything were wrong, it failed to penetrate Mr. Eva's tympanum.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What be that?&quot; the old gentleman observed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It do seem as if I were more deaf than usual.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I touched Mr. Holman on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All right--leave him alone. I'll see that you have what you want when
+we get down; only don't try to make him understand while we're on this
+'bus.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you kindly, sir. There's no denying that a taste of rum would do
+me good. John Eva, he be terrible hard of hearing--terrible; and the
+old girl she ain't a notion of what's fit for a man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How much the insides saw of London I cannot say. I doubt if any one on
+the roof saw much. In my anxiety to alight on one with room I had not
+troubled about the destination of the 'bus. As, however, it proved to
+be bound for London Bridge, I had an opportunity to point out St.
+Paul's Cathedral, the Bank of England, and similar places. I cannot say
+that my hearers seemed much struck by the privileges they were
+enjoying. When the vehicle drew up in the station-yard, Mr. Holman
+pointed with his thumb--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There be a public over there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I admitted that there was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here's a shilling for you--mind you're quickly back. Perhaps Mr.
+Poltifen would like to come with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Poltifen declined.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am a teetotaller. I have never touched alcohol in any form.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I felt that Mr. Poltifen regarded both myself and my proceedings with
+austere displeasure. When all had alighted, my aunt, proceeding to
+number the party, discovered that one was missing; also, who it was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is Matthew Holman?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He's--he's gone across the road to--to see the time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To see the time! There's a clock up over the station there. What do
+you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The fact is, my dear aunt, that feeling thirsty he has gone to get
+something to drink.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To drink! But he signed the pledge on Monday!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then, in that case, he's broken it on Wednesday. Come, let's get
+inside the station; we can't stop here; people will wonder who we are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thomas, we will wait here for Matthew Holman. I am responsible for
+that man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly, my dear aunt; but if we remain on the precise spot on which
+we are at present planted, we shall be prosecuted for obstruction. If
+you will go into the station, I will bring him to you there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where are you going to take us now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To the Crystal Palace.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But--we have seen nothing of London.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You'll see more of it when we get to the Palace. It's a wonderful
+place, full of the most stupendous sights; their due examination will
+more than occupy all the time you have to spare.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Having hustled them into the station, I went in search of Mr. Holman.
+&quot;The converted drunkard&quot; was really enjoying himself for the first
+time. He had already disposed of four threepennyworths of rum, and was
+draining the last as I came in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, sir, if you was so good as to loan me another shilling, I
+shouldn't wonder if I was to have a nice day, after all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I dare say. We'll talk about that later on. If you don't want to be
+lost in London, you'll come with me at once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I scrambled them all into a train; I do not know how. It was a case of
+cram. Selecting an open carriage, I divided the party among the
+different compartments. My aunt objected; but it had to be. By the time
+that they were all in, my brow was damp with perspiration. I looked
+around. Some of our fellow-passengers wore ribbons, about eighteen
+inches wide, and other mysterious things; already, at that hour of the
+day, they were lively. The crowd was not what I expected.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is there anything on at the Palace?&quot; I inquired of my neighbour. He
+laughed, in a manner which was suggestive.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Anything on? What ho! Where are you come from? Why, it's the
+Foresters' Day. It's plain that you're not one of us. More shame to
+you, sonny! Here's a chance for you to join.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Foresters' Day! I gasped. I saw trouble ahead. I began to think that I
+had made a mistake in tearing off to the Crystal Palace in search of
+solitude. I had expected a desert, in which my aunt's friends would
+have plenty of room to knock their heads against anything they pleased.
+But Foresters' Day! Was it eighty or a hundred thousand people who were
+wont to assemble on that occasion? I remembered to have seen the
+figures somewhere. The ladies and gentlemen about us wore an air of
+such conviviality that one wondered to what heights they would attain
+as the day wore on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We had a delightful journey. It occupied between two and three
+hours--or so it seemed to me. When we were not hanging on to platforms we
+were being shunted, or giving the engine a rest, or something of the kind.
+I know we were stopping most of the time. But the Foresters, male and
+female, kept things moving, if the train stood still. They sang songs,
+comic and sentimental; played on various musical instruments,
+principally concertinas; whistled; paid each other compliments; and so
+on. Jane and Ellen were in the next compartment to mine--as usual,
+glued together; how those two girls managed to keep stuck to each
+other was a marvel. Next to them was the persevering Daniel Dyer. In
+front was a red-faced gentleman, with a bright blue tie and an
+eighteen-inch-wide green ribbon. He addressed himself to Mr. Dyer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Two nice young ladies you've got there, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Judging from what he looked like at the back, I should say that Mr.
+Dyer grinned. Obviously Jane and Ellen tittered: they put their heads
+together in charming confusion. The red-faced gentleman continued--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One more than your share, haven't you, sir? You couldn't spare one of
+them for another gentleman? meaning me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You might have Jane,&quot; replied the affable Mr. Dyer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And which might happen to be Jane?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Dyer supplied the information. The red-faced gentleman raised his
+hat. &quot;Pleased to make your acquaintance, miss; hope we shall be better
+friends before the day is over.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My aunt, in the compartment behind, rose in her wrath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Daniel Dyer! Jane! How dare you behave in such a manner!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The red-faced gentleman twisted himself round in his seat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Beg pardon, miss--was you speaking to me? If you're alone, I dare say
+there's another gentleman present who'll be willing to oblige. Every
+young lady ought to have a gent to herself on a day like this. Do me
+the favour of putting this to your lips; you'll find it's the right
+stuff.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Taking out a flat bottle, wiping it upon the sleeve of his coat, he
+offered it to my aunt. She succumbed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When I found myself a struggling unit in the struggling mass on the
+Crystal Palace platform, my aunt caught me by the arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thomas, where have you brought us to?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is the Crystal Palace, aunt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Crystal Palace! It's pandemonium! Where are the members of our
+party?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was the question. My aunt collared such of them as she could lay
+her hands on. Matthew Holman was missing. Personally, I was not sorry.
+He had been &quot;putting his lips&quot; to more than one friendly bottle in the
+compartment behind mine, and was on a fair way to having a &quot;nice day&quot;
+on lines of his own. I was quite willing that he should have it by
+himself. But my aunt was not. She was for going at once for the police
+and commissioning them to hunt for and produce him then and there.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm responsible for the man,&quot; she kept repeating. &quot;I have his ticket.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very well, aunt--that's all right. You'll find him, or he'll find you;
+don't you trouble.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she did trouble. She kept on troubling. And her cause for troubling
+grew more and more as the day went on. Before we were in the main
+building--it's a journey from the low level station through endless
+passages, and up countless stairs, placed at the most inconvenient
+intervals--Mrs. Penna was <i>hors de combat</i>. As no seat was handy she
+insisted on sitting down upon the floor. Passers-by made the most
+disagreeable comments, but she either could not or would not move. My
+aunt seemed half beside herself. She said to me most unfairly,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You ought not to have brought us here on a day like this. It is
+evident that there are some most dissipated creatures here. I have a
+horror of a crowd--and with all the members of our party on my
+hands--and such a crowd!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How was I to know? I had not the faintest notion that anything
+particular was on till we were in the train.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But you ought to have known. You live in London.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is true that I live in London. But I do not, on that account, keep
+an eye on what is going on at the Palace. I have something else to
+occupy my time. Besides, there is an easy remedy--let us leave the
+place at once. We might find fewer people in the Tower of London--I was
+never there, so I can't say--or on the top of the Monument.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Without Matthew Holman?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Personally, I should say 'Yes.' He, at any rate, is in congenial
+company.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thomas!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I wish I could reproduce the tone in which my aunt uttered my name! it
+would cause the edges of the sheet of paper on which I am writing to
+curl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Another source of annoyance was the manner in which the red-faced
+gentleman persisted in sticking to us, like a limpet--as if he were a
+member of the party. Jane and Ellen kept themselves glued together. On
+Ellen's right was Daniel Dyer, and on Jane's left was the red-faced
+gentleman. This was a condition of affairs of which my aunt strongly
+disapproved. She remonstrated with the stranger, but without the least
+effect. I tried my hand on him, and failed. He was the best-tempered
+and thickest-skinned individual I ever remember to have met.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's this way,&quot; I explained--he needed a deal of explanation. &quot;This
+lady has brought these people for a little pleasure excursion to town,
+for the day only; and, as these young ladies are in her sole charge,
+she feels herself responsible for them. So would you just mind leaving
+us?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It seemed that he did mind; though he showed no signs of having his
+feelings hurt by the suggestion, as some persons might have done.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't you worry, governor; I'll help her look after 'em. I've looked
+after a few people in my time, so the young lady can trust me--can't
+you, miss?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jane giggled. My impression is that my aunt felt like shaking her. But
+just then I made a discovery.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hallo! Where's the youngster?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My aunt twirled herself round.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stephen! Goodness! where has that boy gone to?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jane looked through the glass which ran all along one side of the
+corridor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, miss, there's Stephen Treen over in that crowd there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Go and fetch him back this instant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I believe that my aunt spoke without thinking. It did seem to me that
+Jane showed an almost criminal eagerness to obey her. Off she flew into
+the grounds, through the great door which was wide open close at hand,
+with Ellen still glued to her arm, and Daniel Dyer at her heels, and
+the red-faced gentleman after him. Almost in a moment they became
+melted, as it were, into the crowd and were lost to view. My aunt
+peered after them through her glasses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can't see Stephen Treen--can you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, aunt, I can't. I doubt if Jane could, either.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thomas! What do you mean? She said she did.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! there are people who'll say anything. I think you'll find that,
+for a time, at any rate, you've got three more members of the party off
+your hands.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thomas! How can you talk like that? After bringing us to this dreadful
+place! Go after those benighted girls at once, and bring them back, and
+that wretched Daniel Dyer, and that miserable child, and Matthew
+Holman, too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It struck me, from her manner, that my aunt was hovering on the verge
+of hysterics. When I was endeavouring to explain how it was that I did
+not see my way to start off, then and there, in a sort of general hunt,
+an official, sauntering up, took a bird's-eye view of Mrs. Penna.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hallo, old lady what's the matter with you? Aren't you well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, I be not well--I be dying. Take me home and let me die upon my
+bed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So bad as that, is it? What's the trouble?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I've been up all night and all day, and little to eat and naught to
+drink, and I be lame.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lame, are you?&quot; The official turned to my aunt. &quot;You know you didn't
+ought to bring a lame old lady into a crowd like this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I didn't bring her. My nephew brought us all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then the sooner, I should say, your nephew takes you all away again,
+the better.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The official took himself off. Mr. Poltifen made a remark. His tone was
+a trifle sour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I cannot say that I think we are spending a profitable and pleasurable
+day in London. I understood that the object which we had in view was to
+make researches into Dickens's London, or I should not have brought my
+books.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The &quot;parish idiot&quot; began to moan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I be that hungry--I be! I be!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here,&quot; I cried: &quot;here's half-a-crown for you. Go to that
+refreshment-stall and cram yourself with penny buns to bursting point.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Off started Sammy Trevenna; he had sense enough to catch my meaning. My
+aunt called after him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sammy! You mustn't leave us. Wait until we come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Sammy declined. When, hurrying after him, catching him by the
+shoulder, she sought to detain him, he positively showed signs of
+fight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh! it was a delightful day! Enjoyable from start to finish. Somehow I
+got Mrs. Penna, with my aunt and the remnant, into the main building
+and planted them on chairs, and provided them with buns and similar
+dainties, and instructed them not, on any pretext, to budge from where
+they were until I returned with the truants, of whom, straightway, I
+went in search. I do not mind admitting that I commenced by paying a
+visit to a refreshment-bar upon my own account--I needed something to
+support me. Nor, having comforted the inner man, did I press forward on
+my quest with undue haste. Exactly as I expected, I found Jane and
+Ellen in a sheltered alcove in the grounds, with Daniel Dyer on one
+side, the red-faced gentleman on the other, and Master Stephen Treen
+nowhere to be seen. The red-faced gentleman's friendship with Jane had
+advanced so rapidly that when I suggested her prompt return to my aunt,
+he considered himself entitled to object with such vehemence that he
+actually took his coat off and invited me to fight. But I was not to be
+browbeaten by him; and, having made it clear that if he attempted to
+follow I should call the police, I marched off in triumph with my
+prizes, only to discover that the young women had tongues of their own,
+with examples of whose capacity they favoured me as we proceeded. I
+believe that if I had been my aunt, I should, then and there, have
+boxed their ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My aunt received us with a countenance of such gloom that I immediately
+perceived that something frightful must have occurred.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thomas!&quot; she exclaimed, &quot;I have been robbed!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Robbed? My dear aunt! Of what--your umbrella?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of everything!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of everything? I hope it's not so bad as that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is. I have been robbed of purse, money, tickets, everything, down
+to my pocket-handkerchief and bunch of keys.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the fact--she had. Her pocket, containing all she possessed--out
+of Cornwall--had been cut out of her dress and carried clean away. It
+was a very neat piece of work, as the police agreed when we laid the
+case before them. They observed that, of course, they would do their
+best, but they did not think there was much likelihood of any of the
+stolen property being regained; adding that, in a crowd like that,
+people ought to look after their pockets, which was cold comfort for my
+aunt, and rounded the day off nicely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ticketless, moneyless, returning to Cornwall that night was out of the
+question. I put &quot;the party&quot; up. My aunt had my bed, Mrs. Penna was
+accommodated in the same room, the others somewhere and somehow. I
+camped out. In the morning, the telegraph being put in motion, funds
+were forthcoming, and &quot;the party&quot; started on its homeward way. The
+railway authorities would listen to nothing about lost excursion
+tickets. My aunt had to pay full fare--twenty-one and twopence
+halfpenny--for each. I can still see her face as she paid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Two days afterwards Master Stephen Treen and Mr. Matthew Holman were
+reported found by the police, Mr. Holman showing marked signs of a
+distinct relapse from grace. My aunt had to pay for their being sent
+home. The next day she received, through the post, in an unpaid
+envelope, the lost excursion tickets. No comment accompanied them. Her
+visiting-card was in the purse; evidently the thief, having no use for
+old excursion tickets, had availed himself of it to send them back to
+her. She has them to this day, and never looks at them without a qualm.
+That was her first excursion; she tells me that never, under any
+circumstances, will she try another.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_irregularity" href="#div1Ref_irregularity">The Irregularity of the Juryman</a></h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>Chapter I</h3>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_irreg01" href="#div1Ref_irreg01">THE JURYMAN IS STARTLED</a></h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">His first feeling was one of annoyance. All-round annoyance.
+Comprehensive disgust. He did not want to be a juryman. He flattered
+himself that he had something better to do with his time. Half-a-dozen
+matters required his attention. Instead of which, here he was obtruding
+himself into matters in which he did not take the faintest interest.
+Actually dragged into interference with other people's most intimate
+affairs. And in that stuffy court. And it had been a principle of his
+life never to concern himself with what was no business of his. Talk
+about the system of trial by jury being a bulwark of the Constitution!
+At that moment he had no opinion of the Constitution; or its bulwarks
+either.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then there were his colleagues. He had never been associated with
+eleven persons with whom he felt himself to be less in sympathy. The
+fellow they had chosen to be foreman he felt convinced was a
+cheesemonger. He looked it. The others looked, if anything, worse.
+Not, he acknowledged, that there was anything inherently wrong in being
+a cheesemonger. Still, one did not want to sit cheek by jowl with
+persons of that sort for an indefinite length of time. And there were
+cases--particularly in the Probate Court--which lasted days; even weeks.
+If he were in for one of those! The perspiration nearly stood on his
+brow at the horror of the thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What was the case about? What was that inarticulate person saying?
+Philip Poland knew nothing about courts--and did not want to--but he
+took it for granted that the gentleman in a wig and gown, with his
+hands folded over his portly stomach, was counsel for one side or the
+other--though he had not the slightest notion which. He had no idea how
+they managed things in places of this sort. As he eyed him he felt that
+he was against him anyhow. If he were paid to speak, why did not the
+man speak up?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By degrees, for sheer want of something else, Mr. Roland found that he
+was listening. After all, the man was audible. He seemed capable, also,
+of making his meaning understood. So it was about a will, was it? He
+might have taken that for granted. He always had had the impression
+that the Probate Court was the place for wills. It seemed that somebody
+had left a will; and this will was in favour of the portly gentleman's
+client; and was as sound, as equitable, as admirable a legal instrument
+as ever yet was executed; and how, therefore, anyone could have
+anything to say against it surprised the portly gentleman to such a
+degree that he had to stop to wipe his forehead with a red silk
+pocket-handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The day was warm. Mr. Roland was not fond of listening to speeches. And
+this one was--well, weighty. And about something for which he did not
+care two pins. His attention wandered. It strayed perilously near the
+verge of a dose. In fact, it must have strayed right over the verge.
+Because the next thing he understood was that one of his colleagues was
+digging his elbow into his side, and proffering the information that
+they were going lunch. He felt a little bewildered. He could not think
+how it had happened. It was not his habit to go to sleep in the
+morning. As he trooped after his fellows he was visited by a hazy
+impression that that wretched jury system was at the bottom of it all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were shown into an ill-ventilated room. Someone asked him what he
+would have to eat. He told them to bring him what they had. They
+brought some hot boiled beef and carrots. The sight of it nearly made
+him ill. His was a dainty appetite. Hot boiled beef on such a day, in
+such a place, after such a morning, was almost the final straw. He
+could not touch it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His companion attacked his plate with every appearance of relish. He
+made a hearty meal. Possibly he had kept awake. He commented on the
+fashion in which Mr. Roland had done his duty to his Queen and country.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Shouldn't think you were able to pronounce much of an opinion on the
+case so far as it has gone, eh?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My good sir, the judge will instruct us as to our duty. If we follow
+his instructions we shan't go wrong.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You think, then, that we are only so many automata, and that the judge
+has but to pull the strings.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Roland looked about him, contempt in his eye.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It would be fortunate, perhaps, if we were automata.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I can only say that we take diametrically opposite views of our
+office. I maintain that it is our duty to listen to the evidence, to
+weigh it carefully, and to record our honest convictions in the face of
+all the judges whoever sat upon the Bench.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Roland was silent. He was not disposed to enter into an academical
+discussion with an individual who evidently had a certain command of
+language. Others, however, showed themselves to be not so averse. The
+luncheon interval was enlivened by some observations on the jury system
+which lawyers--had any been present--would have found instructive.
+There were no actual quarrels. But some of the arguments were of the
+nature of repartees. Possibly it was owing to the beef and carrots.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They re-entered the court. The case recommenced. Mr. Roland had a
+headache. He was cross. His disposition was to return a verdict against
+everything and everyone, as his neighbour had put it, &quot;in the face of
+all the judges who ever sat upon the Bench.&quot; But this time he did pay
+some attention to what was going on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It appeared, in spite of the necessity which the portly gentleman had
+been under to use his red silk pocket-handkerchief, that there were
+objections to the will he represented. It was not easy at that stage to
+pick up the lost threads, but from what Mr. Roland could gather it
+seemed it was asserted that a later will had been made, which was still
+in existence. Evidence was given by persons who had been present at the
+execution of that will; by the actual witnesses to the testator's
+signature; by the lawyer who had drawn the will. And then--!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then there stepped into the witness-box a person whose appearance
+entirely changed Mr. Roland's attitude towards the proceedings; so
+that, in the twinkling of an eye, he passed from bored indifference to
+the keenest and liveliest interest. It was a young woman. She gave her
+name as Delia Angel. Her address as Barkston Gardens, South Kensington.
+At sight of her things began to hum inside Mr. Roland's brain. Where
+had he seen her before? It all came back in a flash. How could he have
+forgotten her, even for a moment, when from that day to this she had
+been continually present to his mind's eye?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the girl of the train. She had travelled with him from Nice to
+Dijon in the same carriage, which most of the way they had had to
+themselves. What a journey it was! And what a girl! During those
+fast-fleeting hours--on that occasion they had fled fast--they had
+discussed all subjects from Alpha to Omega. He had approached closer
+to terms of friendship with a woman than he had ever done in the whole
+course of his life before--or since. He was so taken aback by the
+encounter, so wrapped in recollections of those pleasant hours, that for
+a time he neglected to listen to what she was saying. When he did begin
+to listen he pricked up his ears still higher.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was in her favour the latest will had been made--at least, partly.
+She had just returned from laying the testator in the cemetery in Nice
+when he met her in the train--actually! He recalled her deep mourning.
+The impression she had given him was that she had lately lost a friend.
+She was even carrying the will in question with her at the time. Then
+she began to make a series of statements which brought Mr. Roland's
+heart up into his mouth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tell us,&quot; suggested counsel, &quot;what happened in the train.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She paused as if to collect her thoughts. Then told a little story
+which interested at least one of her hearers more than anything he had
+ever listened to.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I had originally intended to stop in Paris. On the way, however, I
+decided not to do so but to go straight through.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Roland remembered he had told her he was going, and wondered; but
+he resolved to postpone his wonder till she had finished.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When we were nearing Dijon I made up my mind to send a telegram to the
+concierge asking her to address all letters to me in town. When we
+reached the station I got out of the train to do so. In the compartment
+in which I had travelled was a gentleman. I asked him to keep an eye on
+my bag till I returned. He said he would. On the platform I met some
+friends. I stopped to talk to them. The time must have gone quicker
+than I supposed, because when I reached the telegraph office I found I
+had only a minute or two to spare. I scribbled the telegram. As I
+turned I slipped and fell--I take it because of the haste I was in. As
+I fell my head struck upon something; because the next thing I realized
+was that I was lying on a couch in a strange room, feeling very queer
+indeed. I did ask, I believe what had become of the train. They told me
+it was gone. I understand that during the remainder of the day, and
+through the night, I continued more or less unconscious. When next day
+I came back to myself it was too late. I found my luggage awaiting me
+at Paris. But of the bag, or of the gentleman with whom I left it in
+charge, I have heard nothing since. I have advertised, tried every
+means my solicitor advised; but up to the present without result.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the will&quot; observed counsel, &quot;was in that bag?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Roland had listened to the lady's narrative with increasing
+amazement. He remembered her getting out at Dijon; that she had left a
+bag behind. That she had formally intrusted it to his charge he did not
+remember. He recalled the anxiety with which he watched for her return;
+his keen disappointment when he still saw nothing of her as the train
+steamed out of the station. So great was his chagrin that it almost
+amounted to dismay. He had had such a good time; had taken it for
+granted that it would continue for at least a few more hours, and
+perhaps--perhaps all sorts of things. Now, without notice, on the
+instant, she had gone out of his life as she had come into it. He had
+seen her talking to her friends. Possibly she had joined herself to
+them. Well, if she was that sort of person, let her go!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As for the bag, it had escaped his recollection that there was such a
+thing. And possibly would have continued to do so had it not persisted
+in staring at him mutely from the opposite seat. So she had left it
+behind? Serve her right. It was only a rubbishing hand-bag. Pretty old,
+too. It seemed that feather-headed young women could not be even
+depended upon to look after their own rubbish. She would come rushing
+up to the carriage window at one of the stations. Or he would see her
+at Paris. Then she could have the thing. But he did not see her. To be
+frank, as they neared Paris, half obliviously he crammed it with his
+travelling cap into his kit-bag, and to continue on the line of
+candour--ignored its existence till he found it there in town.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And in it was the will! The document on which so much
+hinged--especially for her! The bone of contention which all this pother
+was about. Among all that she said this was the statement which took him
+most aback. Because, without the slightest desire to impugn in any
+detail the lady's veracity, he had the best of reasons for knowing that
+she had--well--made a mistake.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If he had not good reason to know it, who had? He clearly called to
+mind the sensation, almost of horror, with which he had recognised that
+the thing was in his kit-bag. Half-a-dozen courses which he ought to
+have pursued occurred to him--too late. He ought to have handed it over
+to the guard of the train; to the station-master; to the lost property
+office. In short, he ought to have done anything except bring it with
+him in his bag to town. But since he had brought it, the best thing to
+do seemed to be to ascertain if it contained anything which would be a
+clue to its owner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a small affair, perhaps eight inches long. Of stamped brown
+leather. Well worn. Original cost possibly six or seven shillings.
+Opened by pressing a spring lock. Contents: Four small keys on a piece
+of ribbon; two pocket-handkerchiefs, each with an embroidered D in the
+corner; the remains of a packet of chocolate; half a cedar lead-pencil;
+a pair of shoe-laces. And that was all. He had turned that bag upside
+down upon his bed, and was prepared to go into the witness-box and
+swear that there was nothing else left inside. At least he was almost
+prepared to swear. For since here was Miss Delia Angel--how well the
+name fitted the owner!--positively affirming that among its contents
+was the document on which for all he knew all her worldly wealth
+depended, what was he to think?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The bag had continued in his possession until a week or two ago. Then
+one afternoon his sister, Mrs. Tranmer, had come to his rooms, and
+having purchased a packet of hairpins, or something of the kind, had
+wanted something to put them in. Seeing the bag in the corner of one of
+his shelves, in spite of his protestations she had snatched it up, and
+insisted on annexing it to help her carry home her ridiculous purchase.
+Its contents--as described above--he retained. But the bag! Surely
+Agatha was not such an idiot, such a dishonest creature, as to allow
+property which was not hers to pass for a moment out of her hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">During the remainder of Miss Angel's evidence--so far as it went that
+day--one juryman, both mentally and physically, was in a state of dire
+distress. What was he to do? He was torn in a dozen different ways.
+Would it be etiquette for a person in his position to spring to his
+feet and volunteer to tell his story? He would probably astonish the
+Court. But--what would the Court say to him? Who had ever heard of a
+witness in the jury-box? He could not but suspect that, at the very
+least, such a situation would be in the highest degree irregular. And,
+in any case, what could he do? Give the lady the lie? It will have been
+perceived that his notions of the responsibilities of a juryman were
+his own, and it is quite within the range of possibility that he had
+already made up his mind which way his verdict should go; whether the
+will was in the bag or not--and &quot;in the face of all the judges who ever
+sat upon the Bench.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The bag! the bag! Where was it? If, for once in a way, Agatha had shown
+herself to be possessed of a grain of the common sense with which he
+had never credited her!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the conclusion of Miss Angel's examination in chief the portly
+gentleman asked to be allowed to postpone his cross-examination to the
+morning. On which, by way of showing its entire acquiescence, the Court
+at once adjourned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And off pelted one of the jurymen in search of the bag.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_irreg02" href="#div1Ref_irreg02">MRS. TRANMER IS STARTLED</a></h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">Mrs. Tranmer was just going up to dress for dinner when in burst her
+brother. Mr. Roland was, as a rule, one of the least excitable of men.
+His obvious agitation therefore surprised her the more. Her feelings
+took a characteristic form of expression--to her, an attentive eye to
+the proprieties of costume was the whole duty of a Christian.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Philip!--what have you done to your tie?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Roland mechanically put up his hand towards the article referred
+to; returning question for question.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Agatha, where's that bag?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bag? My good man, you're making your tie crookeder!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bother the tie!&quot; Mrs. Tranmer started: Philip was so seldom
+interjectional. &quot;Do you hear me ask where that bag is?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear brother, before you knock me down, will you permit me to
+suggest that your tie is still in a shocking condition?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gave her one look--such a look! Then he went to the looking-glass
+and arranged his tie. Then he turned to her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will that do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is better.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, will you give me that bag--at once?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bag? What bag?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know very well what bag I mean--the one you took from my room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The one I took from your room?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I told you not to take it. I warned you it wasn't mine. I informed you
+that I was its involuntary custodian. And yet, in spite of all I could
+say--of all I could urge, with a woman's lax sense of the difference
+between <i>meum</i> and <i>tuum</i>, you insisted on removing it from my custody.
+The sole reparation you can make is to return it at once--upon the
+instant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She observed him with growing amazement--as well she might. She
+subsided into an armchair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May I ask you to inform me from what you're suffering now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was a little disposed towards valetudinarianism, and was apt to
+imagine himself visited by divers diseases. He winced.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Agatha, the only thing from which I am suffering at this moment
+is--is----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes; is what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A feeling of irritation at my own weakness in allowing myself to be
+persuaded by you to act in opposition to my better judgment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dear me! You must be ill. That you are ill is shown by the fact that
+your tie is crooked again. Don't consider my feelings, and pray present
+yourself in my drawing-room in any condition you choose. But perhaps
+you will be so good as to let me know if there is any sense in the
+stuff you have been talking about a bag.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Agatha, you remember that bag you took from my room?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That old brown leather thing?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was made of brown leather--a week or two ago?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A week or two? Why, it was months ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear Agatha, I do assure you----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Please don't let us argue. I tell you it was months ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I told you not to take it----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You told me not to take it? Why, you pressed it on me. I didn't care
+to be seen with such a rubbishing old thing; but you took it off your
+shelf and said it would do very well. So, to avoid argument, as I
+generally do, I let you have your way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I--I don't want to be rude, but a--a more outrageous series of
+statements I never heard. I told you distinctly that it wasn't mine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You did nothing of the sort. Of course I took it for granted that such
+a disreputable article, which evidently belonged to a woman, was not
+your property. But as I had no wish to pry into your private affairs I
+was careful not to inquire how such a curiosity found its way upon your
+shelves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Agatha, your--your insinuations----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I insinuate nothing. I only want to know what this fuss is about. As I
+wish to dress for dinner, perhaps you'll tell me in a couple of words.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Agatha, where's that bag?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How should I know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Haven't you got it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Got it? Do you suppose I have a museum in which I preserve rubbish of
+the kind?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But--what have you done with it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You might as well ask me what I've done with last year's gloves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Agatha--think! More hinges upon this than you have any conception.
+What did you do with that bag?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Since you are so insistent--and I must say, Philip, that your conduct
+is most peculiar--I will think, or I'll try to. I believe I gave
+the bag to Jane. Or else to Mrs. Pettigrew's little girl. Or to my
+needle-woman--to carry home some embroidery she was mending for me; I
+am most particular about embroidery, especially when its good. Or to
+the curate's wife, for a jumble sale. Or I might have given it to
+someone else. Or I might have lost it. Or done something else with it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did you look inside?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course I did. I must have done. Though I don't remember doing
+anything of the kind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Was there anything in it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you mean when you gave it me? If there was I never saw it. Am I
+going to be accused of felony?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Agatha, I believe you have ruined me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ruined you! Philip, what nonsense are you talking? I insist upon your
+telling me what you mean. What has that wretched old bag, which would
+have certainly been dear at twopence, to do with either you or me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will endeavour to explain. I believe that I stood towards that bag
+in what the law regards as a fiduciary relation. I was responsible for
+its safety. Its loss will fall on me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The loss of a twopenny-halfpenny bag?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is not a question of the bag, but of its contents.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What were its contents?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It contained a will.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A will?--a real will? Do you mean to say that you gave me that bag
+without breathing a word about there being a will inside?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I didn't know myself until to-day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By degrees the tale was told. Mrs. Tranmer's amazement grew and grew.
+She seemed to have forgotten all about its being time to dress for
+dinner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you are a juryman?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you actually have the bag on which the whole case turns?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wish I had.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But was the will inside?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I never saw it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nor I. It was quite an ordinary bag, and if it had been we must have
+seen it. A will isn't written on a scrappy piece of paper which could
+have been overlooked. Philip, the will wasn't in the bag. That young
+woman's an impostor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't believe it for a moment--not for a single instant. I am
+convinced that she supposes herself to be speaking the absolute truth.
+Even granting that she is mistaken, in what position do I stand? I
+cannot go and say, 'I have lost your bag, but it doesn't matter, for
+the will was not inside.' Would she not be entitled to reply, 'Return
+me the bag in the condition in which I intrusted it to your keeping,
+and I will show that you are wrong'? It will not be enough for me to
+repeat that I have not the bag; my sister threw it into her dust-hole.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Philip!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May she not retort, 'Then, for all the misfortunes which the loss of
+the bag brings on me, you are responsible'? The letter of the law might
+acquit me. My conscience never would. Agatha, I fear you have done me a
+serious injury.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't talk like that! Under the circumstances you had no right to give
+me the bag at all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are wrong; I did not give it you. On the contrary, I implored you
+not to take it. But you insisted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Philip, how can you say such a wicked thing? I remember exactly what
+happened. I had been buying some veils. I was saying to you how I hated
+carrying parcels, even small ones----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Agatha, don't let us enter into this matter now. You may be called
+upon to make your statement in another place. I can only hope that our
+statements will not clash.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For the first time Mrs. Tranmer showed symptoms of genuine anxiety.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You don't mean to say that I'm to be dragged into a court of law
+because of that twopenny-halfpenny bag?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think it possible. What else can you expect?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I must tell this unfortunate young lady how the matter stands. I
+apprehend that I shall have to repeat my statement in open court, and
+that you will be called upon to supplement it. I also take it that no
+stone will be left unturned to induce you to give a clear and
+satisfactory account of what became of the bag after it passed into
+your hands.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My goodness! And I know no more what became of it than anything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I must go to Miss Angel at once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Philip!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I must. Consider my position. I cannot enter the court as a juryman
+again without explaining to someone how I am placed. The irregularity
+would transgress all limits. I must communicate with Miss Angel
+immediately; she will communicate with her advisers, who will no doubt
+communicate with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My goodness!&quot; repeated Mrs. Tranmer to herself after he had gone.
+Still she did not proceed upstairs to dress.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_irreg03" href="#div1Ref_irreg03">THE PLAINTIFF IS STARTLED</a></h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">Miss Angel was dressed for dinner. She was in the drawing-room with
+other guests of the hotel, waiting for the gong to sound, when she was
+informed that a gentleman wished to see her. On the heels of the
+information entered the gentleman himself. It seemed that Mr. Roland
+had only eyes for her. As if oblivious of others he moved rapidly
+forward. She regarded him askance. He, perceiving her want of
+recognition, introduce himself in a fashion of his own.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Miss Angel, I'm the man who travelled with you from Nice to Dijon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At once her face lighted up. Her eyes became as if they were illumined.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course! To think that we should have met again! At last!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To judge from certain comments which were made by those around one
+could not but suspect that Miss Angel's story was a theme of general
+interest. As a matter of fact, they were being entertained by her
+account of the day's proceedings at the very moment of Mr. Roland's
+entry. People in these small &quot;residential&quot; hotels are sometimes so
+extremely friendly. Altogether unexpectedly Mr. Roland found himself an
+object of interest to quite a number of total strangers. He was not the
+sort of man to shine in such a position, particularly as it was only
+too plain that Miss Angel misunderstood the situation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Roland, you are like a messenger from Heaven. I have prayed for
+you to come, so you must be one. And at this time of all times--just
+when you are most wanted! Really your advent must be miraculous.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ye-es.&quot; The gentleman glanced around. &quot;Might I speak to you for a
+moment in private?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She regarded him a little quizzically.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Everybody here knows my whole strange history; my hopes and fears; all
+about me. You needn't be afraid to add another chapter to the tale,
+especially since you have arrived at so opportune a moment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Precisely.&quot; His tone was expressive of something more than doubt.
+&quot;Still, if you don't mind, I think I would rather say a few words to
+you alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The bystanders commenced to withdraw with some little show of
+awkwardness, as if, since the whole business had so far been public,
+they rather resented the element of secrecy. The gong sounding, Miss
+Angel was moved to proffer a suggestion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come dine with me. We can talk when we are eating.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shrank back with what was almost a gesture of horror.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Excuse me--you are very kind--I really couldn't. If you prefer it, I
+will wait here until you have dined.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you imagine that I could wait to hear what you have to say till
+after dinner? You don't know me if you do. The people are going. We
+shall have the room all to ourselves. My dinner can wait.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The people went. They did have the room to themselves. She began to
+overwhelm him with her thanks, which, conscience-striken, he
+endeavoured to parry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you for coming in this
+spontaneous fashion--at this moment, too, of my utmost need.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Just so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you only knew how I have searched for you high and low, and now,
+after all, you appear in the very nick of time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Exactly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It would almost seem as if you had chosen the dramatic moment; for
+this is the time of all times when your presence on the scene was most
+desired.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's very good of you to say so;--but if you will allow me to
+interrupt you--I am afraid I am not entitled to your thanks. The fact
+is, I--I haven't the bag.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You haven't the bag?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Although he did not dare to look at her he was conscious that the
+fashion of her countenance had changed. At the knowledge a chill seemed
+to penetrate to the very marrow in his bones.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I--I fear I haven't.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You had it--I left it in your charge!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Unfortunately, that is the most unfortunate part of the whole affair.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He explained. For the second time that night he told his tale. It had
+not rolled easily off his tongue at the first time of telling. He found
+the repetition a task of exquisite difficulty. In the presence of that
+young lady it seemed so poor a story. Especially in the mood in which
+she was. She continually interrupted him with question and
+comment--always of the most awkward kind. By the time he had made an
+end of telling he felt as if most of the vitality had gone out of him.
+She was silent for some seconds--dreadful seconds; Then she drew a long
+breath, and she said:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So I am to understand, am I, that your sister has lost the bag--my
+bag?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I fear that it would seem so, for the present.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For the present? What do you mean by for the present? Are you
+suggesting that she will be able to find it during the next few hours?
+Because after that it will be too late.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I--I should hardly like to go so far as that, knowing my sister.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Knowing your sister? I see. Of course I am perfectly aware that I had
+no right to intrust the bag to your charge even for a single instant:
+to you, an entire stranger; though I had no notion that you were the
+kind of stranger you seem to be. Nor had I any right to slip, and fall,
+and become unconscious and so allow that train to leave me behind.
+Still--it does seems a little hard. Don't you think it does?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can only hope that the loss was not of such serious importance as
+you would seem to infer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It depends on what you call serious. It probably means the difference
+between affluence and beggary. That's all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On one point you must allow me to make an observation. The will was
+not in the bag.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The will was not in the bag!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a quality in the lady's voice which made Mr. Roland quail. He
+hastened to proceed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have here all which it contained.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He produced a neat packet, in which were discovered four keys, two
+handkerchiefs, scraps of what might be chocolate, a piece of pencil, a
+pair of brown shoe-laces. She regarded the various objects with
+unsympathetic eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It also contained the will.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can only assure you that I saw nothing of it; nor my sister either.
+Surely a thing of that kind could hardly have escaped our observation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In that bag, Mr. Roland, is a secret pocket; intended to hold--secure
+from observation--banknotes, letters, or private papers. The will was
+there. Did you or your sister, in the course of your investigations,
+light upon the secret of that pocket?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Something of the sort he had feared. He rubbed his hands together,
+almost as if he were wringing them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Miss Angel, I can only hint at my sense of shame; at my consciousness
+of my own deficiencies; and can only reiterate my sincere hope that the
+consequences of your loss may still be less serious than you suppose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I imagine that nothing worse than my ruin will result.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will do my best to guard against that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You!--what can you do--now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am at least a juryman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A juryman?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am one of the jury which is trying the case.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You!&quot; Her eyes opened wider. &quot;Of course! I thought I had seen you
+somewhere before today! That's where it was! How stupid I am! Is it
+possible?&quot; Exactly what she meant by her disjointed remarks was not
+clear. He did not suspect her of an intention to flatter. &quot;And you
+propose to influence your colleagues to give a decision in my favour?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You may smile, but since unanimity is necessary I can, at any rate,
+make sure that it is not given against you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I see. Your idea is original. And perhaps a little daring. But before
+we repose our trust on such an eventuality I should like to do
+something. First of all, I should like to interview your sister.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do please. I think it possible that when I explain to her how the
+matter is with me her memory may be moved to the recollection of what
+she did with my poor bag. Do you think I could see her if I went to her
+at once?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Quite probably.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then you and I will go together. If you will wait for me to put a hat
+on, in two minutes I will return to you here.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_irreg04" href="#div1Ref_irreg04">TWO CABMEN ARE STARTLED</a></h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">Hats are uncertain quantities. Sometimes they represent ten minutes,
+sometimes twenty, sometimes sixty. It is hardly likely that any woman
+ever &quot;put a hat on&quot; in two. Miss Angel was quick. Still, before she
+reappeared Mr. Roland had arrived at something which resembled a mental
+resolution. He hurled it at her as soon as she was through the doorway.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Miss Angel, before we start upon our errand I should like to make
+myself clear to you at least upon one point. I am aware that I am
+responsible for the destruction of your hopes--morally and actually. I
+should like you therefore to understand that, should the case go
+against you, you will find me personally prepared to make good your
+loss so far as in my power lies. I should, of course, regard it as my
+simple duty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She smiled at him, really nicely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are Quixotic, Mr. Roland. Though it is very good of you all the
+same. But before we talk about such things I should like to see your
+sister, if you don't mind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this hint he moved to the door. As they went towards the hall he
+said:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I hope you are building no high hopes upon your interview with my
+sister. I know my sister, you understand; and though she is the best
+woman in the world, I fear that she attached so little importance to
+the bag that she has allowed its fate to escape her memory altogether.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One does allow unimportant matters to escape one's memory, doesn't
+one?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her words were ambiguous. He wondered what she meant. It was she who
+started the conversation when they were in the cab.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Would it be very improper to ask what you think of the case so far as
+it has gone?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was sensible that it would be most improper. But, then, there had
+been so much impropriety about his proceedings already that perhaps he
+felt that a little more or less did not matter. He answered as if he
+had followed the proceedings with unflagging attention.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think your case is very strong.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Really? Without the bag?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a simple fact that he had but the vaguest notion of what had
+been stated upon the other side. Had he been called upon to give even a
+faint outline of what the case for the opposition really was he would
+have been unable to do so. But so trivial an accident did not prevent
+his expressing a confident opinion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly; as it stands.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But won't it look odd if I am unable to produce the will?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Roland pondered; or pretended to.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No doubt the introduction of the will would bring the matter to an
+immediate conclusion. But, as it is, your own statement is so clear
+that it seems to me to be incontrovertible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Truly? And do your colleagues think so also?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He knew no more what his &quot;colleagues&quot; thought than the man in the moon.
+But that was of no consequence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think you may take it for granted that they are not all idiots. I
+believe, indeed, that it is generally admitted that in most juries
+there is a preponderance of common sense.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She sighed, a little wistfully, as if the prospect presented by his
+words was not so alluring as she would have desired. She kept her eyes
+fixed on his face--a fact of which he was conscious.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, I wish I could find the will!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While he was still echoing her wish with all his heart a strange thing
+happened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cabman turned a corner. It was dark. He did not think it necessary
+to slacken his pace. Nor, perhaps, to keep a keen look-out for what was
+advancing in an opposite direction. Tactics which a brother Jehu
+carefully followed. Another hansom was coming round that corner too.
+Both drivers, perceiving that their zeal was excessive, endeavoured to
+avoid disaster by dragging their steeds back upon their haunches. Too
+late! On the instant they were in collision. In that brief, exciting
+moment Mr. Roland saw that the sole occupant of the other hansom was a
+lady. He knew her. She knew him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's Agatha!&quot; he cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Philip!&quot; came in answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before either had a chance to utter another word hansoms, riders, and
+drivers were on the ground. Fortunately the horses kept their heads,
+being possibly accustomed to little diversions of the kind. They merely
+continued still, as if waiting to see what would happen next. In
+consequence he was able to scramble out himself, and to assist Miss
+Angel in following him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you hurt?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't think so; not a bit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Excuse me, but my sister's in the other cab.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your sister!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did not wait to hear. He was off like a flash. From the ruins of the
+other vehicle--which seemed to have suffered most in the contact--he
+gradually extricated the dishevelled Mrs. Tranmer. She seemed to be in
+a sad state. He led her to a chemist's shop, which luckily stood open
+close at hand, accompanied by Miss Angel and a larger proportion of the
+crowd than the proprietor appeared disposed to welcome. He repeated the
+inquiry he had addressed to Miss Angel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you hurt?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This time the response was different.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course I'm hurt. I'm shaken all to pieces; every bone in my body's
+broken; there's not a scrap of life left in me. Do you suppose I'm the
+sort of creature who can be thrown about like a shuttlecock and not be
+hurt?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Something, however, in her tone suggested that her troubles might after
+all be superficial.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you will calm yourself, Agatha, perhaps you may find that your
+injuries are not so serious as you imagine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They couldn't be, or I should be dead. The worst of it is that this
+all comes of my flying across London to take that twopenny-halfpenny
+bag to that ridiculous young woman of yours.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He started.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The bag! Agatha! have you found it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course I've found it. How do you suppose I could be tearing along
+with it in my hands if I hadn't?&quot; The volubility of her utterance
+pointed to a rapid return to convalescence. &quot;It seems that I gave it to
+Jane, or she says that I did, though I have no recollection of doing
+anything of the kind. As she had already plenty of better bags of her
+own, probably most of them mine, she didn't want it, so she gave it to
+her sister-in-law. Directly I heard that, I dragged her into a cab and
+tore off to the woman's house. The woman was out, and, of course, she'd
+taken the bag with her to do some shopping. I packed off her husband
+and half-a-dozen children to scour the neighbourhood for her in
+different directions, and I thought I should have a fit while I waited.
+The moment she appeared I snatched the bag from her hand, flung myself
+back into the cab--and now the cab has flung me out into the road, and
+heaven only knows if I shall ever be the same woman I was before I
+started.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the bag! Where is it?&quot; She looked about her with bewildered eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The bag? I haven't the faintest notion. I must have left it in the
+cab.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Roland rushed out into the street. He gained the vehicle in which
+Mrs. Tranmer had travelled. It seemed that one of the shafts had been
+wrenched right off, but they had raised it to what was as nearly an
+upright position as circumstances permitted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where's the hand-bag which was in that cab?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hand-bag?&quot; returned the driver. &quot;I ain't seen no hand-bag. So far I
+ain't hardly seen the bloomin' cab.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A voice was heard at Mr. Roland's elbows.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This here bloke picked up a bag--I see him do it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Roland's grip fastened on the shoulder of the &quot;bloke&quot; alluded to,
+an undersized youth apparently not yet in his teens. The young
+gentleman resented the attention.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Old 'ard, guv'nor! I picked up the bag, that's all right; I was just
+a-wondering who it might belong to.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It belongs to the lady who was riding in the cab. Kindly hand it
+over.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was &quot;handed over&quot;; borne back into the chemist's shop; proffered to
+Miss Angel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I believe that this is the missing bag, apparently not much the worse
+for its various adventures.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is the bag.&quot; She opened it. Apparently it was empty. But on her
+manipulating an unseen fastening an inner pocket was disclosed. From it
+she took a folded paper. &quot;And here is the will!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER V</h3>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_irreg05" href="#div1Ref_irreg05">THE COURT IS STARTLED</a></h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">They dined together--it was still not too late to dine--in a private
+room at the Piccadilly Restaurant. Mrs. Tranmer found that she was,
+indeed, not irreparably damaged; and by the time she could be induced
+to look over the fact that she was not what she called &quot;dressed&quot; she
+began to enjoy herself uncommonly well. Delia Angel was in the highest
+spirits, which, on the whole, was not surprising. The recovery of the
+bag and the will had transformed the world into a rose-coloured
+Paradise. The evening was one continuous delight. As for Philip
+Roland--his mood was akin to Miss Angel's. Everything which had begun
+badly was ending well. He was the host. The meal did credit to his
+choice--and to the cook. The wine was worthy of the toasts they drank.
+There was one toast which was not formally proposed, and of which, even
+in his heart he did not dream, but whose presence was answerable for
+not a little of the rapture which crowned the feast--&quot;The Birth of
+Romance.&quot; His life had been tolerably commonplace and grey. For the
+first time that night Romance had entered into it. It was just possible
+that, maintaining the place it had gained, it would continue to the end.
+So might it be; for sure, the Spirit is the best of company.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After dinner the three journeyed together to Miss Angel's solicitor. He
+lived in town, not far away from where they were, and though the hour
+was uncanonical it was not so very late. And though he was amazed at
+being required to do business at such a season, the tale they had to
+tell amazed him more. Nor was he indisposed to commend them for coming
+straight away to him with it at once.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He heard them to an end. Then he looked at the bag; then at the will.
+Then once more at the bag; then at the will again. Then he smoothed his
+chin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It seems to me--speaking without prejudice--that this ends the matter.
+In the face of this the other side is left without a leg to stand
+upon. With this in your hand&quot;--he was tapping the will with his
+finger-tip--&quot;I cannot but think, Miss Angel, that you must carry all
+before you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So I should imagine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He contemplated Mr. Roland.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So you, sir, are one of the jury. As at present advised, I cannot see
+how, in the course of action which you have pursued, blame can in any
+way be attached to you. But, at the same time, I am bound to observe
+that in the course of a somewhat lengthy experience I cannot recall a
+single instance of a juryman--an actual juryman--playing such a part as
+you have done. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, the position
+you have taken up is--in a really superlative degree--irregular.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Such, also, seemed to be the opinion of counsel before whom, at a
+matutinal hour, he laid the facts of the case. When, in view of those
+facts, counsel on both sides conferred before the case was opened, the
+general feeling plainly pointed in the same direction. And, on its
+being stated in open court that, in face of the discovery of the
+vanished will, all opposition to Miss Delia Angel would, with
+permission, be at once withdrawn, it was incidentally mentioned how the
+discovery had been brought about. All eyes, turning to the jury-box,
+fastened on Philip Roland, whose agitated countenance pointed the
+allusion. The part which he had played having been made sufficiently
+plain, the judge himself joined in the general stare. His lordship went
+so far as to remark that while he was pleased to accede to the
+application which had been made to him to consider the case at an end,
+being of opinion that the matter had been brought to a very proper
+termination, still he could not conceal from himself that, so far as he
+could gather from what had been said, the conduct of one of the
+jurymen, even allowing some latitude--here his lordship's eyes seemed
+to twinkle--was marked by a considerable amount of irregularity.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_mitwater" href="#div1Ref_mitwater">Mitwaterstraand</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THE STORY OF A SHOCK</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>Chapter I</h3>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_mit01" href="#div1Ref_mit01">THE DISEASE</a></h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">On the night before their daughter's Wedding Mr. and Mrs. Staunton gave
+a ball. As the festivities were drawing to a close, Mr. Staunton
+button-holed the bridegroom of the morrow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By the way, Burgoyne, there's one thing with reference to Minnie I
+wish to speak to you about. I--I'm not sure I oughtn't to have spoken
+to you before.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the ball-room they were playing a waltz. Mr. Burgoyne's heart was
+with the dancers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;About Minnie? What about Minnie? Don't you think that the little I
+don't know about her already, I shall find out soon enough upon my own
+account?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is something--this is something that you ought to be told.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Staunton hesitated, and the opportunity was lost. The next morning
+Mr. Burgoyne was married.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">During their honeymoon the newly-married pair spent a night at Mont St.
+Michel. In the course of that night an unpleasant incident took place.
+There was a bright moon, and the occupants of the bedrooms gathered on
+the balconies of the Maison Blanche to enjoy its radiance. The room
+next to theirs was tenanted by two sisters, Brooklyn girls. The
+costumes of these young ladies, although in that somewhat remote corner
+of the world, would have made an impression on the Boulevards, and
+still more emphatically in the Park. The married one--a Mrs. Homer
+Joy--wore some striking jewellery, in particular a diamond brooch,
+redolent of Tiffany, which would have attracted notice on a Shah night
+at the opera. Mr. Burgoyne had noticed this brooch earlier in the day,
+and had told himself that we must have returned to the days of King
+Alfred--with several points in our favour--if a woman could journey
+round the world with that advertisement in diamond work flashing in
+the sun.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Someone proposed a midnight stroll about the rock. They strolled. In
+the morning there was a terrible to-do. The advertisement in diamond
+work had disappeared!--stolen!--giving satisfactory proof that in those
+parts, at any rate, the days of King Alfred were now no more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mrs. Joy stated that, previous to starting for the midnight ramble
+about the Mount, she had placed it on her dressing-table, apparently
+despising the precaution of placing it even in an ordinary box. She was
+not even sure that she had closed her bedroom door, so it had, of
+course, struck the eye of the first person who strolled that way, and,
+in all probability, that person had, in the American sense, &quot;struck
+it.&quot; Mont St. Michel was still in a little tumult of excitement when
+Mr. and Mrs. Burgoyne journeyed on their way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oddly enough, this discordant note, once struck, was struck again--kept
+on striking, in fact. At almost every place where the honeymooners
+stopped for an appreciable length of time there something was lost.
+It seemed fatality. At Morlaix, a set of quaint, old, hammered
+silver-spoons, which had accompanied their coffee, vanished--not,
+according to the indignant innkeeper, into thin air, but into somebody's
+pockets. It was most annoying. At Brest, Quimper Vannes, Nantes, and
+afterwards through Touraine and up the Loire, it was the same tale, the
+loss of something of appreciable value--somebody else's property, not
+their's--accompanied their visitation. The coincidence was singular.
+However they did seem to have shaken off the long arm of coincidence
+at last. There had been no sort of unpleasantness at either of the last
+two or three places at which they had stopped, and when they reached
+Paris at last, they were so contented with all the world, that each
+seemed to have forgotten everything in the existence of the other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They stayed at the Grand Hotel--for privacy few places can compete with
+a large hotel--and directly they stayed the annoyances began again. It
+was indeed most singular. On the very morning after their arrival a
+notice was posted in the <i>salle de lecture</i> that the night before a
+lady had lost her fan--something historical in fans, and quite unique.
+She had been seated outside the reading-room--the Burgoynes must have
+been arriving at that very moment--preparatory to going to the opera.
+She laid this wonderful fan on a chair beside her, it was only for an
+instant, yet when she turned it was gone. The administration charitably
+suggested--in their notice--that someone of their lady guests had
+mistaken it for her own.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That same evening a really remarkable tale was whispered about
+the place. A certain lady and gentleman--not our pair, but
+another--happened to be honeymooning in the hotel. Monsieur had left
+Madame asleep in bed. When she got up and began to dress, she discovered
+that the larger and more valuable portion of the jewellery which had
+been given her as wedding presents, and which she, perhaps foolishly,
+had brought abroad, had gone--apparently vanished into air. The
+curious part of the tale was this. She had dreamed that she saw a
+woman--unmistakably a lady--trying on this identical jewellery before
+the looking-glass. Query, was it a dream? Or had she, lying in bed, in
+a half somnolent condition, been the unconscious witness of an actual
+occurrence?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Upon my word,&quot; declared Mr. Burgoyne to his wife, &quot;If the thing
+weren't actually impossible, I should be inclined to believe that we
+were the victims of some elaborate practical joke; that people were in
+a conspiracy to make us believe that ill luck dogged our steps!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mrs. Burgoyne smiled. She was putting on her bonnet before the glass.
+They were preparing to sally out for a quiet dinner on the boulevard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You silly Charlie! What queer ideas you get in your head. What does it
+matter to us if foolish people lose their things? We have not a mission
+to make folks wiser, or, what amounts to the same thing, to compel them
+to keep valuable things in secure places.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lady, who had finished her performance at the glass, came and put
+her hands upon her lord's two shoulders,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear child, don't look so black? I shall be much better prepared to
+discuss that, or any subject, when--we have dined.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lady made a little <i>moue</i> and kissed him on the lips. Then they
+went downstairs. But when they had got so far upon their road, the
+gentleman discovered that he had brought no money in his pockets.
+Leaving his wife in the <i>salle de lecture</i>, he returned to his bedroom
+to supply the omission.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The desk in which he kept his loose cash was at that moment standing on
+the chest of drawers. On the top of it was a bag of his wife's--a bag
+on which she set much store. In it she kept her more particular
+belongings, and such care did she take of it that he never remembered
+to have seen it left out of her locked-up trunk before. Now, taking
+hold of it in his haste, he was rather surprised to find that it was
+unlocked--it was not only unlocked, but it flew wide open, and in
+flying open some of the contents fell upon the floor. He stooped to
+pick them up again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first thing he picked up was a silver spoon, the next was an ivory
+chessman, the next was a fan, and the next--was a diamond brooch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stared at these things in a sort of dream, and at the last
+especially. He had seen the thing before. But where?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Good God! it came upon him in a flash! It was the advertisement in
+diamond work which had been the property of Mrs. Homer Joy!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was seized with a sort of momentary paralysis, continuing to stare
+at the brooch as though he had lost the power of volition. It was with
+an effort that he obtained sufficient mastery over himself to be able
+to turn his attention to the other articles he held. He knew two of
+them. The spoon was one of the spoons which had been lost at Morlaix;
+the chessman was one of a very curious set of chessmen which had
+disappeared at Vannes. From the notice which had been posted in the
+<i>salle de lecture</i> he had no difficulty in recognising the fan which
+had vanished from the chair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was some moments before he realised what the presence of those
+things must mean, and when he did realize it a metamorphosis had taken
+place--the Charles Burgoyne standing there was not the Charles Burgoyne
+who had entered the room. Without any outward display of emotion, in a
+cold, mechanical way he placed the articles he held upon one side, and
+turned the contents of the bag out upon the drawers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They presented a curious variety at any rate. As he gazed at them he
+experienced that singular phenomenon--the inability to credit the
+evidence of his own eyes. There were the rest of the chessmen, the
+rest of the spoons, nick-nacks, a quaint, old silver cream-jug,
+jewellery--bracelets, rings, ear-rings, necklaces, pins, lockets,
+brooches, half the contents of a jeweller's shop. As he stood staring
+at this very miscellaneous collection, the door opened, and his wife
+came in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She smiled as she entered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Charlie, have they taken your money too? Are you aware, sir, how
+hungry I am?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did not turn when he heard her voice. He continued motionless,
+looking at the contents of the bag. She advanced towards him and saw
+what he was looking at. Then he turned and they were face to face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He never knew what was the fashion of his countenance. He could not
+have analysed his feelings to save his life. But, as he looked at her,
+his wife of yesterday, the woman whom he loved, she seemed to shrivel
+up before his eyes, and sank upon the floor. There was silence. Then
+she made a little gesture towards him with her two hands. She fell
+forward, hiding her face on the ground at his feet, prisoning his legs
+with her arms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How came these things into your bag?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did not know his own voice, it was so dry and harsh. She made no
+answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did you steal them?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still silence. He felt a sort of rage rising within him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There are one or two questions you must answer. I am sorry to have to
+put them; it is not my fault. You had better get up from the floor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She never moved. For his life he could not have touched her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I suppose--.&quot; He was choked, and paused. &quot;I suppose that woman's
+jewels are some of these?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No answer. Recognising the hopelessness of putting questions to her
+now, he gathered the various articles together and put them back into
+the bag.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm afraid you will have to dine alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was all he said to her. With the bag in his hand he left the room,
+leaving her in a heap upon the floor. He sneaked rather than walked out
+of the hotel. Supposing they caught him red-handed, with that thing in
+his hand? He only began to breathe freely when he was out in the
+street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Possibly no man in Paris spent the night of that twentieth of June more
+curiously than Mr. Burgoyne. When he returned it was four o'clock in
+the morning, and broad day. He was worn-out, haggard, the spectre
+of a man. In the bedroom he found his wife just as he had left her,
+in a heap upon the floor, but fast asleep. She had removed none
+of her clothes, not even her bonnet or her gloves. She had been
+crying--apparently had cried herself to sleep. As he stood looking
+down at her he realised how he loved her--the woman, the creature of
+flesh and blood, apart entirely from her moral qualities. He placed
+the bag within his trunk and locked it up. Then, kneeling beside his
+wife, he stooped and kissed her as she slept. The kiss aroused her. She
+woke as wakes a child, and, putting her arms about his neck, she kissed
+him back again. Not a word was spoken. Then she got up. He helped her to
+undress, and put her into a bed as though she were a child. Then he
+undressed himself, and joined her. And they fell fast asleep locked in
+each other's arms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That night they returned to London. The bag went with them. On the
+morning after their arrival, Mr. Burgoyne took a cab into the city, the
+fatal bag beside him on the seat. He drove straight to Mr. Staunton's
+office. When he entered, unannounced, his father-in-law started as
+though he were a ghost.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Burgoyne! What brings you here? I hope there's nothing wrong?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Burgoyne did not reply at once. He placed the bag--Minnie's
+bag--upon the table. He kept his eyes fixed upon his father-in-law's
+countenance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Burgoyne! Why do you look at me like that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have something here I wish to show you.&quot; That was Mr. Burgoyne's
+greeting. He opened the bag, and turned its contents out upon the
+table. &quot;Not a bad haul from Breton peasants,--eh?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Staunton stared at the heap of things thus suddenly disclosed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Burgoyne,&quot; he stammered, &quot;what's the meaning of this?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you quite sure you don't know what it means?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Looking up, Mr. Staunton caught the other's eyes. He seemed to read
+something there which carried dreadful significance to his brain. His
+glance fell and he covered his face with his hands. At last he found
+his voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Minnie?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The word was gasped rather than spoken. Mr. Burgoyne's reply was
+equally brief.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Minnie!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good God!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was silence for perhaps a minute. Then Mr. Burgoyne locked the
+door of the room and stood before the empty fire-place.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is by the merest chance that I am not at this moment booked for the
+<i>travaux forces</i>. Some of those jewels were stolen from a woman's
+dressing case at the Grand Hotel, with the woman herself in bed and
+more than half awake at the time. She talked about having every guest
+in the place searched by the police. If she had done so, you would have
+heard from us as soon as the rules of the prison allowed us to
+communicate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Burgoyne paused. Mr. Staunton kept his eyes fixed upon the table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's what I wanted to tell you the night before the wedding, only
+you wouldn't stop. She's a kleptomaniac.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Burgoyne smiled, not gaily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you mean she's a habitual thief?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's a disease.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I've no doubt it's a disease. But perhaps you'll be so kind as to
+accurately define what in the present case you understand by disease.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When she was a toddling child she took things, and secreted them--it's
+a literal fact. When she got into short frocks she continued to capture
+everything that caught her eye. When she exchanged them for long ones
+it was the same. It was not because she wanted the things, because she
+never attempted to use them when she had them. She just put them
+somewhere--as a magpie might--and forget their existence. You had only
+to find out where they were and take them away again, and she was never
+one whit the wiser. In that direction she's irresponsible--it's a
+disease in fact.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If it is, as you say, a disease, have you ever had it medically
+treated?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She has been under medical treatment her whole life long. I suppose we
+have consulted half the specialists in England. Our own man, Muir, has
+given the case his continual attention. He has kept a regular journal,
+and can give you more light upon the subject than I can. You have no
+conception what a life-long torture it has been to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have a very clear conception indeed. But don't you think you might
+have enlightened me upon the matter before?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Rising from his seat, Mr. Staunton began to pace the room</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do! I think so very strongly indeed. But--but--I was over persuaded.
+As you know, I tried at the very last moment; even then I failed.
+Besides, it was suggested to me that marriage might be the turning
+point, and that the woman might be different from the girl. Don't
+misunderstand me! She is not a bad girl; she is a good girl in the best
+possible sense, a girl in a million! No better daughter ever lived; you
+won't find a better wife if you search the whole world through; There
+is just this one point. Some people are somnambulists; in a sense she
+is a somnambulist too. I tell you I might put this watch upon the
+table&quot;--Mr. Staunton produced his watch from his waistcoat pocket--&quot;and
+she would take it from right underneath my nose, and never know what it
+was that she had done. I confess I can't explain it, but so it is!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think,&quot; remarked Mr. Burgoyne, with a certain dryness, &quot;that I had
+better see this doctor fellow--Muir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;See him--by all means, see him. There is one point, Burgoyne. I
+realised from the first that if we kept you in the dark about this
+thing, and it forced itself upon you afterwards, you would be quite
+justified in feeling aggrieved.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You realised that, did you? You did get so far?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And therefore I say this, that, although my child has only been your
+wife these few short days, although she loves you as truly as woman
+ever loved a man--and what strength of love she has I know--still, if
+you are minded to put her from you, I will not only not endeavour to
+change your purpose, but I will never ask you for a penny for her
+support--she shall be to you as though she had never lived.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Burgoyne looked his father-in-law in the face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No man shall part me from my wife, nor anything--but death.&quot; Mr.
+Burgoyne turned a little aside. &quot;I believe I love her better because of
+this. God knows I loved her well enough before.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can understand that easily. Because of this she is dearer to us,
+too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was silence. Moving to the table, Mr. Burgoyne began to replace
+the things in the bag.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will go and see this man Muir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Muir was at home. His appearance impressed Mr. Burgoyne favourably,
+and Mr. Burgoyne had a keen eye for the charlatan in medicine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dr. Muir, I have come from Mr. Staunton. My name is Burgoyne. You are
+probably aware that I have married Mr. Staunton's daughter, Minnie. It
+is about my wife I wish to consult you.&quot; Dr. Muir simply nodded.
+&quot;During our honeymoon in Brittany she has stolen all these things.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Burgoyne opened the bag sufficiently to disclose its contents. Dr.
+Muir scarcely glanced at them. He kept his eyes fixed on Mr. Burgoyne's
+face. There was a pause before he spoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You were not informed of her--peculiarity?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was not. I don't understand it now. It is because I wish to
+understand it that I have come to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't understand it either.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I am told that you have always given the matter your attention.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is so, but I don't understand it any the more for that. I am not
+a specialist.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you mean that she is mad?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't say that I mean anything at all; very shortly you will be
+quite as capable of judging of the case as I am. I've no doubt that if
+you wished to place her in an asylum, you would have no difficulty in
+doing so. So much I don't hesitate to say.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you. I have no intention of doing anything of the kind. Can you
+not suggest a cure?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can suggest ten thousand, but they would all be experiments. In
+fact, I have tried several of them already, and the experiments have
+failed. For instance, I thought marriage might effect a cure. It is
+perhaps yet too early to judge, but it would appear that, so far, the
+thing has been a failure. Frankly, Mr. Burgoyne, I don't think you will
+find a man in Europe who, in this particular case, can give you help.
+You must trust to time. I have always thought myself that a shock might
+do it, though what sort of shock it will have to be is more than I can
+tell you. I thought the marriage shock might serve. Possibly the birth
+shock might prove of some avail. But we cannot experiment in shocks,
+you know. You must trust to time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On that basis--<i>trust in time</i>--Mr. Burgoyne arranged his household.
+The bag with its contents was handed to his solicitor. The stolen
+property was restored to its several owners. It cost Mr. Burgoyne a
+pretty penny before the restoration was complete. A certain Mrs. Deal
+formed part of his establishment. She acted as companion and keeper to
+Mr. Burgoyne's wife. They never knew whether that lady realised what
+Mrs. Deal's presence really meant. And, in spite of their utmost
+vigilance, things were taken--from shops, from people's houses, from
+guests under her own roof. It was Mrs. Deal's business to discover
+where these things were, and to see that they were instantly restored.
+Her life was spent in a continual game of hide and seek.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a strange life they lived in that Brompton house, and yet--odd
+though it may sound--it was a happy one. He loved her, she loved
+him--there is a good deal in just that simple fact. There was one good
+thing--and that in spite of Dr. Muir's suggestion that a birth shock
+might effect a cure--there were no children.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_mit02" href="#div1Ref_mit02">THE CURE</a></h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">They had been married five years. There came an invitation from one
+Arthur Watson, a friend of Mr. Burgoyne's boyhood. After long
+separation they had encountered each other by accident, and Mr. Watson
+had insisted upon Mr. Burgoyne's bringing his wife to spend the
+&quot;week-end&quot; with him in that Mecca of a certain section of modern
+Londoners--up the river. So the married couple went to see the single man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After dinner conversation rather languished. But their host stirred it
+up again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have something here to show you.&quot; Producing a leather case from the
+inner pocket of his coat, he addressed a question to Mr. Burgoyne &quot;Do
+much in mines?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because, if you do, here's a tip for you, and tips are things in which
+I don't deal as a rule--buy Mitwaterstraand. There is a boom coming
+along, and the foreshadowings of the boom are in this case. Mrs.
+Burgoyne, shut your eyes and you shall see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mrs. Burgoyne did not shut her eyes, but Mr. Watson opened the case,
+and she saw! More than a score of cut diamonds of the purest water, and
+of unusual size--lumps of light! With them, side by side, were about
+the same number of uncut stones, in curious contrast to their more
+radiant brethren.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You see those?&quot; He took out about a dozen of the cut stones, and
+held them loosely in his hand. &quot;Are you a judge of diamonds? Well,
+I am. Hitherto there have been one or two defects about African
+diamonds--they cut badly, and the colour's wrong. But we have changed
+all that. I stake my reputation that you will find no finer diamonds
+than those in the world. Here is the stone in the rough. Here is exactly,
+the same thing after it has been cut; judge for yourself, my boy! And
+those come from the district of Mitwaterstraand, Griqualand West. Take
+my tip, Burgoyne, and look out for Mitwaterstraand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Burgoyne did take his tip, and looked out for Mitwaterstraand,
+though not in the sense he meant. He looked out for Mitwaterstraand all
+night, lying in bed with his eyes wide open, his thoughts fixed on his
+wife. Suppose they were stolen, those shining bits of crystal?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the morning he was up while she still slept. He dressed himself and
+went downstairs. He felt that he must have just one whiff of tobacco,
+and then return--to watch. A little doze in which he had caught himself
+had frightened him. Suppose he fell into slumber as profound as hers,
+what might not happen in his dreams?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Early as was the hour, he was not the first downstairs. As he entered
+the room in which the diamonds had been exhibited, he found Mr. Watson
+standing at the table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hullo, Watson! At this hour of the morning who'd have thought of
+seeing you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I--I've had a shock.&quot; There was a perceptible tremor in Mr. Watson's
+voice, as though even yet he had not recovered from the shock of which
+he spoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A shock? What kind of a shock?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When I woke this morning I found that I had left the case with the
+diamonds in downstairs. I can't think how I came to do it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was a careless thing.&quot; Mr. Burgoyne's tones were even stern. He
+shuddered as he thought of the risk which had been run.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was. When I found that it was missing, I was out of bed like a
+flash. I put my things on anyhow, and when I found it was all
+right&quot;--he at that moment was holding the case in his hands--&quot;I felt like
+singing a Te Deum.&quot; He did not look like singing a Te Deum, by any
+means. &quot;Let's have a look at you, my beauties.&quot; He pressed a spring and
+the case flew open. &quot;My God!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What's the matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They're gone!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gone!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were, sure enough. The case was empty. The shock was too much for
+Mr. Burgoyne.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She's taken them after all,&quot; he gasped.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My wife!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your wife!--Burgoyne!--What do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Watson, my wife has stolen them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Burgoyne!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The empty case fell to the ground with a crash. It almost seemed as
+though Mr. Watson would have fallen after it. He seemed even more
+distressed than his friend. His face was clammy, his hands were
+trembling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Burgoyne, what--whatever do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My wife's a kleptomaniac, that's what I mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A kleptomaniac! You--you don't mean that she has taken the stones?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do. Sounds like a joke doesn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A joke! I don't know what you call a joke! It'll be no joke for me.
+There's to be a meeting, and those stones will have to be produced for
+experts to examine. If they are not forthcoming, I shall have to
+explain what has become of them, and those are not the men to listen to
+any talk of kleptomania. And it isn't the money they will want, it's
+the stones. At this crisis those stones are worth a hundred thousand
+pounds to us, and more! It'll be your ruin, and mine, if they are not
+found.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They will be found. It is only a little game she plays. She hides, we
+seek and find. I think I may undertake to produce them for you in
+half-an-hour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I hope you will,&quot; said Mr. Watson, still with clammy face and
+trembling hands. &quot;My God, I hope you will.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Burgoyne went upstairs. His wife was still asleep; and a prettier
+picture than she presented when asleep it would be hard to find. He put
+his hand upon her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Minnie!&quot; No reply. &quot;Minnie!&quot; Still she slept.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When she did awake it was in the most natural and charming way
+conceivable. She stretched out her arms to her husband leaning over
+her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Charlie! Whatever is the time?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where are those stones?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What?&quot; With the back of her hands she began to rub her eyes. &quot;Where
+are what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where are those stones?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't know what--&quot; yawn--&quot;you mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Minnie!--Don't trifle with me!--Where have you put those diamonds?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Charlie! Whatever do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her eyes were wide open now. She lay looking at him in innocent
+surprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What a consummate actress you are!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words came from his lips almost unawares. They seemed to startle
+her. &quot;Charlie!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He--loving her with all his heart--was unable to meet her glance, and
+began moving uneasily about the room, talking as he moved.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come, Minnie, tell me where they are?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where what are?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The diamonds!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The diamonds! What diamonds? Whatever do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know what I mean very well. I mean the Mitwaterstraand diamonds
+which Watson showed us last night, and which you have taken from the
+case.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Which I have taken from the case!&quot; She rose from the bed, and stood on
+the floor in her night-dress, the embodiment of surprise. &quot;If you will
+leave the room I shall be able to dress.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Minnie! Do you really think I am a fool? I can make every
+allowance--God knows I have done so often enough before--but you must
+tell me where those stones are before I leave this room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you mean to suggest that I--I have stolen them?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Call it what you please! I am only asking you to tell me where you
+have put them. That is all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On what evidence do you suspect me of this monstrous crime?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Evidence? What do I need with evidence? Minnie, for God's sake, don't
+let us argue. You know that you are dearer to me than life, but this
+time--even at the sacrifice of life!--I cannot save you from the
+consequence of your own act.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The consequence of my own act. What do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I mean this, that unless those diamonds are immediately forthcoming,
+this night you will sleep in jail.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In jail! I sleep in jail! Is this some hideous dream?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, my darling, for both our sakes tell me where the diamonds are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Charlie, I know no more where they are than the man in the moon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then God help us, for we are lost!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He ransacked every article of furniture the room contained. Tore open
+the mattresses, ripped up the boards, looked up the chimney. But there
+were no diamonds. And that night she slept in jail. Mr. Watson started
+off to tell his story to the meeting as best he might. Mr. and Mrs.
+Burgoyne remained behind, searching for the missing stones. About one
+o'clock, Mr. Watson still being absent, a telegram was received at the
+local police station containing instructions to detain Mrs. Burgoyne on
+a charge of felony, &quot;warrant coming down by train.&quot; Mr. Watson had
+evidently told his story to an unsympathetic audience. Mrs. Burgoyne
+was arrested and taken off to the local lock-up--all idea of bail being
+peremptorily pooh-poohed. Mr. Burgoyne tore up to town in a state of
+semi-madness. When Mr. Staunton heard the story, his affliction was at
+least, equal to his son-in-law's. Dr. Muir was telegraphed for, and a
+hurried conference was held in the office of a famous criminal lawyer.
+That gentleman told them plainly that at present nothing could be done.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Even suppose the diamonds are immediately forthcoming, the case will
+have to go before a magistrate. You don't suppose the police will allow
+you to compound a felony. That is what it amounts to, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As for the medical point of view, it must be urged, of course; but the
+lawyer made no secret of his belief that if the medical point of view
+was all they had to depend on, the case would, of a certainty, be sent
+to trial.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But it seems to me that at present there is not a tittle of evidence.
+Your wife, Mr. Burgoyne, has been arrested, I won't say upon your
+information, but on the strength of words which you allowed to escape
+your lips. But they can't put you in the box; you could prove nothing
+if they did. When the case comes on they'll ask for a remand. Probably
+they'll get it, one remand at any rate. I shall offer bail, which
+they'll accept. When the case comes on again, unless they have
+something to go on, which they haven't now, it will be dismissed. Mrs.
+Burgoyne will leave the court without a stain upon her character. We
+shan't even have to hint at kleptomania, or klepto anything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">More than once that night Mr. Burgoyne meditated suicide. All was over.
+She--his beloved!--through his folly--slept in jail. And if, by the
+skin of her teeth, she escaped this time, how would it be the next? She
+was guilty now--they might prove it then! And when he thought of the
+numerous precautions he had hedged her round with heretofore, it seemed
+marvellous that she had gone scot free so long. And suppose she had
+been taken at the outset of her career--in the affair of the jewels at
+the Grand Hotel--what would have availed any plea he might have urged
+before a French tribunal? He shuddered as he thought of it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He never attempted to go to bed. He paced to and fro in his study like
+a caged wild animal. If he might only have shared her cell! The study
+was on the ground floor. It opened on to the garden. Between two and
+three in the morning he thought he heard a tapping at the pane. With a
+trembling hand he unlatched the window. A man stood without.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Watson!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As the name broke from him Mr. Watson staggered, rather than walked,
+into the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I--I saw the light outside. I thought I had better knock at the window
+than disturb the house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He sank into a chair, putting his arms upon the table, pillowing his
+face upon his hands. There was silence. Mr. Burgoyne, in his surprise,
+was momentarily struck dumb. At last, finding his voice, and eyeing his
+friend, he said--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is a bad job for both of us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Watson looked up. Mr. Burgoyne, in spite of his own burden which he
+had to bear, was startled by something which he saw written on his
+face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As you say, it is a bad job for both of us.&quot; Mr. Watson rose as he
+was speaking. &quot;But it is worst for me. Why did you tell me all that
+stuff about your wife?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God knows I am not in the mood to talk of anything, but rather than
+that, talk of what you please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why the devil did you put that thought into my head?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What thought? I do not understand. I don't think you understand much
+either.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why did you tell me she had taken the stones? Why, you damned fool, I
+had them in my pocket all the time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Watson took his hand out of his pocket. It was full of what seemed
+little crystals. He dashed these down upon the table with such force
+that they were scattered all over the room. They were some of the
+Mitwaterstraand diamonds.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Watson! Good God! What do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was the thief! Not she!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You--hound!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't look as though you'd like to murder me! I tell you I feel like
+murdering you! I am a ruined man. The thought came into my head that if
+I could get off with those Mitwaterstraand diamonds, I should have
+something with which to start afresh. Like an idiot, I took them from
+the case last night, meaning to hatch some cock-and-bull story about
+having forgotten to bring the case upstairs, and their having been
+stolen from it in the night. But on reflection I perceived how
+extremely thin the tale would be. I went downstairs to put them back
+again. I was in the very act of doing it when you came in. I showed you
+the empty box. You immediately cried out that your wife had stolen
+them. It was a temptation straight from hell! I was too astounded at
+first to understand your meaning. When I did, I let you remain in
+possession of your belief. Now, Burgoyne, don't you be a fool.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Mr. Burgoyne was a fool. He fell on to the floor in a fit; this
+last straw was one too many. When he recovered, Mr. Watson was gone,
+but the diamonds were there, piled in a neat little heap upon the
+table. He had been guilty of a really curious lapse into the paths of
+honesty, for, as he truly said, he was a ruined man. It was one of
+those resonant smashes which are the sensation of an hour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mrs. Burgoyne was released--without a stain upon her character. She
+never stole again! She had been guilty so many times, and never been
+accused of crime,--and the first time she was innocent they said she
+was a thief! Dr. Muir said the shock had done it,--he had said that a
+shock would do it, all along.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_exchange" href="#div1Ref_exchange">Exchange is Robbery</a></h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">&quot;Impossible!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Really, Mr. Ruby, I wish you wouldn't say a thing was impossible when
+I say that it is actually a fact.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Ruby looked at the Countess of Grinstead, and the Countess of
+Grinstead looked at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, Countess, if you will just consider for one moment. You are
+actually accusing us of selling to you diamonds which we know to be
+false.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whether you knew them to be false or not is more than I can say. All I
+know is that I bought a set of diamond ornaments from you, for which
+you charged me eight hundred pounds, and which Mr. Ahrens says are not
+worth eight hundred pence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Ahrens must be dreaming.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh no, he's not. I don't believe that Mr. Ahrens ever dreams.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Golden, who was standing observantly by, addressed an inquiry to
+the excited lady. &quot;Where are the diamonds now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The diamonds, as you call them, and which I don't believe are
+diamonds, since Mr. Ahrens says they're not, and I'm sure he ought to
+know, are in this case.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Countess of Grinstead produced from her muff one of those flat
+leather cases in which jewellers love to enshrine their wares.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Golden held out his hand for it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Permit me for one moment, Countess.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Countess handed him the case. Mr. Golden opened it. Mr. Ruby,
+leaning back in his chair, watched his partner examine the contents.
+The Countess watched him too. Mr. Golden took out one glittering
+ornament after another. Through a little microscope he peered into its
+inmost depths. He turned it over and over, and peered and peered, as
+though he would read its very heart. When he had concluded his
+examination he turned to the lady.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How came you to submit these ornaments to Mr. Ahrens?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't mind telling you. Not in the least! I happened to want some
+money. I didn't care to ask the Earl for it. I thought of those
+things--you had charged me �800 for them, so I thought that he would
+let me have �200 upon them as a loan. When he told me that they were
+nothing but rubbish I thought I should have had a fit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where have they been in the interval between your purchasing them from
+us and your taking them to Mr. Ahrens?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where have they been? Where do you suppose they've been? They have
+been in my jewel case, of course.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Golden replaced the ornaments in their satin beds. He closed the
+case.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Every inquiry shall be made into the matter, Countess, you may rest
+assured of that. We cannot afford to lose our money, any more than you
+can afford to lose your diamonds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Directly the lady's back was turned Mr. Ruby put a question to his
+partner. &quot;Well, are they false?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are. It is a good imitation, one of the best imitations I
+remember to have seen. Still it is an imitation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you--do you think she did it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is more than I can say. Still, when a lady buys diamonds on
+Saturday, upon credit, and takes them to a pawnbroker on Tuesday, to
+raise money on them, one may be excused for having one's suspicions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While the partners were still discussing the matter, the door was
+opened by an assistant. &quot;Mr. Gray wishes to see Mr. Ruby.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before Mr. Ruby had an opportunity of saying whether or not he wished
+to see Mr. Gray, rather unceremoniously Mr. Gray himself came in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should think I do want to see Mr. Ruby, and while I'm about it, I
+may as well see Mr. Golden too.&quot; Mr. Gray turned to the assistant, who
+still was standing at the open door. &quot;You can go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The assistant looked at Mr. Ruby for instructions. &quot;Yes Thompson, you
+can go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Thompson was gone, and the door was closed, Mr. Gray, who wore his
+hat slightly on the side of his head, turned and faced the partners. He
+was a very young man, and was dressed in the extreme of fashion. Taking
+from his coat tail pocket the familiar leather case, he flung it on to
+the table with a bang. &quot;I don't know what you call that, but I tell you
+what I call it. I call it a damned swindle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Ruby was shocked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Gray! May I ask of what you are complaining?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Complaining! I'm complaining of your selling me a thing for two
+thousand pounds which is not worth two thousand pence!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed? Have we been guilty of such conduct as that?&quot; Mr. Golden
+picked up the case which Mr. Gray had flung down upon the table. &quot;Is
+this the diamond necklace which we had the pleasure of selling you the
+other day?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Golden opened the case. He took out the necklace which it
+contained. He examined it as minutely as he had examined the Countess
+of Grinstead's ornaments. &quot;This is--very remarkable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Remarkable! I should think it is remarkable! I bought that necklace
+for a lady. As some ladies have a way of doing, she had it valued. When
+she found that the thing was trumpery, she, of course, jumped to the
+conclusion that I'd been having her--trying to gain kudos for giving
+her something worth having at the cheapest possible rate. A pretty
+state of things, upon my word!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This appears to be a lady of acute commercial instincts, Mr. Gray.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never mind about that! If you deny that that is the necklace which you
+sold to me I will prove that it is--in the police court. I am quite
+prepared for it. Men who are capable of selling a necklace of glass
+beads as a necklace of diamonds are capable of denying that they ever
+sold the thing at all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Gray, there is no necessity to use such language to us. If a wrong
+has been done we are ready and willing to repair it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then repair it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It took some time to get rid of Mr. Gray. He had a great deal to say,
+and a very strong and idiomatic way of saying it. Altogether it was a
+bad quarter of an hour for Messrs. Ruby and Golden. When, at last, they
+did get rid of him, Mr. Ruby turned to his partner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Golden, it's not possible that the stones in that necklace are false.
+Those are the stones which we got from Fungst--you remember?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I remember very well indeed. They were the stones which we got from
+Fungst. They are not now. The gems which are at present in this
+necklace are paste, covered with a thin veneer of real stones. It is an
+old trick, but I never saw it better done. The workmanship, both in Mr.
+Gray's necklace and in the Countess of Grinstead's ornaments, is, in
+its way, perfection.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While Mr. Ruby was still staring at his partner, the door opened and
+again Mr. Thompson entered. &quot;The Duchess of Datchet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let's hope,&quot; muttered Mr. Golden, &quot;that she's not come to charge us
+with selling any more paste diamonds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the Duchess had come to do nothing of the kind. She had come on a
+much more agreeable errand, from Messrs. Ruby and Golden's point of
+view--she had come to buy. As it was Mr. Ruby's special <i>r�le</i> to act
+as salesman to the great--the very great--ladies who patronised that
+famed establishment, Mr. Golden left his partner to perform his duties.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Ruby found the Duchess, on that occasion, difficult to please. She
+wanted something in diamonds, to present to Lady Edith Linglithgow on
+the occasion of her approaching marriage. As Lady Edith is the Duke's
+first cousin, as all the world knows, almost, as it were, his sister,
+the Duchess wanted something very good indeed. Nothing which Messrs.
+Ruby and Golden had seemed to be quite good enough, except one or two
+things which were, perhaps, too good. The Duchess promised to return
+with the Duke himself to-morrow, or, perhaps, the day after. With that
+promise Mr. Ruby was forced to be content.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The instant the difficult very great lady had vanished, Mr. Golden came
+into the room. He placed upon the table some leather cases.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ruby what do you think of those?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, they're from stock, aren't they?&quot; Mr. Ruby took up some of the
+cases which Mr. Golden had put down. There was quite a heap of them.
+They contained rings, bracelets, necklaces, odds and ends in diamond
+work. &quot;Anything the matter with them, Golden?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There's this the matter with them--that they're all paste.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Golden!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I've been glancing through the stock. I haven't got far, but I've come
+upon those already. Somebody appears to be having a little joke at our
+expense. It strikes me, Ruby, that we're about to be the victims of one
+of the greatest jewel robberies upon record.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Golden!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you been showing this to the Duchess?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Golden picked up a necklace of diamonds from a case which lay open
+on the table, whose charms Mr. Ruby had been recently exhibiting to
+that difficult great lady. &quot;Ruby!--Good Heavens!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Wha-what's the matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They're paste!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Golden was staring at the necklace as though it were some hideous
+thing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Paste!--G-G-Golden!&quot; Mr. Ruby positively trembled. &quot;That's Kesteeven's
+necklace which he brought in this morning to see if we could find a
+customer for it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm quite aware that this was Kesteeven's necklace. Now it would be
+dear at a ten-pound note.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A ten-pound note! He wants ten thousand guineas! It's not more than an
+hour since he brought it--no one can have touched it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ruby, don't talk nonsense! I saw Kesteeven's necklace when he brought
+it, I see this thing now. This is not Kesteeven's necklace--it has been
+changed!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Golden!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To whom have you shown this necklace?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To the Duchess of Datchet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To whom else?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To no one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who has been in this room?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know who has been in the room as well as I do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then--she did it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She?--Who?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Duchess!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Golden! you are mad!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall be mad pretty soon. We shall be ruined! I've not the slightest
+doubt but that you've been selling people paste for diamonds for
+goodness knows how long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Golden!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You'll have to come with me to Datchet House. I'll see the Duke--I'll
+have it out with him at once.&quot; Mr. Golden threw open the door.
+&quot;Thompson, Mr. Ruby and I are going out. See that nobody comes near
+this room until we return.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To make sure that nobody did come near that room Mr. Golden turned the
+key in the lock, and pocketed the key.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">When Messrs. Ruby and Golden arrived at Datchet House they found the
+Duke at home. He received them in his own apartment. On their entrance
+he was standing behind a writing table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, gentlemen, to what am I indebted for the honour of this visit?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Golden took on himself the office of spokesman.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We have called, your Grace, upon a very delicate matter.&quot; The Duke
+inclined his head--he also took a seat. &quot;The Duchess of Datchet has
+favoured us this morning with a visit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Duchess!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Duchess.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Golden paused. He was conscious that this was a delicate matter.
+&quot;When her Grace quitted our establishment she <i>accidentally</i>&quot;--Mr.
+Golden emphasised the adverb; he even repeated it--&quot;<i>accidentally</i> left
+behind some of her property in exchange for ours.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Golden!&quot; The Duke stared. &quot;I don't understand you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Golden then and there resolved to make the thing quite plain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will be frank with your Grace. When the Duchess left our
+establishment this morning she took with her some twenty thousand
+pounds worth of diamonds--it may be more, we have only been able to
+give a cursory glance at the state of things--and left behind her paste
+imitations of those diamonds instead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Duke stood up. He trembled--probably with anger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Golden, am I--am I to understand that you are mad?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The case, your Grace, is as I stated. Is not the case as I state it,
+Mr. Ruby?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Ruby took out his handkerchief to relieve his brow. His habit of
+showing excessive deference to the feelings and the whims of very great
+people was almost more than he could master.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I--I'm afraid, Mr. Golden, that it is. Your--your Grace will
+understand that--that we should never have ventured to--to come here
+had we not been most--most unfortunately compelled.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pray make no apology, Mr. Ruby. Allow me to have a clear understanding
+with you, gentlemen. Do I understand that you charge the Duchess of
+Datchet--the Duchess of Datchet!&quot;--the Duke echoed his own words, as
+though he were himself unable to believe in the enormity of such a
+thing--&quot;with stealing jewels from your shop?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If your Grace will allow me to make a distinction without a
+difference--we charge no one with anything. If your Grace will give us
+your permission to credit the jewels to your account, there is an end
+of the matter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the value of the articles which you say have gone?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On that point we are not ourselves, as yet, accurately informed. I may
+as well state at once--it is better to be frank, your Grace--that this
+sort of thing appears to have been going on for some time. It is only
+an hour or so since we began to have even a suspicion of the extent of
+our losses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then, in effect, you charge the Duchess of Datchet with robbing you
+wholesale?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Golden paused. He felt that to such a question as this it would be
+advisable that he should frame his answer in a particular manner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your Grace will understand that different persons have different ways
+of purchasing. Lady A. has her way. Lady B. has her way, and the
+Duchess of Datchet has hers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you suggesting that the Duchess of Datchet is a kleptomaniac?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Golden was silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you think that that is a comfortable suggestion to make to a
+husband, Mr. Golden?&quot; Just then someone tapped at the door. &quot;Who's
+there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A voice--a feminine voice--enquired without, &quot;Can I come in?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before the Duke could deny the right of entry, the door opened and a
+woman entered. A tall woman, and a young and a lovely one. When she
+perceived Messrs. Ruby and Golden she cast an enquiring look in the
+direction of the Duke. &quot;Are you engaged?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Duke was eyeing her with a somewhat curious expression of
+countenance. &quot;I believe you know these gentlemen?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do I? I ought to know them perhaps, but I'm afraid I don't.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Ruby was all affability and bows, and smiles and rubbings of hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have not had the honour of seeing the lady upon a previous
+occasion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Duke of Datchet stared. &quot;You have not had the honour? Then
+what--what the dickens do you mean? This is the Duchess!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Duchess!&quot; cried Messrs. Ruby and Golden.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly--the Duchess of Datchet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Messrs. Ruby and Golden looked blue. They looked more than blue--they
+looked several colours of the rainbow all at once. They stared as
+though they could not believe the evidence of their eyes and ears. The
+Duke turned to the Duchess. He opened the door for her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Duchess, will you excuse me for a moment? I have something which I
+particularly wish to say to these gentlemen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Duchess disappeared. When she had gone the Duke not only closed the
+door behind her, but he stood with his back against the door which he
+had closed. His manner, all at once, was scarcely genial.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, what shall I do with you, gentlemen? You come to my house and
+charge the Duchess of Datchet with having been a constant visitor at
+your shop for the purpose of robbing you, and it turns out that you
+have actually never seen the Duchess of Datchet in your lives until
+this moment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But,&quot; gasped Mr. Ruby, &quot;that--that is not the lady who came to our
+establishment, and--and called herself the Duchess of Datchet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, sir, and what has that to do with me? Am I responsible for the
+proceedings of every sharper who comes to your shop and chooses to call
+herself the Duchess of Datchet? I should advise you, in future, before
+advancing reckless charges, to make some enquiries into the <i>bona
+fides</i> of your customers, Mr. Ruby. Now, gentlemen, you may go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Duke held the door wide open, invitingly. Mr. Golden caught his
+partner by the sleeve, as though he feared that he would, with undue
+celerity, accept the invitation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hardly, your Grace, there is still something which we wish to say to
+you.&quot; The Duke of Datchet shut the door again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then say it. Only say it, if possible, in such a manner as not to
+compel me to--kick you, Mr. Golden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your Grace will believe that in anything I have said, or in anything
+which I am to say, nothing is further from my wish than to cause your
+Grace annoyance. But, on the other hand, surely your Grace is too old,
+and too good a customer of our house, to wish to see us ruined.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I had rather, Mr. Golden, see you ruined ten thousand times over than
+that you should ruin my wife's fair fame.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Golden hesitated; he seemed to perceive that the Duke's retort was
+not irrelevant. He turned to Mr. Ruby.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Ruby, will you be so good as to explain what reasons we had for
+believing that this person was what she called herself--the Duchess of
+Datchet? Because your Grace must understand that we did not entertain
+that belief without having at least some grounds to go upon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Ruby, thus appealed to, began to fidget. He did not seem to relish
+the office which his partner had imposed upon him. The tale which he
+told was rather lame--still, he told it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your Grace will understand that I--I am acquainted, at least by sight,
+with most of the members of the British aristocracy, and--and, indeed,
+of other aristocracies. But it so happened that, at the period of your
+Grace's recent marriage, I happened to be abroad, and--and, not only
+so, but--but the lady your Grace married was--was a lady--from--from
+the country.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am perfectly aware, Mr. Ruby, whom I married.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Quite so, your Grace, quite so. Only--only I was endeavouring to
+explain how it was that I--I did not happen to be acquainted with her
+Grace's personal appearance. So that when a carriage and pair drove up
+to our establishment with your Grace's crest upon the panel----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My crest upon the panel!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your Grace's crest upon the panel&quot;--as Mr. Ruby continued, the Duke of
+Datchet bit his lip--&quot;and a lady stepped out of it and said, 'I am the
+Duchess of Datchet; my husband tells me that he is an old customer of
+yours,' I was only too glad to see her Grace, because, as your Grace is
+aware, we have the honour of having your Grace as an old customer of
+ours. 'My husband has given me this cheque to spend with you.' When she
+said that she took a cheque out of her purse, one of your Grace's own
+cheques drawn upon Messrs. Coutts, 'Pay Messrs. Ruby and Golden, or
+order, one thousand pounds,' with your Grace's signature attached. I
+have seen too many of your Grace's cheques not to know them well. She
+purchased goods to the value of a thousand pounds, and she gave us your
+Grace's cheque to pay for them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She gave you that cheque, did she?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Golden interposed, &quot;We presented the cheque, and it was duly
+honoured. On the face of such proof as that, what could we suppose?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Duke was moving about the room--it seemed, a little restlessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It didn't necessarily follow, because a woman paid for her purchases
+with a cheque of mine that that woman was the Duchess of Datchet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, that it did. At
+least, the presumption was strong upon that side. May I ask to whom
+your Grace's cheque was given?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You may ask, but I don't see why I should tell you. It was honoured,
+and that is sufficient.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't think it is sufficient, and I don't think that your Grace will
+think so either, if you consider for a moment. If it had not been for
+the strong presumptive evidence of your Grace's cheque, we should not
+have been robbed of many thousand pounds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Duke of Datchet paced restlessly to and fro. Messrs. Ruby and
+Golden watched him. At last he moved towards his writing table. He sat
+down on the chair behind it. He stretched out his legs in front of him.
+He thrust his hands into his trousers pockets.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll make a clean breast of it. You fellows can keep a still tongue in
+your heads--keep a still tongue about what I am going to tell you.&quot; His
+hearers bowed. They were coming to the point--at last. &quot;Eh&quot;--in spite
+of his announced intention of making a clean breast of it, his Grace
+rather stumbled in his speech. &quot;Before I was married I--I had some
+acquaintance with--with a certain lady. When I married, that
+acquaintance ceased. On the last occasion on which I saw her she
+informed me that she was indebted to you in the sum of a thousand
+pounds for jewellery. I gave her a cheque to discharge her liability to
+you, and to make sure that she did discharge the liability, I made the
+cheque payable to you, which, I now perceive, was perhaps not the
+wisest thing I could have done. But, at the same time, I wish you
+clearly to comprehend that I have every reason to believe that the lady
+referred to is, to put it mildly, a most unlikely person to--to rob any
+one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We must request you to furnish us with that lady's name and address.
+And I would advise your Grace to accompany us in an immediate visit to
+that lady.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is your advice is it, Mr. Golden? I am not sure that I appreciate
+it quite so much as it may possibly deserve.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Otherwise, as you will yourself perceive, we shall be compelled to put
+the matter at once in the hands of the police, and, your Grace, there
+will be a scandal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Duke of Datchet reflected. He looked at Mr. Golden, he looked at
+Mr. Ruby, he looked at the ceiling, he looked at the floor, he looked
+at his boots--then he looked back again at Mr. Golden. At last he rose.
+He shook himself a little--as if to shake his clothes into their proper
+places. He seemed to have threshed the <i>pros</i> and <i>cons</i> of the matter
+well out, mentally, and to have finally decided.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As I do not want a scandal, I think I will take your excellent advice,
+Mr. Golden--which I now really do appreciate at its proper value--and
+accompany you upon that little visit. Shall we go at once?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At once--if your Grace pleases.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">The Duke of Datchet's brougham, containing the Duke of Datchet himself
+upon one seat, and Messrs. Ruby and Golden cheek by jowl upon the
+other, drew up in front of a charming villa in the most charming
+part of charming St. John's Wood. The Duke's ring--for the Duke himself
+did ring, and there was no knocker--was answered by a most
+unimpeachable-looking man-servant in livery. The man-servant was not
+only unimpeachable-looking--which every servant ought to look--but
+good-looking, too, which, in a servant, is not regarded as quite so
+indispensable. He was, indeed, so good-looking as to be quite a &quot;beauty
+man.&quot; So young, too! A mere youth!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When this man-servant opened the door, and saw to whom he had opened
+it, he started. And not only did he start, but Messrs. Ruby and Golden
+started too, particularly Mr. Golden. The Duke of Datchet, if he
+observed this little by-play, did not condescend to notice it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is Mrs. Mansfield in?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I believe so. I will enquire. What name?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never mind the name, and I will make my own enquiries. You needn't
+announce me, I know the way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Duke of Datchet seemed to know the way very well indeed. He led the
+way up the staircase; Messrs. Ruby and Golden followed. The man-servant
+remained at the foot of the stairs, as if doubtful whether or not
+he ought to follow. When they had reached the landing, and the
+man-servant, still remaining below, was out of sight, Mr. Golden turned to
+Mr. Ruby.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where on earth have I seen that man before?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was just addressing to myself the same enquiry,&quot; said Mr. Ruby.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Duke paused. He turned to the partners.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What's that? The servant? Have you seen the man before? The plot is
+thickening. I am afraid 'the Duchess' is getting warm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Apparently the Duke knew his way so well that he did not think it
+necessary to announce himself at the door of the room to which he led
+the partners. He simply turned the handle and went in, Messrs. Ruby and
+Golden close upon his heels. The room which he had entered was a pretty
+room, and contained a pretty occupant. A lady, young and fair, rose
+from a couch which was at the opposite side of the apartment, and, as
+was most justifiable under the circumstances, stared: &quot;Hereward!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mrs. Mansfield!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whatever brings you here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear Mrs. Mansfield, I have come to ask you what you think of Mr.
+Kesteeven's necklace.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hereward, what do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Duke's manner changed from jest to earnest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Rather, Gertrude, what do you mean? What have I done that deserved
+such a return from you? What have I done to you that you should have
+endeavoured to drag my wife's name in the mire?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lady stared. &quot;I have no more idea what you are talking about than
+the man in the moon!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You dare to tell me so, in the presence of these men?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In the presence of what men?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In the presence of your victims--of Mr. Ruby and of Mr. Golden?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Golden advanced a step or two.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Excuse me, your Grace--this is not the lady.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Eh?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is not the lady.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not what lady?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is not the lady who called herself the Duchess of Datchet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What the dickens do you mean? Really, Mr. Ruby and Mr. Golden, you
+seem to be leading me a pretty fine wild goose chase--a pretty fine
+wild goose chase! I know it will end in kicking--someone. You told me
+that the person to whom I had given that cheque was the person who had
+bestowed on you her patronage. This is the person to whom I gave that
+cheque.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is not the person who gave that cheque to us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then--then who the devil did?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That, your Grace, is the point--will this lady allow me to ask her one
+or two questions?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fire away--ask fifty!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lady thus referred to interposed, &quot;This gentleman may ask fifty or
+five hundred questions, but unless you tell me what all this is about I
+very much doubt if I shall answer one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let me manage it, Mr. Golden. Mrs. Mansfield, may I enquire what you
+did with that cheque for a thousand which I gave you? You jade! To tell
+me that Ruby and Golden were dunning you out of your life, when you
+never owed them a stiver! Tell me what you did with that cheque!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Duke seemed at last to have said something which had reached the
+lady's understanding. She changed colour. She pressed her lips
+together. She looked at him with defiance in her eyes. A considerable
+pause ensued before she spoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't know why I should tell you. What does it matter to you what I
+did with it--you gave it me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It does matter to me. As it happens, it matters also to you. If you
+will take my friendly advice, you will tell me what you did with that
+cheque.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The look of defiance about the lady's lips and in her eyes increased.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't mind telling you. Why should I? It was my own. I gave it to
+Alfred.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Duke emitted an ejaculation--which smacked of profanity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To Alfred? And, pray, who may Alfred be?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lady's crest rose higher. &quot;Alfred is--is the man to whom I am
+engaged to be married.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Duke of Datchet whistled. &quot;And you got a cheque out of me for a
+thousand pounds to make a present of it to your intended? That beats
+everything; and pray to whom did Alfred give it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He gave it to no one. He paid it into the bank. He told me so
+himself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I'm afraid that Alfred lied. Where is Alfred?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He's--he's here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here? In this room? Where? Under the couch, or behind the screen?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I mean that he's in this house. He's downstairs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I won't ask how long he's been downstairs, but would it be too much to
+ask you to request Alfred to walk upstairs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lady burst into a sudden tempest of tears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know you'll only laugh at me--I know you well enough to expect you
+to do that--but--I--I know I've not been a good woman, and--and I do
+love him--although--he's only--a--servant!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A servant! Gertrude! Was that the man who opened the door?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Golden gave vent to an exclamation which positively amounted to a
+shout. &quot;By Jove!--I've got it!--I knew I'd seen the face before--I
+couldn't make out where--it was the man who opened the door. Your
+Grace, might I ask you to have that man who opened the door to us at
+once brought here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ring the bell, Mr. Golden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lady interposed. &quot;You shan't--I won't have it! What do you want
+with him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We wish to ask him one or two questions. If Alfred is an honest man it
+will be better for him that he should have an opportunity of answering
+them. If he is not an honest man, it will be better for you that you
+should know it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Apparently this reasoning prevailed. Mr. Golden rang the bell; but his
+ring was not by any means immediately attended to. He rang a second and
+a third time, but still no answer came.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It strikes me,&quot; suggested the Duke, &quot;that we had better start on a
+voyage of discovery, and search for Alfred in the regions down below.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before the Duke's suggestion could be acted on the door was opened--not
+by Alfred; not by a man at all, but by a maid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Send Alfred here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can't find him anywhere. I think he must have gone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gone!&quot; gasped Mrs. Mansfield. &quot;Where?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't know, ma'am. I've been up to his room to look for him, and it
+is all anyhow, and there's no one there. If you please, ma'am, I found
+this on the mat outside the door.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The maid held out an envelope. The Duke of Datchet took it from her
+hand. He glanced at its superscription.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Messrs. Ruby and Golden.' Gentlemen, this is for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He transferred it to Mr. Golden. It was a long blue envelope. The maid
+had picked it up from the mat which was outside the door of that very
+room in which they were standing. Mr. Golden opened it. It contained an
+oblong card of considerable size, on which were printed three
+photographs, in a sort of series. The first photograph was that of a
+young man--a beautiful young man--unmistakably &quot;Alfred.&quot; The second was
+that of &quot;Alfred&quot; with his hair arranged in a fashion which was
+peculiarly feminine. The third was that of &quot;Alfred&quot; with a bonnet and a
+veil on, and a very nice-looking young woman he made. At the bottom of
+the card was written, in a fine, delicate, lady's hand-writing, &quot;With
+the Duchess of Datchet's compliments.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I knew,&quot; gasped Mrs. Mansfield, in the midst of her sorrow, &quot;that he
+was very good at dressing up as a woman, but I never thought he would
+do this!&quot;</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">The Duke of Datchet paid for the diamonds.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_haunted" href="#div1Ref_haunted">The Haunted Chair</a></h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, that's the most staggering thing I've ever known!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As Mr. Philpotts entered the smoking-room, these were the words--with
+additions--which fell upon his, not unnaturally, startled ears. Since
+Mr. Bloxham was the only person in the room, it seemed only too
+probable that the extraordinary language had been uttered by him--and,
+indeed, his demeanour went far to confirm the probability. He was
+standing in front of his chair, staring about him in a manner which
+suggested considerable mental perturbation, apparently unconscious of
+the fact that his cigar had dropped either from his lips or his fingers
+and was smoking merrily away on the brand-new carpet which the
+committee had just laid down. He turned to Mr. Philpotts in a state of
+what seemed really curious agitation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I say, Philpotts, did you see him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Philpotts looked at him in silence for a moment, before he drily
+said, &quot;I heard you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Mr. Bloxham was in no mood to be put off in this manner. He seemed,
+for some cause, to have lost the air of serene indifference for which
+he was famed--he was in a state of excitement, which, for him, was
+quite phenomenal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No nonsense, Philpotts--did you see him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;See whom?&quot; Mr. Philpotts was selecting a paper from a side table. &quot;I
+see your cigar is burning a hole in the carpet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Confound my cigar!&quot; Mr. Bloxham stamped on it with an angry tread.
+&quot;Did Geoff Fleming pass you as you came in?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Philpotts looked round with an air of evident surprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Geoff Fleming!--Why, surely he's in Ceylon by now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not a bit of it. A minute ago he was in that chair talking to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bloxham!&quot; Mr. Philpotts' air of surprise became distinctly more
+pronounced, a fact which Mr. Bloxham apparently resented.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What are you looking at me like that for pray? I tell you I was
+glancing through the <i>Field</i>, when I felt someone touch me on the
+shoulder. I looked round--there was Fleming standing just behind me.
+'Geoff.' I cried, 'I thought you were on the other side of the
+world--what are you doing here?' 'I've come to have a peep at you,' he
+said. He drew a chair up close to mine--this chair--and sat in it. I
+turned round to reach for a match on the table, it scarcely took me a
+second, but when I looked his way again hanged if he weren't gone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Philpotts continued his selection of a paper--in a manner which was
+rather marked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Which way did he go?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Didn't you meet him as you came in?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I did not--I met no one. What's the matter now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The question was inspired by the fact that a fresh volley of expletives
+came from Mr. Bloxham's lips. That gentleman was standing with his
+hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, his legs wide open, and his
+eyes and mouth almost as wide open as his legs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hang me,&quot; he exclaimed, when, as it appeared, he had temporarily come
+to the end of his stock of adjectives, &quot;if I don't believe he's boned
+my purse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Boned your purse!&quot; Mr. Philpotts laid a not altogether flattering
+emphasis upon the &quot;boned!&quot; &quot;Bloxham! What do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Bloxham did not immediately explain. He dropped into the chair
+behind him. His hands were still in his trouser pockets, his legs were
+stretched out in front of him, and on his face there was not only an
+expression of amazement, but also of the most unequivocal bewilderment.
+He was staring at the vacant air as if he were trying his hardest to
+read some riddle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is a queer start, upon my word, Philpotts,&quot; he spoke in what, for
+him, were tones of unwonted earnestness. &quot;When I was reaching for the
+matches on the table, what made me turn round so suddenly was because
+I thought I felt someone tugging at my purse--it was in the pocket next
+to Fleming. As I told you, when I did turn round Fleming was gone--and,
+by Jove, it looks as though my purse went with him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you lost your purse?--is that what you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll swear that it was in my pocket five minutes ago, and that it's
+not there now; that's what I mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Philpotts looked at Mr. Bloxham as if, although he was too polite
+to say so, he could not make him out at all. He resumed his selection
+of a paper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One is liable to make mistakes about one's purse; perhaps you'll find
+it when you get home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Bloxham sat in silence for some moments. Then, rising, he shook
+himself as a dog does when he quits the water.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I say, Philpotts, don't ladle out this yarn of mine to the other
+fellows, there's a good chap. As you say, one is apt to get into a
+muddle about one's purse, and I dare say I shall come across it when I
+get home. And perhaps I'm not very well this afternoon; I am feeling
+out of sorts, and that's a fact. I think I'll just toddle home and take
+a seidlitz, or a pill, or something. Ta ta!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Mr. Philpotts was left alone he smiled to himself, that superior
+smile which we are apt to smile when conscious that a man has been
+making a conspicuous ass of himself on lines which may be his, but
+which, we thank Providence, are emphatically not ours. With not one,
+but half a dozen papers in his hand, he seated himself in the chair
+which Mr. Bloxham had recently relinquished. Retaining a single paper,
+he placed the rest on the small round table on his left--the table on
+which wore the matches for which Mr. Bloxham declared he had reached.
+Taking out his case, he selected a cigar almost with the same care
+which he had shewn in selecting his literature, smiling to himself all
+the time that superior smile. Lighting the cigar he had chosen with a
+match from the table, he settled himself at his ease to read.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scarcely had he done so than he was conscious of a hand laid gently on
+his shoulder from behind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What! back again?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hullo, Phil!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had taken it for granted, without troubling to look round, that Mr.
+Bloxham had returned, and that it was he who touched him on the
+shoulder. But the voice which replied to him, so far from being Mr.
+Bloxham's was one the mere sound of which caused him not only to lose
+his bearing of indifference but to spring from his seat with the
+agility almost of a jack-in-the-box. When he saw who it was had touched
+him on the shoulder, he stared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fleming! Then Bloxham was right, after all. May I ask what brings you
+here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man at whom he was looking was tall and well-built, in age about
+five and thirty. There were black cavities beneath his eyes; the man's
+whole face was redolent, to a trained perception, of something which
+was, at least, slightly unsavoury. He was dressed from head to foot in
+white duck--a somewhat singular costume for Pall Mall, even on a summer
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before Mr. Philpotts' gaze, his own eyes sank. Murmuring something
+which was almost inaudible, he moved to the chair next to the one which
+Mr. Philpotts had been occupying, the chair of which Mr. Bloxham had
+spoken.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he seated himself, Mr. Philpotts eyed him in a fashion which was
+certainly not too friendly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What did you mean by disappearing just now in that extraordinary
+manner, frightening Bloxham half out of his wits? Where did you get
+to?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The new comer was stroking his heavy moustache with a hand which, for a
+man of his size and build, was unusually small and white. He spoke in a
+lazy, almost inaudible, drawl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I just popped outside.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Just popped outside! I must have been coming in just when you went
+out. I saw nothing of you; you've put Bloxham into a pretty state of
+mind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Re-seating himself, Mr. Philpotts turned to put the paper he was
+holding on to the little table. &quot;I don't want to make myself a brute,
+but it strikes me that your presence here at all requires explanation.
+When several fellows club together to give another fellow a fresh start
+on the other side of the world----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Philpotts stopped short. Having settled the paper on the table to
+his perfect satisfaction, he turned round again towards the man he was
+addressing--and as he did so he ceased to address him, and that for the
+sufficiently simple reason that he was not there to address--the man
+had gone! The chair at Mr. Philpotts' side was empty; without a sign or
+a sound its occupant had vanished, it would almost seem, into space.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">Under the really remarkable circumstances of the case, Mr. Philpotts
+preserved his composure to a singular degree. He looked round the room;
+there was no one there. He again fixedly regarded the chair at his
+side; there could be no doubt that it was empty. To make quite sure, he
+passed his hand two or three times over the seat; it met with not the
+slightest opposition. Where could the man have got to? Mr. Philpotts
+had not, consciously, heard the slightest sound; there had not been
+time for him to have reached the door. Mr. Philpotts knocked the ash
+off his cigar. He stood up. He paced leisurely two or three times up
+and down the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If Bloxham is ill, I am not. I was never better in my life. And the
+man who tells me that I have been the victim of an optical delusion is
+talking of what he knows nothing. I am prepared to swear that it was
+Geoffrey Fleming who touched me on the shoulder; that he spoke to me;
+and that he seated himself upon that chair. Where he came from, or
+where he has gone to, are other questions entirely.&quot; He critically
+examined his finger nails.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If those Psychical Research people have an address in town, I think
+I'll have a talk with them. I suppose it's three or four minutes since
+the man vanished. What's the time now? Whatever has become of my
+watch?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He might well ask--it had gone, both watch and chain--vanished, with
+Mr. Fleming, into air. Mr. Philpotts stared at his waistcoat, too
+astonished for speech. Then he gave a little gasp.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This comes of playing Didymus! The brute has stolen it! I must
+apologise to Bloxham. As he himself said, this is a queer start, upon
+my honour! Now, if you like, I do feel a little out of sorts; this sort
+of thing is enough to make one. Before I go, I think I'll have a drop
+of brandy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he was hesitating, the smoking-room door opened to admit Frank
+Osborne. Mr. Osborne nodded to Mr. Philpotts as he crossed the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You're not looking quite yourself, Philpotts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Philpotts seemed to regard the observation almost in the light of
+an impertinence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Am I not? I was not aware that there was anything in my appearance to
+call for remark.&quot; Smiling, Mr. Osborne seated himself in the chair
+which the other had not long ago vacated. Mr. Philpotts regarded him
+attentively. &quot;You're not looking quite yourself, either.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The smile vanished from Mr. Osborne's face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm not feeling myself!--I'm not! I'm worried about Geoff Fleming.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Philpotts slightly started.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;About Geoff Fleming?--what about Fleming?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm afraid--well, Phil, the truth is that I'm afraid that Geoff's a
+hopeless case.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Philpotts was once more busying himself with the papers which were
+on the side table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As you know, he and I have been very thick in our time, and when he
+came a cropper it was I who suggested that we who were at school with
+him might have a whip round among ourselves to get the old chap a fresh
+start elsewhere. You all of you behaved like bricks, and when I told
+him what you had done, poor Geoff was quite knocked over. He promised
+voluntarily that he would never touch a card again, or make another
+bet, until he had paid you fellows off with thumping interest. Well, he
+doesn't seem to have kept his promise long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How do you know he hasn't?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I've heard from Deecie.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;From Deecie?--where's Fleming?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In Ceylon--they'd both got there before Deecie's letter left.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In Ceylon!&quot; exclaimed Mr. Philpotts excitedly, staring hard at Mr.
+Osborne. &quot;You are sure he isn't back in town?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In his turn, Mr. Osborne was staring at Mr. Philpotts.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not unless he came back by the same boat which brought Deecie's
+letter. What made you ask?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I only wondered.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Philpotts turned again to the paper. The other went on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It seems that a lot of Australian sporting men were on the boat on
+which they went out. Fleming got in with them. They played--he played
+too. Deecie remonstrated--but he says that it only seemed to make bad
+worse. At first Geoff won--you know the usual sort of thing; he wound
+up by losing all he had, and about four hundred pounds beside. He had
+the cheek to ask Deecie for the money.&quot; Mr. Osborne paused. Mr.
+Philpotts uttered a sound which might have been indicative of
+contempt--or anything. &quot;Deecie says that when the winners found out
+that he couldn't pay, there was a regular row. Geoff swore, in that
+wild way of his, that if he couldn't pay them before he died, he would
+rise from the dead to get the money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Philpotts looked round with a show of added interest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What was that he said?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, it was only his wild way of speaking--you know that way of his. If
+they don't get their money before he dies, and I fancy that it's rather
+more than even betting that they won't, I don't think that there's much
+chance of his rising from his grave to get it for them. He'll break
+that promise, as he has broken so many more. Poor Geoff! It seems that
+we might as well have kept our money in our pockets; it doesn't seem to
+have done him much good. His prospects don't look very rosy--without
+money, and with a bad name to start with.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As I fancy you have more than once suspected, Frank, I never have had
+a high opinion of Mr. Geoffrey Fleming. I am not in the least surprised
+at what you tell me, any more than I was surprised when he came his
+cropper. I have always felt that, at a pinch, he would do anything to
+save his own skin.&quot; Mr. Osborne said nothing, but he shook his head.
+&quot;Did you see anything of Bloxham when you came in?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I saw him going along the street in a cab.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I want to speak to him! I think I'll just go and see if I can find him
+in his rooms.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">Mr. Frank Osborne scarcely seemed to be enjoying his own society when
+Mr. Philpotts had left him. As all the world knows, he is a man of
+sentiment--of the true sort, not the false. He has had one great
+passion in his life--Geoffrey Fleming. They began when they were at
+Chilchester together, when he was big, and Fleming still little. He did
+his work for him, fought for him, took his scrapes upon himself,
+believed in him, almost worshipped him. The thing continued when
+Fleming joined him at the University. Perhaps the fact that they both
+were orphans had something to do with it; neither of them had kith nor
+kin. The odd part of the business was that Osborne was not only a
+clear-sighted, he was a hard-headed man. It could not have been long
+before it dawned upon him that the man with whom he fraternised was a
+naturally bad egg. Fleming was continually coming to grief; he would
+have come to eternal grief at the very commencement of his career if it
+had not been for Osborne at his back. He went through his own money; he
+went through as much of his friend's as his friend would let him. Then
+came the final smash. There were features about the thing which made it
+clear, even to Frank Osborne, that in England, at least, for some years
+to come, Geoffrey Fleming had run his course right out. He strained all
+his already strained resources in his efforts to extricate the man from
+the mire. When he found that he himself was insufficient, going to
+his old schoolfellows, he begged them, for his sake--if not for
+Fleming's--to join hands with him in giving the scapegrace still
+another start. As a result, interest was made for him in a Ceylon
+plantation, and Mr. Fleming with, under the circumstances, well-lined
+pockets, was despatched over the seas to turn over a new leaf in a
+sunnier clime.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How he had vowed that he would turn over a new leaf, actually with
+tears upon his knees! And this was how he had done it; before he had
+reached his journey's end, he had gambled away the money which was not
+his, and was in debt besides. Frank Osborne must have been fashioned
+something like the dog which loves its master the more, the more he
+ill-treats it. His heart went out in pity to the scamp across the seas.
+He had no delusions; he had long been conscious that the man was
+hopeless. And yet he knew very well that if he could have had his
+way he would have gone at once to comfort him. Poor Geoff! What an
+all-round mess he seemed to have made of things--and he had had the ball
+at his feet when he started--poor, dear old Geoff! With his knuckles Mr.
+Osborne wiped a suspicious moisture from his eyes. Geoff was all
+right--if he had only been able to prevent money from slipping from
+between his fingers, had been gifted with a sense of <i>meum et tuum</i>--not
+a nicer fellow in the world!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Osborne sat trying to persuade himself into the belief that the man
+was an injured paragon though he knew very well that he was an
+irredeemable scamp. He endeavoured to see only his good qualities,
+which was a task of exceeding difficulty--they were hidden in such a
+cloud of blackness. At least, whatever might be said against Geoff--and
+Mr. Osborne admitted to himself that there might be something--it was
+certain that Geoff loved him almost as much as he loved Geoff. Mr.
+Osborne declared to himself--putting pressure on himself to prevent
+his making a single mental reservation--that Geoff Fleming, in spite
+of all his faults, was the only person in the wide, wide world who
+did love him. And he was a stranger in a strange land, and in trouble
+again--poor dear old Geoff! Once more Mr. Osborne's knuckles went up to
+wipe that suspicious moisture from his eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While he was engaged in doing this, a hand was laid gently on his
+shoulder from behind. It was, perhaps, because he was unwilling to be
+detected in such an act that, at the touch, he rose from his seat with
+a start--which became so to speak, a start of petrified amazement when
+he perceived who it was who had touched him. It was the man of whom he
+had been thinking, the friend of his boyhood--Geoffrey Fleming.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Geoff!&quot; he gasped. &quot;Dear old Geoff!&quot; He paused, seemingly in doubt
+whether to laugh or cry. &quot;I thought you were in Ceylon!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Fleming did exactly what he had done when he came so unexpectedly
+on Mr. Philpotts--he moved to the chair at Mr. Osborne's side. His
+manner was in contrast to his friend's--it was emphatically not
+emotional.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I've just dropped in,&quot; he drawled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear old boy!&quot; Mr. Osborne, as he surveyed his friend, seemed to
+become more and more torn by conflicting emotions. &quot;Of course I'm very
+glad to see you Geoff, but how did you get in here? I thought that they
+had taken your name off the books of the club.&quot; He was perfectly aware
+that Mr. Fleming's name had been taken off the books of the club, and
+in a manner the reverse of complimentary. Mr. Fleming offered no
+remark. He sat looking down at the carpet stroking his moustache. Mr.
+Osborne went stammeringly on--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As I say, Geoff--and as, of course you know,--I am very glad to see
+you, anywhere; but--we don't want any unpleasantness, do we? If some of
+the fellows came in and found you here, they might make themselves
+nasty. Come round to my rooms; we shall be a lot more comfortable
+there, old man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Fleming raised his eyes. He looked his friend full in the face. As
+he met his glance, Mr. Osborne was conscious of a curious sort of
+shiver. It was not only because the man's glance was, to say the least,
+less friendly than it might have been--it was because of something
+else, something which Mr. Osborne could scarcely have defined.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I want some money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Osborne smiled, rather fatuously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, Geoff, the same old tale! Deecie has told me all about it. I won't
+reproach you; you know, if I had some, you should have it; but I'm not
+sure that it isn't just as well for both ourselves that I haven't,
+Geoff.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have some money in your pocket now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Osborne's amazement grew apace--his friend's manner was so very
+strange.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What a nose you always have for money; however did you find that out?
+But it isn't mine. You know Jim Baker left me guardian to that boy of
+his, and I've been drawing the youngster's dividends--it's only seventy
+pounds, Geoff.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Fleming stretched out his hand--his reply was brief and to the
+point.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Give it to me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Give it to you!--Geoff!--young Baker's money!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Fleming reiterated his demand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Give it to me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His manner was not only distinctly threatening, it had a peculiar
+effect upon his friend. Although Mr. Osborne had never before shewn
+fear of any living man, and had, in that respect, proved his
+superiority over Fleming many a time, there was something at that
+moment in the speaker's voice, or words, or bearing, or in all three
+together, which set him shivering, as if with fear, from head to foot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Geoff!--you are mad! I'll see what I can find for you, but I can't
+give you young Baker's dividends.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Osborne was not quite clear as to exactly what it was that
+happened. He only knew that the friend of his boyhood--the man for whom
+he had done so much--the only person in the world who loved him--rose
+and took him by the throat, and, forcing him backwards, began to rifle
+the pocket which contained the seventy pounds. He was so taken by
+surprise, so overwhelmed by a feeling of utter horror, against which he
+was unable even to struggle, that it was only when he felt the money
+being actually withdrawn from his pocket that he made an attempt at
+self-defence. Then, when he made a frantic clutch at his assailant's
+felonious arm, all he succeeded in grasping was the empty air. The
+pressure was removed from his throat. He was able to look about him.
+Mr. Fleming was gone. He thrust a trembling hand into his pocket--the
+seventy pounds had vanished too.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Geoff! Geoff!&quot; he cried, the tears streaming from his eyes. &quot;Don't
+play tricks with me! Give me back young Baker's dividends!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When no one answered and there seemed no one to hear, he began to
+searching round and round the room with his eyes, as if he suspected
+Mr. Fleming of concealing himself behind some article of furniture.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Geoff! Geoff!&quot; he continued crying. &quot;Dear old boy!--give me back young
+Baker's dividends!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hullo!&quot; exclaimed a voice--which certainly was not Mr. Fleming's. Mr.
+Osborne turned. Colonel Lanyon was standing with the handle of the open
+door in his hand. &quot;Frank, are you rehearsing for a five-act tragedy?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Osborne replied to the Colonel's question with another.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lanyon, did Geoffrey Fleming pass you as you came in?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Geoffrey Fleming!&quot; The Colonel wheeled round on his heels like a
+teetotum. He glanced behind him. &quot;What the deuce do you mean, Frank? If
+I catch that thief under the roof which covers me, I'll make a case for
+the police of him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Mr. Osborne remembered what, in his agitation, he had momentarily
+forgotten, that Geoffrey Fleming had had no bitterer, more out-spoken,
+and, it may be added, more well-merited an opponent than Colonel Lanyon
+in the Climax Club. The Colonel advanced towards Mr. Osborne.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you know that that's the blackguard's chair you're standing by?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;His chair!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Osborne was leaning with one hand on the chair on which Mr. Fleming
+had, not long ago, been sitting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's what he used to call it himself,--with his usual impudence. He
+used to sit in it whenever he took a hand. The men would give it up to
+him--you know how you gave everything up to him, all the lot of you. If
+he couldn't get it he'd turn nasty--wouldn't play. It seems that he had
+the cheek to cut his initials on the chair--I only heard of it the
+other day, or there'd have been a clearance of him long ago. Look
+here--what do you think of that for a piece of rowdiness?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Colonel turned the chair upside down. Sure enough in the woodwork
+underneath the seat were the letters, cut in good-sized characters--&quot;G.
+F.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know that rubbishing way in which he used to talk. When men
+questioned his exclusive right to the chair, I've heard him say he'd
+prove his right by coming and sitting in it after he was dead and
+buried--he swore he'd haunt the chair. Idiot!--What is the matter with
+you Frank? You look as if you'd been in a rough and tumble--your
+necktie's all anyhow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think I must have dropped asleep, and dreamed--yes, I fancy I've
+been dreaming.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Osborne staggered, rather than walked, to the door, keeping one
+hand in the inside pocket of his coat. The Colonel followed him with
+his eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Frank's ageing fast,&quot; was his mental comment as Mr. Osborne
+disappeared. &quot;He'll be an old man yet before I am.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He seated himself in Geoffrey Fleming's chair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was, perhaps, ten minutes afterwards that Edward Jackson went into
+the smoking room--&quot;Scientific&quot; Jackson, as they call him, because of
+the sort of catch phrase he is always using--&quot;Give me science!&quot; He had
+scarcely been in the room a minute before he came rushing to the door
+shouting--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Help, help!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Men came hurrying from all parts of the building. Mr. Griffin came from
+the billiard-room, where he is always to be found. He had a cue in one
+hand, and a piece of chalk in the other. He was the first to address
+the vociferous gentleman standing at the smoking-room door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Jackson!--What's the matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Jackson was in such a condition of fluster and excitement that it
+was a little difficult to make out, from his own statement, what was
+the matter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lanyon's dead! Have any of you seen Geoff Fleming? Stop him if you
+do--he's stolen my pocket-book!&quot; He began mopping his brow with his
+bandanna handkerchief, &quot;God bless my soul! an awful thing!--I've been
+robbed--and old Lanyon's dead!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One thing was quickly made clear--as they saw for themselves when they
+went crowding into the smoking-room--Lanyon was dead. He was kneeling
+in front of Geoffrey Fleming's chair, clutching at either side of it
+with a tenacity which suggested some sort of convulsion. His head was
+thrown back, his eyes were still staring wide open, his face was
+distorted by a something which was half fear, half horror--as if, as
+those who saw him afterwards agreed, he had seen sudden, certain death
+approaching him, in a form which even he, a seasoned soldier, had found
+too horrible for contemplation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Jackson's story, in one sense, was plain enough, though it was odd
+enough in another. He told it to an audience which evinced unmistakable
+interest in every word uttered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I often come in for a smoke about this time, because generally the
+place is empty, so that you get it all to yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He cast a somewhat aggressive look upon his hearers--a look which could
+hardly be said to convey a flattering suggestion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When I first came in I thought that the room was empty. It was only
+when I was half-way across that something caused me to look round. I
+saw that someone was kneeling on the floor. I looked to see who it was.
+It was Lanyon. 'Lanyon!' I cried. 'Whatever are you doing there?' He
+didn't answer. Wondering what was up with him and why he didn't speak,
+I went closer to where he was. When I got there I didn't like the look
+of him at all. I thought he was in some sort of a fit. I was hesitating
+whether to pick him up, or at once to summon assistance, when--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Jackson paused. He looked about him with an obvious shiver.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By George! when I think of it now, it makes me go quite creepy.
+Cathcart, would you mind ringing for another drop of brandy?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The brandy was rung for. Mr. Jackson went on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All of a sudden, as I was stooping over Lanyon, someone touched me on
+the shoulder. You know, there hadn't been a sound--I hadn't heard the
+door open, not a thing which could suggest that anyone was approaching.
+Finding Lanyon like that had make me go quite queer, and when I felt
+that touch on my shoulder it so startled me that I fairly screeched. I
+jumped up to see who it was, And when I saw&quot;--Mr. Jackson's bandanna
+came into play--&quot;who it was, I thought my eyes would have started out
+of my head. It was Geoff Fleming.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who?&quot; came in chorus from his auditors.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was Geoffrey Fleming. 'Good God!--Fleming!' I cried. 'Where did you
+come from? I never heard you. Anyhow, you're just in the nick of time.
+Lanyon's come to grief--lend me a hand with him.' I bent down, to take
+hold of one side of poor old Lanyon, meaning Fleming to take hold of
+the other. Before I had a chance of touching Lanyon, Fleming, catching
+me by the shoulder, whirled me round--I had had no idea the fellow was
+so strong, he gripped me like a vice. I was just going to ask what the
+dickens he meant by handling me like that, when, before I could say
+Jack Robinson, or even had time to get my mouth open, Fleming, darting
+his hand into my coat pocket, snatched my pocket-book clean out of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stopped, apparently to gasp for breath. &quot;And, pray, what were you
+doing while Mr. Fleming behaved in this exceedingly peculiar way--even
+for Mr. Fleming?&quot; inquired Mr. Cathcart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Doing!&quot; Mr. Jackson was indignant. &quot;Don't I tell you I was doing
+nothing? There was no time to do anything--it all happened in a flash.
+I had just come from my bankers--there were a hundred and thirty pounds
+in that pocket-book. When I realised that the fellow had taken it, I
+made a grab at him. And&quot;--again Mr. Jackson looked furtively about him,
+and once more the bandanna came into active play--&quot;directly I did so, I
+don't know where he went to, but it seemed to me that he vanished into
+air--he was gone, like a flash of lightning. I told myself I was
+mad--stark mad! but when I felt for my pocketbook, and found that that
+was also gone, I ran yelling to the door.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">It was, as the old-time novelists used to phrase it, about three weeks
+after the events transpired which we have recorded in the previous
+chapter. Evening--after dinner. There was a goodly company assembled in
+the smoking room at the Climax Club. Conversation was general. They
+were talking of some of the curious circumstances which had attended
+the death of Colonel Lanyon. The medical evidence at the inquest had
+gone to shew that the Colonel had died of one of the numerous, and,
+indeed, almost innumerable, varieties of heart disease. The finding had
+been in accordance with the medical evidence. It seemed to be felt, by
+some of the speakers, that such a finding scarcely met the case.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's all very well,&quot; observed Mr. Cathcart, who seemed disposed to
+side with the coroner's jury, &quot;for you fellows to talk, but in such a
+case, you must bring in some sort of verdict--and what other verdict
+could they bring? There was not a trace of any mark of violence to be
+found upon the man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's my belief that he saw Fleming, and that Fleming frightened him to
+death.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was Mr. Jackson who said this. Mr. Cathcart smiled a rather
+provoking smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So far as I observed, you did not drop any hint of your belief when
+you were before the coroner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, because I didn't want to be treated as a laughing-stock by a lot
+of idiots.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Quite so; I can understand your natural objection to that, but still I
+don't see your line of argument. I should not have cared to question
+Lanyon's courage to Lanyon's face while he was living. Why should you
+suppose that such a man as Geoffrey Fleming was capable of such a thing
+as, as you put it, actually frightening him to death? I should say it
+was rather the other way about. I have seen Fleming turn green, with
+what looked very much like funk, at the sight of Lanyon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Jackson for some moments smoked in silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you had seen Geoffrey Fleming under the circumstances in which I
+did, you would understand better what it is I mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, my dear Jackson, if you will forgive my saying so, it seems to me
+that you don't shew to great advantage in your own story. Have you
+communicated the fact of your having been robbed to the police?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And have you furnished them with the numbers of the notes which were
+taken?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then, in that case, I shouldn't be surprised if Mr. Fleming were
+brought to book any hour of any day. You'll find he has been lying
+close in London all the time--he soon had enough of Ceylon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A new comer joined the group of talkers--Frank Osborne. They noticed,
+as he seated himself, how much he seemed to have aged of late and how
+particularly shabby he seemed just then. The first remark which he made
+took them all aback.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Geoff Fleming's dead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dead!&quot; cried Mr. Philpotts, who was sitting next to Mr. Osborne.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes--dead. I've heard from Deecie. He died three weeks ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Three weeks ago!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On the day on which Lanyon died.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Cathcart turned to Mr. Jackson, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then that knocks on the head your theory about his having frightened
+Lanyon to death; and how about your interview with him--eh Jackson?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Jackson did not answer. He suddenly went white. An intervention
+came from an unexpected quarter--from Mr. Philpotts.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It seems to me that you are rather taking things for granted,
+Cathcart. I take leave to inform you that I saw Geoffrey Fleming,
+perhaps less than half-an-hour before Jackson did.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Cathcart stared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You saw him!--Philpotts!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Mr. Bloxham arose and spoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, and I saw him, too--didn't I, Philpott's?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Any tendency on the part of the auditors to smile was checked by the
+tone of exceeding bitterness in which Frank Osborne was also moved to
+testify.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I--I saw him, too!--Geoff!--dear old boy!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Deecie says that there were two strange things about Geoff's death. He
+was struck by a fit of apoplexy. He was dead within the hour. Soon
+after he died, the servant came running to say that the bed was empty
+on which the body had been lying. Deecie went to see. He says that,
+when he got into the room, Geoff was back again upon the bed, but it
+was plain enough that he had moved. His clothes and hair were in
+disorder, his fists were clenched, and there was a look upon his face
+which had not been there at the moment of his death, and which, Deecie
+says, seemed a look partly of rage and partly of triumph.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have been calculating the difference between Cingalese and Greenwich
+time. It must have been between three and four o'clock when the servant
+went running to say that Geoff's body was not upon the bed--it was
+about that time that Lanyon died.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He paused--and then continued--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The other strange thing that happened was this. Deecie says that the
+day after Geoff died a telegram came for him, which, of course, he
+opened. It was an Australian wire, and purported to come from the
+Melbourne sporting man of whom I told you.&quot; He turned to Mr. Philpotts.
+&quot;It ran, 'Remittance to hand. It comes in rather a miscellaneous form.
+Thanks all the same.' Deecie can only suppose that Geoff had managed,
+in some way, to procure the four hundred pounds which he had lost and
+couldn't pay, and had also managed, in some way, to send it on to
+Melbourne.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was silence when Frank Osborne ceased to speak--silence which was
+broken in a somewhat startling fashion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who's that touched me?&quot; suddenly exclaimed Mr. Cathcart, springing
+from his seat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They stared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Touched you!&quot; said someone. &quot;No one's within half a mile of you.
+You're dreaming, my dear fellow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Considering the provocation was so slight, Mr. Cathcart seemed
+strangely moved.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't tell me that I'm dreaming--someone touched me on the
+shoulder!--What's that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That&quot; was the sound of laughter proceeding from the, apparently,
+vacant seat. As if inspired by a common impulse, the listeners
+simultaneously moved back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's Fleming's chair,&quot; said Mr. Philpotts, beneath his breath.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_nelly" href="#div1Ref_nelly">Nelly</a></h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why!&quot; Mr. Gibbs paused. He gave a little gasp. He bent still closer.
+Then the words came with a rush: &quot;It's Nelly!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He glanced at the catalogue. &quot;No. 259--'Stitch! Stitch!
+Stitch!'--Philip Bodenham.&quot; It was a small canvas, representing the
+interior of an ill-furnished apartment in which a woman sat, on a
+rickety chair, at a rickety table, sewing. The picture was an
+illustration of &quot;The Song of the Shirt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Gibbs gazed at the woman's face depicted on the canvas, with gaping
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's Nelly!&quot; he repeated. There was a catch in his voice. &quot;Nelly!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He tore himself away as if he were loth to leave the woman who sat
+there sewing. He went to the price list which the Academicians keep in
+the lobby. He turned the leaves. The picture was unsold. The artist had
+appraised it at a modest figure. Mr. Gibbs bought it there and then.
+Then he turned to his catalogue to discover the artist's address. Mr.
+Bodenham lived in Manresa Road, Chelsea.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not many minutes after a cab drove up to the Manresa Studios. Mr. Gibbs
+knocked at a door on the panels of which was inscribed Mr. Bodenham's
+name.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come in!&quot; cried a voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Gibbs entered. An artist stood at his easel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Bodenham?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am Mr. Bodenham.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am Mr. Gibbs. I have just purchased your picture at the Academy,
+'Stitch! Stitch! Stitch!'&quot; Mr. Bodenham bowed. &quot;I--I wish to make a--a
+few inquiries about--about the picture.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Gibbs was as nervous as a schoolboy. He stammered and he blushed.
+The artist seemed to be amused. He smiled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You wish to make a few inquiries about the picture--yes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;About the--about the subject of the picture. That is, about--about the
+model.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Gibbs became a peony red. The artist's smile grew more pronounced.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;About the model?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, about the model. Where does she live?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Although the day was comparatively cool, Mr. Gibbs was so hot that it
+became necessary for him to take out his handkerchief to wipe his brow.
+Mr. Bodenham was a sunny-faced young man. He looked at his visitor with
+laughter in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are aware, Mr. Gibbs, that yours is rather an unusual question. I
+have not the pleasure of your acquaintance, and we artists are not in
+the habit of giving information about our models to perfect strangers.
+It would not do. Moreover, how do you know that I painted from a model?
+The faces in pictures are sometimes creations of the artist's
+imagination. Perhaps oftener than the public think.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know the model in 'Stitch! Stitch! Stitch!'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know her? Then why do you come to me for information?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should have said that I knew her years ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Gibbs looked round the room a little doubtfully. Then he laid his
+hand on the back of a chair, as if for the support, moral and physical,
+which it afforded him. He looked at the artist with his big, grave
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As I say, Mr. Bodenham, I knew her years ago--and I loved her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a catch in his voice. The artist seemed to be growing more
+and more amused. Mr. Gibbs went on:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was a younger man then. She was but a girl. We both of us were poor.
+We loved each other dearly. We agreed that I should go abroad and make
+my fortune. When I had made it, I was to come back to her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The big man paused. His listener was surprised to find how much his
+visitor's curious earnestness impressed him. &quot;I had hard times of it at
+first. Now and then I heard from her. At last her letters ceased. About
+the time her letters ceased, my prospects bettered. Now I'm doing
+pretty well. So I've come to take her back with me to the other side.
+Mr. Bodenham, I've looked for her everywhere. As they say, high and
+low. I've been to her old home, and to mine--I've been just everywhere.
+But no one seems to know anything about her. She has just clean gone,
+vanished out of sight. I was thinking that I should have to go back,
+after all, without her, when I saw your picture in the Academy, and I
+knew the girl you had painted was Nelly. So I bought your picture--her
+picture. And now I want you to tell me where she lives.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a momentary silence when the big man finished.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yours is a very romantic story, Mr. Gibbs. Since you have done me the
+honour to make of me your confidant, I shall have pleasure in giving
+you the address of the original of my little picture--the address, that
+is, at which I last heard of her. I have reason to believe that her
+address is not infrequently changed. When I last heard of her, she
+was--what shall I say?--hard up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hard up, was she? Was she very hard up, Mr. Bodenham?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm afraid, Mr. Gibbs, that she was as hard up as she could be--and
+live.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Gibbs cleared his throat:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you. Will you give me her address, Mr. Bodenham?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Bodenham wrote something on a slip of paper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There it is. It is a street behind Chelsea Hospital--about as
+unsavoury a neighbourhood as you will easily find.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Gibbs found that the artist's words were justified by facts--it was
+an unsavoury neighbourhood into which the cabman found his way. No. 20
+was the number which Mr. Bodenham had given him. The door of No. 20
+stood wide open. Mr. Gibbs knocked with his stick. A dirty woman
+appeared from a room on the left.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Does Miss Brock live here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never heard tell of no such name. Unless it's the young woman what
+lives at the top of the 'ouse--third floor back. Perhaps it's her
+you want. Is it a model that you're after? Because, that's what she
+is--leastways I've heard 'em saying so. Top o' the stairs, first door
+to your left.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Gibbs started to ascend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Take care of them stairs,&quot; cried the woman after him. &quot;They wants
+knowing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Gibbs found that what the woman said was true--they did want
+knowing. Better light, too would have been an assistant to a better
+knowledge. He had to strike a match to enable him to ascertain if he
+had reached the top. A squalid top it was--it smelt! By the light of
+the flickering match he perceived that there was a door upon his left.
+He knocked. A voice cried to him, for the second time that day:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come in!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But this voice was a woman's. At the sound of it, the heart in the
+man's great chest beat, in a sledge-hammer fashion, against his ribs.
+His hand trembled as he turned the handle, and when he had opened the
+door, and stood within the room, his heart, which had been beating so
+tumultuously a moment before, stood still.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The room, which was nothing but a bare attic with raftered ceiling, was
+imperfectly lighted by a small skylight--a skylight which seemed as
+though it had not been cleaned for ages, so obscured was the glass by
+the accumulations of the years. By the light of this skylight Mr. Gibbs
+could see that a woman was standing in the centre of the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nelly!&quot; he cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The woman shrank back with, as it were, a gesture of repulsion. Mr.
+Gibbs moved forward. &quot;Nelly! Don't you know me? I am Tom.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tom?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The woman's voice was but an echo.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tom! Yes, my own, own darling, I am Tom.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Gibbs advanced. He held out his arms. He was just in time to catch
+the woman, or she would have fallen to the floor.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nelly, don't you know me?&quot; The woman was coming to.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Haven't you a light?&quot; The woman faintly shook her head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;See, I have your portrait where you placed it; it has never left me
+all the time. But when I saw your picture I did not need your portrait
+to tell me it was you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When you saw my picture?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your portrait in Mr. Bodenham's picture at Academy 'Stitch! Stitch!
+Stitch!'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Bodenham's--I see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The woman's tone was curiously cold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nelly, you don't seem to be very glad to see me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you got any money?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Any money, Nelly?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am hungry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hungry!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The woman's words seemed to come to him with the force of revelation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hungry!&quot; She turned her head away. &quot;Oh, my God, Nelly.&quot; His voice
+trembled. &quot;Wa-wait here, I--I sha'n't be a moment. I've a cab at the
+door.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was back almost as soon as he went. He brought with him half the
+contents of a shop--among other things, a packet of candles. These he
+lighted, standing them, on their own ends, here and there about the
+room. The woman ate shyly, as if, in spite of her confession of hunger,
+she had little taste for food. She was fingering the faded photograph
+of a girl which Mr. Gibbs had taken from his pocket-book.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is this my portrait?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nelly! Don't you remember it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How long is it since it was taken?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, it's more than seven years, isn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you think I've altered much?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Gibbs went to her. He studied her by the light of the candles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, you might be plumper, and you might look happier, perhaps, but
+all that we'll quickly alter. For the rest, thank God, you're my old
+Nelly.&quot; He took her in his arms. As he did so she drew a long, deep
+breath. Holding her at arms-length, he studied her again. &quot;Nelly, I'm
+afraid you haven't been having the best of times.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She broke from him with sudden passion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't speak of it! Don't speak of it! The life I've lived----&quot; She
+paused. All at once her voice became curiously hard. &quot;But through it
+all I've been good. I swear it. No one knows what the temptation is, to
+a woman who has lived the life I have, to go wrong. But I never went.
+Tom&quot;--she laid her hand upon Mr. Gibb's arm as, with marked
+awkwardness, his name issued from her lips--&quot;say that you believe that
+I've been good.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His only answer was to take her in his arms again, and to kiss her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Gibbs provided his new-found lost love with money. With that money
+she renewed her wardrobe. He found her other lodgings in a more savoury
+neighbourhood at Putney. In those lodgings he once more courted her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He told himself during those courtship days, that, after all, the years
+had changed her. She was a little hard. He did not remember the Nelly
+of the old time as being hard. But, then, what had happened during the
+years which had come between! Father and mother both had died. She had
+been thrown out into the world without a friend, without a penny! His
+letters had gone astray. In those early days he had been continually
+wandering hither and thither. Her letters had strayed as well as his.
+Struggling for existence, when she saw that no letters reached her, she
+told herself either that he too had died, or that he had forgotten her.
+Her heart hardened. It was with her a bitter striving for daily bread.
+She had tried everything. Teaching, domestic service, chorus singing,
+needlework, acting as an artist's model--she had failed in everything
+alike. At the best she had only been able to keep body and soul
+together. It had come to the worst at last. On the morning on which he
+found her, she had been two days without food. She had decided that,
+that night, if things did not mend during the intervening hours--of
+which she had no hope--that she would seek for better fortune--in the
+Thames.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She told her story, not all at once, but at different times, and in
+answer to her lover's urgent solicitations. She herself at first
+evinced a desire for reticence. The theme seemed too painful a theme
+for her to dwell upon. But the man's hungry heart poured forth such
+copious stores of uncritical sympathy that, after a while, it seemed to
+do her good to pour into his listening ears a particular record of her
+woes. She certainly had suffered. But now that the days of suffering
+were ended, it began almost to be a pleasure to recall the sorrows
+which were past.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the sunshine of prosperity the woman's heart became young again, and
+softer. It was not only that she became plumper--which she certainly
+did--but she became, inwardly and outwardly, more beautiful. Her lover
+told himself, and her, that she was more beautiful even than she had
+been as a girl. He declared that she was far prettier than she appeared
+in the old-time photograph. She smiled, and she charmed him with an
+infinite charm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The days drew near to the wedding. Had he had his way he would have
+married her, off-hand, when he found her in the top attic in that
+Chelsea slum. But she said no. Then she would not even talk of
+marriage. To hear her, one would have thought that the trials she had
+undergone had unfitted her for wedded life. He laughed her out of
+that--a day was fixed. She postponed it once, and then again. She had it
+that she needed time to recuperate--that she would not marry with the
+shadow of that grisly past still haunting her at night. He argued that
+the royal road to recuperation was in his arms. He declared that she
+would be troubled by no haunting shadows as his dear wife. And, at
+last, she yielded. A final date was fixed. That day drew near.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As the day drew near, she grew more tender. On the night before the
+wedding-day her tenderness reached, as it were, its culminating point.
+Never before had she been so sweet--so softly caressing. They were but
+to part for a few short hours. In the morning they were to meet, never,
+perhaps, to part again. But it seemed as if he could not tear himself
+away, and as if she could not let him go.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Just before he left her a little dialogue took place between them,
+which if lover-like, none the less was curious.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tom&quot; she said, &quot;suppose, after we are married, you should find out
+that I have not been so good as you thought, what would you say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Say?--nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh yes, you would, else you would be less than man. Suppose, for
+instance, that you found out I had deceived you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I decline to suppose impossibilities.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had been circled by his arms. Now she drew herself away from him.
+She stood where the gaslight fell right on her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tom, look at me carefully! Are you sure you know me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nelly!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you quite sure you are not mistaking me for some one else? Are you
+quite sure, Tom?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My own!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He took her in his arms again. As he did so, she looked him steadfastly
+in the face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tom, I think it possible that, some day, you may think less of me
+than you do now. But&quot;--she put her hand over his mouth to stop his
+speaking--&quot;whatever you may think of me, I shall always love you&quot;--there
+was an appreciable pause, and an appreciable catching of her
+breath--&quot;better than my life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She kissed him, with unusual abandonment, long and fervently, upon the
+lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The morning of the following day came with the promise of fine weather.
+Theirs had been an unfashionable courtship--it was to be an
+unfashionable wedding. Mr. Gibbs was to call for his bride, at her
+lodgings. They were to drive together, in a single hired brougham, to
+the church.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Even before the appointed hour, the expectant bridegroom drew up to the
+door of the house in which his lady-love resided. His knock was
+answered with an instant readiness which showed that his arrival had
+been watched and waited for. The landlady herself opened the door, her
+countenance big with tidings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Miss Brock has gone, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gone!&quot; Mr. Gibbs was puzzled by the woman's tone. &quot;Gone where? For a
+walk?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, sir, she's gone away. She's left this letter, sir, for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The landlady thrust an envelope into his hand. It was addressed simply,
+&quot;Thomas Gibbs, Esq.&quot; With the envelope in his hand, and an odd
+something clutching at his heart, he went into the empty sitting-room.
+He took the letter out of its enclosure, and this is what he read:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My own, own Tom,--You never were mine, and it is the last time I shall
+ever call you so. I am going back, I have only too good reason to fear,
+to the life from which you took me, because--<i>I am not your Nelly</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words were doubly underlined, they were unmistakable, yet he had to
+read them over and over again before he was able to grasp their
+meaning. What did they mean? Had his darling suddenly gone mad? The
+written sheet swam before his eyes. It was with an effort he read on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How you ever came to mistake me for her I cannot understand. The more
+I have thought of it, the stranger it has seemed. I suppose there must
+be a resemblance between us--between your Nelly and me. Though I expect
+the resemblance is more to the face in Mr. Bodenham's picture than it
+is to mine. I never did think the woman in Mr. Bodenham's picture was
+like me--though I was his model. I never could have been the original
+of your photograph of Nelly--it is not in the least like me. I think
+that you came to England with your heart and mind and eyes so full of
+Nelly, and so eager for a sight of her, that, in your great hunger of
+love, you grasped at the first chance resemblance you encountered. That
+is the only explanation I can think of, Tom, of how you can have
+mistaken me for her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My part is easier to explain. It is quite true, as I told you, that I
+was starving when you came to me. I was so weak and faint, and sick at
+heart, that your sudden appearance and strange behaviour--in a perfect
+stranger, for you were a perfect stranger, Tom--drove from me the few
+senses I had left. When I recovered I found myself in the arms of a man
+who seemed to know me, and who spoke to me words of love--words which I
+had never heard from the lips of a man before. I sent you to buy me
+food. While you were gone I told myself--wickedly! I know, Tom it was
+wickedly!--what a chance had come at last, which would save me from the
+river, at least for a time, and I should be a fool to let it slip. I
+perceived that you were mistaking me for some one else. I resolved to
+allow you to continue under your misapprehension. I did not doubt that
+you would soon discover your mistake. What would happen then I did not
+pause to think. But events marched quicker than I, in that first moment
+of mad impulse, had bargained for. You never did discover your mistake.
+How that was, even now I do not understand. But you began to talk of
+marriage. That was a prospect I dared not face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For one thing--forgive me for writing it, but I must write it, now
+that I am writing to you for the first and for the last time--I began
+to love you. Not for the man I supposed you to be, but for the man I
+knew you were. I loved you--and I love you! I shall never cease to love
+you, with a love of which I did not think I was capable. As I told you,
+Tom, last night--when I kissed you!--I love you better than my own
+life. Better, far better, for my life is worthless, and you--you are
+not worthless, Tom! And I would not--even had I dared!--allow you to
+marry me; not for myself, but for another; not for the present, but for
+the past; not for the thing I was, but for the thing which you supposed
+I had been, once. I would have married you for your own sake; you would
+not have married me for mine. And so, since I dared not undeceive
+you--I feared to see the look which would come in your face and your
+eyes--I am going to steal back, like a thief, to the life from which you
+took me. I have had a greater happiness than ever I expected. I have
+enjoyed those stolen kisses which they say are sweetest. Your happiness
+is still to come. You will find Nelly. Such love as yours will not go
+unrewarded. I have been but an incident, a chapter in your life, which
+now is closed. God bless you, Tom! I am yours, although you are not
+mine--not yours, Nelly Brock--but yours, Helen Reeves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Gibbs read this letter once, then twice, and then again. Then he
+rang the bell. The landlady appeared with a suspicious promptitude
+which suggested the possibility of her having been a spectator of his
+proceedings through the keyhole.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When did Miss Brock go out?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Quite early, sir. I'm sure, sir, I was quite taken aback when she said
+that she was going--on her wedding-day and all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did she say where she was going?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not a word, sir. She said: 'Mrs. Horner, I am going away. Give this
+letter to Mr. Gibbs when he comes.' That was every word she says, sir;
+then she goes right out of the front door.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did she take any luggage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Just the merest mite of a bag, sir--not another thing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Gibbs asked no other questions. He left the room and went out into
+the street. The driver of the brougham was instructed to drive, not to
+church, but--to his evident and unconcealed surprise--to that slum in
+Chelsea. She had written that she was returning to the old life. The
+old life was connected with that top attic. He thought it might be
+worth his while to inquire if anything had been seen or heard of her.
+Nothing had. He left his card, with instructions to write him should
+any tidings come that way. Then, since it was unadvisable to drive
+about all day under the �gis of a Jehu, whose button-hole was adorned
+with a monstrous wedding favour, he dismissed the carriage and sent it
+home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned into the King's Road. He was walking in the direction of
+Sloane Square, when a voice addressed him from behind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tom!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a woman's voice. He turned. A woman was standing close behind
+him, looking and smiling at him--a stout and a dowdy woman. Cheaply and
+flashily dressed in faded finery--not the sort of woman whose
+recognition one would be over-anxious to compel. Mr. Gibbs looked at
+her. There was something in her face and in her voice which struck
+faintly some forgotten chord in his memory.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tom! don't you know me? I am Nelly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked at her intently for some instants. Then it all flashed over
+him. This was Nelly, the real Nelly, the Nelly of his younger days, the
+Nelly he had come to find. This dandy sloven, whose shrill voice
+proclaimed her little vulgar soul--so different from that other Nelly,
+whose soft, musical tones had not been among the least of her charms.
+The recognition came on him with the force of a sudden shock. He
+reeled, so that he had to clutch at a railing to help him stand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tom! what's the matter? Aren't you well? Or is it the joy of seeing me
+has sent you silly?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She laughed, the dissonant laughter of the female Cockney of a certain
+class. Mr. Gibbs recovered his balance and his civility.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you, I am very well. And you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, I'm all right. There's never much the matter with me. I can't
+afford the time to be ill.&quot; She laughed again. &quot;Well, this is a start
+my meeting you. Come and have a bit o' dinner along with us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who is us? Your father and your mother?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, father, he's been dead these five years, and mother, she's been
+dead these three. I don't want you to have a bit of dinner along with
+them--not hardly.&quot; Again she laughed. &quot;It's my old man I mean. Why, you
+don't mean to say you don't know I'm married! Why, I'm the mother of
+five.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had fallen in at her side. They were walking on together--he like a
+man in a dream.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We're doing pretty well considering, we manage to live, you know.&quot; She
+laughed again. She seemed filled with laughter, which was more than Mr.
+Gibbs was then. &quot;We're fishmongers, that's what we are. William he's
+got a very tidy trade, as good as any in the road. There, here's our
+shop!&quot; She paused in front of a fishmonger's shop. &quot;And there's our
+name&quot;--she pointed up at it. &quot;Nelly Brock I used to be, and now I'm
+Mrs. William Morgan.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She laughed again. She led the way through the shop to a little room
+beyond. A man was seated on the table, reading a newspaper, a man
+without a coat on, and with a blue apron tied about his waist.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;William, who do you think I've brought to see you? You'll never guess
+in a month of Sundays. This is Tom Gibbs, of whom you've heard me speak
+dozens of times.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Morgan wiped his hand upon his apron.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he held it out to Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Gibbs was conscious, as he
+grasped it, that it reeked of fish.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How are you, Gibbs? Glad to see you!&quot; Mr. Morgan turned to his wife.
+&quot;Where's that George? There's a pair of soles got to be sent up to
+Sydney Street, and there's not a soul about the place to take 'em.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That George is a dratted nuisance, that's what he is. He never is
+anywhere to be found when you want him. You remember, William, me
+telling you about Tom Gibbs? My old sweetheart, you know, he was. He
+went away to make his fortune, and I was to wait for him till he came
+back, and I daresay I should have waited if you hadn't just happened to
+come along.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wish I hadn't just happened, then. I wish she'd waited for you,
+Gibbs. It'd have been better for me, and worse for you, old man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's what they all say, you know, after a time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mrs. Morgan laughed. But Mr. Morgan did not seem to be in a
+particularly jovial frame of mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's all very well for you to talk, you know, but I don't like the way
+things are managed in this house, and so I tell you. There's your new
+lodger come while you've been out, and her room's like a regular
+pig-sty, and I had to show her upstairs myself, with the shop chock-full
+of customers.&quot; Mr. Morgan drew his hand across his nose. &quot;See you
+directly, Gibbs; some one must attend to business.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Morgan withdrew to the shop. Mr. Gibbs and his old love were left
+alone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never you mind, William. He's all right; but he's a bit huffy--men
+will get huffy when things don't go just as they want 'em. I'll just
+run upstairs and send the lodger down here, while I tidy up her room.
+The children slept in it last night. I never expected her till this
+afternoon; she's took me unawares. You wait here; I shan't be half a
+minute. Then we'll have a bit of dinner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Gibbs, left alone, sat in a sort of waking dream. Could this be
+Nelly--the Nelly of whom he had dreamed, for whom he had striven, whom
+he had come to find--this mother of five? Why, she must have begun to
+play him false almost as soon as his back was turned. She must have
+already been almost standing at the altar steps with William Morgan
+while writing the last of her letters to him. And had his imagination,
+or his memory, tricked him? Had youth, or distance, lent enchantment to
+the view? Had she gone back, or had he advanced? Could she have been
+the vulgar drab which she now appeared to be, in the days of long ago?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he sat there, endeavouring to resolve these riddles which had been
+so suddenly presented for solution, the door opened and some one
+entered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I beg your pardon,&quot; said the voice of the intruder, on perceiving that
+the room was already provided with an occupant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Gibbs glanced up. The voice fell like the voice of a magician on
+his ear. He rose to his feet, all trembling. In the doorway was
+standing the other Nelly--the false, and yet the true one. The Nelly of
+his imagination. The Nelly to whom he was to have been married that
+day. He went to her with a sudden cry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nelly!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tom!&quot; She shrank away. But in spite of her shrinking, he took her in
+his arms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My own, own darling.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tom,&quot; she moaned, &quot;don't you understand--I'm not Nelly!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know it, and I thank God, my darling, you are not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tom! What do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I mean that I have found Nelly, and I mean that, thank Heaven! I have
+found you too--never, my darling, please Heaven! to lose sight of you
+again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had only just time to withdraw from a too suspicious
+neighbourhood, before the door opened again to admit Mrs. Morgan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tom, this is our new lodger. I just asked her if she'd mind stepping
+downstairs while I tidied up her room a bit. Miss Reeves, this is an
+old sweetheart of mine--Mr. Gibbs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Gibbs turned to the &quot;new lodger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Miss Reeves and I are already acquainted. Miss Reeves, you have heard
+me speak of Mrs. Morgan, though not by that name. This is Nelly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Reeves turned and looked at Mrs. Morgan, and as she looked--she
+gasped.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_haute" href="#div1Ref_haute">La Haute Finance</a></h2>
+
+<h3>A TALE OF THE BIGGEST COUP ON RECORD</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">&quot;By Jove! I believe it could be done!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Rodney Railton took the cigarette out of his mouth and sent a puff
+of smoke into the air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I believe it could, by Jove!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Another puff of smoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll write to Mac.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He drew a sheet of paper towards him and penned the following:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;DEAR ALEC,--Can you give me some dinner to-night? Wire me if you have
+a crowd. I shall be in the House till four. Have something to propose
+which will make your hair stand up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yours, R. R.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This he addressed &quot;Alexander Macmathers, Esq., 27, Campden Hill
+Mansions.&quot; As he went downstairs he gave the note to the
+commissionaire, with instructions that it should be delivered at once
+by hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That night Mr. Railton dined with Mr. Macmathers. The party consisted
+of three, the two gentlemen and a lady--Mrs. Macmathers, in fact. Mr.
+Macmathers was an American--a Southerner--rather tall and weedy, with a
+heavy, drooping moustache, like his hair, raven black. He was not
+talkative. His demeanour gave a wrong impression of the man--the
+impression that he was not a man of action. As a matter of fact, he was
+a man of action before all things else. He was not rich, as riches go,
+but certainly he was not poor. His temperament was cosmopolitan, and
+his profession Jack-of-all-trades. Wherever there was money to be made,
+he was there. Sometimes, it must be confessed, he was there, too, when
+there was money to be lost. His wife was English--keen and clever. Her
+chief weakness was that she would persist in looking on existence as a
+gigantic lark. When she was most serious she regarded life least <i>au
+s�rieux</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Railton, who had invited himself to dinner, was a hybrid--German
+mother, English father. He was quite a young man--say thirty. His host
+was perhaps ten, his hostess five years older than himself. He was a
+stockjobber--ostensibly in the Erie market. All that he had he had
+made, for he had, as a boy, found himself the situation of a clerk. But
+his clerkly days were long since gone. No one anything like his age had
+a better reputation in the House; it was stated by those who had best
+reason to know that he had never once been left, and few had a larger
+credit. Lately he had wandered outside his markets to indulge in little
+operations in what he called <i>La Haute Finance</i>. In these Mr.
+Macmathers had been his partner more than once, and in him he had found
+just the man he wished to find.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When they had finished dinner, the lady withdrew, and the gentlemen
+were left alone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well,&quot; observed Mr. Macmathers, &quot;what's going to make my hair stand
+up?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Railton stroked his chin as he leaned both his elbows on the board.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course, Mac, I can depend on you. I'm just giving myself away. It's
+no good my asking you to observe strict confidence, for, if you won't
+come in, from the mere fact of your knowing it the thing's just busted
+up, that's all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sounds like a mystery-of-blood-to-thee-I'll-now-unfold sort of thing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't know about mystery, but there'll be plenty of blood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Railton stopped short and looked at his friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Blood, eh? I say, Rodney, think before you speak.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have thought. I thought I'd play the game alone. But it's too big a
+game for one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, if you have thought, out with it, or be silent evermore.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know Plumline, the dramatist?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know he's an ass.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ass or no ass, it's from him I got the idea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good Heavens! No wonder it smells of blood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He's got an idea for a new play, and he came to me to get some local
+colouring. I'll just tell you the plot--he was obliged to tell it me,
+or I couldn't have given him the help he wanted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it essential? I have enough of Plumline's plots when I see them on
+the stage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is essential. You will see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Railton got up, lighted a cigar, and stood before the fireplace.
+When he had brought the cigar into good going order he unfolded Mr.
+Plumline's plot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm not going to bore you. I'm just going to touch upon that part
+which gave me my idea. There's a girl who dreams of boundless wealth--a
+clever girl, you understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Girls who dream of boundless wealth sometimes are clever,&quot; murmured
+his friend. Perhaps he had his wife in his mind's eye.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She is wooed and won by a financier. Not wooed and won by a tale of
+love, but by the exposition of an idea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's rather new--for Plumline.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The financier has an idea for obtaining the boundless wealth of which
+she only dreams.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the idea?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is the bringing about of a war between France and Germany.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Great snakes!&quot; The cigarette dropped from between Mr. Macmather's
+lips. He carefully picked it up again. &quot;That's not a bad idea--for
+Plumline.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's my idea as well. In the play it fails. The financier comes to
+grief. I shouldn't fail. There's just that difference.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Macmathers regarded his friend in silence before he spoke again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Railton, might I ask you to enlarge upon your meaning? I want to see
+which of us two is drunk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In the play the man has a big bear account--the biggest upon record. I
+need hardly tell you that a war between France and Germany would mean
+falling markets. Supposing we were able to calculate with certainty the
+exact moment of the outbreak--arrange it, in fact--we might realise
+wealth beyond the dreams of avarice--hundreds of thousands of millions,
+if we chose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I suppose you're joking?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's what I want to know--how.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It does sound, at first hearing, like a joke, to suppose that a couple
+of mere outsiders can, at their own sweet will and pleasure, stir up a
+war between two Great Powers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A joke is a mild way of describing it, my friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Alec, would you mind asking Mrs. Macmathers to form a third on this
+occasion?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Macmathers eyed his friend for a moment, then got up and left the
+room. When he returned his wife was with him. It was to the lady Mr.
+Railton addressed himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mrs. Macmathers, would you like to be possessed of wealth compared to
+which the wealth of the Vanderbilts, the Rothschilds, the Mackays, the
+Goulds, would shrink into insignificance?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, certainly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a peculiarity of the lady's that, while she was English, she
+affected what she supposed to be American idioms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Would you stick at a little to obtain it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It would be worth one's while to run a considerable risk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I guess.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mrs. Macmathers, I want to go a bear, a large bear, to win, say--I
+want to put it modestly--a hundred millions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pounds?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pounds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is to be feared that Mrs. Macmathers whistled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Figures large,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All the world knows that war is inevitable between France and
+Germany.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Proceed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I want to arrange that it shall break out at the moment when it best
+suits me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I guess you're a modest man,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her husband smiled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you consider for a moment, it would not be so difficult as it first
+appears. It requires but a spark to set the fire burning. There is at
+least one party in France to whom war would mean the achievement of all
+their most cherished dreams. It is long odds that a war would bring
+some M. Quelquechose to the front with a rush. He will be at least
+untried. And, of late years, it is the untried men who have the
+people's confidence in France. A few resolute men, my dear Mrs.
+Macmathers, have only to kick up a shindy on the Alsatian
+borders--Europe will be roused, in the middle of the night, by the
+roaring of the flames of war.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a pause. Mrs. Macmathers got up and began to pace the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's a big order,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Allowing the feasibility of your proposition, I conclude that you have
+some observations to make upon it from a moral point of view. It
+requires them, my friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Macmathers said this with a certain dryness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Moral point of view be hanged! It could be argued, mind, and defended;
+but I prefer to say candidly, the moral point of view be hanged!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Has it not occurred to you to think that the next Franco-German war
+may mean the annihilation of one of the parties concerned?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You mistake the position. I should have nothing to do with the war. I
+should merely arrange the date for its commencement. With or without me
+they would fight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You would merely consign two or three hundred thousand men to die at
+the moment which would best suit your pocket.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is that way of looking at it, no doubt. But you will allow me to
+remind you that you considered the possibility of creating a corner in
+corn without making unpleasant allusions to the fact that it might have
+meant starvation to thousands.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lady interposed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Railton, leaving all that sort of thing alone, what is it that you
+propose?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The details have still to be filled in. Broadly I propose to arrange a
+series of collisions with the German frontier authorities. I propose to
+get them boomed by the Parisian Press. I propose to give some M.
+Quelquechose his chance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's the biggest order ever I heard.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not so big as it sounds. Start to-morrow, and I believe that we should
+be within measureable distance of war next week. Properly managed, I
+will at least guarantee that all the Stock Exchanges of Europe go down
+with a run.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If the thing hangs fire, how about carrying over?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Settle. No carrying over for me. I will undertake that there is a
+sufficient margin of profit. Every account we will do a fresh bear
+until the trick is made. Unless I am mistaken, the trick will be made
+with a rapidity of which you appear to have no conception.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is like a dream of the Arabian nights,&quot; the lady said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Before the actual reality the Arabian nights pale their ineffectual
+fires. It is a chance which no man ever had before, which no man may
+ever have again. I don't think, Macmathers, we ought to let it slip.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They did not let it slip.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">Mr. Railton was acquainted with a certain French gentleman who rejoiced
+in the name--according to his own account--of M. Hippolyte de
+Vrai-Castille. The name did not sound exactly French--M. de Vrai-Castille
+threw light on this by explaining that his family came originally from
+Spain. But, on the other hand, it must be allowed that the name did not
+sound exactly Spanish, either. London appeared to be this gentleman's
+permanent place of residence. Political reasons--so he stated--rendered
+it advisable that he should not appear too prominently upon
+his--theoretically--beloved <i>boulevards</i>. Journalism--always following
+this gentleman's account of himself--was the profession to which he devoted
+the flood-tide of his powers. The particular journal or journals which
+were rendered famous by the productions of his pen were rather
+difficult to discover--there appeared to be political reasons, too, for
+that.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The man is an all-round bad lot.&quot; This was what Mr. Railton said when
+speaking of this gentleman to Mr. and Mrs. Macmathers. &quot;A type of
+scoundrel only produced by France. Just the man we want.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Flattering,&quot; observed his friend. &quot;You are going to introduce us to
+high company.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Railton entertained this gentleman to dinner in a private room at
+the Hotel Continental. M. de Vrai-Castille did not seem to know exactly
+what to make of it. Nothing in his chance acquaintance with Mr. Railton
+had given him cause to suppose that the Englishman regarded him as a
+respectable man, and this sudden invitation to fraternise took him a
+little aback. Possibly he was taken still more aback before the evening
+closed. Conversation languished during the meal; but when it was
+over--and the waiters gone--Mr. Railton became very conversational indeed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Look here, What's-your-name&quot;--this was how Mr. Railton addressed M. de
+Vrai-Castille--&quot;I know very little about you, but I know enough to
+suspect that you have nothing in the world excepting what you steal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;M. Railton is pleased to have his little jest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If it was a jest, it was not one, judging from the expression of M. de
+Vrai-Castille's countenance which he entirely relished.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What would you say if I presented you with ten thousand pounds?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should say----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What he said need not be recorded, but M. de Vrai-Castille used some
+very bad language indeed, expressive of the satisfaction with which the
+gift would be received.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And suppose I should hint at your becoming possessed of another
+hundred thousand pounds to back it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pardon me, M. Railton, but is it murder? If so, I would say frankly at
+once that I have always resolved that in those sort of transactions I
+would take no hand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stuff and nonsense! It is nothing of the kind! You say you are a
+politician. Well, I want you to pose as a patriot--a French patriot,
+you understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Railton's eyes twinkled. M. de Vrai-Castille grinned in reply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The profession is overcrowded,&quot; he murmured, with a deprecatory
+movement of his hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not on the lines I mean to work it. Did you lose any relatives in the
+war?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It depends.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I feel sure you did. And at this moment the bodies of those patriots
+are sepultured in Alsatian soil. I want you to dig them up again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Mon Dieu! Ce charmant homme!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I want you to form a league for the recovery of the remains of those
+noble spirits who died for their native land, and whose bones now lie
+interred in what was France, but which now, alas! is France no more. I
+want you to go in for this bone recovery business as far as possible on
+a wholesale scale.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Ciel! Maintenant j'ai trouv� un homme extraordinaire!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will find no difficulty in obtaining the permission of the
+necessary authorities sanctioning your schemes; but at the very last
+moment, owing to some stated informality, the German brigands will
+interfere even at the edge of the already open grave; patriot bones
+will be dishonoured, France will be shamed in the face of all the
+world.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The great heart of France is a patient heart, my friend, but even
+France will not stand that. There will be war.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On the day on which war is declared, one hundred thousand pounds will
+be paid to you in cash.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And supposing there is no war?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Should France prefer to cower beneath her shame, you shall still
+receive ten thousand pounds.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">The following extract is from the <i>Times'</i> Parisian correspondence--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The party of La Revanche is taking a new departure. I am in a position
+to state that certain gentlemen are putting their heads together. A
+league is being formed for the recovery of the bodies of various
+patriots who are at present asleep in Alsace. I have my own reasons for
+asserting that some remarkable proceedings may be expected soon. No man
+knows better than myself that there is nothing some Frenchmen will not
+do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On the same day there appeared in <i>La Patrie</i> a really touching
+article. It was the story of two brothers--one was, the other was not;
+in life they had been together, but in death they were divided. Both
+alike had fought for their native land. One returned--<i>d�sol�!</i>--to
+Paris. The other stayed behind. He still stayed behind. It appeared
+that he was buried in Alsace, in a nameless grave! But they had vowed,
+these two, that they would share all things--among the rest, that sleep
+which even patriots must know, the unending sleep of death. &quot;It is
+said,&quot; said the article in conclusion, &quot;that that nameless grave, in
+what was France, will soon know none--or two!&quot; It appeared that the
+surviving brother was going for that &quot;nameless grave&quot; on the principle
+of double or quits.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The story appeared, with variations, in a considerable number of
+journals. The <i>Daily Telegraph</i> had an amusing allusion to the fondness
+displayed by certain Frenchmen for their relatives--dead, for the
+&quot;bones&quot; of their fathers. But no one was at all prepared for the events
+which followed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One morning the various money articles alluded to heavy sales which had
+been effected the day before, &quot;apparently by a party of outside
+speculators.&quot; In particular heavy bear operations were reported from
+Berlin. Later in the day the evening papers came out with telegrams
+referring to &quot;disturbances&quot; at a place called Pont-sur-Leaune.
+Pont-sur-Leaune is a little Alsatian hamlet. The next day the tale was
+in everybody's mouth. Certain misguided but well-meaning Frenchmen had
+been &quot;shot down&quot; by the German authorities. Particulars had not yet
+come to hand, but it appeared, according to the information from Paris,
+that a party of Frenchmen had journeyed to Alsace with the intention of
+recovering the bodies of relatives who had been killed in the war; on
+the very edge of the open graves German soldiers had shot them down.
+Telegrams from Berlin stated that a party of body-snatchers had been
+caught in the very act of plying their nefarious trade; no mention of
+shooting came from there. Although the story was doubted in the City,
+it had its effect on the markets--prices fell. It was soon seen, too,
+that the bears were at it again. Foreign telegrams showed that their
+influence was being felt all round; very heavy bear raids were again
+reported from Berlin. Markets became unsettled, with a downward
+tendency, and closing prices were the worst of the day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Matters were not improved by the news of the morrow. A Frenchman had
+been shot--his name was Hippolyte de Vrai-Castille, and a manifesto
+from his friends had already appeared in Paris. According to this, they
+had been betrayed by the German authorities. They had received
+permission from those authorities to take the bodies of certain of
+their relatives and lay them in French soil. While they were acting on
+this permission they were suddenly attacked by German soldiers, and he,
+their leader, that patriot soul, Hippolyte de Vrai-Castille, was dead.
+But there was worse than that. They had prepared flags in which to wrap
+the bodies of the dead. Those flags--emblems of France--had been seized
+by the rude German soldiers, torn into fragments, trampled in the dust.
+The excitement in Paris appeared to be intense. All that day there was
+a falling market.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next day's papers were full of contradictory telegrams. From Berlin
+the affair was pooh-poohed. The story of permission having been
+accorded by the authorities was pure fiction--there had been a scuffle
+in which a man had been killed, probably by his own friends--the tale
+of the dishonoured flags was the invention of an imaginative brain. But
+these contradictions were for the most part frantically contradicted by
+the Parisian Press. There was a man in Paris who had actually figured
+on the scene. He had caught M. de Vrai-Castille in his arms as he fell,
+he had been stained by his heart's blood, his cheek had been torn open
+by the bullet which killed his friend. Next his heart he at that moment
+carried portions of the flags--emblems of France!--which had been
+subjected to such shame.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it was on the following day that the situation first took a
+definitely serious shape. Placards appeared on every dead wall in
+Paris, small bills were thrust under every citizen's door--on the bills
+and placards were printed the same words. They were signed
+&quot;Quelquechose.&quot; They pointed out that France owed her present
+degradation--like all her other degradations--to her Government. The
+nation was once more insulted; the Army was once more betrayed; the
+national flag had been trampled on again, as it had been trampled on
+before. Under a strong Government these things could not be, but under
+a Government of cowards----! Let France but breathe the word, &quot;La
+Grande Nation&quot; would exist once more. Let the Army but make a sign,
+there would be &quot;La Grande Arm�e&quot; as of yore.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That night there was a scene in the Chamber. M. de Caragnac--<i>� propos
+des botte</i>--made a truly remarkable speech. He declared that permission
+had been given to these men. He produced documentary evidence to that
+effect. He protested that these men--true citizens of France!--had been
+the victims of a &quot;Prussian&quot; plot. As to the outrage to the national
+flag, had it been perpetrated, say, in Tonkin, &quot;cannons would be
+belching forth their thunders now.&quot; But in Alsace--&quot;this brave
+Government dare only turn to the smiters the other cheek.&quot; In the
+galleries they cheered him to the echo. On the tribune there was
+something like a free fight. When the last telegrams were despatched to
+London, Paris appeared to be approaching a state of riot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next day there burst a thunderbolt. Five men had been detained by
+the German authorities. They had escaped--had been detected in the act
+of flight--had been shot at while running. Two of them had been killed.
+A third had been fatally wounded. The news--flavoured to taste--was
+shouted from the roofs of the houses. Paris indulged in one of its
+periodical fits of madness. The condition of the troops bore a strong
+family likeness to mutiny. And in the morning Europe was electrified by
+the news that a revolution had been effected in the small hours of the
+morning, that the Chambers had been dissolved, and that with the Army
+were the issues of peace and war.</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20px">* * * * * * * *</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On the day of the declaration of the war between France and
+Germany--that heavy-laden day--an individual called on Mr. Rodney Railton
+whose appearance caused that gentleman to experience a slight sensation
+of surprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;De Vrai-Castille! I was wondering if you had left any instructions as
+to whom I was to pay that hundred thousand pounds. I thought that you
+were dead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monsieur mistakes. My name is Henri Kerchrist, a name not unknown in
+my native Finist�re. M. Hippolyte de Vrai-Castille is dead. I saw him
+die. It was to me he directed that you should pay that hundred thousand
+pounds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he made these observations, possibly owing to some local weakness,
+&quot;Henri Kerchrist&quot; winked the other eye.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_riddle" href="#div1Ref_riddle">Mrs. Riddle's Daughter</a></h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">When they asked me to spend the Long with them, or as much of it as I
+could manage, I felt more than half disposed to write and say that I
+could not manage any of it at all. Of course a man's uncle and aunt are
+his uncle and aunt, and as such I do not mean to say that I ever
+thought of suggesting anything against Mr. and Mrs. Plaskett. But then
+Plaskett is fifty-five if he's a day, and not agile, and Mrs. Plaskett
+always struck me as being about ten years older. They have no children,
+and the idea was that, as Mrs. Plaskett's niece--Plaskett is my
+mother's brother, so that Mrs. Plaskett is only my aunt by marriage--as
+I was saying, the idea was that, as Mrs. Plaskett's niece was going to
+spend her Long with them, I, as it were, might take pity on the girl,
+and see her through it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I am not saying that there are not worse things than seeing a girl,
+single-handed, through a thing like that, but then it depends upon the
+girl. In this case, the mischief was her mother. The girl was Mrs.
+Plaskett's brother's child; his name was Riddle. Riddle was dead. The
+misfortune was, his wife was still alive. I had never seen her, but I
+had heard of her ever since I was breeched. She is one of those awful
+Anti-Everythingites. She won't allow you to smoke, or drink, or breathe
+comfortably, so far as I understand. I dare say you've heard of her.
+Whenever there is any new craze about, her name always figures in the
+bills.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So far as I know, I am not possessed of all the vices. At the same
+time, I did not look forward to being shut up all alone in a country
+house with the daughter of a &quot;woman Crusader.&quot; On the other hand, Uncle
+Plaskett has behaved, more than once, like a trump to me, and as I felt
+that this might be an occasion on which he expected me to behave like a
+trump to him, I made up my mind that, at any rate, I would sample the
+girl and see what she was like.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had not been in the house half an hour before I began to wish I
+hadn't come. Miss Riddle had not arrived, and if she was anything like
+the picture which my aunt painted of her, I hoped that she never would
+arrive--at least, while I was there. Neither of the Plasketts had seen
+her since she was the merest child. Mrs. Riddle never had approved of
+them. They were not Anti-Everythingite enough for her. Ever since the
+death of her husband she had practically ignored them. It was only
+when, after all these years, she found herself in a bit of a hole, that
+she seemed to have remembered their existence. It appeared that Miss
+Riddle was at some Anti-Everythingite college or other. The term was at
+an end. Her mother was in America, &quot;Crusading&quot; against one of her
+aversions. Some hitch had unexpectedly occurred as to where Miss Riddle
+was to spend her holidays. Mrs. Riddle had amazed the Plasketts by
+telegraphing to them from the States to ask if they could give her
+house-room. And that forgiving, tender-hearted uncle and aunt of mine
+had said they would.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I assure you, Dave, that when first I saw her you might have knocked me
+over with a feather. I had spent the night seeing her in nightmares--a
+lively time I had had of it. In the morning I went out for a stroll, so
+that the fresh air might have a chance of clearing my head at least of
+some of them. And when I came back there was a little thing sitting in
+the morning-room talking to aunt--I give you my word that she did not
+come within two inches of my shoulder. I do not want to go into
+raptures. I flatter myself I am beyond the age for that. But a
+sweeter-looking little thing I never saw! I was wondering who she might
+be, she seemed to be perfectly at home, when my aunt introduced us.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Charlie, this is your cousin, May Riddle. May, this is your cousin,
+Charles Kempster.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She stood up--such a dot of a thing! She held out her hand--she found
+fours in gloves a trifle loose. She looked at me with her eyes all
+laughter--you never saw such eyes, never! Her smile, when she spoke,
+was so contagious, that I would have defied the surliest man alive to
+have maintained his surliness when he found himself in front of it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am very glad to see you--cousin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her voice! And the way in which she said it! As I have written, you
+might have knocked me down with a feather.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I found myself in clover. And no man ever deserved good fortune better.
+It was a case of virtue rewarded. I had come to do my duty, expecting
+to find it bitter, and, lo, it was very sweet. How such a mother came
+to have such a child was a mystery to all of us. There was not a trace
+of humbug about her. So far from being an Anti-Everythingite, she went
+in for everything, strong. That hypocrite of an uncle of mine had
+arranged to revolutionise the habits of his house for her. There
+were to be family prayers morning and evening, and a sermon, and
+three-quarters of an hour's grace before meat, and all that kind of thing.
+I even suspected him of an intention of locking up the billiard-room, and
+the smoke-room, and all the books worth reading, and all the music that
+wasn't &quot;sacred,&quot; and, in fact, of turning the place into a regular
+mausoleum. But he had not been in her company five minutes when bang
+went all ideas of that sort. Talk about locking the billiard-room
+against her! You should have seen the game she played. Though she was
+such a dot, you should have seen her use the jigger. And sing! She sang
+everything. When she had made our hearts go pit-a-pat, and brought the
+tears into our eyes, she would give us comic songs--the very latest.
+Where she got them from was more than we could understand; but she
+made us laugh till we cried--aunt and all. She was an Admirable
+Crichton--honestly. I never saw a girl play a better game of tennis.
+She could ride like an Amazon. And walk--when I think of the walks we
+had together through the woods, I doing my duty towards her to the best
+of my ability, it all seems to have been too good a time to have happened
+in anything but a dream.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Do not think she was a rowdy girl, one of these &quot;up-to-daters,&quot; or
+fast. Quite the other way. She had read more books than I had--I am not
+hinting that that is saying much, but still she had. She loved books,
+too; and, you know, speaking quite frankly, I never was a bookish man.
+Talking about books, one day when we were out in the woods alone
+together--we nearly always were alone together!--I took it into my head
+to read to her. She listened for a page or two; then she interrupted
+me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you call that reading?&quot; I looked at her surprised. She held out her
+hand. &quot;Now, let me read to you. Give me the book.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I gave it to her. Dave, you never heard such reading. It was not only a
+question of elocution; it was not only a question of the music that was
+in her voice. She made the dry bones live. The words, as they proceeded
+from between her lips, became living things. I never read to her again.
+After that, she always read to me. Many an hour have I spent, lying at
+her side, with my head pillowed in the mosses, while she materialised
+for me &quot;the very Jew, which Shakespeare drew.&quot; She read to me all sorts
+of things. I believe she could even have vivified a leading article.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One day she had been reading to me a pen picture of a famous dancer.
+The writer had seen the woman in some Spanish theatre. He gave an
+impassioned description--at least, it sounded impassioned as she read
+it--of how the people had followed the performer's movements, with
+enraptured eyes and throbbing pulses, unwilling to lose the slightest
+gesture. When she had done reading, putting down the book, she stood up
+in front of me. I sat up to ask what she was going to do.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wonder,&quot; she said, &quot;if it was anything like this--the dance which
+that Spanish woman danced.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She danced to me. Dave, you are my &quot;fidus Achates,&quot; my other self, my
+chum, or I would not say a word to you of this. I never shall forget
+that day. She set my veins on fire. The witch! Without music, under the
+greenwood tree, all in a moment, for my particular edification, she
+danced a dance which would have set a crowded theatre in a frenzy.
+While she danced, I watched her as if mesmerised; I give you my word I
+did not lose a gesture. When she ceased--with such a curtsy!--I sprang
+up and ran to her. I would have caught her in my arms; but she sprang
+back. She held me from her with her outstretched hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Kempster!&quot; she exclaimed. She looked up at me as demurely as you
+please.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was only going to take a kiss,&quot; I cried. &quot;Surely a cousin may take a
+kiss.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not every cousin--if you please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With that she walking right off, there and then, leaving me standing
+speechless, and as stupid as an owl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next morning as I was in the hall, lighting up for an after
+breakfast smoke, Aunt Plaskett came up to me. The good soul had trouble
+written all over her face. She had an open letter in her hand. She
+looked up at me in a way which reminded me oddly of my mother.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Charlie,&quot; she said, &quot;I'm so sorry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aunt, if you're sorry, so am I. But what's the sorrow?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mrs. Riddle's coming.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Coming? When?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To-day--this morning. I am expecting her every minute.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I thought she was a fixture in America for the next three months.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So I thought. But it seems that something has happened which has
+induced her to change her mind. She arrived in England yesterday. She
+writes to me to say that she will come on to us as early as possible
+to-day. Here is the letter. Charlie, will you tell May?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She put the question a trifle timidly, as though she were asking me to
+do something from which she herself would rather be excused. The fact
+is, we had found that Miss Riddle would talk of everything and
+anything, with the one exception of her mother. Speak of Mrs. Riddle,
+and the young lady either immediately changed the conversation, or she
+held her peace. Within my hearing, her mother's name had never escaped
+her lips. Whether consciously or unconsciously, she had conveyed to our
+minds a very clear impression that, to put it mildly, between her and
+her mother there was no love lost. I, myself, was persuaded that, to
+her, the news of her mother's imminent presence would not be pleasant
+news. It seemed that my aunt was of the same opinion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dear May ought to be told, she ought not to be taken unawares. You
+will find her in the morning-room, I think.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I rather fancy that Aunt and Uncle Plaskett have a tendency to shift
+the little disagreeables of life off their own shoulders on to other
+people's. Anyhow, before I could point out to her that the part which
+she suggested I should play was one which belonged more properly to
+her, Aunt Plaskett had taken advantage of my momentary hesitation to
+effect a strategic movement which removed her out of my sight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I found Miss Riddle in the morning-room. She was lying on a couch,
+reading. Directly I entered she saw that I had something on my mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What's the matter? You don't look happy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It may seem selfishness on my part, but I'm not quite happy. I have
+just heard news which, if you will excuse my saying so, has rather
+given me a facer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If I will excuse you saying so! Dear me, how ceremonious we are! Is
+the news public, or private property?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who do you think is coming?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Coming? Where? Here?&quot; I nodded. &quot;I have not the most remote idea. How
+should I have?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is some one who has something to do with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Until then she had taken it uncommonly easily on the couch. When I said
+that, she sat up with quite a start.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Something to do with me? Mr. Kempster! What do you mean? Who can
+possibly be coming here who has anything to do with me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May, can't you guess?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Guess! How can I guess? What do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's your mother.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My--mother!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had expected that the thing would be rather a blow to her, but I had
+never expected that it would be anything like the blow it seemed. She
+sprang to her feet. The book fell from her hands, unnoticed, on to the
+floor. She stood facing me, with clenched fists and staring eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My--mother!&quot; she repeated, &quot;Mr. Kempster, tell me what you mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I told myself that Mrs. Riddle must be more, or less, of a mother even
+than my fancy painted her, if the mere suggestion of her coming could
+send her daughter into such a state of mind as this. Miss Riddle had
+always struck me as being about as cool a hand as you would be likely
+to meet. Now all at once, she seemed to be half beside herself with
+agitation. As she glared at me, she made me almost feel as if I had
+been behaving to her like a brute.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My aunt has only just now told me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Told you what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That Mrs. Riddle arrived----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She interrupted me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mrs. Riddle? My mother? Well, go on?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She stamped on the floor. I almost felt as if she had stamped on me. I
+went on, disposed to feel that my back was beginning to rise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My aunt has just told me that Mrs. Riddle arrived in England
+yesterday. She has written this morning to say that she is coming on at
+once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I don't understand!&quot; She really looked as if she did not
+understand. &quot;I thought--I was told that--she was going to remain abroad
+for months.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It seems that she has changed her mind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Changed her mind!&quot; Miss Riddle stared at me as if she thought that
+such a thing was inconceivable. &quot;When did you say that she was coming?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aunt tells me that she is expecting her every moment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Kempster, what am I to do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She appealed to me, with outstretched hands, actually trembling, as it
+seemed to me with passion, as if I knew--or understood her either.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am afraid, May, that Mrs. Riddle has not been to you all that a
+mother ought to be. I have heard something of this before. But I did
+not think that it was so bad as it seems.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have heard? You have heard! My good sir, you don't know what
+you're talking about in the very least. There is one thing very
+certain, that I must go at once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Go? May!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She moved forward. I believe she would have gone if I had not stepped
+between her and the door. I was beginning to feel slightly bewildered.
+It struck me that, perhaps, I had not broken the news so delicately as
+I might have done. I had blundered somehow, somewhere. Something must
+be wrong, if, after having been parted from her, for all I knew, for
+years, immediately on hearing of her mother's return, her first impulse
+was towards flight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well?&quot; she cried, looking up at me like a small, wild thing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear May, what do you mean? Where are you going? To your room?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To my room? No! I am going away! away! Right out of this, as quickly
+as I can!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, after all, your mother is your mother. Surely she cannot have
+made herself so objectionable that, at the mere thought of her arrival,
+you should wish to run away from her, goodness alone knows where. So
+far as I understand she has disarranged her plans, and hurried across
+the Atlantic, for the sole purpose of seeing you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked at me in silence for a moment. As she looked, outwardly, she
+froze.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Kempster, I am at a loss to understand your connection with my
+affairs. Still less do I understand the grounds on which you would
+endeavour to regulate my movements. It is true that you are a man, and
+I am a woman; that you are big and I am little; but--are those the only
+grounds?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course, if you look at it like that----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Shrugging my shoulders, I moved aside. As I did so, some one entered
+the room. Turning, I saw it was my aunt. She was closely followed by
+another woman.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear May,&quot; said my aunt, and unless I am mistaken, her voice was
+trembling, &quot;here is your mother.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The woman who was with my aunt was a tall, loosely-built person, with
+iron-grey hair, a square determined jaw, and eyes which looked as if
+they could have stared the Sphinx right out of countenance. She was
+holding a pair of pince-nez in position on the bridge of her nose.
+Through them she was fixedly regarding May. But she made no forward
+movement. The rigidity of her countenance, of the cold sternness which
+was in her eyes, of the hard lines which were about her mouth, did not
+relax in the least degree. Nor did she accord her any sign of greeting.
+I thought that this was a comfortable way in which to meet one's
+daughter, and such a daughter, after a lengthened separation. With a
+feeling of the pity of it, I turned again to May. As I did so, a sort
+of creepy-crawly sensation went all up my back. The little girl really
+struck me as being frightened half out of her life. Her face was white
+and drawn; her lips were quivering; her big eyes were dilated in a
+manner which uncomfortably recalled a wild creature which has suddenly
+gone stark mad with fear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a painful silence. I have no doubt that my aunt was as conscious
+of it as any one. I expect that she felt May's position as keenly as if
+it had been her own. She probably could not understand the woman's
+cold-bloodedness, the girl's too obvious shrinking from her mother. In
+what, I am afraid, was awkward, blundering fashion, she tried to smooth
+things over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May, dear, don't you see it is your mother?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Mrs. Riddle spoke. She turned to my aunt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't understand you. Who is this person?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I distinctly saw my aunt give a gasp. I knew she was trembling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't you see that it is May?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May? Who? This girl?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Again Mrs. Riddle looked at the girl who was standing close beside me.
+Such a look! And again there was silence. I do not know what my aunt
+felt. But from what I felt, I can guess. I felt as if a stroke of
+lightning, as it were, had suddenly laid bare an act of mine, the
+discovery of which would cover me with undying shame. The discovery had
+come with such blinding suddenness, &quot;a bolt out of the blue,&quot; that, as
+yet, I was unable to realise all that it meant. As I looked at the
+girl, who seemed all at once to have become smaller even that she
+usually was, I was conscious that, if I did not keep myself well in
+hand, I was in danger of collapsing at the knees. Rather than have
+suffered what I suffered then, I would sooner have had a good sound
+thrashing any day, and half my bones well broken.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I saw the little girl's body swaying in the air. For a moment I thought
+that she was going to faint. But she caught herself at it just in time.
+As she pulled herself together, a shudder went all over her face. With
+her fists clenched at her side, she stood quite still. Then she turned
+to my aunt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am not May Riddle,&quot; she said, in a voice which was at one and the
+same time strained, eager, and defiant, and as unlike her ordinary
+voice as chalk is different from cheese. Raising her hands, she covered
+her face. &quot;Oh, I wish I had never said I was!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She burst out crying; into such wild grief that one might have been
+excused for fearing that she would hurt herself by the violence of her
+own emotion. Aunt and I were dumb. As for Mrs. Riddle--and, if you come
+to think of it, it was only natural--she did not seem to understand the
+situation in the least. Turning to my aunt, she caught her by the arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you be so good as to tell me what is the meaning of these
+extraordinary proceedings?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear!&quot; seemed to be all that my aunt could stammer in reply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Answer me!&quot; I really believe that Mrs. Riddle shook my aunt. &quot;Where is
+my daughter--May?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We thought--we were told that this was May.&quot; My aunt addressed herself
+to the girl, who was still sobbing as if her heart would break. &quot;My
+dear, I am very sorry, but you know you gave us to understand that you
+were--May.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then some glimmering of the meaning of the situation did seem to dawn
+on Mrs. Riddle's mind. She turned to the crying girl; and a look came
+on her face which conveyed the impression that one had suddenly lighted
+on the key-note of her character. It was a look of uncompromising
+resolution. A woman who could summon up such an expression at will
+ought to be a leader. She never could be led. I sincerely trust that my
+wife--if I ever have one--when we differ, will never look like that. If
+she does, I am afraid it will have to be a case of her way, not mine.
+As I watched Mrs. Riddle, I was uncommonly glad she was not my mother.
+She went and planted herself right in front of the crying girl. And she
+said, quietly, but in a tone of voice the hard frigidity of which
+suggested the nether millstone:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Cease that noise. Take your hands from before your face. Are you one
+of that class of persons who, with the will to do evil, lack the
+courage to face the consequences of their own misdeeds? I can assure
+you that, so far as I am concerned, noise is thrown away. Candour is
+your only hope with me. Do you hear what I say? Take your hands from
+before your face.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I should fancy that Mrs. Riddle's words, and still more her manner,
+must have cut the girl like a whip. Anyhow, she did as she was told.
+She took her hands from before her face. Her eyes were blurred with
+weeping. She still was sobbing. Big tears were rolling down her cheeks.
+I am bound to admit that her crying had by no means improved her
+personal appearance. You could see she was doing her utmost to regain
+her self-control. And she faced Mrs. Riddle with a degree of assurance,
+which, whether she was in the right or in the wrong, I was glad to see.
+That stalwart representative of the modern Women Crusaders continued to
+address her in the same unflattering way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who are you? How comes it that I find you passing yourself off as my
+daughter in Mrs. Plaskett's house?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl's answer took me by surprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I owe you no explanation, and I shall give you none.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are mistaken. You owe me a very frank explanation. I promise you
+you shall give me one before I've done with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wish and intend to have nothing whatever to say to you. Be so good
+as to let me pass.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl's defiant attitude took Mrs. Riddle slightly aback. I was
+delighted. Whatever she had been crying for, it had evidently not been
+for want of pluck. It was plain that she had pluck enough for fifty. It
+did me good to see her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Take my advice, young woman, and do not attempt that sort of thing
+with me--unless, that is, you wish me to give you a short shrift, and
+send at once for the police.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The police? For me? You are mad!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment Mrs. Riddle looked a trifle mad. She went quite green. She
+took the girl by the shoulder roughly. I saw that the little thing was
+wincing beneath the pressure of her hand. That was more than I could
+stand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Excuse me, Mrs. Riddle, but--if you would not mind!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whether she did or did not mind, I did not wait for her to tell me. I
+removed her hand, with as much politeness as was possible, from where
+she had placed it. She looked at me, not nicely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pray, sir, who are you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am Mrs. Plaskett's nephew, Charles Kempster, and very much at your
+service, Mrs. Riddle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So you are Charles Kempster? I have heard of you.&quot; I was on the point
+of remarking that I also had heard of her. But I refrained. &quot;Be so
+good, young man, as not to interfere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I bowed. The girl spoke to me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Kempster.&quot; She turned to my aunt.
+One could see that every moment she was becoming more her cool
+collected self again. &quot;Mrs. Plaskett, it is to you I owe an
+explanation. I am ready to give you one when and where you please. Now,
+if it is your pleasure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My aunt was rubbing her hands together in a feeble, purposeless,
+undecided sort of way. Unless I err, she was crying, for a change. With
+the exception of my uncle, I should say that my aunt was the most
+peace-loving soul on earth. I believe that the pair of them would flee
+from anything in the shape of dissension as from the wrath to come.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, my dear, I don't wish to say anything to pain you--as you must
+know!--but if you can explain, I wish you would. We have grown very
+fond of you, your uncle and I.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not a very bright speech of my aunt's, but it seemed to please
+the person for whom it was intended immensely. She ran to her, she took
+hold of both her hands, she kissed her on either cheek.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You dear darling! I've been a perfect wretch to you, but not such a
+villain as your fancy paints me. I'll tell you all about it--now.&quot;
+Clasping her hands behind her back, she looked my aunt demurely in the
+face. But in spite of her demureness, I could see that she was full of
+mischief to the finger tips. &quot;You must know that I am Daisy Hardy. I am
+the daughter of Francis Hardy, of the Corinthian Theatre.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Directly the words had passed her lips, I knew her. You remember how
+often we saw her in &quot;The Penniless Pilgrim?&quot; And how good she was? And
+how we fell in love with her, the pair of us? All along, something
+about her, now and then, had filled me with a sort of overwhelming
+conviction that I must have seen her somewhere before. What an ass I
+had been! But then to think of her--well, modesty--in passing herself
+off as Mrs. Riddle's daughter. As for Mrs. Riddle, she received the
+young lady's confession with what she possibly intended for an air of
+crushing disdain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;An actress!&quot; she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She switched her skirts on one side, with the apparent intention of
+preventing their coming into contact with iniquity. Miss Hardy paid no
+heed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May Riddle is a very dear friend of mine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't believe it,&quot; cried Mrs. Riddle, with what, to say the least of
+it, was perfect frankness. Still Miss Hardy paid no heed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is the dearest wish of her life to become an actress.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's a lie!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This time Miss Hardy did pay heed. She faced the frankly speaking lady.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is no lie, as you are quite aware. You know very well that, ever
+since she was a teeny weeny child, it has been her continual dream.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was nothing but a childish craze.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Hardy shrugged her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mrs. Riddle uses her own phraseology; I use mine. I can only say that
+May has often told me that, when she was but a tiny thing, her mother
+used to whip her for playing at being an actress. She used to try and
+make her promise that she would never go inside a theatre, and when she
+refused, she used to beat her cruelly. As she grew older, her mother
+used to lock her in her bedroom, and keep her without food for days and
+days----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hold your tongue, girl! Who are you that you should comment on my
+dealings with my child? A young girl, who, by her own confession, has
+already become a painted thing, and who seems to glory in her shame, is
+a creature with whom I can own no common womanhood. Again I insist upon
+your telling me, without any attempt at rhodomontade, how it is that I
+find a creature such as you posing as my child.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl vouchsafed her no direct reply. She looked at her with a
+curious scorn, which I fancy Mrs. Riddle did not altogether relish.
+Then she turned again to my aunt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mrs. Plaskett, it is as I tell you. All her life May has wished to be
+an actress. As she has grown older her wish has strengthened. You see
+all my people have been actors and actresses. I, myself, love acting.
+You could hardly expect me, in such a matter, to be against my friend.
+And then--there was my brother.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She paused. Her face became more mischievous; and, unless I am
+mistaken, Mrs. Riddle's face grew blacker. But she let the girl go on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Claud believed in her. He was even more upon her side than I was. He
+saw her act in some private theatricals----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Mrs. Riddle did strike in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My daughter never acted, either in public or in private, in her life.
+Girl, how dare you pile lie upon lie?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Hardy gave her look for look. One felt that the woman knew that
+the girl was speaking the truth, although she might not choose to own
+it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May did many things of which her mother had no knowledge. How could it
+be otherwise? When a mother makes it her business to repress at any
+cost the reasonable desires which are bound up in her daughter's very
+being, she must expect to be deceived. As I say, my brother Claud saw
+her act in some private theatricals. And he was persuaded that, for
+once in a way, hers was not a case of a person mistaking the desire to
+be, for the power to be, because she was an actress born. Then things
+came to a climax. May wrote to me to say that she was leaving college,
+that her mother was in America, and that so far as her ever becoming an
+actress was concerned, so far as she could judge, it was a case of now
+or never. I showed her letter to Claud. He at once declared that it
+should be a case of now. A new play was coming out, in which he was to
+act, and in which, he said, there was a part which would fit May like a
+glove. It was not a large part; still, there it was. If she chose, he
+would see she had it. I wrote and told her what Claud said. She jumped
+for joy--through the post, you understand. Then they began to draw me
+in. Until her mother's return, May was to have gone, for safe keeping,
+to one of her mother's particular friends. If she had gone, the thing
+would have been hopeless. But, at the last moment, the plan fell
+through. It was arranged, instead, that she should go to her aunt--to
+you, Mrs. Plaskett. You had not seen her since her childhood; you had
+no notion of what she looked like. I really do not know from whom the
+suggestion came, but it was suggested that I should come to you,
+pretending to be her. And I was to keep on pretending till the rubicon
+was passed and the play produced. If she once succeeded in gaining a
+footing on the stage, though it might be never so slight a one, May
+declared that wild horses should not drag her back again. And I knew
+her well enough to be aware that, when she said a thing, she meant
+exactly what she said. Mrs. Plaskett, I should have made you this
+confession of my own initiative next week. Indeed, May would have come
+and told you the tale herself, if Mrs. Riddle had not returned all
+these months before any one expected her. Because, as it happens, the
+play was produced last night----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mrs. Riddle had been listening, with a face as black as a
+thunder-cloud. Here she again laid her hand upon Miss Hardy's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where? Tell me! I will still save her, though, to do so, I have to
+drag her through the streets.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Hardy turned to her with a smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May does not need saving, she already has attained salvation. I hear,
+not only that the play was a great success, but that May's part, as she
+acted it, was the success of the play. As for dragging her through the
+streets, you know that you are talking nonsense. She is of an age to do
+as she pleases. You have no more power to put constraint upon her, than
+you have to put constraint upon me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All at once Miss Hardy let herself go, as it were.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mrs. Riddle, you have spent a large part of your life in libelling all
+that I hold dearest; you will now be taught of how great a libel you
+have been guilty. You will learn from the example of your daughter's
+own life, that women can, and do, live as pure and as decent lives upon
+one sort of stage, as are lived, upon another sort of stage, by 'Women
+Crusaders.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She swept the infuriated Mrs. Riddle such a curtsy.... Well, there's
+the story for you, Dave. There was, I believe, a lot more talking. And
+some of it, I dare say, approached to high faluting. But I had had
+enough of it, and went outside. Miss Hardy insisted on leaving the
+house that very day. As I felt that I might not be wanted, I also left.
+We went up to town together in the same carriage. We had it to
+ourselves. And that night I saw May Riddle, the real May Riddle. I
+don't mind telling you in private, that she is acting in that new thing
+of Pettigrewe's, &quot;The Flying Folly,&quot; under the name of Miss Lyndhurst.
+She only has a small part; but, as Miss Hardy declares her brother said
+of her, she plays it like an actress born. I should not be surprised if
+she becomes all the rage before long.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One could not help feeling sorry for Mrs. Riddle, in a kind of a way. I
+dare say she feels pretty bad about it all. But then she only has
+herself to blame. When a mother and her daughter pull different ways,
+it is apt to become a question of pull butcher, pull baker. The odds
+are that, in the end, you will prevail. Especially when the daughter
+has as much resolution as the mother.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As for Daisy Hardy, whatever else one may say of her proceedings, one
+cannot help thinking of her--at least, I can't--as, as they had it in
+the coster ballad, &quot;such a pal.&quot; I believe she is going to the
+Plasketts again next week. If she does I have half a mind----though I
+know she will only laugh at me, if I do go. I don't care. Between you
+and me, I don't believe she's half so wedded to the stage as she
+pretends she is.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_donne" href="#div1Ref_donne">Miss Donne's Great Gamble</a></h2>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">You cannot keep on meeting the same man by accident--not in that way.
+To suggest such a possibility would be to carry the doctrine of
+probabilities too far. Miss Donne began herself to think that such
+might be the case. She had first encountered him at Geneva--at the
+Pension Dupont. There his bearing had not only been extremely
+deferential, but absolutely distant. Possibly this was in some measure
+owing to Miss Donne herself, who, at that stage of her travels, was the
+most unapproachable of human beings. During the last few days of her
+stay he had sat next to her at table, in which position it had seemed
+to her that a certain amount of conversation was not to be avoided. He
+had informed her, in the course of the remarks which the situation
+necessitated, that he was an American and a bachelor, and also that his
+name was Huhn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So far as Miss Donne was concerned the encounter would merely have been
+pigeon-holed among the other noticeable incidents of that memorable
+journey had it not been that two days after her arrival at Lausanne she
+met him in the open street--to be exact, in the Place de la Gare. Not
+only did he bow, but he stopped to talk with the air of quite an old
+acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it was at Lucerne that the situation began to assume a really
+curious phase. Miss Donne left Lausanne on a Thursday. On the day
+before she told Mr. Huhn she was going, and where she intended to stop.
+Mr. Huhn made no comment on the information, which was given casually
+while they waited among a crowd of other persons for the steamer. No
+one could have inferred from his manner that it was not his intention
+to end his days at Lausanne. When therefore, on the morning after her
+arrival, she found him seated by her side at lunch she was thrown into
+a flurry of surprise. As he seemed, however, to conclude that she would
+take his appearance for granted--not attempting to offer the slightest
+explanation of how it was that he was where he was--she presently found
+herself talking to him as if his presence there was quite in accordance
+with the order of Nature. But when, afterwards, she went upstairs to
+put her hat on, she--well, she found herself disposed to try her best
+not to ask herself a question.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Those four weeks at Lucerne were the happiest she had known. A sociable
+set was staying in the house just then. Everyone behaved to her with
+surprising kindness. Scarcely an excursion was got up without her being
+attached to it. Another invariable pendant was Mr. Huhn. It was
+impossible to conceal from herself the fact that when the parties were
+once started it was Mr. Huhn who personally conducted her. A better
+conductor she could not have wished. Without being obtrusive, when he
+was wanted he was always there. Unostentatiously he studied her little
+idiosyncrasies, making it his especial business to see that nothing was
+lacking which made for her own particular enjoyment. As a
+conversationalist she had never met his equal. But then, as she
+admitted with that honesty which was her ruling passion, she never had
+had experience of masculine discourse. Nor, perhaps, was the position
+rendered less enjoyable by the fact that she was haunted by misgivings
+as to whether her relations with Mr. Huhn were altogether in accordance
+with strict propriety. She was a lady travelling alone. He was a
+stranger; self-introduced. Whether, under any circumstances, a lady in
+her position ought to allow herself to be on terms of vague familiarity
+with a gentleman in his, was a point on which she could hardly be said
+to have doubts. She was convinced that she ought not. Theoretically,
+that was a principle for which she would have been almost willing to
+have died. When she reflected on what she had preached to others,
+metaphorically she shivered in her shoes. She was half alarmed by the
+necessity she was under to acknowledge that it was a kind of shivering
+which could not be correctly described as disagreeable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The domain of the extraordinary was entered on after her departure from
+Lucerne. At the Pension Emeritus her plans were public property. It was
+generally known that she proposed to return to England by way of Paris
+and Dieppe. In Paris she was to spend a few days, and in Dieppe a week
+or two. Practically the whole pension was at the station to see her
+off. She was overwhelmed with confectionery and flowers. Mr. Huhn, in
+particular, gave her a gorgeous bouquet, and a box of what purported to
+be chocolates. It was only after she had started that she discovered
+the chocolates were a sham; and that, hidden in the very midst of them,
+was another package. The very sight of it filled her with singular
+qualms. Other people were in the carriage. She deemed it prudent to
+ignore its existence in the presence of what quite possibly were
+observant eyes. But directly she had a moment of comparative privacy
+she removed it from its hiding-place with what--positively!--were
+trembling fingers. It was secured by pink baby-ribbon tied in a
+true-lover's knot. Within was a leather case. In the case was a flexible
+gold bracelet, with on one side a circular ornament which was incrusted
+with diamonds. As she was fingering this she must have touched a hidden
+spring, because all at once the glittering toy sprang open, revealing
+inside--of all things in the world--a portrait of Mr. Huhn!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gazed at it in bewildered amazement. All the way to Paris she was
+rent by conflicting emotions. That a perfect stranger should have dared
+to take such a liberty! Because, after all, she knew nothing of
+him--absolutely nothing, except that he was an American; which one piece
+of knowledge was, perhaps, a sufficient explanation. For all she knew,
+the Americans might have ideas of their own upon such subjects. This sort
+of behaviour might be in complete accord with their standard of
+propriety. The contemplation of such a possibility made her sigh. She
+actually nearly regretted that her standard was the English one, so
+strongly did she feel that there was something to be said for the
+American point of view, if, that is, it truly was the American point of
+view; which, of course, had still to be determined.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had the bracelet been trumpery trash, costing say, fifteen or twenty
+francs, the case would have been altered. Of that there could be no
+doubt. But this triumph of the jeweller's art, with its costly diamond
+ornaments! She herself had never owned a decent trinket. Her personal
+knowledge of values was nil. Yet her instincts told her that this cost
+money. Then there was the name of &quot;Tiffany&quot; on the case. She had a dim
+consciousness of having heard of Tiffany. It might have cost one
+hundred--even two hundred--pounds! At the thought she burned. Who was
+she, and what had she done, that wandering males--the merest casual
+acquaintances--should feel themselves at liberty to throw bank notes
+into her lap? As if she were a beggar--or worse. There was a moment in
+which she was inclined to throw the bracelet out of the carriage
+window.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The mischief was that she did not know where to return it. She had Mr.
+Huhn's own assurance that he also was leaving Lucerne on that same day.
+Where he was going she had not the faintest notion. At least, she
+assured herself that she had not the faintest notion. To return it, by
+post, to Ezra G. Huhn, America, would be absurd. She might send it back
+to the person whose name was on the case--to Tiffany. She would.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then there was the portrait--hidden in the bracelet--which he had had
+the capital audacity to palm off on to her under cover of a box of
+chocolates. It was excellent--that was certain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The shrewd face, with the kindly eyes in which there always seemed to
+be a twinkle, looked up at her out of the little gold frame like an old
+familiar friend. How pleasant he had been to her; how good. How she
+always felt at ease with him; never once afraid. Although he had never
+by so much as a single question sought to gain her confidence, what a
+curious feeling she had had that he knew all about her, that he
+understood her. How she had been impressed by his way of doing things;
+his quick resource; his capacity of getting--without any fuss--the best
+that was obtainable. How she had come to rely upon him--in an
+altogether indescribable sort of way--when he was at hand; she saw it
+now. How, in spite of herself, she had grown to feel at peace with all
+the world when he was near. How curious it seemed. As she thought of
+its exceeding curiousness, fancying that she perceived in the portrayed
+glance the twinkle which she had begun to know so well, her eyes filled
+with tears, so that she had to use her handkerchief to prevent them
+trickling down her cheeks. During the remainder of her journey to Paris
+that bracelet was about her wrist, covered by her jacket-sleeve. More
+than once she caught herself in the act of crying.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She found it impossible to remain in Paris. The weather was hot. In the
+brilliant sunshine the streets were one continuous glare. They seemed
+difficult to breathe in. They made her head ache. She longed for the
+sea. Within three days of her arrival she was hurrying towards Dieppe.
+In Dieppe she alighted at the Hotel de Paris. The first person she saw
+as she crossed the threshold was Annie Moriarty--at least, she used to
+be Annie Moriarty until she became Mrs. Palmer. The two rushed into
+each other's arms--Mrs. Palmer going upstairs with Miss Donne to assist
+in the unpacking. When they descended Miss Donne was introduced to Mr.
+Palmer, who had been Annie's one topic in the epistolary communications
+with which Miss Donne was regularly favoured. Mr. Palmer, who was a
+husband of twelve months' standing, proved to be a sort of under-study
+for a giant, towering above Miss Donne's head in a manner which
+inspired her with awe. While she was wonderful whether, when he desired
+to kiss his wife and retain his perpendicular position, he always
+lifted her upon a chair--for Annie was a mere pigmy in petticoats--who
+should come down the staircase into the hall but Mr. Huhn!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At that sight not only did Miss Donne's cheeks flame, but she was
+overwhelmed with confusion to such an extent that it was impossible to
+conceal the fact from the sharp-eyed person who was in front of her.
+Although Mr. Huhn merely raised his hat as he passed into the street,
+her distress continued after he was gone. She accompanied the
+Palmers--in an only partial state of consciousness--into the Etablissement
+grounds. While her husband continued with them Annie was discretion
+itself; but when Mr. Palmer, going into the building--it is within the
+range of possibility on a hint from her--left the two women seated on
+the terrace, she assailed Miss Donne in a fashion which in a moment
+laid all her defences low.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The whole story was told before its narrator was conscious of an
+intention to do anything of the kind. It plunged the hearer into
+raptures. Although, with a delicacy which well became her, she
+concealed the larger half of them, she revealed enough to throw Miss
+Donne into a state of agitation which was half pathetic and altogether
+delightful. As she sat there, listening to Annie's innuendoes,
+conscious of her delighted scrutiny, the heroine of all these strange
+adventures discovered herself hazily wondering whether this was the
+same world in which she had been living all these years, and whether
+she was awake in it or dreaming. After all the miracles which had
+lately changed the whole fashion of her life, was the greatest still
+upon the way?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Eva Donne was thirty-eight and three-quarters, as the children say. For
+over twenty years she had been a governess--without kith or kin. All
+the time she was haunted by a fear that the fat season was with her
+now, and that the lean one was coming soon. She was not a scholar; she
+was just the sweetest woman in the world. But while of the second fact
+she had no notion, of the first she was hideously sure. She had
+strained every nerve to improve her mental equipment; to keep herself
+abreast of the educational requirements of the day; to pass
+examinations; to win those certificates which teachers ought to have.
+Always and ever in vain. The dullest of her scholars was not more dull
+than she. How, under these circumstances, she found employment was
+beyond her comprehension. Why, for instance, Miss Law should have kept
+her upon her teaching staff for nearly thirteen consecutive years was
+to her, indeed a mystery. That Miss Law should consider it well worth
+her while to retain in her establishment a well-mannered, dainty lady;
+possessed of infinite patience, kindliness, and tact; the soul of
+honour; considering her employer's interests before her own; willing to
+work late and early: who was liked by every pupil with whom she came
+into contact, and so was able to smooth the head mistress's path in a
+hundred different ways; that the shrewd proprietress of St. Cecilia's
+College should esteem these qualifications as a sufficient set-off for
+certain scholastic deficiencies never entered into Miss Donne's
+philosophy. Therefore, though she said not a word of it to anyone, she
+was tortured by a continual fear that each term would be her last.
+Dismissed for inefficiency at her age, what should she do? For she was
+growing old; she knew she was. She was grey--almost!--behind the ears;
+her hair was thinner than it used to be; there were tell-tale wrinkles
+about her eyes; she was conscious of a certain stiffness in her joints.
+A governess so soon grows old, especially if she is not clever. Many a
+time she lay awake all through the night thinking, with horror, of the
+future which was in store for her. What should she do? She had saved so
+little. Out of such a salary how could she save?--with her soft,
+generous heart which could not resist a temptation to give. She
+sometimes wondered, when the morning dawned, how it was that she had
+not turned quite grey, after the racking anxieties of the sleepless
+night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then the miracle came--the god out of the machine. A cousin of her
+mother, of whom she had only heard, died in America, in Pittsburg--a
+bachelor, as alone in the world as she was--and left everything he had
+to his far-off kinswoman. Eight hundred sterling pounds a year it came
+to, actually, when everything was realized, and everything had been
+left in an easy realizable form. What a difference it made when she
+understood that the incredible had come to pass, and what it meant. She
+was rich, independent, secure from want and from the fear of it, thank
+God. And she thanked Him--how she thanked Him!--pouring out her heart
+before Him like some simple child. And she ceased to grow old; nay, she
+all at once grew young again. She was nearly persuaded that the
+greyness had vanished from behind her ears; her hair certainly did seem
+thicker. The wrinkles were so faint as to be not worth mentioning,
+while, as for the stiffness of her joints, she was suddenly conscious
+of an absurd and even improper inclination to run up the stairs and
+down them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then there came the wonderful journey. She, a solitary spinster, who
+had never been out of England in her life, made up her mind, after not
+more than six month's consideration, to go all by herself to
+Switzerland. And she went. After the strange happenings which, in such
+a journey, were naturally to be expected, to crown everything, here, on
+the terrace at Dieppe, sat Annie Moriarty that was--and a troublesome
+child she used to be--telling her--her!--the young woman's former and
+ought-to-be-revered preceptress--that a certain person--to wit, an
+American gentleman--was in love with her--with her! Miss Eva Donne. Not
+the least extraordinary part of it was that, instead of correcting the
+presumptuous Annie, Miss Donne beamed and blushed, and blushed and
+beamed, and was conscious of the most singular sensations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A remark, however, which Mrs. Palmer apparently inadvertently made,
+brought her back to earth with a sudden jolt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I suppose that whoever does become Mrs. Huhn will become an American.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was just a second or so before she comprehended. When she did it was
+with a quick sinking of the heart. Something, all at once, seemed to
+have gone out of the world. Perhaps because a cloud had crept over the
+sun.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Was it possible? A thing not to be avoided? An inevitable consequence?
+Of course, Mr. Huhn was an American; she did know so much. And
+although--as she had gathered--this was by no means his first visit to
+Europe, it might reasonably be imagined that he spent most of his time
+in his native country. It was equally fair to assume that his wife
+would be expected to stop there with him. Would she, therefore,
+perforce lose her nationality, her birthright, her title to call
+herself an Englishwoman? To say the least of it, that would be an
+extraordinary position for--for an Englishwoman to find herself in.
+Mischievous Annie could not have succeeded better had it been her
+deliberate intention to make Miss Donne's confusion worse confounded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She dined with the Palmers at a little table by themselves. Mr. Huhn
+was at the long table round the corner, hidden from her sight by the
+peculiar construction of the room. Mrs. Palmer announced that he had
+gone there before she entered. Miss Donne took care that she went
+before he reappeared. She spent the evening in her bedroom, in spite of
+Mrs. Palmer's vigorous protestations, writing letters, so she said. It
+is true that she did write some letters. She began half-a-dozen to Mr.
+Huhn. Among a thousand and one other things, that bracelet was on her
+mind. Her wish was to return it, accompanied by a note which would
+exactly meet the occasion. But the construction of the note she wanted
+proved to be beyond her powers. It was far from her desire to wound his
+feelings; she was only too conscious how easy it is for the written
+word to do that. At the same time it was necessary that she should make
+her meaning plain, on which account it was a misfortune that she
+herself was not altogether clear as to what she did precisely mean. She
+did not want the bracelet; certainly not. Yet, while she did not wish
+to throw it at him, or lead him to suppose that she despised his gift,
+or was unconscious of his kindness in having made it, or liked him less
+because of his kindness, it was not her intention to allow him to
+suspect that she liked him at all, or appreciated his kindness to
+anything like the extent she actually did do, or indeed, leave him an
+excuse of any sort or kind on to which he might fasten to ask her to
+reconsider her refusal. How to combine these opposite desires and
+intentions within the four corners of one short note was a puzzle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a nice bracelet--a beauty. No one could call it unbecoming on
+her wrist. She had had no idea that a single ornament could have made
+such a difference. She was convinced that it made her hand seem much
+smaller than it really was. She wondered if he had sent for it
+specially to New York, or if he had been carrying it about with him in
+his pocket. But that was not the point. The point was that, since she
+could not frame a note which, in all respects, met her views, she would
+herself see Mr. Huhn to-morrow and return him his gift with her own
+hands. Then the incident would be closed. Having arrived at which
+decision she slept like a top all night, with the bracelet under her
+pillow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the morning she dressed herself with unusual care--with so much
+care, indeed, that Mrs. Palmer greeted her with a torrent of
+ejaculations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You look lovelier than ever, my dear. Just like What's-his-name's
+picture, only ever so much sweeter. Dosen't she look a darling, Dick?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dick&quot; was Mr. Palmer. As this was said not only in the presence of
+that gentleman, but in the hearing of several others, Miss Donne was so
+distressed that she found herself physically incapable of telling the
+speaker that, as she was perfectly aware, she intensely disliked
+personal remarks, which were always in the very worst possible taste.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing was seen of Mr. Huhn. She went with the Palmers to the market;
+to the man who carved grotesque heads out of what he called vegetable
+ivory; to watch the people bathe, while listening to the band upon the
+terrace; then to lunch. All the time she had that bracelet on her
+person. After lunch she accompanied her friends on a queer sort of
+vehicle, which was not exactly a brake or quite anything else, on what
+its proud proprietor called a &quot;fashionable excursion&quot; to the forest of
+Arques. It was nearly five when they returned. The Palmers went
+upstairs. She sat down on one of the chairs which were on the pavement
+in front of the hotel. She had been there for some minutes in a sort of
+waking dream when someone occupied the chair beside her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was Mr. Huhn. His appearance was so unexpected that it found her
+speechless. The foolish tremors to which she seemed to have been so
+liable of late seemed to paralyze her. She gazed at the shabby theatre
+on the other side of the square, trying to think of what she ought to
+say--but failed. No greetings were exchanged.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Presently he said, in his ordinary tone of voice:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come with me into the Casino.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was his way; a fair example of his habit of taking things for
+granted. She felt that if, after a prolonged absence, she met him on
+the other side of the world, he would just ask if she liked sugar in
+her tea, and discuss the sugar question generally, and take it for
+granted that that was all the situation demanded. That was not her
+standpoint. She considered that when explanations were required they
+ought to be given, and was distinctly of opinion that an explanation
+was required here. She intended that the remark she made should be
+regarded as a suggestion to that effect.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I didn't expect to see you at Dieppe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked at her--just looked--and she was a conscience-stricken
+wretch. Had he accused her, at the top of his voice, of deliberate
+falsehood, he could not have shamed her more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I meant to come to Dieppe. I thought you knew it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had known it; all pretence to the contrary was brushed away like so
+much cobweb. And she knew that he knew she knew it. It was dreadful.
+What could she say to this extraordinary man? She blundered from bad to
+worse. Fumbling with the buttons of her little jacket she took out from
+some inner receptacle a small flat leather case.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think this got into that box of chocolates by mistake.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He glanced at it out of the corner of his eye, then continued to draw
+figures on the pavement with the ferrule of his stick.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No mistake. I put it there. I thought you'd understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thought she would understand! What did he think she would understand?
+Did the man suppose that everyone took things for granted?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think it was a mistake.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How? When I sent to New York for it specially for you?&quot; So that
+question was solved. She was conscious of a small flutter of
+satisfaction. &quot;Don't you think it's pretty?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's beautiful.&quot; She gathered her courage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But you must take it back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Take it back! Take it back! I didn't think you were the kind of woman
+that would want to make a man unhappy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing was further from her desire.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am not in the habit of accepting presents from strangers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's just it. It's because I knew you weren't that I gave it to
+you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But you're a stranger to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I didn't look at it in just that way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know nothing of you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm sorry. I thought you knew what kind of man I am, as I know what
+kind of woman you are--and am glad to know it. If it's my record you'd
+like to be acquainted with, I'm ready to set forth the life and
+adventures of Ezra G. Huhn at full length whenever you've an hour or
+two or a day or two to spare. Or I can refer you for them to my lawyer,
+or to my banker, or to my doctor, according to what part of me it is on
+which you'd like to have accurate information.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She could not hint that she would like to listen to a chapter or two of
+his adventures there and then, though some such idea was at the back of
+her mind. While she was groping for words he stood up, repeating his
+original suggestion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come with me into the Casino.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She rose also. Not because she wished to; but because--such was the
+confusion of her mental processes--she found it easier to agree than to
+differ. They moved across the square. The flat leather case was in her
+hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you found the locket?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She blushed; but she was a continual blush.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good portrait of me, isn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Excellent.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I had it done for my mother. When she was dying I wanted it to be
+buried with her. But she wouldn't have it. She said I was to give it
+to--someone else one day. Then I didn't think there ever would be a
+someone else. But when I met you I sent it to New York and had it
+mounted in that bracelet--for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was absurd what a little self-control she had. Instead of retorting
+with something smart, or pretty, or sentimental, she was tongue-tied.
+Her eyes filled with tears. But he did not seem to notice it. He went
+on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You'll have to give me one of yours.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I--I haven't one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then we'll have to set about getting one. I'll have to look round for
+someone who'll be likely to do you justice, though it isn't to be
+expected that we shall find anyone who'll be able to do quite that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the nearest approach to a compliment he had paid her; probably
+the first pretty thing which had been said to her by any man. It set
+her trembling so that, for a moment, she swayed as if she would fall.
+They were passing through the gate into the Casino grounds. He looked
+at the case which she still had in her hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Put that in your pocket.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I haven't one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was the personification of all meekness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then where did you have it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Inside my jacket.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Put it back there. I can't carry it. That's part of the burden you'll
+have to carry, henceforward, all alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She did not stop to think what he meant. She simply obeyed. When the
+jacket was buttoned the case showed through the cloth. Even in the
+midst of her tremors she was aware that his eyes kept travelling
+towards the tell-tale patch. For some odd reason she was glad they did.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They passed from the radiance of the autumn afternoon into the chamber
+of the &quot;little horses.&quot; The change was almost dramatic in its
+completeness. From this place the sunshine had been for some time
+excluded. The blinds were drawn. It was garishly lighted. Although the
+room was large and lofty, owing to the absence of ventilation, the
+abundance of gas, the crowd of people, the atmosphere was horrible.
+There was a continual buzz; an unresting clatter. The noise of people
+in motion; the hum of their voices; the strident tones of the
+<i>tourneur</i>, as he made his various monotonous announcements; all these
+assisted in the formation of what, to an unaccustomed ear, was a
+strange cacophony. She shrank towards Mr. Huhn as if afraid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What are they doing?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Instead of answering he led her forward to the dais on which the nine
+little horses were the observed of all observers, where the <i>tourneur</i>
+stood with his assistant with, in front and on either side of him, the
+tables about which the players were grouped. At the moment the leaden
+steeds were whirling round. She watched them, fascinated. People were
+speaking on their right.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>C'est le huit qui gagne</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Non; le huit est mort. C'est le six</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Someone said behind her, in English:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Jack's all right; one wins. Confound the brute, he's gone right on!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The horses ceased to move.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Le num�ro cinq!</i>&quot; shouted the <i>tourneur</i>, laying a strong nasal
+stress upon the numeral.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were murmurs of disgust from the bettors on the columns. Miss
+Donne perceived that money was displayed upon baize-covered tables. The
+croupiers thrust out wooden rakes to draw it towards them. At the
+table on her right there seemed to be only a single winner. Several
+five-franc pieces were passed to a woman who was twiddling a number of
+them between her fingers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are they gambling?&quot; asked Miss Donne.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, I shouldn't call it gambling. This is a little toy by means of
+which the proprietor makes a good and regular income out of public
+contributions. These are some of the contributors.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Donne did not understand him--did not even try to. She was all
+eyes for what was taking place about her. Money was being staked
+afresh. The horses were whirling round again. This time No. 7 was the
+winning horse. There were acclamations. Several persons had staked on
+seven. It appeared that that particular number was &quot;overdue.&quot; Someone
+rose from a chair beside her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Huhn made a sudden suggestion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sit down.&quot; She sat down. &quot;Let's contribute a franc or two to the
+support of this deserving person's wife and family. Where's your
+purse?&quot; She showed that her purse--a silver chain affair--was attached
+to her belt. &quot;Find a franc.&quot; Whether or not she had a coin of that
+denomination did not appear. She produced a five-franc piece. &quot;That's a
+large piece of money. What shall we put it on?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Someone who was seated on the next chair said:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The run's on five.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then let's be on the run. That's it, in the centre there. That's the
+particular number which enables the owner of this little toy to keep a
+roof above his head.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she held the coin in front of her with apparently uncertain fingers,
+as if still doubtful what it was she had to do, her neighbour, taking
+it from her with a smile, laid it upon five.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Le jeu est fait!</i>&quot; cried the <i>tourneur</i>. &quot;<i>Rien ne va plus!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He started the horses whirling round.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then with a shock, she seemed to wake from a dream. She sprang from her
+chair, staring at her five-franc piece with wide-open eyes. People
+smiled. The croupiers gazed at her indulgently. There was that about
+her which made it obvious that to such a scene she was a stranger. They
+supposed that, like some eager child, she could not conceal her anxiety
+for the safety of her stake. Although surprised at her display of a
+degree of interest which was altogether beyond what the occasion seemed
+to warrant, Mr. Huhn thought with them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't be alarmed,&quot; he murmured in her ear. &quot;You may take it for
+granted that it's gone, and may console yourself with the reflection
+that it goes to minister to the wants of a mother and her children.
+That's the philosophical point of view. And it may be the right one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her hand twitched, as if she found the temptation to snatch back her
+stake before it was gone for ever almost more than she could bear. Mr.
+Huhn caught her arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hush! That sort of thing is not allowed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The horses stopped. The <i>tourneur</i> proclaimed the winner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Le num�ro cinq!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bravo!&quot; exclaimed the neighbour who had placed the stake for her. &quot;You
+have won. I told you the run was on five.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Shorn the shearers,&quot; commented Mr. Huhn. &quot;You see, that's the way to
+make a fortune, only I shouldn't advise you to go further than the
+initiatory lesson.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The croupier pushed over her own coin and seven others. Her neighbour
+held them up to her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your winnings.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She drew back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's not mine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her neighbour laughed outright. People were visibly smiling. Mr. Huhn
+took the pile of coins from the stranger's hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are yours; take them.&quot; Him she obeyed with the docility of a
+child. &quot;Come let us go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He led the way to the door which opened on to the terrace. She
+followed, meekly. It seemed that the eight coins were more than she
+could conveniently carry in one hand; for, as she went, she dropped one
+on to the floor. An attendant, picking it up, returned it to her with a
+grin. Indeed, the whole room was on the titter, the incident was so
+very amusing. They asked themselves if she was mad, or just a
+simpleton. And, in a fashion, considering that her first youth was
+passed, she really was so pretty! Mr. Huhn was more moved than, in that
+place, he would have cared to admit. Something in her attitude in the
+way she looked at him when he bade her take the money, had filled him
+with a sense of shame.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Between their going in and coming out the sky had changed. The shadows
+were lowering. The autumnal day was drawing to a close. September had
+brought more than a suggestion of winter's breath. A grey chill
+followed the departing sun. They went up, then down, the terrace,
+without exchanging a word; then, moving aside, he offered her one of
+the wicker-seated chairs which stood against the wall. She sat on it.
+He sat opposite, leaning on the handle of his stick. The thin mist
+which was stealing across the leaden sea did not invite lounging out of
+doors. They had the terrace to themselves. She let her five-franc
+pieces drop with a clinking sound on to her lap. He, conscious of
+something on her face which he was unwilling to confront, looked
+steadily seaward. Presently she gave utterance to her pent-up feelings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am a gambler.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had she accused herself of the unforgivable sin she could not have
+seemed more serious. Somewhere within him was a laughing sprite. In
+view of her genuine distress he did his best to keep it in subjection.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You exaggerate. Staking a five-franc piece--for the good of the
+house--on the <i>petits chevaux</i> does not make you that, any more than
+taking a glass of wine makes you a drunkard.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why did you make me, why did you let me, do it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I didn't know you felt that way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And yet you said you knew me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He winched. He had told a falsehood. He did know her--there was the
+sting. In mischievous mood he had induced her to do the thing which he
+suspected that she held to be wrong. He had not supposed that she would
+take it so seriously, especially if she won, being aware that there are
+persons who condemn gambling when they or those belonging to them lose,
+but who lean more towards the side of charity when they win. He did not
+know what to say to her, so he said nothing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My father once lost over four hundred pounds on a horse-race. I don't
+quite know how it was, I was only a child. He was in business at the
+time. I believe it ruined him, and it nearly broke my mother's heart. I
+promised her that I would never gamble--and now I have.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He felt that this was one of those women whose moral eye is
+single--with whom it is better to be frank.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I confess I felt that you might have scruples on the point; but I
+thought you would look upon a single stake of a single five-franc piece
+as a jest. Many American women--and many Englishwomen--who would be
+horrified if you called them gamblers, go into the rooms at Monte Carlo
+and lose or win a louis or two just for the sake of the joke.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For the sake of the joke! Gamble for the sake of the joke! Are you a
+Jesuit?&quot; The question so took him by surprise that he turned and stared
+at her. &quot;I have always understood that that is how Jesuits reason--that
+they try to make out that black is white. I hope--I hope you don't do
+that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He smiled grimly, his thoughts recurring to some of the &quot;deals&quot; in
+which his success had made him the well-to-do man he was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sometimes the two colours merge so imperceptibly into one another that
+it's hard to tell just where the conjunction begins. You want keen
+sight to do it. But here you're right and I'm wrong; there's no two
+words about it. It was I who made you stake that five-franc piece; and
+I'd no right to make you stake buttons if it was against your
+principles. Your standard's like my mother's. I hope that mine will
+grow nearer to it. I ask you to forgive me for leading you astray.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I ought not to have been so weak.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You had to--when I was there to make you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was still; though it is doubtful if she grasped the full meaning
+his words conveyed. If he had been watching her he would have seen that
+by degrees something like the suggestion of a smile seem to wrinkle the
+corners of her lips. When she spoke again it was in half a whisper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm sorry, I should seem to you to be so silly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You don't. You mustn't say it. You seem to me to be the wisest woman I
+ever met.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That must be because you've known so few--or else you're laughing. No
+one who has ever known me has thought me wise. If I were wise I should
+know what to do with this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She motioned towards the money on her lap.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Throw it into the sea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But it isn't mine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's yours as much as anyone else's. If you come to first causes
+you'll find it hard to name the rightful owner--in God's sight--for any
+one thing. There's been too much swapping of horses. You'll find plenty
+who are in need.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It would carry a curse with it. Money won in gambling!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked at his watch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's time that you and I thought about dinner. We'll adjourn the
+discussion as to what is to be done with the fruit of our iniquity. I
+say 'our,' because that I'm the principal criminal is as plain as
+paint. Sleep on it; perhaps you'll see clearer in the morning. Put it
+in your pocket.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Haven't I told you already that I haven't a pocket? And if I had I
+shouldn't put this money in it. I should feel that that was half-way
+towards keeping it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then let me be the bearer of the burden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No; I don't wish the taint to be conveyed to you.&quot; He laughed
+outright. &quot;There now you are laughing!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was laughing because--&quot; he was on the verge of saying &quot;because I
+love you;&quot; but something induced him to substitute--&quot;because I love to
+hear you talking.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She glanced at him with smiling eyes. His gaze was turned towards what
+was now the shrouded sea. Neither spoke during the three minutes of
+brisk walking which was required to reach the Hotel de Paris, she
+carrying the money, four five-franc pieces, gripped tightly in either
+hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In his phrase, she slept on it, though the fashion of the sleeping was
+a little strange. The next morning she sallied forth to put into
+execution the resolve at which she had arrived. I was early, though not
+so early as she would have wished, because, concluding that all Dieppe
+did not rise with the lark, she judged it as well to take her coffee
+and roll before she took the air. It promised to be a glorious day. The
+atmosphere was filled with a golden haze, through which the sun was
+gleaming. As she went through the gate of the Port d'Ouest she came
+upon a man who was selling little metal effigies of the flags of
+various nations. From him she made a purchase--the Stars and Stripes.
+This she pinned inside her blouse, on the left, smiling to herself as
+she did so. Then she marched straight off into the Casino.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The <i>salle de jeu</i> had but a single occupant, a <i>tourneur</i> who was
+engaged in dusting the little horses. To enable him to perform the
+necessary offices he removed the steeds from their places one after the
+other. As it chanced he was the identical individual who had been
+responsible for the <i>course</i> which had crowned 'Miss Doone' with victory.
+With that keen vision which is characteristic of his class the man
+recognised her on the instant. Bowing and smiling he held out to her
+the horse which he was holding.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Vl� madame, le num�ro cinq! C'est lui qui a port� le bonheur �
+madame</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was, indeed, the horse which represented the number on which she had
+staked her five-franc piece. By an odd accident she had arrived just as
+its toilet was being performed. She observed what an excellent model it
+was with somewhat doubtful eyes, as if fearful of its being warranted
+neither steady nor free from vice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have brought back the seven five-franc pieces which I--took away
+with me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She held out the coins. As if at a loss he looked from them to her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, madame, I do not understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can have nothing to do with money which is the fruit of gambling.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But madame played.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was a misunderstanding. A mistake. It was not my intention. It is
+on that account I have come to return this money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Return?--to whom?--the administration? The administration will not
+accept it. It is impossible. What it has lost it has lost; there is an
+end.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I insist on returning it; and if I insist it must be accepted;
+especially when I tell you it is all a mistake.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The <i>tourneur</i> shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If madame does not want the money, and will give it to me, I will see
+what I can do with it.&quot; She handed him the coins; he transferred them
+to the board at his back. Then he held out to her the horse which he
+had been dusting. &quot;See, madame, is it not a perfect model? And feel how
+heavy--over three kilos, more than six English pounds. When you
+consider that there are nine horses, all exactly the same weight, you
+will perceive that it is not easy work to be a <i>tourneur</i>. That toy
+horse is worth much more to the administration than if it were a real
+horse; it is from the Number Five that all this comes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He waved his hand as if to denote the entire building.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought that public gambling was prohibited in France and in all
+Christian countries, and that it was only permitted in such haunts of
+wickedness as Monte Carlo.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gambling? Ah, the little horses is not gambling! It is an amusement.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A voice addressed her from the other side of the table. It was Mr.
+Huhn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Didn't I tell you it wasn't gambling? It's as this gentleman says--an
+amusement; especially for the administration.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, yes--in particular for the administration.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The <i>tourneur</i> laughed. Miss Donne and Mr. Huhn went out together by
+the same door through which they had gone the night before. They sat on
+the low wall. He had some towels on his arm; he had been bathing.
+Already the sea was glowing with the radiance of the sun.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So you've relieved yourself of your ill-gotten gains?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have returned them to the administration.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To the ---- did that gentleman say he would hand those five-franc
+pieces to the administration?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He said that he would see what he could do with them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Just so. There's no doubt that that is what he will do. So you did
+sleep upon that burning question?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I did.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then you got the better of me; because I didn't sleep at all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am sorry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You ought to be, since the fault was yours.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mine! My fault that you didn't sleep!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you see what I've got here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He made an upward movement with his hand. For the first time she
+noticed that in his buttonhole he had a tiny copy of the Union Jack.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did you buy that of the man outside the town gate?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, it was of that very same man that I bought this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From the inside of her blouse she produced that minute representation
+of the colours he knew so well. They looked at each other, and....</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">When some time after they were lunching, he forming a fourth at the
+small table which belonged of right to Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, he said to
+Annie Moriarty, that was:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Since you're an old friend of Miss Donne you may be interested in
+knowing that there's likely soon to be an International Alliance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He motioned to the lady at his side and then to himself, as if to call
+attention to the fact that in his buttonhole was the Union Jack, while
+on Miss Donne's blouse was pinned the American flag. But keen-witted
+Mrs. Palmer had realized what exactly was the condition of affairs some
+time before.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_skittles" href="#div1Ref_skittles">&quot;Skittles&quot;</a></h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">Mr. Plumber was a passable preacher. Not an orator, perhaps--though it
+is certain that they had had less oratorical curates at Exdale. His
+delivery was not exactly good. But then the matter was fair, at times.
+Though Mr. Ingledew did say that Mr. Plumber's sermons were rather in
+the nature of reminiscences--tit-bits collated from other divines.
+According to this authority, listening to Mr. Plumber preaching was a
+capital exercise for the memory. His pulpit addresses might almost be
+regarded in the light of a series of examination papers. One might take
+it for granted that every thought was borrowed from some one, the
+question--put by the examiner, as it were--being from whom? On the
+other hand, it must be granted that Mr. Ingledew's character was well
+understood in Exdale. He was one of those persons who are persuaded
+that there is no such thing as absolute originality in the present year
+of grace. From his point of view, all the moderns are thieves. He read
+a new book, not for the pleasure of reading it, but for the pleasure of
+finding out, as a sort of anemonic exercise, from whom its various
+parts had been pilfered. He held that, nowadays, nothing new is being
+produced, either in prose or verse; and that the only thing which the
+latter day writer does need, is the capacity to use the scissors and
+the paste. So it was no new thing for the Exdale congregation to be
+informed that the sermon which they had listened to had been preached
+before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nor, Mrs. Manby declared, in any case, was that the point. She wanted a
+preacher to do her good. If he could not do her good out of his own
+mouth, then, by all means, let him do her good out of the mouths of
+others. All gifts are not given to all men. If a man was conscious of
+his incapacity in one direction, then she, for one, had no objection to
+his availing himself, to the best of his ability, of his capacity in
+another. But--and here Mrs. Manby held up her hands in the manner which
+is so well known to her friends--when a man told her, from the pulpit,
+on the Sunday, that life was a solemn and a serious thing, and then on
+the Monday wrote for a comic paper--and such a comic paper!--that was
+the point, and quite another matter entirely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How the story first was told has not been clearly ascertained. The
+presumption is, that a proof was sent to Mr. Plumber in one of those
+wrappers which are open at both ends in which proofs sometimes are
+sent; and that on the front of this wrapper was imprinted, by way of
+advertisement, the source of its origin: &quot;<i>Skittles: Not to mention the
+Beer. A Comic Croaker for the Cultured Classes</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The presumption goes on to suggest that, while it was still in the post
+office, the proof fell out of the wrapper,--they sometimes are most
+insecurely enclosed, and the thing might have been the purest accident.
+One of the clerks--it is said, young Griffen--noticing it, happened to
+read the proof--just glanced over it, that is--also, of course, by
+accident. And then, on purchasing a copy of a particular issue of the
+periodical in question, this clerk--whoever he was--perceived that it
+contained the, one could not call it poem, but rhyming doggerel, proof
+of which had been sent to the Reverend Reginald Plumber. He probably
+mentioned it to a friend, in the strictest confidence. This friend
+mentioned it to another friend, also in the strictest confidence. And
+so everybody was told by everybody else, in the strictest confidence;
+and the thing which was meant to be hid in a hole found itself
+displayed on the top of the hill.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was felt that something ought lo be done. This feeling took form and
+substance at an informal meeting which was held at Mrs. Manby's in the
+guise of a tea, and which was attended by the churchwardens, Mr.
+Ingledew, and others, who might be expected to do something, when, from
+the point of view of public policy, it ought to be done. The <i>pi�ces de
+conviction</i> were not, on that particular occasion, actually produced in
+evidence, because it was generally felt that the paper, &quot;<i>Skittles: Not
+to mention the Beer, etc</i>.&quot; was not a paper which could be produced in
+the presence of ladies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And that,&quot; Mrs. Manby observed, &quot;is what makes the thing so very
+dreadful. It is bad enough that such papers should be allowed to
+appear. But that they should be supported by the contributions of our
+spiritual guides and teachers, opens a vista which cannot but fill
+every proper-minded person with dismay.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Norman mildly hinted that Mr. Plumber might have intended, not so
+much to support the journal in question, either with his contributions
+or otherwise, as that it should aid in supporting him. But this was an
+aspect of the case which the meeting simply declined to even consider.
+Because Mr. Plumber chose to have an ailing wife and a horde of
+children that was no reason, but very much the contrary, why, instead
+of elevating, he should assist in degrading public morals. So the
+resolution was finally arrived at that, without loss of time, the
+churchwardens should wait upon the Vicar, make a formal statement of
+the lamentable facts of the case, and that the Vicar should then be
+requested to do the something which ought to be done.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So, in accordance with this resolution, the churchwardens waited on the
+vicar. The Rev. Henry Harding was, at that time, the Vicar of Exdale.
+He was not only an easy-going man and possessed of large private means,
+but he was also one of those unfortunately constituted persons who are
+with difficulty induced to make themselves disagreeable to any one. The
+churchwardens quite anticipated that they might find it hard to
+persuade him, even in so glaring a case as the present one, to do the
+something which ought to be done. Nor were their expectations, in this
+respect, doomed to meet with disappointment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Am I to understand,&quot; asked the vicar, when, to a certain extent, the
+lamentable facts of the case had been laid before him, and as he leaned
+back in his easy chair he pushed his spectacles up on his forehead,
+&quot;that you have come to complain to me because a gentleman, finding
+himself in straitened circumstances, desires to add to his income by
+means of contributions to the press?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was not what they wished him to understand at all. Mr. Luxmare,
+the people's warden, endeavoured to explain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is this particular paper to which we object. It is a vile, and a
+scurrilous rag. Its very name is an offence. You are, probably, not
+acquainted with its character. I have here----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Luxmare was producing a copy of the offensive publication from his
+pocket, when the vicar stopped him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know the paper very well indeed,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Luxmare seemed slightly taken aback. But he continued--.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In that case you are well aware that it is a paper with which no
+decent person would allow himself to be connected.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am by no means so sure of that.&quot; Mr. Harding pressed the tips of his
+fingers together, with that mild, but occasionally exasperating, air of
+beaming affability for which he was peculiar. &quot;I have known some very
+decent persons who have allowed themselves to become connected with
+some extremely curious papers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As the people's warden, Mr. Luxmare, was conscious of an almost
+exaggerated feeling of responsibility. He felt that, in a peculiar
+sense, he represented the parish. It was his duty to impress the
+feelings of the parish upon the vicar. And he meant to impress the
+feeling of the parish upon the vicar now. Moreover, by natural
+constitution he was almost as much inclined to aggressiveness as the
+vicar was inclined to placability. He at once assumed what might be
+called the tone and manner of a prosecuting counsel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is an instance,&quot; and he banged his right fist into his left palm,
+&quot;of a clergyman--a clergyman of our church, the national church,
+associating himself with a paper, the avowed and ostensible purpose of
+which is to pander to the depraved instincts of the lowest of the low.
+I say, sir, and I defy contradiction, that such an instance in such a
+man is an offence against good morals.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Harding smiled--which was by no means what the people's warden had
+intended he should do.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By the way,&quot; he said, &quot;has Mr. Plumber been writing under his own
+name?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not he. The stuff is anonymous. It is inconceivable that any one could
+wish to be known as its author?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then may I ask how you know that Mr. Plumber is its author?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Luxmare appeared to be a trifle non-plussed--as did his associate.
+But the people's warden stuck to his guns.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is common report in the parish that Mr. Plumber is a contributor to
+a paper which would not be admitted to a decent house. We are here as
+church officers to acquaint you with that report, and to request you to
+ascertain from Mr. Plumber whether or not it is well founded.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In other words, you wish me to associate myself with vague scandal
+about Queen Elizabeth, and to play the part of Paul Pry in the private
+affairs of my friend and colleague.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Luxmare rose from his chair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If, sir, you decline to accede to our request, we shall go from you to
+Mr. Plumber. We shall put to him certain questions. Should he decline
+to answer them, or should his replies not be satisfactory, we shall
+esteem it our duty to report the matter to the Bishop. For my own part,
+I say, without hesitation, that it would be a notorious scandal that a
+contributor to such a paper as <i>Skittles</i> should be a minister in our
+beloved parish church.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The vicar still smiled, though it is conceivable that, for once in a
+way, his smile was merely on the surface.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then, in that case, Mr. Luxmare, you will take upon yourself a great
+responsibility.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Harding, I took upon myself a great responsibility when I suffered
+myself to be made the people's warden. It is not my intention to
+attempt to shirk that responsibility in one jot or in one tittle. To
+the best of my ability, at any cost, I will do my duty, though the
+heavens fall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The vicar meditated some moments before he spoke again. Then he
+addressed himself to both his visitors.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I tell you what I will do, gentlemen. I will go to Mr. Plumber and
+tell him what you say. Then I will acquaint you with his answer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very good!&quot; It was Mr. Luxmare who took upon himself to reply. &quot;At
+present that is all we ask. I would only suggest, that the sooner your
+visit is paid the better.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly. There I do agree with you; it is always well to rid oneself
+of matters of this sort as soon as possible. I will make a point of
+calling on Mr. Plumber directly you are gone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Possibly, when his visitors had gone, the vicar was inclined to the
+opinion that he had promised rather hastily. Not only did he not start
+upon his errand with the promptitude which his own words had suggested,
+but even when he did start, he pursued such devious ways that several
+hours elapsed between his arrival at the curate's and the departure of
+the deputation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Plumber lived in a cottage. It might have not been without its
+attractions as a home for a newly-married couple, but as a residence
+for a man of studious habits, possessed of a large and noisy family, it
+had its disadvantages. It was the curate himself who opened the door.
+Directly he did so the vicar became conscious that, within, there was a
+colourable imitation of pandemonium. Some young gentlemen appeared to
+be fighting upstairs; other young gentlemen appeared to be rehearsing
+some unmusical selections of the nature of a Christy Minstrel chorus on
+the ground floor at the back; somewhere else small children were
+crying; while occasionally, above the hubbub, were heard the shrill
+tones of a woman's agitated voice, raised in heartsick--because
+hopeless,--expostulation. Mr. Plumber seemed to be unconscious of there
+being anything strange in such discord of sweet sounds. Possibly he had
+become so used to living in the midst of a riot that it never occurred
+to him that there was anything in mere uproar for which it might be
+necessary to apologise. He led the way to his study--a small room at
+the back of the house, which was in uncomfortable proximity to the
+Christy Minstrel chorus. Small though the room was, it was
+insufficiently furnished. As he entered it, the vicar was struck, by no
+means for the first time, by an unpleasant sense of the contrast which
+existed between the curate's study and the luxurious apartment which
+was his study at the vicarage. The vicar seated himself on one of the
+two chairs which the apartment contained. A few desultory remarks were
+exchanged. Then Mr. Harding endeavoured to broach the subject which had
+brought him there. He began a little awkwardly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I hope that you know me well enough to be aware, Mr. Plumber, that I
+am not a person who would wish to thrust myself into the affairs of
+others.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The curate nodded. He was standing up before the empty fireplace. A
+tall, sparely-built man, with scanty iron-grey hair, a pronounced
+stoop, and a face which was a tragedy--it said so plainly that he was a
+man who had abandoned hope. Its careful neatness accentuated the
+threadbare condition of his clerical costume--it was always a mystery
+to the vicar how the curate contrived to keep himself so neat,
+considering his slender resources, and the life of domestic drudgery
+which he was compelled to lead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you acquainted with a publication called <i>Skittles?</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Plumber nodded again; Mr. Harding would rather he had spoken. &quot;May
+I ask if you are a contributor to such a publication?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May I inquire why you ask?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is reported in the parish that you are. The parish does not relish
+the report. And you must know yourself that it is not a paper&quot;--the
+vicar hesitated--&quot;not a paper with which a gentleman would wish it to
+be known that he was associated.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, without entering into questions of the past, I hope you will
+give me to understand that, at any rate, in the future, you will not
+contribute to its pages.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it necessary to explain? Are we not both clergymen?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you suggesting that a clergyman should pay occasional visits to a
+debtor's prison rather than contribute to the pages of a comic paper?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is not a question of a comic paper, but of this particular comic
+paper.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The curate looked intently at the vicar. He had dark eyes which, at
+times, were curiously full of meaning. Mr. Harding felt that they were
+very full of meaning then. He so sympathised with the man, so realised
+the burdens which he had to bear, that he never found himself alone
+with him without becoming conscious of a sensation which was almost
+shyness. At that moment, as the curate continued to fixedly regard him,
+he was not only shy, but ashamed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Harding you are not here of your own initiative.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is so. But that will not help you. If you take my advice, of two
+evils you will choose what I believe to be the lesser.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And that is?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will have no further connection with this paper.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Harding, look here.&quot; Going to a cupboard which was in a corner of
+the room, the curate threw the door wide open. Within were shelves. On
+the shelves were papers. The cupboard seemed full of them, shelf above
+shelf. &quot;You see these. They are MSS.--my MSS. They have travelled
+pretty well all round the world. They have been rejected everywhere. I
+have paid postage for them which I could very ill afford, only to have
+them sent back upon my hands, at last, for good. I show them to you
+merely because I wish you to understand that I did not apply to the
+editor of <i>Skittles</i> until I had been rejected by practically every
+other editor the world contains.&quot; The Vicar fidgetted on his chair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Surely, now that reading has become almost universal, it is always
+possible to find an opening for good work.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For good work, possibly. Though, even then, I suspect that the thing
+is not so easy as you imagine. But mine is not good work. Very often it
+is not even good hack work, as good hack work goes. I may have been
+capable of good work once. But the capacity, if it ever existed, has
+gone--crushed perhaps by the burdens which have crushed me. Nowadays I
+am only too glad to do any work which will bring in for us a few extra
+crumbs of bread.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I sympathise with you, with all my heart.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you.&quot; The curate smiled, the vicar would almost have rather he
+had cried. &quot;There is one other point. If the paper were a bad paper, in
+a moral or in a religious sense, under no sense of circumstances would
+I consent to do its work or to take its wage. But if any one has told
+you that it is a bad paper, in that sense, you have been misinformed.
+It is simply a cheap so-called humorous journal. Perhaps not
+over-refined. It is intended for the <i>olla podrida</i>. It is printed on poor
+paper, and the printing is not good. The illustrations are not always
+in the best of taste and are sometimes simply smudges. But looking at
+the reading matter as a whole, it is probably equal to that which is
+contained, week after week, in some of the high-priced papers which
+find admission to every house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am bound to say that sometimes when I have been travelling I have
+purchased the paper myself, and I have never seen anything in it which
+could be justly called improper.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nor I. I submit, sir, that we curates are already sufficiently
+cribbed, cabined, and confined. If narrow-minded, non-literary persons
+are to have the power to forbid our working for decent journals to
+which they themselves, for some reason, may happen to object, our case
+is harder still.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The vicar rose from his chair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Quite so. There is a great deal in what you say--I quite realise it,
+Mr. Plumber. The laity are already too much disposed to trample on us
+clerics. I will think the matter over--think the matter over, Mr.
+Plumber. My dear sir, what is that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a crashing sound on the floor overhead, which threatened to
+bring the study ceiling down. It was followed by such a deafening din,
+as if an Irish faction fight was taking place upstairs, that even the
+curate seemed to be disturbed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Some of the boys have been making themselves a pair of boxing gloves,
+and I am afraid they are practising with them in their bedroom.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh,&quot; said the vicar. That was all he did say, but the &quot;Oh&quot; was
+eloquent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To think,&quot; he told himself as he departed, &quot;that a scholar and a
+gentleman should be compelled to live in a place like that, with a
+helpless wife and a horde of unruly lads, and should be driven to
+scribble nonsense for such a rag as <i>Skittles</i> in order to provide
+himself with the means to keep them all alive--it seems to me that it
+must be, in some way, a disgrace to the English Church that such things
+should be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He not only said this to himself, but, later on, he said it to his
+wife. His words had weight with Mrs. Harding, but not the sort of
+weight which he desired. The fact is Mrs. Harding had views of her own
+on the subject of curates. She held that curates ought not to marry.
+Vicars, rectors, and the higher clergy might; but curates, no. For a
+poor curate to marry was nothing else than a crime. Had she had her
+way, Mr. Plumber would long ago have vanished from Exdale. But though
+the vicar was ruled to a considerable extent by his wife, there was a
+point at which he drew the line. That a man should be turned adrift on
+to the world to quite starve simply because he was nearly starving
+already was an idea which actually filled him with indignation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If he supposed that his interview with Mr. Plumber had resulted in a
+manner which was likely to appease those of his parishioners who had
+objections to a curate who wrote for comic papers, he was destined soon
+to learn his error. The following morning one of his churchwardens paid
+another visit to the vicarage--the duty-loving Mr. Luxmare. Mr. Harding
+was conscious of an uncomfortable twinge when that gentleman's name was
+brought to him; he seemed to be still more uncomfortable when he found
+himself constrained to meet the warden's eye. The story he had to tell
+was not only in itself a slightly lame one, its lameness was emphasised
+by the way in which he told it. It was plain that it was not going to
+have the effect of inducing Mr. Luxmare to move one hair's breadth from
+the path which he felt that duty required him to tread.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Am I to understand, Mr. Harding, that Mr. Plumber, conscious of his
+offence, has promised to offend no more? In other words, has he
+undertaken to have no further connection with this off-scouring of the
+press?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Harding put his spectacles on his nose. He took them off again. He
+fidgetted and fumbled with them with his fingers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The fact is, Mr. Luxmare--and this is entirely between ourselves--Mr.
+Plumber is in such straitened circumstances----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Quite so. But because a man is a pauper, does that justify him in
+becoming a thief?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gently, Mr. Luxmare, let us consider our words before we utter them.
+Here is no question of anything even distantly approaching to felony.
+To be frank with you, I think you are unnecessarily hard on this
+particular journal. The paper is merely a vulgar paper----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And Mr. Plumber is merely an ordained minister of the Established
+Church. Are we, then, as churchmen, to expect our clergy to encourage,
+not only passively, but, also, actively, the already superabundant
+vulgarity of the public press?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The vicar had the worst of it; when he was once more alone he felt that
+there was no sort of doubt upon that point.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whether, intentionally or not, Mr. Luxmare managed to convey the
+impression that, in his opinion, the curate, while pretending to save
+souls with one hand, was doing his best to destroy them with the other,
+and that, in that singular course of procedure, he was being aided and
+abetted by the vicar. Mr. Harding had strong forebodings that the
+trouble, so far from being ended, was only just beginning. Those
+forebodings became still stronger when, scarcely an hour after Mr.
+Luxmare had left him, Mrs. Harding, entering the study like a passable
+imitation of a hurricane, laid a printed sheet in front of her husband
+with the air almost of a Jove hurling thunderbolts from the skies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Harding, have you seen that paper?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the unescapable <i>Skittles</i>. The vicar groaned in spirit. He
+regarded it with weary eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A copy of it now and then, my dear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have just discovered its existence with feelings of horror. That
+such a thing should be permitted to be is a national disgrace. Mr.
+Harding, you will be astounded to learn that the curate of Exdale is
+one of its chief contributors.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Scarcely, I think, one of its chief contributors.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mrs. Harding struck an attitude.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it possible that you are already aware that your ostensible
+colleague in the great task of snatching souls from the burning has all
+the time been doing Satan's work?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear!--really!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know very well that I have objected to Mr. Plumber from the first.
+I have suspected the man. Now that my suspicions are more than
+verified, it is certain that he must go. The question is, when? Of
+course, before next Sunday.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You move too fast, Sophia.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In such a matter as this it is impossible to move too fast. Read
+that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Turning over a page of the paper, Mrs. Harding pointed to a &quot;copy of
+verses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you, my dear, but, if you will permit me, I prefer to remain
+excused. I have no taste for that species of literature just now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So I should imagine--either now or ever! The shameful and shameless
+rubbish has been written by your curate. I am told that it has been cut
+out and framed, and that it at present hangs in the taproom of 'The Pig
+and Whistle,' with these words scrawled beneath it: 'The Curate's
+Latest! Real Jam!' Is that the sort of handle which you wish to offer
+to the scoffers? I shall not leave this room until you promise me that
+before next Sunday Exdale Parish Church shall have seen the last of
+him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did not promise that, but he promised something--with his fatal
+facility for promising. He promised that a meeting should be held at
+the vicarage before the following Sunday. That Mr. Plumber, the
+churchwardens, and the sidesmen should be invited to attend. That
+certain questions should be put to the curate. That he should be asked
+what he had to say for himself. And, although the vicar did not
+distinctly promise, in so many words, that the sense of the meeting
+should then be allowed to decide his fate, the lady certainly inferred
+as much.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The meeting was held. Mr. Harding wrote to the curate, explaining
+matters as best he could--he felt that in trusting to his pen he would
+be safer than in trusting to word of mouth. Probably because he was
+conscious that he really had no choice, Mr. Plumber agreed to come. And
+he came. Besides the clergy and officers of the church, the only person
+present was the aforementioned Mr. Ingledew. He was a person of light
+and leading in the parish, and when he asked permission to attend, the
+vicar saw no sufficient ground to say him nay.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">That was one of the unhappiest days of Mr. Harding's life. He was one
+of those people who are possessed of the questionable faculty of being
+able to see both sides of a question at once. He saw, too plainly for
+his own peace of mind, what was to be said both for and against the
+curate. He feared that the meeting would only see what was only to be
+said against him. That the man would come prejudiced. And he felt--and
+that was the worst of all!--that, for the sake of a peace which was no
+peace, he was giving his colleague into the hands of his enemies, and
+shifting on to the shoulders of others the authority which was his own.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The churchwardens were the first to arrive. It was plain, from the
+start, that, so far as the people's warden was concerned, the curate's
+fate was already signed and sealed. The sidesmen followed, one by one.
+The vicar had had no personal communication with them on the matter;
+but he took it for granted, from his knowledge of their characters,
+that though they lacked his power of expression, they might be expected
+to think as Mr. Luxmare thought. Mr. Ingledew's position was not
+clearly defined, but everybody knew the point of view from which he
+would judge the curate. He would pose as a critic of Literature--with a
+capital L!--and Mr. Harding feared that, in that character, the
+unfortunate Mr. Plumber might fare even worse with him than with the
+others.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The curate was the last to arrive. He came into the room with his hat
+and stick in his hand. Going straight up to the vicar, he addressed to
+him a question which brought the business for which they were assembled
+immediately to the front.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is it that you would wish to say to me, sir?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is about your contributions to the well-advertised <i>Skittles</i>, Mr.
+Plumber. There seems to be a strong feeling on the subject in the
+parish. I thought that we might meet together here and arrive at a
+common understanding.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Plumber bowed. He turned to the others. He bowed to them. There was
+a pause, as if of hesitation as to what ought to be done. Then Mr.
+Luxmare spoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May I ask Mr. Plumber some questions?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The vicar beamed, or endeavoured to.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You had better, Mr. Luxmare, address that inquiry to Mr. Plumber.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Luxmare addressed himself to Mr. Plumber--not genially.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The first question I would ask you, sir, is, whether it is true that
+you are a contributor to the paper which the vicar has named. The
+second question I would ask you, sir----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The curate interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One moment, Mr. Luxmare. On what ground do you consider yourself
+entitled to question me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are one of the parish clergy. I am one of its churchwardens. As
+such, I speak to you in the name of the parish.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I fail to understand you. Because I am one of the parish clergy it
+does not follow that I am in any way responsible for my conduct to the
+parish. My life would be not worth living if that were so. I am
+responsible to my vicar alone. So long as he is satisfied that I am
+doing my duty to him, you have no concern with me, and I have none with
+you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Quite right, Mr. Plumber,&quot; struck in the vicar. &quot;I have hinted as much
+to Mr. Luxmare already.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The people's warden listened with lowering brows.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then why have you brought us here, sir?--to be played with?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The truth is, Mr. Luxmare--and you must forgive my speaking
+plainly--you have an exaggerated conception of the magnitude of your
+office. A churchwarden has certain duties to perform, but among them
+is not the duty of sitting in judgment on his clergy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then am I to understand that Mr. Plumber declines to answer my
+questions?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It depends,&quot; said Mr. Plumber, &quot;upon what your questions are. I trust
+that I may be always found ready, and willing, to respond to any
+inquiries, not savouring of impertinence, which may be addressed to me.
+I have no objection, for instance, to inform you, or any one, that I
+am, or rather, I have been, a contributor to <i>Skittles</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, you have, have you! May I ask if you intend to continue to
+contribute to that scandalous rag?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now you go too far. I am unable to bind myself by any promise as to my
+future intentions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then, sir, I say that you ought to be ashamed of yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Luxmare!&quot; cried the vicar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the people's warden had reached the explosive point; he was bound
+to explode.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am not to be put down, nor am I to be frightened from doing what I
+conceive to be my bounden duty. I tell you again, Mr. Plumber, sir,
+that you ought to be ashamed of yourself. And I say further, that it is
+to me a monstrous proposition, that a clergyman is to be at liberty to
+contribute to the rising flood of public immorality, and that his
+parishioners are not to be allowed to offer even a word of
+remonstrance. You may take this from me, Mr. Plumber, that so long as
+you continue one of its clergy, the parish church will be deserted. You
+will minister, if you are to minister at all, to a beggarly array of
+empty pews. And, since the parish is not to be permitted to speak its
+mind in private, I will see that an opportunity is given it to speak
+its mind in public. I will see that a public meeting is held. I promise
+you that it will be attended by every decent-minded man and woman in
+Exdale. Some home truths will be uttered which, I trust, will enlighten
+you as to what is, and what is not, the duty of a parish clergyman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you quite finished, Mr. Luxmare?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The vicar asked the question in a tone of almost dangerous quiet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do not think,&quot; continued Mr. Luxmare, ignoring Mr. Harding, &quot;that in
+this matter I speak for myself. I speak for the whole parish.&quot; He
+turned to his colleague, &quot;Is that not so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The vicar's warden did not seem to be completely at his ease. He looked
+appealingly at the vicar. He shuffled with his feet. But he spoke at
+last, prefacing his remarks with a sort of deprecatory little cough.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am bound to admit that I consider it somewhat unfortunate that Mr.
+Plumber should have contributed to a publication of this particular
+class.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Luxmare turned to the sidesmen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you think?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sidesmen did not say much, but they managed, with what they did
+say, to convey the impression that they thought as the churchwardens
+thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You see,&quot; exclaimed the triumphant Mr. Luxmare, &quot;that here we are
+unanimous, and I give you my word that our unanimity is but typical of
+the unanimous feeling which pervades the entire parish.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Has anybody else anything which he would wish to say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The vicar asked the question in the same curiously quiet tone of voice.
+Mr. Ingledew stood up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, vicar, I have something which I should rather like to say. I am
+not pretending to have, in this matter, any <i>locus standi</i>. Nor do I
+intend to assail Mr. Plumber on the lines which Mr. Luxmare has
+followed. To me it seems to be a matter of comparative indifference to
+which journal a man, be he cleric or layman, may choose to send his
+contributions. Journals nowadays are very much of a muchness, their
+badness is merely a question of degree. There is, however, one point on
+which I should like to be enlightened by Mr. Plumber. I am told that he
+is the author of some verses which were published in the issue of
+<i>Skittles</i>, dated July 11th, and entitled 'The Lingering Lover.' Is
+that so, Mr. Plumber?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As Mr. Ingledew asked his question, the curate, for the first time,
+showed signs of obvious uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is so,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Ingledew smiled. His smile did not seem to add to the curate's
+comfort.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not intend to criticise those verses. Probably Mr. Plumber will
+admit that by no standard of criticism can they be adjudged first rate.
+But, in this connection, I would make one remark--and here I think you
+will agree with me, vicar--that even a clergyman should be decently
+honest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pray,&quot; asked the vicar, who possibly had noticed Mr. Plumber's
+uneasiness, and had, thereupon, become uneasy himself, &quot;what has
+honesty to do with the matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A good deal, as I am about to show. Mr. Luxmare asked Mr. Plumber if
+he intended to continue to contribute to <i>Skittles</i>. Mr. Plumber
+declined to answer that question. I could have answered it; and now do.
+No more of Mr. Plumber's contributions will appear in <i>Skittles</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The curate started--indeed, everybody started--vicar, churchwardens,
+sidesmen and all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you mean?&quot; stammered Mr. Plumber.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I base my statement on a letter which I have this morning received
+from the editor of <i>Skittles</i>. In it that great man informs me that he
+will take care that no more of Mr. Plumber's contributions appear in
+the paper which he edits.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Plumber went white to the lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you mean?&quot; he repeated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Ingledew looked the curate full in the face. As Mr. Plumber met his
+glance, he cowered as if Mr. Ingledew's words had been so many blows
+with a stick.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Can you not guess my meaning, Mr. Plumber? Were you not aware that
+there are such things as literary detectives? In future, I would advise
+you to remember that there are. Directly I saw those verses I knew that
+you had stolen them. I happened to have the original in my possession.
+I sent that original to the editor of <i>Skittles</i>. The letter to which I
+have referred is his response. The verses which you sent to him as
+yours are no more yours than my watch is. Are you disposed contradict
+me, Mr. Plumber?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The curate was silent--with a silence which was eloquent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Plumber has given a sufficient answer,&quot; said Mr. Ingledew, as the
+curate continued speechless. He turned to the vicar. &quot;This is not one
+of those cases of remote plagiarism which abound: it is a case of clear
+theft, which are not so frequent. Mr. Plumber sent to this paper what
+was, to all intents and purposes, a copy of another man's work. He
+claimed it as his own. He received payment for it as if it had been his
+own. If he chooses, the editor of <i>Skittles</i> can institute against him
+a criminal prosecution. If he does, Mr. Plumber will certainly be
+sentenced to a turn of imprisonment. As an example of impudent
+pilfering the affair is instructive. Perhaps, vicar, you would like to
+study it. Here are what Mr. Plumber calls his verses, and here are the
+verses from which his verses are stolen. As you will perceive, from a
+literary point of view, Mr. Plumber has merely perpetrated a new
+edition of another man's crime. Which is the worse, the original or the
+copy, is more than I can say. Here are the verses as they appeared in
+the peculiarly named paper of which you have, perhaps, already heard
+too much, and which, while it professes to be humorous, at least
+succeeds in being vulgar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Ingledew handed Mr. Harding what was evidently a marked copy of the
+paper which, no doubt, has its attractions for those who like that kind
+of thing. Mr. Plumber remained silent. He leant on his stick. His eyes
+were fixed on the floor. The vicar seemed almost afraid to glance in
+his direction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And this,&quot; continued the softly speaking gentleman, who in spite of
+his carefully modulated tones, seemed destined to work the curate more
+havoc than the noisy parish mouthpiece, &quot;is the publication in which the
+verses originally appeared. As you will see, it is a copy of a
+once-talked-of University magazine which is long since dead and done for.
+Possibly Mr. Plumber relied upon that fact to shield him from exposure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The vicar received the second paper with an air of what was
+unmistakably amazement. He stared at it as if in doubt that he was not
+being tricked by his eyes, or his spectacles, or something.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What--what's this?&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Ingledew explained,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is a copy of <i>Cam-Isis</i>; a magazine which was edited and written by
+a body of Camford undergraduates some forty years ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The more the vicar stared at the paper, the more his amazement seemed
+to grow. He was beginning to turn quite red.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good gracious!&quot; he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The original of Mr. Plumber's verses you will find on the page which I
+have marked. They are quite equal to their title, 'The Lass and the
+Lout.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Vicar's hand which held the paper dropped to his side. He looked up
+at the ceiling seemingly in a state of mind approaching stupefaction.
+As if unaware, words came from his lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's a judgment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Ingledew rubbed his chin. He seemed to be pleased.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It certainly is a judgment, and one for which, I am afraid, Mr.
+Plumber was not prepared. But I flatter myself that no man, if the
+thing comes within my cognisance, is able to print another man's works
+as his own without my being able to detect and convict him of his
+guilt. I have not been on the look out for plagiarists all my life for
+nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The vicar's glance came down. He seemed all at once to become conscious
+of his surroundings. He looked about him with a startled air, as if he
+had been roused from a trance. He seemed quite curiously agitated. The
+words which he uttered were spoken a little wildly, as if he himself
+was not quite certain what it was that he was saying.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have to thank you for all that you have said, gentlemen, and I can
+only assure you that the remarks which you have made demand, and shall
+receive, my most serious consideration. With regard to the papers&quot;--he
+glanced at the two papers which he still was holding--&quot;with regard to
+these papers, with your permission, Mr. Ingledew, I will retain them
+for the present. They shall be returned to you later.&quot; The owner of the
+papers nodded assent. &quot;And now that all has been said which there is to
+say, I have to ask you, gentlemen, to leave me, and--and I wish you all
+good-day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The vicar himself opened the study door. He seemed almost to be
+hustling his visitors out of the room, his anxiety to be rid of them
+was so wholly undisguised. It is possible that both Mr. Luxmare and Mr.
+Ingledew would have liked to have made a few concluding observations,
+but neither of them was given a shred of opportunity. When, however,
+Mr. Plumber made a movement as if to go, Mr. Harding motioned to him
+with his hand to stay. And the vicar and the curate were left alone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A stranger would have found it difficult to decide which of the two
+seemed the more shame-faced. The curate still stood where he had been
+standing all through, leaning on his stick, with his eyes on the
+ground; while the vicar, with his grasp still on the handle of the
+door, stood with his face turned towards the wall. It was with an
+apparent effort that, moving towards his writing table, placing Mr.
+Ingledew's two papers in front of him, he seated himself in his
+accustomed chair. Taking off his spectacles, with his hands he gently
+rubbed his eyes as if they were tired.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dear, dear!&quot; he muttered, as if to himself. He sighed. He added, still
+more to himself, &quot;The Lord's ways are past our finding out.&quot; Then he
+addressed himself to the curate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Plumber!&quot; Although the vicar spoke so softly, his hearer seemed to
+shrink away from him. &quot;I have a confession which I must make to you.&quot;
+The curate looked up furtively, as if in fear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When I was a young man I did many things of which I have since had
+good reason to be ashamed. Among the things, I used to write what Mr.
+Ingledew would say correctly enough it would be flattering to call
+nonsense. I regret to have to tell you that I wrote those verses to
+which Mr. Ingledew has just called our attention in that dead and gone
+Camford magazine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The curate stood up almost straight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sir!--Mr. Harding!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I did. To my shame, I own it. I had nearly forgotten them. I had not
+seen a copy for years and years. I had hoped that there was none in
+existence. But it seems that that which a man does, which he would
+rather have left undone, is sure to rise, and confront him, we will
+trust, by the grace of God, not in eternity, but certainly in time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Plumber was trembling. The vicar continued, in a voice, and with a
+manner, the exquisite delicacy of which was indescribable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have esteemed it my duty to make you this confession in order that
+you may understand that I, too, have done that of which I have cause to
+be ashamed. And in making you this confession I must ask you to respect
+my confidence, as I shall respect yours.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Plumber made a movement as if to speak. But, possibly his tongue
+was parched and refused its office. At any rate, he did nothing but
+stare at the vicar, with blanched cheeks, and strangely distended eyes.
+When Mr. Harding went on, his glance, which had hitherto been fixed
+upon the curate, fell--it may be that he wished to avoid the other's
+dreadful gaze.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think, Mr. Plumber, you might prefer to leave Exdale and seek
+another sphere of duty. As it chances, I have had a recent inquiry from
+a friend who desires to know if I am acquainted with a gentleman who
+would care to accept a chaplaincy at a health resort in the Pyrenees.
+One moment.&quot; The curate made another movement as if to speak; the vicar
+checked him. &quot;The stipend is guaranteed to be at least �200 a year;
+and, as there are also tutorial possibilities, on such an income, in
+that part of the world, a gentleman would be able to bring up his
+family in decent comfort. If you like, I will mention your name, and,
+in that case, I think I am in a position to promise that the post shall
+be place at your disposal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The curate's hat and stick dropped from his trembling hands. He seemed
+unconscious of their fate. He moved, or rather, it would be more
+correct to say, he lurched towards the vicar's table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sir!&quot; he gasped. &quot;Mr. Harding.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It seemed that he would say more--much more; but that still his tongue
+was tied. His weight was on the table, as if, without the aid of its
+support, he would not be able to stand. Rising, leaning forward, the
+vicar gently laid his two hands upon the curate's. His voice quavered
+as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Believe me, Mr. Plumber, we clergymen are no more immaculate than
+other men.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The curate still was speechless. But he sank on his knees, and laying
+his face on the vicar's writing table, he cried like a child.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_em" href="#div1Ref_em">&quot;Em&quot;</a></h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_em01" href="#div1Ref_em01">THE MAJOR'S INSTRUCTIONS</a></h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't tell me, miss; don't tell me, I say.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Major Clifford stood up, and shook his fist and stamped his foot in
+a way suggestive of the Black Country and wife beating. But Miss
+Maynard, who sat opposite to him, meek and mild, being used to his
+eccentric behaviour, was quite equal to the occasion. When he got very
+red in the face and seemed on the point of breaking a blood vessel, she
+just stood up, moved across the room, and put her hands upon his
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Uncle,&quot; she said, and her face was very close to his, &quot;I'm sure I'm
+very much obliged to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's all very well,&quot; the Major replied, pretending to struggle from
+her grasp. &quot;It's all very well, but I say----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course. That's exactly what you do say.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And she kissed him. Then it was all over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When a young woman of a certain kind kisses an elderly gentleman of a
+certain temperament, it soothes his savage breast, like oil upon the
+troubled waters. And as Miss Maynard was a young woman whose influence
+was not likely to be ineffective with any man whether young or old,
+Major Clifford was tolerably helpless in her hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, they called her &quot;Em.&quot; Emily was her name, Emily Maynard, but from
+her babyhood the concluding syllables had been forgotten, and by
+general consent among her intimates she was &quot;Em.&quot; There could be no
+doubt whether you called her Em or whether you did not, she was a young
+woman it was not unpleasant to know.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was pretty tall and pretty slender, quiet, like still waters
+running deep. She never made a noise herself, being a model of good
+behaviour, but she created in some people an irresistible inclination
+to look upon life as a first-rate joke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had a tendency to throw everything into inextricable confusion by
+the depth of her enthusiasm. She managed many things, and with complete
+impartiality managed them all wrong. In that unassuming way of hers she
+took the lead in all well-directed efforts, and had a wonderful genius
+for setting her colleagues by the ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the present moment things had occurred which were the cause to her
+of no little sorrow. She was the treasurer of the District Visitor's
+Fund, and at the same time of the Coal and Clothing Clubs. In that
+capacity she had taken a view of the duties of her office which had
+caused some dissatisfaction to her friends.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Being possessed of a bad memory, it had been her misfortune to receive
+several subscriptions to the District Visitors' Fund, of which she had
+forgotten to make any entry, and which she had paid away in a manner of
+which she was totally incapable of giving any account. In moments of
+generosity, too, she had bestowed the greater portion of the Coal Fund
+on unfortunate persons who were not of her parish, nor, it was to be
+feared, of any creed either. And in moments still more generous, the
+funds of the Clothing Club she had applied to the purchase of books for
+her Sunday School Library. Therefore, when the quarter ended and a
+request was made to examine her accounts and rectify them, she was in a
+position which was not exactly pleasant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now there happened to be at St. Giles's a curate who was a Low
+Churchman. Miss Maynard had a tendency to &quot;High;&quot; and between these two
+there was no good feeling lost. It was this curate who was causing all
+the trouble. He had not only made some uncomfortable remarks, but he
+had gone so far as to suggest that Miss Maynard should resign her
+office, and on this particular morning he had made an appointment to
+call in order that, as he said, some decision might be arrived at.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Major Clifford, I regret to say, was no churchgoer. In addition to
+which he had an unreasonable objection to what he called &quot;parsons,&quot; and
+was wont to boast that he knew none of them, except the vicar, who was
+a sociable gentleman of a somewhat older school, even by sight.
+However, when he heard that the Rev. Philip Spooner was calling, and
+what was the purport of his intended visit, he announced his intention
+to favour the reverend gentleman with a personal interview, and to
+present him with a piece of his mind. Hence the strong words which head
+this chapter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Maynard was not at all unwilling that he should see the Rev.
+Spooner, but she was exceedingly anxious that he should not wait for
+him as he would for a deadly enemy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Uncle, promise me that you will be calm and gentle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Calm and gentle!&quot; cried the Major, banging his fist upon the table.
+&quot;Calm and gentle! Do you mean to say, miss, that I would harm a fly!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I am afraid, uncle, that Mr. Spooner will not understand you so
+well as I do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then,&quot; said the Major, &quot;if the man doesn't understand me, he must be a
+fool!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In which Miss Maynard begged to differ, so put her hands upon his
+shoulders, which was a favourite trick of hers, and said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Uncle, you do love me, don't you? And I am sure you wouldn't hurt my
+feelings. You will be kind to Mr. Spooner for my sake, won't you?&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_em02" href="#div1Ref_em02">HIS NIECE'S WOOING</a></h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">It was a warm morning in a pleasant country lane, and a young
+gentleman, with a very broad brimmed hat, a very long frock-coat, and a
+very small, stiff shirt collar, was pacing meditatively to and fro,
+evidently waiting for someone. Every now and then he glanced up the
+lane which seemed deserted by ordinary passengers, and if he had not
+been a clergyman would no doubt have whistled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last his patience was rewarded. Over the top of the low hedge a
+coquettish hat appeared sailing along, and presently a young woman came
+meekly round the corner, enjoying the fresh country air. It was Miss
+Maynard. The young gentleman advanced. He seemed to know her, for
+taking off his broad-brimmed hat, he kissed her, much in the same
+fashion as a short time before she had kissed the Major, only much more
+forcibly, and apparently with much enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Em, I thought you were never coming.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't know,&quot; she said, and sighed. &quot;I don't know. It's all vanity. I
+was thinking of your last Sunday's sermon,&quot; she continued as they
+wandered on, seemingly unconscious that his arm was round her waist.
+&quot;It was so true.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They walked on till they reached a gate which opened into a little
+woodland copse. Here, under the mighty trees, the shade was pleasant,
+and the grass cool and refreshing to the eye. They sat at the foot of a
+great old oak.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Em,&quot; said Mr. Roland--by the way, the Rev. John Roland was the young
+gentleman's name--&quot;these meetings are very pleasant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; said Em, who was always truthful, &quot;they are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Therefore, I am afraid to run the risk of ending them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you mean?&quot; cried she.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To be candid, four mornings out of five were taken up by these pleasant
+little meetings, and to end them would be to rob her of one of her most
+important occupations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Em, you know what I mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't,&quot; said she.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You do,&quot; said he.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not,&quot; she said, and looked the other way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I'll tell you.&quot; And he told her. &quot;Em, I can keep silence no
+longer. I must tell your uncle all. And if he forbids me--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't mind saying,&quot; she observed, taking advantage of the pause,
+&quot;that I don't care if he does.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;John,&quot; she whispered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Call me Jack.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No; it's so undignified for a clergyman.&quot; Some people would call it
+undignified for a young woman to lay her hand on a clergyman's
+shoulder. &quot;What do I care if he says no? He never does say what he
+means the first time. I can just turn him round my finger. Whatever he
+said to you he would never dare to say no to me; at least, when I had
+done with him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let us hope so,&quot; said Mr. Roland. &quot;But whatever happens, I feel that I
+have already been too long silent.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't know,&quot; murmured Em, with a saintlike expression in her eyes.
+&quot;I rather like meeting you upon the sly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Roland, as a curate and so on, perceived this to be a sentiment in
+which, under any circumstances, it was impossible for him to
+acquiesce--at least, verbally.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; he declared; &quot;it must not be. This is a matter in which delay is
+almost worse than dangerous. I must go to him at once and tell him all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Maynard yielded. She was not disinclined to have their little
+mutual understanding publicly announced, if only to gratify Miss Gigsby
+and one or two other young ladies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Em,&quot; he continued, &quot;I will go at once, and doubt will be ended.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They went together to the end of the lane, then she departed to do a
+few little errands in the town, and the Rev. John Roland went on his
+visit to Major Clifford.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_em03" href="#div1Ref_em03">THE LADY'S LOVER</a></h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">The Major waited for his visitor--waited in a mood which, in spite of
+his promise to Miss Maynard, promised unpleasantness for Mr. Spooner.
+Time passed on, and he did not come. The Major paced up and down
+stairs, to and from the windows, and from room to room. Finally, he
+took a large meerschaum pipe from the mantelshelf in the smoking-room
+and smoked it in the drawing-room, a thing he would not have dared to
+do--very properly--if Miss Maynard had been at home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I promised young Trafford I'd go and see what I thought of that new
+gun of his,&quot; growled the Major, &quot;and here's that jackanapes keeping me
+in to listen to his insulting twaddle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Major probably forgot that at any rate the jackanapes in question
+had no appointment with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last he threw open the window, and thrusting his head out, looked up
+and down the street to see if he could catch a glimpse of the expected
+Spooner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The fellow's playing with me!&quot; he told himself considerably above a
+whisper. &quot;Like his confounded impudence!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly he caught sight of a shovel hat and clerical garments turning
+the street corner, and re-entering the room with some loss of dignity,
+commenced reading the &quot;Broad Arrow&quot; upside down. Presently there was a
+knock at the street door, and a stranger was shown upstairs
+unannounced.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have called,&quot; he began.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Major rose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am perfectly aware why you have called,&quot; said he. &quot;My niece is not
+at home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; said the visitor. &quot;I am aware--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But,&quot; continued the Major, who meant to carry the thing with a high
+hand, and give Mr. Spooner clearly to understand what his opinions
+were, &quot;she has commissioned me to deal with the matter in her name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Rev. John Roland--for it was the Rev. John Roland--looked somewhat
+mystified. He failed to see the drift of the Major's observation, and
+also did not fail to see that, for some reason, his reception was not
+exactly what he would have wished it to be.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I regret,&quot; he began, with the Major standing bolt upright, glancing at
+him with an air of a martinet lecturing an unfortunate sub for neglect
+of duty, &quot;that it is my painful duty--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sir,&quot; said the Major, stiff as a poker, &quot;you need regret nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Rev. John Roland looked at him. It was very kind of him to say so,
+but a little premature.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was about to say,&quot; he went on, feeling more awkward than he had
+intended to feel, &quot;that owing to circumstances----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On which we need not enter,&quot; said the Major. &quot;Quite so--quite so!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He rose upon his toes, and sank back on his heels. Mr. Roland began to
+blush. He was not a particularly shy man, but under the circumstances
+the Major was trying.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I was about to remark that----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sir,&quot; said the Major, shooting out his right hand towards Mr. Ronald
+in an unexpected manner, &quot;once for all, sir, I say that I know all
+about it--once for all, sir! And the sooner we come to the point the
+better.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Really,&quot; murmured Mr. Roland, &quot;I am at a loss--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then,&quot; cried the Major, suddenly flaring up in a way that was even
+startling, &quot;let me tell you that I wonder you have the impertinence to
+say so. And I may further remark that the sooner you say what you have
+to say, and have done with it, the better for both sides.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thereupon he went stamping up and down the room with heavy strides. Mr.
+Roland was so taken aback, that for a moment he was inclined to think
+that the Major had been drinking.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Major Clifford,&quot; he said, with an air of dignity which he fondly hoped
+would tell, &quot;I came here to speak to you on a matter intimately
+connected with your niece's future happiness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What the dickens do you mean by your confounded impudence? Do you mean
+to insinuate, sir, that my niece's happiness can be affected by your
+trumpery nonsense?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sir,&quot; said Mr. Roland. &quot;Major!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no doubt about it, the Major must be intoxicated. It was
+painful to witness in a man of his years, but what could you expect
+from a person of his habits of life? He began to wish he had postponed
+his visit to another day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't Major me! Don't attempt any of your palavering with me! I'm not
+a fool, sir, and I am not an idiot, sir, and that's plain, sir!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Major,&quot; he said--&quot;Major Clifford, I will not tell you----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will not tell me, sir! What the dickens do you mean by you will
+not tell me? Do you mean to insult me in my own house, sir?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Roland was disposed to think that the insult was all on the other
+side, and inclined to fancy that a man who abused another before he
+knew either his name or errand, could be nothing but a hopeless
+lunatic.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This pains me,&quot; he observed--&quot;pains me more than I can express.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, upon my life!&quot; shouted the Major. &quot;A fellow comes to my house
+with the deliberate intention of insulting me and mine, and yet he has
+the confounded insolence to tell me that it pains him!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Major,&quot; Mr. Roland was naturally beginning to feel a little warm, &quot;you
+are not sober.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sober!&quot; roared the Major. &quot;Not sober! Confound it! this is too much!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And before the curate knew what was coming, the Major took him by the
+collar of his coat, led him from the room, and--let us say, assisted
+him down the stairs. The front door was flung open, and, in broad
+daylight, the astonished neighbours saw the Rev. John Roland, M.A., of
+Caius College, Cambridge, what is commonly called &quot;kicked-out,&quot; of
+Major Clifford's house.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_em04" href="#div1Ref_em04">THE MAJOR'S SORROW</a></h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">After the Major had disposed of his offensive visitor, he went upstairs
+to think the matter over. It began to suggest itself to him that, upon
+the whole, he had not, perhaps, been so kind and gentle as Miss Maynard
+had advised. But then, as he phrased it, the fellow had been so
+confoundedly impertinent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bully me, sir! Bully me!&quot; cried the Major, taking a strong view of Mr.
+Roland's, under the circumstances, exceedingly mild deportment. &quot;And
+the fellow said I wasn't sober! I never was so insulted in my life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Major felt the insinuation keenly, because--for prudential reasons
+only--he was rigidly abstemious.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Miss Maynard returned, she was met at the door by the respected
+housekeeper, Mrs. Phillips, and her own maid, Mary Ann.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, Miss,&quot; began Mrs. Phillips, directly the door was opened, &quot;such
+goings on I never see in all my life--never in all my days. I thought I
+should have fainted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Maynard turned pale. She thought of the mild, if aggravating,
+Spooner, and was fearful that her affectionate relative might in some
+degree have forgotten her emphasised directions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, Miss Em!&quot; chimed in Mary Ann. &quot;Whatever will come to us I don't
+know. If the police were to come and lock us all up, I shouldn't be
+surprised. Not a bit, I shouldn't.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pray shut the door,&quot; observed Miss Maynard, who was still upon the
+doorstep. &quot;Come in here, Phillips, and tell me what is the matter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Maynard looked disturbed. Mr. Spooner was bad enough before, but
+he might make things very unpleasant indeed if anything had occurred to
+annoy him further.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, Miss Em, Mr. Roland has been here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Roland!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, miss. And there was the Major and he a-shouting at each other,
+and the next thing I see was the Major dragging of him downstairs and
+a-shoving of him down the front steps.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Maynard sank upon a chair. She seemed nearly fainting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mrs. Phillips, this is awful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Awful ain't the word for it, miss. It's a case for the police.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mrs. Phillips, this is worse than you can possibly conceive. I must
+see the Major.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Major's in the drawing-room. Can't you hear him, miss?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Maynard could hear him stamping overhead as though he were doing
+his best to bring the ceiling down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you; I will go to him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She did go to him. But first she went to her own room, shutting the
+door carefully behind her. Going to the dressing-table she put her arms
+upon it and hid her face within her hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh!&quot; she said, &quot;whatever shall I do?&quot; Then she cried. &quot;It's the most
+dreadful thing I ever heard of. Oh, how could he find it in his heart
+to treat me so?&quot; She ceased crying and dried her eyes, &quot;Never mind,
+it's not over yet. If he drives me to despair he shall know it was his
+doing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she stood up, took off her hat and coat, washed her face and eyes,
+and entered the drawing-room in her best manner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Major was alone. He was perfectly aware that Miss Maynard had
+returned. He had seen her come up the street, he had heard her enter
+the house, but for reasons of his own he had not gone to meet her with
+that exuberant warmth with which, occasionally, it was his custom to
+greet her. He was in a towering passion. At least, he fully intended to
+be in a towering passion, but at the same time he was fully conscious
+that, under the circumstances, a towering passion was a very difficult
+thing to keep properly towering. And when Miss Maynard entered with the
+expression of her countenance so sweet and saintlike, he knew that
+there was trouble in the air. He looked at his watch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Five-and-twenty minutes to two. Five-and-twenty minutes to two. And we
+lunch at half-past one. Those servants are disgraceful!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he crossed the room to ring the bell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Please don't ring,&quot; said Miss Maynard, quite up to the man&#339;uvre. &quot;I
+wish to speak to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, oh! Then perhaps you'll remember it is luncheon-time, and when
+we're likely to have any regularity in this establishment, perhaps
+you'll let me know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Maynard drew herself up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pray don't attack me,&quot; she observed. &quot;I don't wish to be kicked out of
+the house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Major turned crimson. It was true that someone had been so kicked
+that morning, but it was unkind of Miss Maynard to insinuate that he
+had any desire to kick her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Look here!&quot; he cried, actually shaking his fist at her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't threaten me,&quot; remarked Miss Maynard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Threaten you! You leave me at home to meet a scoundrel!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How dare you!&quot; exclaimed Miss Maynard, who had momentarily forgotten
+whom it was she had left him there to meet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How dare I. Well, upon my soul, this is a pretty thing!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I had never thought that in a matter in which my happiness was so
+involved, my existence so bound up, you could have treated me so
+cruelly!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Major stared. Like Mr. Roland, he was a little puzzled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You tell me that your existence is bound up in that fellow's?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fellow! The fellow is worth twenty thousand such gentleman as you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Major was astounded. The remark amazed him. He really thought Miss
+Maynard must be demented, not knowing that Mr. Roland had thought the
+same thing of him not long before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, Major Clifford, when I am broken-hearted, and you follow me, if
+you ever do, to a miserable tomb, then--then may you never know what it
+is to be a savage!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Major began to be alarmed. He feared Miss Maynard must be seriously
+unwell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Eh! ah! you--you're not well. You--you don't take enough care.
+It's--it's indigestion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indigestion!&quot; cried Miss Maynard, and she sank upon the couch.
+&quot;Indigestion! He breaks my heart, and he says it's indigestion!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She burst into a flood of tears. The Major was terrified.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mrs. Philips!&quot; he shouted. &quot;Mary Ann!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't!&quot; exclaimed Miss Maynard. &quot;Call no one. Let me die alone! You
+have robbed me of the man I love!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Love!&quot; cried the Major, racking his brains to think where the tinge of
+insanity came in the family. &quot;You love Spooner!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Spooner!&quot; replied Miss Maynard with contempt. &quot;I love John Roland.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;John Roland!&quot; yelled the Major, thinking that he must be going mad as
+well. &quot;Who the deuce is he?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He asks me who he is, and he kicked him from his house this morning!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I kicked him!&quot; cried the Major, indignant at the charge. &quot;I kicked
+Spooner!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You did not!&quot; persisted Miss Maynard between her tears. &quot;You kicked
+Roland!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I kicked Spooner!&quot; said the Major.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you mean to say,&quot; enquired Miss Maynard, on whom a light was dimly
+breaking, &quot;that you didn't know the gentleman you kicked was Mr.
+Roland?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Roland!&quot; exclaimed the Major, staggered. &quot;Roland! I swear I thought
+the man was Spooner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh!&quot; gasped Miss Maynard, overwhelmed by the discovery, &quot;Major
+Clifford, what have you done?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Heaven knows!&quot; groaned the Major as he sank into a chair. &quot;Chanced six
+months' hard labour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was silence for a few moments then the Major spoke again:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know what I'll do, I'll write.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Maynard was agreeable. Getting pens, ink and paper he sat down and
+commenced his composition.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My Dear Sir,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:10%">&quot;As an unmitigated idiot and an ungentlemanly ruffian, I am only too
+conscious that I am an ass----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't think I would put unmitigated idiot and ungentlemanly
+ruffian,&quot; suggested Miss Maynard mildly. &quot;Perhaps Mr. Roland would not
+care to marry into a family which contained such characters as that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Marry?&quot; said the Major, arresting his pen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; replied Miss Maynard. &quot;I think I would put it in this way: 'My
+Dear Mr. Roland----'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I never saw the man before. I don't know him from Adam.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never mind,&quot; said Miss Maynard; &quot;I do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the Major wrote as he was told.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My Dear Mr. Roland,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:10%">&quot;I have to apologise for my conduct of this morning, which was entirely
+owing to a gross misconception on my part. If you will kindly call at
+your earliest convenience I will explain fully. I may say that your
+proposition has my heartiest approval--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I don't know what his proposition is,&quot; protested the Major.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Roland's proposition is that he should marry me,&quot; explained Miss
+Maynard. There was silence. Miss Maynard prepared to raise her
+pocket-handkerchief to her eyes. &quot;Of course, if you wish to break my
+heart----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the Major succumbed, and Miss Maynard continued her dictation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">----&quot;and I shall have the greatest pleasure in welcoming you as my
+nephew.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Believe me, with repeated apologies,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:30%">Very faithfully yours,</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:45%">&quot;Arthur Clifford.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Maynard possessed herself of the epistle, and while the Major was
+addressing the envelope, added a postscript of her own:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My Dear Jack,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You see, I call you Jack for once--my silly old uncle has made a goose
+of himself. Please, please come this instant to your own Em, because--I
+will not say I want to kiss you. It would be most unseemly in the
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:40%">&quot;Ever, ever your own</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:60%">&quot;Em.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This choice epistle, containing additions of which he was unconscious,
+the Major packed into an envelope, and, under Miss Maynard's
+supervision, dispatched to its destination by a maid. Then they went
+down, models of propriety, to luncheon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was after that meal, when they were again in the drawing-room, that
+there came a knock at the street door. Steps were heard coming up the
+stairs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is he!&quot; cried Miss Maynard, with that intuition bestowed upon true
+love preparing to receive him in her arms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fortunately, however, he eluded her embrace, because the visitor
+happened to be Mr. Spooner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Spooner!&quot; cried Miss Maynard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Miss--Miss Maynard,&quot; said Mr. Spooner, &quot;I--I beg your pardon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Rev. William Spooner--Major Clifford.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Maynard introduced them. The gentlemen looked at each other. At
+least, the Major looked at Mr. Spooner. Mr. Spooner, after the first
+shy glance, seemed to be studying the pattern of the carpet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;With regard to the purport of your visit,&quot; went on Miss Maynard, using
+her finest dictionary words, &quot;I have to place in your hands my
+resignation of the offices I have hitherto so unworthily held. With
+reference to the unfortunately mismanaged--er--book-keeping, to make
+that all right&quot;--it was rather a comedown--&quot;Major Clifford wishes to
+present you with a donation of,&quot; she paused, &quot;of twenty-five guineas.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fifty,&quot; growled the Major, much disgusted. &quot;For goodness sake, make it
+fifty while you are about it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Just so,&quot; said Miss Maynard blandly. &quot;The Major is particularly
+anxious to make it fifty guineas.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Major glared at her. If they had been alone, and the circumstances
+had been different, he would no doubt have given her a small piece of
+his mind. As it was--well, discretion is the better part of valour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Spooner began his speech:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I--I am sure we shall be very happy; I--I should say we shall
+exceedingly; that is, no doubt the donation is--is-- At the same time,
+Miss--Miss Maynard's services, though--though--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He went blundering on, Miss Maynard looking at him stonily, raising not
+a finger to his help. The Major took his bearings. He was a tall, thin
+young gentleman with a white face--which, however, was just now
+pinkish--white hair upon the top of his head, and a faint suspicion of
+more white hair upon his upper lip. It would have been cruel to apply
+assault and battery to one so innocent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While Mr. Spooner was still stammering, and stuttering there came
+another knock at the street door. Miss Maynard gave a slight jump.
+There was no mistake about it this time. Somebody came bolting up the
+stairs apparently three steps at a time. The door was thrown open.
+Somebody entered the room, and in about two seconds in spite of the
+assembled company Miss Maynard and the Rev. John Roland were locked
+breast to breast. To do the young man justice it was not his idea of
+things at all. He was plainly taken a little aback. But the young
+woman's enthusiasm was not to be restrained.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This,&quot; explained Miss Maynard, holding Mr. Roland by his coat sleeve,
+&quot;this is the Rev. John Roland. John, this is my uncle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a striking difference between the tones in which she made the
+two announcements. The two gentlemen bowed. They had had the pleasure
+of meeting before. One, if not both, felt a little awkward. But Miss
+Maynard did not care two pins how they felt. She transferred her
+attentions to Mr. Spooner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am going to leave St. Giles's,&quot; she observed; &quot;the service is too
+low. I am going to St. Simon Stylites. I suppose, John, I may as well
+tell Mr. Spooner that you are going to be my husband.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">John was silent. So was Mr. Spooner. The latter was gentleman amazed
+not to say indignant. In his heart of hearts he had been persuaded that
+Miss Maynard was consumed by a hopeless passion for William Spooner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps Miss Maynard will become treasurer of the Clothing Club at St.
+Simon Stylites.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had it not been a case of two clergyman, Mr. Roland might possibly have
+liked to have had a try at knocking Mr. Spooner down. As it was he
+refrained.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If Miss Maynard does so honour us, she at least need fear no insults
+from the clergy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Maynard favoured him with a lovely smile, and Mr. Spooner was
+annihilated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Since then Mr. Roland and Miss Maynard have been united in the bonds of
+holy matrimony. The ceremony was performed at St. Simon Stylites, and
+the Rev. William Spooner was, after all, one of the officiating clergy.
+Mr. Roland is at present Vicar of a parish in the neighbourhood of
+Stoke-cum-Poger, of which parish Mrs. Roland is also Vicaress. He is
+very &quot;High,&quot; and it is darkly whispered that certain courts possessing
+very nicely defined spiritual powers have their eyes upon him. Of that
+we know nothing, but we do know that he is possessed of a promising
+family, and that, not so very long ago, Mrs. Roland presented him with
+a second Em.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_relic" href="#div1Ref_relic">A Relic of the Borgias</a></h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">Vernon's door was opened, hastily, from within, just as I had my hand
+upon the knocker. Someone came dashing out into the street. It was not
+until he had almost knocked me backwards into the gutter that I
+perceived that the man rushing out of Vernon's house was Crampton.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear Arthur!&quot; I exclaimed. &quot;Whither away so fast?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stood and stared at me, the breath coming from him with great
+palpitations. Never had I seen him so seriously disturbed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Benham,&quot; he gasped, &quot;our friend, Vernon, is a scoundrel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I did not doubt it. I had had no reason to suppose the contrary. But I
+did not say so. I held my tongue. Crampton went on, gesticulating, as
+he spoke, with both fists clenched; dilating on the cause of his
+disorder with as much freedom as if the place had been as private as
+the matters of which he treated; apparently forgetful that, all the
+time, he stood at the man's street door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know he stole from me my Lilian--promised she should be his wife!
+They were to have been married in a month. And now he's jilted
+her--thrown her over--as if she were a thing of no account. Made her the
+laughing stock of all the town! And for whom do you think, of all the
+women in the world? Mary Hartopp--a widow that should know better! It's
+not an hour since I was told. I came here straight. And now Mr. Vernon
+knows something of my mind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I could not help but think, as he went striding away, as if he were
+beside himself with rage--without giving me a chance to say a
+word--that all the world would quickly learn something of it too.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The moment seemed scarcely to be a propitious one for interviewing
+Decimus Vernon. He would hardly be in a mood to receive a visitor. But,
+as the matter of which I wished to speak to him was of pressing
+importance, and another opportunity might not immediately occur, I
+decided to approach him as if unconscious of anything untoward having
+happened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As I began to mount the stairs there came stealing, rather than walking
+down them, Vernon's man, John Parkes. At sight of me, the fellow
+started.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, Mr. Benham, sir, it's you! I thought it was Mr. Crampton back
+again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I looked at Parkes, who seemed sufficiently upset. I had known the
+fellow for years.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There's been a little argument, eh, Parkes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Parkes raised both his hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A little argument, sir! There's been the most dreadful quarrel I ever
+heard.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is Mr. Vernon?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He's in the library, sir, where Mr. Crampton left him. Shall I go and
+tell him that you would wish to see him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Parkes eyed me in a manner which plainly suggested that, if he were in
+my place, he should wish to do nothing of the kind. I declined his
+unspoken suggestion, preferring, also, to announce myself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I rapped with my knuckles at the library door. There was no answer. I
+rapped again. As there was still no response, I opened the door and
+entered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Vernon?&quot; I cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I perceived at a glance that the room was empty. I was aware that,
+adjoining this apartment was a room which he fitted up as a bedroom,
+and in which he often slept. I saw that the door of this inner room was
+open. Concluding that he had gone in there, I went to the threshold and
+called &quot;Vernon!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My call remained unanswered. A little wondering where the man could he,
+I peeped inside. My first impression was that this room, like the
+other, was untenanted. A second glance, however, revealed a booted
+foot, toe upwards, which was thrust out from the other side of the bed.
+Thinking that he might be in one of his wild moods, and was playing me
+some trick, I called out to him again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Vernon, what little game are you up to now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Silence. And in the silence there was, as it were, a quality which set
+my heart in a flutter. I became conscious of there being, in the air,
+something strange. I went right into the room, and I looked down on
+Decimus Vernon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I thought that I had never seen him look more handsome than he did
+then, as he lay on his back on the floor, his right arm raised above
+his head, his left lying lightly across his breast, an expression on
+his face which was almost like a smile, looking, for all the world as
+if he were asleep. But I was enough of a physician to feel sure that he
+was dead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment or two I hesitated. I glanced quickly about the room. What
+had been his occupation when death had overtaken him seemed plain. On
+the dressing table was an open case of rings. Three or four of them lay
+in a little heap upon the table. He had, apparently, been trying them
+on. I called out, with unintentional loudness--indeed, so loudly, that,
+in that presence, I was startled by the sound of my own voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Parkes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Parkes came hurrying in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did you call, sir?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He knew I had called. The muscles of the fellow's face were trembling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Vernon's dead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dead!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Parkes' jaw dropped open. He staggered backwards.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come and look at him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did as I told him, unwillingly enough. He stood beside me, looking
+down at his master as he lay upon the floor. Words dropped from his
+lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Crampton didn't do it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I caught the words up quickly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course he didn't, but--how do you know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I heard Mr. Vernon shout 'Go to the devil' to him as he went
+downstairs. Besides, I heard Mr. Vernon moving about the room after Mr.
+Crampton had gone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I gave a sigh of relief. I had wondered. I knelt at Vernon's side. He
+was quite warm, but I could detect no pulsation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps, Mr. Benham, sir,&quot; suggested Parkes, &quot;Mr. Vernon has fainted,
+or had a fit, or something.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hurry and fetch a doctor. We shall see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Parkes vanished. Although my pretensions to medical knowledge are but
+scanty, I had no doubt whatever that a doctor would pronounce that
+Decimus Vernon was no longer to be numbered with the living. How he had
+come by his death was another matter. His expression was so tranquil,
+his attitude, as of a man lying asleep upon his back, so natural; that
+it almost seemed as if death had come to him in one of those
+commonplace forms in which it comes to all of us. And yet----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I looked about me to see if there was anything unusual which
+might catch the eye. A scrap of paper, a bottle, a phial, a
+syringe--something which might have been used as a weapon. I could detect
+no sign of injury on Vernon's person; no bruise upon his head or face; no
+flow of blood. Stooping over him, I smelt his lips. There are certain
+poisons the scent of which is unmistakable, the odour of some of those
+whose effect is the most rapid lingers long after death has intervened.
+I have a keen sense of smell, but about the neighbourhood of Decimus
+Vernon's mouth there was no odour of any sort or kind. As I rose, there
+was the sound of some one entering the room beyond.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Decimus?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The voice was a woman's. I turned. Lilian Trowbridge was standing at
+the bedroom door. We exchanged stares, apparently startled by each
+other's appearance into momentary speechlessness. She seemed to be in a
+tremor of excitement. Her lips were parted. Her big, black eyes seemed
+to scorch my countenance. She leaned with one hand against the side of
+the door, as if seeking for support to enable her to stand while she
+regained her breath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Benham--You! Where is Decimus? I wish to speak to him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her unexpected entry had caused me to lose my presence of mind. The
+violence of her manner did not assist me in regaining it. I stumbled in
+my speech.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you will come with me into the other room, I will give you an
+explanation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I made an awkward movement forward, my impulse being to conceal from
+her what was lying on the floor. She detecting my uneasiness,
+perceiving there was something which I would conceal, swept into the
+room, straight to where Vernon lay.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Decimus! Decimus!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She called to him. Had the tone in which she spoke, then, been in her
+voice when she enacted her parts in the dramas of the mimic stage, her
+audiences would have had no cause to complain that she was wooden. She
+turned to me, as if at a loss to comprehend her lover's silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is he sleeping?&quot; I was silent. Then, with a little gasp, &quot;Is he dead?&quot;
+I still made no reply. She read my meaning rightly. Even from where I
+was standing, I could see her bosom rise and fall. She threw out both
+her arms in front of her. &quot;I am glad!&quot; she cried, &quot;I am glad that he is
+dead!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She took me, to say the least of it, aback.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why should you be glad?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why? Because, now, she will not have him!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had forgotten, for the instant, what Crampton had spluttered out upon
+the doorstep. Her words recalled it to my mind. &quot;Don't you know that he
+lied to me, and I believed his lies.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She turned to Vernon with a gesture of scorn so frenzied, so intense,
+that it might almost have made the dead man writhe.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, at any rate, if he does not marry me, he will marry no one else.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her vehemence staggered me. Her imperial presence, her sonorous voice,
+always were, theatrically, among her finest attributes. I had not
+supposed that she had it in her to display them to such terrible
+advantage. Feeling, as I did feel, that I shared my manhood with the
+man who had wronged her, the almost personal application of her fury I
+found to be more than a trifle overwhelming. It struck me, even then,
+that, perhaps, after all, it was just as well for Vernon that he had
+died before he had been compelled to confront, and have it out with,
+this latest illustration of a woman scorned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly, her mood changed. She knelt beside the body of the man who so
+recently had been her lover. She lavished on him terms of even fulsome
+endearment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My loved one! My darling! My sweet! My all in all!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She showered kisses on his lips and cheeks, and eyes, and brow. When
+the paroxysm had passed--it was a paroxysm--she again stood up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What shall I have of his, for my very own? I will have something to
+keep his memory green. The things which he gave me--the things which he
+called the tokens of his love--I will grind into powder, and consume
+with flame.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In spite of herself, her language smacked of the theatre. She looked
+round the room, as if searching for something portable, which it might
+be worth her while to capture. Her glance fell upon the open case of
+rings. With eager eyes she scanned the dead man's person. Kneeling down
+again, she snatched at the left hand, which lay lightly on his breast.
+On one of the fingers was a cameo ring. On this her glances fastened.
+She tore, rather than took it from its place.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll have that! Yes! That!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She broke into laughter. Rising she held out the ring towards me. I
+regarded it intently. At the time, I scarcely knew why. It was, as I
+have said, a cameo ring. There was a woman's head cut in white relief,
+on a cream ground. It reminded me of Italian work which I had seen, of
+about the sixteenth century. The cameo was in a plain, and somewhat
+clumsy, gold setting. The whole affair was rather a curio, not the sort
+of ring which a gentleman of the present day would be likely to care to
+wear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Look at it. Observe it closely! Keep it in your mind, so that you may
+be sure to know it should you ever chance on it again. Isn't it a
+pretty ring--the prettiest ring you ever saw? In memory of him&quot;--she
+pointed to what was on the floor behind her--&quot;I will keep it till I
+die!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Again she burst into that hideous, and, as it seemed to me, wholly
+meaningless laughter. Her bearing, her whole behaviour, was rather that
+of a mad woman, than a sane one. She affected me most unpleasantly. It
+was with feelings of unalloyed relief that I heard footsteps entering
+the library, and turning, perceived that Parkes had arrived with the
+doctor.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">When Vernon's death became generally known, a great hubbub arose. Mrs.
+Hartopp went almost, if not quite, out of her senses. If I remember
+rightly, nearly twelve months elapsed before she was sufficiently
+recovered to marry Phillimore Baines. The cause of Vernon's death was
+never made clear. The doctors agreed to differ; the post-mortem
+revealed nothing. There were suggestions of heart-disease; the jury
+brought it in valvular disease of the heart. There were whispers of
+poison, which, as no traces of any were found in the body, the coroner
+pooh-poohed. And, though there were murmurs of its being a case of
+suicide, no one, so far as I am aware, hinted at its being a case of
+murder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To the surprise of many people, and to the amusement of more, Arthur
+Crampton married Lilian Trowbridge. He had been infatuated with her
+all along. His infatuation even survived her yielding to Decimus
+Vernon--bitter blow though that had been--and I have reason to believe
+that, on the very day on which Vernon was buried, he asked her to be
+his wife. Whether she cared for him one snap of her finger is more than
+I should care to say; I doubt it, but, at least, she consented. At very
+short notice she quitted the stage, and, as Mrs. Arthur Crampton, she
+retired into private life. Her married life was a short, if not a merry
+one. Within twelve months of her marriage, in giving birth to a daughter,
+Mrs. Crampton died.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had seen nothing since their marriage either of her or her husband. I
+was therefore the more surprised when, about a fortnight after her
+death, there came to me a small package, accompanied by a note from
+Arthur Crampton. The note was brief almost to the point of curtness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dear Benham,--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My wife expressed a wish that you should have, as a memorial of her, a
+sealed packet which would be found in her desk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I hand you the packet precisely as I found it.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:40%">Yours sincerely,</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:50%">Arthur Crampton.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Within an outer wrapper of coarse brown paper was an inner covering of
+cartridge paper, sealed with half a dozen seals. Inside the second
+enclosure was a small, duodecimo volume, in a tattered binding. Half a
+dozen leaves at the beginning were missing. There was nothing on the
+cover. What the book was about, or why Mrs. Crampton had wished that I
+should have it, I had not the faintest notion. The book was printed in
+Italian--my acquaintance with Italian is colloquial, of the most
+superficial kind. It was probably a hundred years old, and more. Nine
+pages about the middle of the volume were marked in a peculiar fashion
+with red ink, several passages being trebly underscored. My curiosity
+was piqued. I marched off with the volume there and then, to a bureau
+of translation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There they told me that the book was an old, and possibly, valuable
+treatise, on Italian poisons and Italian poisoners. They translated for
+me the passages which were underscored. The passages in question dealt
+with the pleasant practice with which the Borgias were credited of
+having destroyed their victims by means of rings--poison rings. One
+passage in particular purported to be a minute description of a famous
+cameo ring which was supposed to have belonged to the great Lucrezia
+herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As I read a flood of memory swept over me--what I was reading was an
+exact description, so far as externals went at any rate, of the cameo
+ring, which I had seen Lilian Trowbridge remove after he was dead from
+one of the fingers of Decimus Vernon's left hand. I recalled the
+frenzied exultation with which she had thrust it on my notice, her
+almost demoniac desire that I should impress it on my recollection.
+What did it mean? What was I to understand? For three or four days I
+was in a state of miserable indecision. Then I resolved I would keep
+still. The man and the woman were both dead. No good purpose would be
+served by exposing old sores. I put the book away, and I never looked
+at it again for nearly eighteen years.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The consciousness that his wife had spoken to me, with such a voice
+from the grave, did not tend to increase my desire to cultivate an
+acquaintance with Arthur Crampton. But I found that circumstances
+proved stronger than I. Crampton was a lonely man, his marriage had
+estranged him from many of his friends; now that his wife had gone he
+seemed to turn more and more to me as the one person on whose friendly
+offices he could implicitly rely. I learned that I was incapable of
+refusing what he so obviously took for granted. The child, which had
+cost the mother her life, grew and flourished. In due course of time
+she became a young woman, with all her mother's beauty, and more
+than her mother's charms: for she had what her mother had always
+lacked--tenderness, sweetness, femininity. Before she was eighteen she
+was engaged to be married. The engagement was in all respects an ideal
+one. On her eighteenth birthday, it was to be announced to the world.
+A ball was to be given, at which half the county was expected to be
+present, and the day before, I went down, prepared to take my share in
+the festivities.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the evening, Crampton, his daughter, Charlie Sandys, which was the
+name of the fortunate young gentleman, and I were together in the
+drawing-room. Crampton, who had vanished for some seconds, re-appeared,
+bearing in both his hands, with something of a flourish, a large
+leather case. It looked to me like an old-fashioned jewel case. Which,
+indeed, it was. Crampton turned to his daughter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am going to give you part of your birthday present to-day,
+Lilian--these are some of your mother's jewels.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl was in an ecstacy of delight, as what girl of her age would
+not have been? The case contained jewels enough to stock a shop. I
+wondered where some of them had come from--and if Crampton knew more of
+the source of their origin than I did. Wholly unconscious that there
+might be stories connected with some of the trinkets which might not be
+pleasant hearing, the girl, girl-like, proceeded to try them on. By the
+time she had finished they were all turned out upon the table. The box
+was empty. She announced the fact.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There! That's all!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her lover took up the empty case.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No secret repositories, or anything of that sort? Hullo!--speak of
+angels!--what's this?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What's what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young girl's head and her lover's were bent together over the empty
+box. Sandys' fingers were feeling about inside it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is this a dent in the leather, or is there something concealed beneath
+it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What Sandys referred to was sufficiently obvious. The bottom of the box
+was flat, except in one corner, where a slight protuberance suggested,
+as Sandys said, the possibility of there being something concealed
+beneath. Miss Crampton, already excited by her father's gift, at once
+took it for granted that it was the case.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How lovely!&quot; she exclaimed. She clapped her hands. &quot;I do believe
+there's a secret hiding-place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If there was, it threatened to baffle our efforts at discovery. We all
+tried our hands at finding, it, but tried in vain. Crampton gave it up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll have the case examined by an expert. He'll soon be able to find
+your secret hiding-place, though, mind you, I don't say that there is
+one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was an exclamation from young Sandys.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't you? Then you'd be safe if you did, because there is!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Miss Crampton looked eagerly over his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you found it? Yes! Oh, Charlie! Is there anything inside?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Rather, there's a ring. What a queer old thing! Whatever made your
+mother keep it hidden away in there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I knew, in an instant. I recognised it, although I had only seen it
+once in my life, and that once was sundered by the passage of nineteen
+years. Mr. Sandys was holding in his hand the cameo ring which I had
+seen Lilian Trowbridge remove from Decimus Vernon's finger, and which
+was own brother to the ring described in the tattered volume, which she
+had directed her husband to send me--&quot;as a memory&quot;--as having been one
+of Lucrezia Borgia's pretty playthings. I was so confounded by the rush
+of emotions occasioned by its sudden discovery, that, for the moment, I
+was tongue-tied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Sandys turned to Miss. Crampton.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's too large for you. It's large enough for me. May I try it on?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I hastened towards him. The prospect of what might immediately ensue
+spurred me to inarticulate speech.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't! For God's sake, don't! Give that ring to me, sir!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They stared at me, as well they might. My sudden and, to them,
+meaningless agitation was a bolt from the blue. Young Sandys withdrew
+from me the hand which held the ring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Give it to you?--why?--is it, yours?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As I confronted the young fellow's smiling countenance, I felt myself
+to be incapable, on the instant, of arranging my thoughts in sufficient
+order to enable me to give them adequate expression. I appealed for
+help to Crampton.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Crampton, request Mr. Sandys to give me that ring. I implore you to do
+as I ask you. Any explanation which you may require, I will give you
+afterwards.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Crampton looked at me, open-mouthed, in silence. He never was
+quick-witted. My excitement seemed to amuse his daughter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter with you, Mr. Benham?&quot; She turned to her lover.
+&quot;Charlie, do let me see this marvellous ring.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I renewed my appeal to her father.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Crampton, by all that you hold dear, I entreat you not to allow your
+daughter to put that ring upon her finger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Crampton assumed a judicial air--or what he intended for such.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Since Benham appears to be so very much in earnest--though I confess
+that I don't know what there is about the ring to make a fuss
+for--perhaps, Lilian, by way of a compromise, you will give the ring
+to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One moment, papa: I think that, as Charley says, it is too large for
+me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I dashed forward. Mr. Sandys, mistaking my purpose, or, possibly,
+supposing I was mad, interposed; and, in doing so, killed the girl he
+was about to marry. Before I could do anything to prevent her, she had
+slipped the ring upon her finger. She held out her hand for us to see.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is too large for me--look.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She touched the ring with the fingers of her other hand. In doing so,
+no doubt, unconsciously, she pressed the cameo. A startled look came on
+her face. She gazed about her with a bewildered air. And she cried, in
+a tone of voice which, long afterwards, was ringing in my ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mamma!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ere we could reach her, she had fallen to the ground. We bent over her,
+all three of us, by this time, sufficiently in earnest. She lay on her
+back, her right hand above her head; her left, on one of the fingers of
+which was the ring, resting lightly on her breast. There was the
+expression of something like a smile upon her face, and she looked as
+if she slept. But she was dead.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<h5>W. JOLLY &amp; SONS PRINTERS ABERDEEN</h5>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Between the Dark and the Daylight, by Richard Marsh
+
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diff --git a/37966-h/images/frontispiece.png b/37966-h/images/frontispiece.png
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/37966-h/images/frontispiece.png
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+++ b/37966.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9434 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Between the Dark and the Daylight, by Richard Marsh
+
+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: Between the Dark and the Daylight
+
+Author: Richard Marsh
+
+Release Date: November 9, 2011 [EBook #37966]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN THE DARK AND THE DAYLIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   1. Page scan source:
+      http://books.google.com/books?id=FjMPAAAAQAAJ
+
+   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
+
+
+
+
+
+THIRD IMPRESSION NOW READY
+
+In Crown 8vo, Handsome Pictorial Cloth. Price 6s. With
+Frontispiece by Harold Piffard.
+
+
+                        RICHARD MARSH'S New Book
+
+                       AN ARISTOCRATIC DETECTIVE
+
+                                   BY
+
+                             RICHARD MARSH
+
+                               Author of
+
+          'FRIVOLITIES,' 'THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN,' 'AMUSEMENT
+           ONLY,' 'THE BEETLE,' 'THE CHASE OF THE RUBY,' ETC.
+
+
+Court Circular.--'Mr. Richard Marsh tells in a very agreeable manner a
+number of detective stories of the Sherlock Holmes order.... The plots
+are very ingenious, and are cleverly worked out, and the book
+altogether will enhance the reputation of the author.'
+
+Scotsman.--'Mr. Marsh is a skilled writer ... these tales make a book
+that should not fail to please anyone who can be entertained by
+cleverly made-up mysteries.'
+
+Dundee Advertiser.--'"An Aristocratic Detective" is from the pen of
+Richard Marsh, and displays that writer's customary inventiveness and
+realistic manner. It relates the experiences of the Hon. Augustus
+Champnell, who emulates Sherlock Holmes in the following up of puzzling
+cases. These are very cutely devised and smartly worked out. All
+through Mr. Marsh is thoroughly interesting.'
+
+Eastern Morning News.--'The whole of the sketches are vigorous and
+racy, being told in a lively, up-to-date manner, and some of the
+characters are exceptionally well drawn ... anyone in search of a
+stirring volume will read this one with great interest.'
+
+County Gentleman.--'Mr. Marsh is known to be a skilled craftsman in
+this kind of work, and his Champnell stories are all worth reading.'
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+           London: DIGBY, LONG & CO., 18 Bouverie St., E.C.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                          BETWEEN THE DARK AND
+                              THE DAYLIGHT
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                      POPULAR SIX SHILLING NOVELS.
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+By MAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFITHS
+   A Bid for Empire
+
+By J. B. FLETCHER
+   Bonds of Steel
+
+BY MARY E. MANN
+   The Fields of Dulditch
+
+By HELEN MATHERS
+   Venus Victrix
+
+By Mrs. LEITH-ADAMS (Mrs. De Courcy Laffan)
+   What Hector had to Say
+
+By THE COUNTESS DE SULMALLA
+   Under the Sword
+
+By FERGUS HUME
+   The Crime of the Crystal
+   The Pagan's Cup
+
+By Mrs. BAGOT-HARTE
+   In Deep Waters
+   A Daring Spirit
+
+By FLORENCE WARDEN
+   Lady Joan's Companion
+
+By L. T. MEADE
+   Through Peril for a Wife
+
+By SARAH TYTLER
+   Atonement by Proxy
+   Rival Claimants
+
+By DORA RUSSELL
+   A Strange Message
+   A Fatal Past
+
+By FREDERICK W. ROBINSON
+   Anne Judge, Spinster
+   A Bridge of Glass
+
+                               *   *   *
+
+                      DIGBY, LONG & CO. Publishers
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "IT IS A BIG ORDER," SHE SAID.
+Page 180.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                          Between the Dark and
+                          the Daylight ...
+
+
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+                             RICHARD MARSH
+
+                               AUTHOR OF
+           "THE BEETLE," "FRIVOLITIES," "AMUSEMENT ONLY," "AN
+                     ARISTOCRATIC DETECTIVE," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 London
+                            DIGBY, LONG & CO
+                 18 Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, E.C.
+                                  1902
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+
+   MY AUNT'S EXCURSION.
+
+   THE IRREGULARITY OF THE JURYMAN.
+
+      Chapter   I.--The Juryman is Startled.
+
+         "     II.--Mrs. Tranmer is Startled.
+
+         "    III.--The Plaintiff is Startled.
+
+         "     IV.--Two Cabmen are Startled.
+
+         "      V.--The Court is Startled.
+
+   MITWATERSTRAAND:--The Story of a Shock.
+
+      Chapter   I.--The Disease.
+
+         "     II.--The Cure.
+
+   EXCHANGE IS ROBBERY.
+
+   THE HAUNTED CHAIR.
+
+   NELLY.
+
+   LA HAUTE FINANCE:--A Tale of the Biggest Coup on
+      Record.
+
+   MRS. RIDDLE'S DAUGHTER.
+
+   MISS DONNE'S GREAT GAMBLE.
+
+   "SKITTLES".
+
+   "EM".
+
+      Chapter   I.--The Major's Instructions.
+
+         "     II.--His Niece's Wooing.
+
+         "    III.--The Lady's Lover.
+
+         "     IV.--The Major's Sorrow.
+
+   A RELIC OF THE BORGIAS.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                   BETWEEN THE DARK AND THE DAYLIGHT.
+
+
+
+
+                          My Aunt's Excursion
+
+
+"Thomas," observed my aunt, as she entered the room, "I have taken you
+by surprise."
+
+She had. Hamlet could scarcely have been more surprised at the
+appearance of the ghost of his father. I had supposed that she was in
+the wilds of Cornwall. She glanced at the table at which I had been
+seated.
+
+"What are you doing?--having your breakfast?"
+
+I perceived, from the way in which she used her glasses, and the marked
+manner in which she paused, that she considered the hour an uncanonical
+one for such a meal. I retained some fragments of my presence of mind.
+
+"The fact is, my dear aunt, that I was at work a little late last
+night, and this morning I find myself with a trifling headache."
+
+"Then a holiday will do you good."
+
+I agreed with her. I never knew an occasion on which I felt that it
+would not.
+
+"I shall be only too happy to avail myself of the opportunity afforded
+by your unexpected presence to relax for a time, the strain of my
+curriculum of studies. May I hope, my dear aunt, that you propose to
+stay with me at least a month?"
+
+"I return to-night."
+
+"To-night! When did you come?"
+
+"This morning."
+
+"From Cornwall?"
+
+"From Lostwithiel. An excursion left Lostwithiel shortly after
+midnight, and returns again at midnight to-day, thus giving fourteen
+hours in London for ten shillings. I resolved to take advantage of the
+occasion, and to give some of my poorer neighbours, who had never even
+been as far as Plymouth in their lives, a glimpse of some of the sights
+of the Great City. Here they are--I filled a compartment with them.
+There are nine."
+
+There were nine--and they were about the most miscellaneous-looking
+nine I ever saw. I had wondered what they meant by coming with my aunt
+into my sitting-room. Now, if anything, I wondered rather more. She
+proceeded to introduce them individually--not by any means by name
+only.
+
+"This is John Eva. He is eighty-two and slightly deaf. Good gracious,
+man! don't stand there shuffling, with your back against the wall: sit
+down somewhere, do. This is Mrs. Penna, sixty-seven, and a little lame.
+I believe you're eating peppermints again. I told you, Mrs. Penna, that
+I can't stand the odour, and I can't. This is her grandson, Stephen
+Treen, aged nine. He cried in the train."
+
+My aunt shook her finger at Stephen Treen, in an admonitory fashion,
+which bade fair, from the look of him, to cause an immediate renewal of
+his sorrows.
+
+"This is Matthew Holman, a converted drunkard who has been the worst
+character in the parish. But we are hoping better things of him now."
+Matthew Holman grinned, as if he were not certain that the hope was
+mutual, "This is Jane, and this is Ellen, two maids of mine. They are
+good girls, in their way, but stupid. You will have to keep your eye on
+them, or they will lose themselves the first chance they get." I was
+not amazed, as I glanced in their direction, to perceive that Jane and
+Ellen blushed.
+
+"This," went on my aunt, and into her voice there came a sort of awful
+dignity, "is Daniel Dyer, I believe that he kissed Ellen in a tunnel."
+
+"Please ma'am," cried Ellen, and her manner bore the hall-mark of
+truth, "it wasn't me, that I'm sure."
+
+"Then it was Jane--which does not alter the case in the least." In
+saying this, it seemed to me that, from Ellen's point of view, my aunt
+was illogical. "I am not certain that I ought to have brought him with
+us; but, since I have, we must make the best of it. I only hope that he
+will not kiss young women when he is in the streets with me."
+
+I also hoped, in the privacy of my own breast, that he would not kiss
+young women while he was in the streets with me--at least, when it
+remained broad day.
+
+"This," continued my aunt, leaving Daniel Dyer buried in the depths of
+confusion, and Jane on the verge of tears, "is Sammy Trevenna, the
+parish idiot. I brought him, trusting that the visit would tend to
+sharpen his wits, and at the same time, teach him the difference
+between right and wrong. You will have, also, to keep an eye upon
+Sammy. I regret to say that he is addicted to picking and stealing.
+Sammy, where is the address card which I gave you?"
+
+Sammy--who looked his character, every inch of it!--was a lanky,
+shambling youth, apparently eighteen or nineteen years old. He fumbled
+in his pockets.
+
+"I've lost it," he sniggered.
+
+"I thought so. That is the third you have lost since we started. Here
+is another. I will pin it to your coat; then when you are lost, someone
+will be able to understand who you are. Last, but not least, Thomas,
+this is Mr. Poltifen. Although this is his first visit to London, he
+has read a great deal about the Great Metropolis. He has brought a few
+books with him, from which he proposes to read selections, at various
+points in our peregrinations, bearing upon the sights we are seeing, in
+order that instruction may be blended with our entertainment."
+
+Mr. Poltifen was a short, thick-set individual, with that in his
+appearance which was suggestive of pugnacity, an iron-grey, scrubby
+beard, and a pair of spectacles--probably something superior in the
+cobbling line. He had about a dozen books fastened together in a
+leather strap, among them being--as, before the day was finished, I had
+good reason to be aware--a "History of London," in seven volumes.
+
+"Mr. Poltifen," observed my aunt, waving her hand towards the gentleman
+referred to, "represents, in our party, the quality of intelligent
+interest."
+
+Mr. Poltifen settled his glasses on his nose and glared at me as if he
+dared me to deny it. Nothing could have been further from my mind.
+
+"Sammy," exclaimed my aunt, "sit still. How many times have I to
+request you not to shuffle?"
+
+Sammy was rubbing his knees together in a fashion the like of which I
+had never seen before. When he was addressed, he drew the back of his
+hand across his mouth, and he sniggered. I felt that he was the sort of
+youth anyone would have been glad to show round town.
+
+My aunt took a sheet of paper from her hand-bag.
+
+"This is the outline programme we have drawn up. We have, of course,
+the whole day in front of us, and I have jotted down the names of some
+of the more prominent places of interest which we wish to see." She
+began to read: "The Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, Woolwich
+Arsenal, the National Gallery, British Museum, South Kensington Museum,
+the Natural History Museum, the Zoological Gardens, Kew Gardens,
+Greenwich Hospital, Westminster Abbey, the Albert Memorial, the Houses
+of Parliament, the Monument, the Marble Arch, the Bank of England, the
+Thames Embankment, Billingsgate Fish Market, Covent Garden Market, the
+Meat Market, some of the birthplaces of famous persons, some of the
+scenes mentioned in Charles Dickens's novels--during the winter we had
+a lecture in the schoolroom on Charles Dickens's London; it aroused
+great interest--and the Courts of Justice. And we should like to finish
+up at the Crystal Palace. We should like to hear any suggestions you
+would care to make which would tend to alteration or improvement--only,
+I may observe, that we are desirous of reaching the Crystal Palace as
+early in the day as possible, as it is there we propose to have our
+midday meal." I had always been aware that my aunt's practical
+knowledge of London was but slight, but I had never realised how slight
+until that moment. "Our provisions we have brought with us. Each person
+has a meat pasty, a potato pasty, a jam pasty, and an apple pasty, so
+that all we shall require will be water."
+
+This explained the small brown-paper parcel which each member of the
+party was dangling by a string.
+
+"And you propose to consume this--little provision at the Crystal
+Palace, after visiting these other places?" My aunt inclined her head.
+I took the sheet of paper from which she had been reading. "May I ask
+how you propose to get from place to place?"
+
+"Well, Thomas, that is the point. I have made myself responsible for
+the entire charge, so I would wish to keep down expenses. We should
+like to walk as much as possible."
+
+"If you walk from Woolwich Arsenal to the Zoological Gardens, and from
+the Zoological Gardens to Kew Gardens, you will walk as far as
+possible--and rather more."
+
+Something in my tone seemed to cause a shadow to come over my aunt's
+face.
+
+"How far is it?"
+
+"About fourteen or fifteen miles. I have never walked it myself, you
+understand, so the estimate is a rough one."
+
+I felt that this was not an occasion on which it was necessary to be
+over-particular as to a yard or so.
+
+"So much as that? I had no idea it was so far. Of course, walking is
+out of the question. How would a van do?"
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A van. One of those vans in which, I understand, children go for
+treats. How much would they charge, now, for one which would hold the
+whole of us?"
+
+"I haven't the faintest notion, aunt. Would you propose to go in a van
+to all these places?" I motioned towards the sheet of paper. She
+nodded. "I have never, you understand, done this sort of thing in a
+van, but I imagine that the kind of vehicle you suggest, with one pair
+of horses, to do the entire round would take about three weeks."
+
+"Three weeks? Thomas!"
+
+"I don't pretend to literal accuracy, but I don't believe that I'm far
+wrong. No means of locomotion with which I am acquainted will enable
+you to do it in a day, of that I'm certain. I've been in London since
+my childhood, but I've never yet had time to see one-half the things
+you've got down upon this sheet of paper."
+
+"Is it possible?"
+
+"It's not only possible, it's fact. You country folk have no notion of
+London's vastness."
+
+"Stupendous!"
+
+"It is stupendous. Now, when would you like to reach the Crystal
+Palace?"
+
+"Well, not later than four. By then we shall be hungry."
+
+I surveyed the nine.
+
+"It strikes me that some of you look hungry now. Aren't you hungry?"
+
+I spoke to Sammy. His face was eloquent.
+
+"I be famished."
+
+I do not attempt to reproduce the dialect: I am no dialectician. I
+merely reproduce the sense; that is enough for me. The lady whom my
+aunt had spoken of as "Mrs. Penna, sixty-seven, and a little lame,"
+agreed with Sammy.
+
+"So be I. I be fit to drop, I be."
+
+On this subject there was a general consensus of opinion--they all
+seemed fit to drop. I was not surprised. My aunt was surprised instead.
+
+"You each of you had a treacle pasty in the train!"
+
+"What be a treacle pasty?"
+
+I was disposed to echo Mrs. Penna's query, "What be a treacle pasty?"
+My aunt struck me as really cutting the thing a little too fine.
+
+"You finish your pasties now--when we get to the Palace I'll see that
+you have something to take their place. That shall be my part of the
+treat."
+
+My aunt's manner was distinctly severe, especially considering that it
+was a party of pleasure.
+
+"Before we started it was arranged exactly what provisions would have
+to be sufficient. I do not wish to encroach upon your generosity,
+Thomas--nothing of the kind."
+
+"Never mind, aunt, that'll be all right. You tuck into your pasties."
+
+They tucked into their pasties with a will. Aunt had some breakfast
+with me--poor soul! she stood in need of it--and we discussed the
+arrangements for the day.
+
+"Of course, my dear aunt, this programme of yours is out of the
+question, altogether. We'll just do a round on a 'bus, and then it'll
+be time to start for the Palace."
+
+"But, Thomas, they will be so disappointed--and, considering how much
+it will cost me, we shall seem to be getting so little for the money."
+
+"My dear aunt, you will have had enough by the time you get back, I
+promise you."
+
+My promise was more than fulfilled--they had had good measure, pressed
+down and running over.
+
+The first part of our programme took the form, as I had suggested,
+of a ride on a 'bus. Our advent in the Strand--my rooms are in the
+Adelphi--created a sensation. I fancy the general impression was that
+we were a party of lunatics, whom I was personally conducting. That my
+aunt was one of them I do not think that anyone doubted. The way in
+which she worried and scurried and fussed and flurried was sufficient
+to convey that idea.
+
+It is not every 'bus which has room for eleven passengers. We could not
+line up on the curbstone, it would have been to impede the traffic. And
+as my aunt would not hear of a division of forces, as we sauntered
+along the pavement we enjoyed ourselves immensely. The "parish idiot"
+would insist on hanging on to the front of every shop-window,
+necessitating his being dragged away by the collar of his jacket. Jane
+and Ellen glued themselves together arm in arm, sniggering at anything
+and everything--especially when Daniel Dyer digged them in the ribs
+from behind. Mrs. Penna, proving herself to be a good deal more than a
+little lame, had to be hauled along by my aunt on one side, and by Mr.
+Holman, the "converted drunkard," on the other. That Mr. Holman did not
+enjoy his position I felt convinced from the way in which, every now
+and then, he jerked the poor old soul completely off her feet. With her
+other hand my aunt gripped Master Treen by the hand, he keeping his
+mouth as wide open as he possibly could; his little trick of
+continually looking behind him resulting in collisions with most of the
+persons, and lamp-posts, he chanced to encounter. The deaf Mr. Eva
+brought up the rear with Mr. Poltifen and his strapful of books that
+gentleman favouring him with totally erroneous scraps of information,
+which he was, fortunately, quite unable to hear.
+
+We had reached Newcastle Street before we found a 'bus which contained
+the requisite amount of accommodation. Then, when I hailed one which
+was nearly empty, the party boarded it. Somewhat to my surprise,
+scarcely anyone wished to go outside. Mrs. Penna, of course, had to be
+lifted into the interior, where Jane and Ellen joined her--I fancy that
+they fought shy of the ladder-like staircase--followed by Daniel Dyer,
+in spite of my aunt's protestations. She herself went next, dragging
+with her Master Treen, who wanted to go outside, but was not allowed,
+and, in consequence, was moved to tears. Messrs. Eva, Poltifen, Holman
+and I were the only persons who made the ascent; and the conductor
+having indulged in some sarcastic comments on things in general and my
+aunt's _proteges_ in particular, which nearly drove me to commit
+assault and battery, the 'bus was started.
+
+We had not gone far before I had reason to doubt the genuineness of Mr.
+Holman's conversion. Drawing the back of his hand across his lips, he
+remarked to Mr. Eva--
+
+"It do seem as if this were going to be a thirsty job. 'Tain't my
+notion of a holiday----"
+
+I repeat that I make no attempt to imitate the dialect. Perceiving
+himself addressed, Mr. Eva put his hand up to his ear.
+
+"Beg pardon--what were that you said?"
+
+"I say that I be perishing for something to drink. I be faint for want
+of it. What's a day's pleasure if you don't never have a chance to
+moisten your lips?"
+
+Although this was said in a tone of voice which caused the
+foot-passengers to stand and stare, the driver to start round in his
+seat, as if he had been struck, and the conductor to come up to inquire
+if anything were wrong, it failed to penetrate Mr. Eva's tympanum.
+
+"What be that?" the old gentleman observed.
+
+"It do seem as if I were more deaf than usual."
+
+I touched Mr. Holman on the shoulder.
+
+"All right--leave him alone. I'll see that you have what you want when
+we get down; only don't try to make him understand while we're on this
+'bus."
+
+"Thank you kindly, sir. There's no denying that a taste of rum would do
+me good. John Eva, he be terrible hard of hearing--terrible; and the
+old girl she ain't a notion of what's fit for a man."
+
+How much the insides saw of London I cannot say. I doubt if any one on
+the roof saw much. In my anxiety to alight on one with room I had not
+troubled about the destination of the 'bus. As, however, it proved to
+be bound for London Bridge, I had an opportunity to point out St.
+Paul's Cathedral, the Bank of England, and similar places. I cannot say
+that my hearers seemed much struck by the privileges they were
+enjoying. When the vehicle drew up in the station-yard, Mr. Holman
+pointed with his thumb--
+
+"There be a public over there."
+
+I admitted that there was.
+
+"Here's a shilling for you--mind you're quickly back. Perhaps Mr.
+Poltifen would like to come with you."
+
+Mr. Poltifen declined.
+
+"I am a teetotaller. I have never touched alcohol in any form."
+
+I felt that Mr. Poltifen regarded both myself and my proceedings with
+austere displeasure. When all had alighted, my aunt, proceeding to
+number the party, discovered that one was missing; also, who it was.
+
+"Where is Matthew Holman?"
+
+"He's--he's gone across the road to--to see the time."
+
+"To see the time! There's a clock up over the station there. What do
+you mean?"
+
+"The fact is, my dear aunt, that feeling thirsty he has gone to get
+something to drink."
+
+"To drink! But he signed the pledge on Monday!"
+
+"Then, in that case, he's broken it on Wednesday. Come, let's get
+inside the station; we can't stop here; people will wonder who we are."
+
+"Thomas, we will wait here for Matthew Holman. I am responsible for
+that man."
+
+"Certainly, my dear aunt; but if we remain on the precise spot on which
+we are at present planted, we shall be prosecuted for obstruction. If
+you will go into the station, I will bring him to you there."
+
+"Where are you going to take us now?"
+
+"To the Crystal Palace."
+
+"But--we have seen nothing of London."
+
+"You'll see more of it when we get to the Palace. It's a wonderful
+place, full of the most stupendous sights; their due examination will
+more than occupy all the time you have to spare."
+
+Having hustled them into the station, I went in search of Mr. Holman.
+"The converted drunkard" was really enjoying himself for the first
+time. He had already disposed of four threepennyworths of rum, and was
+draining the last as I came in.
+
+"Now, sir, if you was so good as to loan me another shilling, I
+shouldn't wonder if I was to have a nice day, after all."
+
+"I dare say. We'll talk about that later on. If you don't want to be
+lost in London, you'll come with me at once."
+
+I scrambled them all into a train; I do not know how. It was a case of
+cram. Selecting an open carriage, I divided the party among the
+different compartments. My aunt objected; but it had to be. By the time
+that they were all in, my brow was damp with perspiration. I looked
+around. Some of our fellow-passengers wore ribbons, about eighteen
+inches wide, and other mysterious things; already, at that hour of the
+day, they were lively. The crowd was not what I expected.
+
+"Is there anything on at the Palace?" I inquired of my neighbour. He
+laughed, in a manner which was suggestive.
+
+"Anything on? What ho! Where are you come from? Why, it's the
+Foresters' Day. It's plain that you're not one of us. More shame to
+you, sonny! Here's a chance for you to join."
+
+Foresters' Day! I gasped. I saw trouble ahead. I began to think that I
+had made a mistake in tearing off to the Crystal Palace in search of
+solitude. I had expected a desert, in which my aunt's friends would
+have plenty of room to knock their heads against anything they pleased.
+But Foresters' Day! Was it eighty or a hundred thousand people who were
+wont to assemble on that occasion? I remembered to have seen the
+figures somewhere. The ladies and gentlemen about us wore an air of
+such conviviality that one wondered to what heights they would attain
+as the day wore on.
+
+We had a delightful journey. It occupied between two and three
+hours--or so it seemed to me. When we were not hanging on to platforms we
+were being shunted, or giving the engine a rest, or something of the kind.
+I know we were stopping most of the time. But the Foresters, male and
+female, kept things moving, if the train stood still. They sang songs,
+comic and sentimental; played on various musical instruments,
+principally concertinas; whistled; paid each other compliments; and so
+on. Jane and Ellen were in the next compartment to mine--as usual,
+glued together; how those two girls managed to keep stuck to each
+other was a marvel. Next to them was the persevering Daniel Dyer. In
+front was a red-faced gentleman, with a bright blue tie and an
+eighteen-inch-wide green ribbon. He addressed himself to Mr. Dyer.
+
+"Two nice young ladies you've got there, sir."
+
+Judging from what he looked like at the back, I should say that Mr.
+Dyer grinned. Obviously Jane and Ellen tittered: they put their heads
+together in charming confusion. The red-faced gentleman continued--
+
+"One more than your share, haven't you, sir? You couldn't spare one of
+them for another gentleman? meaning me."
+
+"You might have Jane," replied the affable Mr. Dyer.
+
+"And which might happen to be Jane?"
+
+Mr. Dyer supplied the information. The red-faced gentleman raised his
+hat. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, miss; hope we shall be better
+friends before the day is over."
+
+My aunt, in the compartment behind, rose in her wrath.
+
+"Daniel Dyer! Jane! How dare you behave in such a manner!"
+
+The red-faced gentleman twisted himself round in his seat.
+
+"Beg pardon, miss--was you speaking to me? If you're alone, I dare say
+there's another gentleman present who'll be willing to oblige. Every
+young lady ought to have a gent to herself on a day like this. Do me
+the favour of putting this to your lips; you'll find it's the right
+stuff."
+
+Taking out a flat bottle, wiping it upon the sleeve of his coat, he
+offered it to my aunt. She succumbed.
+
+When I found myself a struggling unit in the struggling mass on the
+Crystal Palace platform, my aunt caught me by the arm.
+
+"Thomas, where have you brought us to?"
+
+"This is the Crystal Palace, aunt."
+
+"The Crystal Palace! It's pandemonium! Where are the members of our
+party?"
+
+That was the question. My aunt collared such of them as she could lay
+her hands on. Matthew Holman was missing. Personally, I was not sorry.
+He had been "putting his lips" to more than one friendly bottle in the
+compartment behind mine, and was on a fair way to having a "nice day"
+on lines of his own. I was quite willing that he should have it by
+himself. But my aunt was not. She was for going at once for the police
+and commissioning them to hunt for and produce him then and there.
+
+"I'm responsible for the man," she kept repeating. "I have his ticket."
+
+"Very well, aunt--that's all right. You'll find him, or he'll find you;
+don't you trouble."
+
+But she did trouble. She kept on troubling. And her cause for troubling
+grew more and more as the day went on. Before we were in the main
+building--it's a journey from the low level station through endless
+passages, and up countless stairs, placed at the most inconvenient
+intervals--Mrs. Penna was _hors de combat_. As no seat was handy she
+insisted on sitting down upon the floor. Passers-by made the most
+disagreeable comments, but she either could not or would not move. My
+aunt seemed half beside herself. She said to me most unfairly,
+
+"You ought not to have brought us here on a day like this. It is
+evident that there are some most dissipated creatures here. I have a
+horror of a crowd--and with all the members of our party on my
+hands--and such a crowd!"
+
+"How was I to know? I had not the faintest notion that anything
+particular was on till we were in the train."
+
+"But you ought to have known. You live in London."
+
+"It is true that I live in London. But I do not, on that account, keep
+an eye on what is going on at the Palace. I have something else to
+occupy my time. Besides, there is an easy remedy--let us leave the
+place at once. We might find fewer people in the Tower of London--I was
+never there, so I can't say--or on the top of the Monument."
+
+"Without Matthew Holman?"
+
+"Personally, I should say 'Yes.' He, at any rate, is in congenial
+company."
+
+"Thomas!"
+
+I wish I could reproduce the tone in which my aunt uttered my name! it
+would cause the edges of the sheet of paper on which I am writing to
+curl.
+
+Another source of annoyance was the manner in which the red-faced
+gentleman persisted in sticking to us, like a limpet--as if he were a
+member of the party. Jane and Ellen kept themselves glued together. On
+Ellen's right was Daniel Dyer, and on Jane's left was the red-faced
+gentleman. This was a condition of affairs of which my aunt strongly
+disapproved. She remonstrated with the stranger, but without the least
+effect. I tried my hand on him, and failed. He was the best-tempered
+and thickest-skinned individual I ever remember to have met.
+
+"It's this way," I explained--he needed a deal of explanation. "This
+lady has brought these people for a little pleasure excursion to town,
+for the day only; and, as these young ladies are in her sole charge,
+she feels herself responsible for them. So would you just mind leaving
+us?"
+
+It seemed that he did mind; though he showed no signs of having his
+feelings hurt by the suggestion, as some persons might have done.
+
+"Don't you worry, governor; I'll help her look after 'em. I've looked
+after a few people in my time, so the young lady can trust me--can't
+you, miss?"
+
+Jane giggled. My impression is that my aunt felt like shaking her. But
+just then I made a discovery.
+
+"Hallo! Where's the youngster?"
+
+My aunt twirled herself round.
+
+"Stephen! Goodness! where has that boy gone to?"
+
+Jane looked through the glass which ran all along one side of the
+corridor.
+
+"Why, miss, there's Stephen Treen over in that crowd there."
+
+"Go and fetch him back this instant."
+
+I believe that my aunt spoke without thinking. It did seem to me that
+Jane showed an almost criminal eagerness to obey her. Off she flew into
+the grounds, through the great door which was wide open close at hand,
+with Ellen still glued to her arm, and Daniel Dyer at her heels, and
+the red-faced gentleman after him. Almost in a moment they became
+melted, as it were, into the crowd and were lost to view. My aunt
+peered after them through her glasses.
+
+"I can't see Stephen Treen--can you?"
+
+"No, aunt, I can't. I doubt if Jane could, either."
+
+"Thomas! What do you mean? She said she did."
+
+"Ah! there are people who'll say anything. I think you'll find that,
+for a time, at any rate, you've got three more members of the party off
+your hands."
+
+"Thomas! How can you talk like that? After bringing us to this dreadful
+place! Go after those benighted girls at once, and bring them back, and
+that wretched Daniel Dyer, and that miserable child, and Matthew
+Holman, too."
+
+It struck me, from her manner, that my aunt was hovering on the verge
+of hysterics. When I was endeavouring to explain how it was that I did
+not see my way to start off, then and there, in a sort of general hunt,
+an official, sauntering up, took a bird's-eye view of Mrs. Penna.
+
+"Hallo, old lady what's the matter with you? Aren't you well?"
+
+"No, I be not well--I be dying. Take me home and let me die upon my
+bed."
+
+"So bad as that, is it? What's the trouble?"
+
+"I've been up all night and all day, and little to eat and naught to
+drink, and I be lame."
+
+"Lame, are you?" The official turned to my aunt. "You know you didn't
+ought to bring a lame old lady into a crowd like this."
+
+"I didn't bring her. My nephew brought us all."
+
+"Then the sooner, I should say, your nephew takes you all away again,
+the better."
+
+The official took himself off. Mr. Poltifen made a remark. His tone was
+a trifle sour.
+
+"I cannot say that I think we are spending a profitable and pleasurable
+day in London. I understood that the object which we had in view was to
+make researches into Dickens's London, or I should not have brought my
+books."
+
+The "parish idiot" began to moan.
+
+"I be that hungry--I be! I be!"
+
+"Here," I cried: "here's half-a-crown for you. Go to that
+refreshment-stall and cram yourself with penny buns to bursting point."
+
+Off started Sammy Trevenna; he had sense enough to catch my meaning. My
+aunt called after him.
+
+"Sammy! You mustn't leave us. Wait until we come."
+
+But Sammy declined. When, hurrying after him, catching him by the
+shoulder, she sought to detain him, he positively showed signs of
+fight.
+
+Oh! it was a delightful day! Enjoyable from start to finish. Somehow I
+got Mrs. Penna, with my aunt and the remnant, into the main building
+and planted them on chairs, and provided them with buns and similar
+dainties, and instructed them not, on any pretext, to budge from where
+they were until I returned with the truants, of whom, straightway, I
+went in search. I do not mind admitting that I commenced by paying a
+visit to a refreshment-bar upon my own account--I needed something to
+support me. Nor, having comforted the inner man, did I press forward on
+my quest with undue haste. Exactly as I expected, I found Jane and
+Ellen in a sheltered alcove in the grounds, with Daniel Dyer on one
+side, the red-faced gentleman on the other, and Master Stephen Treen
+nowhere to be seen. The red-faced gentleman's friendship with Jane had
+advanced so rapidly that when I suggested her prompt return to my aunt,
+he considered himself entitled to object with such vehemence that he
+actually took his coat off and invited me to fight. But I was not to be
+browbeaten by him; and, having made it clear that if he attempted to
+follow I should call the police, I marched off in triumph with my
+prizes, only to discover that the young women had tongues of their own,
+with examples of whose capacity they favoured me as we proceeded. I
+believe that if I had been my aunt, I should, then and there, have
+boxed their ears.
+
+My aunt received us with a countenance of such gloom that I immediately
+perceived that something frightful must have occurred.
+
+"Thomas!" she exclaimed, "I have been robbed!"
+
+"Robbed? My dear aunt! Of what--your umbrella?"
+
+"Of everything!"
+
+"Of everything? I hope it's not so bad as that."
+
+"It is. I have been robbed of purse, money, tickets, everything, down
+to my pocket-handkerchief and bunch of keys."
+
+It was the fact--she had. Her pocket, containing all she possessed--out
+of Cornwall--had been cut out of her dress and carried clean away. It
+was a very neat piece of work, as the police agreed when we laid the
+case before them. They observed that, of course, they would do their
+best, but they did not think there was much likelihood of any of the
+stolen property being regained; adding that, in a crowd like that,
+people ought to look after their pockets, which was cold comfort for my
+aunt, and rounded the day off nicely.
+
+Ticketless, moneyless, returning to Cornwall that night was out of the
+question. I put "the party" up. My aunt had my bed, Mrs. Penna was
+accommodated in the same room, the others somewhere and somehow. I
+camped out. In the morning, the telegraph being put in motion, funds
+were forthcoming, and "the party" started on its homeward way. The
+railway authorities would listen to nothing about lost excursion
+tickets. My aunt had to pay full fare--twenty-one and twopence
+halfpenny--for each. I can still see her face as she paid.
+
+Two days afterwards Master Stephen Treen and Mr. Matthew Holman were
+reported found by the police, Mr. Holman showing marked signs of a
+distinct relapse from grace. My aunt had to pay for their being sent
+home. The next day she received, through the post, in an unpaid
+envelope, the lost excursion tickets. No comment accompanied them. Her
+visiting-card was in the purse; evidently the thief, having no use for
+old excursion tickets, had availed himself of it to send them back to
+her. She has them to this day, and never looks at them without a qualm.
+That was her first excursion; she tells me that never, under any
+circumstances, will she try another.
+
+
+
+
+                    The Irregularity of the Juryman
+
+
+                               Chapter I
+
+                        THE JURYMAN IS STARTLED
+
+His first feeling was one of annoyance. All-round annoyance.
+Comprehensive disgust. He did not want to be a juryman. He flattered
+himself that he had something better to do with his time. Half-a-dozen
+matters required his attention. Instead of which, here he was obtruding
+himself into matters in which he did not take the faintest interest.
+Actually dragged into interference with other people's most intimate
+affairs. And in that stuffy court. And it had been a principle of his
+life never to concern himself with what was no business of his. Talk
+about the system of trial by jury being a bulwark of the Constitution!
+At that moment he had no opinion of the Constitution; or its bulwarks
+either.
+
+Then there were his colleagues. He had never been associated with
+eleven persons with whom he felt himself to be less in sympathy. The
+fellow they had chosen to be foreman he felt convinced was a
+cheesemonger. He looked it. The others looked, if anything, worse.
+Not, he acknowledged, that there was anything inherently wrong in being
+a cheesemonger. Still, one did not want to sit cheek by jowl with
+persons of that sort for an indefinite length of time. And there were
+cases--particularly in the Probate Court--which lasted days; even weeks.
+If he were in for one of those! The perspiration nearly stood on his
+brow at the horror of the thought.
+
+What was the case about? What was that inarticulate person saying?
+Philip Poland knew nothing about courts--and did not want to--but he
+took it for granted that the gentleman in a wig and gown, with his
+hands folded over his portly stomach, was counsel for one side or the
+other--though he had not the slightest notion which. He had no idea how
+they managed things in places of this sort. As he eyed him he felt that
+he was against him anyhow. If he were paid to speak, why did not the
+man speak up?
+
+By degrees, for sheer want of something else, Mr. Roland found that he
+was listening. After all, the man was audible. He seemed capable, also,
+of making his meaning understood. So it was about a will, was it? He
+might have taken that for granted. He always had had the impression
+that the Probate Court was the place for wills. It seemed that somebody
+had left a will; and this will was in favour of the portly gentleman's
+client; and was as sound, as equitable, as admirable a legal instrument
+as ever yet was executed; and how, therefore, anyone could have
+anything to say against it surprised the portly gentleman to such a
+degree that he had to stop to wipe his forehead with a red silk
+pocket-handkerchief.
+
+The day was warm. Mr. Roland was not fond of listening to speeches. And
+this one was--well, weighty. And about something for which he did not
+care two pins. His attention wandered. It strayed perilously near the
+verge of a dose. In fact, it must have strayed right over the verge.
+Because the next thing he understood was that one of his colleagues was
+digging his elbow into his side, and proffering the information that
+they were going lunch. He felt a little bewildered. He could not think
+how it had happened. It was not his habit to go to sleep in the
+morning. As he trooped after his fellows he was visited by a hazy
+impression that that wretched jury system was at the bottom of it all.
+
+They were shown into an ill-ventilated room. Someone asked him what he
+would have to eat. He told them to bring him what they had. They
+brought some hot boiled beef and carrots. The sight of it nearly made
+him ill. His was a dainty appetite. Hot boiled beef on such a day, in
+such a place, after such a morning, was almost the final straw. He
+could not touch it.
+
+His companion attacked his plate with every appearance of relish. He
+made a hearty meal. Possibly he had kept awake. He commented on the
+fashion in which Mr. Roland had done his duty to his Queen and country.
+
+"Shouldn't think you were able to pronounce much of an opinion on the
+case so far as it has gone, eh?"
+
+"My good sir, the judge will instruct us as to our duty. If we follow
+his instructions we shan't go wrong."
+
+"You think, then, that we are only so many automata, and that the judge
+has but to pull the strings."
+
+Mr. Roland looked about him, contempt in his eye.
+
+"It would be fortunate, perhaps, if we were automata."
+
+"Then I can only say that we take diametrically opposite views of our
+office. I maintain that it is our duty to listen to the evidence, to
+weigh it carefully, and to record our honest convictions in the face of
+all the judges whoever sat upon the Bench."
+
+Mr. Roland was silent. He was not disposed to enter into an academical
+discussion with an individual who evidently had a certain command of
+language. Others, however, showed themselves to be not so averse. The
+luncheon interval was enlivened by some observations on the jury system
+which lawyers--had any been present--would have found instructive.
+There were no actual quarrels. But some of the arguments were of the
+nature of repartees. Possibly it was owing to the beef and carrots.
+
+They re-entered the court. The case recommenced. Mr. Roland had a
+headache. He was cross. His disposition was to return a verdict against
+everything and everyone, as his neighbour had put it, "in the face of
+all the judges who ever sat upon the Bench." But this time he did pay
+some attention to what was going on.
+
+It appeared, in spite of the necessity which the portly gentleman had
+been under to use his red silk pocket-handkerchief, that there were
+objections to the will he represented. It was not easy at that stage to
+pick up the lost threads, but from what Mr. Roland could gather it
+seemed it was asserted that a later will had been made, which was still
+in existence. Evidence was given by persons who had been present at the
+execution of that will; by the actual witnesses to the testator's
+signature; by the lawyer who had drawn the will. And then--!
+
+Then there stepped into the witness-box a person whose appearance
+entirely changed Mr. Roland's attitude towards the proceedings; so
+that, in the twinkling of an eye, he passed from bored indifference to
+the keenest and liveliest interest. It was a young woman. She gave her
+name as Delia Angel. Her address as Barkston Gardens, South Kensington.
+At sight of her things began to hum inside Mr. Roland's brain. Where
+had he seen her before? It all came back in a flash. How could he have
+forgotten her, even for a moment, when from that day to this she had
+been continually present to his mind's eye?
+
+It was the girl of the train. She had travelled with him from Nice to
+Dijon in the same carriage, which most of the way they had had to
+themselves. What a journey it was! And what a girl! During those
+fast-fleeting hours--on that occasion they had fled fast--they had
+discussed all subjects from Alpha to Omega. He had approached closer
+to terms of friendship with a woman than he had ever done in the whole
+course of his life before--or since. He was so taken aback by the
+encounter, so wrapped in recollections of those pleasant hours, that for
+a time he neglected to listen to what she was saying. When he did begin
+to listen he pricked up his ears still higher.
+
+It was in her favour the latest will had been made--at least, partly.
+She had just returned from laying the testator in the cemetery in Nice
+when he met her in the train--actually! He recalled her deep mourning.
+The impression she had given him was that she had lately lost a friend.
+She was even carrying the will in question with her at the time. Then
+she began to make a series of statements which brought Mr. Roland's
+heart up into his mouth.
+
+"Tell us," suggested counsel, "what happened in the train."
+
+She paused as if to collect her thoughts. Then told a little story
+which interested at least one of her hearers more than anything he had
+ever listened to.
+
+"I had originally intended to stop in Paris. On the way, however, I
+decided not to do so but to go straight through."
+
+Mr. Roland remembered he had told her he was going, and wondered; but
+he resolved to postpone his wonder till she had finished.
+
+"When we were nearing Dijon I made up my mind to send a telegram to the
+concierge asking her to address all letters to me in town. When we
+reached the station I got out of the train to do so. In the compartment
+in which I had travelled was a gentleman. I asked him to keep an eye on
+my bag till I returned. He said he would. On the platform I met some
+friends. I stopped to talk to them. The time must have gone quicker
+than I supposed, because when I reached the telegraph office I found I
+had only a minute or two to spare. I scribbled the telegram. As I
+turned I slipped and fell--I take it because of the haste I was in. As
+I fell my head struck upon something; because the next thing I realized
+was that I was lying on a couch in a strange room, feeling very queer
+indeed. I did ask, I believe what had become of the train. They told me
+it was gone. I understand that during the remainder of the day, and
+through the night, I continued more or less unconscious. When next day
+I came back to myself it was too late. I found my luggage awaiting me
+at Paris. But of the bag, or of the gentleman with whom I left it in
+charge, I have heard nothing since. I have advertised, tried every
+means my solicitor advised; but up to the present without result."
+
+"And the will" observed counsel, "was in that bag?"
+
+"It was."
+
+Mr. Roland had listened to the lady's narrative with increasing
+amazement. He remembered her getting out at Dijon; that she had left a
+bag behind. That she had formally intrusted it to his charge he did not
+remember. He recalled the anxiety with which he watched for her return;
+his keen disappointment when he still saw nothing of her as the train
+steamed out of the station. So great was his chagrin that it almost
+amounted to dismay. He had had such a good time; had taken it for
+granted that it would continue for at least a few more hours, and
+perhaps--perhaps all sorts of things. Now, without notice, on the
+instant, she had gone out of his life as she had come into it. He had
+seen her talking to her friends. Possibly she had joined herself to
+them. Well, if she was that sort of person, let her go!
+
+As for the bag, it had escaped his recollection that there was such a
+thing. And possibly would have continued to do so had it not persisted
+in staring at him mutely from the opposite seat. So she had left it
+behind? Serve her right. It was only a rubbishing hand-bag. Pretty old,
+too. It seemed that feather-headed young women could not be even
+depended upon to look after their own rubbish. She would come rushing
+up to the carriage window at one of the stations. Or he would see her
+at Paris. Then she could have the thing. But he did not see her. To be
+frank, as they neared Paris, half obliviously he crammed it with his
+travelling cap into his kit-bag, and to continue on the line of
+candour--ignored its existence till he found it there in town.
+
+And in it was the will! The document on which so much
+hinged--especially for her! The bone of contention which all this pother
+was about. Among all that she said this was the statement which took him
+most aback. Because, without the slightest desire to impugn in any
+detail the lady's veracity, he had the best of reasons for knowing that
+she had--well--made a mistake.
+
+If he had not good reason to know it, who had? He clearly called to
+mind the sensation, almost of horror, with which he had recognised that
+the thing was in his kit-bag. Half-a-dozen courses which he ought to
+have pursued occurred to him--too late. He ought to have handed it over
+to the guard of the train; to the station-master; to the lost property
+office. In short, he ought to have done anything except bring it with
+him in his bag to town. But since he had brought it, the best thing to
+do seemed to be to ascertain if it contained anything which would be a
+clue to its owner.
+
+It was a small affair, perhaps eight inches long. Of stamped brown
+leather. Well worn. Original cost possibly six or seven shillings.
+Opened by pressing a spring lock. Contents: Four small keys on a piece
+of ribbon; two pocket-handkerchiefs, each with an embroidered D in the
+corner; the remains of a packet of chocolate; half a cedar lead-pencil;
+a pair of shoe-laces. And that was all. He had turned that bag upside
+down upon his bed, and was prepared to go into the witness-box and
+swear that there was nothing else left inside. At least he was almost
+prepared to swear. For since here was Miss Delia Angel--how well the
+name fitted the owner!--positively affirming that among its contents
+was the document on which for all he knew all her worldly wealth
+depended, what was he to think?
+
+The bag had continued in his possession until a week or two ago. Then
+one afternoon his sister, Mrs. Tranmer, had come to his rooms, and
+having purchased a packet of hairpins, or something of the kind, had
+wanted something to put them in. Seeing the bag in the corner of one of
+his shelves, in spite of his protestations she had snatched it up, and
+insisted on annexing it to help her carry home her ridiculous purchase.
+Its contents--as described above--he retained. But the bag! Surely
+Agatha was not such an idiot, such a dishonest creature, as to allow
+property which was not hers to pass for a moment out of her hands.
+
+During the remainder of Miss Angel's evidence--so far as it went that
+day--one juryman, both mentally and physically, was in a state of dire
+distress. What was he to do? He was torn in a dozen different ways.
+Would it be etiquette for a person in his position to spring to his
+feet and volunteer to tell his story? He would probably astonish the
+Court. But--what would the Court say to him? Who had ever heard of a
+witness in the jury-box? He could not but suspect that, at the very
+least, such a situation would be in the highest degree irregular. And,
+in any case, what could he do? Give the lady the lie? It will have been
+perceived that his notions of the responsibilities of a juryman were
+his own, and it is quite within the range of possibility that he had
+already made up his mind which way his verdict should go; whether the
+will was in the bag or not--and "in the face of all the judges who ever
+sat upon the Bench."
+
+The bag! the bag! Where was it? If, for once in a way, Agatha had shown
+herself to be possessed of a grain of the common sense with which he
+had never credited her!
+
+At the conclusion of Miss Angel's examination in chief the portly
+gentleman asked to be allowed to postpone his cross-examination to the
+morning. On which, by way of showing its entire acquiescence, the Court
+at once adjourned.
+
+And off pelted one of the jurymen in search of the bag.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+                        MRS. TRANMER IS STARTLED
+
+Mrs. Tranmer was just going up to dress for dinner when in burst her
+brother. Mr. Roland was, as a rule, one of the least excitable of men.
+His obvious agitation therefore surprised her the more. Her feelings
+took a characteristic form of expression--to her, an attentive eye to
+the proprieties of costume was the whole duty of a Christian.
+
+"Philip!--what have you done to your tie?"
+
+Mr. Roland mechanically put up his hand towards the article referred
+to; returning question for question.
+
+"Agatha, where's that bag?"
+
+"Bag? My good man, you're making your tie crookeder!"
+
+"Bother the tie!" Mrs. Tranmer started: Philip was so seldom
+interjectional. "Do you hear me ask where that bag is?"
+
+"My dear brother, before you knock me down, will you permit me to
+suggest that your tie is still in a shocking condition?"
+
+He gave her one look--such a look! Then he went to the looking-glass
+and arranged his tie. Then he turned to her.
+
+"Will that do?"
+
+"It is better."
+
+"Now, will you give me that bag--at once?"
+
+"Bag? What bag?"
+
+"You know very well what bag I mean--the one you took from my room."
+
+"The one I took from your room?"
+
+"I told you not to take it. I warned you it wasn't mine. I informed you
+that I was its involuntary custodian. And yet, in spite of all I could
+say--of all I could urge, with a woman's lax sense of the difference
+between _meum_ and _tuum_, you insisted on removing it from my custody.
+The sole reparation you can make is to return it at once--upon the
+instant."
+
+She observed him with growing amazement--as well she might. She
+subsided into an armchair.
+
+"May I ask you to inform me from what you're suffering now?"
+
+He was a little disposed towards valetudinarianism, and was apt to
+imagine himself visited by divers diseases. He winced.
+
+"Agatha, the only thing from which I am suffering at this moment
+is--is----"
+
+"Yes; is what?"
+
+"A feeling of irritation at my own weakness in allowing myself to be
+persuaded by you to act in opposition to my better judgment."
+
+"Dear me! You must be ill. That you are ill is shown by the fact that
+your tie is crooked again. Don't consider my feelings, and pray present
+yourself in my drawing-room in any condition you choose. But perhaps
+you will be so good as to let me know if there is any sense in the
+stuff you have been talking about a bag."
+
+"Agatha, you remember that bag you took from my room?"
+
+"That old brown leather thing?"
+
+"It was made of brown leather--a week or two ago?"
+
+"A week or two? Why, it was months ago."
+
+"My dear Agatha, I do assure you----"
+
+"Please don't let us argue. I tell you it was months ago."
+
+"I told you not to take it----"
+
+"You told me not to take it? Why, you pressed it on me. I didn't care
+to be seen with such a rubbishing old thing; but you took it off your
+shelf and said it would do very well. So, to avoid argument, as I
+generally do, I let you have your way."
+
+"I--I don't want to be rude, but a--a more outrageous series of
+statements I never heard. I told you distinctly that it wasn't mine."
+
+"You did nothing of the sort. Of course I took it for granted that such
+a disreputable article, which evidently belonged to a woman, was not
+your property. But as I had no wish to pry into your private affairs I
+was careful not to inquire how such a curiosity found its way upon your
+shelves."
+
+"Agatha, your--your insinuations----"
+
+"I insinuate nothing. I only want to know what this fuss is about. As I
+wish to dress for dinner, perhaps you'll tell me in a couple of words."
+
+"Agatha, where's that bag?"
+
+"How should I know?"
+
+"Haven't you got it?"
+
+"Got it? Do you suppose I have a museum in which I preserve rubbish of
+the kind?"
+
+"But--what have you done with it?"
+
+"You might as well ask me what I've done with last year's gloves."
+
+"Agatha--think! More hinges upon this than you have any conception.
+What did you do with that bag?"
+
+"Since you are so insistent--and I must say, Philip, that your conduct
+is most peculiar--I will think, or I'll try to. I believe I gave
+the bag to Jane. Or else to Mrs. Pettigrew's little girl. Or to my
+needle-woman--to carry home some embroidery she was mending for me; I
+am most particular about embroidery, especially when its good. Or to
+the curate's wife, for a jumble sale. Or I might have given it to
+someone else. Or I might have lost it. Or done something else with it."
+
+"Did you look inside?"
+
+"Of course I did. I must have done. Though I don't remember doing
+anything of the kind."
+
+"Was there anything in it?"
+
+"Do you mean when you gave it me? If there was I never saw it. Am I
+going to be accused of felony?"
+
+"Agatha, I believe you have ruined me."
+
+"Ruined you! Philip, what nonsense are you talking? I insist upon your
+telling me what you mean. What has that wretched old bag, which would
+have certainly been dear at twopence, to do with either you or me?"
+
+"I will endeavour to explain. I believe that I stood towards that bag
+in what the law regards as a fiduciary relation. I was responsible for
+its safety. Its loss will fall on me."
+
+"The loss of a twopenny-halfpenny bag?"
+
+"It is not a question of the bag, but of its contents."
+
+"What were its contents?"
+
+"It contained a will."
+
+"A will?--a real will? Do you mean to say that you gave me that bag
+without breathing a word about there being a will inside?"
+
+"I didn't know myself until to-day."
+
+By degrees the tale was told. Mrs. Tranmer's amazement grew and grew.
+She seemed to have forgotten all about its being time to dress for
+dinner.
+
+"And you are a juryman?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"And you actually have the bag on which the whole case turns?"
+
+"I wish I had."
+
+"But was the will inside?"
+
+"I never saw it."
+
+"Nor I. It was quite an ordinary bag, and if it had been we must have
+seen it. A will isn't written on a scrappy piece of paper which could
+have been overlooked. Philip, the will wasn't in the bag. That young
+woman's an impostor."
+
+"I don't believe it for a moment--not for a single instant. I am
+convinced that she supposes herself to be speaking the absolute truth.
+Even granting that she is mistaken, in what position do I stand? I
+cannot go and say, 'I have lost your bag, but it doesn't matter, for
+the will was not inside.' Would she not be entitled to reply, 'Return
+me the bag in the condition in which I intrusted it to your keeping,
+and I will show that you are wrong'? It will not be enough for me to
+repeat that I have not the bag; my sister threw it into her dust-hole."
+
+"Philip!"
+
+"May she not retort, 'Then, for all the misfortunes which the loss of
+the bag brings on me, you are responsible'? The letter of the law might
+acquit me. My conscience never would. Agatha, I fear you have done me a
+serious injury."
+
+"Don't talk like that! Under the circumstances you had no right to give
+me the bag at all."
+
+"You are wrong; I did not give it you. On the contrary, I implored you
+not to take it. But you insisted."
+
+"Philip, how can you say such a wicked thing? I remember exactly what
+happened. I had been buying some veils. I was saying to you how I hated
+carrying parcels, even small ones----"
+
+"Agatha, don't let us enter into this matter now. You may be called
+upon to make your statement in another place. I can only hope that our
+statements will not clash."
+
+For the first time Mrs. Tranmer showed symptoms of genuine anxiety.
+
+"You don't mean to say that I'm to be dragged into a court of law
+because of that twopenny-halfpenny bag?"
+
+"I think it possible. What else can you expect?
+
+"I must tell this unfortunate young lady how the matter stands. I
+apprehend that I shall have to repeat my statement in open court, and
+that you will be called upon to supplement it. I also take it that no
+stone will be left unturned to induce you to give a clear and
+satisfactory account of what became of the bag after it passed into
+your hands."
+
+"My goodness! And I know no more what became of it than anything."
+
+"I must go to Miss Angel at once."
+
+"Philip!"
+
+"I must. Consider my position. I cannot enter the court as a juryman
+again without explaining to someone how I am placed. The irregularity
+would transgress all limits. I must communicate with Miss Angel
+immediately; she will communicate with her advisers, who will no doubt
+communicate with you."
+
+"My goodness!" repeated Mrs. Tranmer to herself after he had gone.
+Still she did not proceed upstairs to dress.
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+                       THE PLAINTIFF IS STARTLED
+
+Miss Angel was dressed for dinner. She was in the drawing-room with
+other guests of the hotel, waiting for the gong to sound, when she was
+informed that a gentleman wished to see her. On the heels of the
+information entered the gentleman himself. It seemed that Mr. Roland
+had only eyes for her. As if oblivious of others he moved rapidly
+forward. She regarded him askance. He, perceiving her want of
+recognition, introduce himself in a fashion of his own.
+
+"Miss Angel, I'm the man who travelled with you from Nice to Dijon."
+
+At once her face lighted up. Her eyes became as if they were illumined.
+
+"Of course! To think that we should have met again! At last!"
+
+To judge from certain comments which were made by those around one
+could not but suspect that Miss Angel's story was a theme of general
+interest. As a matter of fact, they were being entertained by her
+account of the day's proceedings at the very moment of Mr. Roland's
+entry. People in these small "residential" hotels are sometimes so
+extremely friendly. Altogether unexpectedly Mr. Roland found himself an
+object of interest to quite a number of total strangers. He was not the
+sort of man to shine in such a position, particularly as it was only
+too plain that Miss Angel misunderstood the situation.
+
+"Mr. Roland, you are like a messenger from Heaven. I have prayed for
+you to come, so you must be one. And at this time of all times--just
+when you are most wanted! Really your advent must be miraculous."
+
+"Ye-es." The gentleman glanced around. "Might I speak to you for a
+moment in private?"
+
+She regarded him a little quizzically.
+
+"Everybody here knows my whole strange history; my hopes and fears; all
+about me. You needn't be afraid to add another chapter to the tale,
+especially since you have arrived at so opportune a moment."
+
+"Precisely." His tone was expressive of something more than doubt.
+"Still, if you don't mind, I think I would rather say a few words to
+you alone."
+
+The bystanders commenced to withdraw with some little show of
+awkwardness, as if, since the whole business had so far been public,
+they rather resented the element of secrecy. The gong sounding, Miss
+Angel was moved to proffer a suggestion.
+
+"Come dine with me. We can talk when we are eating."
+
+He shrank back with what was almost a gesture of horror.
+
+"Excuse me--you are very kind--I really couldn't. If you prefer it, I
+will wait here until you have dined."
+
+"Do you imagine that I could wait to hear what you have to say till
+after dinner? You don't know me if you do. The people are going. We
+shall have the room all to ourselves. My dinner can wait."
+
+The people went. They did have the room to themselves. She began to
+overwhelm him with her thanks, which, conscience-striken, he
+endeavoured to parry.
+
+"I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you for coming in this
+spontaneous fashion--at this moment, too, of my utmost need."
+
+"Just so."
+
+"If you only knew how I have searched for you high and low, and now,
+after all, you appear in the very nick of time."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"It would almost seem as if you had chosen the dramatic moment; for
+this is the time of all times when your presence on the scene was most
+desired."
+
+"It's very good of you to say so;--but if you will allow me to
+interrupt you--I am afraid I am not entitled to your thanks. The fact
+is, I--I haven't the bag."
+
+"You haven't the bag?"
+
+Although he did not dare to look at her he was conscious that the
+fashion of her countenance had changed. At the knowledge a chill seemed
+to penetrate to the very marrow in his bones.
+
+"I--I fear I haven't."
+
+"You had it--I left it in your charge!"
+
+"Unfortunately, that is the most unfortunate part of the whole affair."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+He explained. For the second time that night he told his tale. It had
+not rolled easily off his tongue at the first time of telling. He found
+the repetition a task of exquisite difficulty. In the presence of that
+young lady it seemed so poor a story. Especially in the mood in which
+she was. She continually interrupted him with question and
+comment--always of the most awkward kind. By the time he had made an
+end of telling he felt as if most of the vitality had gone out of him.
+She was silent for some seconds--dreadful seconds; Then she drew a long
+breath, and she said:--
+
+"So I am to understand, am I, that your sister has lost the bag--my
+bag?"
+
+"I fear that it would seem so, for the present."
+
+"For the present? What do you mean by for the present? Are you
+suggesting that she will be able to find it during the next few hours?
+Because after that it will be too late."
+
+"I--I should hardly like to go so far as that, knowing my sister."
+
+"Knowing your sister? I see. Of course I am perfectly aware that I had
+no right to intrust the bag to your charge even for a single instant:
+to you, an entire stranger; though I had no notion that you were the
+kind of stranger you seem to be. Nor had I any right to slip, and fall,
+and become unconscious and so allow that train to leave me behind.
+Still--it does seems a little hard. Don't you think it does?"
+
+"I can only hope that the loss was not of such serious importance as
+you would seem to infer."
+
+"It depends on what you call serious. It probably means the difference
+between affluence and beggary. That's all."
+
+"On one point you must allow me to make an observation. The will was
+not in the bag."
+
+"The will was not in the bag!"
+
+There was a quality in the lady's voice which made Mr. Roland quail. He
+hastened to proceed.
+
+"I have here all which it contained."
+
+He produced a neat packet, in which were discovered four keys, two
+handkerchiefs, scraps of what might be chocolate, a piece of pencil, a
+pair of brown shoe-laces. She regarded the various objects with
+unsympathetic eyes.
+
+"It also contained the will."
+
+"I can only assure you that I saw nothing of it; nor my sister either.
+Surely a thing of that kind could hardly have escaped our observation."
+
+"In that bag, Mr. Roland, is a secret pocket; intended to hold--secure
+from observation--banknotes, letters, or private papers. The will was
+there. Did you or your sister, in the course of your investigations,
+light upon the secret of that pocket?"
+
+Something of the sort he had feared. He rubbed his hands together,
+almost as if he were wringing them.
+
+"Miss Angel, I can only hint at my sense of shame; at my consciousness
+of my own deficiencies; and can only reiterate my sincere hope that the
+consequences of your loss may still be less serious than you suppose."
+
+"I imagine that nothing worse than my ruin will result."
+
+"I will do my best to guard against that."
+
+"You!--what can you do--now?"
+
+"I am at least a juryman."
+
+"A juryman?"
+
+"I am one of the jury which is trying the case."
+
+"You!" Her eyes opened wider. "Of course! I thought I had seen you
+somewhere before today! That's where it was! How stupid I am! Is it
+possible?" Exactly what she meant by her disjointed remarks was not
+clear. He did not suspect her of an intention to flatter. "And you
+propose to influence your colleagues to give a decision in my favour?"
+
+"You may smile, but since unanimity is necessary I can, at any rate,
+make sure that it is not given against you."
+
+"I see. Your idea is original. And perhaps a little daring. But before
+we repose our trust on such an eventuality I should like to do
+something. First of all, I should like to interview your sister."
+
+"If you please."
+
+"I do please. I think it possible that when I explain to her how the
+matter is with me her memory may be moved to the recollection of what
+she did with my poor bag. Do you think I could see her if I went to her
+at once?"
+
+"Quite probably."
+
+"Then you and I will go together. If you will wait for me to put a hat
+on, in two minutes I will return to you here."
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+                        TWO CABMEN ARE STARTLED
+
+Hats are uncertain quantities. Sometimes they represent ten minutes,
+sometimes twenty, sometimes sixty. It is hardly likely that any woman
+ever "put a hat on" in two. Miss Angel was quick. Still, before she
+reappeared Mr. Roland had arrived at something which resembled a mental
+resolution. He hurled it at her as soon as she was through the doorway.
+
+"Miss Angel, before we start upon our errand I should like to make
+myself clear to you at least upon one point. I am aware that I am
+responsible for the destruction of your hopes--morally and actually. I
+should like you therefore to understand that, should the case go
+against you, you will find me personally prepared to make good your
+loss so far as in my power lies. I should, of course, regard it as my
+simple duty."
+
+She smiled at him, really nicely.
+
+"You are Quixotic, Mr. Roland. Though it is very good of you all the
+same. But before we talk about such things I should like to see your
+sister, if you don't mind."
+
+At this hint he moved to the door. As they went towards the hall he
+said:--
+
+"I hope you are building no high hopes upon your interview with my
+sister. I know my sister, you understand; and though she is the best
+woman in the world, I fear that she attached so little importance to
+the bag that she has allowed its fate to escape her memory altogether."
+
+"One does allow unimportant matters to escape one's memory, doesn't
+one?"
+
+Her words were ambiguous. He wondered what she meant. It was she who
+started the conversation when they were in the cab.
+
+"Would it be very improper to ask what you think of the case so far as
+it has gone?"
+
+He was sensible that it would be most improper. But, then, there had
+been so much impropriety about his proceedings already that perhaps he
+felt that a little more or less did not matter. He answered as if he
+had followed the proceedings with unflagging attention.
+
+"I think your case is very strong."
+
+"Really? Without the bag?"
+
+It was a simple fact that he had but the vaguest notion of what had
+been stated upon the other side. Had he been called upon to give even a
+faint outline of what the case for the opposition really was he would
+have been unable to do so. But so trivial an accident did not prevent
+his expressing a confident opinion.
+
+"Certainly; as it stands."
+
+"But won't it look odd if I am unable to produce the will?"
+
+Mr. Roland pondered; or pretended to.
+
+"No doubt the introduction of the will would bring the matter to an
+immediate conclusion. But, as it is, your own statement is so clear
+that it seems to me to be incontrovertible."
+
+"Truly? And do your colleagues think so also?"
+
+He knew no more what his "colleagues" thought than the man in the moon.
+But that was of no consequence.
+
+"I think you may take it for granted that they are not all idiots. I
+believe, indeed, that it is generally admitted that in most juries
+there is a preponderance of common sense."
+
+She sighed, a little wistfully, as if the prospect presented by his
+words was not so alluring as she would have desired. She kept her eyes
+fixed on his face--a fact of which he was conscious.
+
+"Oh, I wish I could find the will!"
+
+While he was still echoing her wish with all his heart a strange thing
+happened.
+
+The cabman turned a corner. It was dark. He did not think it necessary
+to slacken his pace. Nor, perhaps, to keep a keen look-out for what was
+advancing in an opposite direction. Tactics which a brother Jehu
+carefully followed. Another hansom was coming round that corner too.
+Both drivers, perceiving that their zeal was excessive, endeavoured to
+avoid disaster by dragging their steeds back upon their haunches. Too
+late! On the instant they were in collision. In that brief, exciting
+moment Mr. Roland saw that the sole occupant of the other hansom was a
+lady. He knew her. She knew him.
+
+"It's Agatha!" he cried.
+
+"Philip!" came in answer.
+
+Before either had a chance to utter another word hansoms, riders, and
+drivers were on the ground. Fortunately the horses kept their heads,
+being possibly accustomed to little diversions of the kind. They merely
+continued still, as if waiting to see what would happen next. In
+consequence he was able to scramble out himself, and to assist Miss
+Angel in following him.
+
+"Are you hurt?" he asked.
+
+"I don't think so; not a bit."
+
+"Excuse me, but my sister's in the other cab."
+
+"Your sister!"
+
+He did not wait to hear. He was off like a flash. From the ruins of the
+other vehicle--which seemed to have suffered most in the contact--he
+gradually extricated the dishevelled Mrs. Tranmer. She seemed to be in
+a sad state. He led her to a chemist's shop, which luckily stood open
+close at hand, accompanied by Miss Angel and a larger proportion of the
+crowd than the proprietor appeared disposed to welcome. He repeated the
+inquiry he had addressed to Miss Angel.
+
+"Are you hurt?"
+
+This time the response was different.
+
+"Of course I'm hurt. I'm shaken all to pieces; every bone in my body's
+broken; there's not a scrap of life left in me. Do you suppose I'm the
+sort of creature who can be thrown about like a shuttlecock and not be
+hurt?"
+
+Something, however, in her tone suggested that her troubles might after
+all be superficial.
+
+"If you will calm yourself, Agatha, perhaps you may find that your
+injuries are not so serious as you imagine."
+
+"They couldn't be, or I should be dead. The worst of it is that this
+all comes of my flying across London to take that twopenny-halfpenny
+bag to that ridiculous young woman of yours."
+
+He started.
+
+"The bag! Agatha! have you found it?"
+
+"Of course I've found it. How do you suppose I could be tearing along
+with it in my hands if I hadn't?" The volubility of her utterance
+pointed to a rapid return to convalescence. "It seems that I gave it to
+Jane, or she says that I did, though I have no recollection of doing
+anything of the kind. As she had already plenty of better bags of her
+own, probably most of them mine, she didn't want it, so she gave it to
+her sister-in-law. Directly I heard that, I dragged her into a cab and
+tore off to the woman's house. The woman was out, and, of course, she'd
+taken the bag with her to do some shopping. I packed off her husband
+and half-a-dozen children to scour the neighbourhood for her in
+different directions, and I thought I should have a fit while I waited.
+The moment she appeared I snatched the bag from her hand, flung myself
+back into the cab--and now the cab has flung me out into the road, and
+heaven only knows if I shall ever be the same woman I was before I
+started."
+
+"And the bag! Where is it?"  She looked about her with bewildered eyes.
+
+"The bag? I haven't the faintest notion. I must have left it in the
+cab."
+
+Mr. Roland rushed out into the street. He gained the vehicle in which
+Mrs. Tranmer had travelled. It seemed that one of the shafts had been
+wrenched right off, but they had raised it to what was as nearly an
+upright position as circumstances permitted.
+
+"Where's the hand-bag which was in that cab?"
+
+"Hand-bag?" returned the driver. "I ain't seen no hand-bag. So far I
+ain't hardly seen the bloomin' cab."
+
+A voice was heard at Mr. Roland's elbows.
+
+"This here bloke picked up a bag--I see him do it."
+
+Mr. Roland's grip fastened on the shoulder of the "bloke" alluded to,
+an undersized youth apparently not yet in his teens. The young
+gentleman resented the attention.
+
+"'Old 'ard, guv'nor! I picked up the bag, that's all right; I was just
+a-wondering who it might belong to."
+
+"It belongs to the lady who was riding in the cab. Kindly hand it
+over."
+
+It was "handed over"; borne back into the chemist's shop; proffered to
+Miss Angel.
+
+"I believe that this is the missing bag, apparently not much the worse
+for its various adventures."
+
+"It is the bag." She opened it. Apparently it was empty. But on her
+manipulating an unseen fastening an inner pocket was disclosed. From it
+she took a folded paper. "And here is the will!"
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+                         THE COURT IS STARTLED
+
+They dined together--it was still not too late to dine--in a private
+room at the Piccadilly Restaurant. Mrs. Tranmer found that she was,
+indeed, not irreparably damaged; and by the time she could be induced
+to look over the fact that she was not what she called "dressed" she
+began to enjoy herself uncommonly well. Delia Angel was in the highest
+spirits, which, on the whole, was not surprising. The recovery of the
+bag and the will had transformed the world into a rose-coloured
+Paradise. The evening was one continuous delight. As for Philip
+Roland--his mood was akin to Miss Angel's. Everything which had begun
+badly was ending well. He was the host. The meal did credit to his
+choice--and to the cook. The wine was worthy of the toasts they drank.
+There was one toast which was not formally proposed, and of which, even
+in his heart he did not dream, but whose presence was answerable for
+not a little of the rapture which crowned the feast--"The Birth of
+Romance." His life had been tolerably commonplace and grey. For the
+first time that night Romance had entered into it. It was just possible
+that, maintaining the place it had gained, it would continue to the end.
+So might it be; for sure, the Spirit is the best of company.
+
+After dinner the three journeyed together to Miss Angel's solicitor. He
+lived in town, not far away from where they were, and though the hour
+was uncanonical it was not so very late. And though he was amazed at
+being required to do business at such a season, the tale they had to
+tell amazed him more. Nor was he indisposed to commend them for coming
+straight away to him with it at once.
+
+He heard them to an end. Then he looked at the bag; then at the will.
+Then once more at the bag; then at the will again. Then he smoothed his
+chin.
+
+"It seems to me--speaking without prejudice--that this ends the matter.
+In the face of this the other side is left without a leg to stand
+upon. With this in your hand"--he was tapping the will with his
+finger-tip--"I cannot but think, Miss Angel, that you must carry all
+before you."
+
+"So I should imagine."
+
+He contemplated Mr. Roland.
+
+"So you, sir, are one of the jury. As at present advised, I cannot see
+how, in the course of action which you have pursued, blame can in any
+way be attached to you. But, at the same time, I am bound to observe
+that in the course of a somewhat lengthy experience I cannot recall a
+single instance of a juryman--an actual juryman--playing such a part as
+you have done. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, the position
+you have taken up is--in a really superlative degree--irregular."
+
+Such, also, seemed to be the opinion of counsel before whom, at a
+matutinal hour, he laid the facts of the case. When, in view of those
+facts, counsel on both sides conferred before the case was opened, the
+general feeling plainly pointed in the same direction. And, on its
+being stated in open court that, in face of the discovery of the
+vanished will, all opposition to Miss Delia Angel would, with
+permission, be at once withdrawn, it was incidentally mentioned how the
+discovery had been brought about. All eyes, turning to the jury-box,
+fastened on Philip Roland, whose agitated countenance pointed the
+allusion. The part which he had played having been made sufficiently
+plain, the judge himself joined in the general stare. His lordship went
+so far as to remark that while he was pleased to accede to the
+application which had been made to him to consider the case at an end,
+being of opinion that the matter had been brought to a very proper
+termination, still he could not conceal from himself that, so far as he
+could gather from what had been said, the conduct of one of the
+jurymen, even allowing some latitude--here his lordship's eyes seemed
+to twinkle--was marked by a considerable amount of irregularity.
+
+
+
+
+                            Mitwaterstraand
+
+                          THE STORY OF A SHOCK
+
+
+                               Chapter I
+
+                              THE DISEASE
+
+On the night before their daughter's Wedding Mr. and Mrs. Staunton gave
+a ball. As the festivities were drawing to a close, Mr. Staunton
+button-holed the bridegroom of the morrow.
+
+"By the way, Burgoyne, there's one thing with reference to Minnie I
+wish to speak to you about. I--I'm not sure I oughtn't to have spoken
+to you before."
+
+In the ball-room they were playing a waltz. Mr. Burgoyne's heart was
+with the dancers.
+
+"About Minnie? What about Minnie? Don't you think that the little I
+don't know about her already, I shall find out soon enough upon my own
+account?"
+
+"This is something--this is something that you ought to be told."
+
+Mr. Staunton hesitated, and the opportunity was lost. The next morning
+Mr. Burgoyne was married.
+
+During their honeymoon the newly-married pair spent a night at Mont St.
+Michel. In the course of that night an unpleasant incident took place.
+There was a bright moon, and the occupants of the bedrooms gathered on
+the balconies of the Maison Blanche to enjoy its radiance. The room
+next to theirs was tenanted by two sisters, Brooklyn girls. The
+costumes of these young ladies, although in that somewhat remote corner
+of the world, would have made an impression on the Boulevards, and
+still more emphatically in the Park. The married one--a Mrs. Homer
+Joy--wore some striking jewellery, in particular a diamond brooch,
+redolent of Tiffany, which would have attracted notice on a Shah night
+at the opera. Mr. Burgoyne had noticed this brooch earlier in the day,
+and had told himself that we must have returned to the days of King
+Alfred--with several points in our favour--if a woman could journey
+round the world with that advertisement in diamond work flashing in
+the sun.
+
+Someone proposed a midnight stroll about the rock. They strolled. In
+the morning there was a terrible to-do. The advertisement in diamond
+work had disappeared!--stolen!--giving satisfactory proof that in those
+parts, at any rate, the days of King Alfred were now no more.
+
+Mrs. Joy stated that, previous to starting for the midnight ramble
+about the Mount, she had placed it on her dressing-table, apparently
+despising the precaution of placing it even in an ordinary box. She was
+not even sure that she had closed her bedroom door, so it had, of
+course, struck the eye of the first person who strolled that way, and,
+in all probability, that person had, in the American sense, "struck
+it." Mont St. Michel was still in a little tumult of excitement when
+Mr. and Mrs. Burgoyne journeyed on their way.
+
+Oddly enough, this discordant note, once struck, was struck again--kept
+on striking, in fact. At almost every place where the honeymooners
+stopped for an appreciable length of time there something was lost.
+It seemed fatality. At Morlaix, a set of quaint, old, hammered
+silver-spoons, which had accompanied their coffee, vanished--not,
+according to the indignant innkeeper, into thin air, but into somebody's
+pockets. It was most annoying. At Brest, Quimper Vannes, Nantes, and
+afterwards through Touraine and up the Loire, it was the same tale, the
+loss of something of appreciable value--somebody else's property, not
+their's--accompanied their visitation. The coincidence was singular.
+However they did seem to have shaken off the long arm of coincidence
+at last. There had been no sort of unpleasantness at either of the last
+two or three places at which they had stopped, and when they reached
+Paris at last, they were so contented with all the world, that each
+seemed to have forgotten everything in the existence of the other.
+
+They stayed at the Grand Hotel--for privacy few places can compete with
+a large hotel--and directly they stayed the annoyances began again. It
+was indeed most singular. On the very morning after their arrival a
+notice was posted in the _salle de lecture_ that the night before a
+lady had lost her fan--something historical in fans, and quite unique.
+She had been seated outside the reading-room--the Burgoynes must have
+been arriving at that very moment--preparatory to going to the opera.
+She laid this wonderful fan on a chair beside her, it was only for an
+instant, yet when she turned it was gone. The administration charitably
+suggested--in their notice--that someone of their lady guests had
+mistaken it for her own.
+
+That same evening a really remarkable tale was whispered about
+the place. A certain lady and gentleman--not our pair, but
+another--happened to be honeymooning in the hotel. Monsieur had left
+Madame asleep in bed. When she got up and began to dress, she discovered
+that the larger and more valuable portion of the jewellery which had
+been given her as wedding presents, and which she, perhaps foolishly,
+had brought abroad, had gone--apparently vanished into air. The
+curious part of the tale was this. She had dreamed that she saw a
+woman--unmistakably a lady--trying on this identical jewellery before
+the looking-glass. Query, was it a dream? Or had she, lying in bed, in
+a half somnolent condition, been the unconscious witness of an actual
+occurrence?
+
+"Upon my word," declared Mr. Burgoyne to his wife, "If the thing
+weren't actually impossible, I should be inclined to believe that we
+were the victims of some elaborate practical joke; that people were in
+a conspiracy to make us believe that ill luck dogged our steps!"
+
+Mrs. Burgoyne smiled. She was putting on her bonnet before the glass.
+They were preparing to sally out for a quiet dinner on the boulevard.
+
+"You silly Charlie! What queer ideas you get in your head. What does it
+matter to us if foolish people lose their things? We have not a mission
+to make folks wiser, or, what amounts to the same thing, to compel them
+to keep valuable things in secure places."
+
+The lady, who had finished her performance at the glass, came and put
+her hands upon her lord's two shoulders,
+
+"My dear child, don't look so black? I shall be much better prepared to
+discuss that, or any subject, when--we have dined."
+
+The lady made a little _moue_ and kissed him on the lips. Then they
+went downstairs. But when they had got so far upon their road, the
+gentleman discovered that he had brought no money in his pockets.
+Leaving his wife in the _salle de lecture_, he returned to his bedroom
+to supply the omission.
+
+The desk in which he kept his loose cash was at that moment standing on
+the chest of drawers. On the top of it was a bag of his wife's--a bag
+on which she set much store. In it she kept her more particular
+belongings, and such care did she take of it that he never remembered
+to have seen it left out of her locked-up trunk before. Now, taking
+hold of it in his haste, he was rather surprised to find that it was
+unlocked--it was not only unlocked, but it flew wide open, and in
+flying open some of the contents fell upon the floor. He stooped to
+pick them up again.
+
+The first thing he picked up was a silver spoon, the next was an ivory
+chessman, the next was a fan, and the next--was a diamond brooch.
+
+He stared at these things in a sort of dream, and at the last
+especially. He had seen the thing before. But where?
+
+Good God! it came upon him in a flash! It was the advertisement in
+diamond work which had been the property of Mrs. Homer Joy!
+
+He was seized with a sort of momentary paralysis, continuing to stare
+at the brooch as though he had lost the power of volition. It was with
+an effort that he obtained sufficient mastery over himself to be able
+to turn his attention to the other articles he held. He knew two of
+them. The spoon was one of the spoons which had been lost at Morlaix;
+the chessman was one of a very curious set of chessmen which had
+disappeared at Vannes. From the notice which had been posted in the
+_salle de lecture_ he had no difficulty in recognising the fan which
+had vanished from the chair.
+
+It was some moments before he realised what the presence of those
+things must mean, and when he did realize it a metamorphosis had taken
+place--the Charles Burgoyne standing there was not the Charles Burgoyne
+who had entered the room. Without any outward display of emotion, in a
+cold, mechanical way he placed the articles he held upon one side, and
+turned the contents of the bag out upon the drawers.
+
+They presented a curious variety at any rate. As he gazed at them he
+experienced that singular phenomenon--the inability to credit the
+evidence of his own eyes. There were the rest of the chessmen, the
+rest of the spoons, nick-nacks, a quaint, old silver cream-jug,
+jewellery--bracelets, rings, ear-rings, necklaces, pins, lockets,
+brooches, half the contents of a jeweller's shop. As he stood staring
+at this very miscellaneous collection, the door opened, and his wife
+came in.
+
+She smiled as she entered.
+
+"Charlie, have they taken your money too? Are you aware, sir, how
+hungry I am?"
+
+He did not turn when he heard her voice. He continued motionless,
+looking at the contents of the bag. She advanced towards him and saw
+what he was looking at. Then he turned and they were face to face.
+
+He never knew what was the fashion of his countenance. He could not
+have analysed his feelings to save his life. But, as he looked at her,
+his wife of yesterday, the woman whom he loved, she seemed to shrivel
+up before his eyes, and sank upon the floor. There was silence. Then
+she made a little gesture towards him with her two hands. She fell
+forward, hiding her face on the ground at his feet, prisoning his legs
+with her arms.
+
+"How came these things into your bag?"
+
+He did not know his own voice, it was so dry and harsh. She made no
+answer.
+
+"Did you steal them?"
+
+Still silence. He felt a sort of rage rising within him.
+
+"There are one or two questions you must answer. I am sorry to have to
+put them; it is not my fault. You had better get up from the floor."
+
+She never moved. For his life he could not have touched her.
+
+"I suppose--." He was choked, and paused. "I suppose that woman's
+jewels are some of these?"
+
+No answer. Recognising the hopelessness of putting questions to her
+now, he gathered the various articles together and put them back into
+the bag.
+
+"I'm afraid you will have to dine alone."
+
+That was all he said to her. With the bag in his hand he left the room,
+leaving her in a heap upon the floor. He sneaked rather than walked out
+of the hotel. Supposing they caught him red-handed, with that thing in
+his hand? He only began to breathe freely when he was out in the
+street.
+
+Possibly no man in Paris spent the night of that twentieth of June more
+curiously than Mr. Burgoyne. When he returned it was four o'clock in
+the morning, and broad day. He was worn-out, haggard, the spectre
+of a man. In the bedroom he found his wife just as he had left her,
+in a heap upon the floor, but fast asleep. She had removed none
+of her clothes, not even her bonnet or her gloves. She had been
+crying--apparently had cried herself to sleep. As he stood looking
+down at her he realised how he loved her--the woman, the creature of
+flesh and blood, apart entirely from her moral qualities. He placed
+the bag within his trunk and locked it up. Then, kneeling beside his
+wife, he stooped and kissed her as she slept. The kiss aroused her. She
+woke as wakes a child, and, putting her arms about his neck, she kissed
+him back again. Not a word was spoken. Then she got up. He helped her to
+undress, and put her into a bed as though she were a child. Then he
+undressed himself, and joined her. And they fell fast asleep locked in
+each other's arms.
+
+That night they returned to London. The bag went with them. On the
+morning after their arrival, Mr. Burgoyne took a cab into the city, the
+fatal bag beside him on the seat. He drove straight to Mr. Staunton's
+office. When he entered, unannounced, his father-in-law started as
+though he were a ghost.
+
+"Burgoyne! What brings you here? I hope there's nothing wrong?"
+
+Mr. Burgoyne did not reply at once. He placed the bag--Minnie's
+bag--upon the table. He kept his eyes fixed upon his father-in-law's
+countenance.
+
+"Burgoyne! Why do you look at me like that?"
+
+"I have something here I wish to show you." That was Mr. Burgoyne's
+greeting. He opened the bag, and turned its contents out upon the
+table. "Not a bad haul from Breton peasants,--eh?"
+
+Mr. Staunton stared at the heap of things thus suddenly disclosed.
+
+"Burgoyne," he stammered, "what's the meaning of this?"
+
+"Are you quite sure you don't know what it means?"
+
+Looking up, Mr. Staunton caught the other's eyes. He seemed to read
+something there which carried dreadful significance to his brain. His
+glance fell and he covered his face with his hands. At last he found
+his voice.
+
+"Minnie?"
+
+The word was gasped rather than spoken. Mr. Burgoyne's reply was
+equally brief.
+
+"Minnie!"
+
+"Good God!"
+
+There was silence for perhaps a minute. Then Mr. Burgoyne locked the
+door of the room and stood before the empty fire-place.
+
+"It is by the merest chance that I am not at this moment booked for the
+_travaux forces_. Some of those jewels were stolen from a woman's
+dressing case at the Grand Hotel, with the woman herself in bed and
+more than half awake at the time. She talked about having every guest
+in the place searched by the police. If she had done so, you would have
+heard from us as soon as the rules of the prison allowed us to
+communicate."
+
+Mr. Burgoyne paused. Mr. Staunton kept his eyes fixed upon the table.
+
+"That's what I wanted to tell you the night before the wedding, only
+you wouldn't stop. She's a kleptomaniac."
+
+Mr. Burgoyne smiled, not gaily.
+
+"Do you mean she's a habitual thief?"
+
+"It's a disease."
+
+"I've no doubt it's a disease. But perhaps you'll be so kind as to
+accurately define what in the present case you understand by disease."
+
+"When she was a toddling child she took things, and secreted them--it's
+a literal fact. When she got into short frocks she continued to capture
+everything that caught her eye. When she exchanged them for long ones
+it was the same. It was not because she wanted the things, because she
+never attempted to use them when she had them. She just put them
+somewhere--as a magpie might--and forget their existence. You had only
+to find out where they were and take them away again, and she was never
+one whit the wiser. In that direction she's irresponsible--it's a
+disease in fact."
+
+"If it is, as you say, a disease, have you ever had it medically
+treated?"
+
+"She has been under medical treatment her whole life long. I suppose we
+have consulted half the specialists in England. Our own man, Muir, has
+given the case his continual attention. He has kept a regular journal,
+and can give you more light upon the subject than I can. You have no
+conception what a life-long torture it has been to me."
+
+"I have a very clear conception indeed. But don't you think you might
+have enlightened me upon the matter before?"
+
+Rising from his seat, Mr. Staunton began to pace the room
+
+"I do! I think so very strongly indeed. But--but--I was over persuaded.
+As you know, I tried at the very last moment; even then I failed.
+Besides, it was suggested to me that marriage might be the turning
+point, and that the woman might be different from the girl. Don't
+misunderstand me! She is not a bad girl; she is a good girl in the best
+possible sense, a girl in a million! No better daughter ever lived; you
+won't find a better wife if you search the whole world through; There
+is just this one point. Some people are somnambulists; in a sense she
+is a somnambulist too. I tell you I might put this watch upon the
+table"--Mr. Staunton produced his watch from his waistcoat pocket--"and
+she would take it from right underneath my nose, and never know what it
+was that she had done. I confess I can't explain it, but so it is!"
+
+"I think," remarked Mr. Burgoyne, with a certain dryness, "that I had
+better see this doctor fellow--Muir."
+
+"See him--by all means, see him. There is one point, Burgoyne. I
+realised from the first that if we kept you in the dark about this
+thing, and it forced itself upon you afterwards, you would be quite
+justified in feeling aggrieved."
+
+"You realised that, did you? You did get so far?"
+
+"And therefore I say this, that, although my child has only been your
+wife these few short days, although she loves you as truly as woman
+ever loved a man--and what strength of love she has I know--still, if
+you are minded to put her from you, I will not only not endeavour to
+change your purpose, but I will never ask you for a penny for her
+support--she shall be to you as though she had never lived."
+
+Mr. Burgoyne looked his father-in-law in the face.
+
+"No man shall part me from my wife, nor anything--but death." Mr.
+Burgoyne turned a little aside. "I believe I love her better because of
+this. God knows I loved her well enough before."
+
+"I can understand that easily. Because of this she is dearer to us,
+too."
+
+There was silence. Moving to the table, Mr. Burgoyne began to replace
+the things in the bag.
+
+"I will go and see this man Muir."
+
+Dr. Muir was at home. His appearance impressed Mr. Burgoyne favourably,
+and Mr. Burgoyne had a keen eye for the charlatan in medicine.
+
+"Dr. Muir, I have come from Mr. Staunton. My name is Burgoyne. You are
+probably aware that I have married Mr. Staunton's daughter, Minnie. It
+is about my wife I wish to consult you." Dr. Muir simply nodded.
+"During our honeymoon in Brittany she has stolen all these things."
+
+Mr. Burgoyne opened the bag sufficiently to disclose its contents. Dr.
+Muir scarcely glanced at them. He kept his eyes fixed on Mr. Burgoyne's
+face. There was a pause before he spoke.
+
+"You were not informed of her--peculiarity?"
+
+"I was not. I don't understand it now. It is because I wish to
+understand it that I have come to you."
+
+"I don't understand it either."
+
+"But I am told that you have always given the matter your attention."
+
+"That is so, but I don't understand it any the more for that. I am not
+a specialist."
+
+"Do you mean that she is mad?"
+
+"I don't say that I mean anything at all; very shortly you will be
+quite as capable of judging of the case as I am. I've no doubt that if
+you wished to place her in an asylum, you would have no difficulty in
+doing so. So much I don't hesitate to say."
+
+"Thank you. I have no intention of doing anything of the kind. Can you
+not suggest a cure?"
+
+"I can suggest ten thousand, but they would all be experiments. In
+fact, I have tried several of them already, and the experiments have
+failed. For instance, I thought marriage might effect a cure. It is
+perhaps yet too early to judge, but it would appear that, so far, the
+thing has been a failure. Frankly, Mr. Burgoyne, I don't think you will
+find a man in Europe who, in this particular case, can give you help.
+You must trust to time. I have always thought myself that a shock might
+do it, though what sort of shock it will have to be is more than I can
+tell you. I thought the marriage shock might serve. Possibly the birth
+shock might prove of some avail. But we cannot experiment in shocks,
+you know. You must trust to time."
+
+On that basis--_trust in time_--Mr. Burgoyne arranged his household.
+The bag with its contents was handed to his solicitor. The stolen
+property was restored to its several owners. It cost Mr. Burgoyne a
+pretty penny before the restoration was complete. A certain Mrs. Deal
+formed part of his establishment. She acted as companion and keeper to
+Mr. Burgoyne's wife. They never knew whether that lady realised what
+Mrs. Deal's presence really meant. And, in spite of their utmost
+vigilance, things were taken--from shops, from people's houses, from
+guests under her own roof. It was Mrs. Deal's business to discover
+where these things were, and to see that they were instantly restored.
+Her life was spent in a continual game of hide and seek.
+
+It was a strange life they lived in that Brompton house, and yet--odd
+though it may sound--it was a happy one. He loved her, she loved
+him--there is a good deal in just that simple fact. There was one good
+thing--and that in spite of Dr. Muir's suggestion that a birth shock
+might effect a cure--there were no children.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+                                THE CURE
+
+They had been married five years. There came an invitation from one
+Arthur Watson, a friend of Mr. Burgoyne's boyhood. After long
+separation they had encountered each other by accident, and Mr. Watson
+had insisted upon Mr. Burgoyne's bringing his wife to spend the
+"week-end" with him in that Mecca of a certain section of modern
+Londoners--up the river. So the married couple went to see the single man.
+
+After dinner conversation rather languished. But their host stirred it
+up again.
+
+"I have something here to show you." Producing a leather case from the
+inner pocket of his coat, he addressed a question to Mr. Burgoyne "Do
+much in mines?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Because, if you do, here's a tip for you, and tips are things in which
+I don't deal as a rule--buy Mitwaterstraand. There is a boom coming
+along, and the foreshadowings of the boom are in this case. Mrs.
+Burgoyne, shut your eyes and you shall see."
+
+Mrs. Burgoyne did not shut her eyes, but Mr. Watson opened the case,
+and she saw! More than a score of cut diamonds of the purest water, and
+of unusual size--lumps of light! With them, side by side, were about
+the same number of uncut stones, in curious contrast to their more
+radiant brethren.
+
+"You see those?" He took out about a dozen of the cut stones, and
+held them loosely in his hand. "Are you a judge of diamonds? Well,
+I am. Hitherto there have been one or two defects about African
+diamonds--they cut badly, and the colour's wrong. But we have changed
+all that. I stake my reputation that you will find no finer diamonds
+than those in the world. Here is the stone in the rough. Here is exactly,
+the same thing after it has been cut; judge for yourself, my boy! And
+those come from the district of Mitwaterstraand, Griqualand West. Take
+my tip, Burgoyne, and look out for Mitwaterstraand."
+
+Mr. Burgoyne did take his tip, and looked out for Mitwaterstraand,
+though not in the sense he meant. He looked out for Mitwaterstraand all
+night, lying in bed with his eyes wide open, his thoughts fixed on his
+wife. Suppose they were stolen, those shining bits of crystal?
+
+In the morning he was up while she still slept. He dressed himself and
+went downstairs. He felt that he must have just one whiff of tobacco,
+and then return--to watch. A little doze in which he had caught himself
+had frightened him. Suppose he fell into slumber as profound as hers,
+what might not happen in his dreams?
+
+Early as was the hour, he was not the first downstairs. As he entered
+the room in which the diamonds had been exhibited, he found Mr. Watson
+standing at the table.
+
+"Hullo, Watson! At this hour of the morning who'd have thought of
+seeing you?"
+
+"I--I've had a shock." There was a perceptible tremor in Mr. Watson's
+voice, as though even yet he had not recovered from the shock of which
+he spoke.
+
+"A shock? What kind of a shock?"
+
+"When I woke this morning I found that I had left the case with the
+diamonds in downstairs. I can't think how I came to do it."
+
+"It was a careless thing." Mr. Burgoyne's tones were even stern. He
+shuddered as he thought of the risk which had been run.
+
+"It was. When I found that it was missing, I was out of bed like a
+flash. I put my things on anyhow, and when I found it was all
+right"--he at that moment was holding the case in his hands--"I felt like
+singing a Te Deum." He did not look like singing a Te Deum, by any
+means. "Let's have a look at you, my beauties." He pressed a spring and
+the case flew open. "My God!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"They're gone!"
+
+"Gone!"
+
+They were, sure enough. The case was empty. The shock was too much for
+Mr. Burgoyne.
+
+"She's taken them after all," he gasped.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"My wife!"
+
+"Your wife!--Burgoyne!--What do you mean?"
+
+"Watson, my wife has stolen them."
+
+"Burgoyne!"
+
+The empty case fell to the ground with a crash. It almost seemed as
+though Mr. Watson would have fallen after it. He seemed even more
+distressed than his friend. His face was clammy, his hands were
+trembling.
+
+"Burgoyne, what--whatever do you mean?"
+
+"My wife's a kleptomaniac, that's what I mean."
+
+"A kleptomaniac! You--you don't mean that she has taken the stones?"
+
+"I do. Sounds like a joke doesn't it?"
+
+"A joke! I don't know what you call a joke! It'll be no joke for me.
+There's to be a meeting, and those stones will have to be produced for
+experts to examine. If they are not forthcoming, I shall have to
+explain what has become of them, and those are not the men to listen to
+any talk of kleptomania. And it isn't the money they will want, it's
+the stones. At this crisis those stones are worth a hundred thousand
+pounds to us, and more! It'll be your ruin, and mine, if they are not
+found."
+
+"They will be found. It is only a little game she plays. She hides, we
+seek and find. I think I may undertake to produce them for you in
+half-an-hour."
+
+"I hope you will," said Mr. Watson, still with clammy face and
+trembling hands. "My God, I hope you will."
+
+Mr. Burgoyne went upstairs. His wife was still asleep; and a prettier
+picture than she presented when asleep it would be hard to find. He put
+his hand upon her shoulder.
+
+"Minnie!" No reply. "Minnie!" Still she slept.
+
+When she did awake it was in the most natural and charming way
+conceivable. She stretched out her arms to her husband leaning over
+her.
+
+"Charlie! Whatever is the time?"
+
+"Where are those stones?"
+
+"What?" With the back of her hands she began to rub her eyes. "Where
+are what?"
+
+"Where are those stones?"
+
+"I don't know what--" yawn--"you mean."
+
+"Minnie!--Don't trifle with me!--Where have you put those diamonds?"
+
+"Charlie! Whatever do you mean?"
+
+Her eyes were wide open now. She lay looking at him in innocent
+surprise.
+
+"What a consummate actress you are!"
+
+The words came from his lips almost unawares. They seemed to startle
+her. "Charlie!"
+
+He--loving her with all his heart--was unable to meet her glance, and
+began moving uneasily about the room, talking as he moved.
+
+"Come, Minnie, tell me where they are?"
+
+"Where what are?"
+
+"The diamonds!"
+
+"The diamonds! What diamonds? Whatever do you mean?"
+
+"You know what I mean very well. I mean the Mitwaterstraand diamonds
+which Watson showed us last night, and which you have taken from the
+case."
+
+"Which I have taken from the case!" She rose from the bed, and stood on
+the floor in her night-dress, the embodiment of surprise. "If you will
+leave the room I shall be able to dress."
+
+"Minnie! Do you really think I am a fool? I can make every
+allowance--God knows I have done so often enough before--but you must
+tell me where those stones are before I leave this room."
+
+"Do you mean to suggest that I--I have stolen them?"
+
+"Call it what you please! I am only asking you to tell me where you
+have put them. That is all."
+
+"On what evidence do you suspect me of this monstrous crime?"
+
+"Evidence? What do I need with evidence? Minnie, for God's sake, don't
+let us argue. You know that you are dearer to me than life, but this
+time--even at the sacrifice of life!--I cannot save you from the
+consequence of your own act."
+
+"The consequence of my own act. What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean this, that unless those diamonds are immediately forthcoming,
+this night you will sleep in jail."
+
+"In jail! I sleep in jail! Is this some hideous dream?"
+
+"Oh, my darling, for both our sakes tell me where the diamonds are."
+
+"Charlie, I know no more where they are than the man in the moon."
+
+"Then God help us, for we are lost!"
+
+He ransacked every article of furniture the room contained. Tore open
+the mattresses, ripped up the boards, looked up the chimney. But there
+were no diamonds. And that night she slept in jail. Mr. Watson started
+off to tell his story to the meeting as best he might. Mr. and Mrs.
+Burgoyne remained behind, searching for the missing stones. About one
+o'clock, Mr. Watson still being absent, a telegram was received at the
+local police station containing instructions to detain Mrs. Burgoyne on
+a charge of felony, "warrant coming down by train." Mr. Watson had
+evidently told his story to an unsympathetic audience. Mrs. Burgoyne
+was arrested and taken off to the local lock-up--all idea of bail being
+peremptorily pooh-poohed. Mr. Burgoyne tore up to town in a state of
+semi-madness. When Mr. Staunton heard the story, his affliction was at
+least, equal to his son-in-law's. Dr. Muir was telegraphed for, and a
+hurried conference was held in the office of a famous criminal lawyer.
+That gentleman told them plainly that at present nothing could be done.
+
+"Even suppose the diamonds are immediately forthcoming, the case will
+have to go before a magistrate. You don't suppose the police will allow
+you to compound a felony. That is what it amounts to, you know."
+
+As for the medical point of view, it must be urged, of course; but the
+lawyer made no secret of his belief that if the medical point of view
+was all they had to depend on, the case would, of a certainty, be sent
+to trial.
+
+"But it seems to me that at present there is not a tittle of evidence.
+Your wife, Mr. Burgoyne, has been arrested, I won't say upon your
+information, but on the strength of words which you allowed to escape
+your lips. But they can't put you in the box; you could prove nothing
+if they did. When the case comes on they'll ask for a remand. Probably
+they'll get it, one remand at any rate. I shall offer bail, which
+they'll accept. When the case comes on again, unless they have
+something to go on, which they haven't now, it will be dismissed. Mrs.
+Burgoyne will leave the court without a stain upon her character. We
+shan't even have to hint at kleptomania, or klepto anything."
+
+More than once that night Mr. Burgoyne meditated suicide. All was over.
+She--his beloved!--through his folly--slept in jail. And if, by the
+skin of her teeth, she escaped this time, how would it be the next? She
+was guilty now--they might prove it then! And when he thought of the
+numerous precautions he had hedged her round with heretofore, it seemed
+marvellous that she had gone scot free so long. And suppose she had
+been taken at the outset of her career--in the affair of the jewels at
+the Grand Hotel--what would have availed any plea he might have urged
+before a French tribunal? He shuddered as he thought of it.
+
+He never attempted to go to bed. He paced to and fro in his study like
+a caged wild animal. If he might only have shared her cell! The study
+was on the ground floor. It opened on to the garden. Between two and
+three in the morning he thought he heard a tapping at the pane. With a
+trembling hand he unlatched the window. A man stood without.
+
+"Watson!"
+
+As the name broke from him Mr. Watson staggered, rather than walked,
+into the room.
+
+"I--I saw the light outside. I thought I had better knock at the window
+than disturb the house."
+
+He sank into a chair, putting his arms upon the table, pillowing his
+face upon his hands. There was silence. Mr. Burgoyne, in his surprise,
+was momentarily struck dumb. At last, finding his voice, and eyeing his
+friend, he said--
+
+"This is a bad job for both of us."
+
+Mr. Watson looked up. Mr. Burgoyne, in spite of his own burden which he
+had to bear, was startled by something which he saw written on his
+face.
+
+"As you say, it is a bad job for both of us." Mr. Watson rose as he
+was speaking. "But it is worst for me. Why did you tell me all that
+stuff about your wife?"
+
+"God knows I am not in the mood to talk of anything, but rather than
+that, talk of what you please."
+
+"Why the devil did you put that thought into my head?"
+
+"What thought? I do not understand. I don't think you understand much
+either."
+
+"Why did you tell me she had taken the stones? Why, you damned fool, I
+had them in my pocket all the time."
+
+Mr. Watson took his hand out of his pocket. It was full of what seemed
+little crystals. He dashed these down upon the table with such force
+that they were scattered all over the room. They were some of the
+Mitwaterstraand diamonds.
+
+"Watson! Good God! What do you mean?"
+
+"I was the thief! Not she!"
+
+"You--hound!"
+
+"Don't look as though you'd like to murder me! I tell you I feel like
+murdering you! I am a ruined man. The thought came into my head that if
+I could get off with those Mitwaterstraand diamonds, I should have
+something with which to start afresh. Like an idiot, I took them from
+the case last night, meaning to hatch some cock-and-bull story about
+having forgotten to bring the case upstairs, and their having been
+stolen from it in the night. But on reflection I perceived how
+extremely thin the tale would be. I went downstairs to put them back
+again. I was in the very act of doing it when you came in. I showed you
+the empty box. You immediately cried out that your wife had stolen
+them. It was a temptation straight from hell! I was too astounded at
+first to understand your meaning. When I did, I let you remain in
+possession of your belief. Now, Burgoyne, don't you be a fool."
+
+But Mr. Burgoyne was a fool. He fell on to the floor in a fit; this
+last straw was one too many. When he recovered, Mr. Watson was gone,
+but the diamonds were there, piled in a neat little heap upon the
+table. He had been guilty of a really curious lapse into the paths of
+honesty, for, as he truly said, he was a ruined man. It was one of
+those resonant smashes which are the sensation of an hour.
+
+Mrs. Burgoyne was released--without a stain upon her character. She
+never stole again! She had been guilty so many times, and never been
+accused of crime,--and the first time she was innocent they said she
+was a thief! Dr. Muir said the shock had done it,--he had said that a
+shock would do it, all along.
+
+
+
+
+                          Exchange is Robbery
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"Really, Mr. Ruby, I wish you wouldn't say a thing was impossible when
+I say that it is actually a fact."
+
+Mr. Ruby looked at the Countess of Grinstead, and the Countess of
+Grinstead looked at him.
+
+"But, Countess, if you will just consider for one moment. You are
+actually accusing us of selling to you diamonds which we know to be
+false."
+
+"Whether you knew them to be false or not is more than I can say. All I
+know is that I bought a set of diamond ornaments from you, for which
+you charged me eight hundred pounds, and which Mr. Ahrens says are not
+worth eight hundred pence."
+
+"Mr. Ahrens must be dreaming."
+
+"Oh no, he's not. I don't believe that Mr. Ahrens ever dreams."
+
+Mr. Golden, who was standing observantly by, addressed an inquiry to
+the excited lady. "Where are the diamonds now?"
+
+"The diamonds, as you call them, and which I don't believe are
+diamonds, since Mr. Ahrens says they're not, and I'm sure he ought to
+know, are in this case."
+
+The Countess of Grinstead produced from her muff one of those flat
+leather cases in which jewellers love to enshrine their wares.
+
+Mr. Golden held out his hand for it.
+
+"Permit me for one moment, Countess."
+
+The Countess handed him the case. Mr. Golden opened it. Mr. Ruby,
+leaning back in his chair, watched his partner examine the contents.
+The Countess watched him too. Mr. Golden took out one glittering
+ornament after another. Through a little microscope he peered into its
+inmost depths. He turned it over and over, and peered and peered, as
+though he would read its very heart. When he had concluded his
+examination he turned to the lady.
+
+"How came you to submit these ornaments to Mr. Ahrens?"
+
+"I don't mind telling you. Not in the least! I happened to want some
+money. I didn't care to ask the Earl for it. I thought of those
+things--you had charged me L800 for them, so I thought that he would
+let me have L200 upon them as a loan. When he told me that they were
+nothing but rubbish I thought I should have had a fit."
+
+"Where have they been in the interval between your purchasing them from
+us and your taking them to Mr. Ahrens?"
+
+"Where have they been? Where do you suppose they've been? They have
+been in my jewel case, of course."
+
+Mr. Golden replaced the ornaments in their satin beds. He closed the
+case.
+
+"Every inquiry shall be made into the matter, Countess, you may rest
+assured of that. We cannot afford to lose our money, any more than you
+can afford to lose your diamonds."
+
+Directly the lady's back was turned Mr. Ruby put a question to his
+partner. "Well, are they false?"
+
+"They are. It is a good imitation, one of the best imitations I
+remember to have seen. Still it is an imitation."
+
+"Do you--do you think she did it?"
+
+"That is more than I can say. Still, when a lady buys diamonds on
+Saturday, upon credit, and takes them to a pawnbroker on Tuesday, to
+raise money on them, one may be excused for having one's suspicions."
+
+While the partners were still discussing the matter, the door was
+opened by an assistant. "Mr. Gray wishes to see Mr. Ruby."
+
+Before Mr. Ruby had an opportunity of saying whether or not he wished
+to see Mr. Gray, rather unceremoniously Mr. Gray himself came in.
+
+"I should think I do want to see Mr. Ruby, and while I'm about it, I
+may as well see Mr. Golden too." Mr. Gray turned to the assistant, who
+still was standing at the open door. "You can go."
+
+The assistant looked at Mr. Ruby for instructions. "Yes Thompson, you
+can go."
+
+When Thompson was gone, and the door was closed, Mr. Gray, who wore his
+hat slightly on the side of his head, turned and faced the partners. He
+was a very young man, and was dressed in the extreme of fashion. Taking
+from his coat tail pocket the familiar leather case, he flung it on to
+the table with a bang. "I don't know what you call that, but I tell you
+what I call it. I call it a damned swindle."
+
+Mr. Ruby was shocked.
+
+"Mr. Gray! May I ask of what you are complaining?"
+
+"Complaining! I'm complaining of your selling me a thing for two
+thousand pounds which is not worth two thousand pence!"
+
+"Indeed? Have we been guilty of such conduct as that?" Mr. Golden
+picked up the case which Mr. Gray had flung down upon the table. "Is
+this the diamond necklace which we had the pleasure of selling you the
+other day?"
+
+Mr. Golden opened the case. He took out the necklace which it
+contained. He examined it as minutely as he had examined the Countess
+of Grinstead's ornaments. "This is--very remarkable."
+
+"Remarkable! I should think it is remarkable! I bought that necklace
+for a lady. As some ladies have a way of doing, she had it valued. When
+she found that the thing was trumpery, she, of course, jumped to the
+conclusion that I'd been having her--trying to gain kudos for giving
+her something worth having at the cheapest possible rate. A pretty
+state of things, upon my word!"
+
+"This appears to be a lady of acute commercial instincts, Mr. Gray."
+
+"Never mind about that! If you deny that that is the necklace which you
+sold to me I will prove that it is--in the police court. I am quite
+prepared for it. Men who are capable of selling a necklace of glass
+beads as a necklace of diamonds are capable of denying that they ever
+sold the thing at all."
+
+"Mr. Gray, there is no necessity to use such language to us. If a wrong
+has been done we are ready and willing to repair it."
+
+"Then repair it!"
+
+It took some time to get rid of Mr. Gray. He had a great deal to say,
+and a very strong and idiomatic way of saying it. Altogether it was a
+bad quarter of an hour for Messrs. Ruby and Golden. When, at last, they
+did get rid of him, Mr. Ruby turned to his partner.
+
+"Golden, it's not possible that the stones in that necklace are false.
+Those are the stones which we got from Fungst--you remember?"
+
+"I remember very well indeed. They were the stones which we got from
+Fungst. They are not now. The gems which are at present in this
+necklace are paste, covered with a thin veneer of real stones. It is an
+old trick, but I never saw it better done. The workmanship, both in Mr.
+Gray's necklace and in the Countess of Grinstead's ornaments, is, in
+its way, perfection."
+
+While Mr. Ruby was still staring at his partner, the door opened and
+again Mr. Thompson entered. "The Duchess of Datchet."
+
+"Let's hope," muttered Mr. Golden, "that she's not come to charge us
+with selling any more paste diamonds."
+
+But the Duchess had come to do nothing of the kind. She had come on a
+much more agreeable errand, from Messrs. Ruby and Golden's point of
+view--she had come to buy. As it was Mr. Ruby's special _role_ to act
+as salesman to the great--the very great--ladies who patronised that
+famed establishment, Mr. Golden left his partner to perform his duties.
+
+Mr. Ruby found the Duchess, on that occasion, difficult to please. She
+wanted something in diamonds, to present to Lady Edith Linglithgow on
+the occasion of her approaching marriage. As Lady Edith is the Duke's
+first cousin, as all the world knows, almost, as it were, his sister,
+the Duchess wanted something very good indeed. Nothing which Messrs.
+Ruby and Golden had seemed to be quite good enough, except one or two
+things which were, perhaps, too good. The Duchess promised to return
+with the Duke himself to-morrow, or, perhaps, the day after. With that
+promise Mr. Ruby was forced to be content.
+
+The instant the difficult very great lady had vanished, Mr. Golden came
+into the room. He placed upon the table some leather cases.
+
+"Ruby what do you think of those?"
+
+"Why, they're from stock, aren't they?" Mr. Ruby took up some of the
+cases which Mr. Golden had put down. There was quite a heap of them.
+They contained rings, bracelets, necklaces, odds and ends in diamond
+work. "Anything the matter with them, Golden?"
+
+"There's this the matter with them--that they're all paste."
+
+"Golden!"
+
+"I've been glancing through the stock. I haven't got far, but I've come
+upon those already. Somebody appears to be having a little joke at our
+expense. It strikes me, Ruby, that we're about to be the victims of one
+of the greatest jewel robberies upon record."
+
+"Golden!"
+
+"Have you been showing this to the Duchess?"
+
+Mr. Golden picked up a necklace of diamonds from a case which lay open
+on the table, whose charms Mr. Ruby had been recently exhibiting to
+that difficult great lady. "Ruby!--Good Heavens!"
+
+"Wha-what's the matter?"
+
+"They're paste!"
+
+Mr. Golden was staring at the necklace as though it were some hideous
+thing.
+
+"Paste!--G-G-Golden!" Mr. Ruby positively trembled. "That's Kesteeven's
+necklace which he brought in this morning to see if we could find a
+customer for it."
+
+"I'm quite aware that this was Kesteeven's necklace. Now it would be
+dear at a ten-pound note."
+
+"A ten-pound note! He wants ten thousand guineas! It's not more than an
+hour since he brought it--no one can have touched it."
+
+"Ruby, don't talk nonsense! I saw Kesteeven's necklace when he brought
+it, I see this thing now. This is not Kesteeven's necklace--it has been
+changed!"
+
+"Golden!"
+
+"To whom have you shown this necklace?"
+
+"To the Duchess of Datchet."
+
+"To whom else?"
+
+"To no one."
+
+"Who has been in this room?"
+
+"You know who has been in the room as well as I do."
+
+"Then--she did it."
+
+"She?--Who?"
+
+"The Duchess!"
+
+"Golden! you are mad!"
+
+"I shall be mad pretty soon. We shall be ruined! I've not the slightest
+doubt but that you've been selling people paste for diamonds for
+goodness knows how long."
+
+"Golden!"
+
+"You'll have to come with me to Datchet House. I'll see the Duke--I'll
+have it out with him at once." Mr. Golden threw open the door.
+"Thompson, Mr. Ruby and I are going out. See that nobody comes near
+this room until we return."
+
+To make sure that nobody did come near that room Mr. Golden turned the
+key in the lock, and pocketed the key.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+When Messrs. Ruby and Golden arrived at Datchet House they found the
+Duke at home. He received them in his own apartment. On their entrance
+he was standing behind a writing table.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, to what am I indebted for the honour of this visit?"
+
+Mr. Golden took on himself the office of spokesman.
+
+"We have called, your Grace, upon a very delicate matter." The Duke
+inclined his head--he also took a seat. "The Duchess of Datchet has
+favoured us this morning with a visit."
+
+"The Duchess!"
+
+"The Duchess."
+
+Mr. Golden paused. He was conscious that this was a delicate matter.
+"When her Grace quitted our establishment she _accidentally_"--Mr.
+Golden emphasised the adverb; he even repeated it--"_accidentally_ left
+behind some of her property in exchange for ours."
+
+"Mr. Golden!" The Duke stared. "I don't understand you."
+
+Mr. Golden then and there resolved to make the thing quite plain.
+
+"I will be frank with your Grace. When the Duchess left our
+establishment this morning she took with her some twenty thousand
+pounds worth of diamonds--it may be more, we have only been able to
+give a cursory glance at the state of things--and left behind her paste
+imitations of those diamonds instead."
+
+The Duke stood up. He trembled--probably with anger.
+
+"Mr. Golden, am I--am I to understand that you are mad?"
+
+"The case, your Grace, is as I stated. Is not the case as I state it,
+Mr. Ruby?"
+
+Mr. Ruby took out his handkerchief to relieve his brow. His habit of
+showing excessive deference to the feelings and the whims of very great
+people was almost more than he could master.
+
+"I--I'm afraid, Mr. Golden, that it is. Your--your Grace will
+understand that--that we should never have ventured to--to come here
+had we not been most--most unfortunately compelled."
+
+"Pray make no apology, Mr. Ruby. Allow me to have a clear understanding
+with you, gentlemen. Do I understand that you charge the Duchess of
+Datchet--the Duchess of Datchet!"--the Duke echoed his own words, as
+though he were himself unable to believe in the enormity of such a
+thing--"with stealing jewels from your shop?"
+
+"If your Grace will allow me to make a distinction without a
+difference--we charge no one with anything. If your Grace will give us
+your permission to credit the jewels to your account, there is an end
+of the matter."
+
+"What is the value of the articles which you say have gone?"
+
+"On that point we are not ourselves, as yet, accurately informed. I may
+as well state at once--it is better to be frank, your Grace--that this
+sort of thing appears to have been going on for some time. It is only
+an hour or so since we began to have even a suspicion of the extent of
+our losses."
+
+"Then, in effect, you charge the Duchess of Datchet with robbing you
+wholesale?"
+
+Mr. Golden paused. He felt that to such a question as this it would be
+advisable that he should frame his answer in a particular manner.
+
+"Your Grace will understand that different persons have different ways
+of purchasing. Lady A. has her way. Lady B. has her way, and the
+Duchess of Datchet has hers."
+
+"Are you suggesting that the Duchess of Datchet is a kleptomaniac?"
+
+Mr. Golden was silent.
+
+"Do you think that that is a comfortable suggestion to make to a
+husband, Mr. Golden?" Just then someone tapped at the door. "Who's
+there?"
+
+A voice--a feminine voice--enquired without, "Can I come in?"
+
+Before the Duke could deny the right of entry, the door opened and a
+woman entered. A tall woman, and a young and a lovely one. When she
+perceived Messrs. Ruby and Golden she cast an enquiring look in the
+direction of the Duke. "Are you engaged?"
+
+The Duke was eyeing her with a somewhat curious expression of
+countenance. "I believe you know these gentlemen?"
+
+"Do I? I ought to know them perhaps, but I'm afraid I don't."
+
+Mr. Ruby was all affability and bows, and smiles and rubbings of hands.
+
+"I have not had the honour of seeing the lady upon a previous
+occasion."
+
+The Duke of Datchet stared. "You have not had the honour? Then
+what--what the dickens do you mean? This is the Duchess!"
+
+"The Duchess!" cried Messrs. Ruby and Golden.
+
+"Certainly--the Duchess of Datchet."
+
+Messrs. Ruby and Golden looked blue. They looked more than blue--they
+looked several colours of the rainbow all at once. They stared as
+though they could not believe the evidence of their eyes and ears. The
+Duke turned to the Duchess. He opened the door for her.
+
+"Duchess, will you excuse me for a moment? I have something which I
+particularly wish to say to these gentlemen."
+
+The Duchess disappeared. When she had gone the Duke not only closed the
+door behind her, but he stood with his back against the door which he
+had closed. His manner, all at once, was scarcely genial.
+
+"Now, what shall I do with you, gentlemen? You come to my house and
+charge the Duchess of Datchet with having been a constant visitor at
+your shop for the purpose of robbing you, and it turns out that you
+have actually never seen the Duchess of Datchet in your lives until
+this moment."
+
+"But," gasped Mr. Ruby, "that--that is not the lady who came to our
+establishment, and--and called herself the Duchess of Datchet."
+
+"Well, sir, and what has that to do with me? Am I responsible for the
+proceedings of every sharper who comes to your shop and chooses to call
+herself the Duchess of Datchet? I should advise you, in future, before
+advancing reckless charges, to make some enquiries into the _bona
+fides_ of your customers, Mr. Ruby. Now, gentlemen, you may go."
+
+The Duke held the door wide open, invitingly. Mr. Golden caught his
+partner by the sleeve, as though he feared that he would, with undue
+celerity, accept the invitation.
+
+"Hardly, your Grace, there is still something which we wish to say to
+you." The Duke of Datchet shut the door again.
+
+"Then say it. Only say it, if possible, in such a manner as not to
+compel me to--kick you, Mr. Golden."
+
+"Your Grace will believe that in anything I have said, or in anything
+which I am to say, nothing is further from my wish than to cause your
+Grace annoyance. But, on the other hand, surely your Grace is too old,
+and too good a customer of our house, to wish to see us ruined."
+
+"I had rather, Mr. Golden, see you ruined ten thousand times over than
+that you should ruin my wife's fair fame."
+
+Mr. Golden hesitated; he seemed to perceive that the Duke's retort was
+not irrelevant. He turned to Mr. Ruby.
+
+"Mr. Ruby, will you be so good as to explain what reasons we had for
+believing that this person was what she called herself--the Duchess of
+Datchet? Because your Grace must understand that we did not entertain
+that belief without having at least some grounds to go upon."
+
+Mr. Ruby, thus appealed to, began to fidget. He did not seem to relish
+the office which his partner had imposed upon him. The tale which he
+told was rather lame--still, he told it.
+
+"Your Grace will understand that I--I am acquainted, at least by sight,
+with most of the members of the British aristocracy, and--and, indeed,
+of other aristocracies. But it so happened that, at the period of your
+Grace's recent marriage, I happened to be abroad, and--and, not only
+so, but--but the lady your Grace married was--was a lady--from--from
+the country."
+
+"I am perfectly aware, Mr. Ruby, whom I married."
+
+"Quite so, your Grace, quite so. Only--only I was endeavouring to
+explain how it was that I--I did not happen to be acquainted with her
+Grace's personal appearance. So that when a carriage and pair drove up
+to our establishment with your Grace's crest upon the panel----"
+
+"My crest upon the panel!"
+
+"Your Grace's crest upon the panel"--as Mr. Ruby continued, the Duke of
+Datchet bit his lip--"and a lady stepped out of it and said, 'I am the
+Duchess of Datchet; my husband tells me that he is an old customer of
+yours,' I was only too glad to see her Grace, because, as your Grace is
+aware, we have the honour of having your Grace as an old customer of
+ours. 'My husband has given me this cheque to spend with you.' When she
+said that she took a cheque out of her purse, one of your Grace's own
+cheques drawn upon Messrs. Coutts, 'Pay Messrs. Ruby and Golden, or
+order, one thousand pounds,' with your Grace's signature attached. I
+have seen too many of your Grace's cheques not to know them well. She
+purchased goods to the value of a thousand pounds, and she gave us your
+Grace's cheque to pay for them."
+
+"She gave you that cheque, did she?"
+
+Mr. Golden interposed, "We presented the cheque, and it was duly
+honoured. On the face of such proof as that, what could we suppose?"
+
+The Duke was moving about the room--it seemed, a little restlessly.
+
+"It didn't necessarily follow, because a woman paid for her purchases
+with a cheque of mine that that woman was the Duchess of Datchet."
+
+"I think, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, that it did. At
+least, the presumption was strong upon that side. May I ask to whom
+your Grace's cheque was given?"
+
+"You may ask, but I don't see why I should tell you. It was honoured,
+and that is sufficient."
+
+"I don't think it is sufficient, and I don't think that your Grace will
+think so either, if you consider for a moment. If it had not been for
+the strong presumptive evidence of your Grace's cheque, we should not
+have been robbed of many thousand pounds."
+
+The Duke of Datchet paced restlessly to and fro. Messrs. Ruby and
+Golden watched him. At last he moved towards his writing table. He sat
+down on the chair behind it. He stretched out his legs in front of him.
+He thrust his hands into his trousers pockets.
+
+"I'll make a clean breast of it. You fellows can keep a still tongue in
+your heads--keep a still tongue about what I am going to tell you." His
+hearers bowed. They were coming to the point--at last. "Eh"--in spite
+of his announced intention of making a clean breast of it, his Grace
+rather stumbled in his speech. "Before I was married I--I had some
+acquaintance with--with a certain lady. When I married, that
+acquaintance ceased. On the last occasion on which I saw her she
+informed me that she was indebted to you in the sum of a thousand
+pounds for jewellery. I gave her a cheque to discharge her liability to
+you, and to make sure that she did discharge the liability, I made the
+cheque payable to you, which, I now perceive, was perhaps not the
+wisest thing I could have done. But, at the same time, I wish you
+clearly to comprehend that I have every reason to believe that the lady
+referred to is, to put it mildly, a most unlikely person to--to rob any
+one."
+
+"We must request you to furnish us with that lady's name and address.
+And I would advise your Grace to accompany us in an immediate visit to
+that lady."
+
+"That is your advice is it, Mr. Golden? I am not sure that I appreciate
+it quite so much as it may possibly deserve."
+
+"Otherwise, as you will yourself perceive, we shall be compelled to put
+the matter at once in the hands of the police, and, your Grace, there
+will be a scandal."
+
+The Duke of Datchet reflected. He looked at Mr. Golden, he looked at
+Mr. Ruby, he looked at the ceiling, he looked at the floor, he looked
+at his boots--then he looked back again at Mr. Golden. At last he rose.
+He shook himself a little--as if to shake his clothes into their proper
+places. He seemed to have threshed the _pros_ and _cons_ of the matter
+well out, mentally, and to have finally decided.
+
+"As I do not want a scandal, I think I will take your excellent advice,
+Mr. Golden--which I now really do appreciate at its proper value--and
+accompany you upon that little visit. Shall we go at once?"
+
+"At once--if your Grace pleases."
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+The Duke of Datchet's brougham, containing the Duke of Datchet himself
+upon one seat, and Messrs. Ruby and Golden cheek by jowl upon the
+other, drew up in front of a charming villa in the most charming
+part of charming St. John's Wood. The Duke's ring--for the Duke himself
+did ring, and there was no knocker--was answered by a most
+unimpeachable-looking man-servant in livery. The man-servant was not
+only unimpeachable-looking--which every servant ought to look--but
+good-looking, too, which, in a servant, is not regarded as quite so
+indispensable. He was, indeed, so good-looking as to be quite a "beauty
+man." So young, too! A mere youth!
+
+When this man-servant opened the door, and saw to whom he had opened
+it, he started. And not only did he start, but Messrs. Ruby and Golden
+started too, particularly Mr. Golden. The Duke of Datchet, if he
+observed this little by-play, did not condescend to notice it.
+
+"Is Mrs. Mansfield in?"
+
+"I believe so. I will enquire. What name?"
+
+"Never mind the name, and I will make my own enquiries. You needn't
+announce me, I know the way."
+
+The Duke of Datchet seemed to know the way very well indeed. He led the
+way up the staircase; Messrs. Ruby and Golden followed. The man-servant
+remained at the foot of the stairs, as if doubtful whether or not
+he ought to follow. When they had reached the landing, and the
+man-servant, still remaining below, was out of sight, Mr. Golden turned to
+Mr. Ruby.
+
+"Where on earth have I seen that man before?"
+
+"I was just addressing to myself the same enquiry," said Mr. Ruby.
+
+The Duke paused. He turned to the partners.
+
+"What's that? The servant? Have you seen the man before? The plot is
+thickening. I am afraid 'the Duchess' is getting warm."
+
+Apparently the Duke knew his way so well that he did not think it
+necessary to announce himself at the door of the room to which he led
+the partners. He simply turned the handle and went in, Messrs. Ruby and
+Golden close upon his heels. The room which he had entered was a pretty
+room, and contained a pretty occupant. A lady, young and fair, rose
+from a couch which was at the opposite side of the apartment, and, as
+was most justifiable under the circumstances, stared: "Hereward!"
+
+"Mrs. Mansfield!"
+
+"Whatever brings you here?"
+
+"My dear Mrs. Mansfield, I have come to ask you what you think of Mr.
+Kesteeven's necklace."
+
+"Hereward, what do you mean?"
+
+The Duke's manner changed from jest to earnest.
+
+"Rather, Gertrude, what do you mean? What have I done that deserved
+such a return from you? What have I done to you that you should have
+endeavoured to drag my wife's name in the mire?"
+
+The lady stared. "I have no more idea what you are talking about than
+the man in the moon!"
+
+"You dare to tell me so, in the presence of these men?"
+
+"In the presence of what men?"
+
+"In the presence of your victims--of Mr. Ruby and of Mr. Golden?"
+
+Mr. Golden advanced a step or two.
+
+"Excuse me, your Grace--this is not the lady."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"This is not the lady."
+
+"Not what lady?"
+
+"This is not the lady who called herself the Duchess of Datchet."
+
+"What the dickens do you mean? Really, Mr. Ruby and Mr. Golden, you
+seem to be leading me a pretty fine wild goose chase--a pretty fine
+wild goose chase! I know it will end in kicking--someone. You told me
+that the person to whom I had given that cheque was the person who had
+bestowed on you her patronage. This is the person to whom I gave that
+cheque."
+
+"This is not the person who gave that cheque to us."
+
+"Then--then who the devil did?"
+
+"That, your Grace, is the point--will this lady allow me to ask her one
+or two questions?"
+
+"Fire away--ask fifty!"
+
+The lady thus referred to interposed, "This gentleman may ask fifty or
+five hundred questions, but unless you tell me what all this is about I
+very much doubt if I shall answer one."
+
+"Let me manage it, Mr. Golden. Mrs. Mansfield, may I enquire what you
+did with that cheque for a thousand which I gave you? You jade! To tell
+me that Ruby and Golden were dunning you out of your life, when you
+never owed them a stiver! Tell me what you did with that cheque!"
+
+The Duke seemed at last to have said something which had reached the
+lady's understanding. She changed colour. She pressed her lips
+together. She looked at him with defiance in her eyes. A considerable
+pause ensued before she spoke.
+
+"I don't know why I should tell you. What does it matter to you what I
+did with it--you gave it me."
+
+"It does matter to me. As it happens, it matters also to you. If you
+will take my friendly advice, you will tell me what you did with that
+cheque."
+
+The look of defiance about the lady's lips and in her eyes increased.
+
+"I don't mind telling you. Why should I? It was my own. I gave it to
+Alfred."
+
+The Duke emitted an ejaculation--which smacked of profanity.
+
+"To Alfred? And, pray, who may Alfred be?"
+
+The lady's crest rose higher. "Alfred is--is the man to whom I am
+engaged to be married."
+
+The Duke of Datchet whistled. "And you got a cheque out of me for a
+thousand pounds to make a present of it to your intended? That beats
+everything; and pray to whom did Alfred give it?"
+
+"He gave it to no one. He paid it into the bank. He told me so
+himself."
+
+"Then I'm afraid that Alfred lied. Where is Alfred?"
+
+"He's--he's here."
+
+"Here? In this room? Where? Under the couch, or behind the screen?"
+
+"I mean that he's in this house. He's downstairs."
+
+"I won't ask how long he's been downstairs, but would it be too much to
+ask you to request Alfred to walk upstairs."
+
+The lady burst into a sudden tempest of tears.
+
+"I know you'll only laugh at me--I know you well enough to expect you
+to do that--but--I--I know I've not been a good woman, and--and I do
+love him--although--he's only--a--servant!"
+
+"A servant! Gertrude! Was that the man who opened the door?"
+
+Mr. Golden gave vent to an exclamation which positively amounted to a
+shout. "By Jove!--I've got it!--I knew I'd seen the face before--I
+couldn't make out where--it was the man who opened the door. Your
+Grace, might I ask you to have that man who opened the door to us at
+once brought here?"
+
+"Ring the bell, Mr. Golden."
+
+The lady interposed. "You shan't--I won't have it! What do you want
+with him?"
+
+"We wish to ask him one or two questions. If Alfred is an honest man it
+will be better for him that he should have an opportunity of answering
+them. If he is not an honest man, it will be better for you that you
+should know it."
+
+Apparently this reasoning prevailed. Mr. Golden rang the bell; but his
+ring was not by any means immediately attended to. He rang a second and
+a third time, but still no answer came.
+
+"It strikes me," suggested the Duke, "that we had better start on a
+voyage of discovery, and search for Alfred in the regions down below."
+
+Before the Duke's suggestion could be acted on the door was opened--not
+by Alfred; not by a man at all, but by a maid.
+
+"Send Alfred here."
+
+"I can't find him anywhere. I think he must have gone."
+
+"Gone!" gasped Mrs. Mansfield. "Where?"
+
+"I don't know, ma'am. I've been up to his room to look for him, and it
+is all anyhow, and there's no one there. If you please, ma'am, I found
+this on the mat outside the door."
+
+The maid held out an envelope. The Duke of Datchet took it from her
+hand. He glanced at its superscription.
+
+"'Messrs. Ruby and Golden.' Gentlemen, this is for you."
+
+He transferred it to Mr. Golden. It was a long blue envelope. The maid
+had picked it up from the mat which was outside the door of that very
+room in which they were standing. Mr. Golden opened it. It contained an
+oblong card of considerable size, on which were printed three
+photographs, in a sort of series. The first photograph was that of a
+young man--a beautiful young man--unmistakably "Alfred." The second was
+that of "Alfred" with his hair arranged in a fashion which was
+peculiarly feminine. The third was that of "Alfred" with a bonnet and a
+veil on, and a very nice-looking young woman he made. At the bottom of
+the card was written, in a fine, delicate, lady's hand-writing, "With
+the Duchess of Datchet's compliments."
+
+"I knew," gasped Mrs. Mansfield, in the midst of her sorrow, "that he
+was very good at dressing up as a woman, but I never thought he would
+do this!"
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+The Duke of Datchet paid for the diamonds.
+
+
+
+
+                           The Haunted Chair
+
+
+                                CHAPTER I
+
+"Well, that's the most staggering thing I've ever known!"
+
+As Mr. Philpotts entered the smoking-room, these were the words--with
+additions--which fell upon his, not unnaturally, startled ears. Since
+Mr. Bloxham was the only person in the room, it seemed only too
+probable that the extraordinary language had been uttered by him--and,
+indeed, his demeanour went far to confirm the probability. He was
+standing in front of his chair, staring about him in a manner which
+suggested considerable mental perturbation, apparently unconscious of
+the fact that his cigar had dropped either from his lips or his fingers
+and was smoking merrily away on the brand-new carpet which the
+committee had just laid down. He turned to Mr. Philpotts in a state of
+what seemed really curious agitation.
+
+"I say, Philpotts, did you see him?"
+
+Mr. Philpotts looked at him in silence for a moment, before he drily
+said, "I heard you."
+
+But Mr. Bloxham was in no mood to be put off in this manner. He seemed,
+for some cause, to have lost the air of serene indifference for which
+he was famed--he was in a state of excitement, which, for him, was
+quite phenomenal.
+
+"No nonsense, Philpotts--did you see him?"
+
+"See whom?" Mr. Philpotts was selecting a paper from a side table. "I
+see your cigar is burning a hole in the carpet."
+
+"Confound my cigar!" Mr. Bloxham stamped on it with an angry tread.
+"Did Geoff Fleming pass you as you came in?"
+
+Mr. Philpotts looked round with an air of evident surprise.
+
+"Geoff Fleming!--Why, surely he's in Ceylon by now."
+
+"Not a bit of it. A minute ago he was in that chair talking to me."
+
+"Bloxham!" Mr. Philpotts' air of surprise became distinctly more
+pronounced, a fact which Mr. Bloxham apparently resented.
+
+"What are you looking at me like that for pray? I tell you I was
+glancing through the _Field_, when I felt someone touch me on the
+shoulder. I looked round--there was Fleming standing just behind me.
+'Geoff.' I cried, 'I thought you were on the other side of the
+world--what are you doing here?' 'I've come to have a peep at you,' he
+said. He drew a chair up close to mine--this chair--and sat in it. I
+turned round to reach for a match on the table, it scarcely took me a
+second, but when I looked his way again hanged if he weren't gone."
+
+Mr. Philpotts continued his selection of a paper--in a manner which was
+rather marked.
+
+"Which way did he go?"
+
+"Didn't you meet him as you came in?"
+
+"I did not--I met no one. What's the matter now?"
+
+The question was inspired by the fact that a fresh volley of expletives
+came from Mr. Bloxham's lips. That gentleman was standing with his
+hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, his legs wide open, and his
+eyes and mouth almost as wide open as his legs.
+
+"Hang me," he exclaimed, when, as it appeared, he had temporarily come
+to the end of his stock of adjectives, "if I don't believe he's boned
+my purse."
+
+"Boned your purse!" Mr. Philpotts laid a not altogether flattering
+emphasis upon the "boned!" "Bloxham! What do you mean?"
+
+Mr. Bloxham did not immediately explain. He dropped into the chair
+behind him. His hands were still in his trouser pockets, his legs were
+stretched out in front of him, and on his face there was not only an
+expression of amazement, but also of the most unequivocal bewilderment.
+He was staring at the vacant air as if he were trying his hardest to
+read some riddle.
+
+"This is a queer start, upon my word, Philpotts," he spoke in what, for
+him, were tones of unwonted earnestness. "When I was reaching for the
+matches  on the table, what made me turn round so suddenly was because
+I thought I felt someone tugging at my purse--it was in the pocket next
+to Fleming. As I told you, when I did turn round Fleming was gone--and,
+by Jove, it looks as though my purse went with him."
+
+"Have you lost your purse?--is that what you mean?"
+
+"I'll swear that it was in my pocket five minutes ago, and that it's
+not there now; that's what I mean."
+
+Mr. Philpotts looked at Mr. Bloxham as if, although he was too polite
+to say so, he could not make him out at all. He resumed his selection
+of a paper.
+
+"One is liable to make mistakes about one's purse; perhaps you'll find
+it when you get home."
+
+Mr. Bloxham sat in silence for some moments. Then, rising, he shook
+himself as a dog does when he quits the water.
+
+"I say, Philpotts, don't ladle out this yarn of mine to the other
+fellows, there's a good chap. As you say, one is apt to get into a
+muddle about one's purse, and I dare say I shall come across it when I
+get home. And perhaps I'm not very well this afternoon; I am feeling
+out of sorts, and that's a fact. I think I'll just toddle home and take
+a seidlitz, or a pill, or something. Ta ta!"
+
+When Mr. Philpotts was left alone he smiled to himself, that superior
+smile which we are apt to smile when conscious that a man has been
+making a conspicuous ass of himself on lines which may be his, but
+which, we thank Providence, are emphatically not ours. With not one,
+but half a dozen papers in his hand, he seated himself in the chair
+which Mr. Bloxham had recently relinquished. Retaining a single paper,
+he placed the rest on the small round table on his left--the table on
+which wore the matches for which Mr. Bloxham declared he had reached.
+Taking out his case, he selected a cigar almost with the same care
+which he had shewn in selecting his literature, smiling to himself all
+the time that superior smile. Lighting the cigar he had chosen with a
+match from the table, he settled himself at his ease to read.
+
+Scarcely had he done so than he was conscious of a hand laid gently on
+his shoulder from behind.
+
+"What! back again?"
+
+"Hullo, Phil!"
+
+He had taken it for granted, without troubling to look round, that Mr.
+Bloxham had returned, and that it was he who touched him on the
+shoulder. But the voice which replied to him, so far from being Mr.
+Bloxham's was one the mere sound of which caused him not only to lose
+his bearing of indifference but to spring from his seat with the
+agility almost of a jack-in-the-box. When he saw who it was had touched
+him on the shoulder, he stared.
+
+"Fleming! Then Bloxham was right, after all. May I ask what brings you
+here?"
+
+The man at whom he was looking was tall and well-built, in age about
+five and thirty. There were black cavities beneath his eyes; the man's
+whole face was redolent, to a trained perception, of something which
+was, at least, slightly unsavoury. He was dressed from head to foot in
+white duck--a somewhat singular costume for Pall Mall, even on a summer
+afternoon.
+
+Before Mr. Philpotts' gaze, his own eyes sank. Murmuring something
+which was almost inaudible, he moved to the chair next to the one which
+Mr. Philpotts had been occupying, the chair of which Mr. Bloxham had
+spoken.
+
+As he seated himself, Mr. Philpotts eyed him in a fashion which was
+certainly not too friendly.
+
+"What did you mean by disappearing just now in that extraordinary
+manner, frightening Bloxham half out of his wits? Where did you get
+to?"
+
+The new comer was stroking his heavy moustache with a hand which, for a
+man of his size and build, was unusually small and white. He spoke in a
+lazy, almost inaudible, drawl.
+
+"I just popped outside."
+
+"Just popped outside! I must have been coming in just when you went
+out. I saw nothing of you; you've put Bloxham into a pretty state of
+mind."
+
+Re-seating himself, Mr. Philpotts turned to put the paper he was
+holding on to the little table. "I don't want to make myself a brute,
+but it strikes me that your presence here at all requires explanation.
+When several fellows club together to give another fellow a fresh start
+on the other side of the world----"
+
+Mr. Philpotts stopped short. Having settled the paper on the table to
+his perfect satisfaction, he turned round again towards the man he was
+addressing--and as he did so he ceased to address him, and that for the
+sufficiently simple reason that he was not there to address--the man
+had gone! The chair at Mr. Philpotts' side was empty; without a sign or
+a sound its occupant had vanished, it would almost seem, into space.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+Under the really remarkable circumstances of the case, Mr. Philpotts
+preserved his composure to a singular degree. He looked round the room;
+there was no one there. He again fixedly regarded the chair at his
+side; there could be no doubt that it was empty. To make quite sure, he
+passed his hand two or three times over the seat; it met with not the
+slightest opposition. Where could the man have got to? Mr. Philpotts
+had not, consciously, heard the slightest sound; there had not been
+time for him to have reached the door. Mr. Philpotts knocked the ash
+off his cigar. He stood up. He paced leisurely two or three times up
+and down the room.
+
+"If Bloxham is ill, I am not. I was never better in my life. And the
+man who tells me that I have been the victim of an optical delusion is
+talking of what he knows nothing. I am prepared to swear that it was
+Geoffrey Fleming who touched me on the shoulder; that he spoke to me;
+and that he seated himself upon that chair. Where he came from, or
+where he has gone to, are other questions entirely." He critically
+examined his finger nails.
+
+"If those Psychical Research people have an address in town, I think
+I'll have a talk with them. I suppose it's three or four minutes since
+the man vanished. What's the time now? Whatever has become of my
+watch?"
+
+He might well ask--it had gone, both watch and chain--vanished, with
+Mr. Fleming, into air. Mr. Philpotts stared at his waistcoat, too
+astonished for speech. Then he gave a little gasp.
+
+"This comes of playing Didymus! The brute has stolen it! I must
+apologise to Bloxham. As he himself said, this is a queer start, upon
+my honour! Now, if you like, I do feel a little out of sorts; this sort
+of thing is enough to make one. Before I go, I think I'll have a drop
+of brandy."
+
+As he was hesitating, the smoking-room door opened to admit Frank
+Osborne. Mr. Osborne nodded to Mr. Philpotts as he crossed the room.
+
+"You're not looking quite yourself, Philpotts."
+
+Mr. Philpotts seemed to regard the observation almost in the light of
+an impertinence.
+
+"Am I not? I was not aware that there was anything in my appearance to
+call for remark." Smiling, Mr. Osborne seated himself in the chair
+which the other had not long ago vacated. Mr. Philpotts regarded him
+attentively. "You're not looking quite yourself, either."
+
+The smile vanished from Mr. Osborne's face.
+
+"I'm not feeling myself!--I'm not! I'm worried about Geoff Fleming."
+
+Mr. Philpotts slightly started.
+
+"About Geoff Fleming?--what about Fleming?'
+
+"I'm afraid--well, Phil, the truth is that I'm afraid that Geoff's a
+hopeless case."
+
+Mr. Philpotts was once more busying himself with the papers which were
+on the side table.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"As you know, he and I have been very thick in our time, and when he
+came a cropper it was I who suggested that we who were at school with
+him might have a whip round among ourselves to get the old chap a fresh
+start elsewhere. You all of you behaved like bricks, and when I told
+him what you had done, poor Geoff was quite knocked over. He promised
+voluntarily that he would never touch a card again, or make another
+bet, until he had paid you fellows off with thumping interest. Well, he
+doesn't seem to have kept his promise long."
+
+"How do you know he hasn't?"
+
+"I've heard from Deecie."
+
+"From Deecie?--where's Fleming?"
+
+"In Ceylon--they'd both got there before Deecie's letter left."
+
+"In Ceylon!" exclaimed Mr. Philpotts excitedly, staring hard at Mr.
+Osborne. "You are sure he isn't back in town?"
+
+In his turn, Mr. Osborne was staring at Mr. Philpotts.
+
+"Not unless he came back by the same boat which brought Deecie's
+letter. What made you ask?"
+
+"I only wondered."
+
+Mr. Philpotts turned again to the paper. The other went on.
+
+"It seems that a lot of Australian sporting men were on the boat on
+which they went out. Fleming got in with them. They played--he played
+too. Deecie remonstrated--but he says that it only seemed to make bad
+worse. At first Geoff won--you know the usual sort of thing; he wound
+up by losing all he had, and about four hundred pounds beside. He had
+the cheek to ask Deecie for the money." Mr. Osborne paused. Mr.
+Philpotts uttered a sound which might have been indicative of
+contempt--or anything. "Deecie says that when the winners found out
+that he couldn't pay, there was a regular row. Geoff swore, in that
+wild way of his, that if he couldn't pay them before he died, he would
+rise from the dead to get the money."
+
+Mr. Philpotts looked round with a show of added interest.
+
+"What was that he said?"
+
+"Oh, it was only his wild way of speaking--you know that way of his. If
+they don't get their money before he dies, and I fancy that it's rather
+more than even betting that they won't, I don't think that there's much
+chance of his rising from his grave to get it for them. He'll break
+that promise, as he has broken so many more. Poor Geoff! It seems that
+we might as well have kept our money in our pockets; it doesn't seem to
+have done him much good. His prospects don't look very rosy--without
+money, and with a bad name to start with."
+
+"As I fancy you have more than once suspected, Frank, I never have had
+a high opinion of Mr. Geoffrey Fleming. I am not in the least surprised
+at what you tell me, any more than I was surprised when he came his
+cropper. I have always felt that, at a pinch, he would do anything to
+save his own skin." Mr. Osborne said nothing, but he shook his head.
+"Did you see anything of Bloxham when you came in?"
+
+"I saw him going along the street in a cab."
+
+"I want to speak to him! I think I'll just go and see if I can find him
+in his rooms."
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+Mr. Frank Osborne scarcely seemed to be enjoying his own society when
+Mr. Philpotts had left him. As all the world knows, he is a man of
+sentiment--of the true sort, not the false. He has had one great
+passion in his life--Geoffrey Fleming. They began when they were at
+Chilchester together, when he was big, and Fleming still little. He did
+his work for him, fought for him, took his scrapes upon himself,
+believed in him, almost worshipped him. The thing continued when
+Fleming joined him at the University. Perhaps the fact that they both
+were orphans had something to do with it; neither of them had kith nor
+kin. The odd part of the business was that Osborne was not only a
+clear-sighted, he was a hard-headed man. It could not have been long
+before it dawned upon him that the man with whom he fraternised was a
+naturally bad egg. Fleming was continually coming to grief; he would
+have come to eternal grief at the very commencement of his career if it
+had not been for Osborne at his back. He went through his own money; he
+went through as much of his friend's as his friend would let him. Then
+came the final smash. There were features about the thing which made it
+clear, even to Frank Osborne, that in England, at least, for some years
+to come, Geoffrey Fleming had run his course right out. He strained all
+his already strained resources in his efforts to extricate the man from
+the mire. When he found that he himself was insufficient, going to
+his old schoolfellows, he begged them, for his sake--if not for
+Fleming's--to join hands with him in giving the scapegrace still
+another start. As a result, interest was made for him in a Ceylon
+plantation, and Mr. Fleming with, under the circumstances, well-lined
+pockets, was despatched over the seas to turn over a new leaf in a
+sunnier clime.
+
+How he had vowed that he would turn over a new leaf, actually with
+tears upon his knees! And this was how he had done it; before he had
+reached his journey's end, he had gambled away the money which was not
+his, and was in debt besides. Frank Osborne must have been fashioned
+something like the dog which loves its master the more, the more he
+ill-treats it. His heart went out in pity to the scamp across the seas.
+He had no delusions; he had long been conscious that the man was
+hopeless. And yet he knew very well that if he could have had his
+way he would have gone at once to comfort him. Poor Geoff! What an
+all-round mess he seemed to have made of things--and he had had the ball
+at his feet when he started--poor, dear old Geoff! With his knuckles Mr.
+Osborne wiped a suspicious moisture from his eyes. Geoff was all
+right--if he had only been able to prevent money from slipping from
+between his fingers, had been gifted with a sense of _meum et tuum_--not
+a nicer fellow in the world!
+
+Mr. Osborne sat trying to persuade himself into the belief that the man
+was an injured paragon though he knew very well that he was an
+irredeemable scamp. He endeavoured to see only his good qualities,
+which was a task of exceeding difficulty--they were hidden in such a
+cloud of blackness. At least, whatever might be said against Geoff--and
+Mr. Osborne admitted to himself that there might be something--it was
+certain that Geoff loved him almost as much as he loved Geoff. Mr.
+Osborne declared to himself--putting pressure on himself to prevent
+his making a single mental reservation--that Geoff Fleming, in spite
+of all his faults, was the only person in the wide, wide world who
+did love him. And he was a stranger in a strange land, and in trouble
+again--poor dear old Geoff! Once more Mr. Osborne's knuckles went up to
+wipe that suspicious moisture from his eyes.
+
+While he was engaged in doing this, a hand was laid gently on his
+shoulder from behind. It was, perhaps, because he was unwilling to be
+detected in such an act that, at the touch, he rose from his seat with
+a start--which became so to speak, a start of petrified amazement when
+he perceived who it was who had touched him. It was the man of whom he
+had been thinking, the friend of his boyhood--Geoffrey Fleming.
+
+"Geoff!" he gasped. "Dear old Geoff!" He paused, seemingly in doubt
+whether to laugh or cry. "I thought you were in Ceylon!"
+
+Mr. Fleming did exactly what he had done when he came so unexpectedly
+on Mr. Philpotts--he moved to the chair at Mr. Osborne's side. His
+manner was in contrast to his friend's--it was emphatically not
+emotional.
+
+"I've just dropped in," he drawled.
+
+"My dear old boy!" Mr. Osborne, as he surveyed his friend, seemed to
+become more and more torn by conflicting emotions. "Of course I'm very
+glad to see you Geoff, but how did you get in here? I thought that they
+had taken your name off the books of the club." He was perfectly aware
+that Mr. Fleming's name had been taken off the books of the club, and
+in a manner the reverse of complimentary. Mr. Fleming offered no
+remark. He sat looking down at the carpet stroking his moustache. Mr.
+Osborne went stammeringly on--
+
+"As I say, Geoff--and as, of course you know,--I am very glad to see
+you, anywhere; but--we don't want any unpleasantness, do we? If some of
+the fellows came in and found you here, they might make themselves
+nasty. Come round to my rooms; we shall be a lot more comfortable
+there, old man."
+
+Mr. Fleming raised his eyes. He looked his friend full in the face. As
+he met his glance, Mr. Osborne was conscious of a curious sort of
+shiver. It was not only because the man's glance was, to say the least,
+less friendly than it might have been--it was because of something
+else, something which Mr. Osborne could scarcely have defined.
+
+"I want some money."
+
+Mr. Osborne smiled, rather fatuously.
+
+"Ah, Geoff, the same old tale! Deecie has told me all about it. I won't
+reproach you; you know, if I had some, you should have it; but I'm not
+sure that it isn't just as well for both ourselves that I haven't,
+Geoff."
+
+"You have some money in your pocket now."
+
+Mr. Osborne's amazement grew apace--his friend's manner was so very
+strange.
+
+"What a nose you always have for money; however did you find that out?
+But it isn't mine. You know Jim Baker left me guardian to that boy of
+his, and I've been drawing the youngster's dividends--it's only seventy
+pounds, Geoff."
+
+Mr. Fleming stretched out his hand--his reply was brief and to the
+point.
+
+"Give it to me!"
+
+"Give it to you!--Geoff!--young Baker's money!"
+
+Mr. Fleming reiterated his demand.
+
+"Give it to me!"
+
+His manner was not only distinctly threatening, it had a peculiar
+effect upon his friend. Although Mr. Osborne had never before shewn
+fear of any living man, and had, in that respect, proved his
+superiority over Fleming many a time, there was something at that
+moment in the speaker's voice, or words, or bearing, or in all three
+together, which set him shivering, as if with fear, from head to foot.
+
+"Geoff!--you are mad! I'll see what I can find for you, but I can't
+give you young Baker's dividends."
+
+Mr. Osborne was not quite clear as to exactly what it was that
+happened. He only knew that the friend of his boyhood--the man for whom
+he had done so much--the only person in the world who loved him--rose
+and took him by the throat, and, forcing him backwards, began to rifle
+the pocket which contained the seventy pounds. He was so taken by
+surprise, so overwhelmed by a feeling of utter horror, against which he
+was unable even to struggle, that it was only when he felt the money
+being actually withdrawn from his pocket that he made an attempt at
+self-defence. Then, when he made a frantic clutch at his assailant's
+felonious arm, all he succeeded in grasping was the empty air. The
+pressure was removed from his throat. He was able to look about him.
+Mr. Fleming was gone. He thrust a trembling hand into his pocket--the
+seventy pounds had vanished too.
+
+"Geoff! Geoff!" he cried, the tears streaming from his eyes. "Don't
+play tricks with me! Give me back young Baker's dividends!"
+
+When no one answered and there seemed no one to hear, he began to
+searching round and round the room with his eyes, as if he suspected
+Mr. Fleming of concealing himself behind some article of furniture.
+
+"Geoff! Geoff!" he continued crying. "Dear old boy!--give me back young
+Baker's dividends!"
+
+"Hullo!" exclaimed a voice--which certainly was not Mr. Fleming's. Mr.
+Osborne turned. Colonel Lanyon was standing with the handle of the open
+door in his hand. "Frank, are you rehearsing for a five-act tragedy?"
+
+Mr. Osborne replied to the Colonel's question with another.
+
+"Lanyon, did Geoffrey Fleming pass you as you came in?"
+
+"Geoffrey Fleming!" The Colonel wheeled round on his heels like a
+teetotum. He glanced behind him. "What the deuce do you mean, Frank? If
+I catch that thief under the roof which covers me, I'll make a case for
+the police of him."
+
+Then Mr. Osborne remembered what, in his agitation, he had momentarily
+forgotten, that Geoffrey Fleming had had no bitterer, more out-spoken,
+and, it may be added, more well-merited an opponent than Colonel Lanyon
+in the Climax Club. The Colonel advanced towards Mr. Osborne.
+
+"Do you know that that's the blackguard's chair you're standing by?"
+
+"His chair!"
+
+Mr. Osborne was leaning with one hand on the chair on which Mr. Fleming
+had, not long ago, been sitting.
+
+"That's what he used to call it himself,--with his usual impudence. He
+used to sit in it whenever he took a hand. The men would give it up to
+him--you know how you gave everything up to him, all the lot of you. If
+he couldn't get it he'd turn nasty--wouldn't play. It seems that he had
+the cheek to cut his initials on the chair--I only heard of it the
+other day, or there'd have been a clearance of him long ago. Look
+here--what do you think of that for a piece of rowdiness?"
+
+The Colonel turned the chair upside down. Sure enough in the woodwork
+underneath the seat were the letters, cut in good-sized characters--"G.
+F."
+
+"You know that rubbishing way in which he used to talk. When men
+questioned his exclusive right to the chair, I've heard him say he'd
+prove his right by coming and sitting in it after he was dead and
+buried--he swore he'd haunt the chair. Idiot!--What is the matter with
+you Frank? You look as if you'd been in a rough and tumble--your
+necktie's all anyhow."
+
+"I think I must have dropped asleep, and dreamed--yes, I fancy I've
+been dreaming."
+
+Mr. Osborne staggered, rather than walked, to the door, keeping one
+hand in the inside pocket of his coat. The Colonel followed him with
+his eyes.
+
+"Frank's ageing fast," was his mental comment as Mr. Osborne
+disappeared. "He'll be an old man yet before I am."
+
+He seated himself in Geoffrey Fleming's chair.
+
+It was, perhaps, ten minutes afterwards that Edward Jackson went into
+the smoking room--"Scientific" Jackson, as they call him, because of
+the sort of catch phrase he is always using--"Give me science!" He had
+scarcely been in the room a minute before he came rushing to the door
+shouting--
+
+"Help, help!"
+
+Men came hurrying from all parts of the building. Mr. Griffin came from
+the billiard-room, where he is always to be found. He had a cue in one
+hand, and a piece of chalk in the other. He was the first to address
+the vociferous gentleman standing at the smoking-room door.
+
+"Jackson!--What's the matter?"
+
+Mr. Jackson was in such a condition of fluster and excitement that it
+was a little difficult to make out, from his own statement, what was
+the matter.
+
+"Lanyon's dead! Have any of you seen Geoff Fleming? Stop him if you
+do--he's stolen my pocket-book!" He began mopping his brow with his
+bandanna handkerchief, "God bless my soul! an awful thing!--I've been
+robbed--and old Lanyon's dead!"
+
+One thing was quickly made clear--as they saw for themselves when they
+went crowding into the smoking-room--Lanyon was dead. He was kneeling
+in front of Geoffrey Fleming's chair, clutching at either side of it
+with a tenacity which suggested some sort of convulsion. His head was
+thrown back, his eyes were still staring wide open, his face was
+distorted by a something which was half fear, half horror--as if, as
+those who saw him afterwards agreed, he had seen sudden, certain death
+approaching him, in a form which even he, a seasoned soldier, had found
+too horrible for contemplation.
+
+Mr. Jackson's story, in one sense, was plain enough, though it was odd
+enough in another. He told it to an audience which evinced unmistakable
+interest in every word uttered.
+
+"I often come in for a smoke about this time, because generally the
+place is empty, so that you get it all to yourself."
+
+He cast a somewhat aggressive look upon his hearers--a look which could
+hardly be said to convey a flattering suggestion.
+
+"When I first came in I thought that the room was empty. It was only
+when I was half-way across that something caused me to look round. I
+saw that someone was kneeling on the floor. I looked to see who it was.
+It was Lanyon. 'Lanyon!' I cried. 'Whatever are you doing there?' He
+didn't answer. Wondering what was up with him and why he didn't speak,
+I went closer to where he was. When I got there I didn't like the look
+of him at all. I thought he was in some sort of a fit. I was hesitating
+whether to pick him up, or at once to summon assistance, when--"
+
+Mr. Jackson paused. He looked about him with an obvious shiver.
+
+"By George! when I think of it now, it makes me go quite creepy.
+Cathcart, would you mind ringing for another drop of brandy?"
+
+The brandy was rung for. Mr. Jackson went on.
+
+"All of a sudden, as I was stooping over Lanyon, someone touched me on
+the shoulder. You know, there hadn't been a sound--I hadn't heard the
+door open, not a thing which could suggest that anyone was approaching.
+Finding Lanyon like that had make me go quite queer, and when I felt
+that touch on my shoulder it so startled me that I fairly screeched. I
+jumped up to see who it was, And when I saw"--Mr. Jackson's bandanna
+came into play--"who it was, I thought my eyes would have started out
+of my head. It was Geoff Fleming."
+
+"Who?" came in chorus from his auditors.
+
+"It was Geoffrey Fleming. 'Good God!--Fleming!' I cried. 'Where did you
+come from? I never heard you. Anyhow, you're just in the nick of time.
+Lanyon's come to grief--lend me a hand with him.' I bent down, to take
+hold of one side of poor old Lanyon, meaning Fleming to take hold of
+the other. Before I had a chance of touching Lanyon, Fleming, catching
+me by the shoulder, whirled me round--I had had no idea the fellow was
+so strong, he gripped me like a vice. I was just going to ask what the
+dickens he meant by handling me like that, when, before I could say
+Jack Robinson, or even had time to get my mouth open, Fleming, darting
+his hand into my coat pocket, snatched my pocket-book clean out of it."
+
+He stopped, apparently to gasp for breath. "And, pray, what were you
+doing while Mr. Fleming behaved in this exceedingly peculiar way--even
+for Mr. Fleming?" inquired Mr. Cathcart.
+
+"Doing!" Mr. Jackson was indignant. "Don't I tell you I was doing
+nothing? There was no time to do anything--it all happened in a flash.
+I had just come from my bankers--there were a hundred and thirty pounds
+in that pocket-book. When I realised that the fellow had taken it, I
+made a grab at him. And"--again Mr. Jackson looked furtively about him,
+and once more the bandanna came into active play--"directly I did so, I
+don't know where he went to, but it seemed to me that he vanished into
+air--he was gone, like a flash of lightning. I told myself I was
+mad--stark mad! but when I felt for my pocketbook, and found that that
+was also gone, I ran yelling to the door."
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+It was, as the old-time novelists used to phrase it, about three weeks
+after the events transpired which we have recorded in the previous
+chapter. Evening--after dinner. There was a goodly company assembled in
+the smoking room at the Climax Club. Conversation was general. They
+were talking of some of the curious circumstances which had attended
+the death of Colonel Lanyon. The medical evidence at the inquest had
+gone to shew that the Colonel had died of one of the numerous, and,
+indeed, almost innumerable, varieties of heart disease. The finding had
+been in accordance with the medical evidence. It seemed to be felt, by
+some of the speakers, that such a finding scarcely met the case.
+
+"It's all very well," observed Mr. Cathcart, who seemed disposed to
+side with the coroner's jury, "for you fellows to talk, but in such a
+case, you must bring in some sort of verdict--and what other verdict
+could they bring? There was not a trace of any mark of violence to be
+found upon the man.
+
+"It's my belief that he saw Fleming, and that Fleming frightened him to
+death."
+
+It was Mr. Jackson who said this. Mr. Cathcart smiled a rather
+provoking smile.
+
+"So far as I observed, you did not drop any hint of your belief when
+you were before the coroner."
+
+"No, because I didn't want to be treated as a laughing-stock by a lot
+of idiots."
+
+"Quite so; I can understand your natural objection to that, but still I
+don't see your line of argument. I should not have cared to question
+Lanyon's courage to Lanyon's face while he was living. Why should you
+suppose that such a man as Geoffrey Fleming was capable of such a thing
+as, as you put it, actually frightening him to death? I should say it
+was rather the other way about. I have seen Fleming turn green, with
+what looked very much like funk, at the sight of Lanyon."
+
+Mr. Jackson for some moments smoked in silence.
+
+"If you had seen Geoffrey Fleming under the circumstances in which I
+did, you would understand better what it is I mean."
+
+"But, my dear Jackson, if you will forgive my saying so, it seems to me
+that you don't shew to great advantage in your own story. Have you
+communicated the fact of your having been robbed to the police?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"And have you furnished them with the numbers of the notes which were
+taken?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"Then, in that case, I shouldn't be surprised if Mr. Fleming were
+brought to book any hour of any day. You'll find he has been lying
+close in London all the time--he soon had enough of Ceylon."
+
+A new comer joined the group of talkers--Frank Osborne. They noticed,
+as he seated himself, how much he seemed to have aged of late and how
+particularly shabby he seemed just then. The first remark which he made
+took them all aback.
+
+"Geoff Fleming's dead."
+
+"Dead!" cried Mr. Philpotts, who was sitting next to Mr. Osborne.
+
+"Yes--dead. I've heard from Deecie. He died three weeks ago."
+
+"Three weeks ago!"
+
+"On the day on which Lanyon died."
+
+Mr. Cathcart turned to Mr. Jackson, with a smile.
+
+"Then that knocks on the head your theory about his having frightened
+Lanyon to death; and how about your interview with him--eh Jackson?"
+
+Mr. Jackson did not answer. He suddenly went white. An intervention
+came from an unexpected quarter--from Mr. Philpotts.
+
+"It seems to me that you are rather taking things for granted,
+Cathcart. I take leave to inform you that I saw Geoffrey Fleming,
+perhaps less than half-an-hour before Jackson did."
+
+Mr. Cathcart stared.
+
+"You saw him!--Philpotts!"
+
+Then Mr. Bloxham arose and spoke.
+
+"Yes, and I saw him, too--didn't I, Philpott's?"
+
+Any tendency on the part of the auditors to smile was checked by the
+tone of exceeding bitterness in which Frank Osborne was also moved to
+testify.
+
+"And I--I saw him, too!--Geoff!--dear old boy!"
+
+"Deecie says that there were two strange things about Geoff's death. He
+was struck by a fit of apoplexy. He was dead within the hour. Soon
+after he died, the servant came running to say that the bed was empty
+on which the body had been lying. Deecie went to see. He says that,
+when he got into the room, Geoff was back again upon the bed, but it
+was plain enough that he had moved. His clothes and hair were in
+disorder, his fists were clenched, and there was a look upon his face
+which had not been there at the moment of his death, and which, Deecie
+says, seemed a look partly of rage and partly of triumph.
+
+"I have been calculating the difference between Cingalese and Greenwich
+time. It must have been between three and four o'clock when the servant
+went running to say that Geoff's body was not upon the bed--it was
+about that time that Lanyon died."
+
+He paused--and then continued--
+
+"The other strange thing that happened was this. Deecie says that the
+day after Geoff died a telegram came for him, which, of course, he
+opened. It was an Australian wire, and purported to come from the
+Melbourne sporting man of whom I told you." He turned to Mr. Philpotts.
+"It ran, 'Remittance to hand. It comes in rather a miscellaneous form.
+Thanks all the same.' Deecie can only suppose that Geoff had managed,
+in some way, to procure the four hundred pounds which he had lost and
+couldn't pay, and had also managed, in some way, to send it on to
+Melbourne."
+
+There was silence when Frank Osborne ceased to speak--silence which was
+broken in a somewhat startling fashion.
+
+"Who's that touched me?" suddenly exclaimed Mr. Cathcart, springing
+from his seat.
+
+They stared.
+
+"Touched you!" said someone. "No one's within half a mile of you.
+You're dreaming, my dear fellow."
+
+Considering the provocation was so slight, Mr. Cathcart seemed
+strangely moved.
+
+"Don't tell me that I'm dreaming--someone touched me on the
+shoulder!--What's that?"
+
+"That" was the sound of laughter proceeding from the, apparently,
+vacant seat. As if inspired by a common impulse, the listeners
+simultaneously moved back.
+
+"That's Fleming's chair," said Mr. Philpotts, beneath his breath.
+
+
+
+
+                                 Nelly
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+"Why!" Mr. Gibbs paused. He gave a little gasp. He bent still closer.
+Then the words came with a rush: "It's Nelly!"
+
+He glanced at the catalogue. "No. 259--'Stitch! Stitch!
+Stitch!'--Philip Bodenham." It was a small canvas, representing the
+interior of an ill-furnished apartment in which a woman sat, on a
+rickety chair, at a rickety table, sewing. The picture was an
+illustration of "The Song of the Shirt."
+
+Mr. Gibbs gazed at the woman's face depicted on the canvas, with gaping
+eyes.
+
+"It's Nelly!" he repeated. There was a catch in his voice. "Nelly!"
+
+He tore himself away as if he were loth to leave the woman who sat
+there sewing. He went to the price list which the Academicians keep in
+the lobby. He turned the leaves. The picture was unsold. The artist had
+appraised it at a modest figure. Mr. Gibbs bought it there and then.
+Then he turned to his catalogue to discover the artist's address. Mr.
+Bodenham lived in Manresa Road, Chelsea.
+
+Not many minutes after a cab drove up to the Manresa Studios. Mr. Gibbs
+knocked at a door on the panels of which was inscribed Mr. Bodenham's
+name.
+
+"Come in!" cried a voice.
+
+Mr. Gibbs entered. An artist stood at his easel.
+
+"Mr. Bodenham?"
+
+"I am Mr. Bodenham."
+
+"I am Mr. Gibbs. I have just purchased your picture at the Academy,
+'Stitch! Stitch! Stitch!'" Mr. Bodenham bowed. "I--I wish to make a--a
+few inquiries about--about the picture."
+
+Mr. Gibbs was as nervous as a schoolboy. He stammered and he blushed.
+The artist seemed to be amused. He smiled.
+
+"You wish to make a few inquiries about the picture--yes?"
+
+"About the--about the subject of the picture. That is, about--about the
+model."
+
+Mr. Gibbs became a peony red. The artist's smile grew more pronounced.
+
+"About the model?"
+
+"Yes, about the model. Where does she live?"
+
+Although the day was comparatively cool, Mr. Gibbs was so hot that it
+became necessary for him to take out his handkerchief to wipe his brow.
+Mr. Bodenham was a sunny-faced young man. He looked at his visitor with
+laughter in his eyes.
+
+"You are aware, Mr. Gibbs, that yours is rather an unusual question. I
+have not the pleasure of your acquaintance, and we artists are not in
+the habit of giving information about our models to perfect strangers.
+It would not do. Moreover, how do you know that I painted from a model?
+The faces in pictures are sometimes creations of the artist's
+imagination. Perhaps oftener than the public think."
+
+"I know the model in 'Stitch! Stitch! Stitch!'"
+
+"You know her? Then why do you come to me for information?"
+
+"I should have said that I knew her years ago."
+
+Mr. Gibbs looked round the room a little doubtfully. Then he laid his
+hand on the back of a chair, as if for the support, moral and physical,
+which it afforded him. He looked at the artist with his big, grave
+eyes.
+
+"As I say, Mr. Bodenham, I knew her years ago--and I loved her."
+
+There was a catch in his voice. The artist seemed to be growing more
+and more amused. Mr. Gibbs went on:
+
+"I was a younger man then. She was but a girl. We both of us were poor.
+We loved each other dearly. We agreed that I should go abroad and make
+my fortune. When I had made it, I was to come back to her."
+
+The big man paused. His listener was surprised to find how much his
+visitor's curious earnestness impressed him. "I had hard times of it at
+first. Now and then I heard from her. At last her letters ceased. About
+the time her letters ceased, my prospects bettered. Now I'm doing
+pretty well. So I've come to take her back with me to the other side.
+Mr. Bodenham, I've looked for her everywhere. As they say, high and
+low. I've been to her old home, and to mine--I've been just everywhere.
+But no one seems to know anything about her. She has just clean gone,
+vanished out of sight. I was thinking that I should have to go back,
+after all, without her, when I saw your picture in the Academy, and I
+knew the girl you had painted was Nelly. So I bought your picture--her
+picture. And now I want you to tell me where she lives."
+
+There was a momentary silence when the big man finished.
+
+"Yours is a very romantic story, Mr. Gibbs. Since you have done me the
+honour to make of me your confidant, I shall have pleasure in giving
+you the address of the original of my little picture--the address, that
+is, at which I last heard of her. I have reason to believe that her
+address is not infrequently changed. When I last heard of her, she
+was--what shall I say?--hard up."
+
+"Hard up, was she? Was she very hard up, Mr. Bodenham?"
+
+"I'm afraid, Mr. Gibbs, that she was as hard up as she could be--and
+live."
+
+Mr. Gibbs cleared his throat:
+
+"Thank you. Will you give me her address, Mr. Bodenham?"
+
+Mr. Bodenham wrote something on a slip of paper.
+
+"There it is. It is a street behind Chelsea Hospital--about as
+unsavoury a neighbourhood as you will easily find."
+
+Mr. Gibbs found that the artist's words were justified by facts--it was
+an unsavoury neighbourhood into which the cabman found his way. No. 20
+was the number which Mr. Bodenham had given him. The door of No. 20
+stood wide open. Mr. Gibbs knocked with his stick. A dirty woman
+appeared from a room on the left.
+
+"Does Miss Brock live here?"
+
+"Never heard tell of no such name. Unless it's the young woman what
+lives at the top of the 'ouse--third floor back. Perhaps it's her
+you want. Is it a model that you're after? Because, that's what she
+is--leastways I've heard 'em saying so. Top o' the stairs, first door
+to your left."
+
+Mr. Gibbs started to ascend.
+
+"Take care of them stairs," cried the woman after him. "They wants
+knowing."
+
+Mr. Gibbs found that what the woman said was true--they did want
+knowing. Better light, too would have been an assistant to a better
+knowledge. He had to strike a match to enable him to ascertain if he
+had reached the top. A squalid top it was--it smelt! By the light of
+the flickering match he perceived that there was a door upon his left.
+He knocked. A voice cried to him, for the second time that day:
+
+"Come in!"
+
+But this voice was a woman's. At the sound of it, the heart in the
+man's great chest beat, in a sledge-hammer fashion, against his ribs.
+His hand trembled as he turned the handle, and when he had opened the
+door, and stood within the room, his heart, which had been beating so
+tumultuously a moment before, stood still.
+
+The room, which was nothing but a bare attic with raftered ceiling, was
+imperfectly lighted by a small skylight--a skylight which seemed as
+though it had not been cleaned for ages, so obscured was the glass by
+the accumulations of the years. By the light of this skylight Mr. Gibbs
+could see that a woman was standing in the centre of the room.
+
+"Nelly!" he cried.
+
+The woman shrank back with, as it were, a gesture of repulsion. Mr.
+Gibbs moved forward. "Nelly! Don't you know me? I am Tom."
+
+"Tom?"
+
+The woman's voice was but an echo.
+
+"Tom! Yes, my own, own darling, I am Tom."
+
+Mr. Gibbs advanced. He held out his arms. He was just in time to catch
+the woman, or she would have fallen to the floor.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+"Nelly, don't you know me?" The woman was coming to.
+
+"Haven't you a light?" The woman faintly shook her head.
+
+"See, I have your portrait where you placed it; it has never left me
+all the time. But when I saw your picture I did not need your portrait
+to tell me it was you."
+
+"When you saw my picture?"
+
+"Your portrait in Mr. Bodenham's picture at Academy 'Stitch! Stitch!
+Stitch!'"
+
+"Mr. Bodenham's--I see."
+
+The woman's tone was curiously cold.
+
+"Nelly, you don't seem to be very glad to see me."
+
+"Have you got any money?"
+
+"Any money, Nelly?"
+
+"I am hungry."
+
+"Hungry!"
+
+The woman's words seemed to come to him with the force of revelation.
+
+"Hungry!" She turned her head away. "Oh, my God, Nelly." His voice
+trembled. "Wa-wait here, I--I sha'n't be a moment. I've a cab at the
+door."
+
+He was back almost as soon as he went. He brought with him half the
+contents of a shop--among other things, a packet of candles. These he
+lighted, standing them, on their own ends, here and there about the
+room. The woman ate shyly, as if, in spite of her confession of hunger,
+she had little taste for food. She was fingering the faded photograph
+of a girl which Mr. Gibbs had taken from his pocket-book.
+
+"Is this my portrait?"
+
+"Nelly! Don't you remember it?"
+
+"How long is it since it was taken?"
+
+"Why, it's more than seven years, isn't it?"
+
+"Do you think I've altered much?"
+
+Mr. Gibbs went to her. He studied her by the light of the candles.
+
+"Well, you might be plumper, and you might look happier, perhaps, but
+all that we'll quickly alter. For the rest, thank God, you're my old
+Nelly." He took her in his arms. As he did so she drew a long, deep
+breath. Holding her at arms-length, he studied her again. "Nelly, I'm
+afraid you haven't been having the best of times."
+
+She broke from him with sudden passion.
+
+"Don't speak of it! Don't speak of it! The life I've lived----" She
+paused. All at once her voice became curiously hard. "But through it
+all I've been good. I swear it. No one knows what the temptation is, to
+a woman who has lived the life I have, to go wrong. But I never went.
+Tom"--she laid her hand upon Mr. Gibb's arm as, with marked
+awkwardness, his name issued from her lips--"say that you believe that
+I've been good."
+
+His only answer was to take her in his arms again, and to kiss her.
+
+Mr. Gibbs provided his new-found lost love with money. With that money
+she renewed her wardrobe. He found her other lodgings in a more savoury
+neighbourhood at Putney. In those lodgings he once more courted her.
+
+He told himself during those courtship days, that, after all, the years
+had changed her. She was a little hard. He did not remember the Nelly
+of the old time as being hard. But, then, what had happened during the
+years which had come between! Father and mother both had died. She had
+been thrown out into the world without a friend, without a penny! His
+letters had gone astray. In those early days he had been continually
+wandering hither and thither. Her letters had strayed as well as his.
+Struggling for existence, when she saw that no letters reached her, she
+told herself either that he too had died, or that he had forgotten her.
+Her heart hardened. It was with her a bitter striving for daily bread.
+She had tried everything. Teaching, domestic service, chorus singing,
+needlework, acting as an artist's model--she had failed in everything
+alike. At the best she had only been able to keep body and soul
+together. It had come to the worst at last. On the morning on which he
+found her, she had been two days without food. She had decided that,
+that night, if things did not mend during the intervening hours--of
+which she had no hope--that she would seek for better fortune--in the
+Thames.
+
+She told her story, not all at once, but at different times, and in
+answer to her lover's urgent solicitations. She herself at first
+evinced a desire for reticence. The theme seemed too painful a theme
+for her to dwell upon. But the man's hungry heart poured forth such
+copious stores of uncritical sympathy that, after a while, it seemed to
+do her good to pour into his listening ears a particular record of her
+woes. She certainly had suffered. But now that the days of suffering
+were ended, it began almost to be a pleasure to recall the sorrows
+which were past.
+
+In the sunshine of prosperity the woman's heart became young again, and
+softer. It was not only that she became plumper--which she certainly
+did--but she became, inwardly and outwardly, more beautiful. Her lover
+told himself, and her, that she was more beautiful even than she had
+been as a girl. He declared that she was far prettier than she appeared
+in the old-time photograph. She smiled, and she charmed him with an
+infinite charm.
+
+The days drew near to the wedding. Had he had his way he would have
+married her, off-hand, when he found her in the top attic in that
+Chelsea slum. But she said no. Then she would not even talk of
+marriage. To hear her, one would have thought that the trials she had
+undergone had unfitted her for wedded life. He laughed her out of
+that--a day was fixed. She postponed it once, and then again. She had it
+that she needed time to recuperate--that she would not marry with the
+shadow of that grisly past still haunting her at night. He argued that
+the royal road to recuperation was in his arms. He declared that she
+would be troubled by no haunting shadows as his dear wife. And, at
+last, she yielded. A final date was fixed. That day drew near.
+
+As the day drew near, she grew more tender. On the night before the
+wedding-day her tenderness reached, as it were, its culminating point.
+Never before had she been so sweet--so softly caressing. They were but
+to part for a few short hours. In the morning they were to meet, never,
+perhaps, to part again. But it seemed as if he could not tear himself
+away, and as if she could not let him go.
+
+Just before he left her a little dialogue took place between them,
+which if lover-like, none the less was curious.
+
+"Tom" she said, "suppose, after we are married, you should find out
+that I have not been so good as you thought, what would you say?"
+
+"Say?--nothing."
+
+"Oh yes, you would, else you would be less than man. Suppose, for
+instance, that you found out I had deceived you."
+
+"I decline to suppose impossibilities."
+
+She had been circled by his arms. Now she drew herself away from him.
+She stood where the gaslight fell right on her.
+
+"Tom, look at me carefully! Are you sure you know me?"
+
+"Nelly!"
+
+"Are you quite sure you are not mistaking me for some one else? Are you
+quite sure, Tom?"
+
+"My own!"
+
+He took her in his arms again. As he did so, she looked him steadfastly
+in the face.
+
+"Tom, I think it possible that, some day, you may think less of me
+than you do now. But"--she put her hand over his mouth to stop his
+speaking--"whatever you may think of me, I shall always love you"--there
+was an appreciable pause, and an appreciable catching of her
+breath--"better than my life."
+
+She kissed him, with unusual abandonment, long and fervently, upon the
+lips.
+
+The morning of the following day came with the promise of fine weather.
+Theirs had been an unfashionable courtship--it was to be an
+unfashionable wedding. Mr. Gibbs was to call for his bride, at her
+lodgings. They were to drive together, in a single hired brougham, to
+the church.
+
+Even before the appointed hour, the expectant bridegroom drew up to the
+door of the house in which his lady-love resided. His knock was
+answered with an instant readiness which showed that his arrival had
+been watched and waited for. The landlady herself opened the door, her
+countenance big with tidings.
+
+"Miss Brock has gone, sir."
+
+"Gone!" Mr. Gibbs was puzzled by the woman's tone. "Gone where? For a
+walk?"
+
+"No, sir, she's gone away. She's left this letter, sir, for you."
+
+The landlady thrust an envelope into his hand. It was addressed simply,
+"Thomas Gibbs, Esq." With the envelope in his hand, and an odd
+something clutching at his heart, he went into the empty sitting-room.
+He took the letter out of its enclosure, and this is what he read:
+
+"My own, own Tom,--You never were mine, and it is the last time I shall
+ever call you so. I am going back, I have only too good reason to fear,
+to the life from which you took me, because--_I am not your Nelly_."
+
+The words were doubly underlined, they were unmistakable, yet he had to
+read them over and over again before he was able to grasp their
+meaning. What did they mean? Had his darling suddenly gone mad? The
+written sheet swam before his eyes. It was with an effort he read on.
+
+"How you ever came to mistake me for her I cannot understand. The more
+I have thought of it, the stranger it has seemed. I suppose there must
+be a resemblance between us--between your Nelly and me. Though I expect
+the resemblance is more to the face in Mr. Bodenham's picture than it
+is to mine. I never did think the woman in Mr. Bodenham's picture was
+like me--though I was his model. I never could have been the original
+of your photograph of Nelly--it is not in the least like me. I think
+that you came to England with your heart and mind and eyes so full of
+Nelly, and so eager for a sight of her, that, in your great hunger of
+love, you grasped at the first chance resemblance you encountered. That
+is the only explanation I can think of, Tom, of how you can have
+mistaken me for her.
+
+"My part is easier to explain. It is quite true, as I told you, that I
+was starving when you came to me. I was so weak and faint, and sick at
+heart, that your sudden appearance and strange behaviour--in a perfect
+stranger, for you were a perfect stranger, Tom--drove from me the few
+senses I had left. When I recovered I found myself in the arms of a man
+who seemed to know me, and who spoke to me words of love--words which I
+had never heard from the lips of a man before. I sent you to buy me
+food. While you were gone I told myself--wickedly! I know, Tom it was
+wickedly!--what a chance had come at last, which would save me from the
+river, at least for a time, and I should be a fool to let it slip. I
+perceived that you were mistaking me for some one else. I resolved to
+allow you to continue under your misapprehension. I did not doubt that
+you would soon discover your mistake. What would happen then I did not
+pause to think. But events marched quicker than I, in that first moment
+of mad impulse, had bargained for. You never did discover your mistake.
+How that was, even now I do not understand. But you began to talk of
+marriage. That was a prospect I dared not face.
+
+"For one thing--forgive me for writing it, but I must write it, now
+that I am writing to you for the first and for the last time--I began
+to love you. Not for the man I supposed you to be, but for the man I
+knew you were. I loved you--and I love you! I shall never cease to love
+you, with a love of which I did not think I was capable. As I told you,
+Tom, last night--when I kissed you!--I love you better than my own
+life. Better, far better, for my life is worthless, and you--you are
+not worthless, Tom! And I would not--even had I dared!--allow you to
+marry me; not for myself, but for another; not for the present, but for
+the past; not for the thing I was, but for the thing which you supposed
+I had been, once. I would have married you for your own sake; you would
+not have married me for mine. And so, since I dared not undeceive
+you--I feared to see the look which would come in your face and your
+eyes--I am going to steal back, like a thief, to the life from which you
+took me. I have had a greater happiness than ever I expected. I have
+enjoyed those stolen kisses which they say are sweetest. Your happiness
+is still to come. You will find Nelly. Such love as yours will not go
+unrewarded. I have been but an incident, a chapter in your life, which
+now is closed. God bless you, Tom! I am yours, although you are not
+mine--not yours, Nelly Brock--but yours, Helen Reeves."
+
+Mr. Gibbs read this letter once, then twice, and then again. Then he
+rang the bell. The landlady appeared with a suspicious promptitude
+which suggested the possibility of her having been a spectator of his
+proceedings through the keyhole.
+
+"When did Miss Brock go out?"
+
+"Quite early, sir. I'm sure, sir, I was quite taken aback when she said
+that she was going--on her wedding-day and all."
+
+"Did she say where she was going?"
+
+"Not a word, sir. She said: 'Mrs. Horner, I am going away. Give this
+letter to Mr. Gibbs when he comes.' That was every word she says, sir;
+then she goes right out of the front door."
+
+"Did she take any luggage?"
+
+"Just the merest mite of a bag, sir--not another thing."
+
+Mr. Gibbs asked no other questions. He left the room and went out into
+the street. The driver of the brougham was instructed to drive, not to
+church, but--to his evident and unconcealed surprise--to that slum in
+Chelsea. She had written that she was returning to the old life. The
+old life was connected with that top attic. He thought it might be
+worth his while to inquire if anything had been seen or heard of her.
+Nothing had. He left his card, with instructions to write him should
+any tidings come that way. Then, since it was unadvisable to drive
+about all day under the aegis of a Jehu, whose button-hole was adorned
+with a monstrous wedding favour, he dismissed the carriage and sent it
+home.
+
+He turned into the King's Road. He was walking in the direction of
+Sloane Square, when a voice addressed him from behind.
+
+"Tom!"
+
+It was a woman's voice. He turned. A woman was standing close behind
+him, looking and smiling at him--a stout and a dowdy woman. Cheaply and
+flashily dressed in faded finery--not the sort of woman whose
+recognition one would be over-anxious to compel. Mr. Gibbs looked at
+her. There was something in her face and in her voice which struck
+faintly some forgotten chord in his memory.
+
+"Tom! don't you know me? I am Nelly."
+
+He looked at her intently for some instants. Then it all flashed over
+him. This was Nelly, the real Nelly, the Nelly of his younger days, the
+Nelly he had come to find. This dandy sloven, whose shrill voice
+proclaimed her little vulgar soul--so different from that other Nelly,
+whose soft, musical tones had not been among the least of her charms.
+The recognition came on him with the force of a sudden shock. He
+reeled, so that he had to clutch at a railing to help him stand.
+
+"Tom! what's the matter? Aren't you well? Or is it the joy of seeing me
+has sent you silly?"
+
+She laughed, the dissonant laughter of the female Cockney of a certain
+class. Mr. Gibbs recovered his balance and his civility.
+
+"Thank you, I am very well. And you?"
+
+"Oh, I'm all right. There's never much the matter with me. I can't
+afford the time to be ill." She laughed again. "Well, this is a start
+my meeting you. Come and have a bit o' dinner along with us."
+
+"Who is us? Your father and your mother?"
+
+"Why, father, he's been dead these five years, and mother, she's been
+dead these three. I don't want you to have a bit of dinner along with
+them--not hardly." Again she laughed. "It's my old man I mean. Why, you
+don't mean to say you don't know I'm married! Why, I'm the mother of
+five."
+
+He had fallen in at her side. They were walking on together--he like a
+man in a dream.
+
+"We're doing pretty well considering, we manage to live, you know." She
+laughed again. She seemed filled with laughter, which was more than Mr.
+Gibbs was then. "We're fishmongers, that's what we are. William he's
+got a very tidy trade, as good as any in the road. There, here's our
+shop!" She paused in front of a fishmonger's shop. "And there's our
+name"--she pointed up at it. "Nelly Brock I used to be, and now I'm
+Mrs. William Morgan."
+
+She laughed again. She led the way through the shop to a little room
+beyond. A man was seated on the table, reading a newspaper, a man
+without a coat on, and with a blue apron tied about his waist.
+
+"William, who do you think I've brought to see you? You'll never guess
+in a month of Sundays. This is Tom Gibbs, of whom you've heard me speak
+dozens of times."
+
+Mr. Morgan wiped his hand upon his apron.
+
+Then he held it out to Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Gibbs was conscious, as he
+grasped it, that it reeked of fish.
+
+"How are you, Gibbs? Glad to see you!" Mr. Morgan turned to his wife.
+"Where's that George? There's a pair of soles got to be sent up to
+Sydney Street, and there's not a soul about the place to take 'em."
+
+"That George is a dratted nuisance, that's what he is. He never is
+anywhere to be found when you want him. You remember, William, me
+telling you about Tom Gibbs? My old sweetheart, you know, he was. He
+went away to make his fortune, and I was to wait for him till he came
+back, and I daresay I should have waited if you hadn't just happened to
+come along."
+
+"I wish I hadn't just happened, then. I wish she'd waited for you,
+Gibbs. It'd have been better for me, and worse for you, old man."
+
+"That's what they all say, you know, after a time."
+
+Mrs. Morgan laughed. But Mr. Morgan did not seem to be in a
+particularly jovial frame of mind.
+
+"It's all very well for you to talk, you know, but I don't like the way
+things are managed in this house, and so I tell you. There's your new
+lodger come while you've been out, and her room's like a regular
+pig-sty, and I had to show her upstairs myself, with the shop chock-full
+of customers." Mr. Morgan drew his hand across his nose. "See you
+directly, Gibbs; some one must attend to business."
+
+Mr. Morgan withdrew to the shop. Mr. Gibbs and his old love were left
+alone.
+
+"Never you mind, William. He's all right; but he's a bit huffy--men
+will get huffy when things don't go just as they want 'em. I'll just
+run upstairs and send the lodger down here, while I tidy up her room.
+The children slept in it last night. I never expected her till this
+afternoon; she's took me unawares. You wait here; I shan't be half a
+minute. Then we'll have a bit of dinner."
+
+Mr. Gibbs, left alone, sat in a sort of waking dream. Could this be
+Nelly--the Nelly of whom he had dreamed, for whom he had striven, whom
+he had come to find--this mother of five? Why, she must have begun to
+play him false almost as soon as his back was turned. She must have
+already been almost standing at the altar steps with William Morgan
+while writing the last of her letters to him. And had his imagination,
+or his memory, tricked him? Had youth, or distance, lent enchantment to
+the view? Had she gone back, or had he advanced? Could she have been
+the vulgar drab which she now appeared to be, in the days of long ago?
+
+As he sat there, endeavouring to resolve these riddles which had been
+so suddenly presented for solution, the door opened and some one
+entered.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said the voice of the intruder, on perceiving that
+the room was already provided with an occupant.
+
+Mr. Gibbs glanced up. The voice fell like the voice of a magician on
+his ear. He rose to his feet, all trembling. In the doorway was
+standing the other Nelly--the false, and yet the true one. The Nelly of
+his imagination. The Nelly to whom he was to have been married that
+day. He went to her with a sudden cry.
+
+"Nelly!"
+
+"Tom!" She shrank away. But in spite of her shrinking, he took her in
+his arms.
+
+"My own, own darling."
+
+"Tom," she moaned, "don't you understand--I'm not Nelly!"
+
+"I know it, and I thank God, my darling, you are not."
+
+"Tom! What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that I have found Nelly, and I mean that, thank Heaven! I have
+found you too--never, my darling, please Heaven! to lose sight of you
+again."
+
+They had only just time to withdraw from a too suspicious
+neighbourhood, before the door opened again to admit Mrs. Morgan.
+
+"Tom, this is our new lodger. I just asked her if she'd mind stepping
+downstairs while I tidied up her room a bit. Miss Reeves, this is an
+old sweetheart of mine--Mr. Gibbs."
+
+Mr. Gibbs turned to the "new lodger."
+
+"Miss Reeves and I are already acquainted. Miss Reeves, you have heard
+me speak of Mrs. Morgan, though not by that name. This is Nelly."
+
+Miss Reeves turned and looked at Mrs. Morgan, and as she looked--she
+gasped.
+
+
+
+
+                            La Haute Finance
+
+                  A TALE OF THE BIGGEST COUP ON RECORD
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+"By Jove! I believe it could be done!"
+
+Mr. Rodney Railton took the cigarette out of his mouth and sent a puff
+of smoke into the air.
+
+"I believe it could, by Jove!"
+
+Another puff of smoke.
+
+"I'll write to Mac."
+
+He drew a sheet of paper towards him and penned the following:--
+
+"DEAR ALEC,--Can you give me some dinner to-night? Wire me if you have
+a crowd. I shall be in the House till four. Have something to propose
+which will make your hair stand up.
+
+                               "Yours, R. R."
+
+This he addressed "Alexander Macmathers, Esq., 27, Campden Hill
+Mansions." As he went downstairs he gave the note to the
+commissionaire, with instructions that it should be delivered at once
+by hand.
+
+That night Mr. Railton dined with Mr. Macmathers. The party consisted
+of three, the two gentlemen and a lady--Mrs. Macmathers, in fact. Mr.
+Macmathers was an American--a Southerner--rather tall and weedy, with a
+heavy, drooping moustache, like his hair, raven black. He was not
+talkative. His demeanour gave a wrong impression of the man--the
+impression that he was not a man of action. As a matter of fact, he was
+a man of action before all things else. He was not rich, as riches go,
+but certainly he was not poor. His temperament was cosmopolitan, and
+his profession Jack-of-all-trades. Wherever there was money to be made,
+he was there. Sometimes, it must be confessed, he was there, too, when
+there was money to be lost. His wife was English--keen and clever. Her
+chief weakness was that she would persist in looking on existence as a
+gigantic lark. When she was most serious she regarded life least _au
+serieux_.
+
+Mr. Railton, who had invited himself to dinner, was a hybrid--German
+mother, English father. He was quite a young man--say thirty. His host
+was perhaps ten, his hostess five years older than himself. He was a
+stockjobber--ostensibly in the Erie market. All that he had he had
+made, for he had, as a boy, found himself the situation of a clerk. But
+his clerkly days were long since gone. No one anything like his age had
+a better reputation in the House; it was stated by those who had best
+reason to know that he had never once been left, and few had a larger
+credit. Lately he had wandered outside his markets to indulge in little
+operations in what he called _La Haute Finance_. In these Mr.
+Macmathers had been his partner more than once, and in him he had found
+just the man he wished to find.
+
+When they had finished dinner, the lady withdrew, and the gentlemen
+were left alone.
+
+"Well," observed Mr. Macmathers, "what's going to make my hair stand
+up?"
+
+Mr. Railton stroked his chin as he leaned both his elbows on the board.
+
+"Of course, Mac, I can depend on you. I'm just giving myself away. It's
+no good my asking you to observe strict confidence, for, if you won't
+come in, from the mere fact of your knowing it the thing's just busted
+up, that's all."
+
+"Sounds like a mystery-of-blood-to-thee-I'll-now-unfold sort of thing."
+
+"I don't know about mystery, but there'll be plenty of blood."
+
+Mr. Railton stopped short and looked at his friend.
+
+"Blood, eh? I say, Rodney, think before you speak."
+
+"I have thought. I thought I'd play the game alone. But it's too big a
+game for one."
+
+"Well, if you have thought, out with it, or be silent evermore."
+
+"You know Plumline, the dramatist?"
+
+"I know he's an ass."
+
+"Ass or no ass, it's from him I got the idea."
+
+"Good Heavens! No wonder it smells of blood."
+
+"He's got an idea for a new play, and he came to me to get some local
+colouring. I'll just tell you the plot--he was obliged to tell it me,
+or I couldn't have given him the help he wanted."
+
+"Is it essential? I have enough of Plumline's plots when I see them on
+the stage."
+
+"It is essential. You will see."
+
+Mr. Railton got up, lighted a cigar, and stood before the fireplace.
+When he had brought the cigar into good going order he unfolded Mr.
+Plumline's plot.
+
+"I'm not going to bore you. I'm just going to touch upon that part
+which gave me my idea. There's a girl who dreams of boundless wealth--a
+clever girl, you understand."
+
+"Girls who dream of boundless wealth sometimes are clever," murmured
+his friend. Perhaps he had his wife in his mind's eye.
+
+"She is wooed and won by a financier. Not wooed and won by a tale of
+love, but by the exposition of an idea."
+
+"That's rather new--for Plumline."
+
+"The financier has an idea for obtaining the boundless wealth of which
+she only dreams."
+
+"And the idea?"
+
+"Is the bringing about of a war between France and Germany."
+
+"Great snakes!" The cigarette dropped from between Mr. Macmather's
+lips. He carefully picked it up again. "That's not a bad idea--for
+Plumline."
+
+"It's my idea as well. In the play it fails. The financier comes to
+grief. I shouldn't fail. There's just that difference."
+
+Mr. Macmathers regarded his friend in silence before he spoke again.
+
+"Railton, might I ask you to enlarge upon your meaning? I want to see
+which of us two is drunk."
+
+"In the play the man has a big bear account--the biggest upon record. I
+need hardly tell you that a war between France and Germany would mean
+falling markets. Supposing we were able to calculate with certainty the
+exact moment of the outbreak--arrange it, in fact--we might realise
+wealth beyond the dreams of avarice--hundreds of thousands of millions,
+if we chose."
+
+"I suppose you're joking?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"That's what I want to know--how."
+
+"It does sound, at first hearing, like a joke, to suppose that a couple
+of mere outsiders can, at their own sweet will and pleasure, stir up a
+war between two Great Powers."
+
+"A joke is a mild way of describing it, my friend."
+
+"Alec, would you mind asking Mrs. Macmathers to form a third on this
+occasion?"
+
+Mr. Macmathers eyed his friend for a moment, then got up and left the
+room. When he returned his wife was with him. It was to the lady Mr.
+Railton addressed himself.
+
+"Mrs. Macmathers, would you like to be possessed of wealth compared to
+which the wealth of the Vanderbilts, the Rothschilds, the Mackays, the
+Goulds, would shrink into insignificance?"
+
+"Why, certainly."
+
+It was a peculiarity of the lady's that, while she was English, she
+affected what she supposed to be American idioms.
+
+"Would you stick at a little to obtain it?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"It would be worth one's while to run a considerable risk."
+
+"I guess."
+
+"Mrs. Macmathers, I want to go a bear, a large bear, to win, say--I
+want to put it modestly--a hundred millions."
+
+"Pounds?"
+
+"Pounds."
+
+It is to be feared that Mrs. Macmathers whistled.
+
+"Figures large," she said.
+
+"All the world knows that war is inevitable between France and
+Germany."
+
+"Proceed."
+
+"I want to arrange that it shall break out at the moment when it best
+suits me."
+
+"I guess you're a modest man," she said.
+
+Her husband smiled.
+
+"If you consider for a moment, it would not be so difficult as it first
+appears. It requires but a spark to set the fire burning. There is at
+least one party in France to whom war would mean the achievement of all
+their most cherished dreams. It is long odds that a war would bring
+some M. Quelquechose to the front with a rush. He will be at least
+untried. And, of late years, it is the untried men who have the
+people's confidence in France. A few resolute men, my dear Mrs.
+Macmathers, have only to kick up a shindy on the Alsatian
+borders--Europe will be roused, in the middle of the night, by the
+roaring of the flames of war."
+
+There was a pause. Mrs. Macmathers got up and began to pace the room.
+
+"It's a big order," she said.
+
+"Allowing the feasibility of your proposition, I conclude that you have
+some observations to make upon it from a moral point of view. It
+requires them, my friend."
+
+Mr. Macmathers said this with a certain dryness.
+
+"Moral point of view be hanged! It could be argued, mind, and defended;
+but I prefer to say candidly, the moral point of view be hanged!"
+
+"Has it not occurred to you to think that the next Franco-German war
+may mean the annihilation of one of the parties concerned?"
+
+"You mistake the position. I should have nothing to do with the war. I
+should merely arrange the date for its commencement. With or without me
+they would fight."
+
+"You would merely consign two or three hundred thousand men to die at
+the moment which would best suit your pocket."
+
+"There is that way of looking at it, no doubt. But you will allow me to
+remind you that you considered the possibility of creating a corner in
+corn without making unpleasant allusions to the fact that it might have
+meant starvation to thousands."
+
+The lady interposed.
+
+"Mr. Railton, leaving all that sort of thing alone, what is it that you
+propose?"
+
+"The details have still to be filled in. Broadly I propose to arrange a
+series of collisions with the German frontier authorities. I propose to
+get them boomed by the Parisian Press. I propose to give some M.
+Quelquechose his chance."
+
+"It's the biggest order ever I heard."
+
+"Not so big as it sounds. Start to-morrow, and I believe that we should
+be within measureable distance of war next week. Properly managed, I
+will at least guarantee that all the Stock Exchanges of Europe go down
+with a run."
+
+"If the thing hangs fire, how about carrying over?"
+
+"Settle. No carrying over for me. I will undertake that there is a
+sufficient margin of profit. Every account we will do a fresh bear
+until the trick is made. Unless I am mistaken, the trick will be made
+with a rapidity of which you appear to have no conception."
+
+"It is like a dream of the Arabian nights," the lady said.
+
+"Before the actual reality the Arabian nights pale their ineffectual
+fires. It is a chance which no man ever had before, which no man may
+ever have again. I don't think, Macmathers, we ought to let it slip."
+
+They did not let it slip.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+Mr. Railton was acquainted with a certain French gentleman who rejoiced
+in the name--according to his own account--of M. Hippolyte de
+Vrai-Castille. The name did not sound exactly French--M. de Vrai-Castille
+threw light on this by explaining that his family came originally from
+Spain. But, on the other hand, it must be allowed that the name did not
+sound exactly Spanish, either. London appeared to be this gentleman's
+permanent place of residence. Political reasons--so he stated--rendered
+it advisable that he should not appear too prominently upon
+his--theoretically--beloved _boulevards_. Journalism--always following
+this gentleman's account of himself--was the profession to which he devoted
+the flood-tide of his powers. The particular journal or journals which
+were rendered famous by the productions of his pen were rather
+difficult to discover--there appeared to be political reasons, too, for
+that.
+
+"The man is an all-round bad lot." This was what Mr. Railton said when
+speaking of this gentleman to Mr. and Mrs. Macmathers. "A type of
+scoundrel only produced by France. Just the man we want."
+
+"Flattering," observed his friend. "You are going to introduce us to
+high company."
+
+Mr. Railton entertained this gentleman to dinner in a private room at
+the Hotel Continental. M. de Vrai-Castille did not seem to know exactly
+what to make of it. Nothing in his chance acquaintance with Mr. Railton
+had given him cause to suppose that the Englishman regarded him as a
+respectable man, and this sudden invitation to fraternise took him a
+little aback. Possibly he was taken still more aback before the evening
+closed. Conversation languished during the meal; but when it was
+over--and the waiters gone--Mr. Railton became very conversational indeed.
+
+"Look here, What's-your-name"--this was how Mr. Railton addressed M. de
+Vrai-Castille--"I know very little about you, but I know enough to
+suspect that you have nothing in the world excepting what you steal."
+
+"M. Railton is pleased to have his little jest."
+
+If it was a jest, it was not one, judging from the expression of M. de
+Vrai-Castille's countenance which he entirely relished.
+
+"What would you say if I presented you with ten thousand pounds?"
+
+"I should say----"
+
+What he said need not be recorded, but M. de Vrai-Castille used some
+very bad language indeed, expressive of the satisfaction with which the
+gift would be received.
+
+"And suppose I should hint at your becoming possessed of another
+hundred thousand pounds to back it?"
+
+"Pardon me, M. Railton, but is it murder? If so, I would say frankly at
+once that I have always resolved that in those sort of transactions I
+would take no hand."
+
+"Stuff and nonsense! It is nothing of the kind! You say you are a
+politician. Well, I want you to pose as a patriot--a French patriot,
+you understand."
+
+Mr. Railton's eyes twinkled. M. de Vrai-Castille grinned in reply.
+
+"The profession is overcrowded," he murmured, with a deprecatory
+movement of his hands.
+
+"Not on the lines I mean to work it. Did you lose any relatives in the
+war?"
+
+"It depends."
+
+"I feel sure you did. And at this moment the bodies of those patriots
+are sepultured in Alsatian soil. I want you to dig them up again."
+
+"_Mon Dieu! Ce charmant homme!_"
+
+"I want you to form a league for the recovery of the remains of those
+noble spirits who died for their native land, and whose bones now lie
+interred in what was France, but which now, alas! is France no more. I
+want you to go in for this bone recovery business as far as possible on
+a wholesale scale."
+
+"_Ciel! Maintenant j'ai trouve un homme extraordinaire!_"
+
+"You will find no difficulty in obtaining the permission of the
+necessary authorities sanctioning your schemes; but at the very last
+moment, owing to some stated informality, the German brigands will
+interfere even at the edge of the already open grave; patriot bones
+will be dishonoured, France will be shamed in the face of all the
+world."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"The great heart of France is a patient heart, my friend, but even
+France will not stand that. There will be war."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"On the day on which war is declared, one hundred thousand pounds will
+be paid to you in cash."
+
+"And supposing there is no war?"
+
+"Should France prefer to cower beneath her shame, you shall still
+receive ten thousand pounds."
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+The following extract is from the _Times'_ Parisian correspondence--
+
+"The party of La Revanche is taking a new departure. I am in a position
+to state that certain gentlemen are putting their heads together. A
+league is being formed for the recovery of the bodies of various
+patriots who are at present asleep in Alsace. I have my own reasons for
+asserting that some remarkable proceedings may be expected soon. No man
+knows better than myself that there is nothing some Frenchmen will not
+do."
+
+On the same day there appeared in _La Patrie_ a really touching
+article. It was the story of two brothers--one was, the other was not;
+in life they had been together, but in death they were divided. Both
+alike had fought for their native land. One returned--_desole!_--to
+Paris. The other stayed behind. He still stayed behind. It appeared
+that he was buried in Alsace, in a nameless grave! But they had vowed,
+these two, that they would share all things--among the rest, that sleep
+which even patriots must know, the unending sleep of death. "It is
+said," said the article in conclusion, "that that nameless grave, in
+what was France, will soon know none--or two!" It appeared that the
+surviving brother was going for that "nameless grave" on the principle
+of double or quits.
+
+The story appeared, with variations, in a considerable number of
+journals. The _Daily Telegraph_ had an amusing allusion to the fondness
+displayed by certain Frenchmen for their relatives--dead, for the
+"bones" of their fathers. But no one was at all prepared for the events
+which followed.
+
+One morning the various money articles alluded to heavy sales which had
+been effected the day before, "apparently by a party of outside
+speculators." In particular heavy bear operations were reported from
+Berlin. Later in the day the evening papers came out with telegrams
+referring to "disturbances" at a place called Pont-sur-Leaune.
+Pont-sur-Leaune is a little Alsatian hamlet. The next day the tale was
+in everybody's mouth. Certain misguided but well-meaning Frenchmen had
+been "shot down" by the German authorities. Particulars had not yet
+come to hand, but it appeared, according to the information from Paris,
+that a party of Frenchmen had journeyed to Alsace with the intention of
+recovering the bodies of relatives who had been killed in the war; on
+the very edge of the open graves German soldiers had shot them down.
+Telegrams from Berlin stated that a party of body-snatchers had been
+caught in the very act of plying their nefarious trade; no mention of
+shooting came from there. Although the story was doubted in the City,
+it had its effect on the markets--prices fell. It was soon seen, too,
+that the bears were at it again. Foreign telegrams showed that their
+influence was being felt all round; very heavy bear raids were again
+reported from Berlin. Markets became unsettled, with a downward
+tendency, and closing prices were the worst of the day.
+
+Matters were not improved by the news of the morrow. A Frenchman had
+been shot--his name was Hippolyte de Vrai-Castille, and a manifesto
+from his friends had already appeared in Paris. According to this, they
+had been betrayed by the German authorities. They had received
+permission from those authorities to take the bodies of certain of
+their relatives and lay them in French soil. While they were acting on
+this permission they were suddenly attacked by German soldiers, and he,
+their leader, that patriot soul, Hippolyte de Vrai-Castille, was dead.
+But there was worse than that. They had prepared flags in which to wrap
+the bodies of the dead. Those flags--emblems of France--had been seized
+by the rude German soldiers, torn into fragments, trampled in the dust.
+The excitement in Paris appeared to be intense. All that day there was
+a falling market.
+
+The next day's papers were full of contradictory telegrams. From Berlin
+the affair was pooh-poohed. The story of permission having been
+accorded by the authorities was pure fiction--there had been a scuffle
+in which a man had been killed, probably by his own friends--the tale
+of the dishonoured flags was the invention of an imaginative brain. But
+these contradictions were for the most part frantically contradicted by
+the Parisian Press. There was a man in Paris who had actually figured
+on the scene. He had caught M. de Vrai-Castille in his arms as he fell,
+he had been stained by his heart's blood, his cheek had been torn open
+by the bullet which killed his friend. Next his heart he at that moment
+carried portions of the flags--emblems of France!--which had been
+subjected to such shame.
+
+But it was on the following day that the situation first took a
+definitely serious shape. Placards appeared on every dead wall in
+Paris, small bills were thrust under every citizen's door--on the bills
+and placards were printed the same words. They were signed
+"Quelquechose." They pointed out that France owed her present
+degradation--like all her other degradations--to her Government. The
+nation was once more insulted; the Army was once more betrayed; the
+national flag had been trampled on again, as it had been trampled on
+before. Under a strong Government these things could not be, but under
+a Government of cowards----! Let France but breathe the word, "La
+Grande Nation" would exist once more. Let the Army but make a sign,
+there would be "La Grande Armee" as of yore.
+
+That night there was a scene in the Chamber. M. de Caragnac--_a propos
+des botte_--made a truly remarkable speech. He declared that permission
+had been given to these men. He produced documentary evidence to that
+effect. He protested that these men--true citizens of France!--had been
+the victims of a "Prussian" plot. As to the outrage to the national
+flag, had it been perpetrated, say, in Tonkin, "cannons would be
+belching forth their thunders now." But in Alsace--"this brave
+Government dare only turn to the smiters the other cheek." In the
+galleries they cheered him to the echo. On the tribune there was
+something like a free fight. When the last telegrams were despatched to
+London, Paris appeared to be approaching a state of riot.
+
+The next day there burst a thunderbolt. Five men had been detained by
+the German authorities. They had escaped--had been detected in the act
+of flight--had been shot at while running. Two of them had been killed.
+A third had been fatally wounded. The news--flavoured to taste--was
+shouted from the roofs of the houses. Paris indulged in one of its
+periodical fits of madness. The condition of the troops bore a strong
+family likeness to mutiny. And in the morning Europe was electrified by
+the news that a revolution had been effected in the small hours of the
+morning, that the Chambers had been dissolved, and that with the Army
+were the issues of peace and war.
+
+                   *   *   *   *   *
+
+On the day of the declaration of the war between France and
+Germany--that heavy-laden day--an individual called on Mr. Rodney Railton
+whose appearance caused that gentleman to experience a slight sensation
+of surprise.
+
+"De Vrai-Castille! I was wondering if you had left any instructions as
+to whom I was to pay that hundred thousand pounds. I thought that you
+were dead."
+
+"Monsieur mistakes. My name is Henri Kerchrist, a name not unknown in
+my native Finistere. M. Hippolyte de Vrai-Castille is dead. I saw him
+die. It was to me he directed that you should pay that hundred thousand
+pounds."
+
+As he made these observations, possibly owing to some local weakness,
+"Henri Kerchrist" winked the other eye.
+
+
+
+
+                        Mrs. Riddle's Daughter
+
+
+When they asked me to spend the Long with them, or as much of it as I
+could manage, I felt more than half disposed to write and say that I
+could not manage any of it at all. Of course a man's uncle and aunt are
+his uncle and aunt, and as such I do not mean to say that I ever
+thought of suggesting anything against Mr. and Mrs. Plaskett. But then
+Plaskett is fifty-five if he's a day, and not agile, and Mrs. Plaskett
+always struck me as being about ten years older. They have no children,
+and the idea was that, as Mrs. Plaskett's niece--Plaskett is my
+mother's brother, so that Mrs. Plaskett is only my aunt by marriage--as
+I was saying, the idea was that, as Mrs. Plaskett's niece was going to
+spend her Long with them, I, as it were, might take pity on the girl,
+and see her through it.
+
+I am not saying that there are not worse things than seeing a girl,
+single-handed, through a thing like that, but then it depends upon the
+girl. In this case, the mischief was her mother. The girl was Mrs.
+Plaskett's brother's child; his name was Riddle. Riddle was dead. The
+misfortune was, his wife was still alive. I had never seen her, but I
+had heard of her ever since I was breeched. She is one of those awful
+Anti-Everythingites. She won't allow you to smoke, or drink, or breathe
+comfortably, so far as I understand. I dare say you've heard of her.
+Whenever there is any new craze about, her name always figures in the
+bills.
+
+So far as I know, I am not possessed of all the vices. At the same
+time, I did not look forward to being shut up all alone in a country
+house with the daughter of a "woman Crusader." On the other hand, Uncle
+Plaskett has behaved, more than once, like a trump to me, and as I felt
+that this might be an occasion on which he expected me to behave like a
+trump to him, I made up my mind that, at any rate, I would sample the
+girl and see what she was like.
+
+I had not been in the house half an hour before I began to wish I
+hadn't come. Miss Riddle had not arrived, and if she was anything like
+the picture which my aunt painted of her, I hoped that she never would
+arrive--at least, while I was there. Neither of the Plasketts had seen
+her since she was the merest child. Mrs. Riddle never had approved of
+them. They were not Anti-Everythingite enough for her. Ever since the
+death of her husband she had practically ignored them. It was only
+when, after all these years, she found herself in a bit of a hole, that
+she seemed to have remembered their existence. It appeared that Miss
+Riddle was at some Anti-Everythingite college or other. The term was at
+an end. Her mother was in America, "Crusading" against one of her
+aversions. Some hitch had unexpectedly occurred as to where Miss Riddle
+was to spend her holidays. Mrs. Riddle had amazed the Plasketts by
+telegraphing to them from the States to ask if they could give her
+house-room. And that forgiving, tender-hearted uncle and aunt of mine
+had said they would.
+
+I assure you, Dave, that when first I saw her you might have knocked me
+over with a feather. I had spent the night seeing her in nightmares--a
+lively time I had had of it. In the morning I went out for a stroll, so
+that the fresh air might have a chance of clearing my head at least of
+some of them. And when I came back there was a little thing sitting in
+the morning-room talking to aunt--I give you my word that she did not
+come within two inches of my shoulder. I do not want to go into
+raptures. I flatter myself I am beyond the age for that. But a
+sweeter-looking little thing I never saw! I was wondering who she might
+be, she seemed to be perfectly at home, when my aunt introduced us.
+
+"Charlie, this is your cousin, May Riddle. May, this is your cousin,
+Charles Kempster."
+
+She stood up--such a dot of a thing! She held out her hand--she found
+fours in gloves a trifle loose. She looked at me with her eyes all
+laughter--you never saw such eyes, never! Her smile, when she spoke,
+was so contagious, that I would have defied the surliest man alive to
+have maintained his surliness when he found himself in front of it.
+
+"I am very glad to see you--cousin."
+
+Her voice! And the way in which she said it! As I have written, you
+might have knocked me down with a feather.
+
+I found myself in clover. And no man ever deserved good fortune better.
+It was a case of virtue rewarded. I had come to do my duty, expecting
+to find it bitter, and, lo, it was very sweet. How such a mother came
+to have such a child was a mystery to all of us. There was not a trace
+of humbug about her. So far from being an Anti-Everythingite, she went
+in for everything, strong. That hypocrite of an uncle of mine had
+arranged to revolutionise the habits of his house for her. There
+were to be family prayers morning and evening, and a sermon, and
+three-quarters of an hour's grace before meat, and all that kind of thing.
+I even suspected him of an intention of locking up the billiard-room, and
+the smoke-room, and all the books worth reading, and all the music that
+wasn't "sacred," and, in fact, of turning the place into a regular
+mausoleum. But he had not been in her company five minutes when bang
+went all ideas of that sort. Talk about locking the billiard-room
+against her! You should have seen the game she played. Though she was
+such a dot, you should have seen her use the jigger. And sing! She sang
+everything. When she had made our hearts go pit-a-pat, and brought the
+tears into our eyes, she would give us comic songs--the very latest.
+Where she got them from was more than we could understand; but she
+made us laugh till we cried--aunt and all. She was an Admirable
+Crichton--honestly. I never saw a girl play a better game of tennis.
+She could ride like an Amazon. And walk--when I think of the walks we
+had together through the woods, I doing my duty towards her to the best
+of my ability, it all seems to have been too good a time to have happened
+in anything but a dream.
+
+Do not think she was a rowdy girl, one of these "up-to-daters," or
+fast. Quite the other way. She had read more books than I had--I am not
+hinting that that is saying much, but still she had. She loved books,
+too; and, you know, speaking quite frankly, I never was a bookish man.
+Talking about books, one day when we were out in the woods alone
+together--we nearly always were alone together!--I took it into my head
+to read to her. She listened for a page or two; then she interrupted
+me.
+
+"Do you call that reading?" I looked at her surprised. She held out her
+hand. "Now, let me read to you. Give me the book."
+
+I gave it to her. Dave, you never heard such reading. It was not only a
+question of elocution; it was not only a question of the music that was
+in her voice. She made the dry bones live. The words, as they proceeded
+from between her lips, became living things. I never read to her again.
+After that, she always read to me. Many an hour have I spent, lying at
+her side, with my head pillowed in the mosses, while she materialised
+for me "the very Jew, which Shakespeare drew." She read to me all sorts
+of things. I believe she could even have vivified a leading article.
+
+One day she had been reading to me a pen picture of a famous dancer.
+The writer had seen the woman in some Spanish theatre. He gave an
+impassioned description--at least, it sounded impassioned as she read
+it--of how the people had followed the performer's movements, with
+enraptured eyes and throbbing pulses, unwilling to lose the slightest
+gesture. When she had done reading, putting down the book, she stood up
+in front of me. I sat up to ask what she was going to do.
+
+"I wonder," she said, "if it was anything like this--the dance which
+that Spanish woman danced."
+
+She danced to me. Dave, you are my "fidus Achates," my other self, my
+chum, or I would not say a word to you of this. I never shall forget
+that day. She set my veins on fire. The witch! Without music, under the
+greenwood tree, all in a moment, for my particular edification, she
+danced a dance which would have set a crowded theatre in a frenzy.
+While she danced, I watched her as if mesmerised; I give you my word I
+did not lose a gesture. When she ceased--with such a curtsy!--I sprang
+up and ran to her. I would have caught her in my arms; but she sprang
+back. She held me from her with her outstretched hand.
+
+"Mr. Kempster!" she exclaimed. She looked up at me as demurely as you
+please.
+
+"I was only going to take a kiss," I cried. "Surely a cousin may take a
+kiss."
+
+"Not every cousin--if you please."
+
+With that she walking right off, there and then, leaving me standing
+speechless, and as stupid as an owl.
+
+The next morning as I was in the hall, lighting up for an after
+breakfast smoke, Aunt Plaskett came up to me. The good soul had trouble
+written all over her face. She had an open letter in her hand. She
+looked up at me in a way which reminded me oddly of my mother.
+
+"Charlie," she said, "I'm so sorry."
+
+"Aunt, if you're sorry, so am I. But what's the sorrow?"
+
+"Mrs. Riddle's coming."
+
+"Coming? When?"
+
+"To-day--this morning. I am expecting her every minute."
+
+"But I thought she was a fixture in America for the next three months."
+
+"So I thought. But it seems that something has happened which has
+induced her to change her mind. She arrived in England yesterday. She
+writes to me to say that she will come on to us as early as possible
+to-day. Here is the letter. Charlie, will you tell May?"
+
+She put the question a trifle timidly, as though she were asking me to
+do something from which she herself would rather be excused. The fact
+is, we had found that Miss Riddle would talk of everything and
+anything, with the one exception of her mother. Speak of Mrs. Riddle,
+and the young lady either immediately changed the conversation, or she
+held her peace. Within my hearing, her mother's name had never escaped
+her lips. Whether consciously or unconsciously, she had conveyed to our
+minds a very clear impression that, to put it mildly, between her and
+her mother there was no love lost. I, myself, was persuaded that, to
+her, the news of her mother's imminent presence would not be pleasant
+news. It seemed that my aunt was of the same opinion.
+
+"Dear May ought to be told, she ought not to be taken unawares. You
+will find her in the morning-room, I think."
+
+I rather fancy that Aunt and Uncle Plaskett have a tendency to shift
+the little disagreeables of life off their own shoulders on to other
+people's. Anyhow, before I could point out to her that the part which
+she suggested I should play was one which belonged more properly to
+her, Aunt Plaskett had taken advantage of my momentary hesitation to
+effect a strategic movement which removed her out of my sight.
+
+I found Miss Riddle in the morning-room. She was lying on a couch,
+reading. Directly I entered she saw that I had something on my mind.
+
+"What's the matter? You don't look happy."
+
+"It may seem selfishness on my part, but I'm not quite happy. I have
+just heard news which, if you will excuse my saying so, has rather
+given me a facer."
+
+"If I will excuse you saying so! Dear me, how ceremonious we are! Is
+the news public, or private property?"
+
+"Who do you think is coming?"
+
+"Coming? Where? Here?" I nodded. "I have not the most remote idea. How
+should I have?"
+
+"It is some one who has something to do with you."
+
+Until then she had taken it uncommonly easily on the couch. When I said
+that, she sat up with quite a start.
+
+"Something to do with me? Mr. Kempster! What do you mean? Who can
+possibly be coming here who has anything to do with me?"
+
+"May, can't you guess?"
+
+"Guess! How can I guess? What do you mean?"
+
+"It's your mother."
+
+"My--mother!"
+
+I had expected that the thing would be rather a blow to her, but I had
+never expected that it would be anything like the blow it seemed. She
+sprang to her feet. The book fell from her hands, unnoticed, on to the
+floor. She stood facing me, with clenched fists and staring eyes.
+
+"My--mother!" she repeated, "Mr. Kempster, tell me what you mean."
+
+I told myself that Mrs. Riddle must be more, or less, of a mother even
+than my fancy painted her, if the mere suggestion of her coming could
+send her daughter into such a state of mind as this. Miss Riddle had
+always struck me as being about as cool a hand as you would be likely
+to meet. Now all at once, she seemed to be half beside herself with
+agitation. As she glared at me, she made me almost feel as if I had
+been behaving to her like a brute.
+
+"My aunt has only just now told me."
+
+"Told you what?"
+
+"That Mrs. Riddle arrived----"
+
+She interrupted me.
+
+"Mrs. Riddle? My mother? Well, go on?"
+
+She stamped on the floor. I almost felt as if she had stamped on me. I
+went on, disposed to feel that my back was beginning to rise.
+
+"My aunt has just told me that Mrs. Riddle arrived in England
+yesterday. She has written this morning to say that she is coming on at
+once."
+
+"But I don't understand!" She really looked as if she did not
+understand. "I thought--I was told that--she was going to remain abroad
+for months."
+
+"It seems that she has changed her mind."
+
+"Changed her mind!" Miss Riddle stared at me as if she thought that
+such a thing was inconceivable. "When did you say that she was coming?"
+
+"Aunt tells me that she is expecting her every moment."
+
+"Mr. Kempster, what am I to do?"
+
+She appealed to me, with outstretched hands, actually trembling, as it
+seemed to me with passion, as if I knew--or understood her either.
+
+"I am afraid, May, that Mrs. Riddle has not been to you all that a
+mother ought to be. I have heard something of this before. But I did
+not think that it was so bad as it seems."
+
+"You have heard? You have heard! My good sir, you don't know what
+you're talking about in the very least. There is one thing very
+certain, that I must go at once."
+
+"Go? May!"
+
+She moved forward. I believe she would have gone if I had not stepped
+between her and the door. I was beginning to feel slightly bewildered.
+It struck me that, perhaps, I had not broken the news so delicately as
+I might have done. I had blundered somehow, somewhere. Something must
+be wrong, if, after having been parted from her, for all I knew, for
+years, immediately on hearing of her mother's return, her first impulse
+was towards flight.
+
+"Well?" she cried, looking up at me like a small, wild thing.
+
+"My dear May, what do you mean? Where are you going? To your room?"
+
+"To my room? No! I am going away! away! Right out of this, as quickly
+as I can!"
+
+"But, after all, your mother is your mother. Surely she cannot have
+made herself so objectionable that, at the mere thought of her arrival,
+you should wish to run away from her, goodness alone knows where. So
+far as I understand she has disarranged her plans, and hurried across
+the Atlantic, for the sole purpose of seeing you."
+
+She looked at me in silence for a moment. As she looked, outwardly, she
+froze.
+
+"Mr. Kempster, I am at a loss to understand your connection with my
+affairs. Still less do I understand the grounds on which you would
+endeavour to regulate my movements. It is true that you are a man, and
+I am a woman; that you are big and I am little; but--are those the only
+grounds?"
+
+"Of course, if you look at it like that----"
+
+Shrugging my shoulders, I moved aside. As I did so, some one entered
+the room. Turning, I saw it was my aunt. She was closely followed by
+another woman.
+
+"My dear May," said my aunt, and unless I am mistaken, her voice was
+trembling, "here is your mother."
+
+The woman who was with my aunt was a tall, loosely-built person, with
+iron-grey hair, a square determined jaw, and eyes which looked as if
+they could have stared the Sphinx right out of countenance. She was
+holding a pair of pince-nez in position on the bridge of her nose.
+Through them she was fixedly regarding May. But she made no forward
+movement. The rigidity of her countenance, of the cold sternness which
+was in her eyes, of the hard lines which were about her mouth, did not
+relax in the least degree. Nor did she accord her any sign of greeting.
+I thought that this was a comfortable way in which to meet one's
+daughter, and such a daughter, after a lengthened separation. With a
+feeling of the pity of it, I turned again to May. As I did so, a sort
+of creepy-crawly sensation went all up my back. The little girl really
+struck me as being frightened half out of her life. Her face was white
+and drawn; her lips were quivering; her big eyes were dilated in a
+manner which uncomfortably recalled a wild creature which has suddenly
+gone stark mad with fear.
+
+It was a painful silence. I have no doubt that my aunt was as conscious
+of it as any one. I expect that she felt May's position as keenly as if
+it had been her own. She probably could not understand the woman's
+cold-bloodedness, the girl's too obvious shrinking from her mother. In
+what, I am afraid, was awkward, blundering fashion, she tried to smooth
+things over.
+
+"May, dear, don't you see it is your mother?"
+
+Then Mrs. Riddle spoke. She turned to my aunt.
+
+"I don't understand you. Who is this person?"
+
+I distinctly saw my aunt give a gasp. I knew she was trembling.
+
+"Don't you see that it is May?"
+
+"May? Who? This girl?"
+
+Again Mrs. Riddle looked at the girl who was standing close beside me.
+Such a look! And again there was silence. I do not know what my aunt
+felt. But from what I felt, I can guess. I felt as if a stroke of
+lightning, as it were, had suddenly laid bare an act of mine, the
+discovery of which would cover me with undying shame. The discovery had
+come with such blinding suddenness, "a bolt out of the blue," that, as
+yet, I was unable to realise all that it meant. As I looked at the
+girl, who seemed all at once to have become smaller even that she
+usually was, I was conscious that, if I did not keep myself well in
+hand, I was in danger of collapsing at the knees. Rather than have
+suffered what I suffered then, I would sooner have had a good sound
+thrashing any day, and half my bones well broken.
+
+I saw the little girl's body swaying in the air. For a moment I thought
+that she was going to faint. But she caught herself at it just in time.
+As she pulled herself together, a shudder went all over her face. With
+her fists clenched at her side, she stood quite still. Then she turned
+to my aunt.
+
+"I am not May Riddle," she said, in a voice which was at one and the
+same time strained, eager, and defiant, and as unlike her ordinary
+voice as chalk is different from cheese. Raising her hands, she covered
+her face. "Oh, I wish I had never said I was!"
+
+She burst out crying; into such wild grief that one might have been
+excused for fearing that she would hurt herself by the violence of her
+own emotion. Aunt and I were dumb. As for Mrs. Riddle--and, if you come
+to think of it, it was only natural--she did not seem to understand the
+situation in the least. Turning to my aunt, she caught her by the arm.
+
+"Will you be so good as to tell me what is the meaning of these
+extraordinary proceedings?"
+
+"My dear!" seemed to be all that my aunt could stammer in reply.
+
+"Answer me!" I really believe that Mrs. Riddle shook my aunt. "Where is
+my daughter--May?"
+
+"We thought--we were told that this was May." My aunt addressed herself
+to the girl, who was still sobbing as if her heart would break. "My
+dear, I am very sorry, but you know you gave us to understand that you
+were--May."
+
+Then some glimmering of the meaning of the situation did seem to dawn
+on Mrs. Riddle's mind. She turned to the crying girl; and a look came
+on her face which conveyed the impression that one had suddenly lighted
+on the key-note of her character. It was a look of uncompromising
+resolution. A woman who could summon up such an expression at will
+ought to be a leader. She never could be led. I sincerely trust that my
+wife--if I ever have one--when we differ, will never look like that. If
+she does, I am afraid it will have to be a case of her way, not mine.
+As I watched Mrs. Riddle, I was uncommonly glad she was not my mother.
+She went and planted herself right in front of the crying girl. And she
+said, quietly, but in a tone of voice the hard frigidity of which
+suggested the nether millstone:
+
+"Cease that noise. Take your hands from before your face. Are you one
+of that class of persons who, with the will to do evil, lack the
+courage to face the consequences of their own misdeeds? I can assure
+you that, so far as I am concerned, noise is thrown away. Candour is
+your only hope with me. Do you hear what I say? Take your hands from
+before your face."
+
+I should fancy that Mrs. Riddle's words, and still more her manner,
+must have cut the girl like a whip. Anyhow, she did as she was told.
+She took her hands from before her face. Her eyes were blurred with
+weeping. She still was sobbing. Big tears were rolling down her cheeks.
+I am bound to admit that her crying had by no means improved her
+personal appearance. You could see she was doing her utmost to regain
+her self-control. And she faced Mrs. Riddle with a degree of assurance,
+which, whether she was in the right or in the wrong, I was glad to see.
+That stalwart representative of the modern Women Crusaders continued to
+address her in the same unflattering way.
+
+"Who are you? How comes it that I find you passing yourself off as my
+daughter in Mrs. Plaskett's house?"
+
+The girl's answer took me by surprise.
+
+"I owe you no explanation, and I shall give you none."
+
+"You are mistaken. You owe me a very frank explanation. I promise you
+you shall give me one before I've done with you."
+
+"I wish and intend to have nothing whatever to say to you. Be so good
+as to let me pass."
+
+The girl's defiant attitude took Mrs. Riddle slightly aback. I was
+delighted. Whatever she had been crying for, it had evidently not been
+for want of pluck. It was plain that she had pluck enough for fifty. It
+did me good to see her.
+
+"Take my advice, young woman, and do not attempt that sort of thing
+with me--unless, that is, you wish me to give you a short shrift, and
+send at once for the police."
+
+"The police? For me? You are mad!"
+
+For a moment Mrs. Riddle looked a trifle mad. She went quite green. She
+took the girl by the shoulder roughly. I saw that the little thing was
+wincing beneath the pressure of her hand. That was more than I could
+stand.
+
+"Excuse me, Mrs. Riddle, but--if you would not mind!"
+
+Whether she did or did not mind, I did not wait for her to tell me. I
+removed her hand, with as much politeness as was possible, from where
+she had placed it. She looked at me, not nicely.
+
+"Pray, sir, who are you?"
+
+"I am Mrs. Plaskett's nephew, Charles Kempster, and very much at your
+service, Mrs. Riddle."
+
+"So you are Charles Kempster? I have heard of you." I was on the point
+of remarking that I also had heard of her. But I refrained. "Be so
+good, young man, as not to interfere."
+
+I bowed. The girl spoke to me.
+
+"I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Kempster." She turned to my aunt.
+One could see that every moment she was becoming more her cool
+collected self again. "Mrs. Plaskett, it is to you I owe an
+explanation. I am ready to give you one when and where you please. Now,
+if it is your pleasure."
+
+My aunt was rubbing her hands together in a feeble, purposeless,
+undecided sort of way. Unless I err, she was crying, for a change. With
+the exception of my uncle, I should say that my aunt was the most
+peace-loving soul on earth. I believe that the pair of them would flee
+from anything in the shape of dissension as from the wrath to come.
+
+"Well, my dear, I don't wish to say anything to pain you--as you must
+know!--but if you can explain, I wish you would. We have grown very
+fond of you, your uncle and I."
+
+It was not a very bright speech of my aunt's, but it seemed to please
+the person for whom it was intended immensely. She ran to her, she took
+hold of both her hands, she kissed her on either cheek.
+
+"You dear darling! I've been a perfect wretch to you, but not such a
+villain as your fancy paints me. I'll tell you all about it--now."
+Clasping her hands behind her back, she looked my aunt demurely in the
+face. But in spite of her demureness, I could see that she was full of
+mischief to the finger tips. "You must know that I am Daisy Hardy. I am
+the daughter of Francis Hardy, of the Corinthian Theatre."
+
+Directly the words had passed her lips, I knew her. You remember how
+often we saw her in "The Penniless Pilgrim?" And how good she was? And
+how we fell in love with her, the pair of us? All along, something
+about her, now and then, had filled me with a sort of overwhelming
+conviction that I must have seen her somewhere before. What an ass I
+had been! But then to think of her--well, modesty--in passing herself
+off as Mrs. Riddle's daughter. As for Mrs. Riddle, she received the
+young lady's confession with what she possibly intended for an air of
+crushing disdain.
+
+"An actress!" she exclaimed.
+
+She switched her skirts on one side, with the apparent intention of
+preventing their coming into contact with iniquity. Miss Hardy paid no
+heed.
+
+"May Riddle is a very dear friend of mine."
+
+"I don't believe it," cried Mrs. Riddle, with what, to say the least of
+it, was perfect frankness. Still Miss Hardy paid no heed.
+
+"It is the dearest wish of her life to become an actress."
+
+"It's a lie!"
+
+This time Miss Hardy did pay heed. She faced the frankly speaking lady.
+
+"It is no lie, as you are quite aware. You know very well that, ever
+since she was a teeny weeny child, it has been her continual dream."
+
+"It was nothing but a childish craze."
+
+Miss Hardy shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Mrs. Riddle uses her own phraseology; I use mine. I can only say that
+May has often told me that, when she was but a tiny thing, her mother
+used to whip her for playing at being an actress. She used to try and
+make her promise that she would never go inside a theatre, and when she
+refused, she used to beat her cruelly. As she grew older, her mother
+used to lock her in her bedroom, and keep her without food for days and
+days----"
+
+"Hold your tongue, girl! Who are you that you should comment on my
+dealings with my child? A young girl, who, by her own confession, has
+already become a painted thing, and who seems to glory in her shame, is
+a creature with whom I can own no common womanhood. Again I insist upon
+your telling me, without any attempt at rhodomontade, how it is that I
+find a creature such as you posing as my child."
+
+The girl vouchsafed her no direct reply. She looked at her with a
+curious scorn, which I fancy Mrs. Riddle did not altogether relish.
+Then she turned again to my aunt.
+
+"Mrs. Plaskett, it is as I tell you. All her life May has wished to be
+an actress. As she has grown older her wish has strengthened. You see
+all my people have been actors and actresses. I, myself, love acting.
+You could hardly expect me, in such a matter, to be against my friend.
+And then--there was my brother."
+
+She paused. Her face became more mischievous; and, unless I am
+mistaken, Mrs. Riddle's face grew blacker. But she let the girl go on.
+
+"Claud believed in her. He was even more upon her side than I was. He
+saw her act in some private theatricals----"
+
+Then Mrs. Riddle did strike in.
+
+"My daughter never acted, either in public or in private, in her life.
+Girl, how dare you pile lie upon lie?"
+
+Miss Hardy gave her look for look. One felt that the woman knew that
+the girl was speaking the truth, although she might not choose to own
+it.
+
+"May did many things of which her mother had no knowledge. How could it
+be otherwise? When a mother makes it her business to repress at any
+cost the reasonable desires which are bound up in her daughter's very
+being, she must expect to be deceived. As I say, my brother Claud saw
+her act in some private theatricals. And he was persuaded that, for
+once in a way, hers was not a case of a person mistaking the desire to
+be, for the power to be, because she was an actress born. Then things
+came to a climax. May wrote to me to say that she was leaving college,
+that her mother was in America, and that so far as her ever becoming an
+actress was concerned, so far as she could judge, it was a case of now
+or never. I showed her letter to Claud. He at once declared that it
+should be a case of now. A new play was coming out, in which he was to
+act, and in which, he said, there was a part which would fit May like a
+glove. It was not a large part; still, there it was. If she chose, he
+would see she had it. I wrote and told her what Claud said. She jumped
+for joy--through the post, you understand. Then they began to draw me
+in. Until her mother's return, May was to have gone, for safe keeping,
+to one of her mother's particular friends. If she had gone, the thing
+would have been hopeless. But, at the last moment, the plan fell
+through. It was arranged, instead, that she should go to her aunt--to
+you, Mrs. Plaskett. You had not seen her since her childhood; you had
+no notion of what she looked like. I really do not know from whom the
+suggestion came, but it was suggested that I should come to you,
+pretending to be her. And I was to keep on pretending till the rubicon
+was passed and the play produced. If she once succeeded in gaining a
+footing on the stage, though it might be never so slight a one, May
+declared that wild horses should not drag her back again. And I knew
+her well enough to be aware that, when she said a thing, she meant
+exactly what she said. Mrs. Plaskett, I should have made you this
+confession of my own initiative next week. Indeed, May would have come
+and told you the tale herself, if Mrs. Riddle had not returned all
+these months before any one expected her. Because, as it happens, the
+play was produced last night----"
+
+Mrs. Riddle had been listening, with a face as black as a
+thunder-cloud. Here she again laid her hand upon Miss Hardy's shoulder.
+
+"Where? Tell me! I will still save her, though, to do so, I have to
+drag her through the streets."
+
+Miss Hardy turned to her with a smile.
+
+"May does not need saving, she already has attained salvation. I hear,
+not only that the play was a great success, but that May's part, as she
+acted it, was the success of the play. As for dragging her through the
+streets, you know that you are talking nonsense. She is of an age to do
+as she pleases. You have no more power to put constraint upon her, than
+you have to put constraint upon me."
+
+All at once Miss Hardy let herself go, as it were.
+
+"Mrs. Riddle, you have spent a large part of your life in libelling all
+that I hold dearest; you will now be taught of how great a libel you
+have been guilty. You will learn from the example of your daughter's
+own life, that women can, and do, live as pure and as decent lives upon
+one sort of stage, as are lived, upon another sort of stage, by 'Women
+Crusaders.'"
+
+She swept the infuriated Mrs. Riddle such a curtsy.... Well, there's
+the story for you, Dave. There was, I believe, a lot more talking. And
+some of it, I dare say, approached to high faluting. But I had had
+enough of it, and went outside. Miss Hardy insisted on leaving the
+house that very day. As I felt that I might not be wanted, I also left.
+We went up to town together in the same carriage. We had it to
+ourselves. And that night I saw May Riddle, the real May Riddle. I
+don't mind telling you in private, that she is acting in that new thing
+of Pettigrewe's, "The Flying Folly," under the name of Miss Lyndhurst.
+She only has a small part; but, as Miss Hardy declares her brother said
+of her, she plays it like an actress born. I should not be surprised if
+she becomes all the rage before long.
+
+One could not help feeling sorry for Mrs. Riddle, in a kind of a way. I
+dare say she feels pretty bad about it all. But then she only has
+herself to blame. When a mother and her daughter pull different ways,
+it is apt to become a question of pull butcher, pull baker. The odds
+are that, in the end, you will prevail. Especially when the daughter
+has as much resolution as the mother.
+
+As for Daisy Hardy, whatever else one may say of her proceedings, one
+cannot help thinking of her--at least, I can't--as, as they had it in
+the coster ballad, "such a pal." I believe she is going to the
+Plasketts again next week. If she does I have half a mind----though I
+know she will only laugh at me, if I do go. I don't care. Between you
+and me, I don't believe she's half so wedded to the stage as she
+pretends she is.
+
+
+
+
+                      Miss Donne's Great Gamble
+
+
+You cannot keep on meeting the same man by accident--not in that way.
+To suggest such a possibility would be to carry the doctrine of
+probabilities too far. Miss Donne began herself to think that such
+might be the case. She had first encountered him at Geneva--at the
+Pension Dupont. There his bearing had not only been extremely
+deferential, but absolutely distant. Possibly this was in some measure
+owing to Miss Donne herself, who, at that stage of her travels, was the
+most unapproachable of human beings. During the last few days of her
+stay he had sat next to her at table, in which position it had seemed
+to her that a certain amount of conversation was not to be avoided. He
+had informed her, in the course of the remarks which the situation
+necessitated, that he was an American and a bachelor, and also that his
+name was Huhn.
+
+So far as Miss Donne was concerned the encounter would merely have been
+pigeon-holed among the other noticeable incidents of that memorable
+journey had it not been that two days after her arrival at Lausanne she
+met him in the open street--to be exact, in the Place de la Gare. Not
+only did he bow, but he stopped to talk with the air of quite an old
+acquaintance.
+
+But it was at Lucerne that the situation began to assume a really
+curious phase. Miss Donne left Lausanne on a Thursday. On the day
+before she told Mr. Huhn she was going, and where she intended to stop.
+Mr. Huhn made no comment on the information, which was given casually
+while they waited among a crowd of other persons for the steamer. No
+one could have inferred from his manner that it was not his intention
+to end his days at Lausanne. When therefore, on the morning after her
+arrival, she found him seated by her side at lunch she was thrown into
+a flurry of surprise. As he seemed, however, to conclude that she would
+take his appearance for granted--not attempting to offer the slightest
+explanation of how it was that he was where he was--she presently found
+herself talking to him as if his presence there was quite in accordance
+with the order of Nature. But when, afterwards, she went upstairs to
+put her hat on, she--well, she found herself disposed to try her best
+not to ask herself a question.
+
+Those four weeks at Lucerne were the happiest she had known. A sociable
+set was staying in the house just then. Everyone behaved to her with
+surprising kindness. Scarcely an excursion was got up without her being
+attached to it. Another invariable pendant was Mr. Huhn. It was
+impossible to conceal from herself the fact that when the parties were
+once started it was Mr. Huhn who personally conducted her. A better
+conductor she could not have wished. Without being obtrusive, when he
+was wanted he was always there. Unostentatiously he studied her little
+idiosyncrasies, making it his especial business to see that nothing was
+lacking which made for her own particular enjoyment. As a
+conversationalist she had never met his equal. But then, as she
+admitted with that honesty which was her ruling passion, she never had
+had experience of masculine discourse. Nor, perhaps, was the position
+rendered less enjoyable by the fact that she was haunted by misgivings
+as to whether her relations with Mr. Huhn were altogether in accordance
+with strict propriety. She was a lady travelling alone. He was a
+stranger; self-introduced. Whether, under any circumstances, a lady in
+her position ought to allow herself to be on terms of vague familiarity
+with a gentleman in his, was a point on which she could hardly be said
+to have doubts. She was convinced that she ought not. Theoretically,
+that was a principle for which she would have been almost willing to
+have died. When she reflected on what she had preached to others,
+metaphorically she shivered in her shoes. She was half alarmed by the
+necessity she was under to acknowledge that it was a kind of shivering
+which could not be correctly described as disagreeable.
+
+The domain of the extraordinary was entered on after her departure from
+Lucerne. At the Pension Emeritus her plans were public property. It was
+generally known that she proposed to return to England by way of Paris
+and Dieppe. In Paris she was to spend a few days, and in Dieppe a week
+or two. Practically the whole pension was at the station to see her
+off. She was overwhelmed with confectionery and flowers. Mr. Huhn, in
+particular, gave her a gorgeous bouquet, and a box of what purported to
+be chocolates. It was only after she had started that she discovered
+the chocolates were a sham; and that, hidden in the very midst of them,
+was another package. The very sight of it filled her with singular
+qualms. Other people were in the carriage. She deemed it prudent to
+ignore its existence in the presence of what quite possibly were
+observant eyes. But directly she had a moment of comparative privacy
+she removed it from its hiding-place with what--positively!--were
+trembling fingers. It was secured by pink baby-ribbon tied in a
+true-lover's knot. Within was a leather case. In the case was a flexible
+gold bracelet, with on one side a circular ornament which was incrusted
+with diamonds. As she was fingering this she must have touched a hidden
+spring, because all at once the glittering toy sprang open, revealing
+inside--of all things in the world--a portrait of Mr. Huhn!
+
+She gazed at it in bewildered amazement. All the way to Paris she was
+rent by conflicting emotions. That a perfect stranger should have dared
+to take such a liberty! Because, after all, she knew nothing of
+him--absolutely nothing, except that he was an American; which one piece
+of knowledge was, perhaps, a sufficient explanation. For all she knew,
+the Americans might have ideas of their own upon such subjects. This sort
+of behaviour might be in complete accord with their standard of
+propriety. The contemplation of such a possibility made her sigh. She
+actually nearly regretted that her standard was the English one, so
+strongly did she feel that there was something to be said for the
+American point of view, if, that is, it truly was the American point of
+view; which, of course, had still to be determined.
+
+Had the bracelet been trumpery trash, costing say, fifteen or twenty
+francs, the case would have been altered. Of that there could be no
+doubt. But this triumph of the jeweller's art, with its costly diamond
+ornaments! She herself had never owned a decent trinket. Her personal
+knowledge of values was nil. Yet her instincts told her that this cost
+money. Then there was the name of "Tiffany" on the case. She had a dim
+consciousness of having heard of Tiffany. It might have cost one
+hundred--even two hundred--pounds! At the thought she burned. Who was
+she, and what had she done, that wandering males--the merest casual
+acquaintances--should feel themselves at liberty to throw bank notes
+into her lap? As if she were a beggar--or worse. There was a moment in
+which she was inclined to throw the bracelet out of the carriage
+window.
+
+The mischief was that she did not know where to return it. She had Mr.
+Huhn's own assurance that he also was leaving Lucerne on that same day.
+Where he was going she had not the faintest notion. At least, she
+assured herself that she had not the faintest notion. To return it, by
+post, to Ezra G. Huhn, America, would be absurd. She might send it back
+to the person whose name was on the case--to Tiffany. She would.
+
+Then there was the portrait--hidden in the bracelet--which he had had
+the capital audacity to palm off on to her under cover of a box of
+chocolates. It was excellent--that was certain.
+
+The shrewd face, with the kindly eyes in which there always seemed to
+be a twinkle, looked up at her out of the little gold frame like an old
+familiar friend. How pleasant he had been to her; how good. How she
+always felt at ease with him; never once afraid. Although he had never
+by so much as a single question sought to gain her confidence, what a
+curious feeling she had had that he knew all about her, that he
+understood her. How she had been impressed by his way of doing things;
+his quick resource; his capacity of getting--without any fuss--the best
+that was obtainable. How she had come to rely upon him--in an
+altogether indescribable sort of way--when he was at hand; she saw it
+now. How, in spite of herself, she had grown to feel at peace with all
+the world when he was near. How curious it seemed. As she thought of
+its exceeding curiousness, fancying that she perceived in the portrayed
+glance the twinkle which she had begun to know so well, her eyes filled
+with tears, so that she had to use her handkerchief to prevent them
+trickling down her cheeks. During the remainder of her journey to Paris
+that bracelet was about her wrist, covered by her jacket-sleeve. More
+than once she caught herself in the act of crying.
+
+She found it impossible to remain in Paris. The weather was hot. In the
+brilliant sunshine the streets were one continuous glare. They seemed
+difficult to breathe in. They made her head ache. She longed for the
+sea. Within three days of her arrival she was hurrying towards Dieppe.
+In Dieppe she alighted at the Hotel de Paris. The first person she saw
+as she crossed the threshold was Annie Moriarty--at least, she used to
+be Annie Moriarty until she became Mrs. Palmer. The two rushed into
+each other's arms--Mrs. Palmer going upstairs with Miss Donne to assist
+in the unpacking. When they descended Miss Donne was introduced to Mr.
+Palmer, who had been Annie's one topic in the epistolary communications
+with which Miss Donne was regularly favoured. Mr. Palmer, who was a
+husband of twelve months' standing, proved to be a sort of under-study
+for a giant, towering above Miss Donne's head in a manner which
+inspired her with awe. While she was wonderful whether, when he desired
+to kiss his wife and retain his perpendicular position, he always
+lifted her upon a chair--for Annie was a mere pigmy in petticoats--who
+should come down the staircase into the hall but Mr. Huhn!
+
+At that sight not only did Miss Donne's cheeks flame, but she was
+overwhelmed with confusion to such an extent that it was impossible to
+conceal the fact from the sharp-eyed person who was in front of her.
+Although Mr. Huhn merely raised his hat as he passed into the street,
+her distress continued after he was gone. She accompanied the
+Palmers--in an only partial state of consciousness--into the Etablissement
+grounds. While her husband continued with them Annie was discretion
+itself; but when Mr. Palmer, going into the building--it is within the
+range of possibility on a hint from her--left the two women seated on
+the terrace, she assailed Miss Donne in a fashion which in a moment
+laid all her defences low.
+
+The whole story was told before its narrator was conscious of an
+intention to do anything of the kind. It plunged the hearer into
+raptures. Although, with a delicacy which well became her, she
+concealed the larger half of them, she revealed enough to throw Miss
+Donne into a state of agitation which was half pathetic and altogether
+delightful. As she sat there, listening to Annie's innuendoes,
+conscious of her delighted scrutiny, the heroine of all these strange
+adventures discovered herself hazily wondering whether this was the
+same world in which she had been living all these years, and whether
+she was awake in it or dreaming. After all the miracles which had
+lately changed the whole fashion of her life, was the greatest still
+upon the way?
+
+Eva Donne was thirty-eight and three-quarters, as the children say. For
+over twenty years she had been a governess--without kith or kin. All
+the time she was haunted by a fear that the fat season was with her
+now, and that the lean one was coming soon. She was not a scholar; she
+was just the sweetest woman in the world. But while of the second fact
+she had no notion, of the first she was hideously sure. She had
+strained every nerve to improve her mental equipment; to keep herself
+abreast of the educational requirements of the day; to pass
+examinations; to win those certificates which teachers ought to have.
+Always and ever in vain. The dullest of her scholars was not more dull
+than she. How, under these circumstances, she found employment was
+beyond her comprehension. Why, for instance, Miss Law should have kept
+her upon her teaching staff for nearly thirteen consecutive years was
+to her, indeed a mystery. That Miss Law should consider it well worth
+her while to retain in her establishment a well-mannered, dainty lady;
+possessed of infinite patience, kindliness, and tact; the soul of
+honour; considering her employer's interests before her own; willing to
+work late and early: who was liked by every pupil with whom she came
+into contact, and so was able to smooth the head mistress's path in a
+hundred different ways; that the shrewd proprietress of St. Cecilia's
+College should esteem these qualifications as a sufficient set-off for
+certain scholastic deficiencies never entered into Miss Donne's
+philosophy. Therefore, though she said not a word of it to anyone, she
+was tortured by a continual fear that each term would be her last.
+Dismissed for inefficiency at her age, what should she do? For she was
+growing old; she knew she was. She was grey--almost!--behind the ears;
+her hair was thinner than it used to be; there were tell-tale wrinkles
+about her eyes; she was conscious of a certain stiffness in her joints.
+A governess so soon grows old, especially if she is not clever. Many a
+time she lay awake all through the night thinking, with horror, of the
+future which was in store for her. What should she do? She had saved so
+little. Out of such a salary how could she save?--with her soft,
+generous heart which could not resist a temptation to give. She
+sometimes wondered, when the morning dawned, how it was that she had
+not turned quite grey, after the racking anxieties of the sleepless
+night.
+
+And then the miracle came--the god out of the machine. A cousin of her
+mother, of whom she had only heard, died in America, in Pittsburg--a
+bachelor, as alone in the world as she was--and left everything he had
+to his far-off kinswoman. Eight hundred sterling pounds a year it came
+to, actually, when everything was realized, and everything had been
+left in an easy realizable form. What a difference it made when she
+understood that the incredible had come to pass, and what it meant. She
+was rich, independent, secure from want and from the fear of it, thank
+God. And she thanked Him--how she thanked Him!--pouring out her heart
+before Him like some simple child. And she ceased to grow old; nay, she
+all at once grew young again. She was nearly persuaded that the
+greyness had vanished from behind her ears; her hair certainly did seem
+thicker. The wrinkles were so faint as to be not worth mentioning,
+while, as for the stiffness of her joints, she was suddenly conscious
+of an absurd and even improper inclination to run up the stairs and
+down them.
+
+Then there came the wonderful journey. She, a solitary spinster, who
+had never been out of England in her life, made up her mind, after not
+more than six month's consideration, to go all by herself to
+Switzerland. And she went. After the strange happenings which, in such
+a journey, were naturally to be expected, to crown everything, here, on
+the terrace at Dieppe, sat Annie Moriarty that was--and a troublesome
+child she used to be--telling her--her!--the young woman's former and
+ought-to-be-revered preceptress--that a certain person--to wit, an
+American gentleman--was in love with her--with her! Miss Eva Donne. Not
+the least extraordinary part of it was that, instead of correcting the
+presumptuous Annie, Miss Donne beamed and blushed, and blushed and
+beamed, and was conscious of the most singular sensations.
+
+A remark, however, which Mrs. Palmer apparently inadvertently made,
+brought her back to earth with a sudden jolt.
+
+"I suppose that whoever does become Mrs. Huhn will become an American."
+
+It was just a second or so before she comprehended. When she did it was
+with a quick sinking of the heart. Something, all at once, seemed to
+have gone out of the world. Perhaps because a cloud had crept over the
+sun.
+
+Was it possible? A thing not to be avoided? An inevitable consequence?
+Of course, Mr. Huhn was an American; she did know so much. And
+although--as she had gathered--this was by no means his first visit to
+Europe, it might reasonably be imagined that he spent most of his time
+in his native country. It was equally fair to assume that his wife
+would be expected to stop there with him. Would she, therefore,
+perforce lose her nationality, her birthright, her title to call
+herself an Englishwoman? To say the least of it, that would be an
+extraordinary position for--for an Englishwoman to find herself in.
+Mischievous Annie could not have succeeded better had it been her
+deliberate intention to make Miss Donne's confusion worse confounded.
+
+She dined with the Palmers at a little table by themselves. Mr. Huhn
+was at the long table round the corner, hidden from her sight by the
+peculiar construction of the room. Mrs. Palmer announced that he had
+gone there before she entered. Miss Donne took care that she went
+before he reappeared. She spent the evening in her bedroom, in spite of
+Mrs. Palmer's vigorous protestations, writing letters, so she said. It
+is true that she did write some letters. She began half-a-dozen to Mr.
+Huhn. Among a thousand and one other things, that bracelet was on her
+mind. Her wish was to return it, accompanied by a note which would
+exactly meet the occasion. But the construction of the note she wanted
+proved to be beyond her powers. It was far from her desire to wound his
+feelings; she was only too conscious how easy it is for the written
+word to do that. At the same time it was necessary that she should make
+her meaning plain, on which account it was a misfortune that she
+herself was not altogether clear as to what she did precisely mean. She
+did not want the bracelet; certainly not. Yet, while she did not wish
+to throw it at him, or lead him to suppose that she despised his gift,
+or was unconscious of his kindness in having made it, or liked him less
+because of his kindness, it was not her intention to allow him to
+suspect that she liked him at all, or appreciated his kindness to
+anything like the extent she actually did do, or indeed, leave him an
+excuse of any sort or kind on to which he might fasten to ask her to
+reconsider her refusal. How to combine these opposite desires and
+intentions within the four corners of one short note was a puzzle.
+
+It was a nice bracelet--a beauty. No one could call it unbecoming on
+her wrist. She had had no idea that a single ornament could have made
+such a difference. She was convinced that it made her hand seem much
+smaller than it really was. She wondered if he had sent for it
+specially to New York, or if he had been carrying it about with him in
+his pocket. But that was not the point. The point was that, since she
+could not frame a note which, in all respects, met her views, she would
+herself see Mr. Huhn to-morrow and return him his gift with her own
+hands. Then the incident would be closed. Having arrived at which
+decision she slept like a top all night, with the bracelet under her
+pillow.
+
+In the morning she dressed herself with unusual care--with so much
+care, indeed, that Mrs. Palmer greeted her with a torrent of
+ejaculations.
+
+"You look lovelier than ever, my dear. Just like What's-his-name's
+picture, only ever so much sweeter. Dosen't she look a darling, Dick?"
+
+"Dick" was Mr. Palmer. As this was said not only in the presence of
+that gentleman, but in the hearing of several others, Miss Donne was so
+distressed that she found herself physically incapable of telling the
+speaker that, as she was perfectly aware, she intensely disliked
+personal remarks, which were always in the very worst possible taste.
+
+Nothing was seen of Mr. Huhn. She went with the Palmers to the market;
+to the man who carved grotesque heads out of what he called vegetable
+ivory; to watch the people bathe, while listening to the band upon the
+terrace; then to lunch. All the time she had that bracelet on her
+person. After lunch she accompanied her friends on a queer sort of
+vehicle, which was not exactly a brake or quite anything else, on what
+its proud proprietor called a "fashionable excursion" to the forest of
+Arques. It was nearly five when they returned. The Palmers went
+upstairs. She sat down on one of the chairs which were on the pavement
+in front of the hotel. She had been there for some minutes in a sort of
+waking dream when someone occupied the chair beside her.
+
+It was Mr. Huhn. His appearance was so unexpected that it found her
+speechless. The foolish tremors to which she seemed to have been so
+liable of late seemed to paralyze her. She gazed at the shabby theatre
+on the other side of the square, trying to think of what she ought to
+say--but failed. No greetings were exchanged.
+
+Presently he said, in his ordinary tone of voice:--
+
+"Come with me into the Casino."
+
+That was his way; a fair example of his habit of taking things for
+granted. She felt that if, after a prolonged absence, she met him on
+the other side of the world, he would just ask if she liked sugar in
+her tea, and discuss the sugar question generally, and take it for
+granted that that was all the situation demanded. That was not her
+standpoint. She considered that when explanations were required they
+ought to be given, and was distinctly of opinion that an explanation
+was required here. She intended that the remark she made should be
+regarded as a suggestion to that effect.
+
+"I didn't expect to see you at Dieppe."
+
+He looked at her--just looked--and she was a conscience-stricken
+wretch. Had he accused her, at the top of his voice, of deliberate
+falsehood, he could not have shamed her more.
+
+"I meant to come to Dieppe. I thought you knew it."
+
+She had known it; all pretence to the contrary was brushed away like so
+much cobweb. And she knew that he knew she knew it. It was dreadful.
+What could she say to this extraordinary man? She blundered from bad to
+worse. Fumbling with the buttons of her little jacket she took out from
+some inner receptacle a small flat leather case.
+
+"I think this got into that box of chocolates by mistake."
+
+He glanced at it out of the corner of his eye, then continued to draw
+figures on the pavement with the ferrule of his stick.
+
+"No mistake. I put it there. I thought you'd understand."
+
+Thought she would understand! What did he think she would understand?
+Did the man suppose that everyone took things for granted?
+
+"I think it was a mistake."
+
+"How? When I sent to New York for it specially for you?" So that
+question was solved. She was conscious of a small flutter of
+satisfaction. "Don't you think it's pretty?"
+
+"It's beautiful." She gathered her courage.
+
+"But you must take it back."
+
+"Take it back! Take it back! I didn't think you were the kind of woman
+that would want to make a man unhappy."
+
+Nothing was further from her desire.
+
+"I am not in the habit of accepting presents from strangers."
+
+"That's just it. It's because I knew you weren't that I gave it to
+you."
+
+"But you're a stranger to me."
+
+"I didn't look at it in just that way."
+
+"I know nothing of you."
+
+"I'm sorry. I thought you knew what kind of man I am, as I know what
+kind of woman you are--and am glad to know it. If it's my record you'd
+like to be acquainted with, I'm ready to set forth the life and
+adventures of Ezra G. Huhn at full length whenever you've an hour or
+two or a day or two to spare. Or I can refer you for them to my lawyer,
+or to my banker, or to my doctor, according to what part of me it is on
+which you'd like to have accurate information."
+
+She could not hint that she would like to listen to a chapter or two of
+his adventures there and then, though some such idea was at the back of
+her mind. While she was groping for words he stood up, repeating his
+original suggestion.
+
+"Come with me into the Casino."
+
+She rose also. Not because she wished to; but because--such was the
+confusion of her mental processes--she found it easier to agree than to
+differ. They moved across the square. The flat leather case was in her
+hand.
+
+"Have you found the locket?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She blushed; but she was a continual blush.
+
+"Good portrait of me, isn't it?"
+
+"Excellent."
+
+"I had it done for my mother. When she was dying I wanted it to be
+buried with her. But she wouldn't have it. She said I was to give it
+to--someone else one day. Then I didn't think there ever would be a
+someone else. But when I met you I sent it to New York and had it
+mounted in that bracelet--for you."
+
+It was absurd what a little self-control she had. Instead of retorting
+with something smart, or pretty, or sentimental, she was tongue-tied.
+Her eyes filled with tears. But he did not seem to notice it. He went
+on.
+
+"You'll have to give me one of yours."
+
+"I--I haven't one."
+
+"Then we'll have to set about getting one. I'll have to look round for
+someone who'll be likely to do you justice, though it isn't to be
+expected that we shall find anyone who'll be able to do quite that."
+
+It was the nearest approach to a compliment he had paid her; probably
+the first pretty thing which had been said to her by any man. It set
+her trembling so that, for a moment, she swayed as if she would fall.
+They were passing through the gate into the Casino grounds. He looked
+at the case which she still had in her hand.
+
+"Put that in your pocket."
+
+"I haven't one."
+
+She was the personification of all meekness.
+
+"Then where did you have it?"
+
+"Inside my jacket."
+
+"Put it back there. I can't carry it. That's part of the burden you'll
+have to carry, henceforward, all alone."
+
+She did not stop to think what he meant. She simply obeyed. When the
+jacket was buttoned the case showed through the cloth. Even in the
+midst of her tremors she was aware that his eyes kept travelling
+towards the tell-tale patch. For some odd reason she was glad they did.
+
+They passed from the radiance of the autumn afternoon into the chamber
+of the "little horses." The change was almost dramatic in its
+completeness. From this place the sunshine had been for some time
+excluded. The blinds were drawn. It was garishly lighted. Although the
+room was large and lofty, owing to the absence of ventilation, the
+abundance of gas, the crowd of people, the atmosphere was horrible.
+There was a continual buzz; an unresting clatter. The noise of people
+in motion; the hum of their voices; the strident tones of the
+_tourneur_, as he made his various monotonous announcements; all these
+assisted in the formation of what, to an unaccustomed ear, was a
+strange cacophony. She shrank towards Mr. Huhn as if afraid.
+
+"What are they doing?" she asked.
+
+Instead of answering he led her forward to the dais on which the nine
+little horses were the observed of all observers, where the _tourneur_
+stood with his assistant with, in front and on either side of him, the
+tables about which the players were grouped. At the moment the leaden
+steeds were whirling round. She watched them, fascinated. People were
+speaking on their right.
+
+"_C'est le huit qui gagne_."
+
+"_Non; le huit est mort. C'est le six_."
+
+Someone said behind her, in English:--
+
+"Jack's all right; one wins. Confound the brute, he's gone right on!"
+
+The horses ceased to move.
+
+"_Le numero cinq!_" shouted the _tourneur_, laying a strong nasal
+stress upon the numeral.
+
+There were murmurs of disgust from the bettors on the columns. Miss
+Donne perceived that money was displayed upon baize-covered tables. The
+croupiers thrust out wooden rakes to draw it towards them. At the
+table on her right there seemed to be only a single winner. Several
+five-franc pieces were passed to a woman who was twiddling a number of
+them between her fingers.
+
+"Are they gambling?" asked Miss Donne.
+
+"Well, I shouldn't call it gambling. This is a little toy by means of
+which the proprietor makes a good and regular income out of public
+contributions. These are some of the contributors."
+
+Miss Donne did not understand him--did not even try to. She was all
+eyes for what was taking place about her. Money was being staked
+afresh. The horses were whirling round again. This time No. 7 was the
+winning horse. There were acclamations. Several persons had staked on
+seven. It appeared that that particular number was "overdue." Someone
+rose from a chair beside her.
+
+Mr. Huhn made a sudden suggestion.
+
+"Sit down." She sat down. "Let's contribute a franc or two to the
+support of this deserving person's wife and family. Where's your
+purse?" She showed that her purse--a silver chain affair--was attached
+to her belt. "Find a franc." Whether or not she had a coin of that
+denomination did not appear. She produced a five-franc piece. "That's a
+large piece of money. What shall we put it on?"
+
+Someone who was seated on the next chair said:--
+
+"The run's on five."
+
+"Then let's be on the run. That's it, in the centre there. That's the
+particular number which enables the owner of this little toy to keep a
+roof above his head."
+
+As she held the coin in front of her with apparently uncertain fingers,
+as if still doubtful what it was she had to do, her neighbour, taking
+it from her with a smile, laid it upon five.
+
+"_Le jeu est fait!_" cried the _tourneur_. "_Rien ne va plus!_"
+
+He started the horses whirling round.
+
+Then with a shock, she seemed to wake from a dream. She sprang from her
+chair, staring at her five-franc piece with wide-open eyes. People
+smiled. The croupiers gazed at her indulgently. There was that about
+her which made it obvious that to such a scene she was a stranger. They
+supposed that, like some eager child, she could not conceal her anxiety
+for the safety of her stake. Although surprised at her display of a
+degree of interest which was altogether beyond what the occasion seemed
+to warrant, Mr. Huhn thought with them.
+
+"Don't be alarmed," he murmured in her ear. "You may take it for
+granted that it's gone, and may console yourself with the reflection
+that it goes to minister to the wants of a mother and her children.
+That's the philosophical point of view. And it may be the right one."
+
+Her hand twitched, as if she found the temptation to snatch back her
+stake before it was gone for ever almost more than she could bear. Mr.
+Huhn caught her arm.
+
+"Hush! That sort of thing is not allowed."
+
+The horses stopped. The _tourneur_ proclaimed the winner.
+
+"_Le numero cinq!_"
+
+"Bravo!" exclaimed the neighbour who had placed the stake for her. "You
+have won. I told you the run was on five."
+
+"Shorn the shearers," commented Mr. Huhn. "You see, that's the way to
+make a fortune, only I shouldn't advise you to go further than the
+initiatory lesson."
+
+The croupier pushed over her own coin and seven others. Her neighbour
+held them up to her.
+
+"Your winnings."
+
+She drew back.
+
+"It's not mine."
+
+Her neighbour laughed outright. People were visibly smiling. Mr. Huhn
+took the pile of coins from the stranger's hand.
+
+"They are yours; take them." Him she obeyed with the docility of a
+child. "Come let us go."
+
+He led the way to the door which opened on to the terrace. She
+followed, meekly. It seemed that the eight coins were more than she
+could conveniently carry in one hand; for, as she went, she dropped one
+on to the floor. An attendant, picking it up, returned it to her with a
+grin. Indeed, the whole room was on the titter, the incident was so
+very amusing. They asked themselves if she was mad, or just a
+simpleton. And, in a fashion, considering that her first youth was
+passed, she really was so pretty! Mr. Huhn was more moved than, in that
+place, he would have cared to admit. Something in her attitude in the
+way she looked at him when he bade her take the money, had filled him
+with a sense of shame.
+
+Between their going in and coming out the sky had changed. The shadows
+were lowering. The autumnal day was drawing to a close. September had
+brought more than a suggestion of winter's breath. A grey chill
+followed the departing sun. They went up, then down, the terrace,
+without exchanging a word; then, moving aside, he offered her one of
+the wicker-seated chairs which stood against the wall. She sat on it.
+He sat opposite, leaning on the handle of his stick. The thin mist
+which was stealing across the leaden sea did not invite lounging out of
+doors. They had the terrace to themselves. She let her five-franc
+pieces drop with a clinking sound on to her lap. He, conscious of
+something on her face which he was unwilling to confront, looked
+steadily seaward. Presently she gave utterance to her pent-up feelings.
+
+"I am a gambler."
+
+Had she accused herself of the unforgivable sin she could not have
+seemed more serious. Somewhere within him was a laughing sprite. In
+view of her genuine distress he did his best to keep it in subjection.
+
+"You exaggerate. Staking a five-franc piece--for the good of the
+house--on the _petits chevaux_ does not make you that, any more than
+taking a glass of wine makes you a drunkard."
+
+"Why did you make me, why did you let me, do it?"
+
+"I didn't know you felt that way."
+
+"And yet you said you knew me!"
+
+He winched. He had told a falsehood. He did know her--there was the
+sting. In mischievous mood he had induced her to do the thing which he
+suspected that she held to be wrong. He had not supposed that she would
+take it so seriously, especially if she won, being aware that there are
+persons who condemn gambling when they or those belonging to them lose,
+but who lean more towards the side of charity when they win. He did not
+know what to say to her, so he said nothing.
+
+"My father once lost over four hundred pounds on a horse-race. I don't
+quite know how it was, I was only a child. He was in business at the
+time. I believe it ruined him, and it nearly broke my mother's heart. I
+promised her that I would never gamble--and now I have."
+
+He felt that this was one of those women whose moral eye is
+single--with whom it is better to be frank.
+
+"I confess I felt that you might have scruples on the point; but I
+thought you would look upon a single stake of a single five-franc piece
+as a jest. Many American women--and many Englishwomen--who would be
+horrified if you called them gamblers, go into the rooms at Monte Carlo
+and lose or win a louis or two just for the sake of the joke."
+
+"For the sake of the joke! Gamble for the sake of the joke! Are you a
+Jesuit?" The question so took him by surprise that he turned and stared
+at her. "I have always understood that that is how Jesuits reason--that
+they try to make out that black is white. I hope--I hope you don't do
+that?"
+
+He smiled grimly, his thoughts recurring to some of the "deals" in
+which his success had made him the well-to-do man he was.
+
+"Sometimes the two colours merge so imperceptibly into one another that
+it's hard to tell just where the conjunction begins. You want keen
+sight to do it. But here you're right and I'm wrong; there's no two
+words about it. It was I who made you stake that five-franc piece; and
+I'd no right to make you stake buttons if it was against your
+principles. Your standard's like my mother's. I hope that mine will
+grow nearer to it. I ask you to forgive me for leading you astray."
+
+"I ought not to have been so weak."
+
+"You had to--when I was there to make you."
+
+She was still; though it is doubtful if she grasped the full meaning
+his words conveyed. If he had been watching her he would have seen that
+by degrees something like the suggestion of a smile seem to wrinkle the
+corners of her lips. When she spoke again it was in half a whisper.
+
+"I'm sorry, I should seem to you to be so silly."
+
+"You don't. You mustn't say it. You seem to me to be the wisest woman I
+ever met."
+
+"That must be because you've known so few--or else you're laughing. No
+one who has ever known me has thought me wise. If I were wise I should
+know what to do with this."
+
+"She motioned towards the money on her lap.
+
+"Throw it into the sea."
+
+"But it isn't mine."
+
+"It's yours as much as anyone else's. If you come to first causes
+you'll find it hard to name the rightful owner--in God's sight--for any
+one thing. There's been too much swapping of horses. You'll find plenty
+who are in need."
+
+"It would carry a curse with it. Money won in gambling!"
+
+He looked at his watch.
+
+"It's time that you and I thought about dinner. We'll adjourn the
+discussion as to what is to be done with the fruit of our iniquity. I
+say 'our,' because that I'm the principal criminal is as plain as
+paint. Sleep on it; perhaps you'll see clearer in the morning. Put it
+in your pocket."
+
+"Haven't I told you already that I haven't a pocket? And if I had I
+shouldn't put this money in it. I should feel that that was half-way
+towards keeping it."
+
+"Then let me be the bearer of the burden."
+
+"No; I don't wish the taint to be conveyed to you." He laughed
+outright. "There now you are laughing!"
+
+"I was laughing because--" he was on the verge of saying "because I
+love you;" but something induced him to substitute--"because I love to
+hear you talking."
+
+She glanced at him with smiling eyes. His gaze was turned towards what
+was now the shrouded sea. Neither spoke during the three minutes of
+brisk walking which was required to reach the Hotel de Paris, she
+carrying the money, four five-franc pieces, gripped tightly in either
+hand.
+
+In his phrase, she slept on it, though the fashion of the sleeping was
+a little strange. The next morning she sallied forth to put into
+execution the resolve at which she had arrived. I was early, though not
+so early as she would have wished, because, concluding that all Dieppe
+did not rise with the lark, she judged it as well to take her coffee
+and roll before she took the air. It promised to be a glorious day. The
+atmosphere was filled with a golden haze, through which the sun was
+gleaming. As she went through the gate of the Port d'Ouest she came
+upon a man who was selling little metal effigies of the flags of
+various nations. From him she made a purchase--the Stars and Stripes.
+This she pinned inside her blouse, on the left, smiling to herself as
+she did so. Then she marched straight off into the Casino.
+
+The _salle de jeu_ had but a single occupant, a _tourneur_ who was
+engaged in dusting the little horses. To enable him to perform the
+necessary offices he removed the steeds from their places one after the
+other. As it chanced he was the identical individual who had been
+responsible for the _course_ which had crowned 'Miss Doone' with victory.
+With that keen vision which is characteristic of his class the man
+recognised her on the instant. Bowing and smiling he held out to her
+the horse which he was holding.
+
+"_Vla madame, le numero cinq! C'est lui qui a porte le bonheur a
+madame_."
+
+It was, indeed, the horse which represented the number on which she had
+staked her five-franc piece. By an odd accident she had arrived just as
+its toilet was being performed. She observed what an excellent model it
+was with somewhat doubtful eyes, as if fearful of its being warranted
+neither steady nor free from vice.
+
+"I have brought back the seven five-franc pieces which I--took away
+with me."
+
+She held out the coins. As if at a loss he looked from them to her.
+
+"But, madame, I do not understand."
+
+"I can have nothing to do with money which is the fruit of gambling."
+
+"But madame played."
+
+"It was a misunderstanding. A mistake. It was not my intention. It is
+on that account I have come to return this money."
+
+"Return?--to whom?--the administration? The administration will not
+accept it. It is impossible. What it has lost it has lost; there is an
+end."
+
+"But I insist on returning it; and if I insist it must be accepted;
+especially when I tell you it is all a mistake."
+
+The _tourneur_ shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"If madame does not want the money, and will give it to me, I will see
+what I can do with it." She handed him the coins; he transferred them
+to the board at his back. Then he held out to her the horse which he
+had been dusting. "See, madame, is it not a perfect model? And feel how
+heavy--over three kilos, more than six English pounds. When you
+consider that there are nine horses, all exactly the same weight, you
+will perceive that it is not easy work to be a _tourneur_. That toy
+horse is worth much more to the administration than if it were a real
+horse; it is from the Number Five that all this comes."
+
+He waved his hand as if to denote the entire building.
+
+"I thought that public gambling was prohibited in France and in all
+Christian countries, and that it was only permitted in such haunts of
+wickedness as Monte Carlo."
+
+"Gambling? Ah, the little horses is not gambling! It is an amusement."
+
+A voice addressed her from the other side of the table. It was Mr.
+Huhn.
+
+"Didn't I tell you it wasn't gambling? It's as this gentleman says--an
+amusement; especially for the administration."
+
+"Ah, yes--in particular for the administration."
+
+The _tourneur_ laughed. Miss Donne and Mr. Huhn went out together by
+the same door through which they had gone the night before. They sat on
+the low wall. He had some towels on his arm; he had been bathing.
+Already the sea was glowing with the radiance of the sun.
+
+"So you've relieved yourself of your ill-gotten gains?"
+
+"I have returned them to the administration."
+
+"To the ---- did that gentleman say he would hand those five-franc
+pieces to the administration?"
+
+"He said that he would see what he could do with them."
+
+"Just so. There's no doubt that that is what he will do. So you did
+sleep upon that burning question?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Then you got the better of me; because I didn't sleep at all."
+
+"I am sorry."
+
+"You ought to be, since the fault was yours."
+
+"Mine! My fault that you didn't sleep!"
+
+"Do you see what I've got here?"
+
+He made an upward movement with his hand. For the first time she
+noticed that in his buttonhole he had a tiny copy of the Union Jack.
+
+"Did you buy that of the man outside the town gate?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"Why, it was of that very same man that I bought this."
+
+From the inside of her blouse she produced that minute representation
+of the colours he knew so well. They looked at each other, and....
+
+
+When some time after they were lunching, he forming a fourth at the
+small table which belonged of right to Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, he said to
+Annie Moriarty, that was:--
+
+"Since you're an old friend of Miss Donne you may be interested in
+knowing that there's likely soon to be an International Alliance."
+
+He motioned to the lady at his side and then to himself, as if to call
+attention to the fact that in his buttonhole was the Union Jack, while
+on Miss Donne's blouse was pinned the American flag. But keen-witted
+Mrs. Palmer had realized what exactly was the condition of affairs some
+time before.
+
+
+
+
+                               "Skittles"
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+Mr. Plumber was a passable preacher. Not an orator, perhaps--though it
+is certain that they had had less oratorical curates at Exdale. His
+delivery was not exactly good. But then the matter was fair, at times.
+Though Mr. Ingledew did say that Mr. Plumber's sermons were rather in
+the nature of reminiscences--tit-bits collated from other divines.
+According to this authority, listening to Mr. Plumber preaching was a
+capital exercise for the memory. His pulpit addresses might almost be
+regarded in the light of a series of examination papers. One might take
+it for granted that every thought was borrowed from some one, the
+question--put by the examiner, as it were--being from whom? On the
+other hand, it must be granted that Mr. Ingledew's character was well
+understood in Exdale. He was one of those persons who are persuaded
+that there is no such thing as absolute originality in the present year
+of grace. From his point of view, all the moderns are thieves. He read
+a new book, not for the pleasure of reading it, but for the pleasure of
+finding out, as a sort of anemonic exercise, from whom its various
+parts had been pilfered. He held that, nowadays, nothing new is being
+produced, either in prose or verse; and that the only thing which the
+latter day writer does need, is the capacity to use the scissors and
+the paste. So it was no new thing for the Exdale congregation to be
+informed that the sermon which they had listened to had been preached
+before.
+
+Nor, Mrs. Manby declared, in any case, was that the point. She wanted a
+preacher to do her good. If he could not do her good out of his own
+mouth, then, by all means, let him do her good out of the mouths of
+others. All gifts are not given to all men. If a man was conscious of
+his incapacity in one direction, then she, for one, had no objection to
+his availing himself, to the best of his ability, of his capacity in
+another. But--and here Mrs. Manby held up her hands in the manner which
+is so well known to her friends--when a man told her, from the pulpit,
+on the Sunday, that life was a solemn and a serious thing, and then on
+the Monday wrote for a comic paper--and such a comic paper!--that was
+the point, and quite another matter entirely.
+
+How the story first was told has not been clearly ascertained. The
+presumption is, that a proof was sent to Mr. Plumber in one of those
+wrappers which are open at both ends in which proofs sometimes are
+sent; and that on the front of this wrapper was imprinted, by way of
+advertisement, the source of its origin: "_Skittles: Not to mention the
+Beer. A Comic Croaker for the Cultured Classes_."
+
+The presumption goes on to suggest that, while it was still in the post
+office, the proof fell out of the wrapper,--they sometimes are most
+insecurely enclosed, and the thing might have been the purest accident.
+One of the clerks--it is said, young Griffen--noticing it, happened to
+read the proof--just glanced over it, that is--also, of course, by
+accident. And then, on purchasing a copy of a particular issue of the
+periodical in question, this clerk--whoever he was--perceived that it
+contained the, one could not call it poem, but rhyming doggerel, proof
+of which had been sent to the Reverend Reginald Plumber. He probably
+mentioned it to a friend, in the strictest confidence. This friend
+mentioned it to another friend, also in the strictest confidence. And
+so everybody was told by everybody else, in the strictest confidence;
+and the thing which was meant to be hid in a hole found itself
+displayed on the top of the hill.
+
+It was felt that something ought lo be done. This feeling took form and
+substance at an informal meeting which was held at Mrs. Manby's in the
+guise of a tea, and which was attended by the churchwardens, Mr.
+Ingledew, and others, who might be expected to do something, when, from
+the point of view of public policy, it ought to be done. The _pieces de
+conviction_ were not, on that particular occasion, actually produced in
+evidence, because it was generally felt that the paper, "_Skittles: Not
+to mention the Beer, etc_." was not a paper which could be produced in
+the presence of ladies.
+
+"And that," Mrs. Manby observed, "is what makes the thing so very
+dreadful. It is bad enough that such papers should be allowed to
+appear. But that they should be supported by the contributions of our
+spiritual guides and teachers, opens a vista which cannot but fill
+every proper-minded person with dismay."
+
+Miss Norman mildly hinted that Mr. Plumber might have intended, not so
+much to support the journal in question, either with his contributions
+or otherwise, as that it should aid in supporting him. But this was an
+aspect of the case which the meeting simply declined to even consider.
+Because Mr. Plumber chose to have an ailing wife and a horde of
+children that was no reason, but very much the contrary, why, instead
+of elevating, he should assist in degrading public morals. So the
+resolution was finally arrived at that, without loss of time, the
+churchwardens should wait upon the Vicar, make a formal statement of
+the lamentable facts of the case, and that the Vicar should then be
+requested to do the something which ought to be done.
+
+So, in accordance with this resolution, the churchwardens waited on the
+vicar. The Rev. Henry Harding was, at that time, the Vicar of Exdale.
+He was not only an easy-going man and possessed of large private means,
+but he was also one of those unfortunately constituted persons who are
+with difficulty induced to make themselves disagreeable to any one. The
+churchwardens quite anticipated that they might find it hard to
+persuade him, even in so glaring a case as the present one, to do the
+something which ought to be done. Nor were their expectations, in this
+respect, doomed to meet with disappointment.
+
+"Am I to understand," asked the vicar, when, to a certain extent, the
+lamentable facts of the case had been laid before him, and as he leaned
+back in his easy chair he pushed his spectacles up on his forehead,
+"that you have come to complain to me because a gentleman, finding
+himself in straitened circumstances, desires to add to his income by
+means of contributions to the press?"
+
+That was not what they wished him to understand at all. Mr. Luxmare,
+the people's warden, endeavoured to explain.
+
+"It is this particular paper to which we object. It is a vile, and a
+scurrilous rag. Its very name is an offence. You are, probably, not
+acquainted with its character. I have here----"
+
+Mr. Luxmare was producing a copy of the offensive publication from his
+pocket, when the vicar stopped him.
+
+"I know the paper very well indeed," he said.
+
+Mr. Luxmare seemed slightly taken aback. But he continued--.
+
+"In that case you are well aware that it is a paper with which no
+decent person would allow himself to be connected."
+
+"I am by no means so sure of that." Mr. Harding pressed the tips of his
+fingers together, with that mild, but occasionally exasperating, air of
+beaming affability for which he was peculiar. "I have known some very
+decent persons who have allowed themselves to become connected with
+some extremely curious papers."
+
+As the people's warden, Mr. Luxmare, was conscious of an almost
+exaggerated feeling of responsibility. He felt that, in a peculiar
+sense, he represented the parish. It was his duty to impress the
+feelings of the parish upon the vicar. And he meant to impress the
+feeling of the parish upon the vicar now. Moreover, by natural
+constitution he was almost as much inclined to aggressiveness as the
+vicar was inclined to placability. He at once assumed what might be
+called the tone and manner of a prosecuting counsel.
+
+"This is an instance," and he banged his right fist into his left palm,
+"of a clergyman--a clergyman of our church, the national church,
+associating himself with a paper, the avowed and ostensible purpose of
+which is to pander to the depraved instincts of the lowest of the low.
+I say, sir, and I defy contradiction, that such an instance in such a
+man is an offence against good morals."
+
+Mr. Harding smiled--which was by no means what the people's warden had
+intended he should do.
+
+"By the way," he said, "has Mr. Plumber been writing under his own
+name?"
+
+"Not he. The stuff is anonymous. It is inconceivable that any one could
+wish to be known as its author?"
+
+"Then may I ask how you know that Mr. Plumber is its author?"
+
+Mr. Luxmare appeared to be a trifle non-plussed--as did his associate.
+But the people's warden stuck to his guns.
+
+"It is common report in the parish that Mr. Plumber is a contributor to
+a paper which would not be admitted to a decent house. We are here as
+church officers to acquaint you with that report, and to request you to
+ascertain from Mr. Plumber whether or not it is well founded."
+
+"In other words, you wish me to associate myself with vague scandal
+about Queen Elizabeth, and to play the part of Paul Pry in the private
+affairs of my friend and colleague."
+
+Mr. Luxmare rose from his chair.
+
+"If, sir, you decline to accede to our request, we shall go from you to
+Mr. Plumber. We shall put to him certain questions. Should he decline
+to answer them, or should his replies not be satisfactory, we shall
+esteem it our duty to report the matter to the Bishop. For my own part,
+I say, without hesitation, that it would be a notorious scandal that a
+contributor to such a paper as _Skittles_ should be a minister in our
+beloved parish church."
+
+The vicar still smiled, though it is conceivable that, for once in a
+way, his smile was merely on the surface.
+
+"Then, in that case, Mr. Luxmare, you will take upon yourself a great
+responsibility."
+
+"Mr. Harding, I took upon myself a great responsibility when I suffered
+myself to be made the people's warden. It is not my intention to
+attempt to shirk that responsibility in one jot or in one tittle. To
+the best of my ability, at any cost, I will do my duty, though the
+heavens fall."
+
+The vicar meditated some moments before he spoke again. Then he
+addressed himself to both his visitors.
+
+"I tell you what I will do, gentlemen. I will go to Mr. Plumber and
+tell him what you say. Then I will acquaint you with his answer."
+
+"Very good!" It was Mr. Luxmare who took upon himself to reply. "At
+present that is all we ask. I would only suggest, that the sooner your
+visit is paid the better."
+
+"Certainly. There I do agree with you; it is always well to rid oneself
+of matters of this sort as soon as possible. I will make a point of
+calling on Mr. Plumber directly you are gone."
+
+Possibly, when his visitors had gone, the vicar was inclined to the
+opinion that he had promised rather hastily. Not only did he not start
+upon his errand with the promptitude which his own words had suggested,
+but even when he did start, he pursued such devious ways that several
+hours elapsed between his arrival at the curate's and the departure of
+the deputation.
+
+Mr. Plumber lived in a cottage. It might have not been without its
+attractions as a home for a newly-married couple, but as a residence
+for a man of studious habits, possessed of a large and noisy family, it
+had its disadvantages. It was the curate himself who opened the door.
+Directly he did so the vicar became conscious that, within, there was a
+colourable imitation of pandemonium. Some young gentlemen appeared to
+be fighting upstairs; other young gentlemen appeared to be rehearsing
+some unmusical selections of the nature of a Christy Minstrel chorus on
+the ground floor at the back; somewhere else small children were
+crying; while occasionally, above the hubbub, were heard the shrill
+tones of a woman's agitated voice, raised in heartsick--because
+hopeless,--expostulation. Mr. Plumber seemed to be unconscious of there
+being anything strange in such discord of sweet sounds. Possibly he had
+become so used to living in the midst of a riot that it never occurred
+to him that there was anything in mere uproar for which it might be
+necessary to apologise. He led the way to his study--a small room at
+the back of the house, which was in uncomfortable proximity to the
+Christy Minstrel chorus. Small though the room was, it was
+insufficiently furnished. As he entered it, the vicar was struck, by no
+means for the first time, by an unpleasant sense of the contrast which
+existed between the curate's study and the luxurious apartment which
+was his study at the vicarage. The vicar seated himself on one of the
+two chairs which the apartment contained. A few desultory remarks were
+exchanged. Then Mr. Harding endeavoured to broach the subject which had
+brought him there. He began a little awkwardly.
+
+"I hope that you know me well enough to be aware, Mr. Plumber, that I
+am not a person who would wish to thrust myself into the affairs of
+others."
+
+The curate nodded. He was standing up before the empty fireplace. A
+tall, sparely-built man, with scanty iron-grey hair, a pronounced
+stoop, and a face which was a tragedy--it said so plainly that he was a
+man who had abandoned hope. Its careful neatness accentuated the
+threadbare condition of his clerical costume--it was always a mystery
+to the vicar how the curate contrived to keep himself so neat,
+considering his slender resources, and the life of domestic drudgery
+which he was compelled to lead.
+
+"Are you acquainted with a publication called _Skittles?_"
+
+Mr. Plumber nodded again; Mr. Harding would rather he had spoken.  "May
+I ask if you are a contributor to such a publication?"
+
+"May I inquire why you ask?"
+
+"It is reported in the parish that you are. The parish does not relish
+the report. And you must know yourself that it is not a paper"--the
+vicar hesitated--"not a paper with which a gentleman would wish it to
+be known that he was associated."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, without entering into questions of the past, I hope you will
+give me to understand that, at any rate, in the future, you will not
+contribute to its pages."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Is it necessary to explain? Are we not both clergymen?"
+
+"Are you suggesting that a clergyman should pay occasional visits to a
+debtor's prison rather than contribute to the pages of a comic paper?"
+
+"It is not a question of a comic paper, but of this particular comic
+paper."
+
+The curate looked intently at the vicar. He had dark eyes which, at
+times, were curiously full of meaning. Mr. Harding felt that they were
+very full of meaning then. He so sympathised with the man, so realised
+the burdens which he had to bear, that he never found himself alone
+with him without becoming conscious of a sensation which was almost
+shyness. At that moment, as the curate continued to fixedly regard him,
+he was not only shy, but ashamed.
+
+"Mr. Harding you are not here of your own initiative."
+
+"That is so. But that will not help you. If you take my advice, of two
+evils you will choose what I believe to be the lesser."
+
+"And that is?"
+
+"You will have no further connection with this paper."
+
+"Mr. Harding, look here." Going to a cupboard which was in a corner of
+the room, the curate threw the door wide open. Within were shelves. On
+the shelves were papers. The cupboard seemed full of them, shelf above
+shelf. "You see these. They are MSS.--my MSS. They have travelled
+pretty well all round the world. They have been rejected everywhere. I
+have paid postage for them which I could very ill afford, only to have
+them sent back upon my hands, at last, for good. I show them to you
+merely because I wish you to understand that I did not apply to the
+editor of _Skittles_ until I had been rejected by practically every
+other editor the world contains." The Vicar fidgetted on his chair.
+
+"Surely, now that reading has become almost universal, it is always
+possible to find an opening for good work."
+
+"For good work, possibly. Though, even then, I suspect that the thing
+is not so easy as you imagine. But mine is not good work. Very often it
+is not even good hack work, as good hack work goes. I may have been
+capable of good work once. But the capacity, if it ever existed, has
+gone--crushed perhaps by the burdens which have crushed me. Nowadays I
+am only too glad to do any work which will bring in for us a few extra
+crumbs of bread."
+
+"I sympathise with you, with all my heart."
+
+"Thank you." The curate smiled, the vicar would almost have rather he
+had cried. "There is one other point. If the paper were a bad paper, in
+a moral or in a religious sense, under no sense of circumstances would
+I consent to do its work or to take its wage. But if any one has told
+you that it is a bad paper, in that sense, you have been misinformed.
+It is simply a cheap so-called humorous journal. Perhaps not
+over-refined. It is intended for the _olla podrida_. It is printed on poor
+paper, and the printing is not good. The illustrations are not always
+in the best of taste and are sometimes simply smudges. But looking at
+the reading matter as a whole, it is probably equal to that which is
+contained, week after week, in some of the high-priced papers which
+find admission to every house."
+
+"I am bound to say that sometimes when I have been travelling I have
+purchased the paper myself, and I have never seen anything in it which
+could be justly called improper."
+
+"Nor I. I submit, sir, that we curates are already sufficiently
+cribbed, cabined, and confined. If narrow-minded, non-literary persons
+are to have the power to forbid our working for decent journals to
+which they themselves, for some reason, may happen to object, our case
+is harder still."
+
+The vicar rose from his chair.
+
+"Quite so. There is a great deal in what you say--I quite realise it,
+Mr. Plumber. The laity are already too much disposed to trample on us
+clerics. I will think the matter over--think the matter over, Mr.
+Plumber. My dear sir, what is that?"
+
+There was a crashing sound on the floor overhead, which threatened to
+bring the study ceiling down. It was followed by such a deafening din,
+as if an Irish faction fight was taking place upstairs, that even the
+curate seemed to be disturbed.
+
+"Some of the boys have been making themselves a pair of boxing gloves,
+and I am afraid they are practising with them in their bedroom."
+
+"Oh," said the vicar. That was all he did say, but the "Oh" was
+eloquent.
+
+"To think," he told himself as he departed, "that a scholar and a
+gentleman should be compelled to live in a place like that, with a
+helpless wife and a horde of unruly lads, and should be driven to
+scribble nonsense for such a rag as _Skittles_ in order to provide
+himself with the means to keep them all alive--it seems to me that it
+must be, in some way, a disgrace to the English Church that such things
+should be."
+
+He not only said this to himself, but, later on, he said it to his
+wife. His words had weight with Mrs. Harding, but not the sort of
+weight which he desired. The fact is Mrs. Harding had views of her own
+on the subject of curates. She held that curates ought not to marry.
+Vicars, rectors, and the higher clergy might; but curates, no. For a
+poor curate to marry was nothing else than a crime. Had she had her
+way, Mr. Plumber would long ago have vanished from Exdale. But though
+the vicar was ruled to a considerable extent by his wife, there was a
+point at which he drew the line. That a man should be turned adrift on
+to the world to quite starve simply because he was nearly starving
+already was an idea which actually filled him with indignation.
+
+If he supposed that his interview with Mr. Plumber had resulted in a
+manner which was likely to appease those of his parishioners who had
+objections to a curate who wrote for comic papers, he was destined soon
+to learn his error. The following morning one of his churchwardens paid
+another visit to the vicarage--the duty-loving Mr. Luxmare. Mr. Harding
+was conscious of an uncomfortable twinge when that gentleman's name was
+brought to him; he seemed to be still more uncomfortable when he found
+himself constrained to meet the warden's eye. The story he had to tell
+was not only in itself a slightly lame one, its lameness was emphasised
+by the way in which he told it. It was plain that it was not going to
+have the effect of inducing Mr. Luxmare to move one hair's breadth from
+the path which he felt that duty required him to tread.
+
+"Am I to understand, Mr. Harding, that Mr. Plumber, conscious of his
+offence, has promised to offend no more? In other words, has he
+undertaken to have no further connection with this off-scouring of the
+press?"
+
+Mr. Harding put his spectacles on his nose. He took them off again. He
+fidgetted and fumbled with them with his fingers.
+
+"The fact is, Mr. Luxmare--and this is entirely between ourselves--Mr.
+Plumber is in such straitened circumstances----"
+
+"Quite so. But because a man is a pauper, does that justify him in
+becoming a thief?"
+
+"Gently, Mr. Luxmare, let us consider our words before we utter them.
+Here is no question of anything even distantly approaching to felony.
+To be frank with you, I think you are unnecessarily hard on this
+particular journal. The paper is merely a vulgar paper----"
+
+"And Mr. Plumber is merely an ordained minister of the Established
+Church. Are we, then, as churchmen, to expect our clergy to encourage,
+not only passively, but, also, actively, the already superabundant
+vulgarity of the public press?"
+
+The vicar had the worst of it; when he was once more alone he felt that
+there was no sort of doubt upon that point.
+
+Whether, intentionally or not, Mr. Luxmare managed to convey the
+impression that, in his opinion, the curate, while pretending to save
+souls with one hand, was doing his best to destroy them with the other,
+and that, in that singular course of procedure, he was being aided and
+abetted by the vicar. Mr. Harding had strong forebodings that the
+trouble, so far from being ended, was only just beginning. Those
+forebodings became still stronger when, scarcely an hour after Mr.
+Luxmare had left him, Mrs. Harding, entering the study like a passable
+imitation of a hurricane, laid a printed sheet in front of her husband
+with the air almost of a Jove hurling thunderbolts from the skies.
+
+"Mr. Harding, have you seen that paper?"
+
+It was the unescapable _Skittles_. The vicar groaned in spirit. He
+regarded it with weary eyes.
+
+"A copy of it now and then, my dear."
+
+"I have just discovered its existence with feelings of horror. That
+such a thing should be permitted to be is a national disgrace. Mr.
+Harding, you will be astounded to learn that the curate of Exdale is
+one of its chief contributors.
+
+"Scarcely, I think, one of its chief contributors."
+
+Mrs. Harding struck an attitude.
+
+"Is it possible that you are already aware that your ostensible
+colleague in the great task of snatching souls from the burning has all
+the time been doing Satan's work?"
+
+"My dear!--really!"
+
+"You know very well that I have objected to Mr. Plumber from the first.
+I have suspected the man. Now that my suspicions are more than
+verified, it is certain that he must go. The question is, when? Of
+course, before next Sunday."
+
+"You move too fast, Sophia."
+
+"In such a matter as this it is impossible to move too fast. Read
+that."
+
+Turning over a page of the paper, Mrs. Harding pointed to a "copy of
+verses."
+
+"Thank you, my dear, but, if you will permit me, I prefer to remain
+excused. I have no taste for that species of literature just now."
+
+"So I should imagine--either now or ever! The shameful and shameless
+rubbish has been written by your curate. I am told that it has been cut
+out and framed, and that it at present hangs in the taproom of 'The Pig
+and Whistle,' with these words scrawled beneath it: 'The Curate's
+Latest! Real Jam!' Is that the sort of handle which you wish to offer
+to the scoffers? I shall not leave this room until you promise me that
+before next Sunday Exdale Parish Church shall have seen the last of
+him."
+
+He did not promise that, but he promised something--with his fatal
+facility for promising. He promised that a meeting should be held at
+the vicarage before the following Sunday. That Mr. Plumber, the
+churchwardens, and the sidesmen should be invited to attend. That
+certain questions should be put to the curate. That he should be asked
+what he had to say for himself. And, although the vicar did not
+distinctly promise, in so many words, that the sense of the meeting
+should then be allowed to decide his fate, the lady certainly inferred
+as much.
+
+The meeting was held. Mr. Harding wrote to the curate, explaining
+matters as best he could--he felt that in trusting to his pen he would
+be safer than in trusting to word of mouth. Probably because he was
+conscious that he really had no choice, Mr. Plumber agreed to come. And
+he came. Besides the clergy and officers of the church, the only person
+present was the aforementioned Mr. Ingledew. He was a person of light
+and leading in the parish, and when he asked permission to attend, the
+vicar saw no sufficient ground to say him nay.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+That was one of the unhappiest days of Mr. Harding's life. He was one
+of those people who are possessed of the questionable faculty of being
+able to see both sides of a question at once. He saw, too plainly for
+his own peace of mind, what was to be said both for and against the
+curate. He feared that the meeting would only see what was only to be
+said against him. That the man would come prejudiced. And he felt--and
+that was the worst of all!--that, for the sake of a peace which was no
+peace, he was giving his colleague into the hands of his enemies, and
+shifting on to the shoulders of others the authority which was his own.
+
+The churchwardens were the first to arrive. It was plain, from the
+start, that, so far as the people's warden was concerned, the curate's
+fate was already signed and sealed. The sidesmen followed, one by one.
+The vicar had had no personal communication with them on the matter;
+but he took it for granted, from his knowledge of their characters,
+that though they lacked his power of expression, they might be expected
+to think as Mr. Luxmare thought. Mr. Ingledew's position was not
+clearly defined, but everybody knew the point of view from which he
+would judge the curate. He would pose as a critic of Literature--with a
+capital L!--and Mr. Harding feared that, in that character, the
+unfortunate Mr. Plumber might fare even worse with him than with the
+others.
+
+The curate was the last to arrive. He came into the room with his hat
+and stick in his hand. Going straight up to the vicar, he addressed to
+him a question which brought the business for which they were assembled
+immediately to the front.
+
+"What is it that you would wish to say to me, sir?"
+
+"It is about your contributions to the well-advertised _Skittles_, Mr.
+Plumber. There seems to be a strong feeling on the subject in the
+parish. I thought that we might meet together here and arrive at a
+common understanding."
+
+Mr. Plumber bowed. He turned to the others. He bowed to them. There was
+a pause, as if of hesitation as to what ought to be done. Then Mr.
+Luxmare spoke.
+
+"May I ask Mr. Plumber some questions?"
+
+The vicar beamed, or endeavoured to.
+
+"You had better, Mr. Luxmare, address that inquiry to Mr. Plumber."
+
+Mr. Luxmare addressed himself to Mr. Plumber--not genially.
+
+"The first question I would ask you, sir, is, whether it is true that
+you are a contributor to the paper which the vicar has named. The
+second question I would ask you, sir----"
+
+The curate interrupted him.
+
+"One moment, Mr. Luxmare. On what ground do you consider yourself
+entitled to question me?"
+
+"You are one of the parish clergy. I am one of its churchwardens. As
+such, I speak to you in the name of the parish."
+
+"I fail to understand you. Because I am one of the parish clergy it
+does not follow that I am in any way responsible for my conduct to the
+parish. My life would be not worth living if that were so. I am
+responsible to my vicar alone. So long as he is satisfied that I am
+doing my duty to him, you have no concern with me, and I have none with
+you."
+
+"Quite right, Mr. Plumber," struck in the vicar. "I have hinted as much
+to Mr. Luxmare already."
+
+The people's warden listened with lowering brows.
+
+"Then why have you brought us here, sir?--to be played with?"
+
+"The truth is, Mr. Luxmare--and you must forgive my speaking
+plainly--you have an exaggerated conception of the magnitude of your
+office. A churchwarden has certain duties to perform, but among them
+is not the duty of sitting in judgment on his clergy."
+
+"Then am I to understand that Mr. Plumber declines to answer my
+questions?"
+
+"It depends," said Mr. Plumber, "upon what your questions are. I trust
+that I may be always found ready, and willing, to respond to any
+inquiries, not savouring of impertinence, which may be addressed to me.
+I have no objection, for instance, to inform you, or any one, that I
+am, or rather, I have been, a contributor to _Skittles_."
+
+"Oh, you have, have you! May I ask if you intend to continue to
+contribute to that scandalous rag?"
+
+"Now you go too far. I am unable to bind myself by any promise as to my
+future intentions."
+
+"Then, sir, I say that you ought to be ashamed of yourself."
+
+"Mr. Luxmare!" cried the vicar.
+
+But the people's warden had reached the explosive point; he was bound
+to explode.
+
+"I am not to be put down, nor am I to be frightened from doing what I
+conceive to be my bounden duty. I tell you again, Mr. Plumber, sir,
+that you ought to be ashamed of yourself. And I say further, that it is
+to me a monstrous proposition, that a clergyman is to be at liberty to
+contribute to the rising flood of public immorality, and that his
+parishioners are not to be allowed to offer even a word of
+remonstrance. You may take this from me, Mr. Plumber, that so long as
+you continue one of its clergy, the parish church will be deserted. You
+will minister, if you are to minister at all, to a beggarly array of
+empty pews. And, since the parish is not to be permitted to speak its
+mind in private, I will see that an opportunity is given it to speak
+its mind in public. I will see that a public meeting is held. I promise
+you that it will be attended by every decent-minded man and woman in
+Exdale. Some home truths will be uttered which, I trust, will enlighten
+you as to what is, and what is not, the duty of a parish clergyman."
+
+"Have you quite finished, Mr. Luxmare?"
+
+The vicar asked the question in a tone of almost dangerous quiet.
+
+"Do not think," continued Mr. Luxmare, ignoring Mr. Harding, "that in
+this matter I speak for myself. I speak for the whole parish." He
+turned to his colleague, "Is that not so?"
+
+The vicar's warden did not seem to be completely at his ease. He looked
+appealingly at the vicar. He shuffled with his feet. But he spoke at
+last, prefacing his remarks with a sort of deprecatory little cough.
+
+"I am bound to admit that I consider it somewhat unfortunate that Mr.
+Plumber should have contributed to a publication of this particular
+class."
+
+Mr. Luxmare turned to the sidesmen.
+
+"What do you think?"
+
+The sidesmen did not say much, but they managed, with what they did
+say, to convey the impression that they thought as the churchwardens
+thought.
+
+"You see," exclaimed the triumphant Mr. Luxmare, "that here we are
+unanimous, and I give you my word that our unanimity is but typical of
+the unanimous feeling which pervades the entire parish."
+
+"Has anybody else anything which he would wish to say?"
+
+The vicar asked the question in the same curiously quiet tone of voice.
+Mr. Ingledew stood up.
+
+"Yes, vicar, I have something which I should rather like to say. I am
+not pretending to have, in this matter, any _locus standi_. Nor do I
+intend to assail Mr. Plumber on the lines which Mr. Luxmare has
+followed. To me it seems to be a matter of comparative indifference to
+which journal a man, be he cleric or layman, may choose to send his
+contributions. Journals nowadays are very much of a muchness, their
+badness is merely a question of degree. There is, however, one point on
+which I should like to be enlightened by Mr. Plumber. I am told that he
+is the author of some verses which were published in the issue of
+_Skittles_, dated July 11th, and entitled 'The Lingering Lover.' Is
+that so, Mr. Plumber?"
+
+As Mr. Ingledew asked his question, the curate, for the first time,
+showed signs of obvious uneasiness.
+
+"That is so," he said.
+
+Mr. Ingledew smiled. His smile did not seem to add to the curate's
+comfort.
+
+"I do not intend to criticise those verses. Probably Mr. Plumber will
+admit that by no standard of criticism can they be adjudged first rate.
+But, in this connection, I would make one remark--and here I think you
+will agree with me, vicar--that even a clergyman should be decently
+honest."
+
+"Pray," asked the vicar, who possibly had noticed Mr. Plumber's
+uneasiness, and had, thereupon, become uneasy himself, "what has
+honesty to do with the matter?"
+
+"A good deal, as I am about to show. Mr. Luxmare asked Mr. Plumber if
+he intended to continue to contribute to _Skittles_. Mr. Plumber
+declined to answer that question. I could have answered it; and now do.
+No more of Mr. Plumber's contributions will appear in _Skittles_."
+
+The curate started--indeed, everybody started--vicar, churchwardens,
+sidesmen and all.
+
+"What do you mean?" stammered Mr. Plumber.
+
+"I base my statement on a letter which I have this morning received
+from the editor of _Skittles_. In it that great man informs me that he
+will take care that no more of Mr. Plumber's contributions appear in
+the paper which he edits."
+
+Mr. Plumber went white to the lips.
+
+"What do you mean?" he repeated.
+
+Mr. Ingledew looked the curate full in the face. As Mr. Plumber met his
+glance, he cowered as if Mr. Ingledew's words had been so many blows
+with a stick.
+
+"Can you not guess my meaning, Mr. Plumber? Were you not aware that
+there are such things as literary detectives? In future, I would advise
+you to remember that there are. Directly I saw those verses I knew that
+you had stolen them. I happened to have the original in my possession.
+I sent that original to the editor of _Skittles_. The letter to which I
+have referred is his response. The verses which you sent to him as
+yours are no more yours than my watch is. Are you disposed contradict
+me, Mr. Plumber?"
+
+The curate was silent--with a silence which was eloquent.
+
+"Mr. Plumber has given a sufficient answer," said Mr. Ingledew, as the
+curate continued speechless. He turned to the vicar. "This is not one
+of those cases of remote plagiarism which abound: it is a case of clear
+theft, which are not so frequent. Mr. Plumber sent to this paper what
+was, to all intents and purposes, a copy of another man's work. He
+claimed it as his own. He received payment for it as if it had been his
+own. If he chooses, the editor of _Skittles_ can institute against him
+a criminal prosecution. If he does, Mr. Plumber will certainly be
+sentenced to a turn of imprisonment. As an example of impudent
+pilfering the affair is instructive. Perhaps, vicar, you would like to
+study it. Here are what Mr. Plumber calls his verses, and here are the
+verses from which his verses are stolen. As you will perceive, from a
+literary point of view, Mr. Plumber has merely perpetrated a new
+edition of another man's crime. Which is the worse, the original or the
+copy, is more than I can say. Here are the verses as they appeared in
+the peculiarly named paper of which you have, perhaps, already heard
+too much, and which, while it professes to be humorous, at least
+succeeds in being vulgar."
+
+Mr. Ingledew handed Mr. Harding what was evidently a marked copy of the
+paper which, no doubt, has its attractions for those who like that kind
+of thing. Mr. Plumber remained silent. He leant on his stick. His eyes
+were fixed on the floor. The vicar seemed almost afraid to glance in
+his direction.
+
+"And this," continued the softly speaking gentleman, who in spite of
+his carefully modulated tones, seemed destined to work the curate more
+havoc than the noisy parish mouthpiece, "is the publication in which the
+verses originally appeared. As you will see, it is a copy of a
+once-talked-of University magazine which is long since dead and done for.
+Possibly Mr. Plumber relied upon that fact to shield him from exposure."
+
+The vicar received the second paper with an air of what was
+unmistakably amazement. He stared at it as if in doubt that he was not
+being tricked by his eyes, or his spectacles, or something.
+
+"What--what's this?" he said.
+
+Mr. Ingledew explained,
+
+"It is a copy of _Cam-Isis_; a magazine which was edited and written by
+a body of Camford undergraduates some forty years ago."
+
+The more the vicar stared at the paper, the more his amazement seemed
+to grow. He was beginning to turn quite red.
+
+"Good gracious!" he exclaimed.
+
+"The original of Mr. Plumber's verses you will find on the page which I
+have marked. They are quite equal to their title, 'The Lass and the
+Lout.'"
+
+The Vicar's hand which held the paper dropped to his side. He looked up
+at the ceiling seemingly in a state of mind approaching stupefaction.
+As if unaware, words came from his lips.
+
+"It's a judgment."
+
+Mr. Ingledew rubbed his chin. He seemed to be pleased.
+
+"It certainly is a judgment, and one for which, I am afraid, Mr.
+Plumber was not prepared. But I flatter myself that no man, if the
+thing comes within my cognisance, is able to print another man's works
+as his own without my being able to detect and convict him of his
+guilt. I have not been on the look out for plagiarists all my life for
+nothing."
+
+The vicar's glance came down. He seemed all at once to become conscious
+of his surroundings. He looked about him with a startled air, as if he
+had been roused from a trance. He seemed quite curiously agitated. The
+words which he uttered were spoken a little wildly, as if he himself
+was not quite certain what it was that he was saying.
+
+"I have to thank you for all that you have said, gentlemen, and I can
+only assure you that the remarks which you have made demand, and shall
+receive, my most serious consideration. With regard to the papers"--he
+glanced at the two papers which he still was holding--"with regard to
+these papers, with your permission, Mr. Ingledew, I will retain them
+for the present. They shall be returned to you later." The owner of the
+papers nodded assent. "And now that all has been said which there is to
+say, I have to ask you, gentlemen, to leave me, and--and I wish you all
+good-day."
+
+The vicar himself opened the study door. He seemed almost to be
+hustling his visitors out of the room, his anxiety to be rid of them
+was so wholly undisguised. It is possible that both Mr. Luxmare and Mr.
+Ingledew would have liked to have made a few concluding observations,
+but neither of them was given a shred of opportunity. When, however,
+Mr. Plumber made a movement as if to go, Mr. Harding motioned to him
+with his hand to stay. And the vicar and the curate were left alone.
+
+A stranger would have found it difficult to decide which of the two
+seemed the more shame-faced. The curate still stood where he had been
+standing all through, leaning on his stick, with his eyes on the
+ground; while the vicar, with his grasp still on the handle of the
+door, stood with his face turned towards the wall. It was with an
+apparent effort that, moving towards his writing table, placing Mr.
+Ingledew's two papers in front of him, he seated himself in his
+accustomed chair. Taking off his spectacles, with his hands he gently
+rubbed his eyes as if they were tired.
+
+"Dear, dear!" he muttered, as if to himself. He sighed. He added, still
+more to himself, "The Lord's ways are past our finding out." Then he
+addressed himself to the curate.
+
+"Mr. Plumber!" Although the vicar spoke so softly, his hearer seemed to
+shrink away from him. "I have a confession which I must make to you."
+The curate looked up furtively, as if in fear.
+
+"When I was a young man I did many things of which I have since had
+good reason to be ashamed. Among the things, I used to write what Mr.
+Ingledew would say correctly enough it would be flattering to call
+nonsense. I regret to have to tell you that I wrote those verses to
+which Mr. Ingledew has just called our attention in that dead and gone
+Camford magazine."
+
+The curate stood up almost straight.
+
+"Sir!--Mr. Harding!"
+
+"I did. To my shame, I own it. I had nearly forgotten them. I had not
+seen a copy for years and years. I had hoped that there was none in
+existence. But it seems that that which a man does, which he would
+rather have left undone, is sure to rise, and confront him, we will
+trust, by the grace of God, not in eternity, but certainly in time."
+
+Mr. Plumber was trembling. The vicar continued, in a voice, and with a
+manner, the exquisite delicacy of which was indescribable.
+
+"I have esteemed it my duty to make you this confession in order that
+you may understand that I, too, have done that of which I have cause to
+be ashamed. And in making you this confession I must ask you to respect
+my confidence, as I shall respect yours."
+
+Mr. Plumber made a movement as if to speak. But, possibly his tongue
+was parched and refused its office. At any rate, he did nothing but
+stare at the vicar, with blanched cheeks, and strangely distended eyes.
+When Mr. Harding went on, his glance, which had hitherto been fixed
+upon the curate, fell--it may be that he wished to avoid the other's
+dreadful gaze.
+
+"I think, Mr. Plumber, you might prefer to leave Exdale and seek
+another sphere of duty. As it chances, I have had a recent inquiry from
+a friend who desires to know if I am acquainted with a gentleman who
+would care to accept a chaplaincy at a health resort in the Pyrenees.
+One moment." The curate made another movement as if to speak; the vicar
+checked him. "The stipend is guaranteed to be at least L200 a year;
+and, as there are also tutorial possibilities, on such an income, in
+that part of the world, a gentleman would be able to bring up his
+family in decent comfort. If you like, I will mention your name, and,
+in that case, I think I am in a position to promise that the post shall
+be place at your disposal."
+
+The curate's hat and stick dropped from his trembling hands. He seemed
+unconscious of their fate. He moved, or rather, it would be more
+correct to say, he lurched towards the vicar's table.
+
+"Sir!" he gasped. "Mr. Harding."
+
+It seemed that he would say more--much more; but that still his tongue
+was tied. His weight was on the table, as if, without the aid of its
+support, he would not be able to stand. Rising, leaning forward, the
+vicar gently laid his two hands upon the curate's. His voice quavered
+as he spoke.
+
+"Believe me, Mr. Plumber, we clergymen are no more immaculate than
+other men."
+
+The curate still was speechless. But he sank on his knees, and laying
+his face on the vicar's writing table, he cried like a child.
+
+
+
+
+                            "Em"
+
+
+                          CHAPTER I
+
+                  THE MAJOR'S INSTRUCTIONS
+
+"Don't tell me, miss; don't tell me, I say."
+
+And Major Clifford stood up, and shook his fist and stamped his foot in
+a way suggestive of the Black Country and wife beating. But Miss
+Maynard, who sat opposite to him, meek and mild, being used to his
+eccentric behaviour, was quite equal to the occasion. When he got very
+red in the face and seemed on the point of breaking a blood vessel, she
+just stood up, moved across the room, and put her hands upon his
+shoulders.
+
+"Uncle," she said, and her face was very close to his, "I'm sure I'm
+very much obliged to you."
+
+"It's all very well," the Major replied, pretending to struggle from
+her grasp. "It's all very well, but I say----"
+
+"Of course. That's exactly what you do say."
+
+And she kissed him. Then it was all over.
+
+When a young woman of a certain kind kisses an elderly gentleman of a
+certain temperament, it soothes his savage breast, like oil upon the
+troubled waters. And as Miss Maynard was a young woman whose influence
+was not likely to be ineffective with any man whether young or old,
+Major Clifford was tolerably helpless in her hands.
+
+Now, they called her "Em." Emily was her name, Emily Maynard, but from
+her babyhood the concluding syllables had been forgotten, and by
+general consent among her intimates she was "Em." There could be no
+doubt whether you called her Em or whether you did not, she was a young
+woman it was not unpleasant to know.
+
+She was pretty tall and pretty slender, quiet, like still waters
+running deep. She never made a noise herself, being a model of good
+behaviour, but she created in some people an irresistible inclination
+to look upon life as a first-rate joke.
+
+She had a tendency to throw everything into inextricable confusion by
+the depth of her enthusiasm. She managed many things, and with complete
+impartiality managed them all wrong. In that unassuming way of hers she
+took the lead in all well-directed efforts, and had a wonderful genius
+for setting her colleagues by the ears.
+
+At the present moment things had occurred which were the cause to her
+of no little sorrow. She was the treasurer of the District Visitor's
+Fund, and at the same time of the Coal and Clothing Clubs. In that
+capacity she had taken a view of the duties of her office which had
+caused some dissatisfaction to her friends.
+
+Being possessed of a bad memory, it had been her misfortune to receive
+several subscriptions to the District Visitors' Fund, of which she had
+forgotten to make any entry, and which she had paid away in a manner of
+which she was totally incapable of giving any account. In moments of
+generosity, too, she had bestowed the greater portion of the Coal Fund
+on unfortunate persons who were not of her parish, nor, it was to be
+feared, of any creed either. And in moments still more generous, the
+funds of the Clothing Club she had applied to the purchase of books for
+her Sunday School Library. Therefore, when the quarter ended and a
+request was made to examine her accounts and rectify them, she was in a
+position which was not exactly pleasant.
+
+Now there happened to be at St. Giles's a curate who was a Low
+Churchman. Miss Maynard had a tendency to "High;" and between these two
+there was no good feeling lost. It was this curate who was causing all
+the trouble. He had not only made some uncomfortable remarks, but he
+had gone so far as to suggest that Miss Maynard should resign her
+office, and on this particular morning he had made an appointment to
+call in order that, as he said, some decision might be arrived at.
+
+Major Clifford, I regret to say, was no churchgoer. In addition to
+which he had an unreasonable objection to what he called "parsons," and
+was wont to boast that he knew none of them, except the vicar, who was
+a sociable gentleman of a somewhat older school, even by sight.
+However, when he heard that the Rev. Philip Spooner was calling, and
+what was the purport of his intended visit, he announced his intention
+to favour the reverend gentleman with a personal interview, and to
+present him with a piece of his mind. Hence the strong words which head
+this chapter.
+
+Miss Maynard was not at all unwilling that he should see the Rev.
+Spooner, but she was exceedingly anxious that he should not wait for
+him as he would for a deadly enemy.
+
+"Uncle, promise me that you will be calm and gentle."
+
+"Calm and gentle!" cried the Major, banging his fist upon the table.
+"Calm and gentle! Do you mean to say, miss, that I would harm a fly!"
+
+"But I am afraid, uncle, that Mr. Spooner will not understand you so
+well as I do."
+
+"Then," said the Major, "if the man doesn't understand me, he must be a
+fool!"
+
+In which Miss Maynard begged to differ, so put her hands upon his
+shoulders, which was a favourite trick of hers, and said:
+
+"Uncle, you do love me, don't you? And I am sure you wouldn't hurt my
+feelings. You will be kind to Mr. Spooner for my sake, won't you?"
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+                           HIS NIECE'S WOOING
+
+It was a warm morning in a pleasant country lane, and a young
+gentleman, with a very broad brimmed hat, a very long frock-coat, and a
+very small, stiff shirt collar, was pacing meditatively to and fro,
+evidently waiting for someone. Every now and then he glanced up the
+lane which seemed deserted by ordinary passengers, and if he had not
+been a clergyman would no doubt have whistled.
+
+At last his patience was rewarded. Over the top of the low hedge a
+coquettish hat appeared sailing along, and presently a young woman came
+meekly round the corner, enjoying the fresh country air. It was Miss
+Maynard. The young gentleman advanced. He seemed to know her, for
+taking off his broad-brimmed hat, he kissed her, much in the same
+fashion as a short time before she had kissed the Major, only much more
+forcibly, and apparently with much enjoyment.
+
+"Em, I thought you were never coming."
+
+"I don't know," she said, and sighed. "I don't know. It's all vanity. I
+was thinking of your last Sunday's sermon," she continued as they
+wandered on, seemingly unconscious that his arm was round her waist.
+"It was so true."
+
+They walked on till they reached a gate which opened into a little
+woodland copse. Here, under the mighty trees, the shade was pleasant,
+and the grass cool and refreshing to the eye. They sat at the foot of a
+great old oak.
+
+"Em," said Mr. Roland--by the way, the Rev. John Roland was the young
+gentleman's name--"these meetings are very pleasant."
+
+"Yes," said Em, who was always truthful, "they are."
+
+"Therefore, I am afraid to run the risk of ending them."
+
+"What do you mean?" cried she.
+
+To be candid, four mornings out of five were taken up by these pleasant
+little meetings, and to end them would be to rob her of one of her most
+important occupations.
+
+"Em, you know what I mean."
+
+"I don't," said she.
+
+"You do," said he.
+
+"I do not," she said, and looked the other way.
+
+"Then I'll tell you." And he told her. "Em, I can keep silence no
+longer. I must tell your uncle all. And if he forbids me--"
+
+"I don't mind saying," she observed, taking advantage of the pause,
+"that I don't care if he does."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"John," she whispered.
+
+"Call me Jack."
+
+"No; it's so undignified for a clergyman." Some people would call it
+undignified for a young woman to lay her hand on a clergyman's
+shoulder. "What do I care if he says no? He never does say what he
+means the first time. I can just turn him round my finger. Whatever he
+said to you he would never dare to say no to me; at least, when I had
+done with him."
+
+"Let us hope so," said Mr. Roland. "But whatever happens, I feel that I
+have already been too long silent."
+
+"I don't know," murmured Em, with a saintlike expression in her eyes.
+"I rather like meeting you upon the sly."
+
+Mr. Roland, as a curate and so on, perceived this to be a sentiment in
+which, under any circumstances, it was impossible for him to
+acquiesce--at least, verbally.
+
+"No," he declared; "it must not be. This is a matter in which delay is
+almost worse than dangerous. I must go to him at once and tell him all."
+
+Miss Maynard yielded. She was not disinclined to have their little
+mutual understanding publicly announced, if only to gratify Miss Gigsby
+and one or two other young ladies.
+
+"Yes, Em," he continued, "I will go at once, and doubt will be ended."
+
+They went together to the end of the lane, then she departed to do a
+few little errands in the town, and the Rev. John Roland went on his
+visit to Major Clifford.
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+                            THE LADY'S LOVER
+
+The Major waited for his visitor--waited in a mood which, in spite of
+his promise to Miss Maynard, promised unpleasantness for Mr. Spooner.
+Time passed on, and he did not come. The Major paced up and down
+stairs, to and from the windows, and from room to room. Finally, he
+took a large meerschaum pipe from the mantelshelf in the smoking-room
+and smoked it in the drawing-room, a thing he would not have dared to
+do--very properly--if Miss Maynard had been at home.
+
+"I promised young Trafford I'd go and see what I thought of that new
+gun of his," growled the Major, "and here's that jackanapes keeping me
+in to listen to his insulting twaddle."
+
+The Major probably forgot that at any rate the jackanapes in question
+had no appointment with him.
+
+At last he threw open the window, and thrusting his head out, looked up
+and down the street to see if he could catch a glimpse of the expected
+Spooner.
+
+"The fellow's playing with me!" he told himself considerably above a
+whisper. "Like his confounded impudence!"
+
+Suddenly he caught sight of a shovel hat and clerical garments turning
+the street corner, and re-entering the room with some loss of dignity,
+commenced reading the "Broad Arrow" upside down. Presently there was a
+knock at the street door, and a stranger was shown upstairs
+unannounced.
+
+"I have called," he began.
+
+The Major rose.
+
+"I am perfectly aware why you have called," said he. "My niece is not
+at home."
+
+"No," said the visitor. "I am aware--"
+
+"But," continued the Major, who meant to carry the thing with a high
+hand, and give Mr. Spooner clearly to understand what his opinions
+were, "she has commissioned me to deal with the matter in her name."
+
+The Rev. John Roland--for it was the Rev. John Roland--looked somewhat
+mystified. He failed to see the drift of the Major's observation, and
+also did not fail to see that, for some reason, his reception was not
+exactly what he would have wished it to be.
+
+"I regret," he began, with the Major standing bolt upright, glancing at
+him with an air of a martinet lecturing an unfortunate sub for neglect
+of duty, "that it is my painful duty--"
+
+"Sir," said the Major, stiff as a poker, "you need regret nothing."
+
+The Rev. John Roland looked at him. It was very kind of him to say so,
+but a little premature.
+
+"I was about to say," he went on, feeling more awkward than he had
+intended to feel, "that owing to circumstances----"
+
+"On which we need not enter," said the Major. "Quite so--quite so!"
+
+He rose upon his toes, and sank back on his heels. Mr. Roland began to
+blush. He was not a particularly shy man, but under the circumstances
+the Major was trying.
+
+"But I was about to remark that----"
+
+"Sir," said the Major, shooting out his right hand towards Mr. Ronald
+in an unexpected manner, "once for all, sir, I say that I know all
+about it--once for all, sir! And the sooner we come to the point the
+better."
+
+"Really," murmured Mr. Roland, "I am at a loss--"
+
+"Then," cried the Major, suddenly flaring up in a way that was even
+startling, "let me tell you that I wonder you have the impertinence to
+say so. And I may further remark that the sooner you say what you have
+to say, and have done with it, the better for both sides."
+
+Thereupon he went stamping up and down the room with heavy strides. Mr.
+Roland was so taken aback, that for a moment he was inclined to think
+that the Major had been drinking.
+
+"Major Clifford," he said, with an air of dignity which he fondly hoped
+would tell, "I came here to speak to you on a matter intimately
+connected with your niece's future happiness."
+
+"What the dickens do you mean by your confounded impudence? Do you mean
+to insinuate, sir, that my niece's happiness can be affected by your
+trumpery nonsense?"
+
+"Sir," said Mr. Roland. "Major!"
+
+There was no doubt about it, the Major must be intoxicated. It was
+painful to witness in a man of his years, but what could you expect
+from a person of his habits of life? He began to wish he had postponed
+his visit to another day.
+
+"Don't Major me! Don't attempt any of your palavering with me! I'm not
+a fool, sir, and I am not an idiot, sir, and that's plain, sir!"
+
+"Major," he said--"Major Clifford, I will not tell you----"
+
+"You will not tell me, sir! What the dickens do you mean by you will
+not tell me? Do you mean to insult me in my own house, sir?"
+
+Mr. Roland was disposed to think that the insult was all on the other
+side, and inclined to fancy that a man who abused another before he
+knew either his name or errand, could be nothing but a hopeless
+lunatic.
+
+"This pains me," he observed--"pains me more than I can express."
+
+"Well, upon my life!" shouted the Major. "A fellow comes to my house
+with the deliberate intention of insulting me and mine, and yet he has
+the confounded insolence to tell me that it pains him!"
+
+"Major," Mr. Roland was naturally beginning to feel a little warm, "you
+are not sober."
+
+"Sober!" roared the Major. "Not sober! Confound it! this is too much!"
+
+And before the curate knew what was coming, the Major took him by the
+collar of his coat, led him from the room, and--let us say, assisted
+him down the stairs. The front door was flung open, and, in broad
+daylight, the astonished neighbours saw the Rev. John Roland, M.A., of
+Caius College, Cambridge, what is commonly called "kicked-out," of
+Major Clifford's house.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+                           THE MAJOR'S SORROW
+
+After the Major had disposed of his offensive visitor, he went upstairs
+to think the matter over. It began to suggest itself to him that, upon
+the whole, he had not, perhaps, been so kind and gentle as Miss Maynard
+had advised. But then, as he phrased it, the fellow had been so
+confoundedly impertinent.
+
+"Bully me, sir! Bully me!" cried the Major, taking a strong view of Mr.
+Roland's, under the circumstances, exceedingly mild deportment. "And
+the fellow said I wasn't sober! I never was so insulted in my life."
+
+The Major felt the insinuation keenly, because--for prudential reasons
+only--he was rigidly abstemious.
+
+When Miss Maynard returned, she was met at the door by the respected
+housekeeper, Mrs. Phillips, and her own maid, Mary Ann.
+
+"Oh, Miss," began Mrs. Phillips, directly the door was opened, "such
+goings on I never see in all my life--never in all my days. I thought I
+should have fainted."
+
+Miss Maynard turned pale. She thought of the mild, if aggravating,
+Spooner, and was fearful that her affectionate relative might in some
+degree have forgotten her emphasised directions.
+
+"Oh, Miss Em!" chimed in Mary Ann. "Whatever will come to us I don't
+know. If the police were to come and lock us all up, I shouldn't be
+surprised. Not a bit, I shouldn't."
+
+"Pray shut the door," observed Miss Maynard, who was still upon the
+doorstep. "Come in here, Phillips, and tell me what is the matter."
+
+Miss Maynard looked disturbed. Mr. Spooner was bad enough before, but
+he might make things very unpleasant indeed if anything had occurred to
+annoy him further.
+
+"Oh, Miss Em, Mr. Roland has been here."
+
+"Mr. Roland!"
+
+"Yes, miss. And there was the Major and he a-shouting at each other,
+and the next thing I see was the Major dragging of him downstairs and
+a-shoving of him down the front steps."
+
+Miss Maynard sank upon a chair. She seemed nearly fainting.
+
+"Mrs. Phillips, this is awful."
+
+"Awful ain't the word for it, miss. It's a case for the police."
+
+"Mrs. Phillips, this is worse than you can possibly conceive. I must
+see the Major."
+
+"The Major's in the drawing-room. Can't you hear him, miss?"
+
+Miss Maynard could hear him stamping overhead as though he were doing
+his best to bring the ceiling down.
+
+"Thank you; I will go to him."
+
+She did go to him. But first she went to her own room, shutting the
+door carefully behind her. Going to the dressing-table she put her arms
+upon it and hid her face within her hands.
+
+"Oh!" she said, "whatever shall I do?" Then she cried. "It's the most
+dreadful thing I ever heard of. Oh, how could he find it in his heart
+to treat me so?" She ceased crying and dried her eyes, "Never mind,
+it's not over yet. If he drives me to despair he shall know it was his
+doing."
+
+Then she stood up, took off her hat and coat, washed her face and eyes,
+and entered the drawing-room in her best manner.
+
+The Major was alone. He was perfectly aware that Miss Maynard had
+returned. He had seen her come up the street, he had heard her enter
+the house, but for reasons of his own he had not gone to meet her with
+that exuberant warmth with which, occasionally, it was his custom to
+greet her. He was in a towering passion. At least, he fully intended to
+be in a towering passion, but at the same time he was fully conscious
+that, under the circumstances, a towering passion was a very difficult
+thing to keep properly towering. And when Miss Maynard entered with the
+expression of her countenance so sweet and saintlike, he knew that
+there was trouble in the air. He looked at his watch.
+
+"Five-and-twenty minutes to two. Five-and-twenty minutes to two. And we
+lunch at half-past one. Those servants are disgraceful!"
+
+And he crossed the room to ring the bell.
+
+"Please don't ring," said Miss Maynard, quite up to the man[oe]uvre. "I
+wish to speak to you."
+
+"Oh, oh! Then perhaps you'll remember it is luncheon-time, and when
+we're likely to have any regularity in this establishment, perhaps
+you'll let me know."
+
+Miss Maynard drew herself up.
+
+"Pray don't attack me," she observed. "I don't wish to be kicked out of
+the house."
+
+The Major turned crimson. It was true that someone had been so kicked
+that morning, but it was unkind of Miss Maynard to insinuate that he
+had any desire to kick her.
+
+"Look here!" he cried, actually shaking his fist at her.
+
+"Don't threaten me," remarked Miss Maynard.
+
+"Threaten you! You leave me at home to meet a scoundrel!"
+
+"How dare you!" exclaimed Miss Maynard, who had momentarily forgotten
+whom it was she had left him there to meet.
+
+"How dare I. Well, upon my soul, this is a pretty thing!"
+
+"I had never thought that in a matter in which my happiness was so
+involved, my existence so bound up, you could have treated me so
+cruelly!"
+
+The Major stared. Like Mr. Roland, he was a little puzzled.
+
+"You tell me that your existence is bound up in that fellow's?"
+
+"Fellow! The fellow is worth twenty thousand such gentleman as you!"
+
+The Major was astounded. The remark amazed him. He really thought Miss
+Maynard must be demented, not knowing that Mr. Roland had thought the
+same thing of him not long before.
+
+"Oh, Major Clifford, when I am broken-hearted, and you follow me, if
+you ever do, to a miserable tomb, then--then may you never know what it
+is to be a savage!"
+
+The Major began to be alarmed. He feared Miss Maynard must be seriously
+unwell.
+
+"Eh! ah! you--you're not well. You--you don't take enough care.
+It's--it's indigestion."
+
+"Indigestion!" cried Miss Maynard, and she sank upon the couch.
+"Indigestion! He breaks my heart, and he says it's indigestion!"
+
+She burst into a flood of tears. The Major was terrified.
+
+"Mrs. Philips!" he shouted. "Mary Ann!"
+
+"Don't!" exclaimed Miss Maynard. "Call no one. Let me die alone! You
+have robbed me of the man I love!"
+
+"Love!" cried the Major, racking his brains to think where the tinge of
+insanity came in the family. "You love Spooner!"
+
+"Spooner!" replied Miss Maynard with contempt. "I love John Roland."
+
+"John Roland!" yelled the Major, thinking that he must be going mad as
+well. "Who the deuce is he?"
+
+"He asks me who he is, and he kicked him from his house this morning!"
+
+"I kicked him!" cried the Major, indignant at the charge. "I kicked
+Spooner!"
+
+"You did not!" persisted Miss Maynard between her tears. "You kicked
+Roland!"
+
+"I kicked Spooner!" said the Major.
+
+"Do you mean to say," enquired Miss Maynard, on whom a light was dimly
+breaking, "that you didn't know the gentleman you kicked was Mr.
+Roland?"
+
+"Roland!" exclaimed the Major, staggered. "Roland! I swear I thought
+the man was Spooner."
+
+"Oh!" gasped Miss Maynard, overwhelmed by the discovery, "Major
+Clifford, what have you done?"
+
+"Heaven knows!" groaned the Major as he sank into a chair. "Chanced six
+months' hard labour."
+
+There was silence for a few moments then the Major spoke again:
+
+"I know what I'll do, I'll write."
+
+Miss Maynard was agreeable. Getting pens, ink and paper he sat down and
+commenced his composition.
+
+"My Dear Sir,
+
+"As an unmitigated idiot and an ungentlemanly ruffian, I am only too
+conscious that I am an ass----"
+
+"I don't think I would put unmitigated idiot and ungentlemanly
+ruffian," suggested Miss Maynard mildly. "Perhaps Mr. Roland would not
+care to marry into a family which contained such characters as that."
+
+"Marry?" said the Major, arresting his pen.
+
+"Yes," replied Miss Maynard. "I think I would put it in this way: 'My
+Dear Mr. Roland----'"
+
+"But I never saw the man before. I don't know him from Adam."
+
+"Never mind," said Miss Maynard; "I do."
+
+So the Major wrote as he was told.
+
+"My Dear Mr. Roland,
+
+"I have to apologise for my conduct of this morning, which was entirely
+owing to a gross misconception on my part. If you will kindly call at
+your earliest convenience I will explain fully. I may say that your
+proposition has my heartiest approval--"
+
+"But I don't know what his proposition is," protested the Major.
+
+"Mr. Roland's proposition is that he should marry me," explained Miss
+Maynard. There was silence. Miss Maynard prepared to raise her
+pocket-handkerchief to her eyes. "Of course, if you wish to break my
+heart----"
+
+Then the Major succumbed, and Miss Maynard continued her dictation.
+
+----"and I shall have the greatest pleasure in welcoming you as my
+nephew.
+
+       "Believe me, with repeated apologies,
+                     Very faithfully yours,
+
+                                 "Arthur Clifford."
+
+Miss Maynard possessed herself of the epistle, and while the Major was
+addressing the envelope, added a postscript of her own:
+
+"My Dear Jack,
+
+"You see, I call you Jack for once--my silly old uncle has made a goose
+of himself. Please, please come this instant to your own Em, because--I
+will not say I want to kiss you. It would be most unseemly in the
+afternoon.
+
+                  "Ever, ever your own
+
+                                    "Em."
+
+This choice epistle, containing additions of which he was unconscious,
+the Major packed into an envelope, and, under Miss Maynard's
+supervision, dispatched to its destination by a maid. Then they went
+down, models of propriety, to luncheon.
+
+It was after that meal, when they were again in the drawing-room, that
+there came a knock at the street door. Steps were heard coming up the
+stairs.
+
+"It is he!" cried Miss Maynard, with that intuition bestowed upon true
+love preparing to receive him in her arms.
+
+Fortunately, however, he eluded her embrace, because the visitor
+happened to be Mr. Spooner.
+
+"Mr. Spooner!" cried Miss Maynard.
+
+"Miss--Miss Maynard," said Mr. Spooner, "I--I beg your pardon."
+
+"The Rev. William Spooner--Major Clifford."
+
+Miss Maynard introduced them. The gentlemen looked at each other. At
+least, the Major looked at Mr. Spooner. Mr. Spooner, after the first
+shy glance, seemed to be studying the pattern of the carpet.
+
+"With regard to the purport of your visit," went on Miss Maynard, using
+her finest dictionary words, "I have to place in your hands my
+resignation of the offices I have hitherto so unworthily held. With
+reference to the unfortunately mismanaged--er--book-keeping, to make
+that all right"--it was rather a comedown--"Major Clifford wishes to
+present you with a donation of," she paused, "of twenty-five guineas."
+
+"Fifty," growled the Major, much disgusted. "For goodness sake, make it
+fifty while you are about it!"
+
+"Just so," said Miss Maynard blandly. "The Major is particularly
+anxious to make it fifty guineas."
+
+The Major glared at her. If they had been alone, and the circumstances
+had been different, he would no doubt have given her a small piece of
+his mind. As it was--well, discretion is the better part of valour.
+
+Mr. Spooner began his speech:
+
+"I--I am sure we shall be very happy; I--I should say we shall
+exceedingly; that is, no doubt the donation is--is-- At the same time,
+Miss--Miss Maynard's services, though--though--"
+
+He went blundering on, Miss Maynard looking at him stonily, raising not
+a finger to his help. The Major took his bearings. He was a tall, thin
+young gentleman with a white face--which, however, was just now
+pinkish--white hair upon the top of his head, and a faint suspicion of
+more white hair upon his upper lip. It would have been cruel to apply
+assault and battery to one so innocent.
+
+While Mr. Spooner was still stammering, and stuttering there came
+another knock at the street door. Miss Maynard gave a slight jump.
+There was no mistake about it this time. Somebody came bolting up the
+stairs apparently three steps at a time. The door was thrown open.
+Somebody entered the room, and in about two seconds in spite of the
+assembled company Miss Maynard and the Rev. John Roland were locked
+breast to breast. To do the young man justice it was not his idea of
+things at all. He was plainly taken a little aback. But the young
+woman's enthusiasm was not to be restrained.
+
+"This," explained Miss Maynard, holding Mr. Roland by his coat sleeve,
+"this is the Rev. John Roland. John, this is my uncle."
+
+There was a striking difference between the tones in which she made the
+two announcements. The two gentlemen bowed. They had had the pleasure
+of meeting before. One, if not both, felt a little awkward. But Miss
+Maynard did not care two pins how they felt. She transferred her
+attentions to Mr. Spooner.
+
+"I am going to leave St. Giles's," she observed; "the service is too
+low. I am going to St. Simon Stylites. I suppose, John, I may as well
+tell Mr. Spooner that you are going to be my husband."
+
+John was silent. So was Mr. Spooner. The latter was gentleman amazed
+not to say indignant. In his heart of hearts he had been persuaded that
+Miss Maynard was consumed by a hopeless passion for William Spooner.
+
+"Perhaps Miss Maynard will become treasurer of the Clothing Club at St.
+Simon Stylites."
+
+Had it not been a case of two clergyman, Mr. Roland might possibly have
+liked to have had a try at knocking Mr. Spooner down. As it was he
+refrained.
+
+"If Miss Maynard does so honour us, she at least need fear no insults
+from the clergy."
+
+Miss Maynard favoured him with a lovely smile, and Mr. Spooner was
+annihilated.
+
+Since then Mr. Roland and Miss Maynard have been united in the bonds of
+holy matrimony. The ceremony was performed at St. Simon Stylites, and
+the Rev. William Spooner was, after all, one of the officiating clergy.
+Mr. Roland is at present Vicar of a parish in the neighbourhood of
+Stoke-cum-Poger, of which parish Mrs. Roland is also Vicaress. He is
+very "High," and it is darkly whispered that certain courts possessing
+very nicely defined spiritual powers have their eyes upon him. Of that
+we know nothing, but we do know that he is possessed of a promising
+family, and that, not so very long ago, Mrs. Roland presented him with
+a second Em.
+
+
+
+
+                         A Relic of the Borgias
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+Vernon's door was opened, hastily, from within, just as I had my hand
+upon the knocker. Someone came dashing out into the street. It was not
+until he had almost knocked me backwards into the gutter that I
+perceived that the man rushing out of Vernon's house was Crampton.
+
+"My dear Arthur!" I exclaimed. "Whither away so fast?"
+
+He stood and stared at me, the breath coming from him with great
+palpitations. Never had I seen him so seriously disturbed.
+
+"Benham," he gasped, "our friend, Vernon, is a scoundrel."
+
+I did not doubt it. I had had no reason to suppose the contrary. But I
+did not say so. I held my tongue. Crampton went on, gesticulating, as
+he spoke, with both fists clenched; dilating on the cause of his
+disorder with as much freedom as if the place had been as private as
+the matters of which he treated; apparently forgetful that, all the
+time, he stood at the man's street door.
+
+"You know he stole from me my Lilian--promised she should be his wife!
+They were to have been married in a month. And now he's jilted
+her--thrown her over--as if she were a thing of no account. Made her the
+laughing stock of all the town! And for whom do you think, of all the
+women in the world? Mary Hartopp--a widow that should know better! It's
+not an hour since I was told. I came here straight. And now Mr. Vernon
+knows something of my mind."
+
+I could not help but think, as he went striding away, as if he were
+beside himself with rage--without giving me a chance to say a
+word--that all the world would quickly learn something of it too.
+
+The moment seemed scarcely to be a propitious one for interviewing
+Decimus Vernon. He would hardly be in a mood to receive a visitor. But,
+as the matter of which I wished to speak to him was of pressing
+importance, and another opportunity might not immediately occur, I
+decided to approach him as if unconscious of anything untoward having
+happened.
+
+As I began to mount the stairs there came stealing, rather than walking
+down them, Vernon's man, John Parkes. At sight of me, the fellow
+started.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Benham, sir, it's you! I thought it was Mr. Crampton back
+again."
+
+I looked at Parkes, who seemed sufficiently upset. I had known the
+fellow for years.
+
+"There's been a little argument, eh, Parkes?"
+
+Parkes raised both his hands.
+
+"A little argument, sir! There's been the most dreadful quarrel I ever
+heard."
+
+"Where is Mr. Vernon?"
+
+"He's in the library, sir, where Mr. Crampton left him. Shall I go and
+tell him that you would wish to see him?"
+
+Parkes eyed me in a manner which plainly suggested that, if he were in
+my place, he should wish to do nothing of the kind. I declined his
+unspoken suggestion, preferring, also, to announce myself.
+
+I rapped with my knuckles at the library door. There was no answer. I
+rapped again. As there was still no response, I opened the door and
+entered.
+
+"Vernon?" I cried.
+
+I perceived at a glance that the room was empty. I was aware that,
+adjoining this apartment was a room which he fitted up as a bedroom,
+and in which he often slept. I saw that the door of this inner room was
+open. Concluding that he had gone in there, I went to the threshold and
+called "Vernon!"
+
+My call remained unanswered. A little wondering where the man could he,
+I peeped inside. My first impression was that this room, like the
+other, was untenanted. A second glance, however, revealed a booted
+foot, toe upwards, which was thrust out from the other side of the bed.
+Thinking that he might be in one of his wild moods, and was playing me
+some trick, I called out to him again.
+
+"Vernon, what little game are you up to now?"
+
+Silence. And in the silence there was, as it were, a quality which set
+my heart in a flutter. I became conscious of there being, in the air,
+something strange. I went right into the room, and I looked down on
+Decimus Vernon.
+
+I thought that I had never seen him look more handsome than he did
+then, as he lay on his back on the floor, his right arm raised above
+his head, his left lying lightly across his breast, an expression on
+his face which was almost like a smile, looking, for all the world as
+if he were asleep. But I was enough of a physician to feel sure that he
+was dead.
+
+For a moment or two I hesitated. I glanced quickly about the room. What
+had been his occupation when death had overtaken him seemed plain. On
+the dressing table was an open case of rings. Three or four of them lay
+in a little heap upon the table. He had, apparently, been trying them
+on. I called out, with unintentional loudness--indeed, so loudly, that,
+in that presence, I was startled by the sound of my own voice.
+
+"Parkes?"
+
+Parkes came hurrying in.
+
+"Did you call, sir?"
+
+He knew I had called. The muscles of the fellow's face were trembling.
+
+"Mr. Vernon's dead."
+
+"Dead!"
+
+Parkes' jaw dropped open. He staggered backwards.
+
+"Come and look at him."
+
+He did as I told him, unwillingly enough. He stood beside me, looking
+down at his master as he lay upon the floor. Words dropped from his
+lips.
+
+"Mr. Crampton didn't do it."
+
+I caught the words up quickly.
+
+"Of course he didn't, but--how do you know?"
+
+"I heard Mr. Vernon shout 'Go to the devil' to him as he went
+downstairs. Besides, I heard Mr. Vernon moving about the room after Mr.
+Crampton had gone."
+
+I gave a sigh of relief. I had wondered. I knelt at Vernon's side. He
+was quite warm, but I could detect no pulsation.
+
+"Perhaps, Mr. Benham, sir," suggested Parkes, "Mr. Vernon has fainted,
+or had a fit, or something."
+
+"Hurry and fetch a doctor. We shall see."
+
+Parkes vanished. Although my pretensions to medical knowledge are but
+scanty, I had no doubt whatever that a doctor would pronounce that
+Decimus Vernon was no longer to be numbered with the living. How he had
+come by his death was another matter. His expression was so tranquil,
+his attitude, as of a man lying asleep upon his back, so natural; that
+it almost seemed as if death had come to him in one of those
+commonplace forms in which it comes to all of us. And yet----
+
+I looked about me to see if there was anything unusual which
+might catch the eye. A scrap of paper, a bottle, a phial, a
+syringe--something which might have been used as a weapon. I could detect
+no sign of injury on Vernon's person; no bruise upon his head or face; no
+flow of blood. Stooping over him, I smelt his lips. There are certain
+poisons the scent of which is unmistakable, the odour of some of those
+whose effect is the most rapid lingers long after death has intervened.
+I have a keen sense of smell, but about the neighbourhood of Decimus
+Vernon's mouth there was no odour of any sort or kind. As I rose, there
+was the sound of some one entering the room beyond.
+
+"Decimus?"
+
+The voice was a woman's. I turned. Lilian Trowbridge was standing at
+the bedroom door. We exchanged stares, apparently startled by each
+other's appearance into momentary speechlessness. She seemed to be in a
+tremor of excitement. Her lips were parted. Her big, black eyes seemed
+to scorch my countenance. She leaned with one hand against the side of
+the door, as if seeking for support to enable her to stand while she
+regained her breath.
+
+"Mr. Benham--You! Where is Decimus? I wish to speak to him."
+
+Her unexpected entry had caused me to lose my presence of mind. The
+violence of her manner did not assist me in regaining it. I stumbled in
+my speech.
+
+"If you will come with me into the other room, I will give you an
+explanation."
+
+I made an awkward movement forward, my impulse being to conceal from
+her what was lying on the floor. She detecting my uneasiness,
+perceiving there was something which I would conceal, swept into the
+room, straight to where Vernon lay.
+
+"Decimus! Decimus!"
+
+She called to him. Had the tone in which she spoke, then, been in her
+voice when she enacted her parts in the dramas of the mimic stage, her
+audiences would have had no cause to complain that she was wooden. She
+turned to me, as if at a loss to comprehend her lover's silence.
+
+"Is he sleeping?" I was silent. Then, with a little gasp, "Is he dead?"
+I still made no reply. She read my meaning rightly. Even from where I
+was standing, I could see her bosom rise and fall. She threw out both
+her arms in front of her. "I am glad!" she cried, "I am glad that he is
+dead!"
+
+She took me, to say the least of it, aback.
+
+"Why should you be glad?"
+
+"Why? Because, now, she will not have him!"
+
+I had forgotten, for the instant, what Crampton had spluttered out upon
+the doorstep. Her words recalled it to my mind. "Don't you know that he
+lied to me, and I believed his lies."
+
+She turned to Vernon with a gesture of scorn so frenzied, so intense,
+that it might almost have made the dead man writhe.
+
+"Now, at any rate, if he does not marry me, he will marry no one else."
+
+Her vehemence staggered me. Her imperial presence, her sonorous voice,
+always were, theatrically, among her finest attributes. I had not
+supposed that she had it in her to display them to such terrible
+advantage. Feeling, as I did feel, that I shared my manhood with the
+man who had wronged her, the almost personal application of her fury I
+found to be more than a trifle overwhelming. It struck me, even then,
+that, perhaps, after all, it was just as well for Vernon that he had
+died before he had been compelled to confront, and have it out with,
+this latest illustration of a woman scorned.
+
+Suddenly, her mood changed. She knelt beside the body of the man who so
+recently had been her lover. She lavished on him terms of even fulsome
+endearment.
+
+"My loved one! My darling! My sweet! My all in all!"
+
+She showered kisses on his lips and cheeks, and eyes, and brow. When
+the paroxysm had passed--it was a paroxysm--she again stood up.
+
+"What shall I have of his, for my very own? I will have something to
+keep his memory green. The things which he gave me--the things which he
+called the tokens of his love--I will grind into powder, and consume
+with flame."
+
+In spite of herself, her language smacked of the theatre. She looked
+round the room, as if searching for something portable, which it might
+be worth her while to capture. Her glance fell upon the open case of
+rings. With eager eyes she scanned the dead man's person. Kneeling down
+again, she snatched at the left hand, which lay lightly on his breast.
+On one of the fingers was a cameo ring. On this her glances fastened.
+She tore, rather than took it from its place.
+
+"I'll have that! Yes! That!"
+
+She broke into laughter. Rising she held out the ring towards me. I
+regarded it intently. At the time, I scarcely knew why. It was, as I
+have said, a cameo ring. There was a woman's head cut in white relief,
+on a cream ground. It reminded me of Italian work which I had seen, of
+about the sixteenth century. The cameo was in a plain, and somewhat
+clumsy, gold setting. The whole affair was rather a curio, not the sort
+of ring which a gentleman of the present day would be likely to care to
+wear.
+
+"Look at it. Observe it closely! Keep it in your mind, so that you may
+be sure to know it should you ever chance on it again. Isn't it a
+pretty ring--the prettiest ring you ever saw? In memory of him"--she
+pointed to what was on the floor behind her--"I will keep it till I
+die!"
+
+Again she burst into that hideous, and, as it seemed to me, wholly
+meaningless laughter. Her bearing, her whole behaviour, was rather that
+of a mad woman, than a sane one. She affected me most unpleasantly. It
+was with feelings of unalloyed relief that I heard footsteps entering
+the library, and turning, perceived that Parkes had arrived with the
+doctor.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+When Vernon's death became generally known, a great hubbub arose. Mrs.
+Hartopp went almost, if not quite, out of her senses. If I remember
+rightly, nearly twelve months elapsed before she was sufficiently
+recovered to marry Phillimore Baines. The cause of Vernon's death was
+never made clear. The doctors agreed to differ; the post-mortem
+revealed nothing. There were suggestions of heart-disease; the jury
+brought it in valvular disease of the heart. There were whispers of
+poison, which, as no traces of any were found in the body, the coroner
+pooh-poohed. And, though there were murmurs of its being a case of
+suicide, no one, so far as I am aware, hinted at its being a case of
+murder.
+
+To the surprise of many people, and to the amusement of more, Arthur
+Crampton married Lilian Trowbridge. He had been infatuated with her
+all along. His infatuation even survived her yielding to Decimus
+Vernon--bitter blow though that had been--and I have reason to believe
+that, on the very day on which Vernon was buried, he asked her to be
+his wife. Whether she cared for him one snap of her finger is more than
+I should care to say; I doubt it, but, at least, she consented. At very
+short notice she quitted the stage, and, as Mrs. Arthur Crampton, she
+retired into private life. Her married life was a short, if not a merry
+one. Within twelve months of her marriage, in giving birth to a daughter,
+Mrs. Crampton died.
+
+I had seen nothing since their marriage either of her or her husband. I
+was therefore the more surprised when, about a fortnight after her
+death, there came to me a small package, accompanied by a note from
+Arthur Crampton. The note was brief almost to the point of curtness.
+
+Dear Benham,--
+
+My wife expressed a wish that you should have, as a memorial of her, a
+sealed packet which would be found in her desk.
+
+I hand you the packet precisely as I found it.
+
+                  Yours sincerely,
+
+                               Arthur Crampton.
+
+Within an outer wrapper of coarse brown paper was an inner covering of
+cartridge paper, sealed with half a dozen seals. Inside the second
+enclosure was a small, duodecimo volume, in a tattered binding. Half a
+dozen leaves at the beginning were missing. There was nothing on the
+cover. What the book was about, or why Mrs. Crampton had wished that I
+should have it, I had not the faintest notion. The book was printed in
+Italian--my acquaintance with Italian is colloquial, of the most
+superficial kind. It was probably a hundred years old, and more. Nine
+pages about the middle of the volume were marked in a peculiar fashion
+with red ink, several passages being trebly underscored. My curiosity
+was piqued. I marched off with the volume there and then, to a bureau
+of translation.
+
+There they told me that the book was an old, and possibly, valuable
+treatise, on Italian poisons and Italian poisoners. They translated for
+me the passages which were underscored. The passages in question dealt
+with the pleasant practice with which the Borgias were credited of
+having destroyed their victims by means of rings--poison rings. One
+passage in particular purported to be a minute description of a famous
+cameo ring which was supposed to have belonged to the great Lucrezia
+herself.
+
+As I read a flood of memory swept over me--what I was reading was an
+exact description, so far as externals went at any rate, of the cameo
+ring, which I had seen Lilian Trowbridge remove after he was dead from
+one of the fingers of Decimus Vernon's left hand. I recalled the
+frenzied exultation with which she had thrust it on my notice, her
+almost demoniac desire that I should impress it on my recollection.
+What did it mean? What was I to understand? For three or four days I
+was in a state of miserable indecision. Then I resolved I would keep
+still. The man and the woman were both dead. No good purpose would be
+served by exposing old sores. I put the book away, and I never looked
+at it again for nearly eighteen years.
+
+The consciousness that his wife had spoken to me, with such a voice
+from the grave, did not tend to increase my desire to cultivate an
+acquaintance with Arthur Crampton. But I found that circumstances
+proved stronger than I. Crampton was a lonely man, his marriage had
+estranged him from many of his friends; now that his wife had gone he
+seemed to turn more and more to me as the one person on whose friendly
+offices he could implicitly rely. I learned that I was incapable of
+refusing what he so obviously took for granted.  The child, which had
+cost the mother her life, grew and flourished. In due course of time
+she became a young woman, with all her mother's beauty, and more
+than her mother's charms: for she had what her mother had always
+lacked--tenderness, sweetness, femininity. Before she was eighteen she
+was engaged to be married. The engagement was in all respects an ideal
+one. On her eighteenth birthday, it was to be announced to the world.
+A ball was to be given, at which half the county was expected to be
+present, and the day before, I went down, prepared to take my share in
+the festivities.
+
+In the evening, Crampton, his daughter, Charlie Sandys, which was the
+name of the fortunate young gentleman, and I were together in the
+drawing-room. Crampton, who had vanished for some seconds, re-appeared,
+bearing in both his hands, with something of a flourish, a large
+leather case. It looked to me like an old-fashioned jewel case. Which,
+indeed, it was. Crampton turned to his daughter.
+
+"I am going to give you part of your birthday present to-day,
+Lilian--these are some of your mother's jewels."
+
+The girl was in an ecstacy of delight, as what girl of her age would
+not have been? The case contained jewels enough to stock a shop. I
+wondered where some of them had come from--and if Crampton knew more of
+the source of their origin than I did. Wholly unconscious that there
+might be stories connected with some of the trinkets which might not be
+pleasant hearing, the girl, girl-like, proceeded to try them on. By the
+time she had finished they were all turned out upon the table. The box
+was empty. She announced the fact.
+
+"There! That's all!"
+
+Her lover took up the empty case.
+
+"No secret repositories, or anything of that sort? Hullo!--speak of
+angels!--what's this?"
+
+"What's what?"
+
+The young girl's head and her lover's were bent together over the empty
+box. Sandys' fingers were feeling about inside it.
+
+"Is this a dent in the leather, or is there something concealed beneath
+it?"
+
+What Sandys referred to was sufficiently obvious. The bottom of the box
+was flat, except in one corner, where a slight protuberance suggested,
+as Sandys said, the possibility of there being something concealed
+beneath. Miss Crampton, already excited by her father's gift, at once
+took it for granted that it was the case.
+
+"How lovely!" she exclaimed. She clapped her hands. "I do believe
+there's a secret hiding-place."
+
+If there was, it threatened to baffle our efforts at discovery. We all
+tried our hands at finding, it, but tried in vain. Crampton gave it up.
+
+"I'll have the case examined by an expert. He'll soon be able to find
+your secret hiding-place, though, mind you, I don't say that there is
+one."
+
+There was an exclamation from young Sandys.
+
+"Don't you? Then you'd be safe if you did, because there is!"
+
+Miss Crampton looked eagerly over his shoulder.
+
+"Have you found it? Yes! Oh, Charlie! Is there anything inside?"
+
+"Rather, there's a ring. What a queer old thing! Whatever made your
+mother keep it hidden away in there?"
+
+I knew, in an instant. I recognised it, although I had only seen it
+once in my life, and that once was sundered by the passage of nineteen
+years. Mr. Sandys was holding in his hand the cameo ring which I had
+seen Lilian Trowbridge remove from Decimus Vernon's finger, and which
+was own brother to the ring described in the tattered volume, which she
+had directed her husband to send me--"as a memory"--as having been one
+of Lucrezia Borgia's pretty playthings. I was so confounded by the rush
+of emotions occasioned by its sudden discovery, that, for the moment, I
+was tongue-tied.
+
+Sandys turned to Miss. Crampton.
+
+"It's too large for you. It's large enough for me. May I try it on?"
+
+I hastened towards him. The prospect of what might immediately ensue
+spurred me to inarticulate speech.
+
+"Don't! For God's sake, don't! Give that ring to me, sir!"
+
+They stared at me, as well they might. My sudden and, to them,
+meaningless agitation was a bolt from the blue. Young Sandys withdrew
+from me the hand which held the ring.
+
+"Give it to you?--why?--is it, yours?"
+
+As I confronted the young fellow's smiling countenance, I felt myself
+to be incapable, on the instant, of arranging my thoughts in sufficient
+order to enable me to give them adequate expression. I appealed for
+help to Crampton.
+
+"Crampton, request Mr. Sandys to give me that ring. I implore you to do
+as I ask you. Any explanation which you may require, I will give you
+afterwards."
+
+Crampton looked at me, open-mouthed, in silence. He never was
+quick-witted. My excitement seemed to amuse his daughter.
+
+"What is the matter with you, Mr. Benham?" She turned to her lover.
+"Charlie, do let me see this marvellous ring."
+
+I renewed my appeal to her father.
+
+"Crampton, by all that you hold dear, I entreat you not to allow your
+daughter to put that ring upon her finger."
+
+Crampton assumed a judicial air--or what he intended for such.
+
+"Since Benham appears to be so very much in earnest--though I confess
+that I don't know what there is about the ring to make a fuss
+for--perhaps, Lilian, by way of a compromise, you will give the ring
+to me."
+
+"One moment, papa: I think that, as Charley says, it is too large for
+me."
+
+I dashed forward. Mr. Sandys, mistaking my purpose, or, possibly,
+supposing I was mad, interposed; and, in doing so, killed the girl he
+was about to marry. Before I could do anything to prevent her, she had
+slipped the ring upon her finger. She held out her hand for us to see.
+
+"It is too large for me--look."
+
+She touched the ring with the fingers of her other hand. In doing so,
+no doubt, unconsciously, she pressed the cameo. A startled look came on
+her face. She gazed about her with a bewildered air. And she cried, in
+a tone of voice which, long afterwards, was ringing in my ears.
+
+"Mamma!"
+
+Ere we could reach her, she had fallen to the ground. We bent over her,
+all three of us, by this time, sufficiently in earnest. She lay on her
+back, her right hand above her head; her left, on one of the fingers of
+which was the ring, resting lightly on her breast. There was the
+expression of something like a smile upon her face, and she looked as
+if she slept. But she was dead.
+
+
+
+                                THE END
+
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+                   W. JOLLY & SONS PRINTERS ABERDEEN
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Between the Dark and the Daylight, by Richard Marsh
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
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author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-14 20:09:12 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-14 20:09:12 -0700
commit	2768467f4b2483cd3f6e89ad041a6e455a6c7eec (patch)
tree	a6829dc3995c40cffbcf5a0063b14c74816a09ec